THE
OXFORDSTUDENT One step ahead since 1991
Volume 73 Issue 6
age
oxfordstudent.com
Sub-fusc referendum: it’s here to stay
Mad Men: the final episode »
Thursday 28th May 5th Week
OXII Page 12
»
Page 3
THE OXSTU GUIDE TO OXFORD BNOCS 2014-15: Read about student movers and shakers » Page 15
Oxford postgraduate sentenced to death by Egyptian government
• Graduate student Sondos Asem sentenced for association with Mohamed Morsi
JASMINE CHILESHE-CAMERON NEWS EDITOR
Jacqueline Gold
Interview with the Chief Executive of Gold Group International on Page 13 Photo: Roger Askew
Students throughout the university have expressed their outrage at the death sentence granted to Oxford student Sondos Asem in Egypt. The 28 year old researcher and graduate student Sondos Asem is studying at the Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government and is a member of the Freedom and Justice party. Asem was sentenced to death in absentia on Saturday 16th May in Egypt after being charged with espionage and conspiring with the Palestinian movement Hamas, in relation to her position as the International Media Co-Ordinator for the former Egyptian President Morsi. Mohamed Morsi, alongside his former aides and scholars such as Emad Shahin, have also been sentenced to the death penalty although Asem is the only female charged. In occurrence
with Egyptian law, this preliminary sentence will be sent to the Grand Multi for approval. Students from across the university have since expressed their solidarity with Asem and defended her against the accusations of the government. On 22nd May, current MPP and DPhil students at The Blavatnik School of Government voiced their concerns on the departmental website. The 78 students from 51 countries affirmed their solidarity for their friend. The students posted: “We are appalled to hear that Sondos is being prosecuted for simply doing her job as a Foreign Media Co-ordinator in the office of a democratically elected president. “Sondos is as passionate and committed to the principles of public service as any of us. Whether it is lending an ear to friends, debating philosophy, praying together, or playing football with Continued on page 5 »
Study drugs can kill, warn Oxford University medical professionals • Students warned of the health risks of taking modafinil, adderrall, and ritalin without a doctor’s prescription
LUKE MINTZ EDITOR
Oxford students were given a serious warning this week against using ‘study drugs’, with medical professionals claiming that such drugs can cause heart attacks and even death if taken without a doctor’s prescription. ‘Study drugs’, including modafinil, ritalin, and adderrall, have become increasingly popular among British students in recent years. It is expected that a significant number of Oxford finalist students are currently taking the drugs, which have the effect of boosting concentration for a long period of time, to prepare for their Trinity term exams. The drugs are illegal to purchase or consume without prescription, with most students ordering the ‘smart’ drugs il-
legally online. Phil Cowen, a Professor of Psychopharmacology at Oxford University’s Medical Sciences Division, told The Oxford Student that the increasingly popular study drugs are “not quite as safe as people may think”. Modafinil, Cowen warned, can be very dangerous for those with underlying heart conditions, and can prompt heart problems and even death, though such instances are very rare. The drug may also have the effect of reducing creativity. “With every drug,” Cowen commented, “there’s a risk-benefit trade off. No drug is trouble free.” Ritalin, another popular ‘smart’ drug, can have side effects of agitation, panic, paranoia and anxiety. Cowen said he would not recommend study drugs to students for health reasons, though he noted that young, generally
healthy undergraduates are not in a highrisk group. A spokesperson for Oxfordshire
“ There’s a riskbenefit trade off.
No drug is trouble free.
”
DAAT, a local drug and alcohol support service, voiced similar concern, telling The Oxford Student that “taking any medications not directly prescribed for you will always carry a risk and modafinil is no different. It is a drug which affects your sleep pattern over several days or weeks
meaning there will be consequences in the long term.” Several Oxford students are unaware of the potential health risks associated with study drugs. One third-year student who has taken modafinil a “handful of times” and did not wish to be named, commented: “I heard it was used to treat people with attention deficit disorder, and so assumed it was completely safe. If I’d known that taking it without a prescription or cardiogram test was dangerous I would have been a lot more wary.” Another student defended the use of study drugs, describing ritalin in particular as a “miracle” for when she “needs to get an essay done”. “It just keeps you completely focused,” she continued, “I normally waste so much time on Facebook and Buzzfeed when
I’m trying to work, but ritalin just helps me get on with it and get work done. It’s great, and I don’t see why it’s illegal to buy over the counter.” Asked about possible health risks, she commented: “Well I suppose every drug has some kind of risks, but I’ve never heard of anyone dying from them, so it seems fine.” A 2014 Tab survey of 2,000 UK students found that around 1 in 5 had taken the drug modafinil, usually prescribed to treat narcolepsy. Another Oxford undergraduate who has illegally taken study drugs a number of times, and also did not wish to be named, described the increasing popularity of modafinil, ritalin, and adderrall as a “sad reflection on Oxford”. She commented: “We should not be forced to take illegal and potentially
2 Editorial
28th May 2015
THE OXFORDSTUDENT
Editorial Editors: Nasim Asl & Luke Mintz
One step ahead since 1991
This week in Oxford.
Welcome
Student comment
It’s fifth week! Is it us, or does this week seem considerably less blue than those of previous terms? Even so, the middle of term is where we’re often hit the hardest with Oxford pressures - the #5thweekfree campaign has been gathering speed recently. We, as a paper, are backing this we think it’s crucial. In a university where academic pressures are so intense, the quantity and quality of work is unrelentingly high, and where the choice for many of us is often between sleeping or getting work done close to the deadline, we can’t help but feel that the #5thweekfree campaign is incredibly important. Having a break in which students can escape from the bubble, try and get ahead of reading, and take a step back from the incredible pressures we’re under would really make a massive difference to the physical and mental well-being of so many of us. The notion of ‘Fifth Week Blues’ is, in itself, the reason why the campaign is so important - the normalisation of mental health problems, or the symptoms thereof, is something we’re incredibly used to doing, yet living under these levels of extreme stress is not beneficial to anyone. It may be some time before we do get #5thweekfree, so in the meantime, please look out for yourself. Put yourself and your well being first.
of the week
@James_Lavin (First year E &M) So does Economics have a faculty?
Tutor comment of the week
‘Frequently in my undergraduate degree I didn’t know what month it was’
OXII
Alumnus of the week
Imran Khan Keble College 1972-1975
Monsieur Jean-Pierre, Translator
News
STAGE
ZENNOR PREVIEW p.6
And the rest
We have a beautiful OXII cover this week, based on Screen’s analysis of the season of Mad Men over on page 12. Arts is as strong as ever this week, with an incredibly interesting piece on the differences between The Grand Tour and Gap Years and how travel writing has developed across literature over time (page 14), along with an interview with Turner Prize-nominated Ciara Phillips on page 15. Music boast a sentimental interview with alumna Sophie Dodds of Storm the Palace on page 3 of OXII, although there’s an incredibly interesting chat with Jacqueline Gold, CEO of Ann Summers, just outside the section on Profile, page 13. Stage demonstrates the strength of Oxford talent this week, with an exclusive preview of Zennor, a student written play that’s on next week. Student led charity work is at the forefront of Features this week as we look at the Somerville Ghana Library Project (page 19) and its association with Somerville College, before the section address head transplants, Tinder, and first dates. Comment react to The Tab’s now infamous Oxbridge article (page 9). This week the section boasts two debate pieces this week - one concerning the Human Rights Act, and whether or not this should be scrapped, as well as one between two members of the Editorial Team, debating the treatment of student Tory voters by other students within Oxford. It’s an interesting mixture of politics and personality, that’s for sure.
SCREEN ARTS & LIT
MAD MEN: THE LIVES WE’RE YET TO LEAD p.12
FROM GRAND TOUR TO GAP YAH p.14
‘Please, please, please let me get on the BNOC list this year’ Letters BNOC, Any college to the Editors. Guys, look, let’s be clear. I have pissed away my degree and £27,000 on some pootling little society that no-one realistically gives a flying fuck about. If you don’t put me on the BNOC list, it has
@HarrisonEdmonds
The message I get from under-privileged students is that wearing gowns makes them feel equal to Etonians.
Send in your letters of literally been a total fucking waste of my time. The first’s gone now, let me at least have some fleeting fame. unwavering support to ‘Finals’, Finalist, Exam Schools: our esteemed editors at: So, here’s the deal. You know all the perky cheerfulness of post-prelims second years saying “ah, finals
Jean Pierre:
editor@ oxfordstudent.com Editors Deputy Editors
This term’s Union President election to be calm, quiet and entirely free of controversy or viciousness
100/1
Luke Mintz, one of Oxford’s most eligible bachelors, to be on next year’s BNOC list
99/1
No-one at all to complain about either being on or not being on the BNOC list
60/1
won’t be that bad, you’ve got ages to revise”? Well they’re fucking lying. Finals are literally the worst thing ever. Try not doing your degree for two years, then learning eight papers in eight weeks. Doable, right? No, it’s not. It’s hell. I am literally crying blood into my fucking subfusc.
Nasim Asl & Luke Mintz David Barker, Kate Bickerton, Laura Hartley, Hugh McHale-Maughan, Srishti Nirula and Laura Whetherly News Editors Jasmine Cameron-Chileshe, Jennier Lee and Cason Reilly Comment Editors Polly Mason & Kathryn Welsh Music Editors Naomi Southwell & Jacob Wiseman Screen Editors Thomas Bannatyne & Megan Erwin Fashion Editors Elizabeth Evans & Charlotte Lanning Arts & Lit Editors Marcus Li & William Shaw Stage Editors William Aslet & Lucy Oliver Features Editors Ariane Laurent-Smith & Elle Tait Sports Editors Alice Richardson & Ben Sanders
STAFF
I really have no fucking idea about access at all.
odds-ford bets.
One of our two front page stories this week concerns the death sentence ruling of Sondos Asem, a postgraduate student at the Blavatnik School of Government. The Dean of her college has requested that we do not publish the name of her college for security reasons, which, of course, we understand the need for. The students of her JCR, like her peers at the Blavatnik, have condemned the ruling. It’s a shocking story to say the least; it’s somewhat incredulous to know that one of our peers is facing such a dramatic sentence, but the fact that her college and team have stood up in support of
Sondos is inspiring. The college system fosters such allegiance and solidarity, and it’s incredible to see this in action for such a real world issue. You can also read about the decisive support for subfusc seen in last week’s referendum (page 3), as well as the protest launched by some Oxford alumni against the University’s decision last week to only partially divest from fossil fuels. Whilst we in the office are divided over the issue of subfusc, as are numerous students across the University, we are glad that last week’s vote saw such an impressive turnout, and urge newly-engaged students to maintain their involvement in student politics.
Deputy News Editors Deputy Comment Editors Deputy Music Editor Deputy Screen Editor Deputy Arts & Lit Editors Deputy Stage Editor Deputy Features Editors Deputy Sports Editor Photographers
Scott Harker, Louis Mercier, and Latifah Sat Carolina Bax, Daniel Coleman and Elizabeth Webb Sean McIntyre Hector Manly Daniel Haynes, Sam Sykes and Georgia Watson Philippa Stacey Lynton Lees, Kate Plummer and Jamie Russell Taylor Yu Saskia Mondon-Ballantyne and Bethan Jones
Illustrator Chief Sub-Editor Sub-Editors
Associate Editors
Laura Mackenzie Sam Harman Jennifer Allan, Olivia Brown, Veronica Corsi, Henrietta Mosforth, James Sewry, Elizabeth La Trobe and Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan Alys Key, Sachin Croker and Jess Sinyor
Editors can be contacted at editor@oxfordstudent.com and Section Editors can be contacted through this address. We follow the code of practices and conduct outlined by the Press Complaints Commission. Address complaints to The Editors, 2 Worcester Street, Oxford, OX1 2BX, email: oxstucomplaints@ousu.org.
28th May 2015
News 3
Students vote decisively in favour of saving subfusc and gown
• 76% of voters opted to preserve the Oxford tradition in referendum with a record 41% turnout LUKE MINTZ EDITOR
Students have shown mixed reactions toward a decisive student vote in favour of subfusc last week, with 76% of those who voted opting to keep the traditional gown and mortar board compulsory for university exams. 78% of voters also opted to keep the accompanying black gown compulsory. Last week’s referendum prompted considerable student interest, with an impressive 41% turnout – considerably higher than last year’s OUSU elections. Members of the Save Subfusc campaign welcomed the result, with first-year student Harrison Edmonds telling The Oxford Student: “We are delighted at the result, which shows that Oxford students have seen through erroneous arguments of the Subfusc Off campaign, and have seen it as the egalitarian uniform that it is.” Edmonds’ campaign urged students to keep subfusc as an academic tradition, warning that the traditional clothing would die out once it was made non-compulsory. The Subfusc Off campaign, in contrast, emphasised the “archaic” nature of the
clothing, warning that it could discourage candidates from less privileged backgrounds from applying to Oxford, and could cause discomfort to students who do not like the uniform. Speaking after the result, Balliol student Xavier Cohen, leader of the Subfusc Off campaign, said he was “looking forward to seeing Harrison Edmonds and the rest of the Save Subfusc team campaign to make it much easier for students to opt-out of subfusc, as the pledged during the campaign.” Many students reacted with delight to the referendum result, with social media flooded with messages of support for the traditional academic uniform after the result was announced on Friday evening. Not all students reacted with such approval, however, with some expressing their “embarrassment” of the Oxford student body. Wadham student and former OUSU Presidential candidate Adam Roberts has told The Oxford Student that he is not planning to wear subfusc to his final exams this term. Writing in an OxStu comment piece published online, Roberts said that “exams should be tests of academic excellence, not your comfort with wearing subfusc,” continuing: “We have all sorts of reasons for
not wanting to wear it – physicality, anxiety, class, a broader sense of ‘fitting in’, authentic gender expression, personal politics – and none of them are illegitimate. No student should have to prove to the Proctors that their reasons are adequate ones.” In other reaction, some students took to activist Facebook group ‘The Class Room’ to discuss the potential creation of a handdown system for gowns and mortar boards. Last week’s support for subfusc was marginally lower than in the 2006 referendum, with 75% voting to keep the clothing compulsory, versus 81% in 2006. The traditional academic uniform is now likely to remain in place, with another referendum not expected for a number of years. Students of all political persuasions supported compulsory subfusc. According to data extrapolated from 578 responses to a pre-referendum OxStu survey, 89% of those students who planned to vote Conservative in this month’s General Election voted to keep subfusc compulsory, as did 70% of those who voted Labour. Oxford’s Green voters were far more balanced, in contrast, with 51% voting to keep the uniform compulsory, against 49% opting to make the clothing non-compulsory.
Adam Roberts
2014 OUSU Presidential candidate is refusing to wear subfusc to his exams in protest Photo: Adam Roberts
Referendum analysis Battling it out on the BBC
OUSU Women’s VP Anna Bradshaw and leader of the Yes campaign Harrison Edmonds featured on an edition of Newsnight last week Photo: BBC
76%
70% 30%
24%
*Party results from last month’s survey
89%
Referendum results by party 51%
11%
49%
Oxford students like tradition. That much has been obvious for many years, but there was some small hope within members of the Subfusc Off campaign that, given the vigorous and commendable outreach efforts launched since 2006 – the last occasion in which subfusc was ‘saved’ by a decisive margin – a large enough section of the student body may have just about come to see the traditional gown and mortar boards as harmful to access efforts to swing the vote in their favour. This was not the case, and on Friday evening it was announced that 75% of voters had opted to conserve the academic uniform. With last week’s pro-subfusc sentiment only a tiny 6% lower than that of the 2006 referendum, there was little cause for celebration within the Save Subfusc camp, or within much of Oxford’s Left in general. A widely held belief that subfusc would die out once it was made non-compulsory (as happened in Cambridge), appeared to join forces with a general sentimental attachment to the traditional gown and mortar board, swinging the vote decisively in the ‘Yes’ camp’s favour. Students of all political persuasions voted to save the uniform, with figures from The OxStu’s pre-referendum poll showing 89% of Conservative voters, 70% of Labour voters, and even 51% of Green voters deciding to keep the gown and mortar board compulsory. The large discrepancy in subfusc support between Conservative and Green supporters validates those who viewed the debate as largely a political matter: Oxford’s Left tended to view the clothing as archaic and anti-access, whilst Oxford’s centre and right clearly saw value in retaining the tradition. As it happened, tradition won the day. The outcome was hardly unexpected,
with numerous members of the Save Subfusc campaign privately expressing pessimistic predictions about their chances. The refusal of OUSU Women’s VP Anna Bradshaw to predict the vote’s outcome when asked on Newsnight by presenter Laura Kuenssberg indicates the campaign’s low ambitions. Whilst students are generally associated with an inherently progressive characteristic, Oxford students appear wedded to their traditions, with three quarters of students, quite remarkably, voting against the freedom to choose their own clothing. The result certainly has implications for Oxford’s culture of tradition more generally, with any proposal to tweak post-exam trashing, May Day morning, or Matriculation likely to meet stiff student opposition. Another notable factor of the subfusc referendum is its relatively high turnout. Whilst 41% does not at first glance look massively promising, last week’s turnout is considerably higher than that of the annual OUSU elections, which normally hovers between 10 and 20 per cent. The issue of examination clothing has clearly evoked considerable student engagement, with undergraduate and graduate students alike recognising the referendum as something likely to directly affect their lives, if only for a few days at the end of the year. During the campaign, one prominent OUSU figure privately expressed hope that the referendum would be “like the Scottish independence referendum”, and would inspire a love of OUSU politics within the student populace. Whilst such a dramatic occurrence seems unlikely, last week’s referendum could – just possibly – provide a much-needed boost to the pitifully low levels of Oxford’s engagement in student politics. But then, it coudl just as easily not.
28th May 2015
4 News
Alumn hand back degrees to protest against limited divestment
• 68 alumn protest the University's decision to hold back from committing to full divestment • Almost 900 alumn have signed a petition and pledged to withhold donations to the University JASMINE CAMERON-CHILESHE NEWS EDITOR
Sixty eight Oxford University alumni have symbolically returned their degree certificates in in response to the University’s decision to continue to invest in fossil fuels. On 23rd May, alumni queued up outside of the University offices in Wellington square dressed in gowns and mortars in order to “return” their certificates. Those who have pledged include Oxfordshire Green Party Councillors David Thomas, Sam Hollick and Ruthi Brandt, founder of “Solarcentury,” Jeremy Legget and journalist George Monbiot. This move came in response to the University’s decision on the 22nd May to not place direct investment into tar sands or coal, but not to go as far as full divestment from all fossil fuels. The alumni’s actions have been encouraged by the Oxford University Fossil Free Divestment Campaign which has organised an online campaign entitled: “Oxford Alumni - will you hand back your degree?”. Alumni involved in the campaign pledged to cease donating to the University, to sign a letter criticising the decision and photograph themselves ripping up their degree certificate. Speaking to Blue&Green Tomorrow, the online environmental magazine, graduate Martin Evans said: “My degree was how I learned about climate change, how energy works, how solar panels and wind turbines work, and how I came to
work in renewable energy. We’re asking the university to do the simple thing of following what it teaches, but it isn’t practising what it preaches. The university has to keep its promises on transparency as well as divest”. In a press statement, Fossil Free Campaign coordinator at People & Planet, Miriam Wilson said: “Oxford alumni are handing back their degrees because they don’t want to be associated with a university which is funding climate change through its investments. Whilst we welcome the fact that the university has ruled out direct investments in coal and tar sands, we call on the university to go further, and fully divest from climatewrecking fossil fuels.” Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, Professor Andrew Hamilton sought to defend the university’s actions, stating: “We see the main purpose of our investment fund as generating the financial resources to support our academic purpose. However, our investment managers take a long-term view and take into account global risks, including climate change, when considering what investments to make.” The Oxford University Fossil Free Divestment Campaign originated from a student movement in Trinity term 2013, as part of the OUSU Environment and Ethics Campaign. The movement has sought to apply a negative screening process for divestment, a positive screening process for investment for fossil free schemes and wants to implement a policy forcing the
Photo: Fossil Free UK
university to reveal future investments. The campaign has subsequently obtained widespread support not only from alumni, but from 26 JCR bodies, university
groups such as WomCam and OUSU and leading academics including Dr Gavin Killip, Senior Researcher at the Environmental Change Institute and
Lord Professor Robert May, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of the UK Office of Science and Technology.
Second place for Oxford in Guardian league table
• Oxford University comes second only to Cambridge Unversity in the Guardian's 2016 University rankings CASON REILY NEWS EDITOR
Oxford has maintained a strong standing in The Guardian’s 2016 league tables released this week. The tables, which serve as a guide for students applying to university, ranked Oxford University 2nd overall, with a score of 97.5 behind only Cambridge’s 100. Oxford has maintained second place to Cambridge in the tables since being unseated from the top spot in 2012.
Photo: Skittledog
Referring to Oxford’s continued failure to catch up to the other place, a second year History and Politics student told the OxStu: “Cambridge may have beat us in the league table, but both contenders for PM a few weeks ago weren’t from Cambridge, but came from Oxford. Also, Cambridge has a shit nightlife.” The Guardian’s tables use eight criteria to put together a comprehensive metric. These include three measures of student satisfaction, the student/staff ratio,
spending per student, and measures of students’ career prospects. Among these, Oxford ranks first in spending per student and satisfaction with the quality of teaching. However, Oxford comes in a dismal 71st on student satisfaction with feedback. One University spokesperson said “University league table often fluctuate year on year, and it is possible to read too much into these movements, whether up or down. Despite these fluctuations,
all the various league tables consistently show Oxford in the very forefront of the world’s universities, both for the quality of its teaching and the excellence of its research.” Several Oxford departments stood out in the tables. Oxford ranks first overall in Anthropology, Business, Economics, Materials Science, Philosophy, and Physics. Fifteen other subject areas have University of Oxford coming in the top five. The biggest movers near the top of the ranks included the London School of Economics, which dropped from 3th overall two years ago to 13th in the 2016 rankings. Universities such as Coventry and Sussex made large gains, moving from 27th to 15th and 43rd to 19th respectively. The Guardian rankings focus mainly on the student experience, unlike other league tables which factor in research and faculties. This left several Russell Group Universities, York, Leeds, Glasgow, Cardiff, Nottingham and Newcastle, out of the top 20. In career prospects, the uses the portion of students going into graduate-level employment or graduate study six months after graduation, Oxford comes in fifth behind ICL, Cambridge, Bath, and Birmingham. Oxford Brookes continued a recent slide in its rankings, falling to 48th from 39th in last year rankings.
The Guardian 2016 University rankings 1/ Cambridge
remains first, gaining a 100/100 score
2/ Oxford
in second, with a 97.5% ranking
3/ St Andrews
also retains their placing from last year
4/ Surrey
Moved up from 6th in 2015
5/ Bath
85% in a career after six months; 3 % more than Oxford
28th May 2015
News 5
Students across Oxford University News in brief: the express solidarity for Sondos Asem best of this week’s short news stories Continued from front page »
classmates, Sondos is an invaluable part of our community. Like all of us, she came here to learn how to improve people’s lives through good government…We note that the judgment against her has yet to be reviewed. However, we are deeply saddened that these actions mean Sondos will be unable to return to Egypt or visit her family until she has been cleared of the charges.” They continued: “we condemn this ruling and urge people and governments to speak up for the rule of law and against this injustice” Sondos’ college Women’s Football Team also proposed a motion to the Collrgr JCR that the college (where Asem is a member of the MCR and plays for the team) condemn the death sentence. This motion, which passed unopposed, stated that the ‘ruling was unjust and politically motivated” and contrary to the “rule of law” fundamental “in a democratic society”. The JCR also resolved to “follow Blavatnik’s example in fully condemning the ruling”, to “urge the college to provide support and as-
sistance to Sondos” and to demonstrate their “solidarity” with a “friend, peer and teammate”. One Wadham College student added:
“ The support I have recieved is what makes me stronger
”
“What has happened to Asem is deeply troubling. As a college and as university it is our responsibility to stand behind Asem and fight back against what can only be described as a gross injustice”. Speaking to the OxStu, Asem said: “The support I have received so far from my fellow students is what makes me stronger. I am impressed by the level of political awareness, human rights advocacy, and empathy on the part of my fellow students in Oxford and my col-
lege. This has proved to me that people can share the same values despite coming from different countries and cultures. “This death sentence is not just about me, it is one example of the injustice that thousands of other women and men, are suffering due to repression in Egypt”. Asem was a high profile and vocal presence throughout Egypt and had a range of roles including acting as the Senior Editor of Ikhwan Web, the Muslim Brotherhood english-language online website. In a 2011 interview, she voiced her concerns surrounding the misconceptions relating to the Muslim Brotherhood stating: “It’s a big misconception that the Muslim Brotherhood marginalises women” as “50 percent of the Brotherhood are women” Asem also affirmed that as an organisation: “We believe that a solution to women’s problems in Egyptian society is to solve the real causes, which are illiteracy, poverty and lack of education,” The final sentence will be pronounced on June 2nd. Due to security concerns for Asem and college members, we cannot detail which college she is currently attending.
Tuberculosis sufferer placed in jail for spitting on hospital staff
Buskers told to smile or face strict fines
On Thursday 21st May, tuberculosis sufferer and homeless man, David Goodwin was sentenced to 10 months in jail by Oxford Crown Court, for spitting on medical staff. On January 7th 2015, at Luther Street Medical Practice, Goodwin spat at medical staff who were treating his condition. Goodwin was diagnosed with TB in February 2014 and had to attend daily clinic sessions as well as take 12 tablets a day, in order to stabilise his condition. His actions placed him in breach of his ASBO which was granted to him in October 2014. The ASBO forbade him from harassing, abusing or threatening people as well as coughing, spitting or deliberately trying to spread his TB through any other means.
Oxford City Council is introducing a new “Public Space Protection Order” with strict guidelines for buskers, including the instruction to ‘smile, enjoy yourself and entertain others”. If a breach of regulation is discovered and classified under the antisocial behaviour legislation, buskers could face potential fines of £100 and if taken to court, the fine increases to up to £1,000. The Oxford Council Code of Order has been in place for 10 years, however, this is the first time, that enforcement and fines have been imposed. The code also instructs buskers not to play for more than one hour, sell CDs or merchandise or perform in a manner that is dangerous or threatening to the public as well as ordering performers to only entertain between the hours of 10am and 8pm.
Photo: Ramy Raoof
Oxford Brookes turns 150
• As Oxford Brookes celebrates its 150th anniversary, we look at the Oxford University’s relationship with its younger neighbour.
LOUIS MERCIER DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR
Oxford Brookes University celebrated its 150th anniversary this week. In 1865, the Oxford School of Art was established by John Brookes – thus starting a long journey for the university; from relative obscurity, to the establishment of it’s own identity in the city of dreaming spires. Celebrations were prepared, and on Friday alumni, guests and friends of Oxford Brookes came together to mark the occasion, with local theatre production company Flintlock Theatre putting on a special play, “Educating Oxford”, to celebrate the university’s history. Other celebrations included an exhibition in the Ashmolean Museum in March, a ‘back in time day,’ and the brewing of a special IPA beer, named after the institution’s former principal and ‘spiritual founder,’ John Henry Brookes. Ed Murray, former
graduate, and brewer: “We decided to recreate an authentic 1865 recipe so the beer would reflect what beer tasted like when Oxford Brookes was founded.” Mr. Murray now runs Shotover Brewing Company, in Horspath. Brookes University began as the Oxford School of Art on the ground floor of the Taylor Institution, now home to Oxford University’s library for the study of European Languages. In 1934, the School of Art and the Technical School were merged, and by 1950, the college was renamed ‘Oxford College of Technology.’ The University became Oxford Polytechnic in 1970, seven years after relocating to Headington, before finally becoming Oxford Brookes University in 1992. Brookes’ oldest surviving alumni Phyllis Timbs and Doris Simms, both 96, were among those commemorating the occasion on Friday. The pair were pre-war classmates at the
Oxford School of Technology, Art and Commerce – another incarnation of what would become Oxford Brookes – in 1935. Chancellor Katherine Grainger and Vice-Chancellor Alistair Fitt were on hand to greet the esteemed guests. Mr Fitt said: “The event marks a significant day in Oxford Brookes’ history. I am particularly pleased we are able to celebrate our anniversary in the very building where it all began 150 years ago in the Taylor Institution.” Oxford University has since had a long history with Brookes, with a tradition of sporting rivalries, access of the University of Oxford’s libraries for Brookes’ students, and an acceptance of Brookes students into the Oxford Union. Rising from its modest beginnings in central Oxford, the University now sits at 35th on the Guardian University League Table, with top level courses in architecture and history.
Photo: Sarah
Teachers honoured by Oxford University Twelve schoolteachers have been honoured by the University for their commitment to their students and quality teaching. The teachers were nominated by students who had been helped and inspired in getting a place at Oxford. The teachers were each awarded a trophy, certificate, and £100 book token. The teachers included Alison Boardman, a teacher in Hornsey, Gurnimrat Sidhu of Ilford, and Peter Bardon of Chesterle-Street. Dr Samina Khan, director of undergraduate admissions at Oxford University, congratulated the teachers on their success and affirmed that the awards were a way of “recognising the importance of school or college teachers in encouraging bright students to realise their potential and make a successful application to Oxford, especially those who might not have initially believed they were Oxford material.” First year Esther Odejemi, who nominated Ms. Sidhu, said: “Miss Sidhu, hands down, is the most inspirational, supportive and selfless teacher that I have ever had the privilege to be taught by and spend time with.”
St Antony’s Middle East Centre expands
St Antony’s college will be gaining a new building for their Middle East Centre, designed by Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi -born architect .The construction has cost £11 million and was funded by investment company Investcorp.The structure is 1,127 square metres and will contain a library and 118 seat lecture hall. Eugene Rogan, the Oxford University Middle East Centre director revealed that the initial plans disappointed alumni who expected the building to feature a more traditional Middle Eastern architectural structure. He stated that “they were expecting domes and geometric patterns typical of the region’s historic architecture”, however the he wanted the building to reflect “the Middle East of the 21st century”. The Oxford University Middle East Centre was founded in 1957 and to act as a sphere of intellectual debate relating to issues surrounding Iran, Israel, Turkey and the rest of the Middle East.
6 News
28th May 2015
Two day Oxford manhunt ends when body of suspect is found • Three bodies were found, dead from stab wounds in a house in Didcot on Saturday evening • The body of suspect, Jed Allen, was found on Monday night, ending the Oxford manhunt CASON REILY NEWS EDITOR
The body of Jed Allen, suspect of a triple murder in Didcot on Saturday, was found on Monday evening, ending a two day Oxford manhunt by the Thames Valley Police. The cause of his death was not reported by the police. Allen, 21, is suspected of killing his half-sister, mother, and her partner on Saturday. The three were found by police at 8:23pm in their Didcot house, dead from stab wounds. Allen travelled from Didcot to Oxford by train, with CCTV footage showing Allen at the WHSmith shop at the Oxford station at around 6:00pm on Saturday. Police believe he then walked the mile or so from the station to University Parks,
which were closed off from the public during the period of the manhunt, due to police suspicions that Allen might be found there. At the time of the murders, Allen was employed by Didcot
“ Allen, 21, is suspected of killing his half-sisted, mother, and her partner
”
Town Council as a gardener. Although police initially reported that Allen had previously been employed by Oxford University Parks as a groundskeeper, a Uni-
versity spokesperson told The Oxford Student that "there is no record of Jed Allen ever being directly employed by the Oxford University Parks or by Oxford University Sport.” The manhunt for Allen involved a police helicopter and over 100 officers on Sunday and Monday. Extra officers from around the area, as well as national-level resources were used in the search. University Parks were closed for the duration of Sunday while dozens of police combed the area in search of Allen, before reopening on Monday morning. Police helicopters continued to survey the area through Monday, until Allen’s body was found at 5:00pm. The victims were identified as Jan Jordan, 44, Allen’s mother, her boyfriend Philip Howard, 44, and her daughter Derin Jordan,
six. Police are now searching for clues as to the circumstances surrounding and the motive for the murders. The Oxford Mail reported tes-
“ The manhunt for Allen involved
a police helicopter and over 100 officers
”
timonials by those who knew Allen, who described him as “quiet”. Allen has been branded the 'Wolverine Killer' after journalists uncovered a photo of him holding knives between his fin-
g e r s o n h i s I n s t a g r a m account. Allen’s body was found by civilians in woodlands near Marston Ferry Road, close to the Oxford ring road. The Daily Mail reported that Allen’s friend, Jordan Dee, had received a text message from Allen, saying “I’ve done a very bad thing,” before Allen’s death. The police have said that no other suspects are currently being considered in the case. One first-year History student described the two-day manhunt as "scary". He said: "Seeing all the police in what is usually a very quiet city was weird. I'm just glad that everybody is now safe, although the helicopter flying over my room for hours was quite annoying. I am really impressed with the conduct of our police forces for keeping us all safe."
Ultra Records
Photo: @alexmartylee
Photo: Nick Doty
The use of illegal study drugs has become more widespread »Continued from front page dangerous concentration drugs just to get by at University. There’s this idea that we take study drugs because we’re so busy getting drunk and sleeping we don’t leave enough time to work. This isn’t true. I know for me at least, Oxford can be very difficult and the growing popularity of these ‘smart’ drugs is a really sad reflection on Oxford, and on the increasing value that our society in general is placing on ‘hard work’ over making friendships ships and having fun. "Maybe if the University gave us a reading week in 5th week, as the student union is asking, we wouldn’t be forced to resort to body-altering drugs just to get by our weekly essay.” “If study drugs are harming student health,” she continued, “it is the University, not the stu-
dents, who are to blame.” A first-year History student who wished to remain anonymous said: “I’ve taken Modafinil in the past - I sell it to my mates in college. It really isn’t that much of a big deal, it’s just like a strong version of caffeine. Once I bashed out a 2,500 word essay in under two hours. It was pretty cool. The idea that Modafinil use is indicative of some wider social problem is rubbish.” He continued: "If taken at the wrong time it can keep you up all night, and seriously disrupt your sleeping pattern. So I wouldn't recommend taking it on a casual basis, but there's nothing wrong with doing it occasionally." A University spokesperson said: “If cognitive enhancement drugs are a particular problem at Oxford we have yet to see any substantive evidence for it.
We would strongly advise students against taking any drugs that have not been prescribed to them as this could involve putting their health at risk.” The University went on to urge struggling students to seek help from college welfare officers or the University Counselling Service. A Universities UK spokesperson commented: “UK universities take the issue of drug abuse very seriously and would have grave concerns about students taking drugs not prescribed to them by a doctor. Not only is this illegal but it also poses health risks.” The University group did note, however, that it was “not aware of any new research or data to suggest that such drugs are widely used and available among the UK’s higher education student population.”
Photo: Jason Tester Guerrilla Futures
News 7
28th May 2015
Academic dispute over apparent Shakespeare portrait
• Academics at Oxford and Harvard debate the likelihood that discovered image is 'The Bard' JASMINE CAMERON-CHILESHE NEWS EDITOR
A furious academic dispute has broken out between Oxford and Harvard Universities this week, over an apparent portrait of William Shakespeare. The feud between Edward Wilson, an emeritus fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, and John Overholt, a Harvard University Curator, started in Country Life magazine, when historian Mark Griffiths revealed that he had discovered an image of Shakespeare, in a 16th century history book of plants. Edward Wilson, an emeritus fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, and John Overholt, a Harvard University Curator have been engaged in a fierce academic dispute relating to the legitimacy of an image which supposedly depicts William Shakespeare. The engraving on the opening page by William Rogers features four figures, one of whom, with a beard and roman dress, Griffiths believes to be Shakespeare. He claimed in the magazine that he had solved an “ingenious cipher” and decoded a symbol underneath the figure which can be translated into the name ‘Shakespeare’. He suggests that the number four stands for the Latin term ‘quater’ meaning four times and when the letter ‘E’ is added, the word quatere (to shake) is formed. When combined with the image of the stake through the cipher, which is thought to represent a spear, the resulting word is “Shake-spear”. Griffiths came across the image whilst researching the biography of John Gerald and the findings have subsequently been hailed as a ‘World Exclusive’ on the culture magazine website.
The 1,484 page book in question, The Herball was published in 1598 and there are reportedly only 10 surviving copies of the first edition remaining. Despite, previous assumptions that the four figures were imaginary Griffiths has claimed to have revealed their identities as Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Treasurer, Lord Burghley, Flemish Botanist Rembert Dodoens, John Gerald (the author) and finally William Shakespeare. Speaking at the London Rose Playhouse the Editor of Country Life, Mark Hedges argued that the portrait reflected the 33 year old playwright “in his prime” with “film star good looks”. Griffith’’s apparent discovery proved far more controversial than he anticipated, however. Following Wilson’s announcement, Oxford fellow Edward Wilson supported the findings, arguing “we do not think anyone is going to disprove it at all” and that the evidence proved to be “absolutely safe”. Harvard Curator John Overholt, however, has criticised his claims. In a series of tweets, aimed at both Griffiths and Wilson between May 19th and May 20th, Overholt suggested that the decoded symbol was simply a missprint that was corrected in the 1749 book Ames' Typographical Antiquities. Overholt expressed his frustration with his fellow academics,, stating on May 19th: “The thing that drives me crazy about this is it gives people the dumbiest, fakest idea of what Shakespeare scholarship is actually about”, “I thought the Shakespeare portrait things was stupid before I saw the evidence. Now I think it’s REALLY stupid” and “It is really truly 100% possible that there aren’t any portraits of Shakespeare to
To be or not to be? What William Shakespeare looked like is hotly contested in academic circles Photo: Wikipedia
be had and we’ll all just have to be OK with it.” In response to the resulting arguments, Mark Griffiths has published a series of rebuttals in defence of his claims on the Country Life website. Notably, he stated that the cipher or symbol on the title page, “doesn’t belong to any of the Nortons’, the family of London stationers” or printer of The Herball, Edmund Bollifant, a fact that himself and Edward Wilson had confirmed through years of research. However, other academics have also challenged Wilson and Griffiths’
ideas, such as Birmingham University Professor Michael Dobson, who in an interview with the BBC remarked that he remained “deeply unconvinced” as "one has seen so many claims on Shakespeare based on somebody claiming to crack a code. And nobody else has apparently been able to decipher this for 400 years. And there's no evidence that anybody thought that this was Shakespeare at the time.” Similarly,, Shakespearean Scholar Stanley Wells CBE expressed his scepticism tweeting: “So apparently Shakespeare went around in fancy dress holding a fritillary
in one hand and a cob of corn in the other.” There are only two confirmed portraits of Shakespeare, one of which is an engraving on the cover of the First Folio and the second is a sculpture on his memorial in Stratford Upon Avon. However, academics have seen numerous disputes over the legitimacy of Shakespeare portraits.. Notably, in April 2009, two leading art historians Professor Stanley Wells and Sir Roy Strong argued over the controversial ‘Cobbe Portrait’ with, the latter labelling the formers findings as “codswallop”.
Our favourite trashing photos from this week
Icon credits: Freepic
Photo: Toyo Odetunde
Photo: Christian Reedman
Photo: Annie Whitton
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28th May 2015
Comment 9
Oxbridge is not the be-all and end-all
Comment
• The recent Tab article is damaging and offensive • The Oxford stereotype of elitism is already bad enough LOUIS TRUPIA
BRASENOSE COLLEGE
T
he Oxford editor of The Tab recently published an article titled “Don’t kid yourself: If you’re not at Oxbridge, you’re wasting your time”. We are, of course, used to this kind of hyperbole from The Tab - it is hardly known as being the forerunner in professional journalism - but we should be careful not to write it off; it does, after all, have one of the largest readerships of any student newspaper in the country due to the presence of divisions at most UK universities. Yet The Tab rarely seems to recognise the responsibility that comes with this power, and their most recent article is a perfect example of this. The writer speaks of how a degree at any other University is just pointless as we work harder and have a better time when we’re not working. This has prompted much backlash against The Tab, with the writer of the article reportedly expressing private regret for publishing it, although it did make the Oxford Tab most viewed over the past 7 days with 450,000 views. With readership figures this high, it’s no surprise that The Tab published it, and everyone has been sharing it on Facebook to preach their anger, but this does not make the article acceptable. This kind of journalism damages the reputation of a university that is doing all it can to improve access. Both Oxford and Cambridge have some of the best outreach programmes of any University and have some of the most generous bursaries available to students from low-income families. This has been part of a scheme to make Oxbridge more inclusive. Yes, once upon a time there were grounds for calling it an exclusive elitist institution, but those days are long gone; we are no longer the reserve of private schools. Until 1832, we were the only two universities in the country, but the Complete University Guide now lists 126 universities, 24 of which are members of the Russell Group. To say that all of these other institutions are pointless is just a lie. If I hadn't been accepted by Oxford, I would have been more than happy to study history at Exeter (which was my reserve). I’m pretty sure the writer of this article would also feel the same way. If my Oxford acceptance letter had been a rejection letter, I would have been sad, but I wouldn't have withdrawn my UCAS application. I
had applied to four other excellent institutions where I still believe I would have received a world-class education. All universities offer the chance to expand your horizons and become an expert in your chosen field - an education is one of the most valuable things you can have. Saying if you’re at any other institution you’re wasting your time is simply wrong. A medic at any university can still go on to be a doctor who saves thousands of lives. JK Rowling was rejected by Oxford, but obviously going to Exeter was not a waste of her time. We are very fortunate here at Oxford, as the writer of the article emphasises: we get to go to formals, wear gowns, live in historical buildings, and walk in the footsteps of some of the greats. But the writer of the article brags about this as if this makes us better. The truth is this doesn't make an education at any other university inferior. There are
“ To say that all of these other institu-
tions are pointless is just a lie
”
opportunities at other universities too. We are deprived of the London experience that so many people crave, and other universities are now beginning to use a tutorial system too. We may mock Durham from time to time, but in our heart of hearts we all know it is a fantastic university; its History course is lauded to be one of the best in the world. Most of us would be more than happy to be living down in Exeter, or living it up in London. As well as this, there cannot be a single student in Oxford who would seriously argue that this university is well-suited to everyone. So many people would and, indeed, do find the crushing pressure and all-pervasive perfection by which we are constantly surrounded far too much and actually counter-productive for growing as a person. At other universities this pressure is far less palpable and this is exactly what some students need: the freedom to explore and develop their interests without constantly feeling like they're in competition
with (and must compare themselves to) everyone else on campus. At my college, the access team works extremely hard to make sure we are not the reserve of a privileged elite, and many of us were horrified by an article that seemed to uphold all the myths we have tried to dispel. We make it clear to people that we are “normal”. I can tell them my dad is not a lord but a taxi driver (although he deserves a lordship for putting up with me), and I did my GCSEs at a state school (not that this is something that should matter). Most importantly, we want to show them that we aren't a bunch of geeky social elites. We’re just normal people who worked hard to get where we are, and we don’t take the traditions or the opportunities we have here for granted. Every day I walk past the RadCam and remind myself how lucky I am to be here. This arrogant take on Oxbridge is the kind of thing that brings society back to the attitudes of the 1800s. We are so far past this point that we even had a referendum this week on whether to do away with academic dress. Finally, pointing out what your halls look like does not make your university any better. We may have beautiful quads but we also have some hideous modern buildings. I am yet to visit a college that does not have a bit of sixties architecture resembling a prison block tucked away somewhere: Brasenose’s modern building looks hideous (despite winning an architectural award) and is colloquially known as “the car park”.
Access is an ongoing battle 56.3 percent
of places at Oxford went to state school applicants in 2012
Not a value judgement: Other universities offer degrees equally as useful as those offered by Oxbridge
1 in 20
private school students go on to study at Oxbridge, compared to only
1 in 100
state school students
Photo: Speckled Jim
28th May 2015
10 Comment
W
hen even its architect, Tony Blair, is sceptical of the Human Rights Act, we can be confident that our most controversial piece of legislation warrants serious questioning. We are rightfully squeamish about reforming anything whose name is so potent; nonetheless, there are clear and powerful arguments for a full repeal of an act that is both bolted parasitically onto centuries old English common law and the author of gross perversions of justice. One of the most egregious misrepresentations that appears in media and popular discourse is that the repeal of the HRA would entail a scrapping of any recourse to claims of rights for those in conflict with the government. As both Michael Gove and David Cameron have repeatedly made clear, this is simply false. Rather, the introduction of the British Bill of Rights would change the rights that British courts have to consider - rights that have been decided upon domestically, by representatives of the people in our national parliament. One can’t help but reach for the well-worn Disraeli quote: rights that are carried out in “deference to the manners, the customs, the laws and the traditions of a people, not abstract principles, and arbitrary and general doctrines.” More fundamentally, I think that we should be sceptical of all pieces of rights-based legislation. We should have the intellectual and moral confidence to deal with these issues ourselves - incorporating them into a serious and weighty moral conversation set in our political arena - rather than hiving them off to our judiciary. There are serious issues with our justifications for democracy if we claim that our popularly-elected legislature is qualified to deal with a plurality of significant issues but that that we implicitly find it lacking in qualification to adjudicate on questions of fundamental rights. What (and, paradoxically perhaps, who) delineates the area in which our legislators are entitled to speak and act and those in which they are disqualified? Why do we feel that judges are more capable and their decisions more legitimate in some of the most essential issues of how, as a nation, we live together ? For it is not just a simple cast-iron protection of liberties that characterises rights-based judicial interventions in the democratic process. It is a continual and fundamental interpretation and adjudication between the rights of liberty for individuals and the basic collective
HUGH MCHALEMAUGHAN BRASENOSE COLLEGE right to security for the community. By necessity this is a complex and nuanced question: and it is a question on which both sides have strong and powerful claims to make. Defenders of the act make powerful claims regarding ‘justice’. But justice is by definition a two-way street. The act has helped 28 convicted terrorists stay in the UK; where is the justice there, for the victims - men and women like Lee Rigby, who died on our own streets while serving his nation - of savage atrocities? Where is the justice for the future victims of attacks inspired by hate preachers like Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada? These are serious and important questions. It is part of being a grown up and self-confident democracy that we should feel able to debate rather than duck them. Westminster has an admirable and ancient tradition of enhancing rights and liberties. We require far more powerful arguments than defenders of the HRA have deployed in order to neuter and curtail it. This links into another gross fallacy that is omnipresent: that it would somehow be ‘impossible’ to repeal the HRA, given that it is wrapped up in devolution legislation. The British Constitution is devastatingly simple; as Vernon Bogdanor put it, it can be summed up in eight words: “what the Queen in Parliament enacts is law”. We may have tinkered with it since 1997; we certainly have not destroyed this important principle or damaged the fundamental power of a British Parliament in session. Rights and their interpretation are serious issues that deserve serious discussion. We should not be content with pat platitudes that export their interpretation to our judges.
RORY TURNBULL ORIEL COLLEGE
W
e British have always liked to feel rather independent. But the desire for independence, which leads to a government no longer being restrained by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), does nothing for the liberty of the individual. The Human Rights Act (HRA) not only ensures that the rights set out by the ECHR are part of UK law, but also guarantees that all domestic public bodies uphold them. The majority Conservative government comes to Westminster with a mandate for abolishing it, replacing it with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ and possibly leaving the Convention altogether. So should we be worried? Many accept that the ECHR is far from perfect. There remains great debate surrounding a prisoner’s right to vote, for example. I fear however that the consequences of abolishing the HRA, and potentially withdrawing from the ECHE, are too serious to ignore. As the former Attorney General Dominic Grieve states, “for all its challenges, the Convention has proved and is proving to be an effective tool - perhaps the single and most cost-effective one currently available for promoting human rights on our planet.” It therefore seems, at the very least, a great shame that, although we played a key role in drafting the ECHR, we now could turn our back on it. What’s more, the government’s alternative, which Mr. Grieve has openly called “a recipe for chaos”, is vague.
SHOULD THE HUMAN YES RIGHTS’ ACT NO BE SCRAPPED?
Photo: Justin Ennis
If we were to have a British Bill of Rights, what ECHR principles should be watered down, or given the chop? The right to life? Err… probably not. The right to liberty and security? Hmm… that’s probably quite a good one to keep intact too. Indeed, according to a YouGov poll, the majority of people support all ten liberties enshrined in the ECHR, even the seemingly sticky ones like Articles 3 and 8, which the government hopes to trump. Moreover, bullishly bulldozing the HRA and trying to construct our own replacement, would severely undermine not only all the current and future successes of the ECHR, but also all the work we as a country do, and want to continue to do, in supporting human rights internationally. It would surely imply that, while we are happy to advise that there exist inalienable rights, universal and unchanging, we consider them to be a little less inalienable in our case; all because Britain, as some matchlessly moral isle, is bold enough to go it alone. But this is not about national boldness. It is fundamentally about the protection of the individual under law, through the existence of laws that go beyond the state’s authority. The legal obligations that bind the government through the HRA make the state accountable, so that while the government may sometimes be criticized, we may progress as a society that upholds the rule of law: well-disciplined and kept in check. Thus, to be skeptical about the planned abolition of the HRA is not to be antiBritish or an overly idealistic internationalist. It is rather to accept that we don’t have a monopoly on morality. I remain cautious about steaming into a scheme that is prepared to dilute certain fundamental principles because I fear the consequences of eroding a cornerstone of Common Law. I also wonder if a pick and mix approach to human rights, self-evidently universal to all, is really the best image we want to put across internationally. Instead, let us maintain the liberty of the individual and let the government remain accountable, even if its accountability can sometimes make it feel uncomfortable.
As the Left, we have every right to be sore losers KATE PLUMMER LADY MARGARET HALL
T
he Telegraph recently published an article bemoaning the Left’s reaction to the result of the General Election. It argued that the Left are self-righteous, unaccepting of plurality of opinion, and undemocratic in its lack of will to accept defeat lying down. But the Left have every right to be disappointed about the result of the election. Of course we are disappointed, and for many reasons. Polls raised our hopes before ultimately crushing them. The Lib Dems are no longer present to lessen the extent of Tory austerity. Nothing is going to change, and the public have accepted arguments about economic progress that we see as being fundamentally incorrect. Another issue is what this means for the future of our party. Unfortunately for the Left, it is likely that the Parliamentary Labour Party will interpret their lack of electoral success as being due to ‘Red Ed’s’ leftward swing. This could lead to the election of a more Blairite leader, someone of Chuka Umunna’s creed (though he has thankfully pulled out of the race). Ed Miliband
has the potential to go down in history as another Michael Foot. If the Labour Party succumb to these ideas and return to the centre, this will set back the Left for a long time. If the Tories had lost, it is unlikely that their Thatcherite consensus would have been disrupted to any great degree as the ideology of their party is currently more coherent and less divided by faction. It has been argued that left-wing anger isolates the Left from political debate and that we are unaware of the realities of the real world and stuck in a Leninist Utopia. Once again, the Right patronises us. They are so sure that they are correct in their politics that they treats us like unenlightened barbarians, running around brandishing hammers and sickles. Of course, the Left need to operate in the real world, and strategise and plan the next move based on what has happened, but it is almost as if the Conservatives are trying to make us give up our optimism. They may not agree with our policies, but surely they can sympathise with a frustration based on principles that we wish to change. Because whether Left or Right, an interest in politics comes from a good place, from a desire to change the world in the way we see fit. We need to understand that about
each other, but this does not mean that anger is an inappropriate reaction. It is our democratic right to attempt to put pressure on the government. Winning an election does not shut down debate for five years. We are still allowed to disagree. The Conservative Party won the election. The next five years is in their hands. Surely this is enough for them. To win and then to have the audacity to dictate how people react to this news is an irritating instance of salt being rubbed into the wounds. The Right should not be such gloating winners. Not all Conservative supporters come from extremely privileged backgrounds, but the existence of this influential group of supporters is undeniable. Their jeering seeks to reaffirm prejudices about the Conservatives being out of touch from the population and trapped in a bubble of wealth and privilege. Whether they like it or not, expressing happiness and pride about benefit cuts comes across as jeering at the poor. I understand the academic arguments to pursue these policies and disagree with them, but if we are not allowed to be upset about the election, then they surely are not allowed to have this attitude. Furthermore, it is worse for a left-wing impoverished person to be under a Con-
servative government than it is for a right wing privileged person to be under a Labour government. Intellectually, the rich may disagree with high taxes as they believe wealth is earned and deserved. However, even if they are taxed up to their eyeballs and see this as wrong, they are at least not being forced to rely on food banks, as are many victims of benefit cuts. The right and the privileged have more power in society and so moaning from this position is pretty
Photo: The Weekly Bull
unjustifiable. If the Left ever deviate from a position of calm decorum, the Right are so sanctimonious as to declare our arguments invalid. It feels as if we have to prove ourselves as civilized and reasonable people. A lot of this probably stems from internalised bias about class. But whatever the reason may be, the Left have a right to be angry about this election, and angry about the next five years.
Comment 11
28th May 2015
Let’s embrace the North, not shun it A
DAVID BARKER SOMERVILLE COLLEGE
POLLY MASON NEW COLLEGE
I
n last week’s issue of this paper, there appeared an article entitled “An ode to the North”, in which the writer patronised ‘Northerners’ (the use of inverted commas is not my own) and claimed that they “definitely have a different biological make-up”. Reading it filled me with horror. For context: I’m not actually particularly northern in terms of geography (heard of Lincoln, anyone?), but, relative to the rest of my year in college, I am very northern. Coming to Oxford, a hugely London-centric environment where people made comments about my accent and claimed that “anywhere north of Oxford is the North”, was a bit of a shock to someone who had never really thought in terms of north and south before.
“ The sense of alienation and humiliation is one I remember
”
The sense of alienation and humiliation when someone draws attention to your short ‘a’ is one that I remember well; it is never difficult to detect the sense of superiority in the (usually) southerner’s voice. People from London automatically had something to bond over; there was nobody with whom I could discuss my home town. I am shocked that the writer of last week’s article thought that it was in any way appropriate or acceptable to discuss people from the North in such a derogatory manner and via such a platform as a university-wide publication. As a southerner, they have obviously never had comments made about their accent, their dialect, their palpable shock at the exponential rise in prices
Photo: Vaidotas Miseikis
as one gets closer to London, and, for that, they are privileged. They are by no means alone in allowing this unjustified sense of superiority to overpower their judgement of what is acceptable, but that does not justify such comments as those made in the article. We (for I do now identify as a northerner since coming to Oxford) are conscious every single day of the fact that we are a minority. Why worsen this complex by writing a piece such as this, perhaps intended as satire but actually just coming across as a mocking list of the things of which we ourselves, the northerners, are most aware? The North-South divide is still very much in existence, and a recent report from the Centre for Cities think-tank has demonstrated that the gap continues to widen. Between 2004 and 2013, for every 12 additional jobs created in cities in the South, only one was created in cities elsewhere in Britain. In terms of education, research by The Times and the Sutton Trust recently showed that all but one of the 20 councils that send the most children to Britain’s top universities are in London and the southeast; the 20 that send the fewest children are predominantly in the more deprived areas of the north and the Midlands. In 2012, Surrey sent almost as many young people to study at Cambridge and Oxford as Wales and the north-east region of England combined. Oxford will probably always have a greater number of students from the South, but this does not mean that it is okay for the northern minority to be made to feel any less welcome here than anyone else, not least because it is damaging for access efforts. In my experience, many northerners are open, friendly, unjudgemental individuals, something which shines through in their penchant (one which I share) for talking to strangers on the Tube. Anyone who overlooks these qualities and instead focuses upon and derides their heritage should, quite frankly, be ashamed. It is simply another form of elitism, and I think we can all agree that there is increasingly little time or space for that in this day and age.
re you a bad person for voting Conservative in this year’s election? Surely having done so you cannot be a feminist or an advocate of LGBTQ rights, support progressive taxation and social justice, be in favour of maintaining a free labour market and membership of the European Union, argue for an end to tax evasion and avoidance and agree that the banking sector should be more stringently regulated. However, in reality, most student conservative voters agree with all of these things. I personally don’t identify myself with the Tory stereotype that I feel is attributed to me and many other students who voted the same way this year. Left wing students seem to think that it is completely impossible to be socially liberal and progressive whilst being conservative at the same time. It would be ridiculous to suggest that Conservative party supporters are an oppressed and silenced demographic, as this is simply not true. However, the Conservative voter is stereotyped and identified as an evil bogeyman, personally responsible for the oppression of the working class and the tragic death of people due to austerity. A very small proportion of the party’s supporters do fulfil the Tory stereotype and want to bring back archaic practices of fox hunting, the death penalty and oppose gay marriage. But it is possible to be a Conservative party supporter without identifying with
LUKE MINTZ CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE
I
t was the evening of May 7th and, like millions of voters across the country I watched my TV screen with despair as large swathes of Middle England turned a terrifying shade of blue. Cycling home in the early hours of the morning, I feared for the NHS, for the BBC, for Britain’s human rights culture, and most of all for our most vulnerable citizens, who look set to lose over £12 billion of welfare support during the next five years, much of which will presumably be transferred to the wealthy via tax cuts. Predictably, much of Oxford’s student Right did not feel quite the same way. My Facebook became flooded with images of Oxford Tories swigging champagne and expressing their “delight” that “socialist Miliband” had been prevented from “unleashing his politics of envy” upon Great Britain. Quickly, however, much of this euphoria seemed to transform into a self-righteous anger, with Tories across Oxford complaining of their ‘marginalisation’ by the student Left. Being Tory, they claimed, has become a vilified identity, with poor little student Conservatives afraid to express their political preference in public for fear of being called immoral. In one typically controversial post on the Facebook group Overheard at Oxford, some of these public poshos even argued that Oxford Tories need their own safe space to protect them from the vitriol they appear to encounter on a daily basis. It won’t be long, I imagine, before the creation of JCR ‘Tory Reps’ comes back onto the student agenda (remarkably, this has been attempted in more than one college before). Similarly, a blog post by a UCL Philosophy professor, in which she urged students to ‘defriend’ Tories on Facebook, attracted much
the dinosaurs on the right of the party that the press love to stick on the front page. The truth is, all political parties encompass large groups of people, all with different ideologies and different political philosophies. For the Conservative party this ranges from people on the left who would identify as liberal, such as myself, to the Eurosceptic right-wing Tories who dominate the headlines. The Labour party is exactly the same, with the minority Bennite wing on the far left continuing to believe in widespread nationalisation and the Blairites on the right who have adopted a Thatcherite view on the economy and social issues; The Green Party, the Liberal Democrats and even UKIP are the same. But do we make the same generalisations and condemnations of these parties? It’s reasonable to say that the majority of
YES ARE STUDENT CONSERVATIVES UNFAIRLY VILLIFIED FOR THEIR BELIEFS?
NO right-wing ire, with the statement held up as evidence of an “anti-right wing bias in academia”. The thing about these seemingly ‘vilified’ Tories – most of whom, incidentally, voted to keep an archaic gown and mortar board compulsory for university examinations last week – is that they are not wholly wrong. It probably is difficult to be an out-and-proud Tory in Oxford, a setting in which political discourse is infused with a degree of emotion unique to a student setting. Defacing a war memorial in order to protest an election result is, admittedly, wrong, and the alleged incident of violence against OUCA members, reported by this newspaper last week, is reprehensible. Where these public school delights go
Labour supporters do not identify with a Democratic Socialist ideology, and that was certainly not the platform of the party in this year’s election. The student and mainstream media loves to portray the conservative voter as evil. When we have Conservative party supporters being assaulted by members of the OULC, it is undeniable that political vitriol has gone overboard. Claims are blown massively out of proportion and the character of many of the criticisms of the Conservative party lends itself to mindless propaganda rather than rational political debate. By voting Conservative I obviously do not believe that the whole of the NHS should be brought to its knees, and everyone should be liable for their medical bills in a privatised bourgeois utopia. Furthermore, just because you voted Conservative, you shouldn’t be labelled as anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ and thus be terrified to post on Cuntry Living. Why are there violent protests against a legitimately elected government? If Conservative party voters did the same there would be a media storm. We have a Conservative majority voted for by 11.3 million people. Were all of these people morally bankrupt upper class ‘toffs’? No. These are normal people. 27% of DE class, or ‘working class’ voters, voted Tory compared with 41% that voted Labour and 32% of C2 class, or ‘skilled working class’ voters, voted Tory, compared with 32% for Labour. What does this say about the people that some label as out of touch and morally bankrupt? Were these voters brainwashed as some members of the left believe? It would be incredibly patroniswrong (and yes, I’m prepared to guess that most of Oxford’s Tory population is privately educated), is their complete misplacement of priorities. Let’s be clear about this: the true victims of this General Election are not the middle-class and generally privileged student Tories who may now feel uncomfortable discussing politics with their friends. The victims of this election are the thousands of our vulnerable fellow citizens who will now have their social security removed. The victims of this election are the public sector workers now fearing for the security of their job. The victims of this election are the millions (yes, millions) of workers on unstable and exploitative zero-hour contracts, whose glimmer of hope in the form of an Ed Miliband government has now been extinguished. The victims of this election are all those whose job is dependent upon our membership of the European Union, who now risk plunging into unemployment in just under two years. The victims of this election are those who have in the past depended on the Human Rights Act, now set to be scrapped, for the basic level of respect afforded to their fellow citizens. Surely, this is all obvious, I hear my reasonably-minded readers thinking? Unfortunately not. Oxford’s Tory populace – and, I imagine, scores of rightwingers in other student communities – appear to be far more exercised by the (admittedly wrong,defacement of war memorial than by the thousands of families forced to rely on food banks for their basic survival. It is of course regrettable that some of our fellow students feel vilified for their political beliefs, and, against Professor Roache’s advice, I would never personally ‘defriend’ a Facebook companion simply for marking their cross in the Conservative box. But there are far, far bigger issues as stake here, and the failure of some of our fellow students to see that is, to use a word popular with Oxford’s port-swigging Tories,
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28th May 2015
Music 3
MUSIC Palatial pop storming the palace
NAOMI SOUTHWELL SOMERVILLE COLLEGE
• Oxford University: a minor footnote on Storm the Palace's intricate, intelligent musical score
I
speak to Sophie Dodd the morning after her birthday. As we talk of last night’s revelry, the interview becomes almost prophesied. As an Oxford graduate, former History student at St Hughs and writer for The Oxford Student , Sophie herself was interviewing musicians on this very day, years ago. We talk of university and the role it played on the path of Sophie’s musical career, her band Storm the Palace, and the release of their debut EP In Ruins this month. For the sake of categorising their music, Storm the Palace can only be described as palatial pop. Their grand musical arrangements often feature various intricate piano, cello, mandolin and harpsichord parts accompanying Sophie’s melodious and charming lyrics. Sophie’s lyrics have been described as “romantic, literate and thrilling” by the writer Lorna Scott Fox, artfully mixing elements of folk tradition to create a heartfelt style of pop. Did this apparent “literate” style come from her university days?, I ask. Moments of reflection are followed by “I used to see the academic side of me and the creative musical side of me
being completely separate, but I’ve come to realise in the past few year they’ve influenced each other.” She even mentions a charming example: “One of my songs was influenced by Greenwich, which I became really fascinated by when I did a paper on architecture.” University seems only a minor footnote on the path of Dodd’s musical career. “I’ve been in bands since I was about 15” she comments, and this was only set to continue when she moved away. “We had a cover band based in college, that was a lot of fun.” Despite offering interesting anecdotes and base material for her later lyrics, Oxford it seems, was perhaps a less practical environment to start a band or to play music. “I found it a very difficult environment. I found it very stressful. It was the sort of place where the content came rather than the time to develop it.” After university, the road to a career in music was less than straightforward. She details the pressure of having to find a proper job. “I spent a lot of the last ten years pursuing more sensible paths. After I finished Oxford, I did a Master in Art History and for a few years I worked at the National Por-
trait Gallery.” It seems after much internal reflection, music remained the constant desire, something that Sophie confirms. “I think on one level or another it always was, it’s always been my first love”. Her
“We make music
our friend's parents seem to like.
”
relationship with music appears to be akin to meeting an old friend after several years apart. Things may have changed, life may have gotten in the way, but the love and quiet affection still remain. Perhaps the most significant step was meeting her bandmate and current partner Reuben Taylor, “the current band, Storm the Palace, sort of blossomed when Reuben and I started working together”. She adds that he is sitting there with her at the end of the phone, but goes on to describe their working relationship honestly, “We have quite a complementary style of working together, we fill in each
others gaps.” Later, she adds that on meeting Rueben, “the whole project rose up by the power of 10.” I tentatively ask whether such a working relationship makes other aspects of their relationship difficult, but she says it appears to only enhance it: “We’re both nuts about music. It’s meant to be a major no no, being in a relationship with someone you’re in a band with.” The opposite seems to be true in this case, with Sophie stating matter-of-factly “I couldn’t be in a relationship with someone I wasn’t in a band with, I just wouldn’t have the time for it.” Despite the obvious success of such collaboration, Sophie describes a very independent way of working. “I start off with a very simple theme on my guitar, I write the lyrics and melodies and guitar parts. They all sound very Leonard Cohen-y at that stage.” She later adds that this stems from a history of no-shows and cancellations. “I played in a band once where our drummer just didn’t show up. I’d travelled down from Edinburgh [to Bournemouth] and he just wasn't there.” Alongside Leonard Cohen, and more apparent influences such as the orchestral-style pop of Scott Walker and Nancy and Lee, Sophie is eager
to talk of her love for folk music especially its European forms such as Bardou and Flamenco. “I lived in Portugal a couple of years ago and got into Bardou there.” Despite this varied and interesting mix of influences and sounds, Sophie adds somewhat hesitantly “When we play we get told we sound like Belle and Sebastian.” The comparison is perhaps an easy one to make. Belle and Sebastian’s wistful indie pop and intelligent lyrics would seem a perfect bedfellow with Storm the Palace especially considering some of Sophie’s most romantic lyrics. “If only like Copernicus we could rearrange ourselves another universe.” But Storm the Palace appear to occupy a perhaps unknown territory between the two genres, “We are totally sitting comfortably between the who gazing indie world and the big shiny pop world.” Adding with ever so slight tones of self deprecation, “We make music our friend's parents seem to like.” Yet, to me this is no bad thing. If it produces the sort of music that Storm the Palace have released so far, the journey the band and Sophie herself has taken, although not instantaneous, has been incredibly worthwhile.
First loves and lifelong friends An intimate reflection on a lifetime's love for music Photo: Arnab Ghosal
4 Music
George Ezra is bashful and mesmerising at the 02
L
ines were long (but fast moving) and excitement was high outside the O2 Academy last Saturday night, as a crowd of expectant George Ezra fans waited to enter the hallowed halls that would soon be graced by their hero. After silently cursing the fact that we weren’t O2 users, yours truly and a friend begrudg-
“Ezra looks like
someone who was genuinely having fun
”
ingly strolled over to the general line – and after a half an hour wait, we were in. Half an hour waits punctuated the entirety of the gig unfortunately, and often quite unnecessarily. Once inside though, the atmosphere was one of anticipation. The crowd spanned all ages, from late teens to quite a few middle-aged music lovers. In a classic gig move, my friend and I were stuck behind three of the tallest women on the planet, but we stoically chose to look past it (or not, as was the case). The stage was set up pretty simply, with ‘Ezra’ lit up in bright purple lights and blue lights covering the rest of the stage. Another half hour inside the O2 saw the arrival of Roo Paynes, Ezra’s
Photo: Robert Blackham
– ahem, hunky, ahem – opening act. Paynes comes out on stage, bringing just himself and a couple of guitars, to a huge roar from the crowd, and is as taken aback by the reaction as I am. Nevertheless, a couple of sound hiccups later, he begins his first song. It’s a dreamy and simple acoustic melody, and the crowd sways, following along. A couple of interesting chord progressions later, we can tell he has a Bon Iver-ish charm. Paynes proves interesting, but it’s easy to see how he could get lost in the sea of dreamy acoustic melodies currently in the market right
now. Paynes plays a half hour set, and yet another wholly unnecessary half hour wait later, the big act himself, George Ezra, takes the stage and the crowd absolutely loses any sense of civility. Ezra seems just as surprised as Paynes by the reaction, and with a certain degree of bashfulness, introduces himself to the audience and launches straight into the upbeat ‘Cassy O’’. Ezra has two guitarists, a drummer and a keyboard accompanying him and the energy on stage and in the crowd is palpable as we get to the chorus. Everyone is singing
along, and again Ezra’s face betrays surprise at that reaction. ‘Cassy O’’ is followed swiftly by more fan favourites – ‘Listen to the Man’ and ‘Blame It On Me’. Ezra’s baritone sounds great live, and he sways along to his own music. I’ve been to too many gigs and seen musicians who look sick of their own songs having played them so many times, but Ezra looks like someone who was genuinely having fun. In a short interlude, Ezra tells the crowd about his walking holiday – one that didn’t produce any new songs, and one he had to go alone on as his best
The unlikely heir: Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga
L
ast week, Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood’ landed with a thud in everybody’s news feed. The typical blizzard of unrestrained hysteria, intermingled with the typical eye-rolling from those not yet converted, blew around the internet as per usual. Because after all, we love Taylor Swift. Pop music critics talk about her with a level of respect and thoughtfulness usually reserved for the darlings of the indie circuit. It’s all a bit reminiscent of that time last decade when Pitchfork, archelitist stronghold of ultra-serious music journalism, decided to get really passionate about Justin Timberlake. But this time it’s broader. What other teen pop star commands the kind of attention that Swift routinely receives from the musical establishment? Slowly but surely, she has become an institution. And everybody loves her. Except for the haters. But the haters are gonna … you know. When was the last time a mainstream celebrity figure whose name does not begin with Kanye receive this kind of near-universal acclaim? It was five or six years ago, and the focus critics attention was Lady Gaga. Of course, Taylor Swift was around back then too. She was sing-
ing cutesy, charming country tracks like ‘Love Story’ – the song that still, for this writer, delivers the biggest sugar rush in her sugar-loaded catalogue. Gaga, by contrast, was giving us hyper-theatrical, dementedly stylised, self-consciously weird dancepop. To this day, she remains the only top-tier musical celebrity of the 21st century who can walk down a street without being swarmed by fans: hands up, anybody confident
“
Swift now occupies basically the same cultural space as Gaga
”
that they would recognise Lady Gaga in normal clothes. And yet Gaga has faded from view entirely. She came in like a comet, dazzled all onlookers, and in a year or two, burnt out. While quietly, ever more confidently, Swift came up from behind. Because let’s make no mistake: Lady Gaga was a more daring, more creative, and more interesting musician than Taylor Swift. But
Swift has usurped her. The video for “Bad Blood” only makes obvious what has been evident for some time: the fact that Swift now occupies basically the same cultural space that once belonged to Gaga. Selfconsciously glamorous, assertively sexy, the champion of misfits, the self-appointed spokeswoman for the uncool and the individualist – even while she revels in, and celebrates, all the trappings of mainstream success in the commercial pop industry. A surprising turn of events for a woman who started out saturated in the innocent sweetness of Nashville country-pop. Musically, ‘Bad Blood’ is hardly the best advertisement for her triumph. The chorus is only vaguely hummable, and the lyrics are even flatter than we’ve come to expect. (“Now we got problems. And I don’t think we can solve ’em. You made a really deep cut.”) But the song will be overshadowed in popular consciousness by its ridiculously overblown video, which in style and spirit recalls the ten-minute-long, Tarantinoworshipping video for Gaga’s “Telephone”. Both videos ultimately have the same premise: this song is frankly not very interesting, so let’s flood the
28th May 2015 SRISHTI NIRULA SOMERVILLE COLLEGE friends had ‘real jobs’ and couldn’t take ten days off. With that, he launches into ‘Benjamin Twine’. Ezra sings this one completely unaccompanied, and it almost feels like an intimate conversation between him and every one of us. He continues the conversational tone with ‘Leaving It Up To You’, which results in multiple phones in the air as the audience sways along. Songs that sound weaker on the album – like Spectacular Rival for instance – really pick up live, and Ezra’s energy and charisma hugely contributes to that. Ezra ends on ‘Budapest’, and asks the entirety of the crowd to sing along and we happily do. Yet as he sings, he is completely taken aback by the crowd’s performance, laughing in the middle at tunefulness of the audience. With that, he thanks the crowd and leaves momentarily, only to return for the encore. My issues with the pseudosurprise of the encore aside, Ezra’s return is greeted warmly again by the crowd, and he brings the gig to an end with ‘Blind Man in Amsterdam’ and ‘Did You Hear the Rain?’ Ezra is a force to be reckoned with on stage, with the only caveat that he doesn’t really change the songs much when singing them live. They sound pretty much exactly as they do on the album, which is certainly disappointing to an extent. Nevertheless, as the crowd left the O2 on Saturday night, there was a pervasive sense of deep satisfaction at an hour well-spent, and a reassurance that Wanted On Voyage is just as good as we know it to be.
ROBERT SELTH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
The queen of pop Taylor Swift, heiress to Gaga’s pop throne? Photo: Eva Rinaldi
video with irrelevant wackiness and everyone will be overwhelmed by our sheer sass. Swift’s video is much tamer and more family-friendly than Gaga’s, and that is emblematic of the difference between them. Taylor Swift will probably never surprise us like Gaga, or display Gaga’s startling imagination. (Of course, we’re talking “startling” in a radio-friendly pop context here.) But what she has done
is take up Gaga’s mantle and speak to the same audience of self-identified weird kids, even while broadening that appeal to take in most of the cool kids too – certain remarks in “22” notwithstanding. The breadth of this support has allowed her to endure and continue flourishing in a way that Gaga couldn’t. The tradeoff is she does everything a lot more conventionally, leading to a wistful reminiscence for Gaga’s heyday.
Music 5
28th May 2015
Swinging Six-ties OxStu’s 6th week Playlist
‘Cause I’m A Man Tame Impala
Outside Is The Right Side Pond
Crazy P: house music that’s all singing, all dancing DANIEL KEANE SOMERVILLE COLLEGE
C
razy P have not, in their now 17 year career, received the recognition that they deserve. Their brand of danceable disco-house has been a refreshing alternative to both the fuzzy, overproduced EDM and some of the more soulless and generic minimal techno in the electronic music scene. Their main strength, however, is vocalist Danielle Moore. Her soulful tones award their songs a depth that extends beyond a beat; lending Crazy P a pop sensibility that allows for no self-indulgence. Their previous album, When We On, seems almost impossible to top. It contains, after all, ‘Heartbreaker’: their finest moment, and one of the greatest electronic songs ever produced. Walk Dance Talk Sing, does not hit these heights, but comes very close: it is, above anything, a testament to the liberating euphoria of house music. From the outset, Crazy P wear there influences on their sleeve including: Chic, Marshall Jefferson, Frankie Knuckles and Donna Summer. Yet, on this album they weave these sounds into something truly original. The opener, ‘Like A Fool’, is a standout track: old school house pi-
DREAMGIRLS
The Hill Ty Segall
Go Meet the Seed Thee Oh Sees
What saves this album from being an onslaught of disco-house is its’ more slower, intimate moments. ‘Something More’ has shades of post-punk of about it; but it’s slow beat builds in power, culminating in the powerful line “Do you think you’ll give me something more?”. Yet, perhaps the most beautiful song on this album is ‘The Way’: a mellow, reflec-
tive jazz song where Danielle’s ethereal, hushed vocals whisper to an ex-lover: “You made me question the way I looked at everything”. This song is at the very heart of this albums’ success: it lends it a depth beyond the dance floor and a soul behind the beat. What is more, it does not sound contrived or lachrymose, but real, organic and beautiful.
BEST FILMS ABOUT MUSIC Naomi Southwell
Chores Animal Collective
ano meanders around a slow funky beat and repeated cut up samples of Bettye LaVette’s 1973 soul classic ‘Your Turn To Cry’. The next track ‘The Come On’ is slightly faster and introduces Danielle’s vocals: “I can’t wait no more for your love”. Like it’s lyrics, the song sustains a sense of urgency amidst it’s disco synths, bongos and Prince-esque guitar licks. ‘Echo’ is somewhat less memorable. It channels Chaka Khan, but feels utlimately less complete than the previous two tracks. With this said, ‘Cruel Mistress’ – constructed around delicate guitar harmonics – is a wonderful pop song: building to an eventual sing-along chorus of “I’m losing my head”. The moment the synths enter in the 4th minute is, undeniably, one of the albums’ finest moments, though some listeners will wish this musical motif was carried through. The ending track and lead single, ‘Witch Doctor’, is bound to fill dance floors across the UK. Beginning minimally with only a beat and a fuzzy bass line, it morphs into an epic haze of guitars, synths and pianos amidst repetitions of ‘keep it going’. Like the sudden change in the last chorus of Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite of Love’; this shift and progression marks the moment that a good song becomes a great song.
Adapted from the Broadway musical of the same name, Dreamgirls is a musical drama loosely based on the history of the Motown record label and its phenomenally successful premiere act: The Supremes. The drama centres around the fortunes of The Dreamettes, later named The Dreams, a girl group fronted by Effie (Jennifer Hudson) with back up singers Deena (Beyoncé) and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose). The group’s story mirrors that of The Supremes, with Deena selected as leader singer in place of Effie, as was the case with Diana Ross and Florence Ballad. The all star cast including Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy and Danny Glover amongst those already mentioned guarantees an emotionally charged performance of the trials and tribulations of the early commercial days of R&B and soul. However, the tainted glamour of the music industry is most accurately expressed in the musical performances from the film itself, with lung-busting, heartfelt solos from Jennifer Hudson, ‘And I Am Telling You’ and Beyoncé, ’Listen’. Despite the obvious themes of manipulation by music industry personnel, the story is one of empowerment. The supreme talent of the Dreamettes cis untaintable and the stars assert their own agency on their path to their musical dreams.
CONTROL
Lucy Clarke
The grimy streets of Manchester are so often paired with the distinctive sound of Joy Division that it’s almost a cliche, but Anton Corbijn’s bravura Control is never anything but hard-hitting and original. Filmed in stark black and white, it’s a biopic of extraordinary impact, held up by Sam Riley’s incredible turn as the doomed Ian Curtis, becoming both transfixing and difficult to watch as he portrays Curtis’ slide down the slope to his end. Riley is the core of a set of actors who become their parts, not least through their versions of Joy Division’s songs: the band’s first TV performance is both visually and audibly accurate to real life. The film’s aesthetic is perfect, matching up shots of the postindustrial wasteland of Greater Manchester and dim-lit clubs to the thrumming bass and desperate lyrics of the band. Corbijn doesn’t just make a film about Curtis: he builds it upon the music, the dark and gritty sentiments of songs like ‘Shadowplay’ becoming narrative devices to explore Curtis’ doomed descent. It’s painfully well-done, rendering the rise of the band in bleak counterpoint to the personal story of Curtis with no holds barred: humanity in all its weakness, set to a soundtrack that understood it all.
AWAYDAYS
Sean McIntyre
Awaydays looks at youth culture in Britain during the late seventies; exploring the excitement, melancholy and futility of this fraught time and the ultimate escapism offered by music. Framing such a juxtaposition of emotions is a challenging task but the film succeeds. It’s success lies in its use of post-punk and electronic muisc as a base to ensure a constant dark and foreboding setting. The variety of bands featured including: Joy Division, Ultravox, The Cure, The Jam ,The Human League , Gang of Four and Echo & the Bunnymen allows for a seamless interchange between glum scenes by the sea to raucous fights with rival gangs. The early stages of the film hint at frantic fight scenes as soon as ‘Young Savage’ by Ultravox kicks in, while a splash of Joy Division in the middle points towards a devastating ending. If the clever and varied soundtrack isn’t sufficient to convince you then perhaps the cameo by Miles Kane will; The Rascals play a cover of ‘All That Jazz’ by Echo and the Bunnymen at the gig scene. Then again, maybe he is just ‘another divvy in a raincoat.’
SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN Jacob Wiseman
Searching for Sugar Man is the critically acclaimed documentary that details the search for the American folk musician Rodriguez in South Africa after rumours of his death. Due to the nature of apartheid censorship laws, no further information could be gathered concerning his whereabouts leaving a country filled with unlikely Rodriguez fans full of unanswered questions. In South Africa, Rodriguez became a cultural icon with his albums becoming the soundtrack to the anti-apartheid movement. The film also explores the mysterious success of Rodriguez’s music in South Africa, in comparison to America where his music remained unknown and unappreciated. The title of the documentary is taken from one of Rodriguez biggest hits ‘Sugar Man’, a bleak story of a drug dealer and his various clients. After the success of Searching for Sugar Man, Rodriguez’s career eventually took off in his home country, with a packed out tour following the Oscar nomination and subsequent win. Searching for Sugar Man is a captivating tale with a narrative of almost fictional qualities, but with the beauty of the story lying ultimately in its truth.
6 Stage
28th May 2015
STAGE
Swallowed up by nature Zennor explores the effects of climate change on a Cornish fishing village. It takes a vast subject and applies it to the minutely specific.
Photo: Knack Kneed Productions
Fissures in the Community - Zennor Previewed
‘I
f Cornwall were in the States, they’d tape it up and call it a hazard site.’ Zennor, presented by ‘KnackKneed Theatre Company’, in association with the newly-revived ‘Experimental Theatre Club’, will be the first ever Oxford student production to be put on at the North Wall Arts Centre. Zennor is being produced in a collaborative effort between the actors and writer, Lamorna Ash, in a nerve-wracking but clearly rewarding process for all involved. The show deals with the impact of climate change on the bonds of community that hold a small Cornish town together. But that seems a trite summary – the play seeks to dredge up the huge range of human motivations that underpin our interaction with the environment, and won’t shy away from probing the fragility which lies beneath the picture-postcard surface of a small seaside town. The stress on collaboration in the rehearsal process – the actors did two weeks of pure improvisation work before Lamorna had got anything on paper – is part of the
ETC’s motivation to open up the rehearsal process to the audience of a ‘Rough Cuts’ scratch night. This a risk for all involved; Zennor’s director (and co-president of the ETC), Sammy Glover, asks the audience to be generous, as “things might go wrong”. The cast and creative team began by developing characters and the world they inhabit through improvisation. They then go to the writer for new sections of script and alterations to existing dialogue. Lamorna admits that it is sometimes hard to keep up with character developments, but she is not at all reluctant to give her creation up to the actors to play with. She says with delight “they know more about the characters now than I do”. It is intriguing to watch the characters come to life as the actors warm up. We saw the cast use an improvisation technique by which the characters’ greatest fear informs their physicality. In another exercise called ‘hotseating’ (an improvised monologue triggered by leading questions from the director) these fears are revealed, from those of John (Cassian Bilton), the BP bu-
reaucrat turned environmentalist, to the fraught relationship between exes Matthew and Jen (Calam Lynch and Ell Potter). The ‘greatest fears’ exercise is clearly useful for much more besides character development though. It
“ This is a community
that feels that it’s about to become unmoored
”
allows the actors to imply and explore a conflict between generations, as well as wider fissures (fishures? Couldn’t resist) opening up between the pillars of Zennor’s community as they attempt to confront the world changing around them. What anchors Zennor in place – fish or figures? What is the place
or point of religion in a world that seems close to destruction? Gráinne O’Mahony’s Vicar struggles to assuage the outrage and concern of her elderly parishioners, Zennor’s foremost fishmongers (played with relish by Aoife Cantrill and Jack Clover). This is a community that feels itself about to become unmoored. Cantrill’s character Alice feels the world expanding without her, and her greatest fear is to be lost and alone. The effect of the ‘hotseating’ exercise is to demonstrate how tightly all the characters’ stories are enmeshed with each other. The place becomes a hazard site when relationships are on the rocks. The payoff of the risk of devising theatre is that there are far fewer logical constraints, because actors and writer can make up the rules of the theatrical world they are creating as they go along. Zennor will also boast live music and mixing from Tom Stafford, who has clearly been working on some character development of his own; he gets ahead of himself with a particularly virtuosic guitar riff and one of the characters has to tell
HELENA WILSON Mansfield College
him to “shut up” with the dramatic music. We are reminded that, as an audience, we only have temporary access to a world that for the characters is utterly real, and we mustn’t abuse that. It is clear that Knack-Kneed hope to create something real, which the audience can explore further in their own imaginations once the play finishes. What I saw might have been ‘Rough Cuts’, but the team aren’t working towards a conventional kind of finished product at the end. Knack-Kneed and the ETC proved to their audience last week – and will look to do so again at the North Wall – that there are different theatrical processes available to students other than the safe and familiar. Their process is one of constant evolution and revision so, although the evening does inevitably feel like a performance for both actors and audience, it is one which raises questions of how rehearsals and performances can and ‘should’ work. Zennor is at the North Wall Arts Centre from Wednesday 3rd to Friday 5th June at 8pm.
28th May 2015
Review Passion, The Keble O’Reilly
I
had wondered why I hadn’t heard much of Passion before its revival on the Keble O’Reilly Stage. About five minutes of the performance, however, I quickly understood. The musical follows the - er passionate love affair between Captain Giorgio and his mistress Clara, which is soon disrupted by the Captain’s transferral to a remote military outpost. It is there that Giorgio meets his Colonel’s cousin, the nervous Fosca, who immediately develops an unsettling infatuation with the Captain, inevitably compromising his relationship with Clara. Whilst the premise offers the potential for a compelling love story, the unsubtle script is littered with clichés. Fortunately, the tedious writing is salvaged by a talented cast. Alex Ohlsson flawlessly executes the conflicted Giorgio, offering a note-perfect performance of professional calibre. Georgia Figgis’ Clara is equally convincing, furnishing a complex character with
Photo:Passion
an impressively sympathetic portrayal. Ohlsson and Figgis are well cast in their roles, as the chemistry between the pair validates the musical’s name; their ability to simultaneously hit all of the notes and kiss each other proved a particularly impressive feat. Clara’s counterpart, Fosca, aptly complemented this passionate duo, with Emilie Finch sensitively capturing her character’s fragile disposition.
“ Fortunately, the tedious writ-
ing is salvaged by a talented cast
”
Yet, through no fault of the production, the unsubtle turns of the plot let down these polished performances. Crucial plot details, such as the fact that Clara is married or has a child, are clumsily thrown in to the dialogue without sufficient elaboration. Moreover, it seems inconceivable that Giorgio, who grows to loathe the overbearing devotion of Fosca, could fall in love with her five (stage) minutes later, after an argument with Clara. As a result, it proves difficult for the audience to engage with these psychologically unbelievable charactors. Director Niall Docherty does, however, cope well with this lacklustre material. His direction is
Review: String of Pearls, The BT Studio
I
magine a Coen brothers film as written by Angela Carter. By turns dark, whimsical, monstrously cruel and deliciously sweet, String of Pearls may well be the best play of Trinity term so far. Director Caitlin Jauncey and her cast and crew deserve congratulations for taking such an aggressively weird, difficult play, and making it come across so effortlessly. The plot is a dense and complex affair, featuring a cast of about thirty characters, played by a cast of four. The story is delivered through a series of monologues, as the titular string of pearls changes hands and we spend time with each respective owner. This is a play that doesn’t mess about. When the play opens, we are unceremoniously thrust into the life of an old woman preparing for her granddaughter’s wedding, and searching for her old pearl necklace. It then jumps back in time, and spends the rest of its running time following its progress from person to person, building to a conclusion which could easily have felt trite and clichéd,
but which instead feels immensely satisfying. The play is a shell game, switching furiously between dramatically different tones, styles, and types
“ This is what Oxford
drama is all about
”
of characters, such that the obvious resolution feels fresh and surprising. String of Pearls is not afraid to challenge its audience, but if you’re willing to put in the mental legwork to keep up with its dense and richly-woven plot, you will also find it very rewarding. Of course, a good cast helps, and the four actors take well to challenging material. All have great comic timing, and skilfully handle the rapid shifts in tone the
Stage 7
REBECCA HEITLINGER Somerville College consistent and imaginative, clearly seeking to bring out the dichotomy of Giorgio’s love interests. Indeed the staging of the ensemble scenes revives the pace of the play, with the musical renditions of the drunken soldiers proving a delightful interlude to the increasingly tiresome love triangle. The flashback to Fosca’s past offered a particularly creative ensemble addition, providing rare insight in to Fosca’s motivation as a character; Chesney Ovsiowitz and Gwen Cartwright embody wonderfully comic caricatures of Fosca’s parents, negotiating a lighter tone amidst overly-sentimental exchanges. The musical is visually stunning, with the attention to detail in the costumes and props perfectly capturing the aesthetic of 19 th century Italy. This is suitably complemented by the accomplished set, which cleverly utilises the space by housing the superb orchestra, meticulously orchestrated by musical director John Warner. The music, on the whole, redeems the perils of the script, with the opening number ‘Happiness’ (you can see what I mean by unsubtle) proving impossible not to sing on leaving the theatre. In effect, my expectations of Passion were subverted; despite a student production attempting a Sondheim musical, this impressive production seemed too accomplished for an underwhelming script. Passion was at The Keble O’Reilly from Tuesday 12th - Saturday 16th May.
WILLIAM SHAW Christ Church College play requires. All four manage the difficult feat of embodying the character of the moment while projecting a sense of underlying personality, which is no mean feat given that so much of the rest of the play is clamouring for our attention. Emma Buchy-Dury is a witty performer, whilst Helene Bonnici displays a quiet gravitas; Alex Worrell gives an poignant performance and Alice Moore does a brilliant job of conveying emotional depth. The staging is similarly good, with minimalist presentation and imaginative use of lighting helping to make scene transitions feel smooth and natural. A triumph of imagery, intellect and atmosphere, String of Pearls is dense, strange, and deeply moving. Its bold experimentalism may not be for everyone, but it is without a doubt the most intriguing play the BT has served up all year. This is what Oxford drama is all about. String of Pearls was at the BT Studio from Tuesday 19th to Saturday 23rd May.
Preview Elephants, The BT Studio LAURA WHETHERLY St Peter’s College
D
arkly humorous, energetic and cathartic, Elephants, a new play from Anthony Maskell, promises a snapshot of the absurdities of ordinary life, condensed into just one hour of increasingly intense drama. Focused on two couples, the feuding Greg and Laura, and their guests Jennifer and Todd, Elephants tells the story of one bizarre dinner party where nothing is quite as it seems. Although embroiled in a messy divorce, Greg and Laura attempt to put on the front of a happy couple whilst appealing to head teacher Jennifer for a school place for their son. Meanwhile however, the well-mannered Todd and Jennifer have ulterior motives of their own. Coming together over a dinner where both couples have their own agendas to fulfil, one-upmanship and alcohol ramp up the tension as the script leads to a conclusion that, while funny, is also tragic. Written as one continuous scene, this is a necessarily energetic production, tightly written and character-driven. The actors on stage feed off one another’s energy consistently, and there is already a clear sense of the rise and fall of tension as they work around one another in order to keep the audience guessing. Although in many ways this is an essentially simple production – one set, a small core of characters – the cast manage to grab the audience’s attention right from the off, and this drives the play throughout its conclusion.
Maskell’s writing is littered with moments of dark comedy, which work nicely to stop Elephants from taking itself too seriously. While not exactly laugh-out-loud stuff, the often absurdist comments are well timed to break up and enhance some of the more intense scenes, and towards the end we slip even further towards farce as cakes are thrown while Greg and Laura’s marriage unravels. The cast number just four in this production – and that includes Maskell, who, as well as playing the character of Todd, is directing his own work at the same time. While he admits that there are challenges with taking on these multiple roles, the cast are supportive of the tightknit production process, and there’s a definite sense of fun surrounding the rehearsal. Elephants makes no pretensions as to an overarching theme or social commentary but does what it does well, and the cast’s closeness can only be helping with this: all of the actors we spoke to described the sheer fun coming from the conflict between their characters. Student productions are often overwrought and overthought. Maskell’s Elephants promises to be neither of these, instead zooming in on a snapshot of real life, taken just one step from the ordinary and one step into the absurd. Dryly humorous but with plenty of drama too, this promises to be an show with impact that offers something a little different. Elephants is at the BT Studio from Tuesday 2nd to Saturday 6th June at 9.30pm.
What’s On Elephants
Tue 2nd - Sat 6th June, 9.30pm @The BT Studio
Rosmersholm
Tue 2nd - Sat 6th June, 7.30pm @The Keble O’Reilly
As You Like It
Wed 3rd - Sat 6th June, 7.30pm @Christ Church Cathedral Gardens
His Dark Materials Part II Wed 3rd - Sat 6th June, 7.30pm (matinée Thurs & Sat 2.30) @The Keble O’Reilly
8 Fashion
28th May 2015
28th May2015
Dress for any occasion
Model: Nathalie Kantaris Diaz Photographer: Annabel Harris Editing: Lizzie Evens Styling:Charlotte Lanning & Lizzie Evens
Fashion 9
28th May 2015
10 Fashion
FASHION
Is catwalk beauty irrelevant?
FLORA HOLMES
Lincoln College
• Flora Holmes explains why we shouldn’t take our eyes off of mainstream
catwalk beauty, despite the abundance of a range of weird and wacky trends like the clothJing,ust beauty
trends on the runways often push the boundaries of what is
considered the norm. This is part of what is so exciting about watching the various runway-shows each season; the new and unique styles that
“ Unsurprisingly the average person has failed to join the bleached brows crowd
”
Photo:Jo Jones
designers have dreamt up to adorn their models. Many of the featured clothing looks you would never dare to wear on a day-to-day basis however. Nonetheless these styles will often trickle down to high street stores, evolving into more muted and wearable forms along the way. This is not necessarily the case with beauty looks. The shows of Fall 2014 offered an array of somewhat garish trends; bleached brows are one such style. Kendall Jenner walked for Marc Jacobs rocking a blonde brow, and the models for Alexander Wang were the same. From here celebrities became involved, mimicking the trend; one couldn’t scroll down
Guest Feature
Instagram without seeing a selfie of the latest star who had decided to bleach their brows – Miley, Kim K, Katy Perry and Rita Ora all sported this trend. Yet this is where the buck stopped. Perhaps unsurprisingly the average person has failed to join the bleached brows crowd. One can hardly envisage someone strutting down Broad Street sporting a pair, unless they had very light blonde hair it would likely look ridiculous. This leads to the question; are catwalk beauty trends relevant to us? Yes, it’s cool and interesting to see a designer feature a bleached brow or bright yellow eyeliner at their show to achieve their aesthetic vision. Though why should we take notice in the same way we do with the clothes, if there is no way that we would ever consider employing the look ourselves? Wet look hairstyles dominated beauty at the SS15 collections. Once more I fail to see how applicable this trend is. Personally, the only time I work the wet hair trend is when my hair hasn’t dried yet after a shower. Yet not all catwalk hair and beauty is so extravagant and inappropriate to our lives. There are some cases when the ‘trickle-down’ effect has taken hold just in the way that it does with clothes. Since Cara Delevigne and her powerful brows have risen to prominence on the runway, eyebrows have become somewhat of
a fetish in the beauty community. Previously, most people just plucked their eyebrows and left it at that, perhaps adding a bit of pencil for
“ This constitutes a
milestone in fashion history
”
definition on a heavier make-up day. Now, eyebrow game has escalated with brows becoming a staple part of everyday beauty routines. When a trend is wearable, for example the natural, dewy look that also featured in the SS15 runways, it is often the case that it will catch on. Because many beauty trends are so extravagant and theatrical they are normally confined to the runway or a few celebrities’ faces. Fashion is constantly evolving, as are beauty trends, so we should never take our eyes of them or completely disregard them.If we did this we may miss key moments in fashion and beauty history.Prada’s AW15 show featured the Dominican model Lineisy Montero sporting a small afro. This was a milestone for
two reasons. Firstly Montero was the first African American model to walk for a Prada catwalk in fifteen years. Secondly, perhaps more importantly, her beauty look subverted the dominant trend whereby black models are styled with sleek straightened hair. This constitutes a milestone in fashion history. Perhaps this is a continuation of the natural trend that swept the catwalk in the previous season, or perhaps something bigger. Either way, beauty looks in fashion shows should not be overlooked or their relevance downplayed too significantly. Yes, often they are crazy and impractical, but that is what makes fashion so exciting, and sometimes these looks can mark the start of a whole new movement.
Photo:Instagram:@lilyallen
• Prominent Oxford based fashion blogger Emma Felin, of The Sassy Street, shares what she would wear on an afternoon spent punting
PhotoThe Sassy Street
Look 1: I love the vintage and casual feel of high-waisted denim shorts, along with a striped tee if
you’re planning to punt. Stick with simple patterns, nautical is always a great choice for summer. I also wore white flats that would allow me to punt comfortably. If the weather is warm and sunny, the best accessory to bring along is a pair of colourful sunglasses. Shorts ASOS, Top Brandy Melville, Flats Next, Watch ASOS, Sunglasses LFW
Look 2: If you intend to relax inside the punt (although you may end up rowing a bit if you’re not with an expert punter), you can opt for something a bit less practical. I went for a navy shift dress, black hat, and red lipstick to complete the look. Dress Gap, Hat H&M, Shoes H&M, Watch ASOS
28th May 2015
All tied up with tender memories
Fashion 11 ANNABEL HARRIS
New College
• Our fasion contributors talk us through special memories of their favourite clothes AN ODE TO THE BOW
Charlotte Lanning
Photo: baygarnett on Instagram
INSTAWORTHY @baygarnett
As a Contributing Fashion Editor for Vogue UK she basically has our dream job. In her work she is credited with brining thriftyfashion into the mainstream, as such her pictures always have a vintage feel. Also check out her blog at www.baygarnett.com-definately worth a read for the fashion concious.
My cream, lacey hair bow was a purchased from Topshop on Oxford Street in the Easter holidays of year 9. I’m not sure whether it was my desperation to piss off my teachers (I already managed that with my bad fake tan and rolled up kilt) or my love of Minnie Mouse but my bow became a staple feature of my school uniform. Ask any of my friends and they will tell you that it didn’t leave my head for a good 8 months and multiple Facebook pictures are a testament to that. It helped keep my “fringe” in place (the classic hair swept across the forehead look) and while I now realise how ridiculous I looked I still haven’t thrown it away… Maybe I’ll dig it out this summer?
WHO WEARS THE TROUSERS?
Sorrel Evans
My favourite trousers are the massive balloon-esque patchwork pair I got on a family trip to Poole; I can remember the day I got them extremely clearly. Resplendent in braces and consequently incredibly self-conscious about them, when I thanked the woman who gave me the trousers, she said ‘Never hold your smile back; you’re stunning!’
Image: baygarnett on Instagram
OxStu Fashion on Instagram @oxstufashion
DRESS TO IMPRESS
I cried with a group of people who soon became some of my closest friends.
SCHOOL’S OUT
Macushla Lovell-Meade Amol Chalisgaonkar Tight, gold, and sparkly; the perfect party number that I have whipped out on many an occasion. It was bought specifically for a Christmas party at the house of a friend I had made very recently whose guests were a group of people I was not that well acquainted with. I remember feeling like a slightly more risqué Christmas angel as I sparkled away whilst sipping on champagne, gorging on pizza, taking glamorous
“ I remember feeling like a
slightly more risqué Christmas angel as I sparkled away
”
photos (one of which became a very successful profile picture thus making said dress somewhat infamous), and most importantly laughing till
I have a white t shirt hanging in my cupboard at home with maroon sleeves and a maroon colour. It’s got a small message on the back that’s incomplete. On the last day of Year 11 we were all about to write messages on each others’ t shirts as is custom until the PE teacher warned us against it. My friend wrote anyway and was forced to stop, leaving it incomplete. It’s my only physical attachment to that school.
OFF THE CHAIN
Annabel Harris
In my drawer there’s a pair of red shorts. Red pedal pushers, to be exact. Hideous red pedal pushers, stained with an interesting combination of grass, ice-cream, and seawater. Ten-year-old me was a lot more interested in convenience than fashion, and wore them for an entire summer. I remember my brother and I, partners in crime, once got cut off by the sea. This is England, so it was raining, and we sat and ate ice cream and had a proper grown up conversation: I was scared of big school, and he offered me seven-year-old wisdom
and a sticky hug.
HUNTIN’, SHOOTIN’, FISHIN’
Hugh McHale-Maughan Whatever anyone says about its connotations, tweed remains easily the most comfotable, versatile, resilient and smart fabric around. My big tweed overcoat (despite endless mockery of its rustic feel) is easily my favourite garment. Nothing keeps the cold of a countryside tramp out like it, and I genuinely think (whethe or not this is true...) that, layered with shirt, jumper and brogues it’s my best look. Beyond this, it reminds me of some of my favourite memories, back at home, out in the Yorkshire Dales or Moors.
PUNK FAIRY
Laura Whetherly My all time favourite shoes have got to be a pair of military-style boots which I bought during the winter to keep out the cold. Best of all was putting them on for my college’s Summer Ball, the first Oxford ball I’d ever attended. Some girls love delicate heels, but the buckles and polished toecaps suit my style much more. Instead of going to ball looking like a princess, I could be myself - a grumpy, punk fairy with pink hair.
Oxstu Fashion’s guide to contouring
LIZZIE EVENS
New College
• Lizzie Evens discusses how to recreate Kim Kardashian’s iconic look
I
t wasn’t long ago that contouring was merely a feature of topography and the only means of changing one’s bone structure was through plastic surgery. Yet the art of contouring has emerged from the shrouded toolkit of professional make up artists as of late. It’s initial steps were choreographed by high-end makeup designers; the Kevin Acoin Sculpting powder, Charlotte Tilbury and Smashbox. But high profile Spring launches have flung the palettes and precision brushes onto the high street and into student budgets. Everyone has the one friend who possesses this coveted ability; often
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Now whenever I wear those trousers I also wear a smile!
Photo: Kim Kardashain Instagram
the same friend who is a dab hand with false eyelashes and whose intimate knowledge of selfie angles and filters is encyclopaedic. The wizardry takes place and a gaunt emerges and cheekbones become pronounced, leading to club photos that are potential profile picture contenders. But how can those with just the one poofy brush and acquaintance with only one stroke navigate a contour kit? So you have meticulously studied the images of models in magazines, acquired an appropriate palette and sit brush in hand. Yet consulting the video tutorials can prove intimidating and the image of Kim Kardashian’s cream contour routine looms in the memory. There appears some mystical stage named ‘blending’ where there is a sudden leap. For the contour newbies and topographers in training I would recommend getting your bearings with a more affordable palette such as those offered by Nyx, Barry M or Sleek. As with many things in beauty once you have acquired the tools the only thing left to improve is to practice; contour yourself, your female friends or male friends, contouring can certainly help the latter group to achieve the sought after chiselled look.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when you pluck up the courage to remould your face; 1. 2.
3.
4.
If there’s flash photography (i.e. nightclub photos) stick to powder contour. Cream contour can create a more flawless look but is liable to shine like a beacon in club photos. Blend with a clean brush. Once the initial sweep is completed, take a fresh brush and blend like crazy, small circular movements then broad circles repeatedly until it looks smooth. It may look too dramatic at first, you may even resemble Bambi, but stick with it and the aforementioned mystical blending stage should materialise. You need A LOT of make up. The likes of the Kardashians, Beyonce and Cara are often sporting flawless contouring but the reason this is so effective is because they have layered up with primer, foundation and setting powder. This is a lot of make up for everyday and is applied in the case of these women as they are being constantly photographed. Keep brushes clean. I know it can be a pain to wash up the make up brushes, and when one considers the length of time it has been it is easy to cringe, yet nothing is worse than painting a stripe of contour powder where it ought to be highlighter.
Sleek Cosmetics
28th May 2015
12 Screen
SCREEN
Photo: HBO
Mad Men: The Lives We’re Yet to Lead D
eep down, there has always been something fascinatingly mundane about Mad Men. Look past its lustrous 60s facade, beyond its protagonist’s almost mythic persona, and through the flamboyant affairs of its characters and you will see a show that operates on a different level than most other cable dramas. Whereas Breaking Bad’s first season ended with an insane drug dealer killing a man for an offhand remark, Mad Men’s concluded with a man arriving home to find his family gone for Thanksgiving. Characters in The Walking Dead have to deal with zombies and cannibals; the people in Mad Men battle approaching deadlines, decaying relationships and self-alienation. Even The Sopranos, perhaps Mad Men’s most important predecessor, featured FBI informants and mafia warfare; the most Mad Men can boast of is a suicide and a mental breakdown. Thus, it is unsurprising that the series’ finale finds itself facing a universal theme: beginnings and endings. Almost every character experiences a change in professional situation and personal relationships. Joan breaks up with Richard but starts a production company; Peggy passes on the opportunity to co-found said company but embarks on a relationship with Stan; Pete re-unites with Trudy; Roger is married to Marie and apparently living in Quebec; Sally is all grown-up and taking care of her siblings; and finally Betty, despite her impending
demise, continues to live and to smoke cigarettes. The latter is remarkable, for the finale could have chosen to be more definitive and have Betty die. That it did not reveals its interest not in the end of things, but in their continuity. There are endings and beginnings in the final episode, but they are all shown to be part of a bigger system in which each ending is a new beginning. What about Don, the man who accidentally stole a man’s life and then purposefully his name, the man whose career, affairs and marriages the show has charted for seven seasons? His journey ends, and also begins again, in a New Age retreat in California, a state which throughout the series represented an escape into a sun-filled Utopia. Despite predictions that he would succumb to despair and fall through the sky like the man in the show’s opening, we leave Don alive and smiling, sitting in meditation on a sunny hilltop. Soon, a song begins to play that leads to a new scene: a Coca-Cola ad proclaiming “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.” The implication is that Don returns to his job at McCann and makes the ad. Many have already argued that this reveals all Don can do is commercialize counter-culture to sell sugary drinks but he can never genuinely change or attain enlightenment. To argue this, however, is to ignore some significant factors. The first is Don’s emotional situation
throughout the episode. After running away from his job in New York, Don receives the news that his ex-wife is dying but his offer of help is rebuffed. After the events of season six, Don has been trying to be a better person, but has found that it may be too little too late. It feels as if he might have found redemption in his own eyes if only he could find someone’s troubles to give him purpose. Having lost everything, he phones Peggy, confesses his sins and says goodbye. Don sitting by the phone unmoving is the perfect picture of an estranged, broken man.
“ Don has always excelled at
beginnings, but he has never really learned to deal with endings.
”
It is only later when Lenard, another man at the retreat, talks about his feelings of alienation that things change. There is a germ of recognition when the man claims “it’s like no one cares that I’m gone” and when he breaks down in tears, Don gets up, embraces him and starts to cry. Having seen
both the abyss he found himself in and this moment of enlightenment that is bringing him out of it, how can one second guess the honesty of his personal development? Don’s epiphany is not, however, a simple solution to all of life’s problems. He does not go on to become a zen teacher, but presumably returns to his job at McCann to use his keen insight into human nature to sell products such as Coca-Cola. This is because the true epiphany lies in Lenard’s refrigerator nightmare: just as the light turns on when the door is open but off when it closes, there are also moments of happiness and darkness in life, beginnings and endings. The old saying goes that when one door closes and another opens, but the truth Don glimpses in the nightmare is that the door that closes is the one that opens, just not at the same time. The cycle repeats itself, just as Don himself has gone through his own cycle: always returning to California for answers, always striving for something new and better. Don has always excelled at beginnings, but he has never really learned to deal with endings. In recognizing the cyclical nature of life and happiness, he finally breaks free to see the spiral: if every ending is a beginning, there are no real ends, but also no real beginnings. The new you is the old you. So he goes back to his life, back to his job at McCann, and he makes an ad about human connection across
STEFANO DOMINGUES DE CASTRO PACHI
SOMERVILLE COLLEGE the world. It may be trying to sell you Coke, but it is also doing more than that, because looking back at Don’s ads, it becomes clear that he has never sold anything he did not desperately believe in. This is the case in the series premiere when he sells Lucky Strike with the idea that ‘whatever you’re doing is okay, you are okay’; it is the case in the beautiful nostalgia of the Kodak carrousel pitch in the first season finale; it is the case all the way to his breaking down during the Hershey’s meeting at the end of season six. These feelings may all have been commercialized, but they are still beating strongly in his heart. In all of his ads, Don lays bare his yearnings in the knowledge that the same notes playing on his bare soul will resonate with others. Perhaps, however, the show’s final thesis is encapsulated in a moment in the penultimate episode, when a recently-diagnosed Betty is leaving for college and, when asked why, responds with a question of her own: ‘Why did I ever?’ Betty refuses to let her oncoming end dictate her life. Life is for living, and death will take care of itself. This may seem like an obvious truism, yet it is one thing to know it, another to feel it. And as that final smile on Don’s face shows, he feels it now. As each character goes on to live the lives they are yet to lead, we can rest assured that Mad Men’s ending is only as much of an end as we want it to be.
28th May 2015
Screen 13
Review: Girlhood G
irlhood starts as it means to go on – thrilling and immersive. The first scene sees an American football team piling out onto a floodlit pitch to the soundtrack of pulsating electro-pop. But all is not as it seems. What appears to be a team of white American jocks is in fact beneath the shoulder-pads and gum shields a group of black Parisian girls. Already the viewer’s expectations and gender binaries have been subverted, and this is only in the first five minutes. Writer/director Celine Sciamma of Tomboy (2010) continues to riff of themes of sexuality and identity, albeit in the very different setting of the impoverished banlieues of Paris. While the film is driven by the electric charisma and street-wise dialogue of its mostly first-time cast, Sciamma manages to introduce most of the themes without words. After an exhilarating game of football, a gang of girls head back home to the banlieue, shrieking and chattering in post-game euphoria. However as the high-rise concrete blocks loom into view, an eerie silence falls over the girls. On either side of them are the shadowy figures and indistinct voices of men, their silhouettes – but not their faces – lit up in the lamplight. In the face of the oppressive towers of the banlieue and the men that dominate the space around them, we can visibly see the girl empowerment fizzle away. The girls file off in groups to their respective buildings
until we are only left with Marieme, played by newcomer Karidja Toure, who is then seldom out of shot for the remainder of the film. The film begins at a crucial juncture in the life of sixteen year old Marieme. School is over and she needs to work out what to do with her life. The prospects aren’t good. Marieme talks to a teacher, unseen behind the camera, who informs her that her grades aren’t good enough to go to high school and she must look at ‘vocational training’, which Marieme disdains. The fact that the teacher is unseen is significant as the figures of authority, institutions and ‘the system’ that is keeping Marieme and her friends trapped in a cycle of low-paid work, baby-making and abusive relationships is faceless. It is entrenched and insidious and, while omnipresent, it is so huge it is impossible to capture in a shot or even a sentence or a thought. Frustrated and enraged, Marieme falls in with a gang of girls. These initially form a striking contrast to the submissive behaviour of the girls in the first scenes of the film. They stand erect and banter confidently with a gang of boys, seemingly on equal terms. However, even these girls whose mantra is ‘I do what I want’ are subject to the greater forces of patriarchy at work throughout the film. Sexual tensions, frustrations and need for respect are often battled out in girl-on-girl gang fights, where
MEGAN ERWIN CORPUS CHRISTI the ultimate shame is to de-clothe and ideally de-bra your opponent. After this happens to the leader of Marieme’s gang she is mocked by the boys for being ‘dirty’ and a ‘slut’. That same word, ‘dirty’, is flung at Marieme by her abusive older brother when he finds out about her budding relationship. A girl’s virtue and ‘purity’ is therefore a precious but unbearably fragile thing, making the sexual awakening of puberty not just an awkward, but a fraught and frankly dangerous time for these young women. The girls dress up and dance sexily, but only amongst themselves. They get a hotel room with ill-gotten gains, dress up in fancy dresses with the security tags still on them, smoke a joint and drink rum and coke. The leader (Assa Sylla) starts lip-syncing to Rihanna’s Diamonds and the others soon join in. The blue light and sexy dresses are reminiscent of a nightclub, but in the safety of their hotel room it’s not for the benefit of anyone but themselves, trying their sexuality on for size away from both the predatory and possessive influence of the men in their lives: brothers, fathers and potential lovers. The lyrics ‘I choose to be happy, we’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky’ are made all the more poignant by the ever-present sense that this part of their lives is short and fleeting, nothing more than a postponement of the fates of their mothers.
COUNTDOWN
3
TOP THREE MOVIE SHOOTOUTS
Scarface (1983) While The Godfather’s Michael Corleone is more comfortable commanding his empire from his office, Al Pacino’s other gangster heavyweight only knows one way. And that way is to face an armed invasion of his home by sticking his head in a mountain of cocaine and picking up his ‘little friend’. Tony Montana has been explosive and violent throughout his rise to power, and this shootout, through his tasteless, tacky mansion.
Photo:Ronald Grant Archive
2
The Matrix (1999) A much parodied scene, in which Neo and Trinity storm a lobby in a flurry of bullets. It is blessed with the same slow motion and CGI that the rest of the film, but it takes it to a new level. While most shootouts seem to ravage the characters without doing much damage to the sets, here the bullets tear through walls and send rubble and dust flying everywhere. It realistic detail in a film where the action elsewhere is deliberately unrealistic.
Photo: PR
1
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef have spent the whole film racing each other to a grave filled with secret gold, and, in the middle of a cemetery, they have a truel to eliminate their rivals. The genius here is not the violence itself, but the intense anticipation, with director Sergio Leone opting for extreme close-ups of the actors’ eyes and Ennio Morricone’s soaring score. It is a fitting end to the film, which encapsulates everything that is wonderful about Leone’s distinct direction.
Photo: Dioboss
Photo: Everett/Rex Shuttlestock
O
THOMAS BANNATYNE ST HILDA’S COLLEGE
n Saturday I realised what Eurovision is like. It’s like the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Cheesy, bizarre, and endlessly long. There is even a procession of people from different countries. And you watch it, even though you know you should be doing something else. It just doesn’t make any sense. To see a vast arena filled with genuine fans is baffling. The music is questionable and the staging is awkward. But for some reason, every year, it is a highlight. Part of what makes it bearable is the commentary. It hasn’t been the same since Terry Wogan left, but Graham Norton is very good at what he does. His natural sarcasm reflects what everyone watching at homes thinks. Occasionally he’ll get carried away, but a little snarky comment every so often is vital to get you through the night. I don’t know if other countries approach it in the same way, but the BBC’s
so-bad-it’s-good tactic helps. If you want to understand just how ridiculous Eurovision is, just remember that Australia were in it this year. Ah yes, that famously European country. And the Austrian hosts just wouldn’t shut up about it. They kept reminding us that it was early in the morning Down Under. I got it the first time, guys. This is
Bojana from Serbia is making some traditional Austrian curtains. Once you’ve slogged through the performances and the fifteen minutes of tedious waiting while the voting is going on (which this year involved Austria’s answer to the final scene of Whiplash), you come to the best bit: the announcement of the results. Minor celebrities and
a three and a half hour show. Just get on with it. Speaking of length, the filler is excruciating. How many times do we have to recap what we’ve just sat through? Why is the opening number so long and dull? These little films before the performances are cute, for about three acts, but then they start to get boring. At least I can check Twitter without missing anything important while
TV presenters from around the world get a brief moment to make their mark on the night with a joke or their fashion choice, while the hosts in the arena hurry them along, knowing that the show is running hopelessly over time. This year’s voting had two highlights. Somehow Nigella Lawson had got the gig of announcing the British votes, and there she was with the London Eye in the back-
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST
ground jumping from language to language with a bit of misplaced class. And there was the joke of the night, when the Russian representative announced that Russia had given twelve points to themselves. It didn’t go down well. In spite of constant urging that the music should take precedence over politics, the voting revealed a distinctly anti-Russian feeling, and the more it looked like they would win, the louder the cheers got for Sweden, the only country with a chance of beating them. The UK didn’t do well, but at least we beat France. The whole night was standard Eurovision, moving from sleek to shambolic as the hosts ran out of things to do and say. I thought Sweden would win before the voting started, but I wish Russia had. How would Vladimir Putin cope with hosting the glorious spectacle of acceptance and tolerance that is Eurovision?
14 Arts & Lit
28th May 2015
ARTS & LIT
From Grand Tour to Gap Yah
• The Grand Tour was a traditional trip taken by upper class European men • We look at how travelling is depicted in literature since then and today
T
he present day passion for travel, which is so abundant and so enthralling amongst the young of today, is not an attitude that is by any means a modern one. Three hundred years ago British students graduating from Oxford and Cambridge, or members of aristocratic origin, were spurred by Latin literature, Romanticism and art to travel Europe. Seneca famously stated in the 1st Century A.D.; ‘Travel and change of place, impart new vigour into the mind.’ These travels gradually acquired the title of the ‘Grand Tour’, which developed and was at its peak during the eighteenth century. There became an established route amongst these young European aristocrats which involved Paris, Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice and often Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands; and such travels could take anything between a couple of months to a couple of years. These young Englishmen learnt to perfect their mannerisms, to dance, to fence, they talked with art experts and amateur scientists and, all the while were keeping note of everything that was occurring along their way. It became a necessity to have done the Grand Tour if they wanted to have a respectable career on their return to Britain, particularly one in politics, and if they wanted to reach full social respectability. Gentlemen would most likely return from the continent with crates full of artworks and various artefacts, even on occasion, ancient Greek and Roman antiques. There were a variety of reasons for participating in the Grand Tour; ranging from a purely intellectual research-based
By Johann H. W. Tischbein
The famous German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, painting on his own Grand Tour around Italy, in Campagna
Photo: Wikipedia
stand point, to the the writing of literature to the accumulation of antiquities. For many, such as Byron and Boswell it was just as much for the indulgent pleasures, exotic brothels and prostitutes as it was for the visitation of classical sites. The Grand Tour was a privileged post-Oxbridge learning experience with the intention of returning to Britain and putting to use what had been acquired and learnt; yet sex, partying and ‘debauchery’ played just as large a role
along the way. However for many years before the Grand Tour was ever an official occurrence, travelling had been an integral part to Western, and particularly British, history. Such voyages were a luxury open only to those with the money to finance such great expenses and so was as a consequence a privilege of the few. Travel as a ‘purely intellectual endeavour’ had been embodied in the journey of Dante’s Ulysses which can be
traced all the way back to Virgil in the 1st Century BC; and as a consequence British interest for ‘The Foreign’ is longstanding. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is an early testament to travel as a culturally and socially enhancing experience, even if only within the British Isles. Chaucer’s characters reflect the knowledge that is acquired through experience rather than simply through academic study, an approach which many British members of the upper-class society had
Review: The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
I
n an interview, Maggie Nelson once explained the thinking behind her distinctive style of writing: “Leaning against other texts, thinking with other minds, letting another person’s writing (or art, or being) haunt you, inhabit you, inspire you, bother you, quite thoroughly, isn’t just a means of spurring one to produce thoughts or books. It’s also a wager about how deeply intertwined our consciousnesses may be.” This belief – that literature should be just like thought, messily inarticulate and aware of its connectedness to culture and art – pervades Nelson’s latest book titled The Argonauts. It’s not quite poetry, not quite a novel, and not quite a memoir, but a slender volume that gives the reader the pleasant and peculiar sensation of peering into Nelson’s mind, thoughts, and bookshelf all at once. In Bluets, predecessor of The Argonauts, Nelson combines deeply personal meditation on a painful breakup with quotes from philosophy, poetry, literature, and songs alike. In The Argonauts, quotes in italics blend seamlessly with her own writing, sources unobtrusively indicated in the margins. If every person’s mind is saturated with all we have heard and experienced – what the linguistic theorist M.M. Bakhtin
called “varying degrees of otherness or ‘our-own-ness’” – then Nelson’s work is an artful orchestration, a symphony of voices. She affirms the idea that we carry what we read with us, that the books we love never quite leave us. Martin Heidegger once enigmatically
“ I don’t even want to talk about female sexuality
”
proclaimed “the poet’s work is only a listening,” and Nelson has taken this sentiment to heart. What precipitates is the germ of her brilliance: the marginalia she spent years writing in a mode of listening and observation, she later transforms into poems. In a society and culture whose rigid dichotomies and binaries – man/woman, mother/father, gay/straight, and so on – have radically come into question in recent decades, Nelson’s fierce renegotiation of modern love is remarkable. She writes about queerness, pregnancy, motherhood, and her re-
lationship with her gender-fluid partner Harry Dodge. Speaking of how female sexuality has been socialized by the portrayal of sex in films (widening age gaps between vulnerable young women and men in power; coy disrobing and unbendingly heteronormative love-making), there is an undeniably bitter tone: “I don’t even want to talk about “female sexuality” until there is a control group. And there never w i l l
Photo: wavepoetry.
be.” After reading the book’s first draft, Harry Dodge was disturbed by the highly personal nature of what Nelson divulges in The Argonauts. At times when reading, I too felt a shadow of that frustration: was Nelson, in portraying her partner’s gender dysphoria and surgical procedures, identifying too intensely with the terrain of a landscape she had never encountered, whose ridges she had never fully felt? When it comes to the experience of marginalized groups, the “shared consciousness” Nelson often talks about becomes problematic – there are some encounters that belong always in the domain of those who experience them. But toward the book’s end, Dodge’s voice surfaces in the same way all others do: as an italicized stream of consciousness (a simple note “Harry” identifying the source in the marg i n )
EMMANUELLE SOFFE ST CATZ’S COLLEGE
recognised from an early stage and as a result had combined the two. Even Chaucer’s characters, such as the Wife of Bath, admit to the appeal of sexual relations that can come with travel. These attitudes towards travel may have existed for hundreds of years, but they are still prominent in our society today. The Grand Tour came to an abrupt end with the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in the early nineteenth century. However its influence continues to linger. The appeal of travelling to students has broadened and now encapsulates those from every kind of social background. Its appeal nonetheless remains exceptionally strong at Oxbridge universities, where studying and travel have for generations, officially collaborated alongside one another. The aristocratic obsession of recording every event and each beautiful site visited either in diaries or in letters to one another, has now been transferred to the modern day’s infatuation with social networking. Those who travel post daily on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram, some perhaps even keep a blog. Even the attraction to party destinations during gap years such as ‘Magaluf’ in Mojorca, or Zante, or Ibiza can be traced back to expectations of the Grand Tour where sun, partying and promiscuity are effectively guaranteed. Travelling, albeit developed over time, continues to thrive, not only driving social entertainment, but also providing for valuable knowledge, writing inspirations and artistic and architectural stylistic ideas. The Grand Tour, therefore, whether we are aware of it or not, implicitly lives on in our culture and approaches of today.
STEPHANIE KELLY
REGENT’S PARK
relating the heart-breaking experience of a mother’s death after a long illness. Dodge’s voice speaks at length, and the reader realizes then that Nelson has not been speaking over Dodge, but with Dodge, her relationship “ablaze with our care, its ongoing song.” Nelson offers a narrative that widens the breadth of representation that queer and trans people have been so often denied. It is not merely about subverting norms, but turning social and sexual conventions upon their head and rebuilding them – nothing is destroyed, but the result is a new shape, entirely unique to one’s own identity and relationships. Nelson describes the difficulty of transcending “a lifetime of unwillingness to claim what I wanted, to ask for it.” This is as much about life as it is about love and sexual orientation. Most of all, The Argonauts proves that the ‘radical’ nature of any non-heterosexual, unconventional relationship is not an encounter with sameness, but a “shared, crushing understanding of what it means to live in a patriarchy.” This gem of a book is about the realization that everyone carves out their own narratives, inextricably intertwined with others: “the possibility,” as Adrienne Rich says, “of life between us.”
Arts & Lit 15
28th May 2015
Phillips goes through the wringer Treasures WILLIAM SHAW CORPUS CHRISTI
C
iara Phillips is a busy woman. Short listed for the Turner Prize almost exactly a year ago, she has since undertaken a number of projects including several group exhibitions, an upcoming exhibition in Stockholm and a career in teaching. She was kind enough to meet with me to discuss her art, as well as the wider contemporary landscape and the experience of artistic collaboration. I began the interview by asking her about her most recent solo exhibition. “The last big show I had was the Turner Prize exhibition, which opened at the end of September 2014. I was thinking recently about the fact that I found out about the nomination a year ago - this time last year when I was in Oxford on residency at St. John’s. The past year has gone quite quickly.” “I was nominated for a project that I did at The Showroom in London in 2013 where I set up a temporary screenprinting studio in the gallery for two months and invited other artists, designers and community groups to come and make prints with me in situ for the duration of the show. Rather than setting up a screenprinting studio in the Tate, I made new works that were developed from The Showroom show. I created an installation of screenprints, there was an audio piece and there was also a very large screenprint on canvas that hung in the middle of the space and divided it up.” Has the last year afforded Phillips any perspective on her nomination? “There were a lot of exciting things about it. I didn’t see it coming at all, and it felt good to be nominated for the show I made at The Showroom, which was collaborative and quite experimental in nature. I was happy that an exhibition like that could be recognised for something like the Turner Prize. It’s nice to think about the number of people who’ve encountered my work as a result of the exhibition at Tate Brit-
Key moments in Phillips’ career: 2003
First group exhibtion: Good Manners and Physical Violence
2014
Spent time as Artistin-residence, St John’s College, Oxford
2014
Nominated for the Turner Prize
from afar
ain. It’s a much wider audience than my work has ever had previously, and it’s meant that a number of great projects have come up since. It’s very different from other shows, in that it has very public exposure, and that can be stressful. But if you accept a Turner Prize nomination you have to be prepared to be put through the wringer by the press and your peers.” Has there been any pressure following such a big nomination? “I think that does creep into my thinking once in a while, but that’s not very healthy. It’s important to remember that I was nominated for something I was already doing, and that I should keep on doing just that.”
Photo: Wikipedia
MARCUS LI
“
MAGDALEN COLLEGE
H
if you accept a Turner Prize nomination you have to be prepared to be put through the wringer by the press and your peers
”
Collaboration is a huge part of Phillips’ career- as well as her solo work, she is also part of the Poster Club, a group of artists who work together on designing and printing new and original posters. What is so attractive about it? “Collaborating with other artists is something I’ve been doing for a long time. I completed the final year of my undergraduate degree collaboratively, and it’s a way of working that I’ve come in and out of. I get a lot out of the opportunity to work so closely with other artists, to have people to discuss ideas with very immediately, very directly. There’s an element of freedom in it - perhaps because it’s not solely my product, my outcome – maybe there’s more room in that to be obviously funny, or cheeky.” Collaboration also provides a contrast with doing solo work. “When I’m working on my own I’m only negotiating with myself. I can address different kinds of ideas that maybe wouldn’t be of interest to the people that I’m working with collaboratively. I’m quite happy that, over a number of years, I’ve developed both strandsboth working independently and with others.” Phillips talks about her general approach to producing art. “Within my own work, I’ve been developing a strand of thought revolving around thinking about language and representation of women, and I have an interest in processes of making that have existed as secondary or peripheral kinds of making. So for example, printing, sewing, knitting and photography which for a long time have existed outside the main act of painting and sculpture. So I suppose those are the kind of thematic things I’m exploring in my own work. When I’m working with other people, we come at things quite new.
Photo: Ciara Phillips
With Poster Club for example, we bring our own interests with us, but we try to start fresh on projects. It’s not about any one of us in particular, it’s about what we happen to discuss when we come together.”
“
London has a lot of depth. London goes right down to the Boudiccan destruction layer, and beyond that.
”
What first made Phillips interested in pursuing a career in art? “I never thought that I could have a career as an artist. At art school, one of the first things they said to us was ‘Listen, only a tiny percentage of this class is going to go on to be practicing artists.’ So I didn’t really think about being an artist in the long term. Plus I had no idea as to how to go about being an artist in practical terms. I suppose I just kept at it and it has just developed over time. About four or five years ago I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I’m actually doing this.’”
How has Phillips’ art developed over the course of her career? “When I think about it, many of my genuine interests have remained the same. I suppose the way in which I have learned to think about things visually and materially has developed. At least I hope it has! [Laughs].” As well as art, Phillips is now also pursuing a career in teaching. “I love it – it keeps me on my toes. Speaking to people of a different generation, and having access to the way in which they think about the world is invigorating. It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to talk to people about their artwork as they’re developing it.” As we came to the end of our interview, I asked: what’s next for Phillips? “I’m going to be taking part in the British Art Show, which is great. And then I’m working on a number of shows internationally- an exhibition in Stockholm, and one in Vancouver, and one in Derry, so it’s going to be a busy time. But it’s good. I’ve had a bit of a reprieve after last year, a bit of time to take stock, so I feel excited about those projects coming up.” This raft of upcoming projects looks to be keeping Phillips busy for a long while to come. Which is lucky for us, because her most recent work has marked her out as one of the most innovative and exciting artists currently working. No wonder the Turner Prize took notice.
ailed as one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature, Journey to the West (1592) is a must-read for anyone deemed literate. Written by Wu Cheng’en during the Ming dynasty, the hundred-chapter novel tells the tale of the epic pilgrimage of the Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang to Griddhraj Parvat (Vulture Peak) in India to obtain the sacred scriptures (sutras). The novel is full of magical and mythological elements. Almost all of Tang Sanzang’s disciples are half-animal, half-human: Monkey, Pig, the Sand Monk, and a Dragon-horse. The eldest disciple, Monkey, who is born out of a meteorite, is gifted with seventy-two magical enchantments: if Monkey were to make the journey by himself, he could have flown to India on his magical cloud in the blink of an eye. But this is precisely the point, the pilgrimage is a test of inner strength and virtue – the journey itself becomes a journey of finding inner truth and moral values. Along the way, they encounter a snake demon who plots to eat Tang Sanzang for his healing purposes, Monkey falls in love with fairies from the Heavens, and becomes enticed by a skeleton demon. Monkey’s friendship with the womanising bull demon drags the troupe into their heated family affairs. At one point, where the narrative blurs the line between dream and reality, they stumble across a kingdom inhabited solely by women. The episodic mingling of various sub-plot reminds me of Ludovico Ariosto’s great epic Orlando Furioso (1516): equally surreal, equally entertaining. The allegorical resonances to Chinese folk religion, Buddhism and Taoism are stark, but the enjoyment the book offers is by no means dependent upon these references. The pilgrims use their inner virtues to achieve spiritual enlightenment. They develop from unruly animalistic half-humans into virtuous demi-gods who manage to save China from its moral plague. Chinese literature is not all about philosophy; as Journey to the West shows, it can also depict fanciful and rib-tickling anecdotes perfect for a light read by the fireplace with a warm cup of cocoa. Enjoy!
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK FOR YOUR CULTURE FIX
28th May 2015
KATE BICKERTON REGENT'S PARK
J
acqueline Gold boldly claims that Ann Summers is “the UK’s largest provider of mind-blowing orgasms.” Beginning as an Ann Summers Sales Assistant in her father’s recently acquired failing business chains in the late 1970’s, Jacqueline worked for less than what the tea lady was paid. Now, she is the CEO of a multinational business empire which has shops from London to Los Angeles to Kuwait. Not only does Ann Summers own a large chain of high street outlets throughout the globe, it also has expanded onto the online market whilst still retaining its signature channel – the infamous Ann Summers parties. The idea sparked from, of all places, the cramped sofa of a smoke filled flat in London whilst she was at a Tupperware party in the early 80’s. “I was drawing my husband’s meat and two veg and it came to me” she explains with glee. Jacqueline began to take the stock from the shop – “which you have to remember was mainly catered towards men” – and sold it to her friends at parties she would hold. After a few bumpy starts, an advert in The London Evening Standard, and her sheer determination, the Ann Summers parties began to take their own shape. That is not to assume that this rise to power was guaranteed just because her father owned the company. Conversely, when Jacqueline took the idea of the parties to the boardroom, she was shot down by a room full of business men in suits. She recounts how one member of the board guffawed “but women don’t even like sex!” Whilst this attitude to the modern woman seems ridiculous, Jacqueline is keen to impress that this where her career started from. Now, the board of Ann Summers is equally split between the genders, with a sex positive attitude which filters down to all levels of the business.
Career Highlights 1979 Joins Ann Summers as a Sales Assistant 1981 Begins the flagship channel of sales - the Ann Summers parties 1987 Becomes Chief Exectutive of Ann Summers 2007 Voted second Most Powerful in Retail by Retail Week
Profile 13
Jacqueline Gold Profile
Being a smart business woman and reacting to the demands of the consumer is something which Jaqueline understands in necessary to survive in the modern market. Whilst some stores were closed during the recent economic recession, Ann Summers has managed to survive and even thrive. Jacqueline puts this down to their willingness to respond to the changing consumer habits. “I’m one of the only top CEOs on Twitter” she proudly tells the audience at The Oxford Union. Her use of social media has allowed Jacqueline to understand exactly what the customer wants from her business and add to the personal touch that is so key to the Ann Summers brand. Tapping into new target groups is something that Jacqueline is not afraid to do. “ASOS are loving us, and that’s mainly because we’ve redefined our target customer” she explains. ASOS allows Ann Summers to sell to young women whilst still appealing to what they want
“ Women don't just wear sexy underwear please men
to
”
from the brand: low price and high quality. The flexibility of the ASOS brand is a seemingly perfect fit for the business. “It will be interesting to see how this relationship develops over the next twelve months.” When I ask her about where she thinks the growing attitude towards the acceptance of sex and sexuality comes from, she immediately fires back with a cheeky grin “Well I think it was Ann Summers!” She explains to me the importance of the Ann Summers parties which she hosted: “it was a place where women could come together and talk about their sexuality, moan about their husbands and be very open in a non-threatening environment.” The so-called 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon is something she has been very savvy about. Capitalising on what is fundamentally Twilight fan fiction, Jacqueline has managed to expand a formerly niche area of her empire. The demand for whips, paddles, restraints and blindfolds skyrocketed with the release of the film. Jacqueline doesn’t shy away from the politics of pants, either. “I’ve been arrested twice and taken the government to court,” she raises an eyebrow, “and won of course.” In fact, she seems to enjoy the controversy which her business creates. In 1999 Dublin City Council opposed the building of a new Ann Summers store in the centre of the city. Through the force of Jacqueline’s personality and gritty determination, she persevered and now the Dublin store is one of the top three highest performing stores in the business portfolio. “It’s also on the tourist bus route” she adds, a fact which obviously amuses her greatly. Underneath the smart and sassy business leader, Jacqueline is also keen to emphasise that she is a mother too.
The politics of pants:
Jacqueline Gold, CEO of lingerie chain Ann Summers, talks about business and sexual liberation.
Photo: Roger Askew
In fact, that day she is keen to get home quickly after her talk because her daughter is sick. “She’s at that age when all they want is mum to be there.” Being the CEO of a company which she claims is responsible for “the largest provider of mind blowing orgasms” I wonder how she is going to explain sex to her daughter. “I’ve always been very honest with her. But she did come into my office and wonder what the pink things were on the side which I had to explain as ‘adult toys’. Luckily, she’s six so she has a short attention span and soon forgot about it!” Jacqueline recalls, laughing. Seeing this side to Jacqueline, I ask her if she thinks that women really can ‘have it all’. She looks me straight in the eye and replies “well
I suppose it depends on what you mean by ‘have it all.’ I think everyone can have it all, but the question is can you have it all at the same time.” Jaqueline pensively discusses the impact that age and experience has on the way women experience life. She thinks that part of ‘having it all’ is to “empower others around you and delegate. The more you do that the more you realise you can have these things at the same time.” The importance of being open about sex is something which clearly drives Jacqueline. “Women don’t wear sexy underwear to please men; they wear it to feel confident about themselves. If it makes them feel more confident with their partners then that’s a bonus – but that’s not the main thing.” Jaqueline honestly cares about the pleasure of
women everywhere. Throughout our conversation, she is keen to tell me that when she started this she was a “shy nineteen year old in a man’s world.” I find that hard to believe when I see her now. Jaqueline Gold is an inspirational; fierce business woman who embodies all that many young women today aim to achieve in their lives. She is an example of women trailblazing through the glass ceiling of business boardrooms and proving to the cynics that women really can do anything they set their minds to. “I’m not looking to be acceptable” is a quote from Jacqueline which sticks with me as I walk home. Jacqueline Gold is not looking to be acceptable, and you shouldn't be either.
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Guide to Oxford BNOCs 2014-15 15
28th May 2015
The OxStu Guide to Oxford BNOCs 2014-15
1. Annie Terriba (Wadham)
2. Nick, Ruth, Amelia
3. Alice Nutting (Exeter)
What hasn’t this woman done? Editor of NoHeterox and bastion of Oxford’s Left, you’d be hard pressed to find an Oxford student who hasn’t heard Annie’s name. We’re impressed by the sheer range of roles that she’s gone through during her days as an OUSU hack, and the news that she’s considering running for OUSU President can only be a precursor to her campaign to become the most left-wing Prime Minister this country has ever had. She also likes publically bashing student papers via her prominent Facebook account, but we’ll forgive her for that.
This mischievous trio have certainly left their mark on Oxford. All ungraciously sacked from any official affiliation with this newspaper earlier this year, they took it upon themselves to launch their own news site, Versa. Zealously committed to free speech on campus, this “two girls and a gay” have come to be seen as archetypal villains for much of Oxford’s PC Left, with an Amelia Hamer effigy set to be burnt at this year’s Cuntry Living get-together. The trio of darkness is not all bad, however - shit … I mean they’re evil scum. Sorry OUSU.
Queen of Oxford’s feminists, Cuntry Living all-time hero, and BNOC extraordinaire, Alice has left her mark on Oxford since rocking up as a wide-eyed, idealistic fresher three years ago. Her dramatic departure from Cuntry Living earlier this term, made in protest to a pro-Conservative post on the group, has left shockwaves throughout Oxford’s feminist community, and her removal of former UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom amused many. Alongside her work as Bi/Pan Rap on the University’s LGBTQ Society, Alice has made an impressive contribution to Oxford’s progressive circles this year, and well deserves her role as number 3.
7. Zuleyka Shahin
(VERSA)
4. Stuart Webber (Somerville)
5. Jack Remington
(Keble)
6. Lucy Delaney (Wadham)
Stuart has achieved something genuinely remarkable at Oxford: to successfully hack and yet not to be universally hated. Despite his epithet of 'snakey' Webber, this gallant gent has preserved a reputation for courteous chivalry at the same time as being within touching distance of the Union presidency. We can't help but wonder if this mask will slip during this term's battle for the top job...
The acknowledged face of Out of the Blue and a prominent figure in the Oxford LGBTQ scene, Jack is a name that’s been making waves since OOTB were promoted by Shakira earlier in the year. A member of the Glitterati, Jack is often spotted out and about with Jakk Hayes and Joel Hide. The three of them teamed up in the name of charity for Jailbreak, reaching Brussels. In his own right, Jack’s renowned for his extravagant hair colours and incredible costumes.
President of WomCam is no easy task, but Lucy did the feminist population of Oxford proud during her time as Leader of the Females (and Their Friends). Even though her term has finished, Lucy’s continued to speak up for the student population though the #5thweekfree campaign and her participation in the NUS Women’s Conference. Best of luck in your post-graduation life, Lucy – especially as we hear a rumour the BBC featured your revision on the Oxford News programme.
8. Will Hislop (Jesus)
9. Aliya Yule (Wadham)
10. Jan Nedvidek (Christ Church)
11. Helena Dollimore
Son of comedian and Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, Will took the Oxford Drama scene by storm, making people laugh and breaking girls hearts at the same time. Sigh. I mean, hahaha. But, sigh. Everyone, do yourselves a favour and watch Hislop in Sexy Guy (on vimeo) – then ask yourselves where truth ends and satire begins. Also a prolific writer, director and actor in the student film scene, his notoriety doesn't just rest on his doubtless physical magnetism. It's fair to say that Will has stepped far outside his father's shadow.
Aliya is a BNOC for all the right reasons. Formerly the chair of Womcam’s Women of Colour working group and one of the faces of the Union vigil last Trinity, this Wadhamite is now in charge of WomCam. Taking over from Lucy Delaney Aliya had big shoes to fill, but she seems to have risen well to the challenge. Her activism is almost unrivalled - she has participated in Live Below the Line; I, Too, Am Oxford; Oxford Dignity Drive and #5thweekfree. - as well as serving as her college VP.
Rarely seen sporting anything but a blue shirt and blazer, Christ Church PPEist and OUCA President Elect Jan Nedvidek has been featured in pretty much every issue of the Oxstu (and Cherwell) this term. Just when we thought Jan-fever had subsided, he had to go and get himself banned from Cuntry Living after sharing a sensitive post from the private Facebook group. You cannot fail to see the irony that this Cameron selfie-taking, die-hard Tory from the Czech Republic cannot actually vote in this country.
Labour club big dog, we can perhaps blame Helena for the hubris that led OULC to claim they were within a few hundred votes of taking Reading West (which ended with a Conservative majority of around 8,000). Nonetheless, Helena’s twitter remains as active and tediously party line as Ben Bradshaw’s. A safe Labour seat seems inevitable, and Helena could well fulfill her political ambition of
(Balliol)
Having ricocheted up the ballot paper of the Union following her first election last term, Zuleyka’s five-weeks of experience within the hallowed walls has been interesting, to say the least. Respected for painting the treasurer’s office pink and earning the coveted title of Versa’s Coolest Student, Zuleyka’s making waves as the first trans woman of colour within the Union. However, if rumours are to believed, the former Big Brother contestant may be as plotting as the rest of the Union rabble as she makes a machiavellian bid for power…
(St Hilda's)
#KillingAllMen
28th May 2015
16 Guide to Oxford BNOCS 2014-15
12. Alyson Cruise (St Catz)
13. Roberto Weeden-Sanz
(St Benet’s)
14. Joe Miles (Wadham)
15. Abbas Kazmi (New)
With his provision of endless Hackdaq fodder, we love Roberto. It’s difficult to know where to start with Oxford’s ultimate hack; whether the endless greasy pole climbing at the Union, or the infamous 21st Birthday party (where it wasn’t really his birthday and he didn’t really know the hundreds of guests), if it’s hacky, RWS has done it. His ejection from the Presidency was a tragedy on a Shakespearean level.
Joe Miles could plausibly be notorious simply for being a Tory at Wadham. A perennial feature on the front benches of the Union (where he appears to have occupied every shit role) he’s also skirted the student journalism scene for a long time. What his very respectable LinkedIn page fails to mention was his unceremonial ejection from his first seat of notoriety: admin-king of Facebook group Overheard at Oxford.
Kazmi first came to Oxford notoriety way back in 2011 during #sponsorshiptheftgate, when his cheeky attempts to capture CapitOx and other business societies’ funding led to student media outcry. Since then he’s take n the Guild from strength to strength, turning it into a more ubiquitous and generous provider of champagne than even LawSoc. Nothing, however, has earned him BNOC status more effectively than bringing an effusive Kanye West to Oxford.
17. Niamh Mcintyre (Wadham)
18. Ione Wells (Keble)
19. Barnaby Raine (Wadham)
Tam is ubiquitous within Oxford’s queer scene. President of the University’s LGBTQ Society and part-time barman in Plush, he has come to be seen as the embodiment of Oxford’s increasingly vibrant LGBT community. Whilst his meetings are reportedly “chaotic”, and earlier this year he appeared to prioritise his own birthday party over his society’s weekly drinks, with the event kicked out of Plush for his bouncy-castle themed night of hedonism, Tam is undoubtedly committed to making Oxford’s queer scene as lively as possible.
As Deputy Editor on That Other Paper, Niamh McIntyre has covered stories from student protests to the Living Wage, as well as defending Cuntry Living and intersectional feminism on multiple occasions . Unlike us less accomplished student journos, however, Niamh’s pass i o n for feminism has also s e e n her work printed in national publications including the Independent and Vice. We’re not jealous, Niamh. Not jealous at all.
Few on this list have done something as meaningful or as useful as Ione Wells. Her open letter to the teenager that assaulted her went viral after it was published by the Cherwell earlier this year. At the same time, she launched the #NotGuilty campaign, encouraging assault victims to speak out and fighting against victim blaming. Whilst we are in awe of Ione’s incredible strength, we still haven’t quite forgiven Ione for going to the Cherwell instead of the Oxstu.
King of Oxford’s revolutionary Left, and persistent commentator on all things Communist, Barnaby has certainly carved a role for himself within Oxford’s political scene. Spearheading OUSU’s attack on Marine Le Pen during her Union visit earlier this year, Barnaby has also appeared on n a tional news denounci n g Israel’s policies in the Middle East. Whether this Wadhamite and former public schoolboy will sell-out his currently commendable antiestablishment credentials and
20. Olivia Merrett (St. John’s)
21. Emma D’Arcy & Tom Bailey
22. Helena Jackson
23. Cai Wilshaw (St Anne’s)
The Brangelina of Oxford Drama, this power couple has produced some of the biggest shows of the past couple of years – remember The Pillowman at the Oxford Playhouse? Tom is now directing Romeo and Juliet, headed to Japan this summer, and it’s no surprise t h a t he has cast his formidably talented girlfriend as one of the leads.
Jackson juggles being President of OUDS committee with directing Playhouse shows (including the eminently amazing a n d successful Noises Off ), National tours and essentially every play that’s ever on in Oxford, ever. And by ever, we mean, ever. Jackson has everything from directing, acting, sound, lights, stage managing, production managing and producing credits. Put simply: we don’t know how she does it.
Only two years after his infamous Union scandal later, Cai has made a remarkable comeback. Cai has efficiently managed the finances of the University’s LGBTQ Society, despite presiding over a committee determined to reject any form of corporate sponsorship as evil capitalist sorcery. Armed with devilish good looks and the most active Grindr account in Oxford, Cai looks set to go on to ‘great things’. If being a soulless city financier can be described as ‘great’, that is.
Ever heard of a little Facebook discussion forum called Cuntry Living? We thought so. Acting as admin for the group, which has over 9,000 members, Alyson has presided with regal dignity over one of the most passionate debating spaces in Oxford. Plus, she’s also a trans rep for the LGBTQ society, just in case there wasn’t enough on her plate. Mercilessly destroying internet trolls and ‘meninists’ alike with her no-shit attitude, Alyson’s fierce politics has truly put her on the map.
16. Otamere Guabadia
(Univ)
Merrett has achieved every hack’s dream of being given the prize of the Union presidency without even having to stand for election. After Weeden-Sanz’s 9 hour ejection, Librarian Stuart Webber honourably refused to take up the role without a vote. Merrett, however, had no such qualms, grabbing with open palms at the opportunity to gild a previously undistinguished Oxford career. .
(St. Edmund’s Hall)
(Oriel)
28th May 2015
24. Luke Rollason
(Mansfield)
This director/actor probably has one of the most expressive faces in the world. Rollason is known for acting in multiple Playhouse shows (you would have seen him in The History Boys and Caucasian Chalk Circle) and directing one of the most sophisticated promenade plays in Oxford, Henry V. Given all this, we can’t help but think: how does your face do that, Luke?
27. Anastasia Chitty
(Pembroke)
The Director of OxPolicy, the Social Policy arm of the Oxford Hub, lists his interests as international law, social policy and crime. The History and Politics student was one of only five recipients of the President’s Scholarship from Singapore in 2013. Under Joshua’s directorship, OxPolicy has produced a report on trafficking and immigration law, and sought to engage Oxford students with policy and policy makers.
Guide to Oxford BNOCs 2014-15 17
25. Louis Trup (Brasenose) What can we write about our beloved leader that has not already been said? Winning of the most successful joke campaign in Oxford history- with the infamous crayon manifesto and LMH-St Hugh’s monorail- Trup was fittingly given a joke job: OUSU president. Notorious before his landslide victory for being a regular bop/ ball DJ and, o f course, ‘best dressed clubber of 2nd week’, the former Brasenose geographer rightfully earned a spot as one of Oxford’s coolest BNOCs.
29. Bex Watson & Freddie Money
(Shark Tales)
A permanent fixture of the Oxford online procrastination scene, Shark Tales has seen a welcome revival this term from the every ironic Bex Watson. It still hasn’t yet seen the return of the glory days of depriving a future lawyer of his job (the chap in question, worse for wear, blabbered into the camera that his future employment entailed screwing people over for money), but it still serves as welcome timewasting when writing that extra sentence seems just a little too stressful.
32. Joel Hide (Keble)
33. Femi Nylander
A founding member of Oxford’s self-named ‘Glitterati’, Joel has made his presence known in Oxford’s queer scene this year. Successfully organising weekly social events for the University’s LGBTQ Society, this keish Keblite looks set to take the society’s Presidency in the upcoming elections. A regular feature of the Plush and Cellar dancefloors, Joel is often mistaken as a Wadham student due to the amount of time he spends in the college, and his recent European Jailbreak adventures with Jakk Hayes and Jack Remmington attracted much social media glory. Will Joel take Tam Guobadia’s place as King of the Queers next year?
One of the most well-known faces in Oxford drama, this actor first came to the forefront on playing Othello, the Christ Church garden play in Trinity 2014. Rumour has it that Femi i s now auditioning for shows on Channel 4, but it remains to be seen if we’ll ever see him on the silver screen. He was also rated Oxford’s number one most eligible bachelor by Versa. So there’s that too.
(Regents Park)
26. Constantine Louloudis
(Christ Church)
Oxford University Boat Club President, sporting legend and rowing heartthrob ‘Stan’ - has proved with his fourth Boat Race win (and shiny bronze Olympic medal) that he is indeed, a big dog in Oxford sport. Although we wish Stan luck in his impending finals, we can’t help but wonder if he chose a Classics degree just because it allowed him to row for the dark blues for four years. Who cares?! FTT!
30. Will Neaverson
(Christ Church)
It was the winter of 2014, and as most students were thinking of Christmas, Will was scheming his BNOC ascendancy. Taking up abortion rights as his preferred route to success, this PPEist spearheaded a campaign against an abortion debate in which very white man Brendan O’Neill was scheduled to speak. The debate’s cancellation found its way into national news, and sparked off a debate over ‘free speech’ in Oxford that has never fucking died since. Thanks a bunch Will.
34. Harrison Edmonds
(University)
One of our only fresher entries, Harrison attained BNOC status earlier this term when he led the successful campaign to save subfusc. Appearing on Newsnight, Harrison’s repeated description of Oxford’s costume as “egalitarian”attracted as much left-wing anger as it did right-wing praise, with some accusing Harrison - a public schoolboy himself (albeit a Northern one) - of misunderstanding the damaging effect of poshness and elitism in Oxford. Codswallop, we say. It’s clearly the dream of all working-class kids to dress up like ponsy Etonians for the day.
27. Rowan Davis (Wadham) Champion of trans rights and a constant social media presence, Wadham student Rowan Davis has gained BNOC status through her involvement with the LGTBQ scene and, more recently, by challenging the NUS on their failure to create the position of a fulltime trans officer. In her spare time, Rowan has also been spotted digging u p the ground around the RadCam in support of Divestment and marching under the red banner. Essentially Wadham personified, we reckon she’s probably a vegan too.
31. James Gandhi (Queen’Park) s) (Regents Three years ago, former Dani’s House star James Gandhi broke out of the Dumping Ground and was fostered into the loving bosom of Oxford. Whilst he is now in what some would call another dumping ground, sorry, ‘pooling college’ – Regent’s Park - this has not prevented him from dominating the Oxford drama scene. Not only was he President of the Oxford Media Society and Treasurer of OUDS, he also has retained a sense of dignity so rare in child stars.
35. Lisa Wehden (Worcester) This is one Union President that’s sure to be lost to the murky depths of Union hackery. Shirking recent trends, her election was actually quite interesting. Lisa took on two rogue bidders in order to win the coveted place on the Chamber’s pedestal. The aftermath was a number of tribunals that were sure to make any hack within a three mile radius break out in hives. Apart from a massively controversial visit from a littleknown French fascist, Lisa’s term was fairly harmonious - we nod our hat to Anna Wintour’s appearance, and it was nice to see that Buzz Aldrin was finally able to reach the embryo of Cabinet plotting.
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1974-2014
28th May 2015
Features 19
Build a library, build a future: literacy in Ghana
Features
• The Somerville Ghana Library Project endeavours to provide
the resources which we too often take for granted – books.
CLAIRE BEN-CHORIN
SOMERVILLE COLLEGE
I
n Ghana, illiteracy is a chronic problem. UNICEF reports that only 34 percent of Ghanaians have access to primary education, and placed adult literacy rates at just 71.5 percent of the population. This means that 28.5 percent of people aged 15 and over in Ghana are illiterate. The Somerville Ghana Library Project was founded in 2003 by Somerville students, in cooperation with local philanthropist Molly Yankey, as part of an effort to tackle this major issue at a local level in Ghana’s Cape Coast. Somerville and its students have helped to support ‘Molly’s Library’ for over a decade. The next nearest public library is more than a 12km walk away, so Molly’s Library is a truly important local resource, used by around three hundred people each week. Jill Currie, one of the volunteer librarians, notes how the project
“ Libraries are not therefore an indulgence, but a necessity
”
“has really inspired and united the village in working together to provide a better future for the children". Now, the project is facing a new challenge, as the building that had been housing the library is no longer available for rent. Somerville students are therefore battling to raise enough funds to build a new library, one that will stand and unite this community in the decades to come. So what impact can a library have? Libraries encourage new readers and promote a love of reading. Access to books is essential for developing greater literacy skills, so that children can perform better in school and flourish throughout their lives. Stephen Krashen, an expert in second language learning, has stated that “reading extensively is the best way to promote vocabulary development, increase awareness of sentence structure, and encourage a life-long love of reading”. A study of literacy development
programs in Ghanaian classrooms reveals that there is such a short supply of books available to students that teachers keep them stored under lock and key, fearing that they will be lost or damaged. In light of this, Molly's Library is an invaluable educational resource for people of all ages, giving access to textbooks, fiction, drama, and foreign language books. Toby Mann, a Somerville student who volunteered at Molly’s Library a few years ago, recalls the positive changes for the community he witnessed during his time there. Toby and the library team saw that high-school students in the area did not have their own textbooks, and though the library had many textbooks, these were not the ones the students needed for school. Molly’s Library therefore bought 36 new textbooks, all directly relevant to the courses being studied. “The impact of these new books was immediately obvious, with the students desperate to use them even before we could log them into the library catalogue. Typically in the area, one textbook would be owned by the school and would be read to the class by a teacher, the inside barely even seen by the students. The opportunity to have a textbook to themselves was something the students would rarely, if ever, have previously experienced.” Free, public libraries should not be seen as a luxury: they can transform lives, allowing children and adults to interact, discover and imagine. Books open up new horizons by providing educational opportunities and wonderful stories for everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status. Libraries are therefore not an indulgence, but a necessity. Libraries can also act as vital community centers, strengthening the bonds between local residents and bringing new life to depressed areas. People might visit a library to find books and, in doing so, find each other. As such, Molly’s Library has been a meeting place, a point of contact, and a source of pride for the whole community. Money raised by Somerville students so far this year has already purchased a plot of land in Akatakyiwa village, which is located next to a new school, also founded by Molly Yankey. Building a library here will foster a close link with the school, and allow its students to more easily
broaden the skills and interests they develop in the classroom. In order to make this new library a reality, a crowdfunding page has been set up. The target: £9000 by 8th June. The Somerville JCR has pledged to match each donation pound for pound up to £3,000. The money raised will go towards the construction of a library building with a teaching room, reading room, washroom, storeroom, and an office. Money raised above the maximum target will purchase new library resources, such as new furniture, additional books, and even some computers. As Oxford students, we are blessed with access to some of the best and most beautiful libraries in the UK. It is easy to forget how lucky we are. By supporting the Somerville Ghana Library Project, we can give back, and provide others with the tools to forge a brighter future for themselves. If you wish to donate online, search online for Somerville Ghana Library Project.
A GLOBAL OUTLOOK
88.3%
Male youth literacy in Ghana 2008-12
83.2%
Female youth literacy in Ghana 2008-12
Heart of the Community
Molly's Library has enriched the lives of all those who use it, and draws the community together
89%
Male youth literacy worldwide 2012
80%
Female youth literacy worldwide 2012
781 million
Adults unable to read/write
60%
Countries with a literacy rate of 95% and above 2012
Photo: Somerville Ghana Library
28th May 2015
20 Features
21st century science: getting a-head in the game • Though the 2017 head transplant could offer a breakthrough in the
treatment of degenerative diseases, it poses many difficult ethical questions
F
or years, the concept of a head transplant has conjured illusions of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, rather than being a tangible reality. Now, however, brain surgeon Sergio Canavero has proposed an operation, set to take place in 2017, in which a living human head will be transplanted onto a donor body. If it were to be successful, it could have hugely beneficial medical implications for the treatment of cancer, quadriplegia and diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Canavero, a member of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group in Italy, has described the proposed surgical procedure in a recent journal publication in Surgical Neurology International. The head donor is Russian Valery Spiridonov, a sufferer of Werdnig-Hoffman disease, a terminal and debilitating genetic disorder that leads to wastage of voluntary muscle and gradual loss of motor control. Though many volunteered, Canavero remains adamant that priority should be given to sufferers of a degenerative disease of the body, but who have a healthy head. In an interview, he stated that head transplants are not for those who are “old and arthritic”, but as a last resort treatment for severe medical conditions. The first stage of the surgery involves cooling the head and donor body in
order to extend the length of time cells can survive without oxygen. Canavero and his team will then dissect the neck tissue, using tiny tubes to link the main blood vessels. The spinal cord must be cleanly severed to avoid long-term damage, and therefore special surgical equipment will be used to slice the cord so that a force of only 10N is exerted compared to the average 26,000N force typical of spinal cord injuries. The head will then be transferred to the new body, during which time there will be a momentary period of clinical death in which blood is drained from the head before reattachment. The spinal cord fusion involves submersion in a group of chemicals known, somewhat inventively, as ‘fusagens’. One particular fusagen that will be used is polyethylene glycol, which promotes the meshing of fat in cell membranes. Repeated injections of fusagens will continue for several hours subsequently. Following the joining of the muscles and blood vessels, the patient will be kept in a coma for up to four weeks to restrict movement, and will receive electrical stimulation via an implanted electrode. This is hoped to aid fusion of the spinal cord and strengthen nerve connections. If fusion fails, stem cell injections may be another viable option. Canavero
has estimated that the surgery should take approximately 36 hours overall plus a year of physiotherapy to recover complete movement.
“ The concept of a head
transplant has conjured illusions of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
”
Others, however, remain sceptical as to the outcome and effectiveness of the treatment. Dr Christopher Winfree, assistant professor of Neurological Surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, believes that the main concern is spinal cord fusion, as current technology does not allow for full healing. There are also concerns surrounding ethical issues, as some believe the body to be intertwined with the sense of self, and
Finalists and why they scare me • Finalists give off an air of insouciance which can awe the innocent fresher
F
inalists have made it. They are the kings and queens of the jungle, expert players in the Oxford game. They are old hands at tutorials; they have faced the dreaded exam season and survived. Every finalist I have ever met has been disarmingly friendly and perfectly polite. Frankly, I find them terrifying. In my mind there are two major reasons for this. The first is verging on tribal: they are higher up on the food chain than I am. Prelims fade into insignificance when compared to the lifechanging exams that finalists have to take. A confused mingling of respect and shyness mean that I would rather leap from the Bridge of Sighs than be shushed in the library, rather miss chocolate cake night in college than disturb someone’s concentration by being too rowdy on the way home from Hassan’s. Given the amount of work and dedication it takes to get to this stage in their lives, they’ve earned my admiration and so I try to keep a (borderlinereverential) distance. The second reason is subtler, and far more telling. It is due to the fact that finalists are ‘adults’, and not just in the legal, older-than-18 way, but in a real, surviving-onfood-that-isn’t-pot-noodlesand-toast way. They seem like
the type who have credit cards and can make important phone calls without crying afterwards. I bet none of them have managed to grow mould in coffee cups in
“ I envision having to spend my weekends being responsible
”
recent months, nor forgotten to put detergent in the washing machine and then wondered why their clothes weren’t clean. These are the kinds of people I might trust with important matters, or turn to for advice. And soon, that will be me. Or rather, that should be me. In a few short years I will be expected, by myself and by society, to have my life more or less sorted out. I will need to understand the concept of a ‘mortgage’ beyond the vague idea I’ve formed by playing Monopoly. I envision having to spend my weekends being responsible, perhaps paying bills or at a networking brunch,
that interference with this could be seen as ‘playing God’. Success of the procedure could raise the question of where the line should be drawn, for instance treating patients with body dysmorphia or those wishing to extend their life span. Technical risks include the body rejecting the head, inability to breathe independently or paralysis, though Winfree suggests that none of these are insurmountable issues. Canavero has responded to critics by reminding them of Valery’s condition and poor quality of life, and views spinal cord fusion and prevention of head rejection as achievable goals. The first head transplant attempt took place in 1954 when a surgeon called Vladimir Demikhov attached the head of a puppy to the body of an adult dog, meaning the resultant animal had two heads. Despite further experiments, none of the dogs lived for longer than six days. The first ‘successful’ head transplant was conducted on monkeys in 1970 by Robert White of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio. While the head was effectively transferred, he failed to reattach the spinal cord and therefore the monkey was completely paralysed. Artificial assistance was also required to enable it to breathe and it died after just nine days due to rejection of the
LAUREN MARTIN ST HUGH’S COLLEGE head by the immune system. Since 1970, very few head transplants have taken place, but surgical procedures have vastly improved in the past few decades. A recent study by Xiao-Ping Ren from Harbin Medical University in China made a breakthrough in overcoming cardiac ischemia (death of brain tissue due to insufficient blood flow) during head transplants on mice, which was one of the key problems in prior experiments. This has contributed to Canavero’s argument that “the technical aspects are now all feasible”. The operation itself was proposed in 2013, but is set to be officially discussed at a surgical conference run by the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons in Annapolis, Maryland next month. The conference will allow for both ethical and other objections from those in similar fields as well as providing an open offer for collaboration with those intrigued by the procedure. The operation, which will take place in either the USA or China, will require a team of 100 medical workers and incur a cost of $15 million. The date is set for Christmas Day 2017, and is intended by Canavero as a “gift” to Valery. Whether successful or not, it will undoubtedly also be a gift to the entire scientific community.
XANTHE GWYN PALMER WADHAM COLLEGE instead of holding hung-over Netflix pyjama pity parties for myself. In other words, it will become less and less acceptable for me to curl up in a ball on the floor and ignore my problems when I don’t feel like dealing with the real world. Worst of all, I will be expected to have an answer to the following, truly horrific question: “What are you going to do next?” Graduation seemed a long way away when I arrived in October but time passes differently in Oxford and I am starting to realise just how quickly these next few years will go. It’s hard to imagine ever being fully prepared for what’s ahead, but by the time Finals roll around we will all be flung headfirst into reality whether we’re ready for it or not. Finalists represent a deep fear of the unknown and of the future. As I blunder, directionless, through the first year of my degree, these creatures seem to swan past, riding the waves of stress and responsibility with an elegance and calm that I do not possess. I have no idea how they manage it. Are they truly as in control as they look, or are they paddling away furiously underneath the surface? Either way, it is my dream to one day be just as intimidating.
Fear of the Finalist
An illusion it may be, but the organised exterior is terrifying Photo: Jimmy Harris
28th May 2015
Features 21
Quesadillas for those que sera sera times JAMIE RUSSELL
WADHAM COLLEGE
Ingredients
1 tortilla wrap 40g cheddar cheese 20g Butter 1 spring onions 1 red pepper Some chorizo, ham or salami
W
hether it’s mid-essay crisis or mid-morning hangover, there are times when many of us want nothing more than a hot snack smothered in or filled with melted cheese. I, however, don’t eat eggs nor do I eat enough bread to warrant buying a loaf which immediately rules out an omelette or cheese on toast to satisfy this yearning. Thankfully tortilla wraps keep far better in the fridge than bread and can quickly be used to make delicious quesadillas.
Method
1) Take a tortilla and spread one side with butter. Place it butter side
down on a plate. 2) Grate an even layer of cheese over one half of the tortilla. Finely chop quarter of a pepper, a spring onion and some chorizo, salami or ham and add it to the cheese. 3) Fold the tortilla in half and press along the folded edge to ensure that it won’t open up again. 4) Heat a frying pan or, if you have access to one, a griddle over a high heat for a few minutes before adding the folded quesadilla to the pan. 5) Fry the quesadilla for 30 to 40 seconds before carefully turning it over with a fish slice. 6) Fry on the other side for a further 30 seconds and serve. Your quesadilla should now be a crisp shell full of melted cheesy goodness.
Tips and variations
If you’re in a rush or feeling particularly lazy then quesadillas can be quickly prepared in the microwave. Don’t butter the tortilla and simply microwave at full power on each side for about 40 seconds. This won’t give the crisp shell of a fried tortilla but still makes for a tasty, cheesy snack with next to no washing-up. Quesadillas, much like an omelette or a pizza, can be made with any
Bye, bye blues
ELLE TAIT
MAGDALEN COLLEGE
Photo:Jamie Russell
number of ingredients. Mushrooms, olives and cooked bacon can all make great additions; a little chilli sauce and a layer of refried beans spread in the tortilla can give an air of Mexican authenticity. These are just a few suggestions though and all sorts of flavour combinations can be experimented with. Just ensure not to put in anything that you wouldn’t eat without cooking first as it won’t be cooked thoroughly once in the quesadilla.
The inside of the quesadilla can also be spread with tomato puree, passata or a finely blended salsa to make something more akin to a calzone pizza. The cheese can be replaced partially or entirely with mozzarella to make a gooier interior or, for that matter, any other cheese that will melt to introduce further new flavours. There’s really so much that can be done with quesadillas, so take a break and see what you can create.
Photo: Denis Bocquet
Sparking the flames of passion
EMILY HONEY
rarely swipe right, but when I do, they are invariably tall, handsome, potential serial killers. Though I am yet to be chopped up sashimi-style for the benefit of the Oxford Canal, these virtual conquests somehow just never seem to stray far from the chestnut machismo of Christian Bale in American Psycho. I made a mental note to discuss this with my therapist as I swiped right on yet another floppy haired gent, a Gallic import by the name of ‘Michel’. “Haw-haw-haw”, snorted I, as I idly flipped through the photos of him playing guitar and wielding an outsize chainsaw. What fun! Yet Tinder is as Tinder does,
my gut back into its holding pen, I began to usher my conquest towards the upstairs exit, leaving a cloud of pheromones and naked desire in our wake, with the innocent hope that it would violently asphyxiate our pesky hecklers. Young love! Then, after emerging onto the street and into the callous light of 1am, I decided we should part ways with the understanding that we might resume the long, heavily petted road to biblical knowledge at a later date. Two dates down the line and I can truthfully report that I am yet to see his chainsaw in the flesh. As I’m concerned, that makes this a regular - ahem - Tinderella story.
I
and before I knew it I had left the safe embrace of serial croissant emoticons to meet ‘Michel’ IRL, at a seemingly respectable, well-lit, eminently escapable joint in Jericho. By some cute trick of Hallmark we ended up arriving together and locking our bikes in the same place, allowing me to indulge my nowfeverish hypochondria in the last dregs of daylight. Nice face, clean teeth, no discernable smell of rotting flesh... indeed, the only red flag was his sartorial choice of blue jeans with orthopaedic trainers. Feeling this was more indicative of possible American ancestry than homicidal intent, I traipsed into the bar all
aflutter, ready to embark on a slow process of social defrosting that might end in a polite handshake, or perhaps a riotous, asexual fist bump. However no more than three drinks in, something came over me perhaps the thrill of fresh romance, or a roofie - but before you could say ‘are you sure it wasn’t Flunitrazepam?’ we were PDA-ing like a couple of greasy-fingered teenagers in a backstreet Odeon. It was on the third audible shriek of “get a room” from some neighbouring crones some thirty minutes later that I knew it was time to wrap this puppy up. Discreetly tucking
LADY MARGARET HALL
Photo: Moyan Brenn
E
very term it rolls around and here it is again. 5th week, my old friend. Even if you don’t get the blues, the vibe in college feels different. We know we’ve made it halfway, but somehow we still feel so far from the end. Sometimes it’s even hard to put your finger on exactly what the problem is. And we all feel it, so we sympathise but don’t have the energy to really help. The debate about the potential of a reading week is much-needed; until a decision is made, though, we can keep indulging and treating and looking after ourselves while we attempt to get through this week. Read a book that isn’t about your degree. I know, I know, it feels like such a luxury – can you really afford to do that? Do you have the time to spare? Yes. You do. The good it will do you is worth far more than forcing yourself to read another chapter on what someone said about something someone else said. It doesn’t matter if it’s badly written – in fact, that’s one of my criteria for this sort of book. All that really matters is that you’re reading it because you want to. Sleep. Refresh yourself. Whether you need six, eight, ten hours, just get into bed and allow yourself to snooze. Take more naps, even. We grind ourselves down, and don’t give ourselves a break and work until the dark hours when we should really be in bed. It’s sad that we rarely wake up here feeling like we couldn’t sleep any more even if we tried. Sleep is good for the mind and body – we need to switch off. Spend quality time with friends. And sitting next to them in the library doesn’t count. Go out for a meal, eat pizza in your pyjamas on the floor, watch a film, go out and dance like crazy. Anything will work, but there really is nothing like a great dose of friendship to perk you up. Know that you are loved and cared about. Take a stupidly long shower, just because you can. Phone family or friends far away. Do some baking. Go for a walk or a run or whatever makes you feel better and calm and restored. Take some time to look after yourself, to prioritise you and your mind and your health.
28th May 2015
22 Sport
Oxford Sport In brief... Half Blues all round: Pool Varsity Oxford’s Men’s Pool team faced Cambridge for the annual Varsity Match last week. They shoed the Tabs decisively and as a reward for their hard efforts were all each awarded a Half Blue. Congratulations to the team!
Summer VIIIs underway Crack out the Pimm’s, the suncream and the shades for the biggest rowing event of Trinity term. With the first day of Summer Eights already behind us, things are getting exciting as attendance is set to soar for the final two days of the event. All crews are hoping for blades, but who will get them? All of the hard work that each college’s boat club has been putting in over the months leading up to this week will be put to the test. Will Wadham’s women stay at the Head of the River? And will Oriel’s men retain their Headship glory? Come on down to boathouse island to find out and cheer your college crews along!
Triathlon Club smash the tabs A huge congratulations to Oxford University’s Triathlon Club for their fantastic win against Cambridge last week. Although some of their members had only just finished sitting second year Medic final examinations, the tiredness didn’t show and all involved put in a mammoth effort. Well done!
Water polo cuppers are recruiting If you’ve ever fancied trying your hand at a new sport, water polo could be for you. With the annual cuppers tournament fast approaching, there is a perfect opportunity to get involved from Wednesday 12th June. If someone in your college is already on the blues squad, then get in touch with them and they will give you more information. If your college does not have a blues member in it, then please get in touch with the Club President Aisling Leow or Club Secretary Ameen Chekroud for more details on how to get stuck in. The first round of matches will be on Wednesday 10th June, the next on Friday 12th June and the final will be held on Sunday 14th June - all at the Rosenblatt Pool at Iffley Road.
Interview: Oxford University Sports Federation President ALICE RICHARDSON SPORTS EDITOR
Tom Carver (Oxford University Sports Federation Presient) answers our questions on Vincent’s, Full Blues, sporting scholarships and the up-andcoming Iffley Road Sports Complex developments. On Sports Fed’s ethos and excellence vs. participation:
“There are 11 full
blues men and 18 full blues women
”
We’re quite lucky in that the college system provides us with an inter-menial sports structure so we have to do very little to fission across the University campus. Unfortunately what it does mean is that the colleges tend to keep to themselves so we don’t have a huge amount of involvement in cuppers competitions which are more participation based. The University level sport and Full Blues sports; that’s our elite element. In terms of ethos we’re very much about participation and excelling. We’re the administrative body for the clubs, not at a college level so our remit is to offer more sport at an elite level.
On Vincent’s and Atalanta’s attempts to admit women to Vincent’s: These two have interesting status inside the university, they are made up of university members predominantly, and obviously you have alumni members as well. They don’t have any formal affiliation to the University sports department. Both are proto-affiliated with us and to the University but we don’t have any official relationship with them whatsoever. My personal opinion is that the fact that there are currently existing clubs in which people think that it is right and still acceptable to exclude particular people based on gender, despite the fact that their own constitution sets out very specific parameters which are based on sporting ability (and there’s a social parameter as well)… It should be nothing to do with gender. Your gender should never exclude you from any of those two things. That is my personal opinion.
Sporting news to share? Contact us at: sport@oxfordstudent.com Photo: Regent’s Park Boat
On decisions to award half and full blues: That’s not Oxford University Sport’s decision. That’s made by the Blues Committee. They’re an interesting body because they sit somewhere between Sports Fed and the general University body and they’re not actually affiliated with either. They’re made up of students and the captains of the individual sports. So if you’re a Blues captain, you have to attend at least one meeting a term and once every three years your sport’s status gets reviewed. There are 11 full blues for the men and 18 for women at the moment. There are half blues, full blues and discretionary blues. Discretionary full blues are awarded to individuals whose sport carries a half blue status, but if exceptional individuals meet certain criteria the captain can then award at their discretion. When it comes to reviewing statuses, half blues can only vote on themselves, discretionary can only vote on themselves and halves and full can vote on everyone. You can’t vote higher than your own status. I think it’s a system which has worked and what happens at the meetings is actually very representative of the level of the sports in each category. How these decisions are made is in the consti-
“ Your
gender should never exclude you from anything
”
tution, you have to meet certain criteria. For a full blues sport there has to be a national team that’s been to international competitions, but there’s nothing about an Olympic clause. There has to be a national system of that sport, not necessarily professional league. It’s more about the status (national participation, sports played in schools etc.) of the sport and the global participation. GB ranking in a sport is important too because it is fairly reflective of how well developed that sport is in this country. Some sports have no status at all, but all they have to do is put in an application to either the Men’s or Women’s Blues Committee and the president [of either the Women’s or the Men’s Blues Committee] will then go through it and
Big plans for the home of Oxford University Sport: Iffley Road Complex is up for development and facilities improvement
Photo: Oxfordshire Blue Plaques
help with the application and then that sport presents itself to the Blues committee – one vote per club, a yes/no vote. They will get fairly grilled, and the idea is to keep the integrity of the Blue and now that we have so many different clubs (we currently have 85) and so many of them have fantastic athletes in them with a high level of play. Having a college system beneath you is also important. For example, if you look at football, we have one of the largest football structures in the country. We are our own FA. But it is very difficult to make these kinds of decisions when there is such as disparate range of sports available. Every sport has a limit as to how many blues can be given out which is very firmly capped and this is kept in check by the captains themselves – it’s fairly self-regulated.
On Sports Fed involvement in big college competitions (cuppers, Summer VIIIs, Torpids etc.): The big ones are Summers VIIIs and Torpids. We’re involved in providing facilities and in terms of Health and Safety regulations and we put staff out for the big three (rowing, rugby and football) and for smaller cuppers events. At this point we
“Every sport has a
limit as to how many blues can be given
”
want to work more closely with the clubs than we do with the bigger three just in terms of participation. Eight years ago, a previous Sports Fed president tried to introduce an overall cuppers competition in which a huge trophy would be given out to the nominal cuppers winners: the college that wins the highest number of cuppers competitions. There is a points system running but the system we have right now isn’t good enough to track cuppers results as they happen but we’d definitely like to improve it. We looked into a number of online platforms to see how we could run it best. Essentially, we’d like to run a BUCs-esque system internally. It’s something I think we could do very well in the future and it’s something I’d definitely like to see happen.
On the new facilities (building due to start in 2016): Everything is going to be redone. The first thing will be a new, glass-floored sports hall. The second and third stage
will involve a new grand stand [out on the athletics track], an indoor tennis centre, a new gym and a relaying of the existing sports hall. That’s going to start hopefully in March (a rough estimate) but there is a lot to finish up. There is a lot of fundraising going on and we’re very close to our target, so many people have been incredibly generous and a lot of alumni have donated already. The new sports hall, for instance, will be the Acer Nethercott sports hall. Acer was a cox in the Blues Boat in the 1980s and died quite young so it’s being named in his memory. It’s going to be a fantastic facility. The development is hopefully going to be completed by 2017.
“
There are 10 BNY scholars, 3 BP scholars and 1 Blackwell scholar On sporting scholarships:
”
Last year we had 10 BNY scholars, across all sports. We’re just about to open applications for this year’s round of those. There are also 3 BP scholars and 1 athlete on the Blackwell Scholarship so we have 14 scholars per year. Each scholar gets £500 a year with free gym and pool membership. There is also the Oxford Alumni award, applications for which began 2 months ago (it’s now getting towards the end of the process) which is £250 each and there are 4 of them. There are other scholarships from other sources. For example, Vincent’s Club (although not connected with us) run a very generous scholarship scheme as well; different people get awarded different amounts but I think the top amount is around £1,500 for that, maybe more. Three of the Vincent’s Club scholars this year were women, I think for the first time. Apart from that we have Termly Representative Funding Grants which are open to anyone who has done international or county level sport during that term who are incurring costs as a result of travelling to competitions. We have £1,000 per term to split between all termly applicants. There is no examination day to prove their level of ability. We pretty much take it as given that if you say you’re playing for England, then you’re playing for England. Blackwell scholarship awards are decided by the Sports Fed president some of the others are made by Sports Fed Executive.
Sport 23
28th May 2015
Are Chelsea worthy Premier League Champions?
• The Londoners have cantered to victory in this year’s competition, rarely looking
challenged - but when compared to their European rivals, they have fared poorly
CONNOR McCARTHY SPORTS WRITER
Their 1-0 win over Crystal Palace sealed it – with three games to spare, Chelsea won the Premier League for the fourth time in 11 years. Their triumphs didn’t stop there - six Chelsea players were in the PFA Team of the Year, Eden Hazard was crowned Player of the Year, and José Mourinho received the Manager of the Year award. Chelsea’s utter dominance this season is further revealed by noting the 274 days they have spent at the top of the league, which surpasses the record of 262 days at the top set by the
“
Grindstone: Have Chelsea done Arguably, they enough to merit their have earned the Premier League title? Photo: Premier League
right to play ‘boring’ football
”
How Chelsea compare to Manchester United team of 1993/94. the other winners of the top Arguably, Chelsea are the most emfive European leagues phatic Premier League Champions 2.27 points per game The second lowest total
1.89 goals scored per game The second-worst attack
0.84 goals per game
The second-worst defence
ever. Yet there have been numerous questions as to their worthiness to that title. It is certainly true that Chelsea have not lived up to the last five Champions’ standards when attacking. Chelsea have had the lowest total of shots (375) and the lowest shots per game (11) of any title-winning team from the past decade. These numbers
matches, leading to their relegation. Both teams are coached
“ Our team was hand-picked by
a true Dutch korfball star
”
by the same person (shout out to Martin Hurajt), a Korfball legend who decided to coach Isis both for the relegation match and for the upcoming game on Saturday. We like to think it’s because they need all the help they can get. The team to take on our infamous rivals wasn’t handpicked by our
that the Londoners were unable to capitalise. Don’t be fooled into thinking that PSG are a member of Europe’s elite, either - Barcelona’s 5-1 thrashing of PSG in the next round further suggests just how far behind Chelsea are from their supposed peers on the continent. We can demonstrate this gulf further
“Chelsea haven’t
been able to step up when needed
”
by comparing Chelsea to the winners of the other top leagues in Europe - Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Paris-Saint German. Overall, Chelsea have the second lowest points per game (2.27), the second lowest goals per game (1.89), and even the second worst defence, conceding 0.84 goals per game. Of course, the difficulty of winning the Premier League compared to other leagues should not be underestimated. Cesc Fabregas has stated that he believes the Premier League is more competitive and tactical than other leagues, especially La Liga. But, despite this, a comparison between Chelsea and Juventus adds some reality to Chelsea’s relative position. These two teams have the worst overall figures of the Champions of the top five leagues but, whereas Chelsea got knocked out of Europe at the Round of 16, Juventus have
made it to the final. Regardless of the difficulty of their respective leagues, Juventus have had what it takes to step up when needed, whereas Chelsea simply haven’t. In relative terms, Chelsea’s worth can rightly be questioned. They are a good team, but not a great team. But what cannot be argued is that they were the best team in the Premier League this season. In Mourinho’s words, they did “everything a team needs to do” to win the league. Mourinho arguably had the best tactics, not losing to any key top 5 rivals. And Chelsea had huge mental strength and a balance that no other team had. Moreover, in questioning Chelsea’s worth as Champions, it is often forgotten just how good Chelsea were at the start of the season. Over the first 19 games, Chelsea averaged 2.42 points per game, bettered only by Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. They also scored at least twice in 14 of those matches, contrasting with the fact they haven’t scored more than a single goal in 9 of their last 13 games. Chelsea could be suffering simply from the order of things, where people remember their slow end to the season, rather than their ruthless start. Although easy to see negatively, this method could be seen as a masterclass in how to win the league. This method is similar to what Sir Alex Ferguson did with Manchester United, although they tended to peak at the end of the season instead. This season, Chelsea can be seen as a ruthless and efficient results machine, if not yet a great team who can seri-
Scores to be settled on both sides of the court •
University team’s opponents, Isis, have been unable to avoid relegation this season - and have pride to salvage as a result • Korfball, a mixed-gender sport, is thrilling to watch and play - the University team need students’ support to carry them to victory
Photo: Oxford University Korfball
»Continued from back page
seem measly compared to Manchester City’s 2011-12 title winning team (526 total shots, 13.8 per game), and even Chelsea’s own 2009-10 title winning team (627 total shots, 16.5 per game). However, Chelsea have not needed to be better than this – and, arguably, they have earned the right to play ‘boring’ football if they please. A tight title-challenge similar to that which we’ve seen in recent years rarely seemed like it was on the cards in this campaign. Manchester City’s ageing squad and Manchester United’s rebuilding process held back any serious competition from them. Moreover, Arsenal’s persistent failure to pose a sustained title challenge, and Liverpool’s fading quality, meant no-one ever truly threatened Chelsea. And their lack of rivals is pertinent. After Chelsea’s 3-0 defeat to West Brom, Mourinho claimed other top contenders were to blame for letting them win the title so early. He claimed that, if some pressure had been applied, Chelsea may have been forced to play more expansive, attacking football - rather than merely grinding out the results they needed and letting their season peter out. However, we should question Chelsea’s ability to step up, if someone had indeed properly challenged them. Paris-Saint Germain’s victory over Chelsea in the Champions League highlighted the latter’s shortcomings. PSG spent the majority of the second leg with 10 men, playing away from home, but defensive weaknesses and a lack of attacking penetration meant
coach, but instead by a true Dutch Korfball star, who has been living and playing Korfball in Oxford this year – Lisette Krabbendam. The Town vs Gown will be a tense and complex match, so our players need to have skill, be able to perform under pressure and have a real desire to win. We think our team’s got all of those qualities (see the box on the right for the team-sheet). As you’ll see from the team sheet, Korfball is often played as a mixed-gender sport – in almost unprecedented fashion, men and women play together on the same court. This is perhaps the best thing about Korfball, and the Town vs Gown match is worth watching just because of that. However, those who stick around know that it’s a tactical game, where you can’t win unless you
play as a team. The player that feeds the pass that leads to
“ Those who stay know that it’s
a tactical game, where you must play as a team
”
a goal is as important as the scorer herself. And the loner standing under the post with his arms up? He’s vital. Believe me. Because of all this, this Saturday’s match is a lot more than just ‘Town vs Gown’. It’s a grudge match - an opportunity for the outright win we deserved the first
time we played Isis this season or, alternatively, a chance for Isis to get revenge. It’ll be an exhibition of the highest level of korfball that Oxfordshire has to offer – and it’ll also be a lot of fun.
The Town vs Gown Match is at Iffley Road Gym, from 16:00-18:00, on Saturday 30th May
OU Korfball Club team: Lisette Krabbendam
Brasenose
Helen Davies Balliol
Alex Lindsay-Perez Teddy Hall
Céline Shepherd St Anne’s
Alice Thomson LMH
Liz Heard St Anne’s
David Sinclair Wolfson
Ally Glennie Magdalen
Henry Ip
Magdalen
Alex Lewis St Anne’s
SPORT e-mail/ sport@oxfordstudent.com
Interview:
Opinion:
» Page 22
» Page 23
Sports Fed President answers our questions
Are Chelsea too boring to be worthy Champions?
St Peter's victory in cheer cuppers competition
• St Peter's cheerleading squad triumph in a close-run competition despite inexperience of team • Novices and veterans of the sport join together for routines which feature stunts, tumbling and pyramids LAURA WHETHERLY DEPUTY EDITOR
The Oxford Sirens, Oxford University’s competitive cheerleading squad, has been going from success to success, with their all-girls Level 2 team placing first in a national competition back in February and the entire squad performing their inaugural showcase just a few weeks ago. Continuing on from this sucess, the Sirens hosted the largest cuppers compeition in their history early on Friday morning, with 6 teams fighting for the trophy.
“ The Sirens hosted the largest cuppers
competition in their history
”
St Peter’s team emerged triumphant, closely followed by Mansfield and then St Hugh's. Having fielded a team of thirteen – the largest on the floor – St Peter’s were particularly rewarded for the efforts of their novices. With just three experienced cheerleaders on the squad, all basing and backing in the St Peter's routine was carried out by students who had begun training just over two weeks before the competition. Izzy Garratt, the St Peter’s coachand one of the fliers on the squad, said:
“Cheerleading has been one of the highlights of my time so far at Oxford, and being able to share it with my friends has been a wonderful experience. "I'm so proud of the 10 Peter's novice cheerleaders, who picked up new skills and learned an entire routine with ease. Our victory is testament to the competitiveness of rowers and rugby lads who although at first had to be blackmailed or bribed into joining cheerleading, are now planning on continuing next year. “In cheerleading, teamwork is essential- when you're being thrown 15 feet in the air you have to trust absolutely that your bases will catch you, and every member of the Peter's squad worked seamlessly together to make our success possible”. The teams were judged on a variety of criteria, including execution of jumps, tumbles and stunts, dance technique, transitions and use of the floor, timing, creativity and the overall impression of the routine, with points deducted for imperfections or stunts which fell. Teams were encouraged to execute simple routines well rather than attempt more difficult moves which are likely to go wrong. Unlike in American cheerleading, competitive cheer routines do not involve chants or pom-poms, with the focus instead on stunting and gymnastics, as well as tumbling. Members of cheer squads as designated as fliers (the smallest and lightest cheerleaders, who are put up into the air), bases (who provide support to the stunts) and backs (who lift students into
the air and assist with fliers' balance). As is standard at cheerleading competitions, in order to calculate the final
“ In the air you have to trust that
your bases will catch you
”
score, judges took the best result from each team after each routine had performed twice. This allows teams the chance to put up stunts which might have fallen or bobbled during the first run on the floor.
Mansfield, the second placed squad, were notable for the complexity of their stunts, being comprised of veteran Sirens, while Pembroke's dedicated team mascot provided amusement for the crowd. Also competing were St Hugh's (who came in third place), LMH's Lady Margaret Hallstars (complete with matching t-shirts and hairbows) and Regent's Park. Almost all teams included members who had joined in the weeks leading up to the competition. The Sirens, having already performed at Exeter Ball earlier in the term, will also be performing at Summer VIIIs. They will also be holding taster sessions for any interested students early next term.
Oxford Sirens and competitive cheer 1st place
for St Peter's College
6 teams
competed in cuppers, the largest competition yet
80 seconds
to do each cheer routine
13
members in the largest squad
St Peter's cheer squad
1st place in cuppers competition Photo: Harriet Loney
Photo: Izzy Garratt
Oxford University Korfball Club set for inaugural Town vs Gown match • Historic moment awaits as korfball, a fresh take on netball and basketball, is poised to be launched into the limelight ALEX LINDSAY-PEREZ SPORTS WRITER
Civil war: University Korfball team prepares to face local Town side Photo: Oxford University Korfball
Forget the Boat Race, forget Varsity, forget Cuppers finals. Saturday 30th May marks what promises to be one of the most fresh and thrilling events in the Oxford University sporting calendar. In a few days, the University Korfball Club will take on Isis, a local Oxfordshire team, in the first ever Town vs Gown korfball match - a big deal. If you have no idea what we’re talking about; read on, get excited, and hopefully we’ll see you there. Korfball is the Dutch cousin of netball and basketball (“korf” means “basket” in Dutch). Teams consist of four girls and four guys, but some teams are all-female. You can shoot from anywhere on the pitch - unless you’re closely marked, in which case you can’t shoot from anywhere. So, attack-
ing play consists of intelligently creating space between yourself and the other team’s defenders, either by running past your marker
“Korfball is a lot
of fun to play, and it's even more fun to watch
”
or by shooting from a distance. Matches last an hour and are very fast paced. There are two zones in korfball – “attacking” and “defending” – with half of each team occupying each zone. These halves swap zones after every second goal. You can’t dribble, but footwork is less tightly regulated than in
netball. All in all, korfball is a lot of fun to play and it’s even more fun to watch. Where does the Town vs Gown match fit into our season? As well as being involved in BUCS tournaments and Varsity matches, we play weekly games in the highstakes, ultra-competitive Oxfordshire Korfball league. This year, we faced a monumental challenge – fighting against relegation. Driven by fear of shame and the potential for eternal glory, we won back our rightful place in the top division. Perhaps the most nail-biting moment of the season was our match against the very same Isis team that we’ll be playing in Town vs Gown. After a nerve-wracking 60 minutes of play, we finished at a draw. Isis went on to lose subsequent key Continued on page 23 »