We were very tempted by the idea of adopting a razz donkey…

…or maybe an alpaca. This guy in particular was extremely happy to be photographed!

Not sure this picture shows quite how huge these cows were!

There were pigs…

…so editor Becky was very happy

There were also some amazing ‘Best of British’ dioramas

And we even ran into a very british royal…

…the Duchess of Cornwall!

There were some beautiful horses

We sampled some amazing homemade food…

…and came home with some delicious fudge

We said hello to the Pennywell team

And then hopped our way home after a very tiring but wonderful day

All in all, we had a truly wonderful day out and will hopefully make our way back to the Devon County Show next year. Look out for our photo shoot coming soon in Issue 15!

Razz love, Becky xx

Photography credits: Rebecca Lodder and Daryl Hurst (and a massive thank you to Charlie Tyjas for the use of her camera!)

PROFESSOR ELEMENTAL, THE MYSTERIOUS FREAKSHOW, MISS VON TRAPP’S DARK CABARET, THE WATTINGERS (SLAUGHTERHOUSE STEAMPUNK BLUES) AND DJ MAIZYBELLE SWING (ELECTROSWING SET)

Come along for an evening celebrating steampunk, with live music all night in the auditorium, and DJ sets in the bar from The Revolutionary Radio Soundsystem, DJ Practically Perfect & DJ Purple Rabbit, as well as Interactive performance from Inna Sketchy Manna! Head down to the Exeter Phoenix on Fri 17 May 2013 at 8pm. Tickets are just £10 and can be bought in advance online here

There will be live performances from:

PROFESSOR ELEMENTAL

Hello there! Welcome to the world of Professor Elemental. Sit down and I’ll brew you a nice hip hop number, stir in some comedy, then serve it with scones and a nice warm cuddle. Watch here

THE MYSTERIOUS FREAKSHOW

A little bit punk and little bit steam! But mostly The Mysterious Freakshow give the listener a marvelous medley of musical mayhem! Listen here

MISS VON TRAPP’S DARK CABARET

Murderously Quirky Dark Cello Cabaret: Morbidly Vaudeville Songs and Psychocello accompanied performance poetry to revolt and entertain…

PLUS THE WATTINGERS AND DJ MAIZYBELLE SWING

Getting the right tone of voice is important to any writer. A tutor might moan that your writing is inconsistent, that your academic essays are too personal, or that you use the passive voice too often. I was recently criticised for copy that wasn’t ‘feminine’ enough in tone. But understanding what ‘tone of voice’ actually means, and how best you can control it, is difficult.

One method is to imagine your work as a character. This has obvious benefits when writing creatively. When constructing a character for a story you have to make sure that you understand her – what kind of person she is, her characteristics, how she talks, how you want her to come across to the reader. Then, throughout the story, you’ll ensure that she remains in character – that her dialogue is realistic and recognisable, and that her behaviour is consistent (even when she acts in surprising ways).

A brand’s dialogue should also be recognisable. If the words on a company’s website come across completely differently to the copy on their posters, they’ll be sending out a mixed message that is likely to confuse potential clients. The most effective brands have a consistent tone of voice, just like the most memorable characters; whether it’s the playful tone used by brands like Innocent and Old Spice, or the witty and sardonic copy implemented in Waterstones’ latest adverts.

In the same way, an undergraduate academic essay should promote a consistent message. You are putting forward an argument – challenging certain points and agreeing with others – so you’re likely to opt for a formal, reasoned tone, which aims at objectivity.

The comparison doesn’t always work. Truly brilliant characters are rarely one-dimensional, and their behaviour will often change according to the events of the story. But in order to appear genuine to the reader, consistency at some level is key for characters, brands and essays.

You may never have written directly for a brand, and you might not be interested in story writing, but the importance of job applications to most students means that you should think about how you present yourself. Seeing yourself as a brand might make you cringe, but completing a cover letter with this in mind, making sure that you are presenting yourself in the right way, can give you an advantage.

Tone of voice is big business. Large firms are increasingly hiring companies like Stratton Craig to help them nail down a tone that reflects their desired brand characteristics, and then produce writing that communicates this. Think about tone when considering how to present your essays, or how to write a comment piece for a publication. Consider it when you’re planning the characters for your creative writing, or getting ready to send a cover letter to your dream employer. If you’re having problems (and a humanities
student), get in touch with the Undergraduate Writing Centre. If you don’t have the time, get a friend to check your work – if someone ‘doesn’t get’ one of your characters, there’s usually a good reason.

Written for Razz by Gregory Hoare (Exeter graduate and copywriter).

Women who are in a privileged position to utilise their fashion and clothing styles as a mode of expressing power to perfection are, of course, queens, by virtue of their wealth, status and access to the most luxurious fashions. This is nothing new; it’s been a way of expressing – and creating – power since ancient times. Consider Queen Cleopatra, the glamorous but ultimately tragic queen who, immortalised in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, commits suicide out of what some would see as a determination not to be parted from her beloved Antony. Cleopatra captivated men, and fascinated women, and a way of doing this was, of course, through her fashion sense. Greek by birth, her fashions were wholly Egyptian. Cleopatra favoured black wigs which enhanced her complexion and utilised gold ornaments to depict her immense wealth and royal connections. It was recorded that the Queen owned the most expensive and valuable pearls in the world.

Moreover, Cleopatra was an elegant, yet powerful, trendsetter in contemporary fashion. Augustus’ wife Livia possessed some clothing belonging to the tragic queen, although her husband’s enmity towards Cleopatra ensured that she rarely appeared in these clothes in public. Cleopatra’s daughter, the less well known Cleopatra Selene, favoured her mother’s amethyst ring, and likely inherited most of her mother’s precious jewels and ornaments. Cleopatra was famous for bathing in milk and honey as a means of ensuring her skin remained soft, and enjoyed wearing scented oils and perfumes. Her use of make-up, of course, is incredibly well-known: she employed kohl eyeliner as a means of extending the line of her eye and also enjoyed powdering her eyelids with green crushed malachite. She also commonly wore a large, flat circular neck piece and a variety of traditional Egyptian headdresses, further demonstrating her position as the face of Egypt. Cleopatra favoured wearing red, yellow and white – the colours of Isis, goddess of fertility. A beguiling and mesmerising queen who stood at the forefront of fashionable, glamorous Ancient Egyptian society, Cleopatra clearly conveys how female rulers can utilise their fashions as a means of displaying power, status, and glamour.

Flash forward 1,800 years, and another queen who employed fashion to demonstrate power and wealth can clearly be glimpsed in the controversial, if captivating, figure of Marie Antoinette, tragic queen of France. The most popular dress styles of eighteenth-century upper class France centred on the robe de la Francaise and the robe a l’Anglaise. The former consisted of back pleats which hung loosely from the neckline all the way to the floor and a very fitted bodice. The skirt was often open at the front, showing decorative petticoats worn underneath. Famously, Marie Antoinette’s fashion collection was enormous: three rooms at the glittering palace of Versailles were used as her wardrobe. The public were actually able to visit these luxurious rooms and glimpse in wonder their Queen’s beautiful clothes. Notoriously, the queen loathed court etiquette, and also often spent way over the 120,000 livres she was assigned a year to live on. She adored the designs of Rose Bertin and favoured dresses designed by her which often cost up to 6,000 livres each. French etiquette dictated that the Queen should wear a dress only once and change her dress three times a day. She favoured light fabrics and pale, pastel colours like lemon yellow, dove grey, lilac and pale green. She slept wearing expensive gloves and washed her hair with saffron, turmeric, sandalwood and rhubarb to maintain its strawberry blonde colour.

The queen also insisted on the importance of bathing, although it is somewhat ironic that her own fashion tastes were centred on the discreet and modest – famously, she was heavily criticised for favouring simplistic gowns rather than the extravagant dresses usually worn by the Queens of France. Her formidable mother, the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, insisted that the Queen had to ensure that she outshone all other ladies at court – the expectation, therefore, in eighteenth-century courts was that the Queen would utilise her fashions as a means of demonstrating her supreme power and status, and sending a warning message to other highborn women. One historian has written: “from her earliest days at Versailles, Marie Antoinette staged a revolt against entrenched court etiquette by turning her clothes and other accoutrements into defiant expressions of autonomy and privilege. Although, as many scholars have pointed out, she did not evince a sustained interest in politics qua broad-reaching international or domestic policy, it is my belief that she identified fashion as a key weapon in her struggle for personal prestige, authority, and sometimes mere survival. Her efforts in this vein became increasingly complex and sophisticated as she grew to adulthood and adapted to the ever-changing political climate around her… “

Cleopatra and Marie Antoinette were both glamorous queens who deployed their extravagant fashion tastes to harness their power and shape their status in society. Other queens could have been considered here – Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I were both rulers who loved fashion for fashion’s sake, and became supreme trendsetters at court. What this does convey, above all, is that women, as well as men, in high circles have always used fashion as a means of shaping – and creating – power, transfixing their contemporaries, beguiling their acquaintances, and shaping public opinion, for better or for worse. By virtue of their status, they were in a better position than most to do this; but this was, for queens, by no means inevitable. These women stand out for originally utilising fashion as a means of producing their own reputations.

Written for Razz by Conor Byrne.

Lo-Fi celebrates a minimal, no-nonsense approach to dressing, which has previously appeared in music as a standalone, stripped-back genre and – for the technocrats out there – as a popular filter on the iPhone app Instagram. As hi-fi sounds and pin sharp images are clearly too ‘mainstream’ for us bright, young things, it was hardly surprising that the designers reacted to the onset of Summer with thrown-together outfits and artfully disheveled models. Although lo-fi fashion can be a double-edged sword for mere mortals – ironically the more effortless you try and appear, the more effort is necessitated – all it takes is a little bit of savvy to perfect your very own lo-fi look that any off-duty model would be proud of.

Using Kate Moss and Blake Lively as your lo-fi muses, you can instantly recognise the three ingredients for boho cool; or as I like to call it ‘The Holy Trinity of Primrose Hill’. From the head down you need deconstructed hair (read: constructed bed head) breezy layers in a cool palette that have been scooped up from the floor of your apartment-slash-studio (read: dry clean only, standalone pieces) and a pair of shoes that have already seen Coachella and will probably see you through to Glastonbury (read: sports luxe high tops that have only ever seen the inside of an Apple store). Sorry, I know ignorance is bliss but the irony of lo-fi simply cannot be avoided; honesty is the best policy here, at least.

It is in this spirit that we must recognise that we are not in hipster enclave Byron Bay and understand that the British Summer is notorious for temperamental weather. The biggest investment involved here is practical footwear, build your lo-fi look around a great pair of shoes that can theoretically take you from the library to a gallery opening without spraining your ankle or straining your style.

These Hudson boots update the staple ankle boot with four buckles adorning each heel. Team your new kicks with a print short, I’ve opted for this moderately priced pair from Religion. They are distressed without looking as though they are literally falling apart and the hit of red highlight lo-fi’s devil may care approach. Unfortunately, I cannot guarantee the shorts will imbue you with legs as limitless as this model’s but they are still a sound investment for Summer!

Embrace your inner Carrie Bradshaw and wear underwear as outerwear, albeit under this translucent shirt from Theory. The tie at the bottom of the further exaggerates its relaxed appeal and prevents it from appearing too authoritarian. As previously stated, this isn’t a look that favours the so-called ‘geek chic‘ – those fortunate to be born ‘lo-fi’ are so blessed they rarely complete a full day’s work in their entire lives! This jellyfish print bikini – complete with corset bustier – comes in a brilliant cobalt blue and - before I get lynched by the students – it’s 50% off in the ASOS sale. Perfect when you’re whisked away to the Amalfi coast at the last minute and you don’t have time to
grab a suitcase..

Dare to dream with this kitsch coral ring from Saint Laurent and apply Bumble & Bumble’s surf spray liberally for hair set as high as your sights.

Best of luck and remember to pack your passport!

Razz love, Toby x

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon

Biffy Clyro – Puzzle

Europe – Secret Society

Led Zeppelin – In Through the Out Door

Muse – Black Holes and Revelations

Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel

Pink Floyd – Animals

Powderfinger – Golden Rule

Bruce Dickinson – Skunkworks

Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions

Ellis Beggs and Howard – Homelands

Muse – Absolution

Pink Floyd – The Division Bell

Lots of Razz love, Katy xx

Gladiator soundtrack.

The Hobbit soundtrack.

Dark Knight soundtrack.

Assassin’s Creed II.

Assassin’s Creed III.

Game of Thrones.

Hans Zimmer mix.

LOTR soundtrack.

Harry Potter all film soundtracks. (9 hrs)

Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack.

Sherlock Holmes soundtrack.

Star Wars IV soundtrack.

Skyrim.

Django Unchained soundtrack.

Inception soundtrack.

300 soundtrack.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

Kill Bill soundtrack.

Good luck!

Lots of Razz love, Katy xx

For some authors, writing in another language is a way for them to break away from the country, culture or background that they come from. It can give them the ability to speak about forbidden or taboo subjects, and it can create the distance necessary in order to talk about things that are too difficult to talk about in their mother tongue. For Oana Orlea and Lena Constante the distance created by a second language is vital. It is what enables them to speak out against the regime under which they grew up and lived for the majority of their lives.

Born and raised in Romania in the early 1900s, Orlea and Constante both grew up in a period where the concepts of imprisonment, exile and forced work camps were widely practised under dictatorial rule. In Romania, the Communism regime dominated the 20^th century up until the Revolution in 1989. Many people were imprisoned or killed for political, economic or unknown reasons, and prisoners were subjected to consistent beatings and torture until they confessed to things they had not done. Arrested and imprisoned, two women, Oana Orlea and Lena Constante, experienced the torture and ill treatment that millions were exposed to. Years later, they then both went on to tell the rest of the world about these experiences… in French.

Lena Constante

Lena Constante was born in 1909. Sentenced to twelve years in prison, she was forced to spend most of her time there in solitude. She was submitted to constant beatings and torture until she finally gave in and confessed to false accusations. In 1990 she published her autobiography “L’évasion silencieuse” in Paris.

Oana Orlea (real name Mary-Joan Cantacuzino) was born in 1936. At the age of sixteen, she was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison. After settling in France in the 1980s, she published several books, under a pen name, based on her experiences. The most famous, “Les Années volées. Dans le goulag roumain à seize ans” is an autobiographical account of her time in prison.

By writing these autobiographies in another language, both women distance themselves from the country and culture they come from. They are therefore able to find the security and confidence to speak out against their repressors. This distancing also enables them to write about parts of their lives that are too harrowing and difficult to talk about in their mother tongue, the language with which they have grown up, in which they think, and which is the most intimate and personal to them.

Undergoing the huge task of writing in a second language shows the determination of these women to reveal details of life under dictatorship rule, and their refusal to be repressed. Their stories demonstrate their courage whilst in prison, and on speaking out afterwards.

Written for Razz by Kelly Robinson.

We thought we would finish the year with a fun (if not slightly nostalgic) issue! As usual we want opinion pieces, interviews, models, photographers, images, paintings, art, fashion, features, creative writing etc.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

‘Cool Britannia‘

In the 90s, a change from years of conservative rule to New Labour headed by Tony Blair led to a revival of british pride inspired by 1960s pop culture. Noel Gallahger’s union jack guitar and Geri Halliwell’s union jack dress are iconic representations of the resurgance of ‘britpop’ and a general boom in fashion, art and music. Take a look at any angle of this period, whether it be a longer opinion piece, a political standpoint or even just a fun roundup of some great bands and clothing!

Art

Anthony Gormley and Damien Hirst both won the Turner Prize in the mid 90s. How has their art/influence/inspiration changed in 15/20 years?

Girl Power

Do we have to expand on this one?

Film

Can you believe it has only been 15 years since the highest grossing film of all time (until Avatar) came out? That’s right, 1997 marked the release of Titanic. With it’s recent 3D revival, what is it about this film that made just so popular? Though you also have several other amazing movie fandoms to choose from such as the first ‘Mission:Impossible’, ‘The Matrix’, ‘Ghost’, ‘Jurassic park’…the list is endless!

You know you’re a 90s kid when…

Just what was it like growing up as a 90s kid? We all did it after all!

Gaming

The 90s saw a spectacular release of consoles and games alike such as playstation, and the Lara Croft PC games. Give us your opinion on the best (and the worst!) in terms of video gaming from the 90s.

Now

Don’t forget, we’re not just looking at the past, but also at the present! What’s important to you now in terms of university or friends or lifestyle that has changed over the years? What’s the difference between then and now on a personal level?

Need more inspiration..?

The deadline for submissions is Friday 26th April.

We know everyone has exams and dissertations to do, but if you need a break, why not do something different and creative for Razz? It will be a good distraction (!) and does not have to be very long – remember we love short pieces such as the quotes page in the last issue.

We are also still taking orders for our exciting new Razz t-shirt which will be ready for you to collect as soon as we’re all back from the easter break!

The t-shirts are a unisex fit and come in XS, S, M, L and XL. They are £12 each. If you would like a t-shirt please email us at razzmag@gmail.com with your name and size and we can arrange payment later.

Lots of love, the Razz team xx