Features – The Orbital

40th Anniversary Feature: One More Editor’s Letter?…The Orbital EIC’s 2024-2025

17Feb

By Madeline SidgwickNo Comments

Features, Lifestyle

40th Anniversary Feature: One More Editor’s Letter?…The Orbital EIC’s 2024-2025

By Madeline Sidgwick, Senior News Editor, and Evelyn Fernandez-Jarvis, Senior Lifestyle Editor At risk of sounding like a broken record to those that have read our editors’ letters in the 24-25 issues of The Orbital, for the anniversary issue myself and Eve thought we would come together and do some reflecting. We hope to provide some inspiration for future editors and writers and provide the final push for anyone on the fence about joining The Orbital in any capacity. How The Magazine Developed Us ? Eve: Stepping into the role of Deputy EIC in 2024 was extremely daunting. In full transparency, when you end up getting a role that you have wanted for a long time, there is a lot of self doubt when you actually step into it. I knew that I wanted to replicate the leg...

9Jan

By Beth McCowenNo Comments

Features, Sports & Socs

An Interview with Kellie Cheung

Photo by Liberty Simons By Beth McCowen In light of lacrosse being named as an Olympic sport for Los Angeles 2028, The Orbital sat down with player Kellie Cheung to talk about her personal journey with the sport, what this news means for the lacrosse community, as well as her time competing with Royal Holloway. Photo by Sharks Lacrosse HK Can you tell us a bit about your personal journey with lacrosse? “I came to the UK when I was 12 and attended boarding school, and that's where I started to play lacrosse. I actually started as a goalie in high school, then at university I was midfield attack. After my year abroad, I joined Hong Kong Lacrosse, so I would play with Hong Kong during the summers. I would coach beginner’s adult and children’s lacrosse. Also, during my year abr...

“I don’t recognise my country”: Orbital Reacts to Roe v Wade

27Jun

By Hannah ArmourNo Comments

Features, News, Opinion

“I don’t recognise my country”: Orbital Reacts to Roe v Wade

“We are better than this”, my mother says. “I don’t recognise my country.” I can’t help but agree. Because this isn’t what the United States of America should be. This is not what it was founded on. This is not a reflection of its population’s views. This is an act of ostracisation in the pursuit of control. This is not democracy. There have been many times in recent years that I’ve been embarrassed by my country, by my accent and by my passport. Friday’s overturn of the Roe v Wade ruling topped everything else (a high boundary to break after the election of our last president). Equality, that often-distant dream, felt obtainable. We could see it off in the distance, and if we could just get a bit closer, keep moving forward, then maybe we could reach it, touch it, smell it, lick...

The Worst Person In The World: the Nordic highs and lows of human connection

24Jun

By Olivia TaylorNo Comments

Features, Film & TV

The Worst Person In The World: the Nordic highs and lows of human connection

Joachim Trier’s Oslo trilogy may not follow stories that are directly linked, but there is a connection between them that even Anders Danielsen Lie, who stars in each film, noticed ‘feels just like a continuation’. That continuation may be loss, love, or loneliness, three themes that follow the central characters through each story. But whilst they aren’t always resolved, they haunt audiences with a sense of realism, often hitting close to home. ‘The Worst Person in the World’ or ‘Verdens verste menneske’ is Trier’s final installment, and a cinematic masterpiece in its own right. It captures the fragility of life through the lens of Julie, a 20-something woman who gets stuck in the indecisiveness of her ambition, a cultivated indication of what it means to be young and conflicted. “I f...

9 of the Best Relationships in Television

24Jun

By Victoria BurdenNo Comments

Features, Film & TV

9 of the Best Relationships in Television

Romantic Relationships Phil and Claire Dunphy – Modern Family Across 11 seasons of iconic television, Phil and Claire continuously proved they have one of the best onscreen relationships. From Phil’s optimistic nature and cheerleader mentality to Claire’s determined and competitive streak, these two balance each other out to form the perfect married couple. Mel and Jack – Virgin River While the show keeps throwing obstacles at these two, they always find their way back to one another. Their pasts constantly make it difficult for them to focus on creating a future. Despite this, Jack’s uncanny ability to get himself in harm's way and Mel’s speciality in helping those in need make for a dynamic that leaves viewers wanting more. Friendships Otis and Eric – S...

24Jun

By Kianna BestNo Comments

Features, Film & TV

Streaming Services Saved My Life

The title might be a tad hyperbolic, but looking back on the months of being confined to the four walls of my home during the beginning of 2020, it makes sense. With the staggering halt to social interaction during the early days of the pandemic, film lovers lost out on the conventional cinema going experience. Transcending its responsibility as a source of our binge watching, streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+ satiated our cravings. With concepts such as Netflix Party and other group watching services, virtual film watching experiences allowed us to adapt to our new circumstances while capturing the social cinema feeling that we all missed and loved. With fleeting trends that aimed to keep us occupied during the seemingly endless days of lockdown, Netflix remained tried and t...

Issue Five Introduction: The Friend Game

21Jun

By Bridget OSullivanNo Comments

Features, Lifestyle

Issue Five Introduction: The Friend Game

At six, I pledged to a girl named Isabel that she’d be my best friend forever. She was blonde. I was brunette. Despite this, Isabel always insisted on playing Gabriella when we re-enacted scenes from our beloved High School Musical. I started to hate her a tiny bit. At fourteen, we fell out over boys. When I was nine, I told myself my best friend was a girl called Aoife. She was a bitch in the making, and something about that drew me in. She had a strength that I didn’t. But, like any blossoming bitch, she wanted to surround herself with other bitches (and despite my efforts, I was just a bit too off-the-wall to fit the bitch criteria). I haven’t spoken to Aoife since I was twelve, when her parents shipped her off to boarding school. When I was thirteen, my best friend w...

21Jun

By Zaki ChanNo Comments

Creative Writing, Features

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Uvalde School Shooting: Where does it stop? Gun Control has Proven to Fail once again

1Jun

By Ilayda KaplankiranNo Comments

Features, News

Uvalde School Shooting: Where does it stop? Gun Control has Proven to Fail once again

Another school shooting has occurred. Significant lives have been lost. And yet, it only serves as a rehash of a story we’ve all heard before. The latest figures provided by BBC confirm that “nineteen young children and two adults have died in a shooting at a primary school in south Texas”. Because the ‘right to bear arms’ is constitutionally protected, the 18-year-old perpetrator was able to walk freely into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. In fact, the problem resides within this constitutional right itself. No matter how hard politicians or activists try to put provisions in place or change the narrative that we are all too familiar with, these atrocities will not be prevented. As seen in the Supreme Court’s ruling, from 2008 to the pre...

12May

By Bridget OSullivanNo Comments

Features, Opinion

The Privilege Complex

University is a space to explore who you are and what you want. It’s a place to embrace change and adopt new identities. If Royal Holloway, and the great metropolis that is Egham, helps you do that, great! If new friends and SU nights help you do that, great! If long rants about how much you’ve changed since Sixth Form help you do that, great! A complex can arise, however, when students shake off their privilege to assume an identity they consider more interesting. What privilege am I talking about? Specifically, those students who have had access to the best money can buy, whether that’s education, holidays and/or material goods. What new identity? The one that some adopt to play down said privilege in order to come across as anti-capitalist and, dare I say, ‘woke’. It is declaring th...