The Cheese Grater
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- This article is about The Cheese Grater, the magazine. For the kitchen utensil, see Grater.
The Cheese Grater is an award-winning magazine produced at the University College London by a society of UCL Union, a students' union. It was first published in March 2004.
The contents are a mix of (student) political news stories and humorous items, particularly cartoons. It most often concerns itself with activities of UCL Union, of which its writers are generally strongly critical.
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[edit] Origins
The Cheese Grater was formed when Rene Lavanchy, then a first-year student at UCL, decided to found a new magazine to plug what he saw as a gap in the provision of student media at the college. Dissatisfied with the tone, content and production values of Pi Magazine, the only significant student publication at the time, he resolved to edit a new magazine himself and publish it on the cheap. Having approached a fellow halls resident, he secured him as treasurer and applied for the magazine to be affiliated as a society of UCL Union, so that it could publicise through the Union and use a UCL e-mail address. The society was affiliated on 12 February 2004.
The first issue came out on 25 March 2004. It was photocopied - badly - onto 7 out of eight A4 pages, the last being blank, and the page numbers were handwritten on the original. The first issue struck the key note of The Cheese Grater's tone with a spoof article purporting to be the script of 'The Passion of Rick Jones', a film based on 'The Passion of The Christ' but transferring the scene to UCL Union's annual general meeting and positing general secretary Stephen Fingleton as Pontius Pilate and the Jewish High Priest rolled into one. There were also investigative pieces about the Debating Society and a minor scandal over student cold callers working for Conservative Central Office.
Since its first issue, The Cheese Grater has adopted a coherent design to mark it out from other student publications (usually adopting an 8-page format but occasionally increasing to twelve); it has taken on many more contributors than the original two (membership was over 40 at the end of the 2006 academic year) and it has published an increasingly diverse range of humorous and investigative pieces, often controversially.
[edit] Notable articles
The Cheese Grater's second issue came out in October 2004 and included a long article on the controversy between Ted Honderich and the newspaper London Student.
After London Student ran an issue (20 September 2004) with the front-page headline 'Racial Harm-ony' and the headline 'Honder-Sick' on page 2, in which it accused the UCL emeritus professor of philosophy of damaging race relations at the University of London, Honderich's lawyers wrote to the paper and demanded a right of reply, citing inaccuracies. The reply was duly published. Shortly afterwards came The Cheese Grater's account of the events, including a reproduction of part of the lawyers' letter. The article accused the London Student journalists of bad journalism and Honderich of over-reacting. Although the then London Student editor took exception to the article, neither he nor anyone else has shown there was anything inaccurate in it. This was the first article to carry The Cheese Grater's 'special report' banner.
The lashing out against UCL Union institutions which characterises The Cheese Grater only really got going in February 2005, with another special report accusing then UCL Union sabbatical officer David Renton of laziness, incompetence and general neglect of his duties. Although the article was qualified in its condemnation (the editor regrets that it was not more assertive) the level and detail of criticism was unprecedented in recent student discourse, and the subject was reportedly shocked.
Since then, The Cheese Grater has continued to espouse particular causes and criticise what it sees as failing institutions and people. It condemned UCL Union's executive in February 2005 for failing to stand up to the National Union of Students; it has criticised the union's awards process (Social Colours) and elections procedures; and it has attacked other media, including 'UCL News' (a UCL newsletter; apparently no longer printed) but mainly Pi Magazine, on the grounds that it is bland, unoriginal, has no strong editorial controls, is badly written, full of spelling mistakes, frequently inaccurate, appallingly badly designed and a hub for reactionary forces in student politics. In March 2006 the magazine revealed that Simon Dedman, then student editor of Pi Magazine, had cheated in recent UCL Union elections, securing the election of Nick Barnard as Media and Communications Officer, and that neither person had been significantly disciplined for it.
Since autumn 2005, a series of articles have appeared under the heading 'UCL plc', written by a mysterious 'Mr Chatterbox' (a name evidently borrowed from Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies). The articles were a series of trenchant, acerbic and detailed attacks on UCL provost Malcolm Grant's plans for UCL and his perceived corporate-style policies, including a new corporate identity for the college, which Mr Chatterbox alleged to have cost around £600,000. The articles have also attacked Grant's plans to cut 15% of staff, and the Development and Corporate Communications Office, UCL's fundraising body, as incompetent and offensive in its attempts to raise money.
[edit] Other
The current editor is Mark Ravinet.
The magazine won Best Student Publication at the UCL Union arts awards in May 2006. In November 2006, The Cheese Grater won Best Small Budget Publication at The Guardian Student Media Awards.
[edit] External links
The website (currently under construction) can be reached here. It contains all the issues in Adobe Acrobat format.
