Fal Rumours

Jonny Depp, Bear Grylls and Madonna may well all have a link to Falmouth. Of course they may not: it’s hard to separate the fact from the fiction. There are many rumours flying around the streets of Falmouth, so, to separate the fact from the fiction, here is a list of definite honesty, ruthless rumour mongering and a few questionables.

1. Madonna owns a house in flushing.

This one at least seems to be widespread, if not completely true. The Metro first published a story about it on the 12^th August 2010 stating that ‘Local people believe she has bought a large detached pad on the exclusive Roseland Peninsula opposite the port.’ If anyone is unfamiliar with this exclusive area, it you look out from the gas works car park, it is the stretch of water on the opposite side of the Quay, the house in question is the rose colored one.

Surely Madonna wouldn’t want to live so far off the celebrity beaten path, that reminds me, once I heard that…

2. Jonny Depp owns a house in Falmouth

Surely two major Hollywood A listers couldn’t reside in Falmouth? Well, no. You’re right, they can’t. It would appear, to the fullest extent of my research, that Mr. Depp does not reside in this sleepy fishing town. It is true, however, that he certainly tried to live here. Back in 2006 Depp requested ‘the freedom of the British seaside town… and was refused’ according to online magazine Female First. Apparently, if Depp was granted this traditional honour, his rights would have included parking his horse and cart outside the town hall, and driving his sheep through the town on market days.

Depp’s interest to live in Falmouth began after learning that this town was the home of Britain’s first female pirate, Lady Mary Killigrew. Just goes to show that Falmouth has a dark side too, which reminds me, someone once told me that…

3. Remedies was owned by none other than Phill Mitchell

This one goes a bit further than I have initially let on. When I first heard the rumour it went: ‘Did you know that Phill Mitchell owns Remedies, that he organizes the porn night, and that the drummer from Queen owns Club I, and most of the high street from there to Dig N Delve.’ That seemed like too much of a mouthful to disprove, or fit in a headline, so I’m just sticking to the Remedies bit.

There’s plenty of talk about this one. I would say that it is Falmouth’s most popular rumour, but alas hard evidence there is not.  However, I have no doubt that the drummer from Queen owns Dig N Delve.

There seems to be an awful lot of celebrity activity in Falmouth, maybe that’s because of its lovely beach, but I heard…

4. Gylly Beach is a man made beach

One hundred percent true. Yay, verily I say unto you, Gyllingvase beach is a man made beach. It is also the third deepest harbor in the world, after Rio De janeiro and Sydney, which is also why it plays host to dolphins and whales during the summer term. No joke, completely true.

Surely such a spectacular marine habitat would attract the adventurous, which reminds me, apparently…

5. Bear Grylls’ son goes to University in Falmouth

This one at least seems plausible: why shouldn’t a celebrity send their child to university in Cornwall? If anything, it makes more sense that sending them to a city, as being the child of someone rich and famous would surely get them victimized, especially if it was a marmite figure such as Mr. Grylls himself.

At least if young Grylls runs out of student loan then surely he could make short work of the abundance of rabbits around campus. Talking of celebrity parentage, surely there is a chance we have more celebrity offspring in our midst. There are rumours of none other than Jo Wiley’s daughter attending this prestigious university. Again, completely plausible, and judging by the amount of people repeating this one I would say almost certainly true. Probably not so good at skinning rabbits, nor is her mother as much of a marmite figure, so she should be fine. Talking of Radio One DJ’s another came to the university before, and I heard that…

6. Annie Mac wasn’t actually DJing when she played in the Stannary, there was a DJ stood behind the curtain

I could see how this rumor could start: people have been claiming musicians have been miming since the dawn of time – it was only a matter of time until people started pointing the finger at radio one DJ’s. However, the reason I consider it to be so preposterously unbelievable is that behind the said curtain there is a window, and everyone would have been able to see the ghost DJ’s true identity. It would have been much more believable if she was miming to an iPod, or to a DJ hidden in the room housing the soundboard just to the left of the stage, but behind the curtain? That’s a bit too Scooby Doo for me. Flawed in the nature of its conception, this one.

Killer Pills

A new strand of ecstasy tablet is sweeping the southwest of Britain, bringing with it a wave of fatalities.

Pan Dorset have issued an urgent health warning urging everyone to stay away from what they describe as ‘pink tablets, embossed with the letter M’.

The deadly compound within the pills is currently unknown, but is believed to be a substance known as paramethoxyamphetamine, or PMA.

The symptoms of these pills are said to include profuse sweating, increased heart rate (up to three times of that of a regular heart rate), extreme muscular tension and delirious ranting.

If anyone is found showing signs of these symptoms you should call 999 immediately.

The concern started when the police were called to an address in Bournemouth where one person was already deceased, and the other three were rushed to hospital. One remains in intensive care, having to be heavily sedated due to extreme muscular seizures.

Michael Clarke, who has seen the pills first hand says: “Its alright if you just do one, but because they have some psychedelic compound in them they don’t react to your body in the same way as regular pills, so people take loads of them. If you just take one it can be used recreationally, but if you take a lot of them it all builds up and that’s where the trouble starts.”

Michael went on to remark that the M emblem resembles that of the McDonalds famous arches, and that on the street they are referred to as ‘McDonalds’.

The BC Coroners service claims that in the period of 2006 – 2011 their have been only 99 ecstasy related deaths.

A Night in the Life of a Nightlife Enthusiast

Considering the size of its population, Falmouth has an increasingly intimidating and impressive dance music scene. However all is not what it seems: the world of dance music has been turned completely on its head.

The hierarchy of dance music throughout the UK goes roughly as follows – House music, in all its many guises (Deep House, Tech house, etcetera), first. All other types of dance music, second.

Yet the dance music scene, as with many other forms of culture in Falmouth, is completely reversed. The underground is mainstream and the mainstream, underground.

The main venue for this new scene in Falmouth is the Rugby Club. Last year the Rugby Club opened its doors no more than four nights a month on average. This year, however, that has soared to 10 times a month.

It is impossible to walk past the rugby club on a Friday night without hearing the sort of sounds usually confined to nightmares or migraines, and if you manage to avoid the sight of someone throwing up on their shoes then it really is your lucky day.

Helena Lewis, a University College Falmouth student, said of the rugby club: “I hate how drunk you have to feel to enjoy yourself in there. It’s horrible, it feels like the sort of place you’d go for an alcoholics anonymous meeting.”

On this issue Helena seems to stand with the minority, as each night the Rugby Club is filled to the brim with eager, loving crowds, each reveling in the fact that they, once the underdog, are now part of the mainstream culture.

House music nights are going bust, no longer bringing in enough revenue to cover even the most slight of bar tabs. More and more people are ebbing away from the bright lights of the Watermans, away from the consistent pounding rhythm of house music towards the Tim Burton end of the music scene.

It is difficult to explain the difference in these types of music to people who are not familiar with the ins and outs of dance music. A fair comparison would be to refer to house as a dentist’s drill, and jungle as a chainsaw. Not necessarily a bad thing, as although chainsaws aren’t massively popular, neither is the dentist’s drill.

Dental hygiene aside, there are other aspect of music within Falmouth floundering from the lack of attention. Just this month saw the third installment of Financial Kollapse Records night at the Cutty Sark. An extra special night as this was the launch night of their new EP, a promising release on the Hip Hop scene.

Yet Financial Kollapse records also seem to be feeling the strain of the recession, with only 20 people turning up to revel in this new piece of original music. So it seems they may be staring, poetically, at financial collapse.

Maybe there is some rhyme and reason as to why the music scene in Falmouth town is slowly dwindling, and to why the rugby club is the last bastion of the crowd-searching drunkard, and if there were one, it would be in the shape of Remedies.

Remedies was Falmouths main attraction in terms of nightlife. It was an essential part of the culture to at one point or another have its name stamped on the back of your hand like a branded piece of cattle.

Although in previous years it played host to some reputable names, and could be considered to some extent a good venue, in recent years its role had changed. From provider of entertainment, to something alike to a light in a kebab shop: attracting the irritations towards it, then leaving them sometime later drooling on the floor, no harm to anyone.

When Remedies closed, however, it was like someone had poisoned the watering hole. All the dregs of society left the prison-like walls of Remedies, and flooded into the surrounding area, essentially turning previously good venues such as QBar and the Watermans into UFC fighting cages.

An explanation, maybe, but a remedy it is not. With more and more people flooding out of town the ratio of poison to water is rising, and unless something is done soon, we might all be forced to take refuge in the rugby club, inducing migraines and throwing up on our own shoes.

The Last Laugh

What do the dentist, whipped cream and fast cars have in common? Two words, nitrous oxide, or as it is more commonly known, laughing gas. It is used in dentistry due to its anesthetic effect, and is widely used throughout medicine as a safe anesthetic, especially with children. Yet nitrous oxide is also used as a recreational drug and is fast becoming a cause for concern for the university staff and students trousers alike.

Nitrous Oxide, like every good drug, has many different names. There are the official names such as nitrous oxide, or nos for short. Then there are the more descriptive names such as ‘Laughing Gas’ or ‘Sweet Air’, and there are the names that catch on by fans, such as ‘Hippy Crack’.

It is used as a recreational drug due to its effects from inhalation, which range from euphoria and hallucinations, albeit at the cost of losing feeling (especially in the face), possible loss of consciousness, and, occasionally, forced defecation.

Rich Pearson, the FXU Welfare President of University College Falmouth was so worried about the apparent rise in nos inhalers, that he put out a hastily crafted email to all staff and students of the university. In this email he claimed that nos is evil health wise due to a risk of involuntary incontinence and slight risk of death, and providing you don’t die from the initial inhalation from a frozen windpipe, bad for your future. Bad for your future because, as he put it ‘possession of illegal substance is illegal’ and will be reported to the police, there by scuppering any chance of future employment or travel.

However, Mr. Pearson has missed out on a trick here. It has been long reported that students don’t give a 2.1 about their health. If they aren’t super glueing their nostrils together, they’re snorting their way through enough fish food to feed the entire cast of finding nemo, or just generally drinking their bodies to death. The trick Mr. Pearson has missed is the monetary aspect of the situation.

Nos is both cheap and expensive at the same time, having a cost value of roughly twenty-five pence, and a street value of £1. This obviously makes it an attractive prospect to drug dealers as with an investment of just ten pounds, you could make an income of £40, providing you have the equipment to distribute it and the self-control to not inhale it yourself.

A nos'd up student on the edge of defecation

You may have thought that people would be put off by this steep mark up but no. At parties people literally cue up to spend their hard earned student loans on a rush that lasts for roughly 90 seconds, depending on weight and height. That works out at a crippling £40 an hour, more expensive than cocaine or heroin. So who is laughing in this scenario? The person who inhaled the Nos, probably.

Although the reasons why nos is so popular arent immediatly apparent, a student who wished to remain anonymous said when asked for his reasons for abusing the substance said: “Its rubbish, but its mental if your on acid!”

On the dealers side things get better still, as nos is not strictly speaking illegal. It is no more illegal than glue or solvents: that is to say, it is illegal to sell for misuse. This is always a drug dealers living dream, as misuse is a hard thing to prove. The way the companies distributing it get around this is by making it perfectly clear that rubbing whipped cream all over your lovers breasts is a perfectly reasonable thing to want to do 600, 1200, or even 2400 times a week, and at that rate, it is simply impractical to buy said whipped cream from the shops. You may as well make your own.

All drug deals are based around a ridiculous mark up, due to the risk of getting caught. The guy you meet in an alleyway to buy cocaine off may well be charging you four times what he paid for his contraband, but if he gets caught there and then he’s getting an incredibly stern slap on the wrist in the form of community service or a short jail sentence, and if they raid his house (which is police protocol in that situation) then he will be going to prison for a long, long time.

Yet most people are not buying nos off strangers in car parks, or from industrious importers of narcotics like drug dealing years gone by, most people are buying it from their friends, who in turn are buying it from a 100% legal, risk free website. The only risk they are taking is putting their back out carrying 150 cartridges to the party, then carrying 600 pound coins back.

Pay day loan company wonga.com charge an APR of 2334%, that means for each pound that they lend you, you will owe them £2334 a year later. That works out at £6.39 a day. With your nitrous oxide selling friend with every one pound of Nos they sell to you, they are making four back. That’s two thirds as bad as wonga.com, and they are viewed as about as evil as Hitler these days.

So there in lays the trick that Mr. Pearson missed: that Nitrous Oxide dealers are as two thirds as bad as the third Reich, and that should he manage to turn students against their friends, then sooner or later the substance abuse will cease.