Cherwell 7th week Trinity 2021

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7th week Friday, 11th June 2021 cherwell.org Vol.292 No.5

PROTESTS, POLITICIANS, AND PLANTS: THE G7 HEALTH MINISTERS AT OXFORD Charlie Hancock

Mansfield College hosted the G7 Health Ministers’ Meeting on the third and fourth of June. Chaired by the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, the summit saw the health ministers of the G7 nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US) and their guest nations discuss global health issues which would feature on the agenda of the G7 Summit in Cornwall.

A marquee was erected in Mansfield’s main quad to accommodate dining, since the dining hall was being used to host meetings.

In an email sent to Mansfield students, Principal Helen Mountfield QC advised that students who lived off-site “may prefer to avoid travelling to the main site” at all over the period.

In order to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 to attend-

ees, staff were required to take a daily COVID-19 test. Visitors were also expected to have tested negative. The email also said that attendees would be kept “as separate from College members as possible”.

Despite this, Mr Hancock was challenged by a student over the long waiting times trans people in the UK experience waiting to receive medical interventions.

NHS Guidelines advise that patients should not have to wait longer than 18 weeks to receive treatment after being referred by their GP. In January 2020, the average wait lasted 18 months, and over 13,500 people were on waiting lists for Gender Identity Clinics in England.

The Health Ministers said that the pandemic highlighted the need for a “broader and longer-term view of public health” to improve resilience against future outbreaks. They also acknowledged

the disproportionate impact the pandemic and control measures had on women and girls, including the “intensification of genderbased violence”.

They also discussed measures to combat antimicrobial resistance, regulatory frameworks for clinical trials, and how digital healthcare systems and data could improve healthcare.

Protesters from the People’s Vaccine Alliance staged a protest on Broad Street to call for G7 countries to waive the intellectual property rights to COVID-19 vaccines, which would allow laboratories unaffiliated with pharmaceutical developers to produce their own doses. President Biden has expressed support for the measure, and 100 non-G7 countries have demanded a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights.

Anna, a PhD student studying COVID-19 infection said: “We need to prevent a repeat of the AIDS

epidemic, where thousands of lives were lost despite prophylactics and medication being available.”

A communique released after the meeting said: “We emphasise our support for global sharing of

safe, effective, quality and affordable vaccine doses including working with COVAX when domestic situations permit. We affirm our support for efforts...

Continued on Page 2

ANTI-VACCINE PROTEST HELD DURING G7 CONFERENCE Angela Eichhorst

CW: antisemitism Protesters marched through Oxford on Thursday 3rd June to express their concerns about potential COVID vaccination policy in light of the G7 health ministers’ summit, hosted by the University of Oxford from 3-4th June.

Piers Corbyn, a vocal critic of the UK government’s coronavirus policy and brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, spoke at the protest, telling Cherwell that the protest’s intention was “getting arrests of people who are coercing anyone into vaccination because that is against the Nuremburg code, which includes all these health ministers.”

The Nuremburg Code is a tenpoint ethical war crimes code created in 1947 and enshrined in UK law by the 1984 Public Health Act, setting out standards that physicians must adhere to when conducting medical research on humans. The first point of the code is that patients must give voluntary consent when participating in medical experiments.

The Pfizer vaccine - the first to be approved by the MHRA - was tested on 43,000 people with consent, with no serious safety concerns being observed. As of 5th June , 41.9% of the UK population were fully vaccinated.

Corbyn said he wanted to prevent the government from “coerc[ing] anybody against their will or without full information into a medical

experiment.” Corbyn was arrested in February on suspicion of malicious communications and public nuisance for comparing vaccines to Auschwitz in distributed leaflets.

The protest also made comparisons to the Nazi regime, claiming that the G7 health ministers were “war criminals” in violation of the “Nuremburg Code,” and protestors expressing concern that the government would force unvaccinated children to wear “yellow stars” as a method of coercion.

When asked for examples of coercion, Corbyn said, “If you’ve got a job and they say if you don’t get the jab you’ll lose your job. That is definitely coercion. At lower levels, you won’t get promoted if you don’t

get the jab. Your children, if they don’t get the jab or don’t wear a mask they’re going to wear a badge, and then they’re going to be ostracised.”

Currently, vaccinated citizens can use the NHS app to show proof of their vaccination status when travelling abroad. However, the UK government has acknowledged that arrival countries may still require predeparture COVID tests or quarantines. There are currently no legal requirements for venues to ask for proof of vaccination, although venues can ask for proof if they wish, provided they do not break equality laws. The Prime Minister has previously floated the idea of vaccination passports for pubgoers. However, over 70 MPs have deemed vaccina-

tion passports to be “dangerous, discriminatory and counterproductive.”

Some protesters expressed concern about the safety of the vaccine.

A man, who wished to be known as Dave, said he was protesting because “[the G7 ministers] are rolling experimental treatment out, it is not a vaccine by any means, and they are not telling anybody it is still in experimental phases. Most people maybe know that the trials haven’t finished yet and they’re not finishing until at least the end of ‘22 maybe ‘23 but no one is really being told this before they’re being vaccinated.”

The Jannsen vaccine...

Continued on Page 3

Cherwell | Friday, 11th June 2021

2 | News

WHAT’S INSIDE LEADER The problem with access and outreach NEWS Oxford bicycle theft rate second highest in UK Oxford University 2021 interviews to be held online Oxford SU launch ‘it’s not enough’ campaign COMMENT Sexual assault in Oxford LIFE The long vac Another brick in the postgrad wall FOOD Coffee sometime?

FEATURES The price of citizenship: the inherent Britishness of bureaucracy SPORT Fitness, fans and focus

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Continued from page 1 ...to strengthen supply chains and boost and diversify global vaccine manufacturing capacity, including for the materials needed to produce vaccines, including by sharing risks, and welcome the vaccines technology transfer hub launched by WHO. We recall in this regard the Charter for Equitable Access to COVID-19 Tools and welcome the commitments made in the G7 Foreign and Development Ministers’ equitable access and collaboration statement.”

Extinction Rebellion also staged a protest outside the Clarendon Building. They were joined

by Doctors for Extinction Rebellion. The campaigners called on the G7 to address the impact of climate change on global health, including the spread of malaria, heat-related death and malnutrition.

The Health Ministers’ communique said they supported the One Health approach, in which “human, animal, plant and environmental health are linked”. It continued: “As health ministers, we will continue to work with environment, agriculture and other relevant ministers recognising the links between the health of humans and animals (both domestic and wildlife), biodiversity conservation, ecosystems and climate change, and the need to protect human health including through food and water safety and security, as well as from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination.”

Another protest against lock-

f you are state school educated, engaging in access and outreach seems natural. Of course I’ll help on this tour/outreach event/open day, you think. I wouldn’t be studying my degree without those opportunities. These commitments are so often small and you want things to be better – of course you do.

For state-educated students, access and outreach is a tax that you are expected to pay to be here. Offer a little of your time, here and there. Become an outreach officer, or something of the like. It’s hard not to feel guilty if you don’t at least pay a bit forward, to make the lives of those that come after you easier. It’s a tax that – surprise surprise – the rich aren’t expected to pay.

The problem with this is that it assumes that if you just get enough of these people into the room, it will solve these problems in and of itself. If more of those people just get here, then that will fix the imbalances. That if the makeup of Oxford slowly changes, which it is doing, the University will become a place that is genuinely welcoming for people from all backgrounds.

Anyone from a state school background can tell you that that is clearly not the case. If you are White and privately educated, you can feasibly go through this University being

down and vaccination policy was also held to coincide with the ministers’ meeting. Speakers included Piers Corbyn and Jeff Whyatt, a former UKIP parliamentary candidate. Some protesters argued against lockdown measures and a proposed vaccine passport policy, while others cast doubt over the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

Confidence in a vaccine was another public health issue discussed at the conference. “We also recognise the importance of vaccine confidence, and the severe risk posed by misinformation and disinformation about the importance, safety and effectiveness of vaccines on the acceptance and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and other vaccines around the world.

We commit to build confidence in science and provide timely, clear, coherent communication from different levels of government,” the communique said.

The meetings ended with a treeplanting ceremony in the Botanical Gardens. Ten sakura cherry trees were planted, one by each G7 representative, a local Chief Nu r se, a repr e s e ntative of the W H O and of global hea lt h staff.

Sakura cher r y trees w e r e chosen

blissfully unaware of anything other than your tiny world, in a bubble of people that are just like you. What an easy experience of this place that must be. If you are state-educated, or Black, or working class, or anything else that could set you apart from what Oxford deems the norm (a norm that is obviously not nationally representative, I might add), that option is just not presented to you.

One of my friends suggested that what I describe might be a form of ‘emotional labour’.

This is a term I personally don’t find all that useful. Most of life is just performing emotional labour of some form or another. Instead, I would suggest the that friction is what state school educated students might experience here. It’s having to explain to yet another person that no, you do not know which school I went to, and I’m sick of being asked.

Yes, I really am the only person in my year group to go to Oxbridge, what a shock that must be. No, I can’t just do that work experience opportunity, because it pays nothing and I can’t afford to be paid nothing.

Please stop assuming that your finances are the baseline.

I turn these things over in my head most days. What would it take to actually make things better?, I think. It’s an ex-

because, in Japan, they symbolise the finite nature of life, as their pink blossoms bloom for a couple of weeks a year.

The Chief Nursing Officer at Oxford University Hospitals, Sam Foster, said: “It is a great honour to be asked to plant a tree to remember all the dedicated nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals who have cared for people with COVID-19 - including those who have lost their lives during the pandemic.

“We must never forget the contribution which every member of health and care staff has made during this time of unprecedented challenges for the NHS and globally.”

Vice Chancellor Louise Richardson said: “Oxford University is honoured to have Health Ministers and is very grateful for this gesture of commemoration for those who have lost their lives.

Planting beautiful trees in our ancient Botanic Garden is a powerful affirmation of the healthgiving properties of nature itself and will be a source of reflection for generations to come.”

Leader THE PROBLEM WITH ACCESS AND OUTREACH SASHA MILLS hausting circle to go around in mentally. You’d have to redesign the degrees, the admissions process, the college system. Interviews so clearly favour the confidence that a private school education will give you, and the refusal amongst tutors and the University alike to actually define ‘potential’ doesn’t help. Potential, so nebulous a term, codeword for the right kind of person.

I feel guilt in writing all of this. I am, after all, a product of access and outreach. There is no way I would be here without it. I participated in UNIQ, the University’s flagship summer school program, alongside a study day at Mansfield. I am a case study for how access might work in getting someone from a state comprehensive to Oxbridge. But access and outreach, crucially, did not account for the way that I would feel once I actually got here.

Lucky, yes, but tired.

Really, in the end, for things to

be better Oxford would just need to not be Oxford. This place is built from the ground up, in the old buildings, the traditions, the everything, for privately educated students. I mean Christ Church and Westminster were designed by the same man, for God’s sake. The pipelines are there and they’re not going to go away any time soon. No amount of access or outreach can fix that.

It would take those that havebenefited from those pipelines – students, tutors, administrative figures, the like – revoking what they assume is so naturally theirs. It would take a realisation that 7% of the UK should not be taken as a starting point around which you work, around which you ‘account for’ and ‘make adjustments for’ a schooling that is the vast majority of people.

Call me a sceptic, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happening any time soon.

Image Credit: The Oxford Union

Friday, 11th June 2021 | Cherwell

Oxford bicycle theft rate second highest in UK Last year, Oxford had the second highest rate of bike theft in the UK, with Cambridge first on the list, evaluations of ONS data have found. Oxford saw just under 8 thefts per 1,000 citizens in the period September 2019 to September 2020, while just over 18 per 1,000 were reported in Cambridge. Both of these numbers are above the average bike thefts of similar towns in the UK.

There were over 220 thefts in the six months from October 2020 to March 2021. Oxford East and Cowley had around 90 reported thefts in this same period, and Oxford North and North East both saw between 60 and just over 70 thefts.

A member of the Oxford social enterprise Broken Spoke Bike Co-op, Sam, said: “I think the main cause of bike theft being so particularly high in Oxford is that it’s been established. My instinct

Despite lower travel rates and a reduced student population due to COVID-19 restrictions, the highest amount of bicycle thefts occurred in central Oxford.

would initially be because of all the students with cheap locks.

But even without students here recently, it’s still a huge problem and happening loads. I can only

Matilda Gettins

CITY Continued from page 1 ...has joined the Pfizer/Biotech, Moderna and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines as being approved for use in the UK. With concerted funding and administrative efforts, these vaccines were able to reduce the waiting times to pass Phase 1, 2 and 3 trials in the space of a year.

Pfizer’s phase 3 clinical trial, which began on July 27 last year, has had 43,661 participants to date. While the Pfizer vaccine was approved according to the safety protocols, Pfizer will continue to collect data on the vaccine’s safety and efficacy over the next two years.

Protesters expressed concerns that patients with vaccination side effects were leaving their symptoms unreported, sharing anecdotes about friends’ vaccinations. The government has a Yellow Card website where vaccine patients can report symptoms, however, they note that “the nature of Yellow Card reporting means that reported events are not always proven side effects.

Some events may have happened anyway, regardless of vaccination.”

Thursday’s protest marched from Cornmarket Street, past the Bodleian and to Mansfield college, where the G7 summit was meeting. The main discussion on the agenda how countries could prepare to boost their future pandemic resilience. Matt Hancock said that “Future diseases that spread from animals to humans are inevitable. The question is how we can be better prepared as a world so it doesn’t have the impact this one has had.”

think there’s a long established organised bike crime in Oxford as has been the case for years.”

A spokesman of Thames Valley Police force said: “Thames Valley Police take all reports of this crime type seriously and will investigate when such reports are made. Local officers conduct bike marking events for the public, details of which can be found on our social media channels before they take place. More recently, in 2020, the Police and Crime Commissioner successfully bid for funding from the Safer Streets Fund, of which some of this money will be dedicated to installing better street lighting, CCTV and dedicated cycle storage areas. The single biggest way for owners to reduce bike theft is to purchase robust D-locks and use them. Further tips and information on how to keep your bike safe can be found on our website.”

An official council e-petition running from August to October 2020 demanded Oxford City Council take stronger action against bike theft. The petition said: “The council should take a much more proactive approach to finding solutions. Be that introducing better facilities for securing bikes in the city centre and/

or making funding available for the police to properly tackle the problem. One should be able to lock up a bike in town for an hour or two without constantly worrying whether it will be there upon return. Enough is enough.” The petition received 180 signatures.

Cabinet Member for Zero Carbon Oxford, Tom Hayes, said: “The Oxford Bike Crime Partnership, made up of the police, Universities, City and County Councils, has been working to improve the security of cycles in the city. Recent initiatives have included the installation of onstreet cycle parking pods on some streets in east Oxford as part of the Safer Streets trial. Oxford is a cycling city, and the City Council wants to encourage this form of green healthy transport alternative, illustrated by an additional 130 cycle parking spaces provided during the pandemic. Once the pandemic is over ... the Council will look into the possibility of installing more high-security cycle facilities across the city.”

The median cost of stolen bikes in England and Wales is around £200, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which can be a significant financial hurdle for bike purchasing. Cow-

News | 3 CITY

ley resident Suffia Hussain said: “I’ve three children, and it’s the initial outlay [on bikes] for me and them, and then helmets and any maintenance or repairs that gets expensive. And there’s quite a lot of bike theft in Oxford, I’m afraid to save up the money, get the bike and then have it stolen.”

Oxford’s bicycle theft rates might also be preventing people from adopting sustainable transport methods like cycling, suggests Becci, Coordinator of the charity Cyclox. She said that, of the 345 key workers for which Cyclox furnished bikes during the pandemic, 21% reported that they had stopped cycling prior to the project because their bike had been stolen.

The Crime Survey also asks participants about the extent and type of the emotional impact to bikes theft. Around a quarter of participation said they were “quite a lot”, and around half said they were “just a little” emotionally affected. 79% reported feelings of annoyance, 55% reported anger and 26% reported shock. The Crime Survey, however, looks only at household data, and hence does not cover the experiences of students living in halls of residence.

STUDENTS

Common Ground holds its annual symposium, ‘Reclaiming Spaces’ Sasha Mills

Common Ground has been holding its first ‘mini’ symposium, and first partially online symposium, over the course of this week. The group has held symposiums each year since its founding, but was unable to hold one last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year’s symposium is made up of 3 panels and 1 social focused on the theme ‘reclaiming spaces’.

Common Ground is a community group that defines itself as “a movement that sets out to examine Oxford’s colonial past in the context of its present-day inequalities.”

Past symposiums held by the group

have included “Oxford, Reparations and the Global Class Struggle” and “Revisiting the Past, Envisioning the Future: Race, Class, and Oxford”.

Speaking to Cherwell about the theme of the symposium, Common Ground said: “Reclaiming Spaces will interrogate our relationship to and experience of different places, whether that be historical, institutional or natural space. We hope to examine how the experience of space is mediated by legacies of colonialism, climate degradation and factors such as race, gender and class, as well as exploring ways

of transforming and reimagining hostile or damaging places into more constructive and creative environments.

“This year there hasn’t been so much opp or t u n it y to physically be within certain spaces, but the concept of space and the idea of reclaiming it will always be present.”

The first panel took place on Monday night, and was focused on the theme of ‘Reclaiming Institutional Spaces’. It featured speakers including councillor Shaista Aziz and community activist Michelle Codrington-Rogers, who spoke on issues including their experiences growing up as women of colour in Oxford, and navigating the divide between the city and the University.

The other two panels, hosted on Wednesday 9th June and to be hosted tonight, Friday 11th June, are titled ‘Reclaiming Green Spaces’ and ‘Reclaiming Historical Spaces’.

These panels feature speakers including representatives from Rhodes Must Fall and Osney Hydro Lock Project. In the past, Common Ground has been involved in cam-

paigns for the removal of the Cecil Rhodes statue, and it was recently announced that Oriel College would not be taking the statue down despite the

r e commendations of an independent commission.

Speaking on the significance of the symposium, Common Ground told Cherwell: “It provides a great opportunity to come together at the end of the uni year and to collaborate with community activists, academics and other liberation campaigns.

Maintaining links with the local community is very important to us as it helps to build institutional memory, which is often difficult within student activism. We also want to do our part to hold space for challenging conversations around the legacies of colonialism in our city.”

Image credit: Common Ground

Cherwell | Friday, 11th June 2021 UNIVERSITY

4 | News INVESTIGATIONS

University plans to spend almost £1 million on multi-factor authentication rollout Daisy Aitchison

The university has spent almost £1 million installing multi-factor authentication, Cherwell can reveal.

The system was introduced in January 2021 in order to try and prevent cyber-attacks on university outlook accounts. The most recent forecast estimates that the total cost of the project will be £971,553.

Concerns were raised on the 10th June at the university’s bronze planning group that “the level of cyber-attacks has been increasing through the Covid period”. It was also noted that “compromised accounts are being used to send out large volumes of mail from authenticated University accounts, this has a reputational impact and can lead to organisations blocking the University and preventing legitimate emails being delivered.

Information security are introducing rate limiting on locally

managed domains and across the University IT estate.”

Multi-factor authentication involves users verifying sign-in attempts through a second factor, such as a text or phone call. It was rolled out to Oxford students from the beginning of 2021, in stages according to surname, and from May 2021 it will be available for secondary as well as primary university accounts.

The University’s website states that “there is an increased and growing cyber threat to universities. The University of Oxford has a particularly high profile leading the world with COVID-19 research and we are under continuous cyberattack. The pandemic has brought additional risks with increased working from h o m e , accessing University information from a variety of devices”.

Since the steps were taken to tighten the security on outlook accounts, the university has seen its

UNIVERSITY

Oxford overtakes Cambridge for as the UK’s best university Matthew Prudham

After over ten years, the University of Oxford has supplanted the University of Cambridge as the first-ranked institution in the United Kingdom, according to the 2022 Complete University Guide League table. Meanwhile, other major movers were LSE (up from fourth to third), Durham (up from seventh to fifth) and Warwick, re-entering the top ten in tenth place, after two years at eleventh.

The achievement of Oxford in grasping top spot from its fellow collegiate rival is viewed as “a testament to the close competition and high standards among the UK’s top universities” by Simon Emmet, CEO of IDP Connect, owners of the Guide. He further noted that the CUG league tables for this year “will serve as a valuable guide to even more actively researching students this year”.

This looks ahead to an especially challenging market for academic places at top institutions, given that many students either took a gap year or may be looking to ‘trade up’ their offers to higherranked or more prestigious universities for their course.

Other successes arrived for Oxford in the subject league rankings. Oxford is ranked in the top ten for forty different subject combinations, from General Engineering (in which it moved from third to second, supplanting Bristol) to Linguistics. It retained its first ranks in Art & Design, Psychology, Physics & Astronomy, Philosophy, Politics (with an overall 100% score), Cambridge was again replaced by Oxford at top spot in the Computer Science league table, and similar occurrences happened in the Anthro-

Division of Structural Biology targeted by hackers. This department is distinct from the Jenner Institute which produced the Oxford/ Astrazeneca vaccine, although both have conducted research into aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The University confirmed that there had been “no impact on clinical research” as a result of the attacks. The data targeted related to biochemical samples such as proteins which were manufactured in the laboratory for basic scientific research rather than clinical research, and no information relating to patients or trial volunteers was affected by the breach.

The incident has since been referred to the National Cyber Security Centre, a branch of GCHQ which specialises in such breaches, but it remains unclear who was behind the attack.

The university’s IT department was contacted for comment.

Oxford University 2021 interviews to be held online Sasha Mills

The University of Oxford has announced that it will be holding its 2021 interviews online, as it did for the 2020 admissions cycle.

This comes as some concerns have been raised over the rate at which COVID-19 cases have begun to rise in the UK. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak last year, interviews were held in person for all but some candidates with difficulties travelling to Oxford. Last year, the decision was made in June to hold interviews online for the 2020 admissions cycle.

A University spokesperson told Cherwell: “As part of our response to the ongoing social distancing and travel requirements introduced to control the spread of COVID-19, considerable thought and time went into adjusting our interview process last year, in order to make it as fair and accessible as possible for all our applicants.”

“The same consideration has

been given to arrangements for the 2021 process, and it has been agreed that it is in everyone’s interests for all interviews to be online again this year. We hope that taking the decision early and in time for the University-wide virtual Open Days on 30 June and 1 July will reduce uncertainty and any resulting anxiety for applicants, whilst at the same time ensuring transparency and giving them maximum time to prepare.”

“Overall, the feedback from last year’s process was that the remote format worked well and we are confident that the same will be the case this year. As usual we will offer support so candidates feel as prepared as possible, including subject-specific sample questions, FAQs and top tips from tutors and current students. Information on, as well as targeted support to access the technology which will be used will also be available, just as it was last year.”

UNIVERSITY

New scholarship for students from the Dominican Republic Sasha Mills

pology, English and Theology & Religious Studies tables.

The University also rose two places in the Geography & Environmental Science league table, with Cambridge moving down one to second and St. Andrews, which was previously ranked second, moving down to sixth, below Durham (third, moved up one), UCL (fourth, moved up eight) and LSE (fifth, moved up two); similarly, in Music, Oxford rose three places from fourth in 2021 to first in 2022, with former first-ranked Durham moving down to fifth, below Cambridge, Manchester and Edinburgh.

In Medicine, Oxford rose back up to first, forcing Glasgow and Dundee to move down one and two places respectively from their former joint-first position.

Meanwhile, in the Business & Management and Sociology tables, Oxford secured first place as a new entrant, supplanting St. Andrews and Cambridge respectively.

There were also some losses.

Cambridge supplanted Oxford at top spot in Materials Technology, Mathematics, Chemistry, Asian Studies, and African & Middle Eastern Studies league tables.

Oxford moved to 2nd place in the QS World University Rankings 2022, with MIT taking the top spot.

Professor Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, said: “We are delighted to have improved our position in the QS world rankings and applaud MIT for retaining the top spot. We attained our position through the talent of our remarkable academics and their many collaborators around the world.”

A new scholarship program funded by the Ministry for Higher Education, Science and Technology (MESCYT) will fund up to 10 scholars a year in STEM graduate subjects at the University of Oxford. The agreement includes f u n d i n g starting in 2022 and lasting for 5 years.

Over 130 graduate prog ra m mes are included under the schola rsh ip s c h e m e , including m a s t e r s and DPhil prog ra m mes in Mathematical Sciences, Computer Sciences, and Medical Sciences, alongside a range of programmes taught by the Said Business School and the School of Geography and Environment.

Students will not be required to apply for the scholarship program, and will instead be considered automatically considered if they are a resident of the Dominican Republic and have applied for an eligible graduate or postgraduate programme. The scholarships will be awarded based on academic merit.

The agreement between the University of Oxford and the Ministry of Education for the Dominican Republic was formalised with a signing ceremony on the 24th of May, held virtually between the Dominican Republic and the University. This signing was attended by key administrative

figures, including Dr Franklin Garcia Fermin, Minister for Education in the Domincan Republic, and Ambassador Mockbul Ali, UK Ambassador to the Dominican Republic and the island of Haiti.

Ambassador Elnio Manuel Durán said: “Education is fun-

damental for development and growth. A country that invests in education is investing in the overall progress of its society. Education is a catalyst for job creation, economic growth and increased social mobility.

Most importantly, education opportunities should be available for everyone.”

Professor Martin Williams, ProVice- C ha ncellor (Education), said: “The University of Oxford is delighted to be working with the Ministry of Education for

the Dominican Republic to encourage more bright and talented students to pursue their studies at Oxford.

“The University is proud to attract graduate students from more than 150 countries across the world and benefits from the range of perspectives and skills they offer. This scholarship programme, supported by MESCYT, will provide Scholars with a lifechanging opportunity to develop their skills in science, technology and medicine and will be instrumental in inspiring future students from the Dominican Republic to apply to study at Oxford.

“I am extremely grateful to Ambassador Elnio Manuel Durán and his colleagues at the Dominican Embassy in London who have been closely involved with establishing this scholarship programme.”

Image Credit: Oxford University

News | 5 UNION

Friday, 11th June 2021 | Cherwell

Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss speaks at Union Charlie Hancock and Abigail Howe

CW: violence, antisemitism Holocaust survivor and author Eva Schloss spoke at the Oxford Union last week, describing her experiences during the Holocaust and the importance of remembering and learning from the past.

After the event, Schloss spoke to Cherwell regarding public understanding of the Holocaust, Anne Frank’s diary and the trend of tourism at concentration camps.

It was one of her first in-person events since the beginning of the pandemic; “Zoom is okay but this is much better”, she quipped.

Mrs Schloss began by describing her childhood in Vienna with a “big caring family” and a “very comfortable life”. “One day, it all finished”, she said, describing the arrival of the Nazis into Germany.

Her family eventually fled to Holland and stayed in the houses of sympathetic individuals - one, a Dutch nurse, betrayed them to the Nazis. Schloss told attendees that over 200 people had been taken to concentration camps from this collaborator’s home; after the war, she only received four years in prison.

In May 1944, Schloss and her family were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Schloss was only 15 years old. Describing the conditions in the camp, Schloss spoke of frostbite - “a rat came to suck the blood from my foot” - be-

ing treated “like an animal” with callous violence and being fed only a chunk of bread each day “how long can you work the whole day with so little food?”

After escaping the camps, Schloss described her travel back to Holland via a transport ship originally based in New Zealand.

It was a “lovely journey” and “the first time we were human beings again”. In 1951, she moved to London. At a 1986 exhibition about Anne Frank’s life (by this time Schloss’ posthumous step-sister after the marriage of her mother to Otto Frank), Ken Livingstone asked Eva to speak. She told the Union attendees how she originally wanted to hide under the table, but couldn’t stop telling her story once she started.

Speaking exclusively to Cherwell after the event, Mrs Schloss expressed frustration with the public’s lack of understanding of the Holocaust: “A lot of people don’t know the details. They know there was a bad war, and that Jewish people - and gay people, and gypsies - were discriminated against. They know about it, but they don’t know the details. It is the details which are the horrible things. People don’t understand how cultured people could do this, that they could take a baby and step on their head with a boot. You can’t believe that it happened! But that’s what people

need to hear - the little details.”

“We know antisemitism is not new. It’s been going on forever. I would like to know why, but there’s no answer. It is something I would really like to know because the Jewish people are - in general - well educated, very social, well-educated, charitable. I’m very proud to be a Jew. I often get asked if I had known [that the Holocaust would happen]: ‘would you want to change your religion’? I said ‘no, no way!’.

There were people who converted.

But with Hitler it didn’t help,” she added when discussing the history of antisemitism.

Mrs Schloss also discussed Holocaust education with the Jewish Society. She told Cherwell:“I often speak at high schools, and I ask teachers whether they have prepared their students to learn about the Holocaust. They say: ‘Yes, we read the diary of Anne Frank’. I don’t think that is preparing them to learn about the Holocaust. [Anne Frank] didn’t write anything about her experience [in a concentration camp].

She wrote about hiding, which was bad, but is nothing compared to what happened to her later.”

Mrs Schloss became Anne Frank’s posthumous step-sister after her mother married Otto Frank, the diarist’s father. Anne Frank’s diary has been translated into more than 70 languages, and

has sold over 30 million copies since its publication in 1947.

Mrs Schloss attributes the book being used in school to its fame: “Everybody knows about it. It has become so popular. So many people have written books about her - even fantasy stories! Imagine! “[The Diary of Anne Frank] is not difficult to read because it’s not about what happened. People who read it have no idea about what a camp was, or what the Nazis were really going to do. This is what I talk about: the gassing and selection. That is what people are shocked about, not just that we didn’t get enough food. They didn’t treat us like human beings.

A record 2.3 million people visited Auschwitz in 2019. When asked about whether people should visit concent r ation camps, Mrs Schloss said: “There is nothing really to see at Ausc h w i t z anymore. It has become a tourist attraction...It has become a commercial thing, w h e r e people take

photos under the sign reading Arbeit Macht Frei. My daughter went, and she said it didn’t move her because it was empty. Now you just see empty space, and you can’t imagine what it was like.

“I went to Mauthausen. There are no barracks, but a stone quarry. There is a famous staircase, which the men had to go down, then bring rocks up. At the top, a Nazi would stand. He would give a man a push, and with a big rock on him he fell like an accordion - the whole group fell backwards and were killed. When you see that staircase and hear what happened, you wonder how cultured, educated people could invent a thing like that.”

Image Credit: The Oxford Union

STUDENT UNION

Oxford SU launch ‘It’s not enough’ campaign Jill Cushen

Oxford University’s Student Union has launched its ‘It’s not enough’ campaign which aims to raise awareness about the longstanding silence on race equality and make the University and its colleges aware that what they have done for racial equality so far is not enough.

Following Oriel College’s decision not to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes due to the “considerable obstacles to removal”, the campaign was launched on May 25, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the murder of

George Floyd.

In light of Oriel’s decision, the SU released a statement which read: “We are disappointed to hear that Oriel’s Governing Body will not be removing the Rhodes statue due to the regulatory and financial challenges involved in the process. Dismantling systemic racism in Oxford is one of the greatest challenges this university community has faced, but we believe this is no excuse for inaction.”

As part of the campaign, the SU is collecting responses to

amplify student voices at Oxford.

A form, which can be found on the SU website, asks students: “Why is what Oxford University has done so far on racial equality not enough?” The answers will be published as part of the campaign but students can remain anonymous if they wish.

The campaign will also involve the release of infographics on the state of racial equality at Oxford, the sharing of student written articles on race, spotlighting student-led societies working for racial equality and the publishing

of student quotes.

Nikita Ma, President of Oxford SU, said: “There are many things Oxford can do better in terms of racial equality, not least removing the Rhodes statue which symbolises colonialism and racism.

I am immensely grateful to all the students who have contributed their time and emotional energy to lead and support this campaign. We at Oxford SU will continue championing the student voice, and I strongly encourage you to spend less than a minute to fill out the form and make Oxford a more equal place for future generations of students to come.”

The SU page also shows statistics relating to racial equality.

These include the fact that 1/16 Pro Vice Chancellors at the University are BAME and details of the attainment gaps for BAME, Asian and black students.

The foreword on the campaign’s page, written by Nikita Jain, Oriel JCR’s Ethnic Minorities Representative, reads: “As Oxford students, we can use our voice to let the University know that their current efforts are not enough. It is not enough to make empty promise after empty promise with no intention to deliver concrete change. It is not enough to ignore the testimonies of countless students who are

made to feel like they don’t belong here. And it is most definitely not enough to retain a visual symbol of racism in the form of a statue of the white supremacist Cecil Rhodes on the front of Oriel College whilst maintaining a stance of anti-racism.”

“The University has committed to reforms time and time again in order to improve the experiences of students whilst they are here, and these commitments are a step in the right direction. However, at the moment, all we have seen is words and not actions.

The only way we can enact real change is by holding the University to account and by pushing them to do better, because right now, it’s not enough.”

A spokesperson for the SU told Cherwell that the campaign hopes to highlight “the current problems of the University, as shown by some of the articles in the Student Voice section as well as the student submissions”.

They added: “Another important component we wanted to include is a section that aims to uplift and empower students of colour by sharing their work and also celebrating the diverse cultures that make up our student body, to make their voices and their cultures more visible.”

Image Credit: Oxford SU.

6 | News

University of Oxford to launch Pandemic Sciences Centre

Cherwell | Friday, 11th June 2021 RESEARCH

Matt Schaffel

The University of Oxford has announced the launch of its new Pandemic Sciences Centre, a new centre of ‘global research collaboration and excellence’.

The intention behind the centre is to use the global research links that the University has developed and has used over more than forty years, particularly the international ties between academia, industry and public health which have arisen out of the coronavirus pandemic response. The centre will help to create ‘global, and equitable science-driven solutions’ to the threats that future pandemics may bring.

Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, said to the University website: “The recent pandemic has demonstrated the unique contributions research universities like Oxford can make to pandemic preparedness.

“We are building on decades of medical research on infectious disease and data science, we have longstanding international partnerships and we have the ability to act and to adapt quickly. When aligned with industry and with public health bodies we can ensure that the world is never caught unprepared again.”

The centre aims to back research in a wide variety of fields, which include “infectious diseases, vaccinology, immunology, structural biology, diagnostics, drug discovery, clinical trials, data science, public

health, and social and political sciences”.

The centre’s research has a focus on three core themes, which are listed on the University’s website: “Accelerating understanding and insights: generating actionable knowledge and data (from pathogens through to patients) in near ‘real-time’ and making this globally accessible.

“Translating research into real-world solutions: creating and deploying effective, acceptable and equitable health technologies, including digital tools, diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.

“Enhancing confidence, trust and impact: identifying ways to strengthen societal and political engagement, resilience, and responsiveness.”

Professor Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at the University, said about the centre: “It would be easy to ignore just how much more serious a pandemic could have been this time around - other highly pathogenic viruses carry mortalities of 35-50% - imagine if we had a pandemic where one in three infected people died.

“The University of Oxford is uniquely capable of leading a global step change in how we respond to the threat of emerging infections.

By investing in sound science now, we can help to safeguard our resilience, global economic stability and health security for generations to come. We are ready to take our vi-

UNIVERSITY

Oxford University students campaign to reduce sexual violence by changing city’s street lighting Matt Schaffel

Student campaign group ‘It Happens Here’, set up by Oxford University students in 2013, have been campaigning for an improvement to street lighting in Oxford. This is in order to help reduce levels of sexual violence in the city.

The group have more broadly been working to lobby the university to improve its sexual assault and harassment policies and to ensure there is better communication between the Thames Valley Police and the university’s security services.

They gained further attention after the protests surrounding the Sarah Everard case and after Oxford was mentioned a number of times on the website, Everyone’s Invited, which publishes anonymous sexual assault testimonies.

Timea Iliffe, a student at New College, who runs the group, said to

the Oxford Mail: “I joined the campaign because it seemed like a real, tangible way to put my beliefs and in particular my feminist principles into practice and affect positive change across the university, particularly given that this is an issue that affects so many people, and so often in a culture of silence that prevents those responsible from being held accountable.”

Tasha Lovel, who studies History at St Hilda’s, and also runs the group told Oxford Mail: “Sexual violence is way too common, as seen by the recent 97 per cent statistic from the Guardian things need to change.

“Everyone deserves to feel safe and not at risk of sexual violence, regardless of race, gender, or sexuality, which cannot be achieved if we do not challenge the environments we are exposed to or the institutions that are supposed to support us and keep us safe.”

sion to build on these foundations to ensure society is better prepared and agile in its response to future threats.”

Professor Peter Horby, the inaugural Director of the Pandemic Sciences Centre, also said: “The

COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that spectacular advances are possible through an alliance of science, the public sector and industry – creating digital disease control tools, diagnostic tests, and life-saving treatments and

vaccines at unprecedented speed.

But it should not take a pandemic to make this happen. This level of innovation and multi-sectoral collaboration must be applied, day in and day out, to prevent another catastrophe like COVID-19.”

Oxford Polish Society apologise for

SOCIETIES

abandoning rubbish in University Parks Jill Cushen

Students from the Oxford University Polish Society have issued a public apology after rubbish was abandoned in University Parks last weekend.

The society held a Presidents’ Drinks event at Parson’s Pleasure Bathing Place on May 30 after which litter was left overnight. Images, seen by Cherwell, were posted by a Facebook user on the society’s page showing plastic cups, pizza boxes and other litter abandoned on tables.

Oxford residents criticised the littering of the popular green space, prompting an apology from the presidents of the society. Co-Presidents of the Polish Society, Igor Wasilewski and Szymon Gorczyca, posted an apology on behalf of the society on the Oxford Community Facebook group.

In the apology, the presidents “sincerely” apologised to “the whole community of the city of Oxford” for the “mess” that was left in University Parks.

They said: “We are very disappointed in ourselves that we didn’t clean up and left all the rubbish in this public space. We intended to clean it up in the morning, but unfortunately this has been too late and we found the place already cleaned up. We do admit that we have forgotten the rules of decency and we promise this will not happen

ever again.”

They added: “We are aware of how disgraceful our behaviour is and we are willing to face the consequences and do everything in our power to make up for it to the community of Oxford.”

President of the society, Igor Wasilewski, emphasised that the society is a community of students and asked people not to “transfer the feelings of disappointment and anger to the wider Polish community in Oxford”. He added: “The adults have had no part in this and we - the students - bear all the responsibility.”

Members of the Oxford Community Facebook group praised the group for their apology with social media users commending them for coming forward and others suggesting that the group organise a litter picking or tree planting event.

Wasilewski, President of Oxford University Polish Society, told Cherwell: “We are sorry about not cleaning up, we regret what we’ve done and we promise this will not happen ever again.”

Image Credit: KRC58 at the Englishlanguage Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0.

7 | Editorial

EDITORIAL

Abigail Howe | Editor-in-Chief

T

here’s a first time for everything – this is the first time my editorial has been ready with any reasonable degree of notice before we go to print. Time has flown by since I started as a lowly Stage Editor in Trinity Term 2020. At the time, one Deputy Editor described me in their interview notes as “very, very chilled”. The last year has showcased the slow erosion of this chill. I’d be tempted to blame it all on the paper but the pandemic probably had something to do with it. Still, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Of course, Cherwell has only been possible due to the incredible editorial team. There is so much talent within the paper this term – I can’t wait to see your future bylines, names in mastheads, or your many other amazing achievements, whether in journalism or elsewhere. It has been a genuine pleasure to work with you all.

The senior editorial team certainly deserve a special mention: Bailey, for taking the three Fs in your stride and bringing zeal (and Squashies!) to each proofing session; Ben, for cheering up any Zoom meeting or pub trip and running a wonderful competition; Fred, for being a proofing legend and responding excellently to moments of adversity; Irene, for manning a Canadian Cherwell outpost with

Cherwell | Friday, 11th June 2021

Editor-in-Chief | Trudy Ross

H

aving been involved with this paper for a whopping six terms, since Michaelmas of my first year, when I’d turn up to scary news meetings and occasionally pluck up the courage to raise my hand to take an article or two for the week, it certainly feels like an era is ending. All this week I’ve been wondering how I’ll respond when it is, truly and finally, completely done.

Manically apply to The Isis to continue to get my desperately needed hits of student journo?

Or (probably most likely) swear off student societies forever, disappearing into a cave with my books to do some much, much, much needed degree work?

Laying in Wes Beckett’s final cartoon this week did make me feel a little bit emotional. My heart goes out to the next eds-in-chief who’ll have to find his replacement, because it is, as usual, pretty special. While part of me feels like I am just about to break through some rather weighty chains and dance off into the summer sun, I also feel a sense of nostalgia when I look back on all those pictures on the wall, all the papers put out and late nights of delirium and articles written and friends made. Thank you Abi, you star and absolute incredible girl-boss - I aspire to reach your level of awe-inspiring competency.

ease and putting on a range of fantastic events; Matthew, for your boundless enthusiasm and encouragement, especially of the GIF variety; and Sasha, for managing news effortlessly and showing an amazing willingness to write for any section of the paper where needed.

Most of all, I owe a massive thank you to Trudy, for putting up with my panicked calls, my terrible jokes and my threats of violence if we didn’t get a print edition. You have been an absolute angel; there’s no one I could possibly imagine as a better co-Editor-in-Chief.

There’s a lot I’m looking forward to after my time at Cherwell is over – being able to avoid checking my phone whenever it vibrates (just in case there’s a scandal brewing), logging out of the tens of email accounts I’m meant to be monitoring (and removing my phone number so I no longer get multiple verification requests each week), and no longer being hacked by seemingly every society (third year irrelevance seems like a dream – no matter how charming or delightful each hack managed to seem).

But still, Cherwell has been a huge part of my university experience so far. I’m going to miss it – any space for me to go back to the Stage section?!

There have been some highs and some lows and, most of all, beautiful people. One of my favourite moments was just last week when I had the opportunity to interview Christina Lamb, chief foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times and ex-Cherwell-editor. It was a privilege to sit across from someone who has seen so much, been to so many places, and has insight into such harrowing injustices and unique personal stories. Even though her voice was quiet, the whole room held their breath to hear every word, and hearing about the atrocities faced by the Yazidi women and Boko Haram girls, as well as many, many other women around the globe, was chilling and sobering.

Student journalists at Oxford may not be able to speak to those from Nigeria or Iraq, but I am so thankful that more and more people are speaking out about issues of assault and exploitation - I urge you all to read the comment piece by anonymous in this week’s edition, which impacted me and made me think more than anything else I’d read this term.

When talking about the sexual violence she’d seen, Lamb told us: “I could have written about it forever.” The injustice and the violence goes on and on and on. We cannot stop writing about them until it stops, even if that means forever.

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Friday, 11th June 2021 | Cherwell

8

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T H E U G LY S I D E O F T H E B E A U T I F U L G A M E CIARA GARCHA ANALYSES FOOTBALL’S ISSUES WITH DIRTY MONEY.

F

ootball is often heralded as having the potential to bridge cultural and linguistic divides, bring people together as a community and act as a force for good in a number of ways. As one of the world’s most popular pass times and a multi-billion pound industry, football holds immense power and significance around the globe. But, away from the million pound contracts and the screaming fans, football continues to be complicit in awful violations of human rights across the world.

During recent World Cup 2022 qualifiers, players from a number of Men’s National Teams posed wearing shirts with various human rights slogans on them. The intention was to highlight the awful abuses of human rights that have taken place in the run-up to, and preparations for, the 2022 Qatar World Cup, making a public statement to the organisers and football’s governing bodies. Amnesty International has detailed a litany of examples of human rights

abuse relating to what they term “the World Cup of Shame”, including forced labour, exploitation and negligence. Migrants rebuilding stadiums to be used in the tournament have been subject to “appalling living conditions”, violent threats and the confiscation of passports or ID in order to entrap the workers. Outside of football, Qatar is an absolute monarchy, in which free speech and free assembly are criminalised.

All of these disturbing details contrast with the financial gain that will be made by FIFA, football’s international governing body, and the Qatari organisers. Firms have been paid approximately $90 million to refurbish the Khalifa Stadium, whilst FIFA’s total revenue in 2014 (the year of the Brazil World Cup) amounted to $2 billion. This is in stark contrast with the average monthly salary of labourers at the Khalifa Stadium, of $220, notwithstanding the fact that a number of workers have reported having their pay delayed or withheld entirely. The Guardian calculated

that 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since it was awarded the World Cup in 2010 — an average of 12 people losing their lives a week.

But yet, in spite of this sickening fact and the extensive catalogue of human rights abuses reported by various organisations, the 2022 World Cup will go ahead as planned. FIFA, the Qatari organisers and the corporations involved will face no penalties for the lives lost and abuses committed in the name of football. The dichotomy encapsulated by the situation in Qatar is embedded in football around the world: the flashy wealth and fame of football is built on abuse and suffering. Profit is increased at the cost of human lives.

Qatar 2022 will not be the first time a World Cup has been mired in controversy over human rights. It will not be the first time that droves of fans from around the world will

descend on a country, enjoying the beautiful game, while something far more sinister lurks below. The 2018 World Cup took place in Russia, just over a year after domestic violence legislation was amended to effectively decriminalise certain forms of abuse. Under the reforms, passed in February 2017, violence against a child or spouse causing bruising or bleeding was punishable by 15 days in prison or a fine equivalent to £380 if it did not happen more than once in a year. The dire state of LGBTQI+ rights in Russia continues to draw international condemnation, as members of the community are subject to communal, police and state violence. Concerns were also expressed that ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ football fans travelling from the UK to Russia for the tournament would be at risk of harassment and abuse. Yet, even

as the Russian government stripped back the rights of women to be safe and free from abuse, even as it continued its violent campaign against LGBTQ+ communities, even as certain spectators were told they would face “heightened risks”, the tournament went ahead. FIFA made an estimated $6 billion from the 2018 Russia World Cup and the footballing world promptly moved on, with little thought given to the context, environment and cost of the tournament. Similar claims have been made with regards to Human Rights abuses connected to the 2014 Brazil World Cup and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, before that.

A pattern emerges of football’s international leadership effectively ignoring appalling human rights abuses in the name of making profit and hosting an enjoyable tournament.

Read the full article online at cherwell.org.

Image credit: Zambaccian via Wikimedia Commons.

A N OT H E R B R I C K I N T H E P O S T G R A D WA L L MATTHEW PRUDHAM REFLECTS ON THE TRIALS OF MASTER’S AND DOCTOR AL FUNDING.

R

ight now, as I come to the end of my MSt at Oxford, I feel as if I’m in a sort of no man’s land. I had spent, like many others in master’s courses, most of the Christmas vacation researching, writing and applying for PhD/DPhil places, whilst also carrying on with work – not much of a break, I guess. Yet, as I sit here writing this piece, I have only just found out that my l luck just ran out, and I’ll have to take a gap year before embarking on another application process.

The question mark since receiving my offers (for which I was incredibly grateful for) has been daunting.

It hangs over you in moments before going to sleep. I’m not someone

who deals well with a lack of a future plan. But it’s exacerbated by the fact that I simply do not know how close I was to securing funding: only one institution has informed me (Durham) that I’ve been rejected from funding; from the other two, it’s silence after receiving an offer.

The system is also reliant on students having the means to take a year out; one receives more ‘points’ for a completed master’s degree rather than having one in progress.

It does somewhat make sense on a financial viewpoint — funding bodies want to ensure that the money they commit goes to the top candidates — but it also socially discriminates against students from working class backgrounds. I am in a for-

tunate position where taking year out and moving back home would be an option; but in a subject as middle-class, home-counties, private school-background dominated as Classics, I know there are others for whom this is simply not an option — a lack of a safe home space, a necessity to support oneself. For a person in their position, the silence they receive could be even more distressing; you can find out at any p o i n t — today, tomorrow, or in mid-July — and then suddenly find yourself jettisoned into a thrilling academic career; or you could keep hoping for that one email or phone call, and it never comes. The mental health toll is sizeable.

Some do say that ‘if you don’t hear back after a certain date, please assume you’re not receiving our funding’, as if it’s acceptable. It’s certainly not. I understand that these funding sites are greatly oversubscribed, but all it takes is a simple, respectful BCC sendto-all because these systems can end up being delayed, especially during a pandemic with panels ending up meeting virtually rather than in-person. I’d much rather have my hopes crushed properly and politely rather than them withering out,

several months later.

There’s another health aspect at hand. You could spend another four, five hours a day applying for additional funding, sending emails doubtful of a response, and scouring the internet for what’s available.

Again, that’s inherently discriminatory and ableist. I, as someone with a long-standing epilepsy condition, cannot risk staying up until 2 or 3am, night after night, in this scholastic espionage — I need my sleep!

That means I’m definitively at a worse chance of securing funding — since I’m not able to spend the hours required online. It should be readily accessible, with clear guides.

Indeed, having spoken to a few professors and staff in the faculty, they aren’t even clear about how the system works — even though they’ve managed to receive funding. Yet, they also know the system needs to change, that master’s students should be able to progress to the next level without this secondment back home. This is a way is comforting yet troubling; for sure, they sympathise and may have endured the same journey as myself, but I’m not sure when this change will occur.

That being said, I’m fortunate at least that some potential funding options may have, if I were (incredibly?) lucky, come my way. Yet, to even reach this step, I had to go via a master’s. Master’s funding is even harder to come by; as funding has been continually slashed from 2011 onwards — when the Arts and Humanities Research Council announced that they were cutting

funded master’s courses from 607 to 490. That’s not a lot. My course alone takes on 25 students, and there is a wide smorgasbord of potential arts and humanities courses at Oxford alone, from Latin American Studies to Film Aesthetics, all vying with hundreds of other UK institutions for these grants. Some institutions are trying to make these courses affordable; Durham, from where I (virtually) graduated in 2020, offers a 25% alumni discount on all its courses, which are significantly cheaper than those offered at Oxford (the price for my current course goes above the maximum loan threshold). Again, therefore — and this is a current theme on master’s discourse online —, it is restrictive to those who can affordto have family support or who balance with their either full-time or part-time master’s workload, impressively, with a part-time job.

Is there hope for change in the humanities, as the current Government aims to marginalise arts and humanities degrees, despite the fact that the vast majority of the current cabinet graduated from such courses? It’s hard to say yes. But, a more open system, where funding options are clear, where rejection is forthcoming, would lead to fewer students congregating in the virtual halls of The Student Room, wondering what is going on amongst the (currently virtual) decision-making panels.

Image credit: Billy Watson Photography / License: CC BY-NC

Cherwell | Friday, 11th June 2021

9

SE X UA L A SSAU LT I N OX FOR D ANONYMOUS REFLECTS ON THE LINE BET WEEN SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND KINKS.

S

CW: sexual assualt, violence, rape that if our positions were reversed Not that much later, while he apologise – but maybe he wouldn’t changed since then? ome time ago, I went home I would be saying exactly the same was fucking my mouth, he choked stop. Maybe he would get angry.

In 2018, a seventeen year-old with a Tinder date and in things to her, which is when I me again, for a lot longer this time.

If I stayed quiet I could hope he girl’s underwear was famously used the middle of our sexual started to think she might be right.

I remember telling myself not to would finish soon and let me go as evidence against her in a rape encounter, coming as a comThe next person I told happanic, that he would surely let go and didn’t mean me any harm, but trial – the man accused was ultiplete surprise to me, he choked me. pened to be a male friend, and soon like last time or orgasm and if I told him to stop and he didn’t, mately acquitted. Perhaps the man We tend to refer to this action as his response was very different. stop, all while wondering if I would then I was being attacked. To my I encountered couldn’t have known choking, probably because calling I mentioned the incident as an die, if he knew enough to make male friend, this was an unfounded how much he scared me without me it strangulation sounds so much aside again, this time adding that sure I wouldn’t. This may sound fear that wasn’t ref lected in me asking him to stop strangling me more sinister. But it is strangulait had made me nervous because it melodramatic to people who are staying for a smoke with the guy – but since when is strangulation tion, and it is dangerous. I have no made me think that consent wasn’t fans of a little breath play – but who assaulted me. To my female such an integral part of sex that intention of kink-shaming anyone important to this guy. The interacremember this was my first time friend, this made perfect sense. it doesn’t require specific consent – consenting adults can do what tion that followed was essentially having any form of constriction At the time, my male friend’s from your partner? they like behind closed doors – but an interrogation. ‘Did you say no?’ around my throat and I had met the words prompted me to place a lot Porn consumption has been on this occasion, I was never given ‘Did you actually feel threatened or man strangling me just a couple of of blame on myself. If I didn’t tell linked to a normalisation of what the opportunity to consent. was it just a kink you don’t like?’ ‘If hours before. this man to stop, how could he was previously considered more At the time, I sort of shrugged it you felt threatened, why didn’t you Furthermore, I now know the have known how uncomfortable he violent, unusual sexual practices, off as just one of those bad sexual leave straight after?’ only way to guarantee you don’t was making me? Since then, I have but does this absolve the man I encounters – the ones where you Reading these questions, some kill someone by choking them is not also been prompted to research met? Maybe he meant me no harm? never said no, but you never to choke them – people have this issue more, and found out very Maybe he thought choking was just said yes, either. died from just a few seconds of quickly just how common nona normal part of sexual intimacy?

“T H E M A L E S E X U AL Perhaps it wouldn’t haunt choking. There is no medically consensual choking is. Two years Does that make the experience my me at all if it weren’t for the A P P E T I T E I S U ND E R STO O D safe amount of time you can ago, a study found that a third fault? Does that make it no-one’s wildly different reactions choke someone. Did he know of UK women under the age of 40 that I was subject to such A N D S Y M PATH IS E D W ITH, that? The next little part of have experienced unwanted chok- fault of two friends to the story, violence and panic and fear? Why A N D V I OL E NT ASP E CTS and my subsequent research the evening is still blurry to ing, slapping, spitting or gagging do we have this tendency to focus through which I learned that FA R TOO N O R M AL ISE D.” me, but at some point he did during otherwise consensual sex. on what victims, usually women, strangulation is the second let go and had his orgasm.

Though we commonly hear ‘fight or were doing at the time? most common cause of stroke I don’t remember what was f light’ presented as the body’s only It’s because the reasons behind in women under 40, that victims people might be feeling some secgoing through my mind at that instinctive reactions to fear, there men committing acts of sexual can continue to suffer symptoms ond-hand anger, some people are point – definitely some relief, and are several others, and ‘freezing’ violence are understood. It’s as days and even weeks after the fact, probably thinking they’re entirely still some shock. I stayed a little is the most common response to simple as that. The male sexual and that people being strangled or valid. When initially reading them, longer, had a smoke with him, appetite is understood and ‘choked’ can lose consciousness in I was angry, because I had just and then said I needed to get with, and violent “MY MALE FRIEND’S WORDS sympathised as little as four seconds which indicome from a conversation receiving home. aspects far too normalised – cates at the least a mild brain injury. nothing but sympathy and without Where my female friend PROMPTED ME TO PLACE A rape and sexual assault should Then again, perhaps it would. being asked a single question about immediately empathised with LOT OF BLAME ON MYSELF.” be an aberration.

The first friend I told was a felwhat had happened – without bethe fear I felt, the fear that We should be studying serial low woman, and I presented it as ing doubted. After sleeping on it, froze me in place, desperate rapists the same way we study a somewhat funny anecdote about I started to think they were comnot to escalate anything, my male incidences of sexual assault. serial killers. We should be considthe perils of one-night-stands. Her pletely valid questions. I started to friend didn’t understand how I Carine M. Mardorossian obering one-time rapists the same response was first to ask if I was doubt myself. could have felt threatened, felt my served back in 2002 that “…only way we consider one-time murderokay. Up until she asked, I hadn’t Some time ago, I went home with life in danger even, but not once gendered crimes generate the kind ers. There are endless academic stopped to wonder if I was okay. a Tinder date, and in between maksaid no and not immediately left of victim-blaming responses rape studies, interviews, novels and It wasn’t exactly fun, but I hadn’t ing out and going down on him, he once I was released. I told him it and domestic violence produce.

TV shows about the psyche and died, and I wasn’t sure that I had put his hand around my throat and was pretty hard to say no when Whereas forgetting to set the anti motivation of the murderer. There been assaulted – I had consented choked me. I’d never experienced someone had either their hand burglar alarm or getting robbed is nothing comparable with sexual to everything else that happened. this before, and I was scared. I around your throat or their penis despite ‘the neighbourhood watch’ predators. Our society permits, I relayed this to my friend, and she didn’t know how to respond. Then inside it, but I knew that saying does not exculpate the thieves, even encourages, men to focus told me how sorry she was that I’d suddenly his hand was gone and no hadn’t actually occurred to me. getting raped always elicits an inon their own sexual gratification had the misfortune to match with we were kissing again and I figured Or rather, it had occurred to me, vestigation into the ways in which at the expense of their partner’s this man, and assured me that he maybe it was a random one-off and but I had immediately dismissed it a victim might ultimately have enjoyment, consent and safety. absolutely should have gotten conhe’d realised from my face that I as a possibility because maybe he been responsible for what hapIt’s true that I never asked him sent before throttling me. I realised didn’t enjoy it. would stop, maybe he would even pened.” – and has anything really to stop – but why did he start?

Wes Beckett on... goodbye

Friday, 11th June 2021 | Cherwell

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science & technology N AT I O N A L I S AT I O N O F P OW E R TOWA R D S N E T Z E RO?

E

MEZ BENMAAMAR SCRUTINISES RECENT U.S. AND U.K. GOVERNMENT MOTIONS TO PLACE ENERGY NETWORKS IN PUBLIC OWNERSHIP.

arlier this month, US Congressional representatives Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman introduced a congressional resolution calling for the transformation of the United States’ largely private electricity and gas system into that of a publicly owned and governed network. Whilst such a bill poses little chance of passing the Democratic Senate, it represents a guiding vision to a Green New Deal extolled by congressional members within the left of the American Democratic party.

This renewed call for the public ownership and operation of the electricity network is motivated by the United States’ increasingly untenable legacy of decaying infrastructure and continuous deferral of network investment, whilst regimes of private value

extraction at the expense of public coffers run rampant. The logic follows that with the public ownership of the network, the surplus capital originally being delivered to shareholders could now be used to reinvest in the energy infrastructure required for net-zero and further develop societal outcomes.

Calls for this radical approach to an energy system transition can be observed in the white paper released in 2019 across the pond by the Labour Party, outlining the party’s plan for publicly owned energy networks. The evidence for such an approach may also be increasingly compelling; with it coming at a moment when the UK’s energy sector is decried to be central to decarbonisation, yet Ofgem reports how our energy networks are contradictorily underequipped to respond to the

task at hand. In fact, an estimated £35 billion worth of up-front capital is estimated to be required to realise a clean grid by 2030.

Simultaneously, Citizens Advice in 2019 decried the ‘eye-watering’ high profit margins at the expense of households with the UK’s privately-operated distribution network operators making an estimated £7.5 billion in unjustified profits over the past 8-year period.

What is more, this failure to invest appropriately in the infrastructure required to modernise the grid and reduce renewable energy bottlenecks comes at a time when British customers have reportedly ‘overpaid for electricity for years’.

In sum, no matter how convincing the numbers are, the Labour Party’s manifesto to ‘Bring Energy Home’ and this short 12page resolution have and will ultimately fail to galvanise change

given the contemporary political landscape. They should however be understood as expressions of the silent battle at play between antagonistic narratives for different energy transition

T H E P OW E R O F T H E P L AC E B O E F F E CT

TECH TIDBITS

pathways in the West today; the clashing views of energy as both a fundamental human resource and as a basic unit of capital accumulation for a growth economy.

SCIENCE SNIPPETS

ALICE BANFIELD LOOKS AT THE SCIENCE BEHIND, THE OBJECTIONS TO, AND THE PROSPECTS OF PLACEBO -BASED TREATMENTS.

An online catalogue of communicative elephant sounds, dubbed ‘the first Google Translate for elephants’, has launched.

The cloud computing firm Fastly, which underpins the Amazon, Reddit, and Twitch websites, as well as gov.uk, suffered a major hour-long outage this week

The UK government will ban the sale of halogen lightbulbs from September. Fluorescent lights will be banned from shelves at a later date, with experts hoping that consumers will switch to more eco-friendly LED equivalents.

T

he placebo effect is a phenomenon which clearly illustrates that having belief in the effectiveness of a treatment can be enough to cause significant improvements in health. The human mind can cause people to believe that fake medication gives real results, and the effects on health can sometimes be as significant as those seen with genuine treatments.

Placebos are often used in clinical trials alongside the medication being tested, to be analysed in comparison to the real drug. This allows the power of new medicines to be investigated more thoroughly. Drugs are quite frequently shown to be no more effective than a placebo, and so they do not get past the trial stage.

Placebos are also used as a treatment in themselves. Often, sugar pills are administered to sick patients, who are told that it is a drug which will aid their recovery. Although the medication contains no active ingredient, appreciable effects are frequently seen. These chemically inert medications have been seen to help people with a fairly wide range of conditions such as back pain, insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome, fatigue and nausea.

It has been shown that even just the colour of the tablet can alter the effect which the placebo has on the body. Researchers at BMJ have shown that red, yellow and orange pills are associated with a stimulant effect, while blue and green pills relate to a tranquilizing effect. Larger pills also seem to produce a stronger effect than smaller ones, while bran-

ded placebo pills are seen to be more effective than unbranded ones.

There is some ambiguity surrounding the science behind the placebo effect, but it appears to be linked with the idea of conditioning. This idea of conditioning was shown by Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s, who conditioned dogs to relate his presence with being given food. His arrival would then consistently cause the dogs to salivate, even when no food was being given. Many signals, for example a buzzer, were also shown to trigger automatic responses. This shows that a cue can be directly linked with a physiological response, and because our brains associate taking a pill with relief, brain chemicals will be produced, and will start the pain relief process as soon as the medication is taken.

Brain-imaging studies also show that placebos cause quite significant changes in neurobiological signalling pathways. Reward pathways are activated in the brain when you expect that an effect will be felt.

This can then stimulate the release of endorphins, which act in a similar way to opiates such as morphine.

When these bind to opioid receptors, pain relief can be experienced. It has also been proved that placebos cause dopamine to be released, which is another neurotransmitter which can help to decrease pain sensitivity.

Many doctors today prescribe placebo drugs to their patients, which many people argue is an unethical approach which can easily be classed as deception. It can also be seen as immoral to give people ineffecti-

ve remedies in clinical trials when there are chemically active medications available. There may be serious consequences if the patient in need of treatment does not receive authentic medication to begin with; there is even a risk of experiencing a ‘nocebo’ effect, meaning that negative side effects are felt in response to the drug. Additionally, some people are more genetically disposed to placebos, while others are less likely to react to them. However, if there is still a likelihood that the placebo will have a positive effect, then surely the doctor is carrying out his duty of trying to help the patient, which cannot be considered unethical.

Placebos can be incredibly useful in certain scenarios, and sometimes they can be used when other drugs cannot. For instance, opioid pain relief cannot always be given to burn victims due to associated respiratory depression. In a case like this, there is no real debate about morality. A saline injection can be given rather than a painkiller, and often this is a good option to make the patient feel more comfortable.

The placebo effect clearly shows that the mind has a very powerful influence on the body, to the extent that it can mimic the effects of genuine medical treatments. Further investigation into this field could greatly advance our knowledge of both the brain and the success of various medicines. However, the issue of morality lingers over all those looking into the phenomenon and the use of placebos.

Read the full article at cherwell.org.

Over-25s in England are now eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccines, with the government aiming to offer a jab to all adults by the end of July.

A cargo ship is sinking off the coast of Sri Linka following a lengthy fire on board, causing oil and plastics to spill into the sea in a potential environmental crisis.

Oxford physicists have proved for the first time that a subatomic particle can change into its antiparticle and back. Image: Robert Couse-Baker / CC BY 2.0.

CUL CHER

Friday, 11th June 2021 | Vol.294 No.5 | 7th Week

CulCher | Friday, 11th June 2021

2

CONTENTS CULCHER

page 2 | The Nordic Inheritance page 3 | Anachronism: Art Against

Time?

THE SOURCE

page 4 | Monica Ali Creative Writing Award

MUSIC

page 6 | When Streaming Became Scrolling

FILM page 7 | Accidentally in Love

BOOKS

THE NORDIC INHERITANCE

page 8 | ‘Rotterdam is anywhere’

STAGE page 9 | A Feminist Macbeth?

FASHION

page 10 | Ethical Fashion

COVER ARTIST ZOE RHOADES

I am Zoe, a second year Human Scientist at St. John’s.

My piece was inspired by the fields of yellow flowers in Port Meadow. Having picked some whilst there last weekend, I realised that swimming in Port Meadow is a huge part of the Oxford Uni experience - a bit of Oxford ‘CulCher’, one of those things everyone wants to do while here, and having only been for the first time that weekend it is now something I will spend much more time doing in the future!

The piece is mixed media, made from acrylic and watercolour paint, pencil and coloured pencil, biro, tissue paper, and of course Cherwell newspaper cuttings (shout out to Liv Fugger, whose CulCher cover from Week 5 features!).

I hope everyone enjoys the bright yellow palatte in this piece, the flowers from Port Meadow have been in my room for the last few days so I would highly recommend going for a swim and grabbing some on your way home.

I would also recommend that anyone with any interest in art (no matter what the medium) should sign up to be on the creative team for Cherwell. I started in Easter this year and have enjoyed it so much, you just need to email in some examples of your artwork and you will be added to the spreadsheet which always has a range of commissions to sign up to. It’s a super rewarding experience and a way to stay creative alongside your degree!

F

AND THE POWER OF MYTH OVER THE MODERN IMAGINATION.

BY CHARLOTTE KUTZ

or a historian who has made every effort to avoid studying the early history modules, Prime Video’s Vikings was perhaps a surprising viewing choice. Although the show has a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I was also surprised at the number of people who were watching it and giving it glowing reviews; Nordic history, after all, has been done and redone in the arts. So what was it about the show that was attracting such a following? And why is film and television inspired by mythology often a guaranteed success for entertainment companies? Talking to others who had watched the show, their appreciation for it ranged from interest in the time period to because it was “f*cking sick”. The general consensus, however, was a sense of awe for the pagan mythologies that have survived Christianity to trickle down into the western imagination for generations.

It occurred to me that I was living in the answer. As always, and even more importantly during these unprecedented times, film and television fulfils its escapist function. With our lives characterised by screens of every size, and operating within an oppressive cycle of sleep, work and eating, Vikings offers an unapologetically earthy alternative to the rigid monotony of online work. With 84% of the UK population residing in urban areas, earth is hard to come by; the wild, Romantic landscapes of Scandinavia featured in Vikings are therefore a welcome contrast to the concrete which saturates our views. Most of us have not left our localised radii of existence for almost a year, a situation which only our screens, acting as portals opening onto different places in the world, can remedy. Thank God for the creative industries: without them, the four walls which enclose us would be insurmountable.

The ‘classics’ to which the Norse myths belong – as much as they describe fundamentally alien notions of power, justice and morality – are also about familiarity. The differentiated cast of characters that they feature, replete with flaws, feel comfortable, almost like the powerful protagonists of proto-sitcoms; ‘modern takes’ and ‘revisitations’ revel in locating these archaic characters in inherently modern situations in order to provoke a predictably exaggerated response from them. The recycled tropes that characterise American sitcoms in particular – the fake tan gag in both Friends and The Big Bang Theory, as well as the welltrodden ‘visit to the hospital’, and the ‘drunken

marriage’ – are not just lazy writing; they put the amplified idiosyncrasies of their characters on full display in the most fertile environments.

Norse mythology – with its colourful spate of figures resembling the versed clichés of television – is a potential source bank of caricatures, which a contrasted modern setting can bring out to the max.

Modern taste has its own mark to leave on the classics in return: the ‘underdog’ trope.

Ragnarok – a Norwegian fantasy series focusing on the tense relationship between 21st century versions of Thor and Loki – directs much of the audience’s attention to the clumsy antics of the former’s teenage struggle with his superhuman powers as he tries to navigate the awkward space and growing pains between human and superhuman, as well as child and adult. The series scores bonus points for taking place in a high school, the historical breeding ground of exclusive cliques; whilst Loki excels in this environment, Thor is cast as the ‘quiet kid’ who befriends the school outcast. Vikings, set in the overlap between the 8th and 9th centuries, allows its protagonist – Ragnar Lothbrok – to operate effortlessly in his natural environment, with all its concomitant peculiarities. Fearless, cunning and ambitious, he expands to dominate his homeland until, hungry for more, he embarks on an expedition to England, as a result of which the Vikings’ infamously ruthless reputation is secured for posterity.

The popularity of Vikings is in large part due to Ragnar, who ticks off just about every Viking stereotype in the popular imagination. Amid noisy debates about the glaring incompetence of politicians in response to the worst public health crisis of the 21st century, Ragnar’s character emanates confidence, intelligence and skill, qualities demonstrated in his deftness in the power play of politics and constant ‘oneupping’ of his rivals. The fascination of modern audiences with Ragnar is above all a fascination with bygone styles of leadership. In the 21st century, Prime Ministers and Presidents are met with derision, rather than awe; they are immortalised not through sagas and myths, but scathing political cartoons. Today, Ragnar’s violent rhetoric might be mercilessly picked apart by the traditional media and Twitter users alike – but set in its impressive landscape of fur capes, braids and axes, it both rallies and terrifies; Ragnar’s ascension to the pantheon of Norse heroes becomes all but an inevitability.

In the 21st century, the warrior cultures promoted by mythology have not disappeared but been tamed to fit in the virtual realm.

Video games such as Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and God of War offer the possibility to revisit strongpoints of traditional masculinity rooted in a mythologised Nordic past. Both these and Vikings ultimately offer a cathartic experience: immersion can provide release from the pressures of everyday life, and the opportunity to vent pent-up frustration. Of course, there is an argument to be made for a voyeuristic psychology. Vikings has its (predictably) fair share of violence, peppered with the occasional ‘blood eagle’ execution; video games situate the player among the blood and gore, giving them the power to kill at will. Fans of either, however, do not psychoanalyse their immersive experiences; to them, such screen-based entertainment is simply a deliverance from the here and now.

Given Hollywood’s penchant for blockbuster, it comes as no surprise that the fatalist, end-of-world storylines of the Norse myths have been catnip for Marvel, with its favourite theme of overcoming significant odds and mighty foe to ultimately save the universe.

The inclusion of Thor in the Avengers – the guardians of our world in the MCU – is an amusing nod to one of the original functions of the Norse gods: to act as intermediaries between the people and greater, arbitrary destructive forces. The pointedly named Thor: Ragnarok film pits Thor against his half-sister Hela, the Asgardian goddess of death, providing slick action scenes as well as a dip into the Spartan family dynamics of the gods. Family and death: Norse mythology captures primary human preoccupations, with its resulting stories persistently inspiring popular culture.

Historians and classicists often conclude explanations for the enduring hold of pagan mythology with grand, sweeping statements about the timelessness of their characters and the inherently human substance that we share with them. The reverse, however, is also true; they are just as fascinating because they resemble us, yet are fundamentally different, separated by years of cultural change. With the new Loki series recently announced by Disney+, we can only wait and see where the Nordic inheritance takes the future of entertainment, and how the screens adapt it in return.

Artwork by Rachel Jung.

Friday, 11th June 2021 | CulCher

ANACHRONISM: ART AGAINST TIME?

H

uman self-image has, since records began (especially since, without the idea of ‘time’, there could be no records), been defined by time.

This occurred to such an extent that it was formed by multiple civilisations as a ‘god’, a ‘ruler’ or even a ‘despot’ or ‘dictator’. Thus, the Titan Kronos – yes, the child-eating father of the Olympians – was, according to Plutarch, identified with their respective ‘Father Time’ figure, ‘Chronos’, to produce a ravaging image of chronology, the past devouring the future.

This image persisted in the West, especially nascent in Renaissance and Romantic art.

Thus, Pierre Mignard depicted Father Time clipping the wings of Cupid – desire, whilst Romanelli, in the same period, depicted him with his classic scythe – used, of course, to harvest ‘life’, trimming back excessive experience. In Sanskrit epic, meanwhile, Kala is the ultimate destructive force, the final reckoning for all participants; hence, in the Mahabharata, he eliminates both sides of the Kurukshetra War – the ongoing conflict of the work – and, even more impressively (or devastatingly), at the end of the work he destroys the entire Yadu dynasty, the family of Krishna.

Even if this image of despotic time has declined in popular culture, there is one recurrence of the dictatorship of chronology that remains: anachronism. This could simply be, for example, an author using an out-of-place term when referring to a historical period, especially in dialogue – you wouldn’t expect a Victorian to come out sounding as if they’d spent their youth influenced by textspeak, slang and emojis. Yet, as we consider the wealth of transmedial and multimedial artforms – film, opera, drama, video games – that

BY MATTHEW PRUDHAM

we are imbued in today, just one slip from any of the senses which builds up these mediums – a coffee cup spotted in a drama, a modern fashion label sticking out from clothes, even visible architecture not considered proper to the period – can lead to the entire ‘historical’ reality being ruined. An allegiance to the style of one’s worldbuilding is considered ever-soimportant.

But, are we thinking too inside the box? Do we need to relax our rigid rules when creating art – especially to attract a sense of relevancy, excitement, or originality? This, as many critics observed was one of the main factors behind the success of Bridgerton; whilst dress, dialogue, and decorum all adhered to the Regency period for Netflix’s stellar gossipy show, its soundtrack decidedly did not. For sure, favourites from Mozart, and Haydn – all fitting for a royal court – were aired, alongside a specially string-heavy soundtrack by Kris Bowers; yet, aside from an exuberance of Beethoven, there were no selections from any other contemporary composers – Schubert, Rossini, Mendolssohn, all ignored. Instead, we heard rearrangements of ‘thank u, next’, ‘bad guy’ and ‘In My Blood’ – as well as, strangely, some ‘uncontemporary’ classical music, notably Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite and Max Richter’s ‘recomposition’ of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

These were called ‘anachronistic choices’, and, if one thought too much of a show which was as much about the politics of sex, desire and eligibility in a post-Me Too world than accurately representing 1813 in London, one could argue that it was mistaken, suddenly meaning that Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, and Shawn Mendes were all ‘canon’ in this Bridgerton regency era. For me, it was a fun,

creative update of the quartet tradition at the royal balls.

This fashion of ‘updating’ the past, though seemingly on the rise due to an acceptance in anachronism is, of course, nothing new.

The myths of ancient society often employed anachronistic details just so they could be understood; hence, Homeric epic resounds withj these ‘primal fighters’ in the Bronze Age appearing as eloquent contemporary orators and using relatively up-to-date weaponry; society were reflected through their oral myths.

Shows like Bridgerton, essentially, aim to such a standard – they become ‘modern myths’ by, though playing on life within the London ton as a debutante, reflecting 21st-century musical taste and, more critically, popular perception of courtship.

Other genres of art, of course, play on anachronism, especially comedy. It drives humour, the idea of something being distinctly wrong, and when done right, can cause raucous laughter. Yet drama too often shies away from reflecting modern artistic tastes and innovation; everything has to be period-perfect, without a blemish of modernity. ‘Father Time’ still rules us, therefore; and thus, we lose a part of our imagination, since, of course, all these stories are all fiction, at the end of the day. I am not suggesting, of course, for someone to create a piece of historical fiction with iPhones scattered everywhere – that would dispel the necessary ‘belief’, the ‘transportation’ to a historical world –, but more canny, creative artistic choices: updated language, a different style of dance or dress. Too many would spoil the plot, but, done rightly, we can ‘liberate’ our historical art from despotic ‘Father Time’.

SASHA MILLS

ART REVIEW: PRE-RAPHAELITES, DRAWINGS

Entering the exhibit, I was greeted by a formidably sized piece: a study of ‘The Day Dream’

by Rosetti. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so taken aback by its height, but it’s been over a year since I had viewed any art in person, and the piece certainly makes for a striking start to the exhibit that is primarily concerned with slightly smaller offerings.

Besides greeting visitors, the drawing showcases the interest throughout in framing and displaying studies alongside finished pieces.

Whilst the Pre-Raphaelites are perhaps best known for their richly coloured paintings, such as Millais’ famous ‘Ophelia’, this exhibit is more interested in the pieces that precede those final works. With the inclusion of the study of Rosetti’s piece, it’s clear from the start that the curator Payne is much more interested in processes than finished works.

Although there is a room dedicated to studies categorised as ‘preparation’ for larger pieces, they are strewn throughout. This room does, however, draw more explicit attention to the process of study and completion.

Another thematic concern of the exhibit is the Pre-Raphaelites in Oxford. Much of the exhibit had been donated from John Ruskin and Holman Hunt to the University, and

some of the pieces are ones made specifically for Oxford – in particular, a study by Rosetti for a mural in the Oxford Union’s library.

Moving around, you really get a sense of the movement’s relationship to the city that the Ashmolean inhabits, making the pieces feel considerably more intimate.

Perhaps the most compelling part of the exhibit is the texture that the drawings and watercolours offer. Being able to see the pieces up close is a viewing experience that I have missed, and this exhibit really lends itself to being seen in person. From the gilded golden frames to the sketches that populate the rooms, this is an exhibit that is made up of both the rough textures of early studies and the refined details of finished drawings – both of which are a delight to see up close. None of the pieces are fenced off, and it’s easy to walk right up to the frame to take a closer look.

The portraits of the famous Pre-Raphaelite women are the heart of this exhibit, as are the social relationships detailed in the descriptions accompanying each piece. Walking through, you get a sense of a close-knit circle, with complex and ever-changing relationships reflected in the pieces on the walls. To me, the inclusion of the final ‘landscapes’ room felt

a little half-hearted and unnecessary – the portraits and studies speak enough on their own, and the dedicated section for landscapes seems like an afterthought in a space that could have been given to a more focused continuation of what is a relatively small exhibit.

Still, whether or not you have any prior interest in the Pre-Raphaelites, this exhibition is one that is worth making the trip to see in the flesh. After a year of primarily digital viewing, I found it refreshing to see art that feels so multi-dimensional, a welcome break from the screen fatigue of an online degree. With clear opening descriptions and information throughout, this exhibit is one for everyone, whatever your familiarity with the movement might be.

3

CULCHER EDITORIAL

Napoleon Bonaparte once said that “to understand the man you have to understand what was happening in the world when he was 20.” I somehow turned 20 in January and thus the current cultural zeitgeist will supposedly outlive this year and cast my mould for the rest of my life.

Thus, the world, at the start of my third decade, started with the pandemic forcing the youth culture out of our ‘grown up’ university caves and shoved it back into the privacy of our childhood bedrooms.

Panopto recordings replaced lecture halls, a Covid-secure season of Ru Paul’s Drag Race replaced those messy Drag and Disordely nights at Plush, and online relationships strained any sort of feelings; our first year of student life was admittedly tested.

However, the sun is out, the vaccine is about, and Freshers culture is certainly in flux.

The world in my 20th year has therefore persevered with student culture finally being able to relocate itself. It’s been about the small moments of us chilling on the quad pretending to revise and the bigger moments of singing a Black Eyed Peas out of tune solo at JSOC’s Madhatter Karaoke night. It’s been about losing myself in sustainable clothes at the townhall vintage kilo sale and losing my friends as I dance away into the Port Meadow sunset. It’s been about rediscovering each other with the help of each other during climate protests, screaming to Eurovision winners Maneskin’s Zitti E Buoni with a soft, summery zest.

Will I, therefore, be perpetually defined by the university culture of the solemn and solitary months of a Hilary winter at home?

Or instead will the mould be settled by the indulgent and enchanting months of an Oxford summer where each other’s company during Pride month is more important than a past paper? Perhaps, a mixture of both because the shadows of the darker months allowed the light of the summer months to gleam and radiate beyond belief.

On a wider level, the world has been constantly and consistently reshaping itself since I turned 20. With a new Democratic president, environmental justice campaigns and the spread of vaccinations seem to offer hope on the one hand. On the other hand, there remains global power structures which guarantee persevering worldwide injustices, a pandemic with more strains then there are ice cream flavours at G&Ds, a disease of self-obsession (I don’t want to be perceived… but please like my photo), and climate change haunting our generation.

The other day, a seventy year old woman staged an Extinction Rebellion protest with the sign “I want my granddaughter to have a future.” Brought to tears, I realised we cannot keep on relying on this older generation who won’t even see our future to fight for our future; we need to bring on the fight ourselves. Climate action is something which needs to be embedded in our youth culture; it will shape how future generations will judge our twenty year old selves. Will we fight back or lean into it?

So although for Napoleon, born in 1769, what would have defined his 20th year would have been the “liberté, égalité, fraternité” squeals of the 1789 French revolution, what defines mine is the end of an Oxford first year on the eve of a different sort of youth revolution, a cultural one but also hopefully an environmental one. With no slogan or words left but my personalisation of the drag queen Bimini’s new song’s lyrics to sum up the last CulCher editorial of the school year: “don’t let them bring you down, you’re better than that, Now I don’t know about you, But I’m off to get a falafel (...Hassan’s) wrap. God save this (20 year old) queen.”

- Lily Sheldon

Friday, 11th June 2020 | CulCher

answer. They leave. Tomorrow is Wednesday.

E H SO T

revolutionary? This is no soap, though, I know that. I know beyond today’s kiss it was prob-

5

U RC E

I am picking my clothes from the floor on a

ably far more subtle: her mummy’s perfume

Friday evening (She’s out, Caroline breathing

on my shirt, her mummy’s lipstick blossoming

into my neck, she’s at a friend’s down the road,

rosewood on my neck, the way I looked at her

it’s fine, just fuck me—). I have nothing better

mummy. The way I looked at Caroline—love-

to do. I have been absorbed—June is crawling

lorn, as though the middle haircut of a million

at my skin—I’ve started putting Xs on my

middle aged women and the gilet and the

messages— I’ve started kissing her goodbye—

Merc and the name, even, Christ, she voted

Mummy, Sophie says, and Sophie is in the door-

so I wouldn’t get to retire before eighty—as

way, looking at us, looking at that fragment of

though she was anything different than every

kiss still lingering on our lips, fully clothed

mother I sit across from when their child pours

but painfully bare, now, now she knows—

PVA on another—as though I had a right

She’s six but she has a father, a man who

to the privacy of the language we breathed

kisses her mother goodnight each night, a man

on Wednesday afternoons, when everyone

who commutes every day and goes to dinner

knows

every Friday without his wife, a man I am

She already knew. I say this turned half

not. We learnt about love on Valentine’s Day.

to Caroline. There’s a hot plum hickey

As much as we could. (Not that this is love.)

on her neck; I was rough today, per-

Sophie runs. I follow. I

find her in the

haps because I knew it was our last.

garden, where it is beginning to rain, fresh

Don’t be ridiculous. She already knew. Why

green

everywhere.

else would she act out? Stare sullen, silent

It didn’t work, she says, whines, like a

at me? Chew up gum and land it in my hair,

child, which she is. It didn’t work. What

hair her mother’s fingers had tangled in? Hair

didn’t work? I ask her, voice slipping into

too long, hair of a primary school teacher,

that careful, cushy teacher voice, wrapping

hair that comes undone. I doubt she told

around her like a padded cell, like honey.

her

You, she stings. To get you to stop. Mummy—

merely, magnetic to them as her mother

And then I know. We all know, don’t we,

is to me. These people are good at that.

when it comes to it; what we’ve done wrong,

Don’t tell your father, Caroline is begging.

what its consequences are. Children have

This is our secret, okay? Don’t tell him. Don’t.

such an acute understanding of the world,

I won’t teach Sophie any longer, I know this.

this I also know. I know that sticky little

I won’t see Caroline again. The year is almost

Sophie wants her mummy all to herself and

over, so perhaps I’ll be lucky. Perhaps I won’t

she raised me a challenge, like tilting her

need a new job entirely. Perhaps she’ll be

chin up when I asked her to tidy away her

merciful. But already I can see them receding.

crayons; she marshalled her forces, laid down

I cannot have children. My ugly wound of

a duel. It was a power play. More concerning—

a body prohibits it. Caroline and Sophie

She knew I was in her way. She knew something

repel me; they make me desperate. I should

of the tangled gossamer stretched between us,

like to cling to them. Nothing lasts, but

stalked by a bear at high table, by Natasha

Caroline and I, the secret loathing only I could

I should like to stick to them, dripping.

Saunders

find between her thighs—and how? Did Sophie

I have been deposed. Something crawls

stumble upon us, laid out on the bed, the sofa,

up my throat, more bitter than honey.

and

lawn

shavings

the kitchen counter? Widen eyes and turn away, lock it into a manifesto for the future

children

understand

co-conspirators.

She

everything—

ushered

them,

Shortlisted entries: Eve, by Alison Tan “Everywhere else...” by Evie Sutcliffe Eve’s Laugh, by Katherine Dorkins

Artwork by Rachel Jung

4

CulCher | Friday, 11th June 2020

Sticky, by Annabel Rogers Winner of the Monica Ali Creative Writing Award. sugar paper the colour of a summer storm (You

utes ago your daughter stuck gum in my hair.

Annabel Rogers is a second year under-

may want to do something more involved,

Nice

graduate studying English at Magdalen.

she said to me earlier; there’s a lot of restless

breezes.

She is currently a fiction editor for The Ox-

energy in the classroom today, I don’t know

ford Review of Books. Her hobbies include

what it’s about.) as I write 3D shapes on the

Wednesdays —

film photography, graphic design, and

board in wide, child-friendly script. There’s

Wednesday afternoon is games, always, the

being insufferable about David Foster Wal-

something brewing, that’s true. Hushed voices,

children ushered out of my care and into

lace; she is interested in the postmodern,

little laughs that escape sucked-in cheeks like

rounders or football for the rest of the day.

the ways in which fiction conceives of itself

blown raspberries, producing yet more giggles in

It’s time I ought to spend marking, plan-

in a modern world, and writing difficult

response. At least they’re enjoying themselves, I

ning, cutting out templates and making

stories about love and loss. She is currently

say to my TA when she comes up beside me with a

powerpoint presentations. I try it, sometimes,

working on a novel and a cycle of poems

crumpled packet of Extra and a furious look and a

sheets in a pool around my thighs and lap-

that each personify a month of the year.

chewed up glob of gum lodges in the back of my hair.

top panting with effort, but I don’t like to

When she was five, she wanted to be a bal-

I turn. Find it with my fingers. It’s sticky and hot.

do it in front of Caroline. She winds herself

lerina, an archeologist, and a writer. She’s

I feel like a teenage girl again. There are crayons

around me and comments, scrutinises, runs

managed one out of three, which isn’t bad.

all over the floor; they radiate outwards, not so

her fingers down the side of the keyboard.

much indicating as illuminating the culprit, the

I am fucking a Mother. Capital M. Woman’s

ringleader, the queen bee. Everyone around her is

Most Natural Career. So, on Wednesdays, I

y year threes are planning a coup.

flush with quiet fear, alternately looking between

leave school. I drive through country lanes.

This is a fair assumption to make,

themselves and at me. Sophie just tilts her soft chin.

I unfold myself in an expensive bedroom.

I think. Sitting in the window of

Was this you? Asked directly, though that’s not

I have her number saved in my phone: she

the staff room, watching a lazy May wasp

the way to do it, but that hot storm hanging in

texts me things like Come for two, lunch is

drift in circles above my head, I can see them

the air has found its way to my blood, tapped in

overrunning or Richard is home today. Some-

plotting in the periphery. Congregating on

through the back of my skull via a little piece of

times she thinks I’m someone else and sends

the playground, clutching at each other with

gum. No, she says, with a smirk that says, yes.

me Whatsapp chains, political jibes I earn

sticky little fingers. Hushed glances at me,

A hush in the air. The TA, aside, maybe

too little to get. She doesn’t apologise, but I

though there’s no way they can see me in

we

les-

know they’re not for me. Just as I know never

the glare of the sun, not when the staff room

son, I tell her. Sophie—staff room. Now.

to add an X to my eager, pathetic response.

M

should—

Continue

with

the

is dark and cool. Small mercies. At the head

to

hear I

wish

from it

was

you a

too,

she

Wednesday.

I don’t recall how it started. One day we

of the classroom I always feel so exposed.

She has no explanation for it. None. She sits in

were studying each other over a Pritt Stick-

5 minutes left of break time. I’ve been asked

utter silence, watching earlier’s wasp dip and

sticky desk, I just wanted to check in, see

why I chose to become a teacher, and it’s not

dive in hexagons around her head, as I tap the tip

how Sophie’s settling in with the class, it’s

a question I have an answer to. I like children,

of my biro and notice a jam stain on her pinafore.

so hard when you move out of the city and

I’m good with children, I will never have chil-

My throat itches. I have no honey and lemon left.

I’d like her to have friends here, you see, I’d

dren. It precludes favouritism, at least. The

I’m not going to waste the rest of the class’s time,

like her to be happy, and the next it’s dirty

wasp lands on the rim of my mug, probing deli-

I tell her. You can sit here and think about your

words and hot breath in my ear, something

cately at the gluey honey. I have a cold coming

actions, and at the end of the day your mum and

rare and disgusting about it, something

on; I was on that playground only thirty years

I will have a chat, okay? She just sits there, blink-

that makes it hard to look in the mirror.

ago and now I’m the dispenser of common

ing big, blue eyes at me. Tory blue. Her mum will

She won’t do it again, Caroline says, firmly,

wisdoms, the drinker of honey and lemon, the

arrive in the Merc, Hunter wellies swinging out

that afternoon in the staff room. Will she?

elder to be eyed balefully and plotted against.

onto the gravel, long legs in expensive jeans…

Sophie looks at her mother, quails, shakes her

I cut the gum out of my hair in the staff bath-

head. This isn’t what I wanted, she mumbles.

In the classroom it soon becomes clear who

room using leftie safety scissors, yellow and

Caroline is wearing a blazer, big shoulder pads,

the nexus of this little coup d’etat is. My

green, blunt so it’s more like a hack job. Then I

black. I was right about the wellies. What did

teaching assistant is handing out rulers and

take my phone out and call Caroline: Ten min-

you want? I ask, out of curiosity. She doesn’t

CulCher | Friday, 11th June 2021

6

music PLAYLIST SO LONG, FAREWELL For our final TT21 issue, our editors select their favourite songs of farewell.

HEAVEN KNOWS I’M MISERABLE KNOW The Smiths Cecilia Wilkins Dulanto Image credit: Josj2 via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

ANYTHING Adrianne Lenker Charlie Taylor Image credit: Martin Schumann/ CC BY-SA 4.0

FOR FRUITS BASKET Ritsuko Okazaki Jane Keenleyside Image credit: JJ Morelo/ CC BY-SA 2.0

WHEN STREAMING BECOMES SCROLLING Lucy Kelly questions whether Spotify could become the next addictive social media platform.

S

ocial media platforms typically try to noble(ish)ly allow people to easily connect and share content with others. That this capability goes too far and the platform metamorphoses into an uncontrollable beast, ensnaring its users worldwide, is a tale as old as time (or as old as Facebook). Though we may think of it as ‘just’ a music streaming service, Spotify could be heading in the same direction.

Spotify’s 2018 integration with Instagram is an overt example, allowing Instagram users to post their tunes on their Stories. Consequently, Instagrams accursed harmful habits crossed over from the visual realm and into the audio. In addition to it wasn’t just our peers’ appearances, social lives, and material affluence we could judge; it was their music taste, too. Last month, Spotify and Facebook developed their partnership by announcing ‘Project Boombox’, which will enable users to share what they’re listening to on Spotify directly via their Facebook Newsfeed. Though notorious for failing to pay artists fairly, Spotify ensures that non-artist users get more than their fair share of cross-platform social capabilities. It’s perhaps unsurprising that Spotify is so cosy with social media’s biggest conglomerate, given that when Zuck himself, upon his first use of Spotify in 2009, express his admiration by setting his status to ‘Spotify is so good’.

So, there are clear signs that Spotify is shifting its focus to prioritise the ‘social stuff’.

This could impede our ability to just enjoy the music. We are told time and time again that nobody’s life is how it appears on Instagram.

We may continue to use them, but we are to some extent aware that social media platforms provide an inauthentic snapshot into others’ lives. The same can’t be said for Spotify, which works on the premise that music, that deeply personal entity, is a true reflection of ourselves, our state of mind as we listen. For me, ‘authentic’ listening is selecting the music you listen to based solely on your own emotion and

JPEGMAFIA: ‘SHE, YEAH, HE’.

Hari Bravery discusses Peggy’s subversion of hip-hop’s gender normativity.

J

PEGMAFIA is the current king of experimental, avant-garde hip-hop.

His production is fractured and brittle, incorporating elements of industrial noise rock in swells of distortion and screaming synths. His vocals alternately occupy a hyperaggression reminiscent of Ol’ Dirty Bastard and an autotuned mellifluousness that pays homage to 808s and Heartbreak-era Kanye West. His lyrics are couched in internet speak, fervently opposing white nationalism and all online prejudice. Yet, particular interest to me is his subversion of gender normativity, given the value placed on masculinity within hip-hop.

JPEG’s original stage name of Devon Hendricks is wholly masculine, though subsequent movement to the neuter moniker of JPEGMAFIA and subsequently to the female Peggy seems to evince a movement towards at least the performative feminine. Such a movement can be seen also in the cover art used in his three official albums; whilst Black Ben Carson and Veteran both depict JPEG in masculine dress, the former a simple raincoat and beanie and the latter in a black t-shirt and bandana, 2019’s All My Heroes Are Cornballs

departs significantly from this, with JPEG wearing a flowing silk kimono and extravagant earrings. Peggy readily acknowledges his embracing of an androgynous aesthetic, rapping with pride on ‘living single’ that he is “dressed like a housewife, I’m a bad husband”, on ‘Jesus Forgive Me, I am a Thot’ that he wears “your grandmama’s hand-me-downs” and on ‘COVERED IN MONEY!’ that he is “borderline dressing in drag”.

JPEG’s feminine dress is comparable to the high fashion androgyny of the likes of Playboi Carti and the extravagance of Lil Nas X, reflecting a wider rejection of hegemonic masculine expression in the rap genre. Yet, Peggy’s recent adoption of feminine dress does not constitute a rejection of masculinity, as emphasised in his gendered pun that he is “dressin’ up like I’m Prince Peach” (‘Kenan Vs. Kel’); rather, this is incorporated into a progressive view of gender that rejects emasculation as an outdated, fundamentally sexist, notion.

If the adoption of feminine dress visually

volition – your mood, a recommendation you want to investigate, a memory you want to restir. It’s personal and should not be fabricated.

You can often guess well on someone’s feelings on the basis of their tunes. I have met with friends and been able to predict what mood they’ll be in based on what they were listening to before we meet, which is shown in real-time in Spotify’s ‘Friend Activity’ sidebar.

Though this ‘Big Brother’ sensation could be considered unnerving, I wouldn’t say it’s what worries me primarily. In many ways, this is how Spotify fulfils its core ‘social’ purpose: to let people share what they enjoy listening to with others who are interested.

Soundcloud allows you to do the same when you ‘repost’ tracks. But this ‘sharing’ is a conscious act, whereas on Spotify, the mode of sharing is automatic. Provided you haven’t turned ‘Share my listening activity’ off, you are broadcasting your listening habits to the world, in real-time.

That you can then try and decipher someone’s frame of mind based on their listening habits is more insidious. In this instance, it’s no longer that you’re sharing what you ‘enjoy’ listening to; you’re sharing what you want others to see that you’re listening to. This becomes a slippery slope, heading towards an inauthentic representation of yourself, typical of Instagram. Music enables us to channel our authentic emotion. The moment we start using it for performativity and exhibitionism, we jeopardize authentic listening.

The rise of the ‘playlist’ facilitates our communication via Spotify and is partly responsible for the shift from streaming to social. The reasons behind 40% of people preferring listening to playlists than albums. are manifold, but the trend is certainly in part connected to our increased use of social media and our obsession with user-generated content. Not everyone can readily create an album; but we can all gather an assortment of tracks, group them under a fitting title, even give it a 300x300 image. Again, the customischallenges gender stereotypes in rap music, Peggy’s use of pronouns also intrigues.

Despite his change of stage, Peggy’s pronouns are nevertheless he/him, though this is inconsistently applied in his music. The variation of gendered pronouns in JPEG’s music partly results from frequent rapping from a female perspective, as in the songs ‘Thot Tactics’ and ‘BasicBitchTearGas’.

For example, the latter contains an interpolation of TLC’s ‘No Scrubs’, though pronouns remain unchanged, with JPEG singing about love for a man.

It should be noted Peggy raps about love or desire for a man far less common than a woman. There are also many instances in which Peggy applies often derogatory female epithets to himself, such as “shawty” (‘Thug Tears’) or “slut” (‘PTSD’), though whether this constitutes a rejection or a reclamation is unclear. One could certainly argue that JPEG’s adoption of a female perspective does not do enough to combat misogynistic discourse, though the action of rapping from a female perspective is nevertheless progressive in its disruption of gender fixity.

able playlist is a great feature made possible by digital listening and is not overtly problematic. We should be allowed to create them and share the ones we’re proud of. The problems arise when the need to circulate these playlists publicly eclipses the reason for us creating them in the first place. Are we just, subconsciously, pandering to a social audience?

Spotify deliberately blurs the lines between social and personal listening to the extent that it’s tricky to tell the two apart. Its algorithm is ensuring that its users listen to the same music as their friends, whilst the individual user is under the impression that they have made a ‘discovery’ all on their own. Comparing my ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist to my friends’ confirmed this. Why were we all suddenly listening to Caribou, Khruangbin, Maribou State?

Spotify generates your Discover Weekly based on the content of every playlist created on its platform. This means that any personal or private playlist you create fuels the algorithm for the Discover Weeklys of over 150 million Spotify users. We operate under the guise that we’re making these playlists for ourselves, but Spotify is also capitalising on our content to improve its own product. This intrusion we permit to continue getting spot-on recommendations from Spotify makes me feel like we’re being duped. The unique pleasure of ‘discovering’ a new artist is abruptly curtailed once we realise that we are not alone in this discovery.

The ‘deep cuts’ picked for you’ which Spotify promises us with Discover Weekly are part of a charcuterie board we have to share with the world.

Spotify has undoubtedly made it easier for audiophiles to access and share the music they love. But this comes at a cost, and not just for the artists whose salaries are side-lined.

The individual user also suffers as Spotify becomes an increasingly social platform. Spotify’s ‘social stuff’ could see us fall victim to compulsive usage, false depictions of reality, and an inability to say whether our digital behaviour is truly for ourselves, or for our followers. Spotify promises to ‘soundtrack your life’. We must be wary of how it’s shaping it.

Yet, the retention of gender binaries is not true for all of Peggy’s songs; within ‘BODYGUARD!’ JPEG switches between female and male pronouns, screeching ‘She, yeah, he’ in reference to his imagined lover. I do not mean to claim that Peggy entirely dissociates himself from conventional rap masculinity; there are still braggadocious references to his sexual prowess, chains and guns. But these are interspersed with lines that seem to imply bisexuality, as in ‘FIX URSELF!’ in which JPEG raps “Shoutout my babes and my husbands, I love y’all equally”.

Even though little from Peggy’s personal history can be invoked to explain away his progressive gender expression, this does not really matter when contemplating hismusic; Peggy speaks with more fictional constructs than his contemporaries. One could even claim that some of JPEG’s songs veer into the realm of dramatic monologue. Despite the questions of whether male artists can truly embody female perspectives, JPEGMAFIA is nevertheless unique is in his subversion of masculinity in the hyper-masculinised arena of rap music; after all, who else in rap would feel comfortable enough in their masculinity to rap with pride, as Peggy does on ‘Free the Frail’, “I’m not no alpha male, I’m Carly Rae [Jepson]”.

Image credit: Levi Manchak/ CC-BY 2.0.

7

Friday, 11th June 2021 | CulCher

film

ACCIDENTALLY IN LOVE: SHREK TWENTY YEARS LATER

MUST SEE NEW RELEASES

Ciara Beale waxes lyrical about (unironically) loving the 00s classic, and refuses to apologise for it.

FEEL GOOD Season two of Mae Martin’s comedy drama is now available to stream on Netflix.

I

watched Shrek for the first time when I was two years old. It quickly became a daily habit: my parents would plonk me down in front of the TV for a one-hour-35-minute break from my nightmarish presence, only to be subjected to me screeching alongside Fiona, trying to hit that high note and waiting for the bird on screen to pop. Soon after, two Shrek and Donkey figurines in a toy shop caught my eye and I grabbed them with an iron grasp; an arduous ‘Terrible Two’ tantrum later, my mum passed me over the counter to scan the toys while still in my screwed-up fists. Aged ten, I became addicted to the DS game incarnation of the film as Shrek captured my imagination as a child and hasn’t ceased to since.

I love Shrek.

Unironically.

Where do I even begin? Firstly, the soundtrack of every film is spectacular.

From Smash Mouth’s ‘All Star’ and ‘I’m a Believer’, to the original ‘Fairy Godmother Song’, performed by the glorious diva herself in Shrek 2 (the best of the series – an indisputable fact), the soundtrack still accompanies my day to day life, from

when I’m Livin’ la Vida Loca to strolling through the Funkytown that is Oxford.

Shrek has grown up alongside me but has aged better than I have. The generation who first watched the film are now our best meme-creators and its resurrection in meme form has not disappointed. Shrek’s good name may have been defaced in recent years by a certain YouTube video (I don’t think I need to elaborate) but I refuse to let this taint the joy the franchise has brought me over the years. The films themselves are as funny, if not funnier, to an adult audience, too – Shrek famously implies that Lord Farquard might be ‘compensating for something’ with his enormous castle… The films are timeless in every way.

Twenty years on, no animated film has come close to pushing the boundaries of the classic fairy-tale model in the same way. The beautiful princess decides to become an ogre so she can choose who she loves and keep living like the feminist hero she really is, rather than be forced to marry a prince; the male lead is superficially ugly and guarded, but has a heart of gold beneath each oniony layer.

The other fairy-tale creatures, too, each have their own moving storyline – from socially awkward Pinocchio to womanizer Puss in Boots, the film’s reimagining of such recognisable figures gave them a new lease of life for this century.

Donkey gets his own paragraph: he wins the title of Best Character, hands down.

Donkey is loveable and affectionate, a loyal sidekick and the waffle-making friend we all wish we had. Voiced by the inimitable Eddie Murphy (the most iconic among the star-studded cast, featuring Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz), Donkey won all our hearts from his first touching lament of loneliness: ‘I’m all alone, there’s no one here beside me.’ We have all felt like Donkey, and when he finds love in the most unlikely of forms (the evil dragon, who is also allowed a redemptive arc), we can only celebrate (if we ignore the dubious inter-animal relationship).

The lessons offered are clear: sometimes the knight in shining armour is an ogre, and Happy Ever After endings come in all forms; love can be found anywhere if you are open to its possibilities, and the best friendships keep you going through all manner of trials and tribulations. Shrek’s ability to provide hope in the darkness while never losing its humour is the reason it will forever stay in my heart.

TO STREAM

DATING AMBER Heartwarming coming-of-age film about the friendship between two teenagers discovering their sexualities.

CLASSIC

PARIS IS BURNING A pioneering LGBTQIA+ documentary — perfect for pride month.

REVIEW — SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW Jonathan Tevendale dissects the latest Saw film, and what makes bad films so good.

M

y friend and I arrived about thirty minutes late to see Spiral: From the Book of Saw in the cinema. It didn’t particularly matter. There was no awkward shuffling down the aisle, because, apart from the phlegmy weirdo on the other side of the room, we were the only ones in the cinema.

We smiled at him in quiet recognition of the reason we were all there; of the foul experience we had come expecting.

Our lateness also allowed us to skip straight to gore, right past any pretence of interest in the plot. We were – after all expecting a certain efficient minimalism from the ninth Saw film: an obliging nod to narrative structure, followed by a pervert’s buffet of blood and suffering. Then again, I’d read it had Samuel L. Jackson in it, so maybe it was going to be arty.

But after an initial – rather promising – torture scene involving a tongue and a train, the film settled into uncomfortable new territory. There was dialogue not punctuated by screams. There was comedy, written by a comedian. Wait… is that Chris Rock? Oh god, what’s happening? The phlegmy weirdo on the other side of the room looks at me through the half-baked

buddy-cop set-up, visibly tearing up. I shut my eyes, not wanting to spend another second watching police movie clichés ruin what was supposed to be an enjoyable experience. And yet the audio was even more unbearable. Why was the zebra from Madagascar shouting about his troubled past?

I didn’t know his dad was the police commissioner. At this point, phlegmy weirdo was drinking vodka from the bottle, and throwing chocolate-covered raisins at the projectionist, who had themselves left in disappointment.

But then something odd happened.

Slowly but surely, the film started to grow on me. Chris Rock – it turns out – is a gloriously bad actor. Each time he earnestly shouted one of his lines before looking, visibly confused, into the camera was a new high point. Did he know where he was, or had the real Chris Rock stumbled into some waking nightmare?

The buddy-cop set-up degenerated into a frigid, comical awkwardness. At times, it

was like I was watching a Wattpad fanfic of Se7en, to the extent that I felt – at any moment – Chris Rock and his partner might kiss.

In its attempt to elevate the torture by giving it some wider social meaning, Spiral takes aim at corrupt police officers, the focus of the mysterious killer’s work. And yet it does so in such a ham-fisted way that each shifty side-eye from one villainous, scarred cop to another pulls the plot further into hilarity. Only Chris Rock loud, lost and confused - can save ‘generic American city’ from immorality, vice, and a talented, but sadistic, engineer. Sure… why not?

And then - at last - came the torture: gratuitous, and at total tonal odds with the rest of the film. It was best this way; I didn’t want it darkening the tone of the comedy I was watching, nor did I want comedy diluting the effects of the gore phlegmy weirdo and I were enjoying so much. Eventually, the film settled into a satisfyingly regular structure, in which scenes of violence

“A masterpiece of accidental parody.”

punctuated the hilarious plot every twenty minutes or so, like deranged ad-breaks.

And every now and then Samuel L. Jackson saunters in, delivering a bad line with a little too much gravitas - the cherry on top.

Critics have, en masse, missed what makes Spiral so enjoyable to watch, focussing on the distasteful gore, the ‘missed opportunity’ to make something better, or the film’s pretences of refinement; its desire to be a more ‘intelligent’ entry to the Saw franchise. But it is good because it’s bad, funny because it doesn’t want to be, and compelling because it’s so needlessly violent; because around every corner lurks a horrible thing which probably won’t happen to you, but what if it did? A better film would have been a bad Se7en; what we got was a masterpiece of accidental parody.

And so by the time we left, phlegmy weirdo had fallen asleep in a vodka/ torture-induced state of bliss, presumably to be jolted awake the next day’s first showing of Peter Rabbit 2. My friend and I left satisfied on all fronts. It’s great to be back in the cinema. Thank God we didn’t go to see something good, like Minari.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw is showing in Oxford in Curzon and Vue.

CulCher | Friday June 11th 2021

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books ‘ROTTERDAM IS ANYWHERE, ANYWHERE ALONE...’

Lily Down reflects on the joys and disappointments literary pilgrimages have to offer.

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hen I read a book, I like to imagine that I’m in the place the author describes. Once I lose myself in a book, that’s pretty easy. I’m not in my room or the park anymore – I’m gone, I’m there, I’m lost in the place the writer has taken me to. I’m in New York with Addie LaRue, or in Ketterdam with the Crows. Looking up from my book always comes as a surprise. Coming back to my own thoughts and life is disorient i n g, and realising I’m back i n my own space is sometimes a d i s a p p o i n tment. I like to imagine what it would be like to really live in the worlds I read about.

The closest i t ’s possible to get to this, though, is to go to the place where a book was set or written, to try to glean some secret information from the walls and stone and trees that reveal something new, something special, about the books we love so much.

I love the Gothic, so going on holiday to Whitby, where Bram Stoker has Dracula’s ship crash against English shores to terrorise the reading public, seemed pretty exciting to me. Sleeping in a Whitby hotel, I was half-convinced that a vampire or ghost would burst out from behind the curtain at any moment and eat me. But walking around the little seaside town, there was nothing there to remind me of the bloody horror of the novel. I was surrounded by tourist traps, happy families, fish and chips. The only thing to remind me of the book was the Dracula Experience, an incredibly cheesy and mildly cringey tourist trap that has been there since at least the 1980s, and which was, whilst hands down the best thing in Whitby, pretty unrelated to the book itself.

Even walking up to the Abbey, which Whitby’s tourism website claims inspired Stoker’s whole novel, I didn’t feel that spark of connection. The breeze was cool

coming off the ocean, the sun shone bright in the sky, but there was no Gothic darkness or moody rain. This wasn’t Stoker’s Dracula – this was a nice day out with my family. Staring out at the coastline could tell me nothing about the book. Being in Whitby was wonderful, but it didn’t make any difference to my reading experience at all.

For some books, though, there isn’t even the option to travel to the place that they’re set. Fans of Wuthering Heights can go to the Yorkshire moors, but if your favourite book is Game of Thrones, chances are you won’t be able to book a flight to King’s Landing any time soon. But, knowing full well that I’m setting myself up for the disappointment of reading an escapist book and then remembering I can never actually exist in that universe, I read fantasy books anyway. I know I’ll fall in love with the setting and spend the next day on TikTok watching cosplayers act out scenes from Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows duology, wishing I could go there and live such a high-stakes existence. There’s a sort of accidental masochism that comes with this disappointment.

But the thing that makes me connect to fantasy books isn’t really the places. The place doesn’t make me love the book – it’s an interesting aspect, but detached from the reading experience. I don’t read to be in Ketterdam, I read to spend time with Kaz and Inej. What makes me love Six of Crows is my connection to the characters – how I recognise myself in them, how I love them and care about what happens to them. City streets are the same whether it’s modern New York or 18th century Paris or the totally fictional Kribirsk; they’re just the backdrop of a book. But people change from the beginning to the end, and seeing how they do is the reason why I read

stories.

When I think about going on holiday to Whitby, I don’t think about Bram Stoker’s seminal Gothic novel. I think about going through the h i l a r io u sl y awful Dracula Experience.

I think of how we climbed up all the steps to Whitby Abbey and how the most exciting thing about it was probably getting chips afterwards. I think of the beautiful necklace I bought there, that I still wear now. I think about how odd it is that my family’s incredibly southern history is so connected to this part of the Yorkshire coast: my mum going there for the folk festival as a kid in the 80s; how my gran, as a kid herself in the 50s, used to go just up the coast to Runswick. The place stopped being Stoker’s, and became mine, a part of my own life and memory.

This isn’t to say that there’s no point in a literary pilgrimage – my friend and I are desperate to go to Bath and Chatsworth because of our mutual love of Jane Austen. We plan trips and think of all the places we want to go to, laughing because we know, as true Austen fans, that the author herself disliked Bath immensely. And yet we still think about our weekend getaway to the city that we can’t help but associate with the Regency

era, and with her. Maybe when we finally get there, it will stop being hers and become ours, as Whitby has already. There’s no way to know whether Bath will be a place where I think of good food and better friends, or my favourite books, until I go there and find out.

A book can make me want to go to a place more – reading Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares and the Goldfinch nearly made me drop out of university and move to New York, and reading Six of Crows, even though it’s a fantasy book, makes me desperate to visit to the Netherlands. I want to sit in the New York Public Library and the MoMA, or read a book sitting by a canal in Amsterdam with a bunch of tulips beside me. But what I really want is to live a life that would be written about in these stories; I don’t even want to go to the MoMA, I want to sit in a museum and fall in love. I don’t need to go to Amsterdam, or even Ketterdam, I just want to pull off a fun, elaborate heist with my friends. We read to experience something different, and also to feel something familiar – to feel love, but in a different world, where things are more magical or beautiful than they feel in our own world.

If I never visit all of these places, books still matter because of their magic. And if I do go to these places, I won’t need to be transported to a fictional world for them to be magic. They’ll be wonderful because I went there, and had fun, and lived a life that is far less exciting than those of the characters, but was good all the same.

Image Credits: Pedro Szekely (CC BY-SA 2.0); Public Domain; Wwwuppertal (CC BY 2.0).

CHERWELL RECOMMENDS

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ummer is a time for the outdoors - think strawberries in the field, hiking adventures through unfamiliar terrain, chance encounters at the market and evenings relaxing in the backyard.

To many of us, however, these experiences are better with books. Reading outside is fundamental to many of us’ treasured memories of summer, particularly when shared with friends and enriched with unfamiliar literary adventures.

Take these books to the beach, the lawn, the public park bench, the train, the Tube, or wherever your summer brings you. It’s the most ideal time to rediscover your love for reading after an arduous Oxford year;

the list below contains classics, breakthtaking new arrivals, foreign works, and provocations. In-personal adventures still aren’t on the to-do list for many of us, but literary ones are always available. Make this summer a time of renewal through letters.

Lullaby by Leila Slimani Maebh, Books Editor Whilst I first read this book in the original French, the English translation (by Sam Taylor) is just as gripping.

Following a husband and wife who hire a nanny to look after their two children, this novel sees Slimani grapple with bigger societal issues (racism, sexism, poverty), whilst also exploring the tender (yet fraught) relationship of a mother to her husband, her children, and the nanny who slowly begins to take over. This domestic thriller

is perhaps an unusual choice for a summer read, yet Slimani manages to swap fluently from tense household scenes in urban Paris to light explorations of friendship and romance in sunny Greece. Although easy to read, with a gripping opening (although I won’t spoil it!), and complex, interesting characters, the novel is also more than a light read, having won the Prix Goncourt in 2016. It makes the perfect holiday companion; not too dark, but definitely not dull.

Iron Goddess of Mercy by Larissa Lai Irene, Deputy Editor Larissa Lai’s works may not be as wellknown in Britain, but she has been a tour de force in the Canadian literary scene for decades. Iron Goddess of Mercy is her latest adventure in verse: a futuristic long poem or Joycean novella depending on your reading, it traces transatlantic histories of colonialism and oppression alongside personal memories. Though visually inspired by the

Hong Kong democracy movement (which reached a peak in the summer of 2019), it transcends borders and infuses female rage with language that seems particularly apt for the hottest month of the year. Brew a pot of iron-goddess tea and dig in.

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney Sofie, Books Editor I know everyone has read (or watched) Normal People, but I actually liked her debut novel slightly more. It follows university students and best friends Frances and Bobbi as they meet a slightly older couple and navigate complicated relationship dynamics in a love quadrangle of sorts.

Rooney’s portrayal of Bobbi and Frances’ sometimes bitter and sometimes sweet coming of age story feels as authentic as any other depicition of your early twenties I have come across. The story plays to Rooney’s strengths, allowing her to shine as a writer whose prose is raw, moving, and provocative.

Friday, 11th June 2021 | CulCher

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stage

A FEMINIST MACBETH? Caitlin O’Sullivan discusses Saiorse Ronan’s fresh take on Shakespeare’s iconic role, Lady Macbeth.

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n February 2020, just weeks before the closing of theatres, I found myself sitting in a hot, dark auditorium, looking onto a stage covered in black gravel. White lights shrouded a single figure who, looking up from the letter she was reading, cried, Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promis’d.—Yet do I fear thy nature: It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness , To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it This Lady Macbeth was undoubtedly brilliant. Fierce, ambitious, and cunning, the audience held their breath as she spoke her lines, her monologue practically crackling with electricity. As we sat there watching, there was one thing that we as the audience agreed wholeheartedly on: this woman is evil.

Shakespeare’s Scottish queen is an icon of the English stage, embodied by actors from Vivien Leigh to Dame Judi Dench. Yet, what most of these performances have stressed up until now is the individual villainy of Lady Macbeth.

Shakespeare’s text displays her as the dominant power in her marriage, and shows her pressuring Macbeth to murder King Duncan and seize the crown.

Compared to her husband, whose internal moral struggle is evident the bloody plan making his ‘seated heart knock at my ribs’ - Lady Macbeth begins the play unremorseful. The majority of the agency, and blame, lies on her shoulders. This year, however, director Yaël Farber has other plans for Macbeth’s ambitious wife.

From September to November, Farber’s

production of The Tragedy of Macbeth will star Saoirse Ronan in her UK stage debut at the Almeida Theatre. Known for her role as a different Scottish queen in Mary, Queen of Scots, and starring in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women as the energetic Jo March, Ronan is no novice when it comes to playing strong female parts. The young actor is set to work alongside Farber to present a ‘more equivalent relationship’ between the Macbeths than usual, according to the Almeida’s artistic director, Rupert Goold.

Goold Describes Farber as an ‘earthy, political, blood-and-mud kind of director’, and promises that her production will be a visceral experience. Like Ronan, Farber’s previous work explores and foregrounds powerful women. Her 2018 production of Hamlet starred Ruth Negga as the eponymous protagonist, diversifying the traditionally male role in a piece that Michael Billington heralded as ‘freshly imagined’.

Farber’s Macbeth promises to be just as innovative. The award-winning director is known for her hard-hitting, controversial works, and intends to present a more complex interpretation of Lady Macbeth, rather than having her simply appear on stage at certain moments to lead her husband astray. Whilst some may argue that this interpretive shift deviates away from the ‘true meaning’ of Shakespeare’s text - as if there is such a thing – it must be remembered that Shakespeare’s intentions, and his historical context, naturally present Lady Macbeth in an unflattering light.

Shakespeare wrote Macbeth at a time when his playing company was under the personal patronage of King James I. The king was obsessed with witches, and his dealings with witch trials are said to have been one of the primary sources for the

witches in Macbeth. It is unsurprising then that Shakespeare’s play features not only actual witches, but also a deceptive, powerhungry female spouse. Lady Macbeth shares many traits with the witches, as her gender is also presented ambiguously. She asks the spirits to ‘unsex’ her so that she can achieve her goals to make Macbeth king. As a childless woman, Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as motherly for ambition alone. She talks about how far she would go to get Macbeth the crown, stating that, if she had a child, ‘I would while it was smiling in my face / Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums / And dashed the brains out’. These savage, hyperbolic speeches link her to the witches, who use a ‘finger of a birth strangled babe’ in their spells.

Shakespeare also oversexualises Lady Macbeth, writing scenes where she seduces her husband into doing as she bids. As she asks to be ‘unsex[ed]’, the woman is also dangerous because she remains in control of her sexuality. Shakespeare presents his character as evil because she refuses to conform to the traditionally subservient role of a wife, and simultaneously dangerous because she capitalises on her female body.

At the end of the play, Lady Macbeth declines into madness and eventually commits suicide. This death confirms that ambitious, powerful, and childless women are not only dangerous and unnatural, but that they should not even exist.

Whilst our views on gender have,

thankfully, evolved since the seventeenthcentury, the prejudices behind ambitious and/or childless women remain. Farber and Ronan’s Lady Macbeth looks to present a version of Macbeth that concentrates on the questionable ambitions of both Macbeths, rather than presenting the ambitious female-figure as a gendered source of evil. Instead of foregrounding binary views of gender, power, morality, Farber’s reworking of Shakespeare’s play places agency on both of the main characters.

The production’s femalecentred adaptation is one of many recent theatrical projects which aim to refashion traditional stories, giving the women in them more of a voice. Emilia tells the story of the female poet Emilia Bassanio, rumoured to be the ‘dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets, whilst the musical Six presents a ‘herstory’ of the six wives of Henry VIII. As theatres re-open, and the stage is set, 2021 promises works that reimagine and rebalance gender and power on the British stage. Productions like Farber’s Macbeth prove that the spirit of the theatre remains alive and relevant. Perhaps this time, as the audience sit back to watch Saoirse Ronan on stage, they will refrain from immediately deciding that Lady Macbeth is simply an evil woman and, rather, question the nature of depravity and ambition across all the characters in the play.

(Top right) Artwork by Aleksandra Puta; (Middle-Right) Image credit: Robert Smirke, Folger Shakespeare Library/ License: CC BY-SA 4.0

REVIEWS The Importance of Being Earnest/Trinity Players

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s we sluggishly unlock, it is easy to speak of returning to the ‘magic’ of live theatre and other such clichés.

But it’s not an exaggeration to say that I was blown away by the quality of the Trinity Player’s recent production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

To briefly summarise, the play is one of miscommunication and misunderstanding, a farce in which two women find that they can only fall in love with people by the name of Ernest, having already been proposed to by men who are not in earnest when they profess that Ernest is there name. Too many earnests, but that’s kind of the point. Through the discovery of family secrets, journeys from the city to the country and a fair bit of ‘Bunburying,’ the situation is comically resolved.

I was lucky enough to have tickets to the 5th June Saturday matinée. Perhaps my opinions on the play were already flavoured by the weather of the day, which was gloriously

sunny, though with a slight breeze which disturbed the string quartet’s sheet music.

Anyway, we arrived at the austere gates of Trinity college - wine in hand, sun-cream slathered - and made our way into the President’s Garden to the sound of string music, where the play was to be performed.

The set was minimal, limited to two tables and two chairs, with the string quartet off to the left. The audience was arranged in a semi-circular affair; a mishmash of tables, chairs and picnic blankets that seemed to pre-empt the play’s messy plotlines.

Trinity College’s President’s Garden was far from empty, with tickets for all showings of the production being sold out.

As chapel bells tolled three o’clock, the garden gradually began to fill with the characters of Wilde’s play, adorned with vibrantly coloured costumes brilliantly designed by Chloe Dootson-Graube, also responsible for art.

And what a cast of characters it was. Eugenie Nevin and George Diggle returned characterful performances as the minor characters Miss Prism and Lane/Merriman respectively.

The play’s explicitly comic characters of Dr

Chasuble and Lady Bracknell were similarly performed with distinction. Lorcan Cudlip Cook’s bumbling, wizened Dr Chasuble, with his white hair and right-angled body posture, was particularly successful, with the affected quavering of his vocals drawing plenty of laughs from the audience. With a voice that overflowed with enough rolled Rs and brittle articulation to put any royal to shame, Gracie Oddie-James’ Lady Bracknell was a pleasure to watch, evoking the aura of the elderly aunt borrowed from nineteenth-century fiction without resorting to pantomime.

Henry Calcutt’s performance as Jack Worthing (one of the two ‘Ernests’) abounded with energy, and the chemistry between him and Abi Watkinson’s Gwendolen Fairfax was thoroughly believable. Watkinson’s Gwendolen, with her carrot-coloured dress, was brilliant, embodying a stubbornness that played excellently against the gushing confusion of Calcutt’s Jack. Grace de Souza too embodied the young Cecily Cardew excellently, delivering lines with an innocence and naïve fantasy that fitted her character’s status as Jack Worthing’s ward. Yet, the standout

performance of the show, for me at least, came from Cormac Diamond in the role of Algernon Moncrieff, the other ‘Ernest’ of the play. Perhaps it’s just his ginger shock of hair, but there was something Redmayne-like in the mixture of timidity and poise with which Diamond delivered his lines, always feeling comfortable in the heightened language of Wilde’s dialogue. The cast as an ensemble really were excellent, and all should be praised for the performances that they gave.

I really can’t praise the achievements of the directors Rosie Robinson and Costi Levy, alongside producer Daisy Gosal and assistant producer James Waterman, enough. Battling a tricky set of lockdown restrictions over two terms, they realised fully an in-person production, and were rewarded by this weekend’s weather. Couched in Trinity’s Presidential Gardens, this play really provided on its subtitle’s promise: ‘A Trivial Comedy for Serious People’. It’s the sort of production that would make even the most timid want to get involved in Oxford drama – and that’s just my earnest opinion.

By Hari Bravery.

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CulCher | Friday, 11th June 2021

fashion

Ethical Fashion: Woven by women from the earth to our bodies Anushka Shah interviews two inspiring women, Jeanne De Kroon and Madhu Vaishnav, in the fashion industry. Full version available online.

1. The terms ‘ethical fashion’ and ‘sustainability’ are thrown around by brands such as H&M and Zara who have been accused of gratuitous greenwashing. To be truly ethical, brands must demonstrate transparency and evidence of working conditions.

How would you define the term ‘ethical fashion’?

Jeanne: “For me, fashion is a woven story that you tell as a brand. Ethical fashion is when you are facilitating the stories of the products and the people in the community in the most authentic way. There are two pillars when it comes to fashion: land and labour, and if you take these two things into account and really come on top as a brand to co-create something rather than dictate it, that is the true meaning of ethical fashion. It’s the same with food… when something is ethical it’s wholesome and nourishing for the entire community and the earth that produces it. This mindset of symbiosis with land and labour is an essential part of the global decolonisation process as well as a global rising of consciousness to connect people to the garment they are wearing.”

2.

The exploitative nature of fast fashion brands is no longer a dirty little secret, yet people still buy clothes from such brands that exploit women and land. What might be an effective deterrent for people to stop supporting fast fashion?

JeannE: “We tend to point fingers at specific big fast fashion brands when actually the global fashion industry works in the same way – for example high fashion brands like Prada produce their clothes and uses the same sorts of chemical dyes as fast fashion brands, they may add the finishing touches in Italy however the process is pretty much the same. The whole system of global fashion is complicit in terms of waste, it’s a vicious cycle in which consumerism is the culprit.”

Madhu: “The responsibility is on the young generation, and new businesses. It must be a collective effort with the producers, artisans and brands who sell the clothes. With Saheli women we tell the story of where the garment comes from, all the garments have the women’s sketches and stories behind them. We need to build the relationship between consumer and creator.”

3.

Humans are wired to connect to stories. How can one facilitate a connection between the buyer and the maker?

Jeanne: “We have a conditioned gaze with which we look at fashion, which has only existed in the last 100 years. As a brand, we are thinking about how we can put the farmers and weavers in the limelight, so they can tell their own stories. For me Zazi is an amazing place and opportunity to learn about these dynamics and be aware of it myself while going through my own process of decolonisation. I said to Madhu when she was struggling in the beginning that she could work with a big commercial company to make napkins for example, so you always have a stable income and you know that the women can do that. She then said to me ‘Jeanne, this isn’t a factory. My ladies don’t care, they would get bored.’ That really proved that in a Western capitalist society we would rather do what we hate just to put food on our plates.”

Meet Jeanne de Kroon and Madhu VaishnAV, the women who strive to remind us that fashion, much like food, comes from the earth, and that the most beautiful garments are those that tell stories. Amsterdam based Jeanne, founder of Zazi Vintage, started her business with 500 euros in her pocket in her student bedroom in Berlin. From a young age, her fashion journalist turned art-historian mother instilled in her a love for the beauty and magic of fabrics that tell stories, she had a preconceived idea of what fashion is, but this fantasy was soon shattered. After dropping out of law school and immersing herself in la vie bohème in Paris playing the ukulele and singing on street corners, she was scouted to model and was taken to New York where she posed for fast fashion brands in $10 polyester dresses. She found herself questioning how much the people who made those dressed must earn, given that they cost so little.

She then stopped modelling and went on to study philosophy. During her studies, Jeanne travelled to India and was introduced to Madhu Vaishnav by one of her 200 Instagram followers at the time. It was an instant meeting of minds and hearts, together they embarked on a journey of learning, growing and empowering women through the beauty of creating garments that travel directly from the earth to our bodies.

Being a woman in a rural village near Jodhpur, Madhu had a traditional and conservative upbringing: she had an arranged marriage at the age of 23 and was told that her future consisted of being a housewife. After craving freedom and the opportunity to study, she was finally granted permission to learn English, and at the age of 39 she was accepted to do a diploma in social welfare at UC Berkeley. Upon her return in 2015, she started the Saheli Women initiation in her village, in which a group of women learnt how to embroider and make garments.

Slowly but surely, cultural norms were being broken by women in a society that was run by men. Zazi is a love letter to artisanal work, it gives a platform to those without one while bridging the gap between the creators and buyers of garments.

4.

Western feminism is focused on women being successful within a patriarchal, capitalist society. From what I know of the way your brand operates, it values ‘feminine’ qualities such as love, respect, and compassion to succeed. Can a feminist authentically succeed in a capitalist society without compromising her morals?

Jeanne: “No. On a spiritual level the world is cyclical, which is the feminine force of beauty, life and nourishment. Women and the moon move on 29.5-day cycles, that’s the magic of the moon and the menstrual cycle. The masculine however works with the day and night: testosterone goes up as far as it can go and then sleeps and repeats this every day, and our system is built through male energies. Unlimited growth doesn’t work in any system, we need to work within the cycle of nature rather than against it. We are starting to see a deconstruction of all the systems that were man made, and by raising the voices of women we will be able to rise as a global community in a more balanced way. In the past few years, the world has seen so many shifts and it’s just the very beginning of what’s about to come.”

Friday, 11th June 2021 | CulCher

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Madhu: “Women are born with the opportunity to make everything possible. It’s part of our DNA, if we can deliver children in this world, we can do anything. Women are the best managers, we manage the home, pregnancy, periods, family – Saheli women is run by women from top to bottom. I have learnt a lot from these ladies, even though some of them are illiterate I’ve learnt that intelligence doesn’t come from academic language and going to good schools. They are the most open minded and non-judgemental people: they have cultural competency and humility which is so important to learn. Women nurture everything – creativity is part of our DNA. In our studio we do not have a single amount of waste material – we don’t need a third party to create a sustainability model for us as that is naturally the way we operate, and this is mainly because we are a female-led organisation.”

5.

How years?

will

the

industry

change

in

the

next

few

Jeanne: “My big dream is to create a platform where consumers can directly buy from artisans, this would make artisanal work more affordable and it would be possible to have 100% rural supply chains, and we would no longer have to mass-produce. Once we can decolonise the supply chain, artisanal communities can be self-sufficient without a person like me (white and European) to make it happen.”

Madhu: “It’s changing a lot. The pandemic has taught the consumer to think about how they are consuming. Now is the time for small

businesses to grow again, it’s almost criminal the way big companies machine copy designs made by small designers by using factories: art is someone’s livelihood, it is so wrong to cheaply copy art using machines and sell it cheaply.”

6. Who designs the clothes at Saheli women?

Madhu: With every garment, all the women are very involved in the designing and aesthetics of them, they have so much knowledge about technicalities. Even though the brand sells the clothes, it is us who works with the garments every single day, and we understand the nature of textiles, stitching, design, fabric and all their complications so well. Our master designer called Shoba is from the Dalit community (known as the untouchables) which is the lowest caste in India. She’s a widow with two children and for many years she was living outside the village and she was disrespected and that her job was nothing more than to just sweep roads. On a grassroot level, caste discrimination still exists very much; the teacher at the centre refused to teach Shoba in the beginning because of her caste. Now, however, she is a role model for the community: she is a master pattern cutter and embroiderer. This proves that creativity is inherently part of us.

Interviewed and transcribed

by Anushka Shah.

Girl InFarhan Bed Photography: Hussain

11

Life | Friday, 11th June 2021

life

The Long Vac: A guide how to make the most of your free time Philip Tomei‘s guide to making the most of your Long Vac, but not necessarily in the way Oxford has taught you to...

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lassicists will know that the Oxonian ‘Vac’ comes not from the English 'vacation' but the Latin vacatio, meaning freedom or release from occupation, with a root in vacare, meaning empty.

Yet, a disturbing trend has emerged in the last thirty years or so, particularly among British students, to do the opposite during vacation: to fill rather than empty one’s leisure time — usually by a combination of activities, alcohol, and queuing.

This is an unacceptable state; ask any Greek, Spaniard, Italian, or Frenchman to wait in line for two hours to get into a museum, only to forget all about it with cheap gin and tonics and spend the night chundering in an alley, and they will balk at the suggestion that this could be called a holiday of any kind.

Filling your days will do nothing to help you recuperate and get any sort of rest. With the intensity of Oxford coming to its yearly lull, we ought to finally be empty.

The perfect ‘long vac’ approximates the vision of Anais Nin when she describes: “I am lying on a hammock, on the terrace of my room at the Hotel Mirador, the diary open on my knees, the sun shining on the diary, and I have no desire to write.

The sun, the leaves, the shade, the warmth, are so alive that they lull

the senses, calm the imagination.

This is perfection. There is no need to portray, to preserve. It is eternal, it overwhelms you, it is complete.”

The ideal vacation is, of course, not to be found anywhere in particular. It is irrelevant whether you sit on a beach in Oman, by a lake in Canada, or in your granny’s garden. Instead, the emptiness of the vacation is manifested in a lack of expectation, commitments, and demands. Deadlines, FOMO, ambition, vanity, commerce, t h e

“Keep Chaucer by the Cherwell and a spritz by the Seine.”

n e e d to exegete the ideas of dead men or to solve problems long solved are all drawn out by warm rays of sunshine. In our working life we live in the time of commitments, academic, social or professional, and on vacation we should bask in their absence.

From the emptiness of vacare, we build the art of vacationing.

A vacation that is more than continuous indulgence or the crashing from an exhausting existence. Not a time for recreation, but for rebuilding.

In this state, the true vacatio state, we are able to notice that which we are too busy to observe

before. We are able to reflect with openness on ourselves and our work. To pry our deeper needs and ask harder questions of ourselves. If we use our rest to contemplate with compassionate attention, perhaps even change may begin to occur.

With the trials and tribulations of the plague, the obsessions of Oxford life, even if we feel we don’t deserve a break, we need one.

So if you’re in Port Meadow or Porto, Chelmsford or Chiang Mai, don’t fill your time but empty it out. Take a long vacation.

Here is a guide as to how:

Tip Number Three: Avoid overly serious books.

Tip Number Six: Disdain technology.

The classic Oxonian trap of taking the time on a Balearic island or in a Cornish cottage to finally

Do not pack your laptop under any circumstances. If you really have work to do perhaps you shouldn’t be going on holiday.

You may also find that airplane mode is even more effective after getting off the plane.

“Filling your days will do nothing to help you recuperate.”

Tip Number One: Do absolutely nothing for the longest possible amount of time.

The most common problem among holiday makers, especially those academically inclined, is to fill their days with museum-visits, whistle-stop tours and box-ticking.

A holiday is first and foremost a time for doing nothing, ideally in a beautiful place. If you spend more than half your time going to must-see locales, then you’re not on vacation, you’re on a field trip.

Tip Number Two: Have low expectations but set intentions.

Going in to a vacation with a list of things to see or do or, even worse, accomplish, is a fool's errand.

Instead, try setting an intention for how you wish to feel.

crack open Being and Time and Finnegans’' Wake. This is a grave mistake — keep Chaucer by the Cherwell and a spritz by the Seine.

Tip Number Four: Never talk about the weather.

The weather is never going to be as you want to be, discussion thereof is best left at home where one’s expectations are more subdued.

Tip Number Five: Eat lunch outside for a minimum of three hours.

Take a hint from the Greeks and Spaniards and indulge in the finest of summer activities — the all-day lunch. Sit down around 2pm and be sure to get going before sundown.

Tip Number Seven: Plan or plan not to plan.

A key element of the vacation is to avoid the filling up of days.

Planning ought to be treated with suspicion. A state of semidirected meandering is best for contemplation and learning.

Image Credit: PhotoEverywhere. co.uk / CC BY 2.5

12

Friday, 11th June 2021 | Life

Georgia First Year Worcester History

Gerardi First Year St. John’s Theology

Cherpse

What were you hoping for from the date?

I didn’t really have any specific hopes. I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet someone new, and if anything came from that then it would be a bonus!

First impressions?

Very calm and friendly, which was nice as I was super nervous.

What did you talk about?

We chatted about our colleges and subjects which was cool, and found out we had some friends friends in common. He told me about his theology degree which was super interesting.

Best thing about the other person?

He was really frank and honest while we were talking which was refreshing.

Describe the date in 3 words: Fun, interesting, exciting.

Is a second date on the cards?

I’d like to meet up again, but only as friends.

What were you hoping for from the date?

Meeting someone new and having a nice chat.

Did these hearts melt on a toastie date?

“Quite the achievement over Zoom.”

First impressions?

Seemed very nice and easygoing.

What did you talk about?

General Oxchat.

Best thing about the other person?

Good back and forth - no awkward pauses. Quite the achievement over Zoom.

What was the most embarrassing moment?

They paid for a drink but the waiters never brought it.

Soon after it was the end of our slot and we never saw that glass of wine. Felt so bad that I didn’t speak up!

Describe the date in 3 words: Zoom toastie chat.

Is a second date on the cards?

I’m not one to say no to food and pleasant conversation.

Horoscopes...

LEO 23 July - 22 August Hot girl summer is fast approaching!

Whether you’re holidaying in Indonesia or the Isle of Wight, make sure to enjoy yourself, make fleeting connections, and, if you’re lucky, fall in love along the way (and maybe write a column on summer romance when you’re done?).

TAURUS

20 April - 20 May

ARIES 21 March- 19 April Aries, slow down! We know it’s exam season, cuppers, and a British heat wave, but there is really no reason to be taking the quads of college like you’re competing with Lewis Hamilton. Seriously, watch it on the cobbles in those heels.

LIBRA 23 Sept - 22 Oct Whether you’re in your first or your final year, you don’t need to be applying to that many internships this summer. While it’s good to be proactive, opportunities in your career will come in time, and there’s no need to fill up your well-deserved free time sending off endless cover letters to which you might never get a response.

Please Taurus, don’t forget to put suncream on the back of your neck. We know it requires a certain degree of shoulder mobility, but the stretching is worth the burn-free skin.

SCORPIO 23 Oct - 21 Nov ‘Tis the season for doubting your plans for MT21 accommodation.

It’s entirely natural that the friends you balloted with back in Hilary aren’t the people you’re most close to now, but try to avoid excessive drama, it’s not what anyone needs to start their summer.

GEMINI 21 May- 20 June All of us are in the gutter, Gemini. Some of us are looking up at that statue of a man on top of the Blackwell’s poster shop.

22 Nov - 21 Dec Love is in the air Sagittarius! You’ve definitely fallen in love with Trinity term: from evening drinks in South Parks, to sunny strolls around Christchurch Meadows, and lazy evenings at the college bar. Make the most of these summer weeks, we know you deserve it.

21 June - 22 July

We know you’ve been reading your Cherwell, Cancer. Don’t forget to remind your friends about the E-Coli in Port Meadow!

Be that person!

CAPRICORN 22 Dec - 19 Jan

SAGITTARIUS

CANCER

The sun is shining Capricorn and it’s definitely your time to shine as well! You’ve put in all the work and now it’s your chance to show everyone what you can do.

Whether it’s your final exam, Summer Torpids, a new show, or your first Prelim, the stars are telling us that you’re going to smash it!

AQUARIUS

VIRGO 23 August - 22 Sept You’ve always been the most hardworking and we know you can’t help but be committed but why don’t you let yourself let loose this Trinity!

You don’t always have to be the one actually punting when you go punting — switch that pole out for some Prosecco!

PISCES 19 Feb - 20 March

20 Jan - 18 Feb Aquarius, remember: smile and wave. It’s hard to be nice to everyone, but you’re doing so well. Even when you’ve just been charged £3.99 for your morning coffee, remember - just grin and bear it. And, please, remember to apply your student discount.

Pisces, chill out, relax, find your seat! Exam season is almost upon us, but there is still time for a daily reflection. Our astrologers love the meadows, whether Port or Christ Church. However, watch the geese.

They are aggressive. You have been warned…

13

Life | Friday, 11th June 2021

SURVIVING HACKING Katharine Spurrier SEASON

T

here are a few things in life that I am certain of.

The day after today is tomorrow, you do have the time to go to the pub and finish your essay, and at some point, you will be hacked by a member of the Oxford Union. Those of you who have never been hacked may ask why this is such a pressing issue.

Surely a message isn’t too annoying? But you would be wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, I am friends with many a hack, and I enjoy their company for the first five weeks of term. But, come week six and election season, there will be no peace or tranquillity to be found in your Facebook message requests. So, after much psychological analysis of this interesting student phenomenon, I have come up with four key offending breeds of hack to be aware of.

The Friend: This is an example of a nice and benign hack. There is always one member of your friendship group who is more than just a member of the Union. They went to the beer garden at least three times a week and have their Union friends, but they don’t force them upon you.

They remind you of any upcoming speakers or votes, but do not necessarily follow this up every half hour.

The Social Butterfly: Depending on their level of obnoxious, these hacks are normally harmless. They jump from event to event drinking your drinks as they go. Any messages you receive may actually be personalised with a fun anecdote about you

from the night before. From the hints they have been dropping you are not sure if there were mysterious ‘parties’ (sorry, study sessions) going on in the Union as they could never comment.

The Mood-Hoover: The worst of the bunch. These are the people who never want to be anywhere that does not directly involve the Union, though there is always a better motive somewhere else. A copy and pasted message is the closest they get to interest in anyone else’s life. Avoid them like the plague.

The Multi-Media: Understandably the rise of social media has changed the political game. The Multi-Media hack is unescapable unless you unfollow them for the time being. Every story, every link shared, and every cover photo update is related to the Union. They’re often quite normal in person, I think maybe there is something in exerting all their energy online which means they don’t feel like they need to do it in the real world.

You may read this and think I hate hacks … I don’t. But I equally reserve the right to ignore them until the end of term.

I take no issue with the concept of hacking, but I would just ask this the next time you think about sending me a hack message: don’t mention the one mutual friend we have, don’t ask me how I have been when we spoke once in Freshers’ Week, and make sure you have spelt my name right.

Cherwell checksback-in: For the final edition of Cherwell check-in, we hear about dealing with exams and burnout in these last weeks of term!

A

s Trinity Term comes to and end, there are still many more exams to be taken. Do you have any advice for those who haven’t yet takn their Finals or Prelims?

Dr. Waite: It’s a balance of trying to be as well prepared as you can, but also recognising that you will never have done all the revision that you would have liked to do and it’s about being able to tolerate that feeling and not dwell on it. There is some really good advice on the NHS website.

Prof. Wilde: Recognise that you’ve handled quite a bit of pressure so far to get into Oxford so you do have the capacity to continue to handle this and to do well and to excel. You have that experience and you have that commitment. So to target and overcome procrastination, which increases exam stress, there is a tool I call the “three-minute carrot”, and there’s more of that

in the book, which is a b o u t saying to yourself: “I’m gonna revise for three minutes and then at the end of three minutes I’m going to decide then whether I can carry on or to take a break” and then most people decide after – mostly, it’s just enough to get people into it that they decide after three minutes to keep going, and then they can stretch it out to 25 minutes.

How can the students overcome the hurdle of burnout?

Dr. Waite: try to notice and address any negative ‘self-talk’ that is getting in the way of enjoyment or motivation, make a commitment to others (e.g., meeting for a coffee), and finally, seek help when it is needed.

Prof. Wilde: You may actually need to take a full day off or a weekend off even if burnout has come into play. And I think, you know, use that feeling of being burnt out as a cue to be kind to yourself.

Introducing...

Cher Brilliant

Don’t just do it Cherwell – do it

Cher Brilliantly.

“Not to sound like a twat but does anyone have advice to deal with not being that great at your subject? There are obvs way bigger problems in the world but going from doing pretty good in school to pretty much the worst at my subject in my college feels tough.”

Competitive academia is a disease, ma cherie! Particularly if you went to a school with lots of other highly academic people, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that education and learning are all about getting the best grades in your GCSEs, your A Levels, and now your degree. However, while a fashionista like me loves the idea of a scholars’ gown, that isn’t the real reason you’re at Oxford. You’re here because you love your subject and you want to learn as much as you can about it — even if you do feel that your tute partners are doing better than you, try to see them as wonderful new friends to talk over the nuances of Virgil’s Aeneid with, and not as your competition.

“Lockdown has been so shit for dating, I’m so lonely and need to find someone to love.”

Darling, take it from me, Oxford’s singletons are all on Tinder. So, oui, although you may squirm at the thought of encapsulating your entire personality in a single profile line, providing accompanying photos and swiping left or right, if there’s one final life lesson from Cher, it’s that you’re going to have to adapt until in-person life resumes. Yet, remember, avoid your course, college, and college family at all costs when seeking suitors; loneliness is far more preferable to a degree’s worth of awkwardness.

Artwork by Zoe Rhoades Questions used with permission from Oxfess 3.

John Evelyn:

E

lections are upon us and after a year of relative tranquillity in the Union, scandal ones again plagues the Society. Within the last week, serious allegations have been made about one of the two slates running in this election and against the other slate in the handling of these claims. John Evelyn is disgusted and disappointed in the behaviour of everyone running in this election but due to the sensitive nature of the issue at hand, morally and legally, he does not see it fit to comment or satirise the events of this week. He trusts that members will reach their own conclusions on the week’s events and that regardless they will all be drowned in hack messages anyway.

It has been a pleasure writing for you this term and it is a great shame the term ended on this note. Regardless of the result, uneasy shall be the head that lies the crown…and rightly so.

With despairing love, John Evelyn

Life | Friday, 11th June 2021

14

food

COFFEE SOMETIME?

Sasha Mills presents a comprehensive ranking of Oxford coffee shops.

1. Society

intimidating (please, man in fishermanknit jumper and beanie, don’t hurt me), they make a mean brew.

L

ook, I know this is a basic opinion. I tried to think of reasons to not put this one at the top. One outlet that 4. Missing Bean (English Faculty EdiI’ve never heard of put it as the top tion) coffee shop out of 50 in England. Who am I to argue with the authority of that? dO yOu StUdY EngLiSh sAshA? Yes, But here’s the thing: it offers so many I do, and the only pro of being entirely kinds of coffee. More than anywhere else I unemployable is enjoying the charming can think of. It has two different types of atmosphere of the Missing Bean Cafe at batch brew! It’s also very good for nonthe top of the English Faculty (and Law coffee lovers: it has a multitude Faculty, technically, but we speak of flavours of green tea, high not of them). cocoa content hot chocolate.

When I didn’t go to online The only thing I’d score university, Missing Bean “THE RECORD this down on is the lack of was my favourite place PL AY ER SOLIDIFIES to stay between lectures food. It has a few cakes, but sometimes you want more. and translate Old English.

THIS AS THE Can’t do it all though.

Hwæt, you say? Another HIPSTER-Y COFFEE useless skill that I’ll never most £4 on a Mocha there the other day.

2. Brew use past the first year of my That said, it has a nice work atmosphere, SHOP OF YOUR and the smell of baked goods is very nice. degree? Leave me alone.

Sorry to be all ‘Jericho is better Hard to resist buying une croissant ou un than the centre,’ but as you’ll see in this 5. Branca Deli petit gâteau. Hard to keep a hold of your list, Jericho is better than the centre. Brew wallet. Basically, not a good one for past is my local coffee shop (yay St. Hugh’s) and Oh, is that another Jericho spot? Yes, fifth week when you realise that you’ve while it doesn’t boast quite the same variit is, because I think I’m too cool for the burned through most of your student loan ety as Society, it truly is a coffee shop built centre. Look, Branca’s coffee is categori- going to silly little coffee shops when for coffee lovers. They open at 7:30 (good cally not nice. Actively not nice. Don’t buy there’s something like 30 different librarfor long days when you’ve procrastinated coffee here. Get a hot chocolate, maybe. ies that you’re paying upwards of 9 grand work and desperately need to catch up), That’s alright. Branca Deli makes it onto a year to access. Can you tell that I get and the coffee they offer is truly delicious. financial anxiety? this list because it is by far my While you can’t sit in at the moment, it has favourite study spot. Big ta“NOT A a very calming atmosphere, and the record bles? Check. Plugs? Quite 7. Pret A Manger player music solidifies this as the hipster-y a few! A lovely garden GOOD ONE PAST coffee shop of your dreams. that you can sit in on Fuck Pret. It’s not If you decide you want to save your mona sunny Trinity day? FIFTH W EEK W HEN YOU cheaper than a normal ey and stop spending all of your student Absolutely. coffee shop and their REA LISE TH AT YOU’V E loan on an obscene number of £3 coffees, Branca Deli makes coffee tastes like shit. they also have a whole wall of coffee parame wish I could be an BURNED THROUGH MOST Want to spend £7 on a phernalia: V60s, filter paper, coffee beans. upper middle class homemediocre sandwich and OF YOUR ST UDENT Maybe you can kick your expensive coffee an awful coffee? Go to owner in Jericho, swanning LOA N” habit here. I haven’t tried yet. around, picking up some vegPret. etables to make dinner for my two Yes, I did get the Pret month long free 3. Jericho Espresso Bar children, Frances and Hortensia. Wouldn’t trial. Was it worth it? Not really! The recommend going to the Deli part though. queues were so long for the whole NoYes, we’re still in Jericho! Loses for A box of chocolates costs £30. It will make vember lockdown because apparently all variety, wins for its flat whites. Jericho you feel poor. of Oxford has nothing better to do except stand outside Pret and procrastinate doEspresso Bar is no-nonsense nice coffee.

The bench outside (no indoor seating, alas) 6. Gail’s ing anything remotely unique or interestis a popular local hotspot for The People Of ing. If you like Pret you’re basic. I don’t Jericho, and even though the baristas are Gail’s is just so expensive. I spent al- make the rules.

Warming Veg Tagine

Ingredients 1 aubergine, 1 butternut squash, butter, olive oil, 1 red onion , 4 garlic cloves, cumin, ground ginger, chilli powder, cinnamon, 1 can of plum tomatoes, 1 can of chickpeas, vegetable stock cube, dried apricots, 1 lemon, coriander- optional Method Cut the butternut squash and aubergine into cubes.

Lightly drizzle the butternut squash with olive oi, coat in salt and pepper, then roast in a 180C oven for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, finely chop the onion and garlic then whack into a casserole pot with olive oil and butter, fry until soft.

Add one teaspoon each of cumin, ginger, chilli powder, and cinnamon, then gently fry for a few minutes to release flavour.

Add the aubergine and cook for 10 minutes, then add the roasted butternut squash along with an undrained can of chickpeas, the tomatoes, some water, a stock cube, and 7 apricots. Season generously with salt and pepper.

Leave covered to cook for 1 hour, checking to add water if needed.

When ready, add the zest and juice of one lemon and some coriander- enjoy!

LICENSED TO GRILL: A VEGAN BBQ REVOLUTION

By Shreya Banerjee

A

s the plant based revolution continues, the most recent cuisine to be veganised is an eagerly awaited summer highlight that makes for a perfect social event. Whether it’s at a park, on a beach, or even on a college-provided grill, there’s nothing like watching sizzling coals of the barbeque in the warm sunshine (safely, of

course). Move over meat eaters, because this summer, vegetarians and vegans are licensed to grill.

Meat has long hogged the barbeque, with the slow cooking tradition holding great significance to the African-American community (highlighted in the recent Netflix show “High on the Hog”), and many other countries have their own versions of open fire cooking - think tandoori, Mexican grill, or kebabs. While grilled meat has long been appreciated by people around the globe, the growing popularity of meat replacements is reflected in UK supermarkets. Tesco’s “Wicked” brand recently launched vegan skewers, made with pea protein, as have the expanding “THIS” range, and with vegan halloumi and burger alternatives on offer too, you can be sure that there’ll be no more plates piled high with salad for non-meat eaters.

Homemade vegetable skewers are a classic, but can seem bland or boring if they’re not done right. Seasoning your veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper before they hit the

coals is imperative - and mix up the flavours too! Try oregano and lemon juice on diced aubergines, courgettes and peppers for a Mediterranean skewer, or slather miso paste on slices of onion for an Ottolenghiinspired umami sensation. Add cayenne or chilli powder for a bit of spiciness, with an extra squeeze of lemon once they’re cooked to give the spices a facelift.

Marinating might seem like a lot of effort with little reward, but it can actually reduce the amount of work you have to do once the grill or barbeque is on. For vegetarians, this is the trick you need for soft and delicious paneer tikka, and can be replicated with tofu. Marinades are essentially layers of flavour, they need at least 6 hours in the fridge to sink in so that delicate spices aren’t overpowered by smokiness from the grill.

A popular marinade in North India is Hariyali - literally meaning ‘green’, because of the fresh herbs it includes. Start by cubing 400g of your paneer or tofu, then add 4 tbsp of ginger and garlic paste, followed by 2 tsp of turmeric powder - this is the

first marinade. Cover this, and let it sit for 10 minutes. Then add the juice of one lime, and let it sit for another 10 minutes.

In this time, use a blender to prepare the third marinade, consisting of 2 handfuls of cashew nuts, 6 tbsp of plain yoghurt (dairy free is fine!), 1 cup each of fresh mint and coriander, 2 tsp of cumin seeds or powder, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tbsp poppy seeds, a few cardamoms and chillies, plus a pinch salt and pepper. Feel free to taste the marinade to check if it needs adjusting - it should be fairly hot. Finally, add the thoroughly blended bright green mix to your paneer or tofu, before refrigerating it for at least 6 hours. This marinade will be worth the effort when you taste the flavour it imparts!

Lots of the new veggie and vegan options for a barbeque are sure to be popular with meat eaters too, but if you’re someone who’s diet has long been ignored at these summer celebrations, this year might just be your chance at last to hog the best options on the grill.

Full article at cherwell.org.

17

Friday, 11th June 2021 | Cherwell

features

VLAD POPESCU

THE PRICE OF CITIZENSHIP:

THE INHERENT BRITISHNESS OF BUREAUCRACY

J

anuary 19th and I’m standing outside Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton. It’s pouring with rain on us as we’re queuing outside, waiting to go in.

I check I have all I need, trying not to get my documents wet. I need my Romanian passport and my invitation to the ceremony.

It’s the Citizenship Ceremony, where we will swear oaths to declare our loyalty to the Queen and all her heirs to the throne.

We also swear we’ll be good, lawful citizens, but my impression is that there is less emphasis on that part. We go in, and although there’s less pomp and ceremony owing to the pandemic, we do our oaths, listen to the anthem and shake hands with the Mayor of Lambeth. I am now a citizen of the United Kingdom. Or at least that’s how it was supposed to go.

In reality, this ceremony was digital. They announced this change from an in-person affair only a few days before, as the winter coronavirus surge was still going strong at that time. Even so, my citizenship saga came to a happy end. Anyhow, I’m not sure shaking hands with the Lambeth Mayor was such an occasion. I was not even aware my London Borough had its own ceremonial Mayor. Several months later,

there is a British passport in my hands. It’s blue and it’s my own.

What has been a very long journey has come to an end. It’s been well over a year since I’ve started the process of becoming a British Citizen, and the total cost has been some two thousand pounds.

But the price of citizenship is not just time and money – it’s submitting yourself to a strange and tiring process, the saga of immigration bureaucracy wearing you out. Along the way I’ve also learned several things about the British government and how it treats prospective citizens – I’ve also learned very few people here at Oxford seem to know anything at all about it.

There was once a time when our greatest worry was not a killer virus. During my first term at Oxford, the focus was on the 2019 General Election.

A typical conversation involved being asked who I would vote for, explaining that I’m not a citizen and what followed was usually shock that I was not a member of the electorate after living in Britain for ten years. At the time I found it quite strange that the UK’s academic cream of the crop would seemingly be so unaware of what is a reality for millions of people in this country. According

to a House of Commons Library report on migration statistics, in December 2019 some 9% of the UK population was recorded as having a different non-British nationality. In other words, out of a 9.5 million born-abroad population, 6.2 million were non-citizens, a group I belonged to until recently. Voting in local elections is generally allowed, but general elections not so much. For a general election, along with age and other requirements, you must be a British or Irish citizen. A common theme in 2019 was then: ‘Oh, but you’ve lived here so long you might as well be a citizen!’. But it doesn’t quite work that way. If part of the Labour manifesto in 2019 was allowing residency rather than citizenship-based voting, the story is currently, and has been for a long time, very different. Who could apply to become a citizen, and who can actually carry it out, is under very strict controls with a wide array of obstacles to go through. The reality is that millions are left without a direct say into a government whose policies have a pervasive effect on their lives. From dictating the rights to work, access to social services, designing the process around visas and acquiring an indefinite

leave-to-remain, and even the potential looming threat of deportation; representation in such matters is a more fickle process.

And ultimately more slippery than that is acquiring British citizenship. Considering this university produces so much of Britain’s elite, I thought it would be worthwhile to try and inform Oxonians of what it takes.

In December 2019, the number of EU nationals in the UK was estimated to be around 3.7 million, however by December 2020, there were nearly 5 million applicants to the EU Settlement Scheme, which shows the European population has been underestimated.

I bring this up, because it is with the Settlement Scheme that my citizenship process began, and indeed a process quite different for non-citizens with origins from elsewhere. Ever since the Brexit referendum in 2016, European migration to Britain has slowed down, and many have returned to Europe. I cannot speak for immigrants everywhere, but an enduring sense of anxiety looming in the back of my mind has been fears of a recalcitrant government revoking residency rights. What would follow would entail deportation to a country I feel rather distant from and

would struggle to adjust to. A sense of dread set in on that fateful morning on June 24th 2016 as I heard the results and then set off to school to finish my GCSEs, which felt like an omen.

At that point I had been living in the UK some six years, and to be sent packing would have felt like being uprooted. But this fear was alleviated when news of the Settlement Scheme came out – ‘settled status’, or an indefinite leave to remain, would be available for application providing a continuous proof of residency for at least five years could be established.

My family’s application in this was quite straightforward – filled with delays and complicated online forms, but straightforward.

The scheme has been criticised in its own right, from lacking a physical certificate to prove a settled status, which produces its own problems at the borders.

As part of possessing settled status, application for citizenship becomes legible for those who meet the five-year residency requirement. From there a whole other host of other conditions, tests and bureaucratic hurdles lie in the way.

According to the Home Office website, in the statistical year ending March 2020, here were

Cherwell | Friday, 11th June 2021 165,693 applications for British ing, they remarked quite funnily process it. Mine was processed occasional acknowledgement here citizenship, with a marked in- that those migrants in occupa- within a few weeks, although my and there. In a political atmocrease in the proportion of Eu- tions the economy would most invitation to a ceremony took sphere where the National Trust ropean citizens applying at 27%, require would find it very difficult longer due to renewed lockdowns. daring to inform visitors to councompared to 12% in 2016. It seems to become citizens, as opposed I could not help but feel my being try houses with historical links to that Brexit served this push for to an Oxford undergrad like me. a student here helped in this – I Atlantic slavery causes a culture citizenship, for those thousands as Reflecting on it, I find that the can’t imagine many applicants war and major backlash, Chapter much as for my family. Although point is the government is happy come with letters from Oxford. At Three, ‘A long and illustrious my actual application was submit- enough to have them exploited for this moment of it being accepted, history’, fits in very well. Ireland ted in August 2020, I had decided their labour, not to give them the I could not help but feel that is mentioned here and there, with the previous summer, falling into vote. despite the costs and stress of the some unfortunate rebellions and the previous statistical year, and Nevertheless, my journey began whole process, mine was still from potato crops failing, the Ulster for good reason. Out of those around autumn 2019, just before a position of relative comfort. Plantation being glossed over, and 165,693 applications, 163,624 university began. One of the perks And looking back on all the other no mention of illustrious England were granted. This seems a high of a blue passport is not having to stages, I started to recognise this desolating the island in the Tudor proportion, but it’s important to as well. and Stuart periods and causing give good consideration “Even An episode where famines – no mention of the to your likelihood to I recognised this laissez-faire approach to famine succeed, because the ceremony where monarchism well was during relief during the Irish famine and the hoops to jump the famous Life maintaining grain exports from through are many. In is imposed upon you carries such a in the UK Test, Ireland while millions hungered. the end, my family decoming with its own Empire is treated much the same. cided only I should apply. In penalty.” £50 fee for what is a very The Boer War in South Africa gets terms of money, this was already a odd questionnaire. Announced in mentioned, but for all the menhigh cost — for my parents to do as provide proof for your continuous 2002 and introduced for naturali- tions of industrial innovations well would have been collectively residency in the UK for everything. sation and eventually settlement during the Victorian period, there very expensive for us. For many, From UCAS to other applications, in 2005 and 2007 respectively, the are no references to Britain’s the price of citizenship is prohib- I was a common fixture at my sec- test is a very strange beast. It’s illustrious innovation in being itively expensive. Since 2018, the ondary school’s reception to ask been constantly criticised again the first to deploy concentration naturalisation fee for adults has for letters confirming that I had in and again by the newspapers as camps in the modern sense in the been £1,330. By comparison, in fact been attending the school the being factually incorrect, not same war. Discussing the slave 2007 when Romania joined the EU, whole of my secondary education, actually providing any incentive trade fares better, but the focus the fee was £655. Of course, this which fell in quite neatly with for learning, containing questions is on its eventual abolition from is only for the application itself the usual five-year requirement. on knowledge the average Brit 1807 to 1833, with no mention of – other fees, such as for booking This is one of the requirements would not know about, or just the plantation owners receiving the various exams and so on are for naturalisation, assuming the being plain ambiguous on the major reparations for the “cost” not included, and the overall cost application follows settled status. meanings of Britishness. The test of emancipation. Inventions, turns out much higher by the end. For an indefinite leave to remain is based off of information in an kings and queens and Empire This is further aggravated by the granted to those from outside the official booklet, which is a jumble nostalgia occupy the history secfact that an unsuccessful applica- EU, many of the requirements of various things from history, to tion, making a clumsy but clearly tion, including the costs, is thrown for such follow the same as for a cultural events, Olympics gold triumphalist and glossy narrative out the window. Re-applying car- citizenship application, with the medallists, or the UK’s different with mentions of an atrocity here ries the same price. To appeal the addition that following the grant- nations structure. The questions and there, those mentions muted decision carries its own fees. Even ing of the leave they continue to are primarily British history, and enough to imply unfortunate acthe ceremony where monarchism reside for a year before applying by ‘British’ the focus is obviously cidents which British prowess can is imposed upon you carries such to become full-fledged citizens. I on England, which meant that always overcome and otherwise a penalty. If you miss it, it may be too, had to wait at least a year fol- as a History student I found it don’t stain this illustrious story. re-booked, but otherwise without lowing my settlement under the very easy and no trouble at all, I can’t help but wonder if future completing it your application EU scheme, but for the citizenship which I doubt many of the other editions will just sing the Empire’s is overturned – and there is a applicants could relate to when praise without any self-restraint deadline to go through with there are such questions as who at all. For historians, writing hisit, typically three months in was declared Lord Protector, or tory is complicated stuff; for the virus-free times. This points just very outdated British culture government it isn’t. to a common theme already, of such as who directed The 39 Steps.

An equally expensive but more the hostility towards the wider I doubt the next person on the amusing episode was proving I groups of people not born here. street is well acquainted with And particularly, towards those the 1930s catalogue lacking the thousands to spare of Hitchcock “For historians, writing or those filling the ranks of lowfilms. But I er-income ‘essential workers’, could not help history is complicated stuff; for which have been givbut find the en so much lip history section government it isn’t.” service during fascinating in the the pandemnarratives it created and ic. Telling the image of Britain it pushed knew English. The requirement a friend onto prospective citizens that seems reasonable, but the condiof the must learn the booklet inside out, tions seem like another occasion difficulties people which probably lack much for prospective citizens to be in applycomplex history education unlike fleeced for their money. GCSEs application I had yet again to snotty Oxford students. and A Levels don’t count, and prove my continuous residency.

The booklet has gone through only a completed degree is proof.

A letter from school could only three revisions since its introduc- Instead, a certificate is required, provide for four of those years, so I tion, but it seems that regardless a certificate acquired through a had to get a letter from my College of whether Labour or Conserva- £65 speaking and listening exam showing my years of attendance tives are in charge, there is little which consists of a five-minute here. When I submitted my appli- room for a nuanced look on Brit- chat with the examiner. You pick cation in August 2020, I was told ain’s history, and even less room in advance what topic you would it could take up to six months to for its unsavoury aspects bar the like to discuss, and deciding to

18 liven up these bored bureaucrats’ conversations, I decided to speak about Oxford. The examiner was very surprised indeed and towards the end of those five minutes, she asked why I was having to do this test. I replied quite simply ‘Bureaucracy’. What else?

The most difficult episode in this saga was the naturalisation referees, where luck saved the day. A legal website I browsed at the time made note that the requirement for two referees seems more like being induced into a country club than the process for citizenship. Signing some forms and potentially being called by the Home Office, the referees must be British Citizens in an approved list of professions. That same website noted that this is usually the point of struggle for most applicants – the profession list. From teachers and doctors to CEOs and even MPs, the list is obviously exclusive for the professional, middle and upper-class sort. Essentially, I got lucky – one of my old teachers at school agreed to referee for me, while I discovered one of my friends’ parent fit the bill. They happily refereed for me, but it felt quite denigrating in having to bother them so they could confirm I would be a good citizen and not a terrorist. But otherwise, I would have been left in the dust, as are many with no personal acquaintance with anyone in these professions. And the point is clear in its favouring of those with connections and those with very high incomes. The citizenship process is designed to be as prohibitive as possible, to discourage and block as many applicants as possible. I can only see it as a wider extension of the Hostile Environment policy, which despite its stated aim of targeting those without leave to remain, denigrates and abuses all those with migrant origins, as the Windrush scandal has shown again and again.

As I finished my Life in the UK test, I was preparing to leave the examination hall. At the doorthe way I stopped and looked back around for a moment. I had finished in around ten minutes, while the other applicants were still going at it. Many were middle-aged and the only thing we seemed to have in common as we registered earlier was thick accents. I looked around and wondered what their occupations were, what they were doing with life as they lived here in Britain.

And I left wondering why it was necessary they should know about Henry VIII’s wives. Would they not be worthy citizens otherwise?

Artwork by Rachel Jung .

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Friday, 11th June 2021 | Cherwell

profiles

IN CONVERSATION WITH: DR. ROBERT LEFKOWITZ Prakrit Prasad speaks to Nobelprizewinning scientist, Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, about serendipity, lineages, and the addictive nature of discovery.

approved by the FDA target these structures NIH, though, Lefkowitz had his first taste anybody else did, that’s called confirming first identified by Lefkowitz and his team. of success and began publishing in highsomebody else’s findings. You’ve got While he may not be seeing patients as he impact journals such as PNAS, Nature, nothing original. You’ve got nothing to once envisioned, I’d say his career isn’t too and Science. However, it simply wasn’t publish. shabby. He says it was an accident. enough to sway him from throwing himself “So you have the difference between not “I had no intention of becoming a into a senior medical residency at daring to do it differently and if you don’t scientist,” Lefkowitz tells me. His Massachusetts General Hospital, do it differently, you’ve got nothing. I think first foray into research was one Boston. He had always loved if you have a creative spark, if you have of necessity: a loophole that clinical medicine, and creative yearnings, if you have a desire to ‘Becoming ight-year-old Robert Lefkowitz allowed him to avoid being his residency was no write the book rather than read the book, a physician was was a man (well, boy) with a plan. drafted to Vietnam in the different. Six months in, you’re eventually drawn to the research Inspired by his family physician, 1960s. though, he tells me he side of medicine.” one of the greatest Dr Feibush, he knew he wanted to “It was a very unpopular had an “epiphany”.

Whilst I won my primary school art become a doctor. war. Nobody wanted to “I had this feeling competition (two years in row, no less), I privileges of my life and “At a very early age, I decided I go over there – some for something was imagine this isn’t the sort of creativity the opportunity to care wanted to be just like this guy ethical reasons, missing. I was not as Lefkowitz is on about. Indeed, he says and I never wavered from some for content as I expected it’s all about the question – choosing a for people and relieve that. In retrospect I felt m o r a l to be. I had this question and figuring out how to answer it.

‘I had this feeling that as a true calling, reasons. suffering … to me that’s feeling every day that Or, indeed, whether it is even possible to meaning something Maybe there was something answer it. something was missing. the highest privilege which I felt that, at t h e y I wasn’t doing that I “There is probably no more important I was not as content as I a very deep level, w e r e wanted to. I realised I set of decisions that a scientist makes in you can have.’

I was destined to cowards, I missed the laboratory. their careers than what to work on. In the expected to be.’ do. Not that I can don’t know.

I missed the day-to-day moment that you choose the problem, you explain why.”

Certainly, no excitement of planning are setting the upper limit of what you Whilst Lefkowitz is physicians wanted experiments, grappling with a could ever achieve. Let’s say you choose now one of the most wellto go because we, as a group, scientific problem, analysing data, an essentially trivial problem and you known names in the medical world, it didn’t support the war at all. But there were forming hypotheses. I realised I needed to succeed at the highest level – you write isn’t for being a practising doctor. Sitting very few legal ways around getting shipped change my career plans so that research a hundred papers, you define everything before me is a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry out to Vietnam for a year. One of the few played some role in my career.” you possibly could about what and one of the most cited researchers was to be drafted into the public health From then on, Lefkowitz you were studying. Nobody in the biological sciences. After service because they had a number gradually incorporated cares. You have a trivial ‘I think if completing medical school of positions here in the United more and more research question, you’re going to and some years of residency, States including some very into his career. have a trivial answer. you have a creative Lefkowitz went from sought-after ones at the After completing Nobody’s ever going bedside to bench to focus NIH and the CDC, as his cardiology to care. spark, if you have creative on a research career. examples.” fellowship, he started “At the other end yearnings, if you have a He was awarded Armed with a his own lab at Duke of the spectrum, you the Nobel in 2012 strong academic University. As he could choose a really desire to write the book for the discovery record, Lefkowitz concludes, “the rest important question of G-proteinreceived a twois history”. but in general the rather than read the book, coupled receptors year Public Now, Lefkowitz more important the you’re eventually drawn (GPCRs). GPCRs Health Service describes himself as a question is, the riskier are molecules Commission clinician-scientist, but I is, the more difficult to the research side of toitsolve on the surface and began wonder whether his focus it is. If you go so of membranes working at on fundamental concepts far over in choosing a nonmedicine.’ that enable the National in molecular biology leaves trivial, important problem communication I n s t i t u t e much room for patient-centred that you’ve chosen something b e t w e e n of Health thinking. which neither you nor anybody else is cells, and are (NIH) after “I think there’s a linkage. I have both going to figure out in fifteen to twenty therefore central completing MDs and PhDs in my laboratory. Many years because conceptually we‘re not even to biological two years of of the PhD scientists don’t have any in the place to even approach that yet, then function.

For medical house overarching vision of human biology in you also fail.” example, one training.

It’s an integrative sense. I really do think that “The secret,” Lefkowitz tells me, is “to subset of GPCRs safe to say he the only way to get that is to go to medical proceed as far as you can on the spectrum enables our hated it. school. Even though the research I do is from triviality to importance. Without response to the “I met with very basic, fundamental, biochemical, cellfalling off the cliff in terms of whether it’s hormone, adrenaline. unremitting biological, biophysical, there are always even doable.”

Another for responding failure,” he states clinical ramifications to it [...]

All this sounds pretty simple. to serotonin and so on. with a long pause, Now, did I set out specifically In theory, at least. Choose Importantly, GPCRs “and that was a new to develop drugs or cure something that’s can also be targeted experience for me. I any diseases? No. But I important but not by medication, and had never experienced did have this abiding impossible. But how do ‘You gotta know when nowadays more sustained failure at sense that if the kind you tell if something than a third anything in my life and of receptors I thought to hold ’em, and you gotta is important and if of drugs I must say I think I got a would exist and then it’s even doable if it know when to fold ‘em.’ little depressed there.” proved did exist then If has never been done In his last few I could make headway in before? months at understanding them there Lefkowitz has clearly t h e would have to be therapeutic been asked this question implications of that.” many, many times (the Whilst Lefkowitz has certainly downsides of winning a Nobel, I made a huge, albeit unintentional, clinical guess). He chuckles as he answers. impact through his research, I ask how he “You can’t! It involves having a certain feels about leaving his first calling behind. sense of taste doesn’t it?” Lefkowitz puts Was all that time (and stress) at medical forward a neat analogy about going into an school really worth it? He has absolutely art gallery and being able to distinguish “a no regrets. piece of crap” from “a work of art”.

“Becoming a physician was one of He is unequivocal about the importance the greatest privileges of my life and of mentorship in developing this sense of the opportunity to care for people and scientific taste, citing the prevalence of relieve suffering … to me that’s the research lineages as evidence. highest privilege you can have.

“You learn from a mentor. Does that “That said, the practice of medicine is mean the mentor explains it to you? No, not an innovative and creative enterprise. because nobody can explain this. You It’s set in stone and as long as you follow watch them for x years, live with them. In what’s set in stone you’re going to be the laboratory you watch what they choose ok. What about research? Exactly the to work on, what they choose to put the opposite. If you do anything the way emphasis on, when do they choose to give

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Cherwell | Friday, 11th June 2021

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up on something, when do they choose his recently published (and brilliant) to soldier on even in the face of repeated memoir, ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the failure [...] You gotta know when to hold Way to Stockholm: The Adrenaline Fueled ’em, and you gotta know when to fold ‘em.

Adventures of an Accidental Scientist’, “These are judgement calls nobody can Lefkowitz conveys how unsettling fierce write down the set of rules for, but if you competition can become. Though he watch a talented mentor month after month certainly sees the good in competitive for several years you begin to internalise spirit, he admits to me that research “is not their value judgement system. I believe for the faint-hearted”. that this is precisely why we have “There are some people in the lineages in science which are very scientific field who would have important. That is to say if you you believe erroneously that ‘When look at the scientific category everybody behaves in a perfect of people [who] have been fashion all the time, we’re all you make a very successful in science gentlemen and gentleladies and you ask, ‘who did they discovery and you and we’re all above the fray. train with?’ Nine times out And that is abject bullshit. know you’ve made of ten you’re going to find “[...] You name any they trained with an equally important scientific a discovery, it’s or even more successful and discovery, the more important scientist.” important, the more intense addictive.’

Lefkowitz points me to an the competitiveness. Why is article he wrote a few years ago in that? Because it’s just part of which he traced his own scientific human nature. Is it a good or bad family tree, and an impressive one it is thing? Within limits it’s a good thing indeed. Three Nobel Laureates spanning because science happens more quickly just four generations. He also traced the than it otherwise would, because you’re ancestry of eight other NIH clinical fellows, driven by the competitiveness. The time and it is really quite extraordinary. I can’t when it becomes bad is when people are put it better than Lefkowitz: it’s “studded so driven that they steal each other’s data with superstars”. The fact one of his or do dishonest things, et cetera et cetera. “mentees”, Brian Kobilka shared the Nobel Those things, fortunately, are rare but they with Lefkowitz is perhaps a testament to do occur.” how important mentoring is to him. And Lefkowitz takes a moment to reflect this certainly comes across this evening, on his own experiences in the race to as he reads me an email he had just sent determine the structure of GPCRs and to one of his “scientific grandchildren”, touches on an almost ensnaring quality to congratulating him on his recent work. discovery, perhaps offering a reason why While this idea of a nurturing scientific some might take an under-handed route to community is certainly appealing, research success. is ultimately fuelled by competition. In “When you make a discovery and

you know you’ve made a discovery, it’s awarded related to Covid it would not be addictive. It doesn’t have to be a Nobel to any of the people who developed the prize-winning discovery like a family of vaccines. It would be to the two scientists GPCRS. It can be some trivial little thing. who developed the mRNA technology But standing there in front of a counter or about a decade ago and had nothing to do spectrophotometer or whatever piece of with the covid vaccine. If that happens, you equipment it is, seeing the numbers come could make the case that it could happen out and realising you’re the first person in this year, which would be unheard of. In a the world to ever appreciate this tiny little moment in 2020, that research went from thing. Wow. I mean that’s great, that really backwater significance to kind of saving is. And that’s what becomes addictive.” the world. It would not amaze me if they Lefkowitz has been in the research game won the prize right out of the gate.” for quite some time and we move to Whilst Covid research has exemplified discuss how science has changed the power of modern science, over this period, and even the I wonder what the future of last year during the pandemic. research holds beyond the ‘In a “Things are progressing pandemic, half-expecting exponentially faster. I’ve a non-committal answer moment in been in science [a] little about the vastness of 2020, [mRNA over fifty years. When human biology or perhaps I look back on the first a nod to Lefkowitz’s vaccine research] decade it was almost like background in cardiology. a leisure sport compared went from backwater As a neuroscience stan to a frenetic baseball (is that embarrassing to game today. It was almost significance to kind say/admit?), I am happily leisurely compared to what mistaken. of saving the we have today. I think things “I’m not a visionary. I know do move much more quickly. the things which I find the world.’

Granted it was not fundamental most fascinating, but they are research, but the development of so far from being worked out. The the Covid vaccines is dazzling. It’s whole basis of neurobiology, of mind, one of the greatest triumphs of applied the way the nervous system works … is just biomedical research in history.” mind-bending.”

As a Laureate I had imagined Lefkowitz And on that somewhat prophetic note, as having some degree of inside scoop on Lefkowitz tells me he has to dash off to the Nobel. I ask whether the Covid vaccines a meeting. I quit the zoom call and have had a chance of winning. Whilst he tells another look at his diagram of scientific me he does not know more than the next lineages and wonder how long it must’ve person, he has clearly thought about it to taken him to map out. some extent.

“There’s a shot. If a Nobel prize is Image Credit: Robert Lefkowitz

Student Profiles: Jade Calder

Issy Kenney-Herbert speaks to Jade Calder about Class Act, the importance of nuanced conversations and accidentally stumbling into the best experiences.

I

open the call unaware that the student I am about to interview is actually in self isolation. Jade (she/they) appears on camera with a juice box one of her flatmates picked up – she laughs at how she feels like a kid with a packed lunch when drinking it. Jade is a second year History Student at St Peters, and Co-Chair of Class Act, the SU Campaign intended to support, represent and campaign on behalf of students from working class, low income, first generation and state comprehensive school backgrounds.

Yet, how they got involved is somewhat unconventional: “I sort of joined by accident”, Jade laughs. “I mean I was always aware of Class Act; I had seen their stall at the Freshers Fair, and was looking to support them and get involved in any way I could - I didn’t know how to. Then throughout the year, they had some drop in sessions, I messaged and they were always super friendly! I saw that the SU had campaign elections and I wasn’t quite sure how the elections worked so just put myself down for a Class LGBT intersection rep and then forgot about it. I think I meant to apply for LGBTQ Soc, because I thought it was the same thing. So, I had applied for Class Rep for Soc and Class Rep for Campaign, and no one ran against me, so I got it by default.

Jade reflects, “It was one of the best accidents that has ever happened to me at Oxford, because I found a group of people I could relate to and talk to honestly about our experiences.

For me, this was being part of both Class Act and LGBTQ Campaign. And we were actually getting involved with the issues, getting on with things and it’s a group of people who aren’t doing things for their own CV. It was like, alright we have got some issues at this university, let’s work on it and actually fight for something better.”

Jade’s passion shines through as we delve deeper into some of the projects that Class Act is currently working on: “There are quite a few! Class Act are really keen to do a report or

investigation into the realities of lived experiences of Oxford students from the broad under-privileged socio-economic class umbrella. It gets parroted so much at open days and in access literature that ‘it doesn’t matter which college you go to’ - I think there is a lot of reasons why that is a myth. If you are a low-income student or an independent student, it can have a significant effect on the cost of living, the state school to private ratio, hardship funds, the general atmosphere and whether you feel supported coming from a particular background. When I was applying to Oxford, I was told to apply to Mansfield where there are a lot of state-school students; instead I went to St Peters which is 50% private school and it doesn’t have a lot of money to support people financially. There is a lack of information and transparency, and the experience of applying for the hardship fund is different at each college.

So, this is something that we really want to tackle.”

Jade pauses for a moment, before going on to articulately voice a wider issue they think this speaks to, “Personally speaking, a lot of people have a two-minded opinion of access.

On the one hand you want to make sure Oxford is open to everyone, regardless of background, ensuring the people who would get something out of it, have the chance to come here.

My concern is once you are at Oxford, is there support in place?

Is there a healthy, supportive environment for you once you are here, and can I honestly say that is true. For some students, if they find the right people or are at the right college, they will really enjoy their time here and will encourage people to apply.

Other people have had really nasty experiences, and therefore well-reasoned reservations as to why they may think ‘am I just leading lambs to the slaughter here when I tell them to apply to Oxford’ even though they are capable of the work. So when I think about access, I think about access as in improving the accessibility and experience of students when they are actually here. And that’s what Class Act is all about, we are not about outreach but about improving the experience of students who are here.”

“On top of the report, I have been working with a friend to create a working-class magazine for creatives, featuring poetry, art and essays, which has been a long time coming,”

Jade continues. “I think the creative scene at Oxford can feel a bit impenetrable, private school London dominated, and it doesn’t speak much to my experiences. It appeals to a certain type of person, and often doesn’t involve many people from the class umbrella background. And that cycle is perpetuated in the real world, where so much attention is given to the middle class creative world in London, and more provincial creative institutions outside of London are not given as much of a look in or funding.”

She laughs as she says, “Of course, us putting out a little magazine isn’t going to fix all of that. But hopefully in some small way, it will give people a bit of confidence. I think that is something that is really lacking in people, they’ll think ‘oh this isn’t for me’ but if you give someone a platform, help someone gain confidence by saying ‘you are really good - maybe no one has said you are really good before but you are, and maybe you should pursue this? you might not have gone to a private school with a really top of the range creative faculty and your own school arts magazine, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create and that doesn’t mean you aren’t worth listening to, or it’s not worth exhibiting your work.’ You need diverse voices.”

As the interview draws to a close, Jade reflects on the discussions of class at Oxford: “I think more broadly, class as a topic, as a discussion point, as something that people should be aware of. I don’t think it is on minds of the student population as much as it ought to be. They continue, “which is interesting because when a lot of people think of Oxbridge, in the media and the wider general public’s view of the institutions, they often think of it as elitist, with the image of the Bullingdon Club coming to their mind.” She pauses, “And then when you get to Oxford, people don’t’ necessarily show a nuanced awareness beyond, ‘ehhh Eton’ or ‘eh private schools’.

Read the full interview at cherwell.org.

Image credit: Jade Calder

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sport Mauricio Alencar

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Friday, 11th June 2021 | Cherwell

Fitness, fans, and focus: OURFC prepare for the

t’s a month and a half before Varsity kicks off, but the women’s rugby squad have just finished a brutal HIIT session. They have been sprinting up and down the pitch for quite some time now, and they were only allowed a few seconds of rest in between each burst. At the end of the workout, the players convene as a group, and they discuss the importance of fitness in the lead-up to Varsity. After waiting for some time, some of the squad members from the women’s team shared some of their early thoughts on Varsity with me. There is a sense that, even with so long to go, the squad demands a high level of quality in preparation for when the first drop kick gets Varsity going on the 4th of July.

“I think players are just super keen to get back to it and I think we’ve been looking really sharp given the lot of time we’ve had off. I think people just love being back and it’s definitely shown,” Fiona Kennedy, the captain of the women’s rugby team, tells me. Bianca Coltellini, who will be playing Varsity for the first time this year, told me that “no one’s missed any sessions really” and that it was great to see “how badly everyone wants” to play rugby and win Varsity this year. It’s been a long year on pressure and preparation: “It adds that Blues beat a physical team 35-7 in a match December weather, students and other for the rugby club. Multiple lockdowns, extra motivation to want to win and to which consisted of three blocks of 20 mininterested watchers will be taking coaches having to adapt to new rules in training avoid the losses. It’s definitely on the foreutes. The women’s team will play Bristol to Welford Road in Leicester from Oxford. and exams for many of the finalists in front of your memory but that’s not how University Women’s Rugby Football Club Tickets for the matches are still being sold the squads have meant that the club’s you prepare for a game. You prepare for a this weekend, in what will be a challengon The Varsity Matches website. After what preparation in the buildup to Varsity has game by focusing on your strengths and ing test against a strong rugby side ahead will hopefully be a successful shoeing-ofbeen more difficult than ever. It has been looking to win rather than being scared to of The Varsity Matches in Leicester. the-tabs for Oxford, much of the Oxonian the case for every other sports club in the lose.” Should the Oxford men’s team win Although some match practice will crowds will be attending the “After Party” university that this has been a strange and Varsity, it will be their 8th win in 11 years. be pivotal for OURFC in the lead-up to event at Park End, should the government difficult academic year, but OURFC have Both the men and women’s teams are Varsity, there is little that can be done to approve Step 4 in time for the 4th of July. the chance to cap it all off with two wins preparing by looking solely at themselves. prepare for playing in front of thousands As finalists get their exams done and over the tabs in front of a crowd of dark Little to no video footage from Cambridge of students.The change of venue from COVID restrictions loosen, OURFC lead blue in Leicester. is available due to the lack of matches Twickenham to Leicester, due to “likely Oxford out of the academic year and into The Varsity Matches has a long history played in the last year. “The focus is on restrictions on numbers”, may be seen as a what will hopefully be the dawning of the of 149 years, first being played in 1872. us”, as Shirley Kennedy told me. Clodagh negative aspect of this year’s Varsity in the post-pandemic world for the UK. George The Dark Blues have won a total of 79 VarHolmes, a winger for the women’s team, eyes of many, as the prestige of playing at Messum discussed how this year’s historic sity Matches, with the men’s team Twickenham is arguably what makes Varsity Matches make it “a pretty special winning 60 of the 138 matches The Varsity Matches so special. Howyear to be involved with the club”, with the and the women’s team winning 19 “THE DARK BLUES HAVE WON A TOTAL OF ever, in the eyes of the players, there summer match being played in the middle of the 31 matches. There have been are also many positives to be taken of a pandemic and shortly after multiple a total of 14 draws in the men’s fix79 VARSITY MATCHES, WITH THE MEN’S out of not playing at the home of Engsquad members finished important exams. tures and no draws in the women’s land Rugby and instead playing at the He reflected, “I think the hope is that in fixtures. In a strange year where TEAM WINNING 60 OF THEIR 138 MATCHES home of the Leicester Tigers. Smaller 5-10 years’ time, when the boys are dothe Varsity Matches will be played and more tightly packed, Mattioli ing their reunions, we will look back and in the summer rather in December AND THE WOMEN’S TEAM WINNING 19 OF Woods Welford Road stadium has a think- wow, this is a pretty spe— as is the tradition — George capacity of just over 25,000 cial year to be involved Messum, who is the captain of the THEIR 31 MATCHES.” and it has previously with the club.” men’s Blues playing at back row, hosted Rugby World Image credit: made a point of making the most Cup games, as John Walton out of the uniqueness of the year: “I think said that “in the past there has probably in 1999 and 1991. / CC maybe one of the positives of this year is been a bit too much focus on what CamGeorge Messum BY-NC that it does make it different to perhaps bridge were doing and not necessarily on mentions how 2.0. what’s been happening in previous years. what we’re doing”. She added that they will the stadium’s I’m fortunate enough to have been infocus on “strengthening ourselves and not standing volved a few years ago and obviously last aiming to weaken Cambridge”. Sam Miller areas and year, so as experience it’s certainly been echoed these thoughts. The men’s squad “ ver t ic a l” different. It’s been a nice sort of change of is not tamed by the prospect of facing st a nd s pace and timing on that side.”

Cambridge’s locks Flip van der Merwe and will bring Both teams will be looking to put DeJames Horwill, who have 98 international a great cember 2019’s results aside ahead of July’s caps between them for South Africa and atmosON THE 11TH JUNE 2017, RAFAEL match. The women’s team narrowly lost Australia respectively. Sam said that they phere, 5-8 to Cambridge at Twickenham in 2019, will “prepare how [they] can best rather whereas NADAL BEAT STAN WAWRINKA TO whereas the men’s team lost 15-0. Teams than over-analysing the opposition”.

Hannah often change every year with the turnover Oxford will have some high-level expeCooper of players coming in as new undergradurience of their own in the teams. Manon said the BECOME THE FIRST MAN TO WIN 10 ates or postgraduates. Louis Jackson, who Johnes, who is currently training with the “crowd plays as a back, thinks this turnaround of Blues ahead of what could potentially be will feel FRENCH OPEN TITLES. players is “one of the kind of beauties of her first Varsity for the Oxford women’s m u c h the Varsity Match”, as new players are able team, has 13 caps for Wales, whereas closer” and to inject added quality and energy to the George Messum has previously captained the pressure teams every year. The official squads will ‘England students’. In order for the squads of playing at be announced to the public in due course. to gain match experience playing together, Tw i c k e n h a m Sam Miller has played in two Varsity both teams are also making use of stage will be removed matches before as a flanker, winning in ‘E2’ of the RFU’s ‘Return to Rugby’ roadfrom the match.

2018 but losing in the year after. He tells map, allowing them to play full contact Instead of going to OTD image me what kind of impact the “pleasure of matches against other clubs. In one recent West London to watch credit: Good twins winning and the displeasure of losing” has match against Maidenhead RFC, the men’s the Dark Blues play in cold / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Varsity Matches on the 4th July

ON THIS DAY

Cherwell | Friday, 11th June 2021

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ENGLISH FOOTBALL AT A CROSSROADS

W

Ciara Garcha

hilst it is arguably unsurprising that Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City squad won the 2020-21 Premier League title, outside of silverware, this has been a Premier League season like no other. As fans stormed onto the pitch at Old Trafford, blocked the team bus at Stamford Bridge and united across the country to call for greater fan representation in the leadership of clubs, the turmoil of the past few months have brought English football to a crossroads.

Sparked by the revelaton that a selection of elite European teams had organised themselves into a European Super League, fans sprung into action, demanding immediate and substantial change. ESL proposals, it was claimed, were elitist and against the spirit of the game. The fact that the decision to pull out of the Champions League and disrupt the very framework of English football had been taken without any consultation with fans illuminated the larger problem at the heart of the modern competition. Football, “the people’s game”, has not been so for a long time.

This ushered in some of the most remarkable scenes in modern football. For a brief moment, fans from every team united against the ESL proposals and called for the introduction of 50+1. The model of public ownership in place in Germany, whereby fans hold a majority of decision-making power within their clubs, was promptly seized on as a means of combatting the encroaching privatisation of the game that has taken place over the past few decades. From Arsenal to Liverpool, the red side of Manchester to the blue, fans mobilised against ESL and for fundamental reforms to the game.

Though the Super League fell apart and concluded almost as quickly as it began, the

fact remains that English football has reached a fork in its path. With the disintegration of the ESL and the fan campaigns having technically achieved their aim, football could carry on the way it has done of late. But, the energy and force by which fans responded to ESL showed that an alternative future for the game is possible: a future in which football is returned to the fans.

That this was a moment that would not simply fade away was proven by the pitch invasions at Manchester United’s Old Trafford before the biggest fixture in the Premier League calendar, United vs. Liverpool. United fans have been protesting Glazer ownership for over a decade, but there was something quite astonishing about seeing fans pour

onto the historic pitch, calling for 50+1 and an end to the privatisation of the club. Weeks after the ESL fell apart, the sentiments that motivated the campaign behind it were still running strong amongst football fans. Awkward and half-hearted apologies from club owners for their involvement in ESL would not be enough to placate them. The protests, which led to the postponement of the fixture and a secretive operation to ensure that the rescheduled fixture would go ahead, showed that football fans would not be easily appeased.

Since the brisk rise and fall of the ESL and the scenes at Old Trafford, and indeed stadiums across the country, clubs have made a move towards amplifying the voice of fans

and embedding it within the governance of the club. Chelsea announced that it would introduce a supporter presence at board meetings, to ensure that the fan base was represented at discussions on key issues. The notorious Glazer ownership of Manchester United committed to engaging with fans: Joel Glazer attended a fan forum meeting and committed to “ensuring that [the supporters] are given an enhanced voice”. The past few weeks have seen an effort to conciliate supporters, expanding their role and position within clubs.

However, these measures have not been enough to quiet a considerable section of supporters who now believe 50+1 and public ownership principles should be the future of the game. A parliamentary petition to enforce the 50+1 rule in England currently has well over the 100,000 signatures necessary to trigger a parliamentary debate. The 50+1 model has been cited as the method by which the ruptures exposed by the ESL can be healed and the game can be restored to the fans.

The 2020-21 season was unlike any other.

Played in the midst of a global pandemic, in eerily echoing stadiums, it was always going to be a strange and unusual season. But what has been truly remarkable is the way that the events of the past few months have galvanised supporters to ask more of their clubs and demand ownership of the game.

The past few months have shown the desire for a future in which supporters have fair and substantial power over the game, and in which football is returned to public ownership and its community roots. It remains to be seen which direction English football will take, but it is clear that supporters and their stake in the game can no longer be ignored.

Image credit: Lawrie Cate / CC BY 2.0

S P O R T S

S H O R T S

OUCC NARROWLY LOSE WEATHERHAMPERED VARSITY

OXFORD WIN 8TH CONSECUTIVE POLO VARSITY Matthew Cogan

Matthew Cogan

Sunday 23rd May saw the return of Varsity Cricket to our calendars. This was a one day game played at Lord’s, the home of cricket.

Oxford were the reigning champions after a dominant 56 runs victory in the last game back in 2019 and this year saw them bat first.

It was a strong start from the Oxford opening partnership of Hargrave and Duxbury who put on 46 runs before Duxbury was caught. There were then contributions from Corner and Mohamed who scored 6 and 13 respectively getting Oxford to 83-3. However, it was at this point after only 15.2 overs that the weather took a turn and play had to be suspended due to rain. The rain continued and play was unable to start again until 15:30

at which point the overs for each side had been reduced to only 29 due to the lost time. After play resumed, Hargrave and Gnodde put on a stunning 91 run partnership to thrust Oxford into contention. Oxford finished their 29 overs at 229-4 with Hargrave unbeaten on 105. This left Cambridge with a DLS revised target of 215 to win. The start of their innings saw some brilliant play from Oxford. Searle was able to get a wicket with only the second ball and Cambridge struggled, reaching 176-6 after 25.1 overs. However, after some heroics for the light blues in the shape of Amin who hit an unbeaten 93 off only 50 balls, Cambridge were able to reach the required 215 with 3 balls to spare. Image credit: Yorkspotter / CC BY-SA 4.0.

This year on Saturday 5th June, it was the 122nd instalment of the Varsity Polo match. The game took place at the regular venue of Guards Polo Club in Windsor on what was a beautifully sunny afternoon. Oxford were the current reigning champions, having won the last seven varsity matches on the bounce before the meeting this year, placing a level of pressure on the team. From the start there was some clever play between Cecily Day at No.2 and Tamara Gibbons at No.3 which drew a foul from Cambridge right in front of their goal, allowing Oxford captain Tom Gordon-Colebrooke to coolly tap in the subsequent penalty. This set the tone for the rest of the game with Oxford able to create lots of chances which led to

field goals from Tom and Tamara and despite Cambridge coming up with chances of their own, they were unable to capitalise on their chances. After the first chukka, Oxford’s dominance continued with some brilliant team play leading to four further goals for the team. In response, Cambridge were able to score some cleanly struck 30 yard penalties but it was not enough to claw their way back into the game, with Oxford coming out 8-3 winners. Tamara Gibbons was named most valuable player for the second time after also receiving the accolade after the 2019 game, and Oxford increased their winning streak to 8 straight years.

Image credit: Melissa Bastin (Polo Images)

Cherwell | Friday, 11th June 2021

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puzzles CROSSWORD SPECIAL The crossword answers will be released online a week after the publication of this edition, Happy Puzzling! W. A. Whitten

By Kian Moghaddas and James Hartley No. 1 Down 1. Turn to stone (13).

2. Named after the Qin dynasty (5).

3. Inflammable (9).

5. Founding legal documents (13).

7. An explanation of events in terms of purpose rather than cause (9).

8. Dummy Drug (7).

11. Eaten calmly by Algernon when in trouble (7).

12. Ferocious wild animal; beloved Oxford pub (4).

16. The highest point (4).

19. Judge (4).

21. Praise highly (6).

Across 1. By necessity (8) 4. No way through (7) 6. Laconic (5).

8. Example (8).

9. The Hun (6) 10. Walk around (16).

13. Co-worker (8).

14. Funeral song (5).

15. British, French, Russian (11).

17. Sacred Hymn (5).

18. Driving License, e.g. (14).

19. Excessive self-criticism (16).

20. Decline and ___ (4).

Send solutions to puzzlescherwell@gmail.com.

Image Credit: Andreas Trepte, www.avi-fauna.info. License: CC BY-SA 2.5.

No. 2 Down 1. RNA (11, 4).

2. Study of skin (11).

3. Male bee (5).

4. Pronunciation of ‘r’ at syllable ends in English (9).

5. American linguist who developed theory of transformational grammar (4, 7).

6. Caribbean nation (5).

12. Glassy (8).

14. Jargon or slang (5).

15. Drum (10).

18. Capital of Lydia under Croesus (6).

23. ‘Unsplittable’ particle (4).

24. Area of South Wales (5).

25. Greek poetess (6).

26. Bio (4).

Across 1. Five-leaved flower; the rose tree (12).

7. Federal subject of Russia (5).

8. The Erymanthian ___ (4).

9. Region of New Zealand (5).

10. Second king of Rome (4).

11. Encourage (4).

13. A US state and river (8.

15. 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet (3).

16. Scrooge (5).

17. A line on map marking the boundary between dialects (8) 19. Chalice (5).

20. Mountain of poets (9) 21. Chinese poet (2,2).

21. South American river (7).

By Beatrice Barr No. 3 Down 1. Wall street entry; or, “What about the prospect of an ___, or is it too soon?” (question from Julia Chatterley in the ad breaks of CNN’s 2020 US election coverage) (3).

2. 199 bpm for a 21 year old, for instance (7).

3. A serious or disapproving expression (7).

4. Affectionate term overused in period dramas (4).

5. Element of school English exams, or what someone who hates to be perceived might want to be (6).

6. Mammal which looks a bit like a cute water rat (5).

7. ___ Wiesel, Night author (4).

8. Miraculous.

9. Word with pal, in tabloids (3).

10. Keeper of our student loans (3).

12. Waterway features, as in Iffley or Osney (5).

13. “she _____” (description of an unknown person, by someone who has not read 56a.’s LRB article on pronouns) (4).

14. ___ Air, home of Elle Woods (3).

17. ___ Spiegel (3).

20. Covered, perhaps thinly (6).

21. ___ party (for which The Girls might go to Marbella (3).

24. Batman, to the Joker (or Sabrina Carpenter, to Olivia Rodrigo, perhaps (3).

25. Like inc (3).

27. Strong acid (3).

28. Question from one texting to see if ur up.

30. Like Clubhouse, perhaps (3).

32. A food, subscription, or character in an old book might do this (6).

33. Go ___ (lose it, or a popular outdoor climbing chain (3).

34 London’s third airport: Abbr. (3).

35. Article in 17d (3).

36. Roadside bomb: Abbr. (3).

37. Not masc (3).

38. Biblical product of a spare rib (3).

39. “I like it rough but my _____ tender” (line from Bimini Bon Boulash in 27a) (7).

41. People who might “come on”, in the 80s (7).

42. Holder of an office (perhaps) sought by 19a (7) 43. Took charge of (3).

45. Conservative candidate’s campaign promise, perhaps (6).

46. Insults reclaimed by third-wave feminists (5).

49. “I _____ holiday” (complaint from newspaper columnists deprived of access to their ski chalets/second homes for the last year) (5).

50. Queen ___ (pop icon) (3).

51. Al-___ Mosque (Islamic holy site in Jerusalem) (4).

53. 2009 hit by 50d (4).

54. Bafta-winning creator of I May Destroy You (4).

55. Controversial new UK rail line (3) 56. Hole in the wall (3).

57. Air kiss sound (3).

59. The only country to have hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in five different decades, and home of its most famous winners: Abbr.

(3) Across 1. One who might perform sketches at The Wheatsheaf (3).

4. Jedward, for one (3).

7. Chickens’ predecessors, or perhaps successors? (4).

11. Sao _____ (5).

14. Not straight (does this count as a Pride Month clue?) (4).

15. Bread unit (4).

16. Seat occupied by the predecessor of 19a (10).

18. Teen ____ (Marina and the Diamonds hit) (4).

19. Former child chess champion turned Shadow Cabinet rising star (12).

21. CBBC talking dog, or a profession for Julian Assange (6).

22. Palindrome common in poems (3).

23. Course for someone moving to the UK: Abbr. (3) 26. Vous ___: (fr.) (4).

27. UK ___ (definitely a Pride Month clue) (3).

29. “No worries _____” (email signoff from an underconfident sender, perhaps) (5).

31. Excessively friendly neighbour of The Simpsons (3) 32. Per item, say (4).

34. Like some roofs, or someone being criticised (6) 35. “Who am I if not ____” (question from a member of the proletariat, or Olivia Rodrigo) (9).

37. Third cousin of Elizabeth, and head of a monarchy re-established in 1978 (6).

40. Fix, as a garment (4).

41. Alternate name for 23a (3).

44. ”____ know that!” (words from someone who thinks you’re stupid) (5).

45. He might be Father, Cruz, or Bundy (3).

46. Word with building or web, where children should perhaps not play (4).

47. ”Not all ___” (claim from someone to avoid) (3).

48. Molecule in Moderna or Pfizer, but not AstraZenica (3).

50. One might be sung by Adele or Olivia Rodrigo (6).

52. Government department currently sought by 19a (12).

56. ____ Srinivasan, philosopher & LRB contributing editor (4).

58. Fragile communities of living organisms, and a favourite of the GCSE Science curriculum (10).

60. Road user’s fee (4).

61. Something sung by 4a (4).

62. Quality claim (of questionable honesty) from an Ebay seller (5).

63. Japanese seasoning (4).

64. Abbreviation for Georgia’s capital, or a band I liked in 2014 (3).

65. Secondary school’s most uncomfortable lessons (3).