A wave of homophobia has spread across Africa recently. This new problem has caught the attention of the Western press when the body of a supposedly gay Senegalese was dragged from his grave only a few hours after being buried, in order to be thrown in front of his elderly parents’ home.

Though campaigning for the election had been going on unofficially long before the election date was set, April 21st marked the beginning of the campaign on campus, as 8W1.1 hosted a debate between representatives of the major parties standing in Bath. The proceedings began with a short speech by each candidate Tory Fabian Richter’s was notable for not mentioning students once; he asserted that “Don has been fighting the Conservatives for years”, at which the incumbent finished his sentence: “and winning”.

A planned live music event has been cancelled due to poor ticket sales. Tiffany Page was due to appear as part of an event known as ‘Ulive’, but student interest failed to reach expected levels, and it became known that the event may be cancelled. This provoked students to protest in the traditional way: by creating a group on a certain social networking website. The write-up said: “So we're faced with a depressingly familiar situation. The SU tries to organise an event with a recognised musician coming to Bath and poor ticket sales mean its [sic] likely to be cancelled.

On Friday April 23rd, RAG’s annual Paris Hitch went ahead with only a minor change to the original plan: the participants were racing to Edinburgh rather than Paris. This was a result of the disruption to normal travel caused by the Icelandic volcano. Although it originally looked as though the event would have to be cancelled altogether, event organizers Vicki Jones and Amy Baker, along with a dedicated team of RAG volunteers, were able to ensure it went ahead almost as planned.

Following a request from the University, the Foreign Languages Centre is reviewing the provision of free language courses, which are currently available to all. Bath is the only university in the country to offer this. Monika De Lemos, Acting Manager of the FLC, told impact that “we will not be making a recommendation to introduce charges but are considering some restrictions on, for example, the number of classes students can take free of charge”.

On 24th April nine teams from the University of Bath travelled to Rutland Water near
Leicester to compete in the ‘8 Task Challenge’. The event, sponsored by Grant Thornton,
E.on, CIMA, GlaxoSmithKline, Enterprise Rent-a Car, RBS and FSA, pitted teams of four
students from a variety of universities against one another in (yes, you guessed it)
eight challenges. There was lots of prize money up for grabs and nearly all of the teams
were competing in aid of their chosen club or society.

The tasks included a 14 mile cycle ride, a three mile run and a canoeing circuit as well