The Pembroke Bullfrog, Hilary 2014 by Pembroke College, Oxford

Pembroke Bullfrog

The

Hilary 2014

About The Bullfrog The Pembroke Bullfrog is a termly magazine produced by students at Pembroke College, Oxford, named after the Lynne Chadwick sculpture in The Emery Gallery . The publication showcases the best of Pembrokian writing, while maintaining an inclusive ethos and aiming to entertain and inspire. In each issue, articles on culture, politics, and literature are interspersed with creative writing, photography, and illustrations. The Bullfrogâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s history stretches back for decades, and, although it sadly fell out of print for a number of years, was re-instituted three years ago to resume its place at the centre of college life. The magazine is a vibrant and important part of the Pembroke community, and is going from strength to strength, as this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expanded print run and new online presence testify. The magazine itself is distributed to all current undergraduates, postgraduates, and fellows at Pembroke, and is available to alumni and others through a subscription service.

REVIEWS Norton Rose Fulbright

Revolt in any way we want

Fame

Photo Essay: Life at Pembroke

A Dream of China

Camels, Kidnappings & Wardrobe Catastrophes

Tractatus Pugilistico-Philosophicus

Origami

Why J.R.R. Tolkein is Important for Pembroke College

POETRY Would I, in beamy black, frame daintiest lustre mix’t of 17 shades and light? For Him & For Her

Refresh

Church School

Love Like This

How to Survive a Fire at Pembroke College

Interview with the Master: Dame Lynne Brindley

Photo Essay: The GAB

Good Hack, Bad Hack

REVIEWS 25

Photo Essay: Oxford in Snow

Acknowledgements

Alturnun Cottage

Photo Essay: Travels in India

Contents

Oxford isn’t the Real World: Except, of course, it is

I knew where I wanted to go. They made sure I got there. ‘Norton Rose Fulbright’s strategy is opening doors all round the world. So when I decided that dispute resolution was where my future lay, the opportunities to pursue my goal were almost limitless. This really came to life when I had to choose my international seat: I had so many locations to pick from. I knew I wanted to gain some hands-on court experience of disputes, and colleagues had told me that Dubai was the place to go. They were right. Working on construction disputes, I took on a huge range of work and gained lots of court and client exposure. Soon I’ll be qualifying into Disputes. When I do, the practical experience I have already gained in our offices and on client secondment will prove absolutely priceless.’ Lola Akinpelu, Trainee, Dispute resolution and litigation

To see how you could define your own path within our global legal practice, visit: nortonrosefulbrightgraduates.com

Progress with purpose

Revolt in Whatever Way We Want In happier times, Russell Brand would have been seen as what he is – a comedian; someone who sets out to make people laugh. His proposals of revolution certainly show that he’s not a visionary– or if he is, he definitely needs his sight checked. It’s unfair to blame Brand for the current situation, though. He’s the effect rather than the cause behind the contempt for democracy and the ‘smash and grab’ vein of politics: a product from the same process which has given France the Front National and Greece the Golden Dawn. At the heart of the matter lies corruption but also a disconnection from traditional establishments and an intellectual laziness which must be halted. I don’t want to give Brand too much credit for what he said, but certainly, politicians in Britain have done well to give themselves a bad name. From expenses scandals to foreign policy screwups, the government and opposition have not covered themselves with glory. But then this is hardly news – doubt of the Leviathan has a long and distinguished history. What the current disillusionment has coincided with is the continued decline of 20th Century political groups in the Western World. Communism, refuge of so many angsty youths, has lost some of its lustre as the realities of the Soviet regimes are laid bare; the entirely indelible stain of Fascism means that neoNazis and others on the traditional far-right have had a tough time this side of the millennium. Religion, another potential anchor, is too far mired in scandals of its own to offer a welcoming community for the disaffected.

Another Brandian gaffe lies in hagiographing all revolutionaries. Of course, in a number of instances throughout the 20th Century rebellions have overturned corrupt, totalitarian regimes. Yet just as many of the rebels were calculating, vicious and/or deranged – Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and Pervez Musharraf all overthrew

There is a ﬂipside to the failure of mainstream politics. There are many who, understandably, distrust these ‘revolutionaries’ for all manner of reasons. Yet they also feel that something must be done to save the social order. The traditional threats have re-emerged from the woodwork – foreigners, terrorism and ‘Communism’ (in the form of the EU) – and the old order can’t (or won’t) stop them. It’s natural for the populist groups to stand up to these threats – how else can pseudo-fascists and racists get elected? The Front National in France; Golden Dawn in Greece; Jobbik in Hungary: all offer a ‘stand’ against the moral deterioration which threatens society. At the end of the day, the great irony is that both sides of the ‘revolution’ are much the same. I would argue that Brandian revolutionaries are bored and that populist rebels are scared, but both are also terribly intellectually lazy. Plausibility aside, there’s no sense of looking to the future – what happens when the ‘revolution’ is over? Would the defeat of the ‘Fascist police-state’ give rise to a better social order? Will the populist protest party really be so much better than the traditional parties they have split from? Wouldn’t it be so much more useful to channel energies towards a constructive enterprise? I travelled through Vienna last summer, and a friend pointed out the graffiti on the walls. It was from Antifa, the Anarchist anti-Fascist group, and featured crossedout swastikas. He remarked that as commendable as a stand against Fascism was, the tendency to vandalism and violence which marks such movements is worrying. Both camps of ‘revolutionaries’ feed off of each other, caricaturing their opponents to justify ever greater acts of violence. Perhaps if they bothered to consider what was better for everyone, they could conclude that violent revolution is not necessarily what we need. We should not “Revolt in whatever way we want” – that’s lazy and selfish. We should revolt in the way that’s least harmful and most effective for everyone, and stop wilfully antagonising others to justify our taste for violence.

Siddarth Venkataramakrishnan4

Reviews

What do people do if the classic avenues no longer offer promise? ‘They must revolt violently’ is the answer from the Brandian School – a response as disconcerting as it is myopic and selfish. Revolution, rioting and violence are not options to be taken lightly. If the London Riots in 2011 reminded us of nothing else, it was that violence often affects those who aren’t a part of the ‘Fascist police-state’: shop-owners, home-owners, passers-by. What did they do to deserve having their properties damaged, torched or stolen? The idea that we should revolt as ‘we want’ terrifies me, because it’s the kind of greed which can easily masquerade as heroism. There’s hardly any sense of the efficacy of these ‘revolts’ either – I would hardly say the London Riots succeeded in overturning anything other than some police cars and a bus.

governments which, if not always free or just, were at least no worse than the excesses that followed. Robert Mugabe was a young freedom fighter once too – that’s turned out well. Furthermore, as Syria and Libya have proved, there are often radicals amidst forces fighting against dictators – but then Mr. Brand doesn’t have a problem with Islamic fundamentalists, perceiving their ‘willingness to die’ for their cause. Perhaps – but their willingness to kill innocents too? It’s a dangerous precedent when we start making terrorists into heroes.

Fame

The summer before last, I went on holiday with one of my best friends and his family to Paris and the surrounding Champagne-Ardenne region. To use my rusty GCSE French, c’était très fantastique. (Apart from nearly crashing a hired tandem into a lake. Not so fantastique. But anyway.) Whilst there, we were asked by his little sister, a huge Miranda fan and all-round fab child, to play ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ with her. This involved judging, and naturally praising, her dancing, singing and acting abilities, which got increasingly sassier as her ‘progressions to the next round’ continued. She eventually won. We got slightly drunk on budget Intermarche alcohol. Everyone was happy. However, upon more sober reﬂection, it is perhaps interesting that we were asked to play a game of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ instead of the more traditional ‘Charades.’ My thoughts on this have concluded three potential options. Perhaps my friend’s sister is a future pioneer of new games. Probably

unlikely. Maybe she thought that we wouldn’t be persuaded to leave our seats and engage in a game that involved movement. More likely, yet I’m sure after some gentle cajoling I could have been persuaded. However, after all my ruminations, one reason seems the most logical. She wanted to mimic a successful TV programme, and to be praised for her efforts. She wanted to achieve easy ‘fame.’ It is clear that for many, reality TV programmes are the televisual highlight of the week. Across the main two channels, BBC One and ITV 1,

27,120,000 people viewed some form of reality programme, ranging from ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!’ to ‘Strictly Come Dancing.’ These figures have only taken into account three reality TV programmes; there are a plethora of others which are viewed widely by the public. Shows like ‘The Only Way is Essex’, ‘Made in Chelsea’ and ‘Geordie Shore’ have a large fan base, shown by their effect on society. They are ‘water-cooler’ topics of conversation. They spawn vast swathes of merchandise, from t-shirts and scantily-clad cast calendars, to the promotion or creation of entire unique brands, such as the ‘Candy Kittens’ sweet shop of Jamie Laing. They’ve produced pop songs (the TOWIE cover of ‘Last Christmas’ is worth a YouTube if you fancy an autotuned source of procrastination) They have even impacted on our language, generating and popularising such terms as ‘well jeal’, ‘totes amaze’, and ‘schmazing.’ Much to my amusement, even my own Mum popped up to me on Facebook this term asking me to define the neologism, ‘reem.’

The fact that I knew what ‘reem’ meant, and Mum didn’t highlights two things. Number oneMum has better taste in TV than me, and I should really stop reading ‘heat’ and start reading some political philosophy. But number two is perhaps more pertinent. These programmes, particularly those of the ‘scripted reality’ type, are aimed at students, and 16-25 year olds. They are, arguably, our own generational soap operas. Think Eastenders or Corrie with a more veneered, plastic sheen. Yet, these the cast in these programmes differ from the characters in a soap. We are meant to want to be like them. Perhaps this is natural. I mean, when essay crisising, who wouldn’t rather be at a ‘totes schamazing pardy?’ These characters are portrayed as living the youthful dream; regular nights out, getting drunk, having nice holidays, having fun with their friends. Not many of us would turn this down. However, the way they earned this is artificial.

Their lifestyles are not products of their own efforts and talent. It is simply due to their inclusion on the programme; they have been contracted to appear in nightclubs, and are made to follow a pre-prepared script. Whilst programmes like the X Factor have their huge ﬂaws, their redeeming feature is that they are actively promoting a talent. You cannot progress very far if you are not able to sing (certain exceptions aside… although I do regard Jedward as a guilty pleasure. I feel your judgement.) However, in these ‘scripted reality’ programmes, you can become the favourite very quickly even if you do not have any distinguishable talent. Rather, it is sometimes sheer lack of talent which becomes your endearing feature. Take TOWIE’s Joey Essex. He, along with Kim Kardashian, seems to be society’s figurehead for easy fame. He has quickly become the star of the show, corresponding with the escalation of brand ‘Essex.’ Under this brand, every marketable angle is covered. He puts his name to his own boutique store, called ‘Fusey’, selling a range of ‘double, double reem’ clothing for both men and women. He has released both male and female fragrances, respectively entitled ‘Fusey’ and ‘My Girl.’ He fronts a range of ‘Joey Essex D’Reem’ haircare products. He has released his own pop song, unsurprisingly called ‘Reem.’ (Ear plugs advised.) He has appeared in adverts for Volvic mineral water, and he has his own calendar. I could go on. But the point is, what has he actually done to achieve this? Nothing. Apart from appear in TOWIE. He has no distinguishable talent. He doesn’t even seem to have common sense, as suggested by an exchange between himself and Rebecca Adlington, on yet another reality TV programme, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!, where he received lessons concerning telling the time on an analogue clock. And as TOWIE is part of the whole ‘scripted reality’ genre, dialogue is often written for him. The role of people like Joey in these programmes is simply to be themselves. However, this is clearly intermittent. Sometimes they are not even allowed to do that. Their management has turned into more robotic versions of themselves. They are not people anymore. They are brand frontispieces. These people are not the brains behind their own brands. Behind the scenes, a whole nexus of people are working to further own their careers through the promotion of a chosen reality TV star. This is usually glaringly clear as soon as you see the 160 character Twitter biography of some of these stars. Look at Sam Faiers, again from TOWIE. We’re told to tweet ‘@Minniesboutique’, or e-mail her management if we want to book or contact her in an

official capacity. It is not her we deal with. It’s her ‘people.’ Yet the growing popularity of these programmes seems to worryingly mask this control for some, especially the lower age demographics. The principal target audience of these programmes is clear when analysing the Twitter followers of reality TV stars. Take Joey and Kim Kardashian. Of the 18,832,994 followers of Kim, and the 2,395,530 followers of Joey, the number of 16-25 year olds found is overwhelming. All of which receiving such life-enhancing musings as ‘Should I do long nails today?’ and ‘I love food.’ Fascinating. However, aside from them, it is clear that there appears to be a growing amount of younger and younger teens and tweens, all jostling for the affections of Kim and co. A quick Twitter search will yield ever increasing numbers of Twitter arguments between tween users from different ‘fandoms’ defending Kim’n’Joey types from ‘haters’, and increasingly, user-instigated fan sites supporting these people are being created by younger and younger people. This celebration of mediocrity contrasts with the recognition of genuinely talented people. Welsh rugby player, Leigh Halfpenny, placed second in BBC Sports Personality of the Year, only has 160,852 Twitter followers. Four-time Olympic medal winner, Rebecca Adlington OBE, only has 400,327. Winner of the 2013 Mercury Music Prize, James Blake, only has 157,627. This suggests a definite, even damaging, societal change. Not as drastic perhaps as the ’15 Million Merits’ episode of the satirical TV trilogy, Black Mirror, which suggests that achieving fame is the only way to have a life, (it’s worth a 4oD if you want to procrastinate) but certainly one to raise questions about our changing world. We are valuing mediocrity over talent. And in some situations, some young Average Joes (or Joeys) view reality TV shows as the only route to success. The results of a recent British survey conducted on childhood career aspirations are worrying, with the overwhelming outcome being the pursuit of ends that will bring fame or notoriety. It seems, due to the true millennium bug, the rise of reality TV, traditional aspirations seem to be on the wane. Values seem to be changing. From increasingly younger ages, people seem to be valuing vacuous image, being famous for being famous, glamour and having a large bank balance, rather than having intelligence, talent and personality.

Fiona Thomas 6

Photo Essay: Life at Pembroke College

A Dream of China: Reﬂections by the Water Town

My nights in Kunshan were restless, for in my dreams I walked. In the summer haze I would stir, reliving every friendly face, every Ming mansion, every glittering lake, every step of the way. I had set aside two glorious weeks to get away from Beijing, challenging myself to chart the sights of Jiangsu Province, southern China. Before I left, I was already too familiar with the trials of going it alone in China; I felt I could yet bear them all, with the promise that each day be another adventure. Arriving at the town the next morning, the gate proudly welcomed me to “Zhouzhuang – China’s Number One Water Town” (say “chow-chuang”). My cynicism sharpened by a year in China, I wanted look beyond the slogans and hype typical of tourist traps. I ignored stand after stand of schmaltzy silk prints and bubble teas; I was after something earthier. I had come south for the water, and there it lay; canals, green like the tenderest leaf. The willows that lined them hung down sagely, as the tourists strolled, vendors hollered, and boatsmen sang to their riders, punting across the web of water. Yet from the faux imperial décor, the clean, uniformed boatsmen, the standardized local souvenirs, and the inevitable Starbucks, it was clear the town had been commodified. Like much of old China, it has been kept representative of an ideal of the past, made palatable for big-city tourists seeking escape. But reality is never as neat as that, especially where there are people. There was a Zhouzhuang of townsfolk too, somewhat aloof from the visitors. My map directed me to a folk culture museum away from the canals, appropriately located among villagers’ homes. Here was a past no touristic packaging would ever recreate; a passed world of ritual. Little plaques explained the practices for marriage, Buddha’s birthday, crab harvests and more. Beside them little figures posed, forever echoing in clay abandoned local beliefs. Other, larger figures showed historical fishing methods, until at the exit you meet a tableau of cormorant fishing. Zhouzhuang being located on one of the many lakes in Jiangsu, it was not surprising when I stumbled on an elderly lady hanging out a net to dry out the morning’s catch of shrimp. I ventured a few words, but I could see she wanted to take her sheets in, and left her to it. I moved on. The baking summer heat necessitates the local architecture: whitewashed houses with small windows, topped by black roofs. It is said that the literati of imperial China thought this style the most perfect, for against its

simplicity can one best admire nature. Personally, I quite liked the anarchic resident who turned a vent on the side of his house into a leering tiger’s head. At this time of day, only a fool or a tourist was outside; through an open door I glanced into darkened rooms with grannies at the stove and children watching television. With age, the whitewash had faded, brick bared, paint peeling from the window frames. Perhaps the locals’ houses were shabbier than the cafés and restaurants in the town centre, but I could go to those anywhere else. To get a sense of a place, would it not

be more meaningful to sit with someone whose roots run generations deep there? Maybe that would be too sentimental. One cannot isolate the past or present, lest one romanticize, and forget how they shape one another. Contradictions are especially prominent in modern China, and it would be a shame to overlook them. Yet, the past is naturally fragile to later change, especially self-satisfied modernization. I tried to combine the two; on the excuse of researching the (fast disappearing) local Chinese dialects, I was looking for a villager to interview and record.

I confess I am not one for fish, but I had my aim, so I stopped at an old lady’s stall. Granny Zhang (say “chang”) was sitting behind her fish stand under a parasol, cleaning fish and swatting ﬂies. Her table was crammed with plastic buckets and plates of fish and shrimp, diversely fresh, salted, and battered, with a bottle of vinegar beside for extra tang. Compared with the succulent duck and candied pig trotters for sale at the waterfront, this was poor man’s fare; about £1 for a big helping of fish or 50p for a small one. She wore a loose cotton blouse and longish black shorts, her hair sensibly held back. The local lakes are famous for their pearls, and sure enough, she had

a necklace of her own, tucked in part under her blouse. Despite her age, she had a youthful demeanour; her hair had barely greyed, her skin had tanned like terracotta, and she showed me a full set of teeth as she beamed in welcome. My big curly hair and dark skin tend to surprise Chinese people, but she was unmoved. We introduced ourselves, revisiting the familiar waypoints of conversation that everyone always asks of each other (and especially of foreigners) in China: homeland, occupation, age etc. Having

turned twenty less than a fortnight ago, I got the predictable “you’re so young!” Granny Zhang was seventy-two herself, born and raised in Zhouzhuang. Any Chinese would know; her Mandarin was richly accented with glottal stops, voiced consonants, nasal vowels… a voice thick with lakebed silt. It can be a bit awkward to ask a stranger to let you record her voice, but my curiosity easily got the better of my shyness. The brief was to have the participant tell a story in his or her local dialect. She obliged me, though bemused as to why I should find her dialect interesting. As I held up my camera, she told me a bit about her life and Zhouzhuang, though she was not sure what to say. I could only grasp a few words; dialects are really unlike standard Mandarin. I had experienced before what her bemusement meant; other people I met before and after told me that they felt uncomfortable talking to me in their dialect because it made them feel uneducated. Discussing local cultureand history seemed worthless, and for one man brought up the spectre of the Cultural Revolution. Language, it seems, is another realm where the past and present meet in China; a myriad local tongues that diffused over time is being drowned out by the rising tide of Mandarin. Of course, a country as diverse as China needs a national lingua franca, but it is a shame that promoting Mandarin has left many people reluctant to express themselves without it. To record a little of this unseen world, therefore, was a goal for the road that I did not completely accomplish. Yet I did gain something just as valuable – an insight into a language and identity dilemma so many Chinese must bear. I put my camera away and thanked Granny Zhang. She chuckled as I tried to show her my appreciation by buying a carton of her little battered fish. I think she was content that we had got to know each other, but I thought it only proper, having troubled her. It was still only 1130, but there was still a lot to see before the last bus. Fish in hand, I headed back towards the canals, seeking a shaded seat whereat to eat. I ended up sitting beside the temple entrance and some souvenir stalls. Granny’s fare did not entirely change my mind about eating fish, but these were tasty, heads and all. I was aware of an uninvited entourage of stares and cameras, but I was long used to nosey passers by. I crunched on fish after fish, and drank from my water bottle. Full, I was content to have found my something earthy in Zhouzhuang. I let myself enjoy the rest of the day, and walked into the temple.

Oliver Bentley

Camels, Kidnappings & Wardrobe Catastrophes: The unlikely scrapes of a foreign misﬁt in Morsi’s Egypt

I wouldn’t attempt to summarise the scope of experiences, the range of social divides, the beauty, and the drama of one of the most tumultuous years in Egypt’s modern history. Instead, here are a couple of memories from my year abroad in Cairo, 2012-2013. The sputtering minibus grinds to a halt at an army checkpoint. I, the only non-Egyptian passenger, sink lower into my seat as an officer scrutinizes those inside. He gestures for the vehicle to pull over. Black boots scrunch over the sand and the officer appears at my window, inspecting my passport. ‘She can stay here. You come with me, lad,’ he tells my companion. Gulp. My fellow passengers and I are plunged into a strained silence. Choosing to keep my mouth buttoned rather than attempt an awkward joke, I focus my attention on reading a sign up ahead: ‘FOREIGNERS FORBIDDEN PAST THIS POINT.’ Ah, I see. What a shame, I think: after surviving the hair-raising early morning coach ride out of Cairo, the bus driver’s threat to kick me off for being on a non-foreigners’ coach

(unfounded, it transpired), the dramatic break-down on the desert highway, and the hours stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting for rescue from the capital, to finally reach the border with Sinai and be condemned to set out on foot back to Cairo and die somewhere en route, parched, sunburnt and alone… I just wanted to see the Red Sea… The passengers discuss the situation quietly amongst themselves, and I weave in and out of comprehending the brisk and hushed Arabic, as my companion, officer, and driver have a parallel conversation a short distance from the bus. Khaki-clad armed troops make their way around the checkpoint. A wave of guilt washes over

me at the trouble I’m causing. The attention I attract in Cairo keeps me constantly aware of my foreignness, but I realise now that I’ve never before felt ashamed of my ethnicity. I sit with a grimace on my face feeling slightly sorry for myself, but this is overpowered by a feeling that I am intruding here. The conversation outside stops and my companion reappears. ‘Well…?’ I ask nervously. My assumptions couldn’t have been more wrong. Quite the opposite of being the contempt of the army and the passengers, my being a foreigner is a call for increased care in crossing Sinai. Since the war with neighbouring Israel in 1967, this largely demilitarised borderland is more in the hands of the nomadic Bedouin people – the real masters of this harsh desert, mountain, and coastal terrain – than the constrained central powers. If the Bedouins want something from the government, a foreigner taken hostage makes a juicy piece of bait. The other passengers laugh at how the army will happily let Egyptians pass this checkpoint and launch into bandit country unprotected, but the thought of foreigners going missing makes government minister’s palms sweat: heaven forbid internal factions cause international problems. The criminals know this all too well, and they can get away with a high ransom on a foreign head. For that reason, I will be escorted to the Rea Sea coast by a convoy of army vehicles: my pasty skin has never been so valued. We move out, a gunpowder sandwich of army trucks, squaddies squatting in the back with their riﬂes resting on their haunches, and our dinky minibus bouncing along in the middle. The best way to get around Sinai? At the time it seemed so. A week later, though, I had a different answer. Staying on the shores of the Red Sea with an ex-city dweller who has now integrated with the Bedouins, I discover by example that befriending this community is not only a fast pass to immunity whilst travelling (who can snatch you if you’re already in a Bedouin’s vehicle?), but it is also the best way to learn the truth about the land. They are a toughened, insightful people who will coolly share their knowledge, resources, and time with you; they showed me how to camel-ride, fish, identify desert herbs for tea, trek Mount Sinai, while away the long hours of the starry night by a campfire, and be in harmony with my surroundings. I struggle to think of these people as the faces behind the kidnappers’ masks plastered throughout Western

The event doesn’t disappoint for important figures, and we sit on the back row as the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mosque (think Archbishop of Canterbury) conducts proceedings. After a remarkably brief and informal ceremony, I’m taken by the elbow and instructed to congratulate the father of the bride. I rehearse the set phrase of congratulations in my head, as I shufﬂe forwards in the queue to meet him. When my turn comes, I blurt out my words in clumsy Arabic. The portly, highly decorated army General is either unhesitatingly generous – a prime example of Arab hospitality – or charmed by this curious foreign girl’s efforts. I settle for the former as the beaming gent welcomes me profusely, and, spreading his arms wide, invites me and my friends to the wedding reception party, to be held a week later. Afterwards, my Egyptian friend beckons me over. newspapers. Popular religious culture, like the Press, tends to print matters in black and white, and many Egyptians tell me that the southern Bedouins are ‘Good People’, whilst those in the north are ‘Bad’. I’ll steer clear of such classifications, and simply say that while lack of security forces and tensions with the government have certainly had grievous consequences closer to the Israeli border, in the peaceful south, you haven’t seen Sinai if you haven’t seen it through the eyes of a Bedouin.

‘See that gentleman who was with the general when you talked to him?’ he asks, gesturing towards a wiry, older man. ‘That’s General Tantawi. He’s the Field Marshal who was de facto head of state after the revolution last year: he basically ran the country after Mubarak went’.

It isn’t hard to land yourself in absurd situations as a foreigner in Egypt, and after only a couple of weeks since my run-in with the army in Sinai, I find myself in another military-related jam. Back in Cairo, a friend invites some other Oxford friends and me to his sister’s wedding. His father is a general of high rank (who was later appointed the new Governor of Luxor after the ousting of the President in July 2013), and we soon start to fret over what to wear to an Islamic wedding packed with affluent guests. With only the vague wardrobe guidance of a male friend to go on (no cultural difference here), we spend the week before the wedding deliberating, and trawling the markets to find what we decide are some very authentic, full length black garbs – complete with sparkly collars. After an uproarious half hour pinning each other into hideous headscarf-affairs on the day, we waddle out of our flat to our friend’s car. He flinches visibly as three black monstrosities tumble backwards into his car and land in an undignified pile on the backseat. ‘Ah! You look ...’ he splutters, trying to find the words ‘… that’s not quite what I was anticipating...’ ‘WHAT?’ we roar in unison. It transpires that most people will be wearing very casual clothing. We use the journey for emergency alterations, throwing hoodies over our spangled black tents, to end up looking something like Islamic skater girls, and with some final reassurance to each other (‘honestly don’t worry, you look totally normal’), we hold our breath and traipse self-consciously into the bright and crowded mosque.

I recoil into my glorified bin-liner in horror. ‘But I think I ﬂuffed my lines!’

Imogen Faux

Tractatus Pugilistico-Philosophicus

Wittgenstein once said that a philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never enters the ring. He was surely onto something. Philosophy is, at bottom, an oral tradition. The rivers of ink spilt in sacrifice to its quandaries belie the fact that the discipline is indispensably nourished by conversation. But how true is the inverse of Wittgenstein’s simile? To what extent is the philosopher who does participate in discussion comparable to the boxer who dons gloves and steps into the ring to fight? The comparison is, at first, liable to seem odd. The worlds of philosophy and boxing could hardly appear more disparate. The lofty, armchair abstractions of the philosophical world seem about as remote as you can get from the concrete realities of the boxing ring: the testosterone-saturated blood, sweat and spit ﬂung around in a fury of blows to body and brain. As it happens, these disparate worlds had a remarkable meeting in the late eighties, in the form of an encounter between two of their most notable figures. The philosopher was Oxford’s Alfred Jules ‘Freddie’ Ayer. The pugilist was Michael Gerard ‘Iron Mike’ Tyson. The unlikely encounter took place in 1987 at a fashionable party in New York. The philosopher, who had published his iconoclastic classic Language, Truth and Logic when he was younger than I am now, was seventy-seven at the time and in the last year or so of his life. The fighter, on the other hand, was just twenty-one, and the seemingly unstoppable series of knock-out victories that constituted his professional career to date had recently culminated in his becoming the youngest person in history to win the heavyweight championship. The philosopher, the story goes, was regaling a group of guests when a woman dashed over saying that her friend was in distress in one of the bedrooms. Ayer went to investigate and discovered a young British model called Naomi Campbell receiving unwanted attention from – you guessed it – Mike Tyson. Ayer ordered Tyson to leave Campbell alone. “Do you know who the fuck I am?” Tyson replied. “I’m the heavyweight champion of the world!” “And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford,” countered Ayer, unﬂustered. “We are both pre-eminent in our field; I suggest we talk about this like rational men.” Talk they did, and as they discussed the matter Campbell slipped out.

On first hearing, perhaps, this remarkable story seems only to bring into sharper relief the distance between the worlds these men respectively represent. Ayer seems the paragon of reasonableness and calm against Tyson’s pugnacity. But I suspect that, on the contrary, much of the anecdote’s appeal lies in the fact that Ayer plays the hero with the courage to ‘keep cool/ And deal out the old right hook/ To dirty dogs twice [his] size’, as Philip Larkin put it. Granted, the philosopher’s gallant put-down is not the kind of right hook with which

the villain is familiar, but somehow that seems only to make the conquest even better. Iron Mike, by the way, was very likely twice Ayer’s size and most certainly a dirty dog. I’m reminded, when considering the former heavyweight champ, of Samuel Johnson’s aphorism about ‘he who makes a beast of himself’. For one can think of few in the public eye more bestial than Tyson – the ear-biting, drug-addled rapist, domestic abuser and inveterate misogynist whose quotable remarks include, concerning adversary Lennox Lewis, ‘I want to eat his children.’ (Incidentally, while Pembroke’s illustrious alumnus may have been right that he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man, Tyson’s life has been wretched enough to attest to the fact that the beast suffers abject pains of his own.) When, with all the hubris of his physical prowess, Tyson squares up to Ayer – this English geriatric who has dared to challenge him – he finds himself indeed drawn into the ring; but the ring is quite foreign to him. In this ring, where contenders discuss matters ‘like rational men’, combination punches are replaced by cogent arguments, good footwork replaced by articulacy, the curse of a glass jaw replaced by a propensity to commit fallacies, and knockout victory replaced by conclusive refutation. Alas, the details of Tyson and Ayer’s discussion seem to have been lost, but I’d guess that, in the ring with Ayer, Tyson would have resembled many of his own adversaries – swinging ineffectually, desperately outmatched. If Tyson and Ayer’s encounter can be thought of as an extramural bout, then we needn’t look far to find examples of intramural bouts between philosophers. For some of Wittgenstein’s own philosophical conversations are noted for having been unusually pugilistic. One example springs especially to mind, if you’ll forgive another anecdote. The conversation in question is now firmly legend and in fact the subject of a best-selling book, Wittgenstein’s Poker. It took place at a meeting of the Moral Sciences Club in Cambridge in 1946. Wittgenstein’s interlocutor was the distinguished visiting lecturer and fellow Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper, who was in Cambridge to deliver a paper entitled ‘Are there philosophical problems?’ – a question on which the two men staunchly disagreed. Accounts of the cerebral prize-fight that ensued differ, but it is generally understood that in the course of vehemently espousing his views on the nature of philosophy Wittgenstein began irascibly gesticulating at Popper with a poker. According to Popper, the discussion turned to the status of ethics, and Wittgenstein challenged him to give an example of a moral imperative: Popper dryly answered, ‘Not to threaten visiting lecturers with pokers’, at which Wittgenstein, incensed, stormed out. Hyperbolic rumours were soon circulating that Popper and Wittgenstein had entered into full-blown combat, armed with fire irons. This juicy episode is, of course, a rather extreme example. (You may have caught an even more philosophical discussion according to this metaphor extreme one in the news earlier this year:

in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don a dispute between two men concerning the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant descended into a vicious fight that ended with one of the men shooting the other in the head with rubber bullets!) Extreme examples, though, often betray something about the norm. The fact is that the model of combat is utterly central to our intuitive conception of what it is to engage in philosophical debate. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, in their book Metaphors We Live By, call this model the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor. They illustrate how pervasive this metaphor is in the way we talk about argument and debate: we speak, for example, of claims being defensible or indefensible, of having one’s view attacked, of countering the arguments of one’s opponent or of having one’s arguments shot down; most simply, we speak of winning and losing arguments. We even speak, in direct allusion to the boxing ring, of fighting one’s corner in a debate. Idioms like these betoken a conception of philosophical argument as an essentially adversarial activity. The comparison between the discussant philosopher and the fighting boxer is quite in keeping with this. But should we think of, and indeed conduct, philosophical discussion according to this metaphor? One could readily spend a DPhil thesis addressing that question; but let me brieﬂy hazard an opinion. There is nothing wrong with a considerable measure of adversariality in discussion. One of the best methods for assessing the merits of your view is to have it subjected to the assaults of an interlocutor trying to prove you wrong. Such attacks hold you to high standards of justification and rigour; they combat lazy reasoning and prejudice. But the adversarial approach to discussion is, we must remember, a mere expedient to the collaborative pursuit of truth. Unlike the boxing match, the ultimate goal of the philosophical discussion is not to defeat to one’s opponent, but to find the right answers.

Michael Price

Origami I spent my time at school learning the art of getting by, And how to fold myself into Smaller pieces. I was crafty with my hands, Folding tiny origami statues And I folded myself Into a sharp-edged paper sculpture, Smaller and smaller Until even the skin on my sides Crawled between my ribs To give my lungs space to breathe. Art is good for the soul they say Tell that to the toilet bowl: My Oesophagus is so filled with acid That my ‘I love you’ s Leave scorch marks on the skin Of those I love the most. I transformed blank paper into art, But I could not smooth out the lines That had been folded over and over. I could not unfold

Anonymous

Why J.R.R. Tolkien Is Important to Pembroke College I am a passionate literary fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. I started by watching the great motion picture trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, in 2001. Inspired, I turned to the books, and was blown away by their beauty, fantasy, and sense of reality. Next, I happily immersed myself in the history and mythology of Tolkien’s world, presented in his posthumously published works The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-Earth. Needless to say, Tolkien is one of my favourite authors and his long relationship with the University of Oxford was a major reason for my decision to apply here. Tolkien had a particularly long relationship with Pembroke College, so I was extremely excited to join the college. I expected to find the college celebrating this relationship with something permanent; however, I was mistaken. The college does not yet have a plaque outside the door to his old office, and Pembroke’s library does not even contain a single book written, translated, or edited, by Tolkien! J.R.R. Tolkien was born in South Africa at the end of the nineteenth century, and moved with his family to England in 1895, at the age of three. Tolkien matriculated into Exeter College, Oxford, in 1911, studying Classics, and later English Language and Literature, with a concentration in Old Norse. After achieving his First Class Honours in 1915, he joined the British Army to fight in World War I as a signals officer. Horrified by what he saw in the Great War, Tolkien also became ill with Trench Fever. Following his recovery in 1918, Tolkien worked as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary until he accepted a post at the University of Leeds in 1920. In 1925, Tolkien returned to Oxford where he was elected as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a Fellowship at Pembroke College. He would spend the next twenty years at Pembroke, during which time he would write The Hobbit (the prequel to The Lord of the Rings), most of The Lord of the Rings (it was begun in 1937 and mostly finished by 1947), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and some of the background history and mythology of The Lord of the Rings which would later feature in The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-Earth. In 1945, he moved to Merton College, where he would spend the remainder of his academic life, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature. Besides his large amount of fictional writings, Tolkien also wrote numerous academic works, such as A Middle English Dictionary, a coedited translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and several journal articles and lectures. Tolkien’s impact on literature has been profound. While he wrote The Lord of the Rings to ‘give England her own myth,’ the work itself became so much more. It revolutionised Fantasy Fiction and inspired most authors of this genre since its publication in the 1950s. The common themes of a dark enemy bringing about an apocalypse, friendship conquering fear (or love conquering hate), and characters embarking on an epic journey to accomplish an impossible goal have been staples of fantasy literature due to Tolkien, who took these elements from older texts, and popularised them. He has been appropriately labelled the ‘Father of Modern Fantasy.’ Below, I describe another two of Tolkien’s themes. Tolkien demonstrated a fascination for nature and distaste for industrialisation, which pervades his fiction. Tolkien’s main works concentrated on the countryside-loving hobbits and the forest-loving elves. In The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn, the leader of a wandering band of men who live in

the wilderness, is shown to have the virtue to resist the ring, while Boromir, the heir to lordship of the capital city of western men, was unable to do this, perhaps due to the vices he gained from living in the city. Two other characters from this story, Gandalf and Saruman, wizards who were sent to stop the evil Sauron, also demonstrate this stark contrast. Gandalf was a wanderer, who did not corrupt nature, and tirelessly worked towards his goals. Saruman settled in the abandoned city of Isengard (which he then filled with men, orcs, and wolves), and became corrupted by his desire for the ring; he would eventually destroy the forest around him, dam the river near him, and heavily industrialise his dwelling. Gandalf left the hobbits, Merry and Pippen, with the tree-herding Ents, whose beloved trees had been destroyed by Saruman, because he knew that they would instigate the Ents to help subdue Isengard. Thus, Gandalf worked with nature, through the hobbits, to overcome Saruman and his evil industrialisation.

Perhaps the greatest example of Tolkien’s love for the countryside can be seen in a chapter of The Lord of the Rings not shown in the movies, ‘The Scouring of the Shire.’ In this chapter, the hobbits returned home to the Shire to find their idyllic community corrupted by Saruman’s industrialisation. They found their perfect woodlands destroyed, farmlands ruined, and their air polluted. It was only through great effort, and elven magic, that the Shire was eventually restored. These two themes – the destruction of life and the celebration of nature – are also used heavily in fantasy works after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. In view of all of these accomplishments of a former fellow of Pembroke College, I believe that we should permanently celebrate him in some form, and that we should begin with the library accepting Tolkien’s books into its collection. Upon my arrival at Pembroke, one of my first actions was to look for Tolkien’s works at the college library. After searching by hand for an hour, I could find nothing of Tolkien’s published works. When I questioned the librarian on their absence, she informed me that the library did not contain any of Tolkien’s books, and while they accepted donations, they would not accept any fictional works. This response upset me for many reasons, but two in particular. First, Tolkien had several non-fiction academic works, such as the Middle English Dictionary and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which were suitable to be included. Second, the library contains several fiction books, including Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials. While I believe that the library should make an exception for Tolkien, I am happy to see that progress has recently been made to honour Tolkien in other areas of the college. In 2013, members of the college began a new lecture series titled The Pembroke Lecture on Fantasy Literature in Honour of J.R.R. Tolkien (more information at http://fantasylecture. wordpress.com). This lecture series will serve to discuss the history and current state of fantasy literature, especially Tolkien’s role in shaping contemporary and modern fantasy. In addition, the college has approved plans to construct a plaque outside of Tolkien’s office door, designed by Tolkien’s grand-nephew Tim Tolkien! I am hopeful that there will soon be some of Tolkien’s books in the Pembroke library as well.

John Trischler

Poetry

Would I, in beamy black, frame daintiest lustre mix’t of shades and light? I am a seismograph registering our heartbeats black and white still, preserves negatives of life in colour I can’t write in fresh, ﬂushed blood It dries to black, here emblazoned charred marks of what were detonations. They are prints, then, leading to a scanty plot of ashes on a smooth, white pillow where once you burned, asleep. At least, again, I can hold you between the covers.

For Him & For Her I am trying to get a sense of you But my image keeps popping into racing-heart fragments I know you are of scattered rose-petals On a shattered-mirror pond But what about this sense of “form” and “structure” and “symmetry” and “adorable”. N’aww. It is, sometimes, The silliest things which are hardest to grasp Anyone can say “I love you” But I don’t feel the need to mention love Just to paint a sky of stars and signs for us to see And to hear you breathe, quietly Like a petal, shimmering On the surface of who I am.

James Waddell

Refresh The first love letter may have been etched into stone. It might have been tucked beneath a veiny autumn leaf that crinkled under the pitter-patter of bare feet, and for days it might have rolled across the forest ﬂoor until it reached the curious hands of a wandering soul. It must have been carved with thought and intent: fingers gripping tool, pressed against the hard, cold rock. Permanent marks, permanent scars of an open, gaping heart. How different it is now! How ﬂeeting and incomplete -to tap away at empty squares, glaring words on a screen (backspace, erase, copy & paste) A click and drag of pixelated dots trapped within glowing boxes, sent across wires that connect my box to your box, my screen to your screen, my heart to your heart. As we sit and compose in our air-conditioned rooms, the clacking keys are a ghostly echo of the crispy crunch of fall.

Julianna Ko

Church School He greeted every one of us, As we climbed the stairs to Our Lady of Hall Church In a neat crocodile of green and white checked dresses: “Be good now.” “God Bless.” “Keep up the good work.” The incense made me cough. “Try to be good”, He said to me, A knowing twinkle in his eye As I scuffed my stiff new start-rights against the stone. They took him away a few years later because of a choir boy. I always thought Our Lady of Hall Sounded too much like Our Lady of Hell.

Anonymous

Love Like This... With awe you’ve looked at scarlet sky, lilies on lakes and daft mistakes the more you took the time to try to love the friend that baked you cakes, the more you missed their sweetest taste: daily beauty destroyed by haste. There’s love that tires for a friend, love on which we might “depend” love in romance, deep affection, passion, smiles and false perfection, love that shows through great devotion: what an array of human emotion! Love must suffer, it’s stronger than pain love was crushed in order to reign. Who is this king whom thorns beﬁt? What love looks up at shame and spit? a king that hangs on bloody beam a love mysterious, love extreme To what long lengths our God would go, sweating with fear to mercy show, for at twelve noon the daylight dies anguish, torment, desperate cries. Into his side we plunge a spear the Father furious the earth trembles with fear. He rose victorious, Prince of Peace us from dungeons to release: behold the cross, the Creator’s kiss his gift to you is love like this.

Simon Posner

Tucker Cholvin 20

Interview with the Master: Dame Lynne Brindley As of Michaelmas 2013, students of Pembroke College were greeted by a new Master. With Giles Henderson leaving and the New Build fully completed and operational, a new period for the College was ushered in with the arrival of Dame Lynne Brindley, formerly employed by the British Library as CEO and honoured for her services to higher education. The Bullfrog had the chance to meet Lynne, to introduce students and alumni to the delightful new Master and help us learn more about her past, and her vision for the future of Pembroke.

very glad that the New Build at Pembroke had been so successfully completed. But I had to make the British Library come alive with lots of programmes and exhibitions and bring in a lot of technology. The curators at the British Library, who were often the best in the world in their own disciplines, are very similar in their culture and passion for their subject as fellows, so I am very familiar

Bullfrog: What was it that led you to Pembroke, and why is it special? Lynne: The first thing to say is that I wasn’t really looking for something, I was very content doing a range of things just after I stepped down from the British Library, and then the head-hunters came, and said ‘Pembroke is a lovely college’, would you be interested? We talked and they persuaded me to come to Pembroke and meet people here, and the possibility of joining the College grew on me. When you come to Pembroke and meet people you actually do get what I think is the spirit of the College, which I think is an extraordinarily friendly and positive community. B: That’s very true. L: I think it’s a very precious community. The recruitment process was quite long and complex and I was of course delighted to have been elected as Master, so that’s how it happened. B: What do you think makes Pembroke extraordinary? L: Do you know about tag clouds? We were doing some work on our website and created a tag cloud which I thought described the College well as a friendly, cohesive community; very academic, with strong access, JCR, MCR, and a very engaged community. People talk about me not as ‘Master’ but by my Christian name and for Giles they did the same. So I think it is about the engaged community, the wonderful students who want to do good and be purposeful. Then there is an excellent fellowship, with good collegiality. I think the relationships across the College shows everyone is committed to making Pembroke special and welcoming. B: Would you say that the role that you’re performing is very different to the one at the British Library? L: Yes, it is completely different in scale. I was CEO there for twelve years. The British Library was huge, with two main locations; one was the ﬂagship in London, and the other a huge site of fifty to sixty acres in Yorkshire, which was our back office and a big storage and retrieval facility, so I had about 2500 members of staff. I had a lot of dealings with Ministers and was running a very large organisation, trying to change and modernise it and bring new services and exhibitions to the public. In that period I didn’t have to deal with the building, as that’s not my great passion or expertise, so I was

with the academic culture. Before the British Library I held senior positions at Leeds University and the London School of Economics, so I was quite familiar with the academic world and aspirations - so a significant difference in scale but some similarities of culture. B: You mentioned Pembroke and the buildings, so what would your vision be for Pembroke going forward? L: I see the new development as a wonderful opportunity, and I see the opportunity in terms now of a refreshed academic vision. We now have a lovely college physically, new facilities which we can exploit, and the opportunity then is to build on all of that, to create an even more vibrant intellectual environment, and of course to keep all the other things – the community, the access, and the great students and sport and all of those things, but my priority really is to make Pembroke more visible and extraordinary in terms of its academic research success. B: Do you think that the amount of money received from alumni for the New Build shows how much love people have for Pembroke, even after leaving? L: I agree, I absolutely agree. That sentiment goes for

generations, and they want to give something back to their college. I have been encouraged by all the alumni I have met: they want us to go on and do more. The buildings yes, a little pause, then we’re on again with the next stage of our vision. So I think that’s why I am here and that’s what my job is going to be. It is important that we can get the most out of the New Build for academic purposes and indeed for cultural purposes, but also of course it enables us to develop our conference business out of term, so that we will have a good income stream coming in as well, again to support the core activities. B: How did you enjoy your university experience and is there any advice you have for undergraduates here? L: I think the pressures on you are greater nowadays, with people having more concerns about getting jobs. In my time we didn’t even think of jobs, as less than 10% of the eligible population went to university, and it was a very different economic time. Your time at Pembroke will go quickly – and for most of you it won’t come around again, so make the most of everything, learn about yourself, try to do as much as you can without neglecting your studies – your academic work is at the core, you have to do well, and you have the opportunity to focus deeply on the subject you are passionate about. B: Do you think a strong link between yourself and the students already exists, and did you feel that when you arrived? L: Well as you know I am very new, but I feel as if I have

L: We are a ‘hidden jewel’ as a College, particularly in terms of location. Everybody says ‘Pembroke, oh that’s opposite Christ Church’; that’s quite a useful direction but it’s not how we want to be described. Part of my role is to be out and about, saying a bit more about Pembroke, say much more about it on our website, which we are busy revamping as it’s rather old fashioned…that’s a courteous word about it [at the time of print, the website has begun to be revamped – Editor]. I’m about communicating more up to date messages about Pembroke. I have a lot of experience of doing that at the British Library. B: What do you enjoy doing in your free time? L: I think I should say very clearly there isn’t much free time here! Well maybe that’s because I am new, but in term time we are all pretty frantic. But I am a pianist, and I do play the grand piano in the lodgings - it’s the first time in my life I’ve had a grand piano in my living room. I walk quite a lot, as I’m from Cornwall, so I walk the Cornish coast path a fair bit, and I collect ceramics. B: Are you happy in the Master’s lodgings? L: The public rooms are very grand – it’s marvellous. I think the challenge is our private rooms are scattered, so the real danger is if you forget something from the bedroom, and if you’re in the kitchen, which is the other end of the house, you have a lot of exercise running between the rooms! So we haven’t quite settled in yet. B: How do you feel about the Access scheme?

empathy with the students. In early October I met the freshers and their proud parents who came on the first day of Fresher’s week. I was so impressed with our second years in their pink t-shirts, welcoming nervous students, calming parents…it’s so impressive, I had several emails about how good you all were and how it was a relief to parents and students alike. These are in themselves quite small touches, but are examples of a thoughtful and great student body. B: Do you think that Pembroke has a big appeal outside of Oxford?

L: Well I am a passionate supporter; it’s quite strong in everyone’s minds. In my first week here I shadowed the Access Summer School. It was extraordinary – the energy, the fantastic kids. What’s important to me is that everyone who can benefit can come to a place like this, so I think the scheme is unique – it’s very, very special. The fact we have an Access Fellow and that our students get involved, and that we don’t just do a week, it’s much deeper by going into the schools and the hubs - I think it’s a model for Oxford. That’s something else we should be really proud of, and continue with, because we have to make more effort to support people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The idea of raising aspirations is that we’d love to get them to Pembroke, to Oxford, but we want to raise their aspirations to get to a really good university so they can really do well. The Pembroke Bullfrog would like to thank Dame Lynne for taking the time to speak to us, and for the informative answers.

Words: Adam Lowe and Emily Frazier 22

Photography: Dyedra Just

Good Hack, Bad Hack

Oxford and winter make beautiful bedfellows. Frost adorns every cobbled side street, the number of festive jumpers on show (no longer confined to kooky arts students) rockets, and Christmas lights emerge to illuminate the streets for the city’s many insomniacs. All is not well, however. During this period, otherwise-content Oxonians must endure the tedium of not one but two student elections. OUSU and the Union both implore us to vote in their plebiscites; the former relying on an unending stream of patronising ‘hey guys, get involved by VOTING!’ emails and super-mega enthusiastic doorknockers parroting the word ‘change’, the latter charging you at least £200 for the right to decide which individuals get to play at politics like the big grown-ups do, ‘cept without any of the decisions or consequences or stuff like that. Little wonder then that turnout for both is lamentably low, despite the best efforts of the hacks.

Ahhh, hacks. How to describe a ‘hack’ to the diminishing number of friends you have that do not reside under our dreaming spires? What attributes isolate these boys and girls, elevate them far beyond the dreariness of everyday life to an existence that the majority of us could only ever fantasise of? More pertinently, why are they so disliked? Even the word hack brings with it nothing but negative associations. In the same way that the men in suits who work for those companies like Lloyds and RBS now cower behind the title of ‘fiscal assistants’ in the hope of dodging the stigma attached with the ‘b’ word, any self-respecting hack (oxymoron – in more ways than one) would deny the undeniable, aware of the dishonour tied with the term. So far, I have tried to demonstrate (not too unsuccessfully, I’d like to think, although feedback is welcomed) that I don’t like it when people are involved with hacking. ‘Hacks’ themselves are not to be unreservedly condemned; one would hope that this side is a small part of them and that – like bedwetting and thumbsucking – they’ll grow out of it eventually. To twist an old Christian saying, ‘hate the hacking, love the hack’. You, like virtually every other student, probably don’t like hacking either – but this is hardly revolutionary stuff. There is a more important point to be made; one that is made in every single Fresher’s pack ever dutifully produced. OUSU and the Oxford Union are not the same – and

neither, therefore, are their hacks. Of course, there are similarities. Both rely on ‘slates’ – a system in which hacks ‘chum up’ and invite you to vote for those you have never spoken to, seen, or even been aware of their existence on the space-time continuum, purely because the person talking at you heartily declares ‘they’re really nice, honestly’ – despite them knowing as little about these individuals as you do. Both packs of hacks (nice term, accidentally stumbled across it just then) do clearly enjoy self-promotion, and most hacks bizarrely see themselves as being a wo/man of the people, able to assimilate into any conversation in any social group. Yet there is still an important distinction between Oxford Union and OUSU hacks, and it is one that relates to objectives. Individuals running for OUSU may be looking to bolster their CV and bathe in the limelight for a couple of minutes, but they’re also running for an institution that – however unsuccessful it may seem – aims to improve the lives of every Oxford student. Whatever OUSU is about (and most students would struggle to tell you), hacking certainly isn’t its central feature. Contrast this with the Union, which revolves around students trying to establish tenuous links with one another in order to try and secure their spot on some meaningless committee, so then next term they can try and forge some more ties with other clones and get elected onto the next redundant committee and so on and so forth. It encourages – nay, demands! – hacking, and all with no meaningful aim; instead, hacks seek to make a name for themselves amongst the miniscule gaggle of Union zealots. It is hacking for the sake of hacking, and for this reason Union hacking deserves that extra bit of dislike. There are hacks. Hacking is bad. The Oxford Union has lots of hacks. OUSU has some as well. Union hacks should be held in a slightly lower regard, due to the sheer pointlessness of what they’re trying to ‘achieve’. An irritating shallow conclusion – but this is very much in line with the subject being discussed. Oh, and before anyone accuses me of being hackist, some of my best friends are hacks. (OK, they’re not.)

Anonymous - This piece was penned in the cold Michaelmas Term, which may explain the winter references

Oxford isn’t the real World: Except, of course, it is.

Those of you who have spent any time in Africa may well have come across the acronym T.I.A – possibly said in exasperation during a power cut, when a road has disintegrated into a dangerous mud track after a rain shower or as a result of some other equally frustrating inconvenience. However, you deal with it because, T.I.A – This is Africa. Now, I must admit that I often, internally, have my T.I.O. moments. Nowhere else would I think it was par for the course to meet people who are genuinely shocked I didn’t do GCSE Latin, who think Access ‘is something to do with charity’ or who complain that their band D room is too small and that it’s ceilings are too low. There is even a Facebook page dedicated to the belief that ‘Oxford is not part of the real world’. I might be on a hiding to nothing here but I’m going to try and explain a few of the reasons that I think Oxford is more normal than you might think at first glance.

It would only take one Google search to find hundreds of people who believe that Oxford is full of very posh, very unfriendly individuals, all of whom have no concept of the value of money and no idea how to mix with the average member of society. However, I’ve actually met a very diverse range of people here – probably more so than I did at my Bristol state school. Also, student life is a great leveller. Those who are accustomed to a more privileged lifestyle will probably find themselves on a more limited budget, and will certainly find themselves doing their own laundry. I can’t pretend not to have met plenty of people who have experienced true privilege but I don’t think that means Oxford fails to represent the real world. The reality is that on a global scale, almost everyone in the UK is very well off, and we’d never argue the UK isn’t the real world. We’re often mocked at Oxford for the ancient rules we still adhere to. Even the Tabs have dropped sub-fusc from exams – so why does Oxford insist on sticking with all its traditions? Some would argue this shows that we’re totally removed from the rest of the world. Certainly matriculation and formal hall are not customs practiced at most universities, but they are very inclusive; everyone takes part and most people enjoy them. Moreover, every place has its own idiosyncrasies – Oxford is not unique in that, it’s just that our customs are older. There is nothing other worldly about having traditions that are unique: it makes Oxford special but it doesn’t leave us disconnected from reality. The media loves to highlight the latest scandal at Ox-

ford; whether the story involves the Student Union, the Bullingdon Club or Park Ends latest victim, the press rarely miss a chance to ‘Oxford bash’. The reality, of course, is that the majority of students in Oxford have never come across a Bullingdon member. Even so the club is enjoying a particularly high profile at the moment because David Cameron, Boris Johnson and George Osborne were all members. When the press run such pieces, everyone involved in Access work must be immensely frustrated. A lot could be said about that, but it’s probably enough to point out that the media’s obsession with the organisation is totally disconnected with the reality of Oxford life. The Union similarly enjoys a lot of media attention. Again I would argue that most students, while they may be members, barely associate at with these scandals. Before the recent elections, most people expressed total apathy as to who got a position. The reality is that most Oxonians lead fairly similar lives to those at other universities. The most significant way in which people tend to think of Oxford as being other worldly is surely our academic reputation. We all know we’re the best university in this country and consistently make the top 5 globally. It’s rare for students to have the same workload we do, and certainly a privilege to be able to study a subject you love – hopefully – in depth for three or four years. Yet this doesn’t necessarily make the Oxford experience entirely different to the average university experience. Rather, it means that the Oxford experience is one we should be grateful for, but not one that means we are alien from everyone else. It seems to me that we should therefore say that Oxford is not totally unlike other universities, and unlike the normal student experience, but is the most academically challenging version of it. II think I speak for most of us when I say that I love Oxford’s idiosyncrasies, at least most of the time. Sometimes I am frustrated by the splurge of Facebook statuses in December as friends studying elsewhere near their first deadline of the year, or when I cannot escape rowing chat (I truly never wanted to know what an erg was). Despite this, for the most part, Oxford is not so unlike the rest of the world – and there’s no place I’d rather be.

Sarah Wilmshurst

Photography & Illustration: Sam Fabian

The Pembroke Bullfrog

Editor: Adam Lowe Sub-editors: Ben Southworth, Emily Frazier, Gabriel

Schenk, Jessica Lehmani Treasurer: Charlie Roberts Designer: Olivia Griffiths

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Where is your favourite place to eat in Oxford? Pierre Victoire

Front and Back Cover by Natalie Harney and Olivia Griffiths

Most anticipated moment of 2014? World Cup

Where is your favourite place to eat in Oxford? Is it tragic to say Pembroke Hall? It’s possible I only love it because I was never an undergraduate here, and so was never forced to eat in hall every day. Or perhaps I really do just love the food. It’s delicious!

What is the last film you saw? American Hustle

Who would be your ideal dinner companion? Jesus (for obvious reasons).

Charlie Roberts

Most anticipated moment of 2014? Finishing my thesis. If I can finish my thesis I will be happy.

Who would be your ideal dinner companion? Sir Alex Ferguson

Where is your favourite place to eat in Oxford? I recently ate out at Browns for the first time and the food was so good. Who would be your ideal dinner companion? Anyone who can make me laugh my immediate thought for a celebrity dinner companion along those lines was Oscar Wilde Favourite moment of 2013? Pembroke Ball! What is the last book you read? First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (part of the Thursday Next series); they’re very wacky and weird but I really enjoy them

What is the last book you read? I just read Jack Glass by Adam Roberts (who is visiting Pembroke next term to deliver the annual Tolkien lecture). And a fave quotation: ‘We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are’ – Andi Peters. Gabriel Schenk

Favourite quotation? “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live” Albus Dumbledore Jess Lehmani

Our Contributors: We would like to thank all our contributors for making this issue possible. If you would like to contribute to the next issue please contact bullfrog@pmb.ox.ac.uk Disclaimer: The views presented in this publications are the opinions of the named writers and do not represent the views of the college, JCR or MCR.

Alturnun Cottage

Details for booking the cottage: Mr. & Mrs. Dunley Rose Cottage Tanhay Lane Golant Near Fowey Cornwall PL23 1LD or telephone 01726 832807

Photo Essay: Travels in India Charlie Roberts