Class divide at the heart of our education
I’m sure everyone reading this is aware of the deep class divisions within the British educational system. The disparities could not be more glaringly obvious. Children of rich bankers go off to Eton, while the heating of the local comp still hasn’t been fixed. Fairly common knowledge. While the existence of public schools such as […]
The importance of ventilators should not be questioned
It is rare for us to pay any notice to what is published in the Daily Mail. However, their article titled “Is this proof ‘life-saving’ ventilators are actually deathtraps?” is so devoid of science, and so potentially dangerous, that it must be responded to. The central premise of the article is that invasive ventilation (i.e. having […]
Reclaim Pride!
We’ve all been to Gay Pride at some point. Whether you marched behind the banners, covered your face with glitter or danced the night away surrounded by drag queens, there’s a special place for gay pride in the hearts of the LGBT community across the UK. However, there’s something very wrong .
Pride, sadly, is a shadow of its former self. What once started as a protest riot on the streets of New York against police harassment has become little more than a street party – decades of moderate politics, commercialisation and corporate sponsorship has turned protest signs into glossy adverts; angry slogans transformed into 2-for-1 offers at Nandos if you wear a rainbow badge.
Is English cricket doomed to remain elite forever?
Independent schools are thankfully not things that prey excessively on my mind. Having received a state education and living in an area devoid entirely of private education, my daily life was never concerned with them or their influence until I left for university. I’d managed, in fact, to stay proudly ignorant for the majority of […]
The Strokes and Their Synthpop Belter With Soft Vocals ‘The New Abnormal’
This new work from The Strokes is a breath of fresh air in the times of the Covid 19. ‘The New Abnormal’ is their first album since ‘Comedown Machine’ which was released seven years ago and it’s ten times better in my view. This being said it’s a polar opposite from their first album ‘Is […]
Bridging the divide: the cosmos and the two cultures
From the Babylonians to the Greeks to the Mayans, the practises of science and literature existed in some form or another at the centre of every ancient civilisation. They represented to them what they continue to do to us today: the most fundamental desire of our species to know the world around us, and to share that knowledge with others. Tens of thousands of years came and went while spending little time at all drawing distinction between these disciplines – ones today we perceive as being repellent strangers to one another – as often they were one single entity. Ancient aborigine civilisations considered the stars the campfires of passed spirits, spawning many a story that were undoubtedly shared around more terrestrial campfires, from generation to generation, through spoken word rather than ink and parchment.
Somewhere down the line, between then and now, the entity broke in two.
Birds in the poetry of Edward Thomas
Depending on your persuasion, Edward Thomas was either a prominent War Poet, or simply a poet who just so happened to serve and die in the First World War. It is often a controversial categorisation to make, as he wrote much of his work before being drafted and a good majority does not mention the […]
A new Challenge for young workers and students
Comrades and friends It brings me great pleasure to welcome you with this editorial to the new website of Challenge, the magazine of the Young Communist League of Britain (YCL). In particular I would like to greet first time readers of Challenge and those aren’t members of the YCL (yet!). The YCL is a democratic […]
Poetry Corner: Ire
I Time is sick, but once it departs as long as it sells, there’s no greater burning to write for dear life, as soon as it starts and no man can get by, except when by earning and no one should live all aside from the arts, No matter which way, at once it’s concerning […]
The Lighthouse review
“Tis when the workin’ stops that yer twix wind and water. Doldrum. Doldrum. Eviler than the devil. Boredom makes men to villians and the water goes quick lad… vanished.” That’s not a public service announcement reminding us to stay busy and productive in these exceptionally crazy times. It’s a snippet of the dense poetic dialogue […]
