A student, president, part-time worker and semi-professional footballer

This piece could be about four different people. Well in fact, it is about one.

This feature follows the day of an inspiring student, who attends class five days a week, attends training five days a week, is the president of a sports society, and works part-time. It’s the ‘if i’m not at university i’m at football, if i’m not at football i’m at work’ life. Even though it’s a hectic time in her life, she does it wholeheartedly. 

Jess Burke of Portsmouth Ladies, has a 6am start every Friday morning due to fitness for the university football team. This week, it is sprints. Some speeds reach 21 on the treadmill, faster than an african elephant. This is rather draining due to having strength and conditioning at training the night before. Jess also plays matches twice a week, three times if called up to the first team. Recently, the semi-pro footballer had her call up to Portsmouth Ladies first team. The team have incredible players, who have represented the country by playing beach soccer. They actually went on to win the Women’s Euro Beach Soccer Cup in 2017, hosted in Portugal. Molly Clark, Gemma Hillier and ex-Portsmouth Lucy Quinn are amongst the players. A male player of this level would have football as their full-time occupation. 

Image credits: http://www.portsmouthfcladies.co.uk/teams/165612/player/jess-burke-sponsored-by-st-george-construction-ltd-1730104

After fitness, it was straight to the library where Jess worked on Kinesiology and Bio-mechanics. Kinesiology is the study of human or  non-human body movement, and Bio-mechanics is the study of the structure and function of the mechanical aspects of biological systems. She has considered Bio-mechanics as a future career or said in the interview ‘I want to do sports analysis,’ after completing a Masters as the university. The workload doesn’t stop there, Jess also has a part time job in a cocktail bar, working about 8 hours a week, and President duties of the women’s football team. There’s a lot of pressure here, especially if you imagine something going one way and it goes another. Being the President of a society is a 24/7 job in itself. Burke is actively engaged in her life and make’s the most of it, she even coaches on the odd occasion for Pompey In The Community. 

In an interview with Jess, she told us about her ‘busiest’ day of the week. ‘My busiest day changes on a weekly basis, one of my busiest days would be when I am at uni for a full day (9am – 5pm) then I have training in the evening (6pm – 8pm) or when I have work after uni.’ Most people would say they struggled to manage to have a social life, or they couldn’t juggle doing this many things at once, Burke nonetheless told us ‘I do have a bit of a social life at the weekend, it will be later on, I just manage it with having a later social life.’ When asked about being able to manage football when she starts a career, Jess is hopeful to carry on playing, and even has high hopes for progressing to a team in one of the top playing fields of women’s football. ‘I still plan on playing football, if i had to pick a team it would be Lewes, I wouldn’t wanna drop a level’. There’s obviously this huge debate on the pay gap from men’s and women’s football and she was happy to express that ‘it should all be the same, I understand the men’s (game) bring more money in but if you put more money in to women’s football more people more interested in it.’

After spending a day with the ex-skipper and conducting an interview, research was undertaken into someone who played for Portsmouth FC. Christian Burgess, a legend at Pompey, is worth almost £175,000 if he was to transfer. Burke on the other hand would transfer by being scouted, and Pompey Ladies would receive nothing. This is not very surprising, however, both players compete in the same tier of football. However, in other countries the bar has been raised. The Norwegian Football Association announced that they would be paying the men’s side and women’s side equally. This makes them the first national FA to have devised the equal pay. 

Get down to see Burke and others play in the new year, with their first home game against Denham United Reserves. Location yet to be confirmed, keep up to date with the reserves here: http://www.portsmouthfcladies.co.uk/teams/165612

 

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Spider-Man 3, PlayStation 2, Star rating 1.

Target Publication: birthmoviesdeath

Target Audience: 20+

A small investment into an old passion of mine seemed like a good idea at the time, then the game was played. 

When Spider-Man was purchased for £2.95 I was like a little kid at Christmas. Running home to plug in my game console, then that sweet sound of the game loading. The game was overrated.

Spider-Man 3 is my favourite movie of the trilogy, (with Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man and James Franco as the new Goblin) because of the graphics and effects. It is even better in 3D. Trouble takes on Peter Parker and his black suit certainly makes Parker take on trouble. Parker must conquer the black suit as super villains make a plot to destroy Spider-Man and those closest.

The graphics were worse than Spider-Man 2, the buttons were not very friendly, and the story was bang average. Mary-Jane doesn’t sound like Mary-Jane, experience is barely enhanced with the sound, the game adds villains that do not exist in the movie and no one really cares about them. However, Spidey’s swinging mechanics are depicted well, and the use of his black suit really helps progression on some missions. When Parker entered Dr Connors’ (a teacher of Parker) lab and it was found he had transformed into ‘The Lizard’ (from the comics) it just didn’t make sense, especially for those who have never read the comics. ‘The Lizard’ would have been introduced as a character into Spider-Man 4. This is again unrealistic for those expecting a movie-game.

You could compare this to a really bad movie. ‘Needing’ a drink after 10 minutes of playing, ‘Needing’ another toilet break after 20 minutes, and turning it off after 30 minutes. Below are two images, and I will let you decide for yourself which one is was released before the other.

            

Image to the left credits: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=spiderman+3+playstation+2&rlz=1C1GCEA_enGB768GB768&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1kpzUtonXAhWJXhoKHWQoD-AQ_AUICygC&biw=1920&bih=974#imgrc=crk_ALcSR0C86M:

Image to the right credits: https://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1GCEA_enGB768GB768&biw=1920&bih=974&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=spiderman+2+playstation+2&oq=spiderman+2+plays&gs_l=psy-ab.3.1.0i13k1j0i30k1j0i8i30k1j0i30k1j0i10i24k1.1305.4834.0.6442.18.18.0.0.0.0.164.1376.11j5.17.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..1.16.1376.0..0j0i67k1j0i10k1j0i8i13i30k1j0i5i30k1j0i13i5i30k1.58.GCiHHbhAtzY#imgrc=09H6OX6SnFbKLM:

Word count: 300 words

Trump absent from White House Correspondents’ Dinner 2017

There has been speculation this year over Trump not attending the traditional White House Correspondents’ Dinner(WHCD). Every single president since 1924 has attended the dinner at least one during their term in office, Obama attending 8 times. The news comes amid increasingly tense relations with the press and banning several media outlets from White House briefings, calling the media the “enemy of the people.”

However, Trump is not the first President in modern America to have missed the WHCD. Over 30 years ago Ronald Reagan missed the black-tie dinner. But he wasn’t exactly in full health. According to the Reagan Library, Reagan was recovering from a gun-shot wound  after a failed assassination attempt. Although Reagan was injured, he still made a phone call that evening in 1981 to the dinner.

Now in my opinion, I believe Trump missed the dinner to avoid being laughed at. Trumps fan girls will put a spin on this and say he is avoiding being hobnobbing with “dishonest media”. Whilst this may not be the case, another reason may be that he will never compete with Obama’s comedy chops. Trump knows he will be compared to President Obama’s performances,  and that’s very bad for him. Trump can be funny off the cuff, but his prepared jokes are not exactly understood by all. Just watch the footage from October at the Al Smith dinner. He was even booed by the audience for some of his mean spirited jokes. Ouch, humiliating.

If the current President thinks that being absent from the WHCD will insulate him from being mocked, he’s very well mistaken. The President may ultimately be able to build a wall, or impose a travel ban, but he will never be able to stop comedy. Personally, I hoped that Alec Baldwin could attend in place of Trump.

Question and Answer with local MP Flick Drummond

Portsmouth South Conservative MP Flick Drummond has a long term plan for: jobs and investment, improving school standards, university places and apprenticeships, small businesses and cleaner streets for safer cycling. You can find out more about the Portsmouth South MP here on her official website: https://www.flickdrummond.com/ . She has been in Parliament since May 2015. Ms Drummond took her time to answer questions circulating Brexit, Trump and local politics.

1. Last year, 2016, was the year of the EU Referendum in which we voted leave. You were against Brexit, but did not vote against triggering article 50 in February. Why was this?     “I voted to trigger Article 50 because Portsmouth South voted to leave the EU and I had to respect that decision having voted to have a referendum.”
2. Another controversial event of 2016 was Donald Trump winning the Presidential Election for the United States. Do you believe Trump will be the perfect candidate?                            “I was disappointed that Donald Trump was elected as I was looking forward to seeing a female President. It is still too early to see whether he will be a good president but I don’t agree with much that he has said so far.”
3. Moving on to local politics, Portsmouth was listed the sixth-worst performers in the whole country regarding education. Recently, Charter Academy have just won a national award. What will you do to maintain the excellence in the schools across Portsmouth South?                                                                                                                                                       “I am working with our schools in Portsmouth and they are improving fast. The figure that you refer to is judgement on the Local Education Authority rather than individual schools. St Edmunds is also an outstanding school.”
4. Tour De France used to go through Portsmouth. I understand that you set up Pompey Litter Pickers. Has Pompey Litter Pickers improved the the streets for safer cycling?

   “The Tour de France went through Portsmouth once. Pompey Litter Pickers meets once a month to clean up our streets and we need more people as there is a lot of litter to pick up. Most of it is on the pavement and cyclists are not supposed to be cycling on most pavements although I know that they do!”

5. At my age of 19, there are few interested in politics. What will you do to try and get young people more involved/to get active in politics?                                                                   I try to give work experience to young people and I am going into schools to tell them about Parliament and how it works. I also have frequent visits to Westminster by schools and families so they are learning the importance of voting. I hope it will encourage more people to get involved.

 

 Flick Drummond. Source: http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/06/flick-drummond-we-must-seize-the-opportunity-to-act-on-homelessness.html

5 Reasons why Donald Trump will work for America.

1. The wall. THAT WALL.

Trump has non stopped banged on about this amazing invention of a wall to prevent Mexicans from invading America. The President’s plan was to have the ‘fence-hoppers’ pay for the wall, but silly Trump, he forgot to say that the American tax-payer will pay. Silly Trump also forgot that 40% of Mexicans fly over to America. But of course the billionaire will be building a wall big enough to stop planes from Mexico coming in.  Right…? This wall is probably the most important thing in politics at the minute and will only cost $15 billion. Health care, education, the economy and gun laws don’t really need reform at the minute.

source: giphy

2.  His respect for women.

I have never met a man like this one. The way he compliments women. Such a gentleman, I mean other than insulting a breastfeeding mother, supreme court judge Ruth Ginsburg, women seeking abortion, victims of sexual harassment, he has respect. He even admitted that he would consider dating his daughter – obviously if Ivanka wasn’t his daughter. But that makes it ok. It was only a compliment.

                                                       source: giphy

3. The business mogul’s business successes

Donald J Trump has not shut up about his success in business. Trump Hotels put Trump up by almost $800 million in 1996, even though he stated he lost nearly $1 billion. Maybe he forgot about that cheque. Anyhow, a successful business man may be what America needs because ‘if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got’. But is Trump the successful business man he tells us he is? Err no.

 source: giphy

4. No limit on gun control!!!

Thank god. I genuinely thought that guns were going to be banned for one minute. There have been well over 25 shootings, over 50 deaths, yet we must keep gun laws to protect ourselves. But from what? Muslims? The 20,000 Muslims who are physicians in the United States? The Muslim charity groups in the US who are too numerous to catalog? C’mon Trump. Pull your head out.

source: giphy

5. You are not allowed to be poor and ill

It’s a good job American’s are all rich and in good health. Not. Not all American’s are rich, and not all American’s have good health. This is why Obama introduced the Affordable Health Care Act. The number of citizens without insurance is at an all time low of 8.6% (Jan 2017). But of course Trump blasted it a “total disaster!” So far he has failed to offer an alternative, putting 22 millions of American’s in danger.

source: giphy

UPWFC 1sts 4 -3 Brighton 1sts

2016/2017 has been quite the year for the University of Portsmouth Women’s Football Club 1sts. This season, the girls have been captained by Jessica Burke, currently a second year student at the university studying Sport and Exercise science. Burke also plays for Portsmouth Ladies, along with Bethany Roche, Jade Simmons and Samantha Quayle. Quayle has been selected for the English Universities National Squad, in which she will play against her home country, Wales. This season has been phenomenal for Pompey, with only one league loss, one draw, and seven wins. The South East League 1A is just one below the Premier Division for the South of England, and the league the ladies have played in this season. Today’s game will be the title decider between Pompey and Brighton, with the hope of promotion to the Premier South if they win the playoffs with Gloucestershire  1sts. However, it is unclear on how the playoffs will happen, and Gloucestershire may not be the team to fight for promotion. Playing on home ground, at Langstone, UPWFC will be supported by the 2nd team, other members of the Athletic Union, friends and family of the players, and other students.

The starting line up for UPWFC:

Jade Nicholson                                                                                                                                                     Jess Burke     (C)                                                                                                                                                   Megan Kennedy                                                                                                                                                   Paige Atkinson                                                                                                                                                     Jade Simmons                                                                                                                                                     Jess Saunders                                                                                                                                                   Beth Roche                                                                                                                                                         Georgia Campbell-Turner                                                                                                                               Sophie Frost                                                                                                                                                       Alice Broadley                                                                                                                                                     Annie-Rose Dunn

Substitutes:

Samantha Quayle                                                                                                                                               Anniken Haugen                                                                                                                                               Crystal Carrington                                                                                                                                             Gemma Freaney                                                                                                                                                 Emma Shaw

KICK OFF 15:13

5: Brighton dominating the first 5 minutes, but Atkinson is showing real strength in defence to not let them through.

9: Pompey have an excellent passing regime, which lead to Frost having a near goal, unfortunately offside.

15: Brighton take the lead with a long distance shot which lobbed goalkeeper Nicholson. UPWFC 0 – 1 Brighton.

19: The girls, with grit and determination, try to bring the score line even again. Campbell-Turner taking a free kick, which gets headed out the box to Roche who hits it just over the crossbar.

22: Again, another near goal for UPWFC as Frost takes advantage from a deflection.

30: Both teams had plenty of opportunities to score but did not quite finish. Brighton are looking more hungry than ever for a goal. Pompey manage to fight as a unit and stop any chances.

37: Brighton win a free kick in Pompey’s half, misses by quite a distance.

SECOND HALF

47: Dunn takes on 3 Brighton defenders but is taken down by a strong, but fair, tackle.

50: Brighton take advantage of Pompey only having 10 on the field as Frost has to leave the field due to injury. Fortunately, Saunders was there to prevent Brighton from pressing down the wing.

61: Broadley comes off for Quayle.

61: GOAL!!!! Roche gets even with Brighton and scores a goal from a deflection. The home crowd are going crazy, with personal football chants to Portsmouth, and very well known chants to all. 1-1.

Source: introducekwame

62: Pompey start to get ahead of themselves and give away a free kick, in which Brighton score from to give them a 1-2 lead.

64: The goal is an eye-opener for the girls. Quayle shows some excellent footwork, and takes on two players but is fowled just outside the box. The free kick looks hopeful but goes just over the crossbar.

67: GOAL!!! Dunn scores a goal after 4 previous deflections. One off the cross bar, One defended and two brilliant saves by the keeper. Dunn’s goal was unstoppable. 2-2.

source: introducekwame

70: The past few minutes have consisted of a few UPWFC injuries, with Campbell-Turner, Kennedy and Atkinson all being injured. Still, the girls soldier on.

75: These injuries do not look good, but this did not stop Pompey from putting in everything they had.

76: GOAL!!! Quayle scores a remarkable goal, taking on Brighton’s winger, and defence, to slipping it just past the keeper. 3-2.

source: introducekwame

78: The crowd gives Campbell-Turner an ovation as she makes way for Haugen.

80: An immediate difference made by Haugen, who passes the ball to Roche. Roche takes control and passes it to Frost who almost gets Pompey another goal.

81: Quayle walks through the Brighton midfield and defence, to have a 1v1 with the keeper who makes an extraordinary save.

81: GOAL!!! Frost’s reactions were incredibly speedy from the keepers deflection of Quayle’s shot and scores a brilliant goal. 4-2.

source: introducekwame

83: Burke goes does with a serious injury on her ankle and has to come off the field for a few minutes to talk to the physio. Less than a minute coming off, she goes back on.

85: Dunn, who had a spectacular performance, makes way for Carrington who gets a round of applause from the crowd.

86: Quayle almost makes it 5-2, but the last defender just stops her.

88: Penalty to Brighton. Nicholson gets a touch to the ball but unfortunately it goes into the back of the net. 4-3.

90: THE WHISTLE IS BLOWN AND UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH WOMEN’S FOOTBALL CLUB ARE SOUTH EAST 1A LEAGUE CHAMPIONS.

source: introducekwame

The referees woman of the match goes to centre back Paige Atkinson. A massive congratulations to the girls who have grafted so hard all season for this. The next stage now will be the playoffs, in which the girls will battle till the very end to gain promotion to the Premier South Division. A huge thank you to the girls who came to watch, friends and family who travelled to Portsmouth to see this, and other Athletic Union Students who came to support the ladies. Next stop, VARSITY.

 

 

 

It’s right or wrong, not right or left.

The United Kingdom is a strong, powerful, and efficient country and needs to be run by a government who can maintain this. In my eyes, and in the eyes of the majority of the country, the Conservative Party are the ones to do this. And if you’re one of the minority who don’t support Conservatism for whatever reason, or part of the population who play a huge part in voter apathy, here’s an article to explain right and wrong.

What’s the biggest issue with the country today? Well of course it’s the economy. Former party leader Ed Miliband ranted on about the NHS, Scotland’s referendum, and education in a party conference in Manchester, but forgot to restore confidence to middle class workers in how he would try to deal with the deficit. The former shadow chancellor Ed Balls says they covered it in an earlier speech by telling the country they would put a 1% cap on child benefits, which would reduce the £75 billion deficit by £400 million. Wow, if I correctly work that out (with a calculator), that’s 187,500 years to cut the deficit. And with the amount of ‘the world’s going to end tomorrow’ hysteria, the world probably will have ended by then.

Let’s discuss Nick Pleb and the Liberal Demoprats, uh I mean Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. I know he’s not the current leader, but that’s because his last election was catastrophic, even more than the ill-advised coalition in 2010. I must admit the power went to his head when he became deputy Prime Minister to a dominant Tory Prime Minister. Clegg vowed to not raise tuition fees before the 2010 General Election, and he will never live it down that he did the complete opposite and tripled them. Who wants a flip-flop for a leader?

Now to re-wind to 1980’s and Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. Talk about living in the past. I know taking milk from small children isn’t very nice, but let’s remember all the good things the ‘Iron Lady’ did for the country. Argentina tried to take what wasn’t theirs, and without asking that’s wrong. Thatcher fought back and immediately sent in the British Military. This led to not a war, but both countries admitting the Islands was a war zone. Of course Britain won. 84% of the British electorate approved the way the crisis was handled. Britain contributes money to the EU annually, and receives back from the EU sometimes not even half. In 1984, Thatcher took a tough stance and negotiated a rebate on the terms that most of the spending go on agricultural subsidies. We needed more leaders with such a passion for the country to carry on Thatcher’s reign, even if it was a Labour or Liberal Democrat Prime Minister. Tony Blair, step forward.

Finally a Prime Minister under Labour who actually recognised socialism hadn’t worked for past Prime Ministers and introduced the country to a New Labour. He opened the eyes of Labour supporters and withdrew the parties’ ideologies from nationalisation and embraced market economics. Blair came into power in 1997 and everything was flourishing for Blair, dishing out referendums to Scotland and Wales and continuing peace negotiations with Northern Ireland. But the only way from the top was to go down, and go down he did. In 2001 he decided to give America a hand (or a few hundred thousand) in the invasion of Iraq. This went down well. Not. He caused a protest in 2003 with over one million demonstrating.

Next, there’s the famous Bottler Brown. Otherwise known to the general public as Gordon Brown. He was given this nickname in 2007 when he ‘bottled’ (pardon the pun) holding a general election, because he feared being a predecessor. When you become a politician, you should expect nothing more than scrutiny from the public. Brown couldn’t handle this, so when he was challenged to some questions from a voter, the Prime Minister called her a ‘bigoted woman’. How professional Gordon? Being a Prime Minister is potentially one of the most important jobs in the world, and you wouldn’t forget that you run one of the greatest countries. Unless you’re Gordon Brown. A Prime Minister, like a President, requires perseverance, concentration, and giving your all.

I’ve focused so far on the larger parties, but Labour are not the only popular left wingers in the country, so here’s a little bit about the Green Party. 2015 was the year the Green Party as a whole soared through the polls in the General Election. BUT, Natalie Bennett has not exactly managed well under pressure in the public eye, since becoming party leader. The party bang on about how the percentage of homeless people has grown since 2010 with the Tories in power; yet Bennet can’t even answer a question on her own housing policy. Let’s not forget when she mentioned replacing the British Army with a home defence force of volunteers. Volunteers. This would mean over 100,000 soldiers being out of paid jobs. Now, this is great because the soldiers would be unpaid and we could fund other areas such as education right?! Wrong. We have a TRAINED British Army for a reason.

There’s a reason as to why we have a Conservative government for a second term, and a reason as to why the Labour Party and other left wing parties have failed. They bring nothing new, they just want to continue their valued traditions. But as I have already mentioned, the Labour Party leaders just can’t seem to let go of the past.  If you still can’t see why a Conservative running country is more suitable here’s a few reasons to consider: On average, Conservative council costs less thanks to the economy improving and the deficit reducing. Council tax is actually frozen by the party, unlike Labour and the Democrats who can’t seem to keep to a word they say. Labour CAN’T give you a choice, but the Tories WILL give you a choice on EU membership. Tory European Members of Parliament walk the walk, unlike Labour’s EMP’s who talk the talk but don’t bother turning up to elections. None of us can afford anymore of Labour’s meddling, none of us can afford Labour’s waste, and none of us can certainly not afford any of Labour’s mismanagement. So the ‘right’ way is the right way, after all.