Aimee Howarth brings you an interview with The Yorker directors on the final day of the advent articles
Aimee Howarth speaks to YUSU's sabbatical officers about their Christmas Day routine for day 17 of the advent calendar
For the final time this term, Vicky Morris updates you on this weeks film news
50 years after the publication of 'James and the Giant Peach', the works of Roald Dahl continue to celebrate success.
Are they supposed to distract our attention away from the concrete walkways? And murky lake? And somehow change our experience of walking through the college, so that when, later in the day, we reflect on our stroll through campus-far-west, we might think to our selves: Ah (old) Goodricke! Not such a bad place. They’ve got some kooky art around. Run down accommodation, plus modern sculptures… pretty darn Bohemian place actually that (old) Goodricke.
Well, as it turns out, these extraordinary orbs, these curious cog-work casts, these baffling metal balls, have moved. To new Goodricke. And so it seems that the above speculation cannot be true.
Now when we walk through old Goodricke, said works of art will not be there to distract us from the run down anti-splendour of the one time college, leaving behind just three concrete accommodation blocks, all of different colleges, and crushed illusions of Goodrickean Bohemia.
But then we might question: why? Why have they moved to new Goodricke? With all the effort and time that went into building these new accommodation blocks, it seems surprising that little details, like the moving of sculptures from old to new would be so important.
The mystery must be solved. What is it that links these sculptures specifically to Goodricke, and not just to the buildings formerly known as Goodricke?
John Goodricke, after whom the college was named, was an astrologer in his day. He was awarded a medal by the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, for suggesting that a certain star called Algol was an eclipsing binary.
Having attempted to find out exactly what “eclipsing binary” means, the conclusion was that it is too complicated an idea to summarise into a sentence. It would distract from the major theme of this article (the removal of the Goodricke globes). However, there is a Wikipedia entry on eclipsing binaries that will answer all your questions should you have them.
And how about the sculptures? Campus folklore has it that when the sculptures were new, they lit up at night, one containing a blue light, and the other red.
They are also supposed to be constructed from cogs and steel from an old railway.
Another story concerning the sculptures is that the Goodricke JCR once had T-Shirts made baring the slogan:
"Goodricke Gorillas - where the Balls are"
The balls in question being the sculptures, of course.
All through this article the balls have been referred to as sculpture, and art. However, interestingly, they were built in the Physics department at the university, rendering them just as much science as art surely? And indeed, the abstracted subject of the balls is a scientific one. Having referred to them as the Goodricke-globes, those words must now be eaten, as in fact they represent not globes, but John Goodricke’s eclipsing binary stars, and the name of the sculptures: Algol.
The mystery is solved. It would be no good having Algol in the walkways of the now tri-collegiate former-Goodricke. Goodricke College will always have to be where the balls are.
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