Cherwell Vol. 274 No.1 by Cherwell

Inside: C investigates the treatment of college staff

Shami Chakrabarti talks Liberty and human rights

Jonathan Yeo on being a portrait painter to the rich and famous

Cherwell Independent since 1920

Somerville’s summer school shame

0th Week Friday 16th January 2015 cherwell.org Vol. 274, No. 1

OUSU VP role up for grads

Elliot Burns News Editor

£6,499 summer school claims to “prepare for admissions process”, contradicting college’s instructions Luke Barratt Editor SOMERVILLE COLLEGE has admitted that it is “concerned” about the advertising material on the website of one of the summer schools that uses its grounds. The College told Cherwell that it instructs all summer schools with which it has dealings not to hold themselves out as representatives of the College or University, or to claim to be able to help students with admission to Oxford. The Oxford Institute, which runs a residential academic course for a month at Somerville over the Long Vacation, costing £6,499 for a four week course, informs visitors to its website, “We offer comprehensive courses to help students prepare for the admission process at Oxford and Cambridge Universities.” The website goes on to claim that The Oxford Institute is “perfectly

placed for students who intend to apply for admission to Oxford and Cambridge Universities”. James Blythe, OUSU’s VP for Access & Academic Affairs, was keen to quash the idea that paid summer schools would increase a student’s chances of receiving an Oxford offer, saying, “The message must come loud and clear from everyone in Oxford to potential applicants: you do not need to spend any money on OUSU VP for Access & Academic Affairs James Blythe said, “You do not need to spend money on any private company’s programmes to get a place here.”

any private company’s programmes to get a place here. “While I understand the financial challenges facing the colleges and the benefits to students that conference income brings, any benefit must always be weighed up against

the potential damage to access to this University caused by allowing an organisation use of college premises, with the implicit or explicit suggestion of a close relationship between the college and the organisation.” Somerville College told Cherwell that they had been in contact with The Oxford Institute and asked them to change their advertising. At the time of publication, however, no changes had been made. In a statement, the College said, “When the Conference Office accepted the application from the Oxford Institute originally, they signed a contract agreeing not to represent themselves as being in any way part of Somerville or the University. The current wording on their website is not as clear as we would like, and we are concerned also about the implication that they would be training people in how to apply to Oxford: both of those things have to change if Governing Body is to be content,

and we have told Oxford Institute so.” However, Adnan Rafiq, Director (Social Sciences) at The Oxford Institute insisted to Cherwell, “Admissions guidance is only a small part of our programme and less than ten per cent of teaching time is dedicated for this purpose. Our summer programme can therefore not be dubbed as ‘Oxbridge Admissions Training’. Blowing the admissions advice aspect of our program out of proportion is unfair.” He also repeated the claims from the school’s website, saying, “However, our programme is indeed valuable for students who are interested in obtaining admission in top universities and some of our students have indeed been accepted at the best universities in the world, including Oxford.” “20 per cent of students enrolled on our 2014 programme were on fully funded scholarships… and were selected on academic merit.”

FOLLOWING YASSER BHATTI’S resignation, due to take effect on Monday 19th January, attention has turned to his replacement. A by-election is expected to be held later this term to decide who will replace him as OUSU Vice-President for Graduates. Nick Cooper, the VP-elect for the Academic year 2015-2016, has categorically ruled out running, stating, “As per OUSU Election Regulation 18.6, Sabbs-elect aren’t eligible to run in by-elections such as this one.” The role of Vice-President for Graduates is to be fulfilled in the interim by Louis Trup, OUSU President, and James Blythe, OUSU Vice-President (Access & Academic Affairs). Bhatti, who was on the ‘Jane4Change’ slate, was elected in Michaelmas Term 2013 and was meant to fulfil the rôle of VicePresident for Graduates for the academic year 2014-15. In the 2013 OUSU elections, Bhatti was elected to the position with 231 votes. OUSU President Louis Trup commented, “Yasser has been a valuable member of the OUSU team, working tirelessly to represent the graduate students at this university. It has been an honour to work with such a capable, innovative and dedicated Next year’s OUSU VP for Graduates Nick Cooper has categorically ruled out running for the vacant position

person. Alongside everyone at OUSU, I wish him all the best in the future.” Yasser Bhatti told Cherwell, “Regrettably, I made the decision to step down as I feel I am unable to juggle the role of VP Graduates along with my family responsibilities. “I apologise for stepping down from the opportunity to further strengthen and serve students and the University, but the intensity of this role is just too much for me and more importantly for my two little girls.”

The Best Students...The Best Property 2015 All Areas: City Centre, Jericho, St.Clements, Headington, Grandpont, Botley and Cowley. Telephone 01865 311745

2 | News

Cherwell

Hilary Term 2015 staff list EDITORS Robert Walmsley (Balliol),

For advertising and business enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us via advertising@ospl.org or on 01865 722780. More information can be found on www.ospl.org The Editors welcome your comments and endeavour to print corrections where appropriate. Oxford Student Publications Limited 7 St Aldates, Oxford OX1 3BS. We reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Published by OSPL ©2015 Printed by: Mortons Print Ltd.

Warwick’s occupation shows students how to fight

James Elliott discusses the involvement of police getting involved in a sit-in in a conference centre in the University of Warwick and tells us what students at Oxford can learn from the experience.

Since 1920

Equal Access

Our front page story this week focuses upon two summer schools held at Somerville, one of which costs £6,499. These summer schools have always been somewhat dubious, as even if they’re not openly sold as a way to pay your way into Oxford, the clear implication exists that they are. After all, why else would these summer schools be so interested in hosting themselves specifically within Oxford colleges? Coming from a state comprehensive myself, I remember seeing advertising for these summer schools with fees that I could never ever had hoped to afford when I was applying for Oxford. The overwhelming sense this left me with was one of unfairness, and the feeling that others would have an unfair advantage in the admissions process. It left me thinking that without having attended one of these summer schools myself, I was somehow less qualified to apply. This, of course, is something that I now know to be nonsense, but it was a serious concern of mine at the time. The point is that image matters when it comes to access, and Oxford colleges should be conscious of the unintended messages they send out when they host summer schools. Sure, it may provide important income to colleges, but perhaps they should take the longer term view that students who were admitted to the University would be more generous donors in future, if Oxford were seen as a symbol of educational merit and equality rather than a bastion of privilege

Community Spirit

Comment, page 8

A first editorial of term is often a rather masturbatory affair. It is not uncommon to see editors write at length about their experiences preparing for that first, exciting print day, or the trials and tribulations of the redesign. But the aim of a good journalist should be to keep themselves out of the spotlight, and lend power to the voices of others, particularly those voices which society might otherwise marginalise. This week’s supplement examines some such voices, looking at the treatment of college staff, those constant companions of our d e g r e e s , whom we see but rarely grow close to. At this university especially, where it can seem difficult diffi cult for students to retain a grasp on a life that doesn’t involve formal dinners, champagne socials, and white tie, it is vital that we do not lose touch with those who have found their way to different Oxford via a slightly diff erent route. Many students, it seems, are all too keen to ignore college staff – from getting up early to go to breakfast when their rooms are to be cleaned, to sparing no more words for hall staff than “chips, please”. It’s just how humans treat other humans. When this editor spoke to Shami Chakrabarti for this week’s profile, she was keen to emphasise the responsibility of students at this university in particular to fight for equality, and offering to make your scout a cup of tea in the morning – this editor’s scout looked liked she’d never been offered one before in her life – doesn’t seem too onerous a task to take up, but it might be an important one

Letters to the editors

editor@cherwell.org 7, St Aldates OX1 3BS @Cherwell_Online

RE: Taking the Oxford air adds up to a 60-a-day habit Look, I may have sent you a news article from 2004 and tried to get you to include it in the paper, but it appeared on my news feed! Considering you took several hours to actually reply to me, maybe you’re not exactly in a position to be criticising. YEAH I’m indignant. I was doing you a favour. petTRACER

Alex Stronell, Hertford Annex Hall

Dear editors, say goodbye to fear of losing your beloved cats. This was the basic idea behind the development of the ﬁrst ultra-light petTRACER GPS-cat collar. We are certain this is something that your readers will be truly interested in. Bop Oﬀ

Alan Ellenberger, In the Rabbit Acre [Translation]

01:23 WE ARE NOT THE CURRENT ENTZ REPS, YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO ASSOCIATE OUR NAMES WITH ANY PART OF THE ARTICLE OR ANY COMMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE IN FURTHER EMAILS. I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU SENT NO FURTHER EMAILS. 01:34 FURTHER TO MY LAST EMAIL, AS WE ARE NOT THE CURRENT ENTZ REPS, YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO ASSOCIATE OUR NAMES WITH ANY PART OF THE ARTICLE OR ANY COMMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE IN FURTHER EMAILS. I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU SENT NO FURTHER EMAILS. Currently Not Entz Reps, At <DO NOT REPLY>

Tweet of the Week

Luke Barratt (Somerville) editor@cherwell.org DEPUTY EDITORS Tom Carter, Emma Cookson, Georgia Latham, Niamh McIntyre, Charlie Atkins editorial@cherwell.org NEWS Suzie Marshall, Elliot Burns, Marianna Spring, Fatima Al-Kassab (Broadcasting) news@cherwell.org NEWS REPORTERS Thea Slotover, Sam Joyce, Iweta Kalinowska, Roma Serina Patel, Claire James, Henry Shalders, Alex Doody, Elif Acar INVESTIGATIONS Tom Calver investigations@cherwell.org COMMENT Tom Robinson, Mary Reader comment@cherwell.org DEPUTY COMMENT Harry Gosling, Sian Meaney, Tom Posa, Lucy Valsamidis, Josh Ames Blackaby, Luke Ames Blackaby, Lucjan Kaliniecki LIFESTYLE Rhiannon GibbsHarris, Ione Wells, Natasha Jones (Broadcasting) lifestyle@cherwell.org DEPUTY LIFESTYLE Summer Taylor, Bex Watson, Ben Berry FASHION Rosie Caragh Gaunt, Roma Serina Patel fashion@cherwell.org DEPUTY FASHION Jack Davies CULTURE Fergus Morgan, Ollie Johnson, Niluka Kavanagh (Broadcasting) culture@cherwell.org ARTS & BOOKS Beatrice Liese, Elliot Langley artsandbooks@cherwell.org FILM & TV Tom Barrie, Eve Beere filmandtv@cherwell.org STAGE Fay Watson, Bethan Roberts stage@cherwell.org MUSIC Sara Semic, Ben WilkinsonTurnbull music@cherwell.org SPORT Emma Williams, Tushar Kelkar sport@cherwell.org DEPUTY SPORT Anna Murphy, Jacob Rabinowitz, Jamie Farmer PUZZLES Aneesh Naik puzzles@ cherwell.org BROADCASTING Tristan Upton, Florence Hyde broadcasting@cherwell.org DEPUTY BROADCASTING Esther Hodges, Megan Gibbons, Livi Wilkinson, James Clemores PHOTO Rachael Griffith PHOTOGRAPHERS Nathan Stazicker, Luke Cave, Lucy Brackin, Alex Benn, Sophie Cheng ILLUSTRATORS Sage Goodwin, David McShane, Naomi Polonsky, Mariota Spens, Jasmine Clark MANAGING DIRECTOR Emma Lipczynski BUSINESS TEAM Holly Jackson, Stephanie Austera OSPL CHAIRMAN Mack Grenfell chairman@ospl.org MANAGING DIRECTOR Emma Lipczynski FINANCE DIRECTOR Harriet Bull SECRETARY April Peake DIRECTORS Jonny Adams, Kalila Bolton, Rowan Borchers, Matt Broomfield, Max Long, Minyoung Seo

Cherwell | 16.01.15

Debate: should there be exclusionary areas outside abortion clinics? Mary Reader and Kayleigh Tompkins go head to head.

Comment, pages 8-9 Roger Bootle on Europe’s economic prospects in 2015 Harry Gosling quizzes Roger Bootle on his predictions, and ﬁnds out that there might be some changes in store for Europeans.

Comment, page 10 Can ‘fitspiration’ make us healthier? S.R Taylor examines our obsession with ‘ﬁtspiration’ and asks if it does more harm than good.

Lifestyle, page 12 Is porn making our sex more aggressive? Speaking from her own experience, Bex Watson considers whether the ubiquity of porn is having a harmful aﬀect on our sex lives.

Lifestyle, page 13 Investigation: college staff treatment

We look at the relationship between colleges and their staﬀ, as well as student responses

Investigation, page 15 pull-out Fashion Matters: the trainer dilemma This week Louise Benton asks whether trainers really have a place on the catwalk.

Fashion, page 21 “Washing the dust of daily life off our souls” Fergus Morgan discusses the diﬃculties of portraying genius.

Culture, page 24 Jonathan Yeo: the controversial yet charming artist Emma Irving talks to the renowned portrait painter about celebrity, surgery, and painting prime ministers.

Art & Books, page 26 The vinyl revival: fad or here to stay? Sara Semic looks at the recent surge in record sales and advancements in vinyl manufacturing. Will 2015 be another fruitful year for independent record stores?

Music, page 28 Blues footballers go on pre-season tour of Japan The men’s Blues football team win two, draw one and lose one as they undergo a 10 day tour of Japan and some of its top universities. As told by Ben Szreter.

Sport, page 30

News | 3

16.01.15 | Cherwell

Oxford vigil for victims of Paris terror attacks

200 people attended Oxford’s own vigil to coincide with those held in France and around the UK , in an event described as “a gathering in solidarity with the victims of the recent attacks, for peace, liberty, and democracy”. Organiser Robin Malloy said, “I felt that the best response was for people to come together to show that we will not be provoked into hatred, nor intimidated into silence.” To echo this, the vigil included silent reﬂection for the victims, as well as an opportunity for anyone to address the crowd. Malloy commented, “People calmly and respectfully spoke one at a time”, however, student Ben Goldstein told Cherwell Cherwell,, “The vigil, while obviously well-intentioned... rapidly became a Speakers Corner style free-for-all. This felt extraordinarily inappropriate.”

Home bursar’s claims dismissed Somerville admits school broke guidelines Tribunal dismisses “multiple complaints” against St Peter’s college College concedes that The Oxford Institute misled students Marianna Spring News Editor AN EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL has not upheld a number of complaints made by former home bursar Jean Wright, who sued St Peter’s College for unfair dismissal, public interest disclosure, and disability discrimination. However, despite the tribunal’s decision to reject the multiple complaints about the college, including discrimination and whistleblowing, it did agree that St Peter’s could have explored the notion of repairing the relationships that had been damaged by Mrs. Wright’s behavior. In a statement released by St Peter’s, college master Mark Damaze and current bursar James Graham were keen to underline that “this is the only matter, a procedural one, on which the Tribunal did not rule in the college’s favour”. Mrs. Wright was dismissed from her role in 2013 after 12 gross misconducts allegations were made against her. Mr. Graham and Mr Damaze told Cherwell, “The tribunal’s judgment was supportive of the view that the College had reasonable grounds for inquiring into Mrs. Wright’s behaviour and for instigating disciplinary procedures.” “It also found that the College had reasonable grounds for believing her behaviour fell s ig n i f ic a nt l y below acceptable standards on a

range of issues. Further, the tribunal accepted and understood that the reason why people complained about Mrs. Wright arose from genuine concerns about her behaviour on a number of fronts – and were not connected to any other issue such as the Claimant’s complaints of discrimination, which all failed.” According to the Daily Mail, College Master Mark Damazer – a former controller of BBC Radio 4 – told the tribunal in Reading that the allegations were “untrue and without foundation”. He declared, “The College has sought at all times to deal with the claimant’s behaviour and the complaints about her in a fair and appropriate way but could not simply ignore so many staff in distress.” “While I was not directly involved in the decision-making process I believe that the claimant was shown on the evidence to have acted in a way which was not only reprehensible in itself but an abuse of power in respect to her subordinates.” Mrs. Wright had also declared that she had been suffering suff ering from a condition which made her disabled under the Equality Act 2010, although the college said it was not aware of the disability at the relevant time and that, in hind-sight, difficult it was diffi cult to see what else could have done to accommodate the claimant. M r s . Wright could not be contacted on the matter.

continued from front page a video on The Oxford Institute’s website refers to Somerville College’s Senior Tutor, Dr Steve Rayner, as a “guest lecturer”, and shows him talking to students. Dr Rayner told Cherwell that he was in fact giving an admissions talk, explaining how the Oxford application process worked. There has also been controversy around Oxford Summer Courses, another summer school which uses Somerville College grounds. Somerville JCR voted in November to express its disapproval that College grounds were being used for a school which, in its view, was “damaging to access”. However, while Somerville admitted that The Oxford Institute had failed to follow the College’s guidelines on advertising, it denied that Oxford Summer Courses had done anything wrong, pointing out that nowhere does Oxford Summer Courses claim explicitly to help prospective Oxford applicants. Investigating this, Cherwell emailed Oxford Summer Courses, posing as a sixth-form student worried about applying to Oxford, and wondering if the course would help. Barbara Phipps, the Course’s Admissions & Courses Administrator, replied, “We can certainly help you with interview practice whilst you are with us. All our staﬀ are either current undergraduates or alumni. They have been through the process and will be able to help you with with what to expect. All you need to do is decide which subject you would like to study.” Back in November, Somerville College told the JCR, “The summer schools we host are not acting as interview training camps,” and it repeated this assertion to Cherwell, saying, “The OSC website does not sell the company as preparing people for the interview process. The email you sent (which we have not seen) was presumably a personal request for interview help, and the answer you quote them as

giving appears to be legitimate.” Meanwhile, Robert Phipps, Director of Oxford Summer Courses, was quick to defend the programme, saying, “To make you aware, I have been through our application data and in the entire history of Oxford Summer Courses less than 0.2 per cent of the applicants have gone on to study at Oxford University and less than one per cent of the students who attended Oxford Summer Courses have gone on to study at Oxford University. “There are some organisations that offer Oxbridge admissions consulting (with success rates well above the c. 20 per cent average) however we would wish to distance ourselves from those providers as we are in the business of running an academic summer school.” Abby Carroll, who has just completed her tenure as Access Officer at Somerville, did not agree with the College though, telling Cherwell, “I think it’s encouraging that they’re taking our worries seriously enough to contact [The Oxford Institute] and ask them to remove any potentially misleading advertising, although it’s my opinion that these companies rely on people assuming they’ll be given an advantage in the application process by taking part and do little to dispel this assumption. “The OSC website is considerably more subtle than The Oxford Institute’s, but it’s about the affiliation with Oxford, the ‘Oxford life’, the Oxford tutorials. Using University property gives the impression that they’re sanctioned and encouraged by the University (although OSC explicitly states they’re not affiliated with either the University or the College), and I think this gives participants the impression they’re helping their chances.” Another anonymous Somervillian, a former tutor for the charity Team Up, commented, “The University and its colleges need to act to stop our facilities, image and names being used to manipulate potential applicants and do lasting damage to access.”

Cherwell | 16.01.15

4 | News

City Council budget slashed by coalition Ebola treatment begins trials in Liberia Oxford City Council to lose Westminster funding New oral antiviral drug trialled by Oxford researchers Suzie Marshall News Editor

THE GOVERNMENT REVENUE Support Grant to the Oxford City Council is expected to fall from its current value of £4.43 million to nothing by 2019. Deputy Leader of the Oxford City Council, Executive Board Member for Finance and Labour councillor, Ed Turner, informed Cherwell, “We estimate that over the period of the coalition government we’ll have lost around 47 per cent of our government grant, and it is clear from the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement that there is even worse to come. This is clearly dreadful news for all who are concerned about public services.” Turner explained, “There is an aim to reduce the national deficit (an aim which the coalition has been failing to meet at anything like

the pace it anticipated by 2018/19), and the vital services provided by councils do not appear to be much of a priority.” The Head of Finance at Oxford City Council, Nigel Kennedy, added, “The bulk of this target will be achieved through cuts in local government spending.” The Local Government Association (LGA) has estimated that the spending cuts in local government funding may be as high as 40 per cent. For this next year, the Government Revenue Support Grant is expected to account for 19.2 per cent of the Oxford City Council’s net budget requirement, compared to 26.4 per cent in the previous year. Different sources of funding will therefore constitute a greater proportion of the council budget in the coming years. As Turner told Cherwell, “Council tax becomes a bigger proportion of our overall budget.” He added, “However, we are not allowed to raise this by more than two per cent (without a referendum, the legal requirement which is constructed in such a way that it isn’t really practical). “So we need to work even harder to generate other sources of income, including trading with public and private sector bodies, and work more efficiently, doing things like reducing the amount of office space we occupy, and looking at the way in which we work. We are not considering outsourcing large areas of council activity, as some councils are doing. “In recent years, we have had to take many tough decisions – such as charging for services like garden waste collection which used to be free – and there is no doubt that there will be some more. “I would expect cuts to the Council to have a very bad impact. Next year we will see the implementation of cuts to homeless hostels in central Oxford, and I am gravely concerned about those receiving social care.”

Jack Doyle News Reporter

A TEAM LED BY OXFORD researchers has begun a trial of the latest potential treatment for the on-going Ebola epidemic. The team is investigating a drug called brincidofovir, which has already been used to treat Ebola patients around the world. Ebola, which has claimed over 8,300 lives, still has no definitive cure. Brincidofovir is an experimental oral treatment developed by private American healthcare company Chimerix. Run by volunteers from Doctors Without Borders and the University of Oxford and funded by the Wellcome Trust, the cooperative trial will test the effectiveness of the drug. Up to 140 adult Ebola patients in Liberia’s capital Monrovia, one of the cities hit hardest by the West African outbreak, are undergoing two weeks of brincidofovir treatment. To determine the drug’s impact, researchers will compare the fatality rate of these patients with previous death rates in the hospital. Professor Peter Horby of Oxford’s Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, the trial’s chief investigator, said, “The Ebola epidemic is causing an unprecedented health and socioeconomic crisis in West Africa. There are many things that need to be done.’’ “Amongst them is a proper evaluation of experimental treatments that have been developed for Ebola virus disease. The only time we can fully evaluate these potential therapies is during an Ebola epidemic.” Typically, clinical trials of treatments for deadly viruses like Ebola take over a year to organise. However, the scale and urgency of the epidemic means that this Oxford-led trial has come together in less than four months. Since the epidemic’s outbreak in late 2013,

Oxford has been a leading figure in Ebola research. Over the past few months, Oxford has hosted several trials of mass-produced preventive vaccines that may be used to protect healthcare workers in affected countries. Oxford’s efforts to develop a treatment, which include an upcoming study of another drug in Sierra Leone, are part of a wider global rush to develop therapies, vaccines, and even a cure for Ebola. Professor Trudie Lang, another member of the Oxford research team, emphasised the value of thorough, well-funded scientific trials like the one run by the University of Oxford and Médecins Sans Frontières. “It is important to do a trial because you cannot learn about a drug from treating individuals,” she told Cherwell. “We are setting out to evaluate several potential therapies within the rigour and formal protocol of a clinical trial, with the aim of identifying an effective and safe treatment that is going to be available for African communities at scale.” The first Ebola patient received the study drug on January 2nd 2015. If this ongoing trial is successful, Lang explained, there will be a second, larger trial in one of the three countries most affected by the epidemic – Guinea, Liberia, or Sierra Leone. If that too had positive results, brincidofovir would be released on a wide scale.

Oxford students bopping mad at controversial St Hugh’s theme change Oxford LGBTQ community reacts to decision to change St Hugh’s Bop from ‘Queerbop’ to ‘Express Yourself’ Suzie Marshall News Editor

ST. HUGH’S COLLEGE HAS made a controversial decision to change the theme of their first bop of Hilary term from the student-elected ‘Queerbop’, to a more generalised ‘Express Yourself’. The LGBTQ rep at St. Hugh’s, Matthew Shaw, explained to Cherwell, “Over each vac Hugh’s students vote on a poll for the bop themes for the following term which have all been suggested by the JCR and compiled into a poll, out of which the theme ‘Queerbop’ came top. Numerous concerns appeared to have been raised with the Entz reps over the theme. Concerns were mainly raised for two reasons, people felt uncomfortable or excluded by the theme, or did not understand the meaning of the word. “Whilst I completely understand that not everyone understands the term queer or queer culture, hushing it away does not improve the situation but merely silences an important voice and damns any further notion of the understanding and progress that can be made. I think it is a shame that what would be a celebration of queer culture and support for the LGBTQ community at Hugh’s could be perceived as exclusionary, uncomfortable, and that people immediately thought they would offend or ridicule instead of celebrate and support; there is clearly more work to be done.” Tasha Gillies was among those who disagreed, commenting, “The theme just seemed a recipe for disaster. Any costume under a queer theme would just represent one of the many harmful ideas of

who queer people are, as if all LGBTQ people can be shoehorned into one distinct way of looking.” Commenting on the change, OU LGBTQ Society President Otamere Guobadia said, “I feel for the queer St Hugh’s community, who are being denied the wonderful feeling of being prioritised and represented in the oppressive framework that is mainstream culture and college life. We have Black History Month and LGBTQ History Month because things like heteronormativity and white supremacy are so ingrained in the way people are raised that minority history and culture are relegated to the margins; I think that this erasive rebranding of the bop under the guise of preventing offense is ridiculously paternalistic and othering when it was clearly the popular choice. “Frankly I give absolutely no fucks if straight people are rendered uncomfortable by the thought of having to, for once, channel nonnormative ideas of gender and sexuality at a bop without devolving into tasteless parody or making queer people the punchline of a bop costume. Conversely the ‘kid glove’ fear advocated by straight people who believe it is impossible to interpret a queer theme inoffensively is bullshit. There are lines between appropriation and appreciation which take common sense and empathy to respectfully navigate, and at Oxford we should all be capable of doing so. “M i splace d post-queer, assimilationist ideas convince people that there is not a necessity of queer spaces and events because we are all just part of the human race, and there is no ‘straight bop.’ But guess what? Under Patriarchy every fucking bop is a straight one.” St Hugh’s Entz reps could not be contacted for comment.

Analysis

Josh Newman Educating people on LGBTQ issues is more important than bop names

s a member of the LGBTQ community, I have been torn over queer culture for a number of years. My views towards it have changed over time, shaped by my own experiences and the open, friendly environment I’ve been lucky to grow up in. Last week, the JCR of St Hugh’s discussed whether or not to hold a ‘Queer Bop’. A number of issues were raised over whether or not the theme was offensive, making a joke of the LGBTQ community rather than celebrating it, ultimately leading to us deciding against it in favour of an ‘Express Yourself’ theme for the bop instead. I feel that this situation has revealed a lack of understanding and the existence of some sort of division amongst the LGBTQ community. Queer culture is about the celebration and expression of who you are, whenever you want and in whatever way you want. As you might expect, this has led to garish colours, in-your-face outfits and extreme personalities “hogging” the limelight and creating a brand for the queer movement. A few years ago, this brand left me isolated, afraid and in the closet. Stereotypes are, for the most part, harmful misconceptions and, as a 15 year old who didn’t feel like he fitted into these stereotypes, I felt like I didn’t belong. The people around me who had little understanding of that community, belittled it and joked about it. Why would anybody want to join a group that they don’t didn’t fit into? It’s been five years since then and I feel as though my views have changed. Coming to Oxford has opened my eyes to a more forward-thinking society and I have learnt that queer culture is about celebrating differences, rather than propagating stereotypes.

If that means prancing around in tight hot pants with the gay pride flag draped over my back, or painting myself in glitter and marching on the streets, then that’s fine. But equally, I am free to watch the football with the lads or have a few pints at the pub, if I should so desire. I am free to be whoever I want to be. Historically, my rights, and the rights of many others, were fought for by men and women of all identities, expressing them-

“

Stereotypes are, for the most part, harmful misconceptions selves in all kinds of ways. Now we’re closer to equality than ever before, but it’s easy to forget the fight that led up to this, and the reasons behind queer culture altogether. As a member of St Hugh’s, the fact that the bop has changed from ‘Queer’ to ‘Express Yourself’ affects me very little because I know that I am amongst kind, accepting and inclusive people. This has also given us the chance to put on our own Queer Week, which will educate people in college – both in and out of the LGBTQ community – on what this queer culture is about. This is the most positive outcome. There is never a downside to teaching people that it is okay to be you, whoever you might be.

News | 5

16.01.15 | Cherwell

Port Meadow graduate accommodation under threat Retrospective environmental report recommends removing the top f loors of Castle Mill Emma Cookson Deputy Editor A MOTION HAS BEEN put forward to the University Congregation, a body made up of 5,000 senior University figures, to knock down the top floors of Castle Mill following an Environment Impact Assessment. Castle Mill, an Oxford University graduate accommodation complex on Port Meadow, has been an ongoing source of controversy since planning permission was granted in February 2012. Many have been critical of the £21.5 million development, which blocks out Port Meadow’s famous view of Oxford’s ‘dreaming spires’. Notable figures such as Phillip Pullman have spoken out against the accommodation complex, calling it “destructive, brutal, ugly vandalism”. It has also had the dubious pleasure of being named one of the candidates for the 2013 Carbuncle Cup, the Building Design Online prize for the UK’s worst building. After a high court challenge in 2012, the University commissioned a retrospective Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The report found the buildings had a high “adverse impact” on Port Meadow, the Oxford skyline, the Thames, and St Barnabas Church. It suggested three options to rectify this. The University has previously opted for option one – in essence, to camouflage the buildings. This latest motion to the University Congregation favours option three: removing the top floors. This is estimated to cost upwards of £12 million, removes 38 bedrooms and require all residents to vacate the buildings for a year. Diarmaid MacCulloch, Rev. Professor of the History of the Church at St Cross College and TV historian, who submitted the motion to the Congregation, argued, “A lot of money is going to be spent whatever option of remedying the

The week in figures

47%

The estimated percentage of Oxford City Council’s government grant that it has lost since 2010

1,600

Number of English schools Oxford’s increased outreach programme will target

£12m The minimum cost of removing the upper floors of Castle Mill in Port Meadows

environmental damage caused by the flats is adopted. What would be worst of all would be to adopt a minimal solution as the administration in Wellington Square wants, still spend a

“

The report found the buildings had a high adverse impact on the Oxford skyline lot of money, and get very little result.” Although MacCulloch regretted the expenditure, he maintained that the fault lay with

the University administration because of its initial failure to fulfil the planning conditions. He also argued that, though high, the initial expenditure of this motion would “restore the good name of the University in the city of Oxford and beyond... So much trust has been lost, so much anger generated – and that anger exists among potential benefactors to the University, who may turn away from further giving because of the Castle Mill affair.” Louis Trup, current OUSU president, expressed concerns about this route given the lack of housing for students with families. He argued that the huge costs of knocking down the top floors could lead to the demolition of the entire development, meaning the 300 graduate students who live in Castle Mill would need to find new housing. This would lead to an increase in students searching for rental properties, which, said

Trup, “is likely to cause rent increases for private rentals in the city”. He added, “The members of OUSU note the concerns of the Save Port Meadow campaign, but believe that limited mitigation strategies that reduce the visual impact of the development can alleviate these concerns without having the negative impacts on students and tenants in Oxford that removing the top floor or demolishing castle mill presents.” Castle Mill resident Jemma Day agreed, arguing that she does not think Castle Mill is “that much of an eye sore” and that she found it hard to see how removing just one floor would make a significant difference. On MacCulloch’s motion, a University spokesperson commented, “The request will be considered carefully and in accordance with university regulations.” The motion will be debated in February.

Redesigned junction is “an accident waiting to happen” Cycling safety groups have warned of confusing signs at newly opened Hythe Street junction Sam Joyce News Reporter THE JUNCTION BETWEEN Hythe Street and George Street has been reopened after 3 months of roadworks and amidst widespread concerns for cyclist safety. Its new design has drawn criticism for a lack of signposting and an unfortunate traffic light system, which could endanger cyclists using the roads. Oxford’s own Cyclists’ Touring Club (CTC) have sent out an email to local cycling groups warning about the lack of clarity at the junction. The organisation, along with Cyclox, had previously met with the council as part of the consultation process regarding the redesign, but since the reopening of the new layout have expressed further concerns about the dangers posed to cyclists due to several of the planned signs not being ready in time. Cyclists have been left confused by the loss of the popular Hythe Bridge Street to George Street route, due to the absence of a planned sign which excluded bikes from having to follow the one way system imposed on other vehicles. All traffic coming off Hythe Bridge Street is therefore directed left towards Beaumont Street. The absence of the planned sign exempting cyclists makes the popular route from Hythe Bridge Street onto George Street illegal. Perhaps more pressingly, concerns have been raised about the traffic light system, which, when the route is re-legalised, will potentially direct cyclists into oncoming traffic. James Dawton of Oxford’ City’s CTC stated that, following their previous consultations with the council, “How the end result appeared is quite beyond me. Cycling straight across from Hythe Bridge Street into George Street on a green light puts cyclists directly into the path of traffic coming from the left which also has a green light at the same time. “Thus two conflicting streams of traffic have simultaneous green lights, so it is an accident waiting to happen.”

The Council has in response installed ‘new road layout ahead’ signs to warn cyclists of the redesign. The redevelopment project was intended to revitalise Frideswide Square, and create a more welcoming first impression of the city to visitors arriving at the nearby train station. Ironically it was also designed to help improve cyclist and pedestrian access to the area, and to reduce congestion. The impact and risk of this redesign will likely be felt most keenly by the returning student body of the University. Balliol College student and resident of the area, Georgia Irwin, disagreed with the new layout, telling Cherwell, “I don’t understand why the junction had to be changed. As a cyclist, it always seemed perfectly fine before these new changes.” The junction is located in an area frequented by students. Residents of both Worcester and

Mansfield college live locally to the junction, whilst attendees of the University’s Saïd Business School are also frequent users. For many students, the junction is also an unavoidable stop on the way to the nightlife offered in the area around the square, namely Bridge, Wahoo, Park End, and Plush All are located past the junction for students coming from Jericho, Cowley or the City Centre. The Oxford CTC have also expressed concern for student welfare at the new junction, suggesting students now treat the junction as a “crossroads, with all the dangers that involves.” They have particularly expressed concern for students travelling from the vicinity of Worcester College towards the Saïd Business School or Railway Station. Oxford Council’s Highways were not available for comment at time of publication.

Cherwell | 16.01.15

6 | News

Oxford to expand on outreach Claire James News Reporter THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD’S outreach activities will expand significantly as part of a new government initiative. The £22m scheme includes three new National Networks for Collaborative Outreach (NNCO). Oxford will take the lead in directing the activities of the Oxford and Cambridge NNCO. The programme will target Oxbridge-aspiring students in 1,600 English schools in order to improve the application support currently on offer. Admissions staff from both universities will also host online webinars, hoped to prove beneficial for students from geographically distant areas. Both universities aim to work with schools across England. Particularly targeted are schools which have had little past contact with Oxbridge outreach schemes, those with a history of sending very few students to Oxbridge and schools in socio-economically disadvantaged catchment areas. A network of other establishments, including Somerville College, was also successful in its bid for an NNCO. Oxford’s current outreach activities include open days, school visits, UCAS higher education fairs and student and teacher conferences across the UK. Oxford also runs a Sutton Trust supported ‘Pathways’ programme, along with the free UNIQ summer schools, aimed at Year 12 state school students. OUSU runs its own shadowing scheme for Year 12 students through its ‘Target Schools’ strategy. First year Theology student Eva Chapman welcomed the announcement of the NNCO, commenting, “It encourages bright pupils to aim high regardless of their background or the history of the school and it dispels many myths about the Oxbridge application process.” Dr. Samina Khan, Oxford’s Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach, told Cherwell, “Oxford’s work with the National Networks for Collaborative Outreach will add to the already significant amount of targeted

“

These new partnerships will further our goal of supporting bright students in applying access work the collegiate University undertakes across the UK. While this particular programme is funded by the government and HEFCE to target students in English schools, the resources Oxford will be making available include a substantial amount of online support that can be accessed by anyone across the UK. “Added to our programme of student and teacher conferences and partnership with the Welsh government to create support hubs for potential Welsh applicants to Oxford and Cambridge, these new partnerships will further our goal of supporting bright students in applying to Oxford, no matter what their background or where they come from.” Speaking about the NNCOs, Greg Clark, Minister for Universities and Science, said, “This programme will ensure that schools and colleges across England can help their students learn about higher education in the classroom, online and through local outreach activity. A record number of students entered higher education in 2014, with entry rates for students from disadvantaged backgrounds increasing by over ten per cent to its highest ever level. However there is still more work to do to ensure all students who want to study hard can benefit, irrespective of their background.”

Oxford don: settlements not key problem in Arab-Israeli conflict

Dr Hirschhorn cites “underlying ideological tensions” as most important factor Tom Carter Deputy Editor DR SARA HIRSCHHORN, an Oxford lecturer in Israeli Studies, has made a speech claiming that any resolution of the settlement problem in the West Bank would make little impact on peace in the Middle East whilst any ideological tensions remain. The West Bank is an area of land east of Israel. Previously owned by Palestine, Israel tok control of the land in 1967, and has since been building settlements in Palestinian teritory, despite this being illegal under international law. UN Resolutions 242 and 338 stipulate that Israel must withdraw completely from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Speaking at Limmud 2014, a Jewish festival of arts and ideas, Hirschhorn remarked, “The settlements are not the problem. It’s not a conflict about territory, water, refugees or any of the practical political issues [alone]. “If you’re a policy maker, there’s any number of plans you can use to reach a peace deal. This doesn’t matter, because it’s not a conflict about

all of these things; it’s a conflict about narrative. This is an ideological conflict.” Hirschhorn told Cherwell, “The two-state solution or any other political solution that does not resolve underlying ideological tensions is unlikely to be a claims-ending, durable peace.” She did point out though that this did not mean settlements were unproblematic, saying, “Continued building causes pain and lack of trust amongst the Palestinian population, and weakens the moderate Palestinian leadership that needs to be empowered as a partner to a future peace deal.” Stressing the complexity of the settler movement, she said that she has tried to illuminate “the complexity of this movement made up of more than 300,000 individuals beyond stereotypes presented in the media and popular culture”. The Oxford Students’ Arab Cultural Society commented, “Dr Hirschhorn’s opinions, as put forth at Limmud 2014, reflect the views of Israel and the extremist settler parties that now dominate its government. “For those familiar with Israeli propaganda, Hirschhorn’s comments fit into a well-worn

No “watershed” of A2 immigrants

Oxford Migratory Observatory reports on unexpected trend Marianna Spring News Editor A STUDY BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY’S Migration Observatory published on December 30th 2014 reported that there hasn’t been a huge influx of Romanian and Bulgarian (often referred to as A2) immigrants to the UK over 2014, as many as expected. A year after EU countries were legally required to stop restricting Romanian and Bulgarian migrants’ access to labour markets, the report concluded, “The number of A2-born population grew by a similar amount before and after transitional controls were ended, with most of the growth occurring before... controls were lifted.” Following the flurry of speculation in the media about how many A2 migrants would come to the UK after the ending of transition controls, the University of Oxford Migration Observatory sought to offer independent and evidence-based analysis of migration statistics used by the press. Head of Media and Communications at The Migration Observatory, Robert McNeil told Cherwell,, “News stories are more than just the transfer of information, they are a part of a ‘product’ – be that a newspaper, or a TV programme or whatever. The Migration Observatory works to inform public debate, making an effort to ensure the correct numbers are used, but we don’t take a view on how they should be interpreted. “The 2013 stories about the anticipated scale of the movement of Bulgarian and Romanian migrants to the UK after January 1 2014 stemmed from different news organisations’ efforts to segment their audience – so depending on the audiences, some media suggested that the numbers would be large, others that

they would be small, but, critically, none actually knew how many would come.” He added that the language of scale is relative and therefore the statistics could be used in different ways, with the increase by September 2014 of 47,000 being interpreted as a serious influx of immigrants by some media outlets, whilst others saw it as essentially no different to the increase of 45,000 of 2013. Pembroke undergraduate Carl Gregs commented, “There seems to be an overwhelming negative bias against A2 migrants throughout the entire media spectrum, which I personally wouldn’t have expected. Obviously they are all allowed to voice an opinion. But seeing as the immigration wave they were scaremongering about did not happen as this data shows, I reckon it was the wrong opinion – especially the tabloid publications seem very inadequate.” The report specifically discussed the significant increase in the number of National Insurance Numbers allocated to Romanian and Bulgarian-born people in 2014 recently reported by press, putting the large amount down to the decision of migrants already living in the UK before 2014 to apply for NINs, rather than a “significant spike” in the number of m i g r a nt s t h e m selves. Nonetheless, The Migration Observatory stated that it was “less clear” to what degree the controls actually prevented people from joining the U K labour market after their introduction in 2007.

narrative that detracts from the horror of Israeli settler-colonialism by posing Israel’s illegal military occupation as an existential ‘conflict of narratives’. “This attempts to alleviate Israeli responsibility for its historic and continuing project of

“

It’s not a conflict about territory, water, refugees or any of the practical political issues [alone]

forcible population transfer (ethnic cleansing) and the regime of institutionalised racial discrimination (apartheid) by which it is realised, and of which Israel’s armed settler gangs are but the tip of the iceberg. “It is a shame that an Oxford University lecturer chooses to propagate views that undermine international legal norms and support the extremist policies of the Israeli government rather than supporting legal accountability, peace and justice.” Law undergraduate David Browne commented, “There seems little doubt in the minds of the international community that Israeli settlements violate international law, but the vast majority of such settlements are near the Green Line, meaning that their existence should certainly not be a deal-breaker to peace. “However, it is difficult to suggest that, when Israel is surrounded by countries which do not even recognise its existence, and did not even before settlement construction began, and threatened by Hamas on its doorstep, that any resolution of the settlement question will make much of an impact on peace in the region.”

This week News in Brief OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS has warned writers not to mention sausages or pigs, so as not to cause offence to Jews and Muslims. All “pork-related content” has been banned, according to a letter sent in to Radio 4’s Today programme. A NIGHT IN CELLAR has been advertised as hosting ‘Riff Raff’. Thinking this referred to the rapper, students bought tickets, causing confusion when it was established that the actual artist performing is a jazz collective known by the same name. THE UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE UNION (UCU) is prepared to resume action of its assessment boycott today, Friday 16th January, over an ongoing pension dispute with the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). The UCU has continued to meet with the employers and with USS during the Christmas and New Year period, negotiations which ended with a meeting last Wednesday. PARTS OF MERTON COLLEGE graduate accommodation were unexpectedly flooded last week. A number of rooms on two floors were affected by a leak. As a result the carpet and underlay in some postgraduate rooms and the hall way outside have been torn up to help with drying. They are soon to be replaced although it will take some time to dry the hall using dehumidifiers. DIRECT ACTION GROUP Love Activists set up a temporary street kitchen in Bonn Square on Wednesday 14th January. The activists had previously set up a street kitchen in London, which was still running in Trafalgar Square at the time of writing. They are aiming to set up as many street kitchens around the UK as possible, and are leading a bloc at the March For Homes in London on the 31st of January.

PROFILE

“

They’ve been leading us down a cul-desac of fear and hate and xenophobia pions of the Human Rights Act. We are also a membership organisation, and I’d like to say that loud and clear, because we’re dependent on our members.” Liberty works in litigation, bringing test cases to the courts which they believe will move the law in the right direction. “We’ve got scarce resources,” says Chakrabarti, “so we have to choose carefully, and it’s heartbreaking, because of course legal aid has been all but destroyed. Civil legal aid in particular is all but dead in this country.” Liberty also does parliamentary work: policy analysis and research, “mostly around government legislation and legislative policy that impacts on human rights”. Before she joined Liberty, recalls Chakrabarti, “I did Law at the LSE. I was always drawn to the idea of Law as a means of achieving a better life, a better society; as an agency of change, not just a means of maintaining the status quo. In particular, that grey area between law and policy and politics always fascinated me.” After bar school, Chakrabarti’s first work in law was uninspiring to say the least. “Getting up at five in the morning to go and possess somebody’s house in Folkstone one day and going to wind up some company the next didn’t do it for me. The glamour and excitement of standing up in court wasn’t enough, it was the issues that I was most interested in. And I saw an advert for a job as a lawyer in the Home Office, and I thought that would be more interesting.” She’d heard about Liberty at university, Chakrabarti tells me, and read about cases in which they’d been involved, including numer-

change is globalised, and the one thing they say shouldn’t be international is human rights. What [they think] shouldn’t be global and international are the values which protect ordinary people and link them to each other all over the world. And that should give the game away. “There is internationalism for the powerful! They’re in the first-class lounge, they’re trading their money from one country to another, from one Byzantine financial arrangement to another, and they’re all mates in the firstclass lounge, but they’re saying we the people outside the first-class lounge shouldn’t be brothers and sisters and have human rights protection all over the world.”

“

When we retreat from human rights, that’s the way to Guantanamo bay

ion

T h e Human Rights Act is Liberty’s main project at the moment. Passed in 1998, the act protects all persons resident in the UK, and is based on the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. The act effectively means that judges must act in a way compatible with the Convention, and that it is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way that is incompatible with it. Chakrabarti calls the Conservative government’s plans to scrap the act, “the existential threat to rights and freedoms in this country at the moment”. The “fundamental question of our time”, she says, is, “do we want to be human beings everywhere, with shared problems and shared solutions, or do we want to retreat into the cave, and be citizens with privileges bestowed upon us by the ruling elite of our little country? “Remember, it’s still a young instrument, which had a really traumatic infancy. It came into force on October 2nd 1998, and soon after we had 9/11 and the War on Terror. It’s a lot of pressure to be put on a young Bill of Rights. Bills of Rights need time to bed down, to be shared by the people, to be read. But our politicians don’t want to share this with us, and most people who comment on the Human Rights Act have never actually read it. “How many politicians can tell you that they’ve actually read the Human Rights Act, and that they understand how it operates, what the rights and freedoms are in it? “The reason Guantanamo Bay still stands is that someone advised the American President that despite their great written constitution, and their American Bill of Rights, they’re for Americans. So if we stick these people offshore, and we only do it to foreigners, we can get away with it. When we retreat from human rights towards citizens’ privileges, that’s the way to Guantanamo Bay.” Liberty has come a long way since Shami Chakrabarti was appointed Director, but it’s clear she has no intention of resting on her laurels. Liberty’s battle over the Human Rights Act is just beginning, and when I ask her if she thinks it will survive this threat to its existence, she enthuses, “Will it survive this week, next week, next general election…? The real answer lies with you and your colleagues” at

driven,” Chakrab arti insists, “but I think they can be led. “They’re not driven,” she underlines, “but they’re misled. “The people are scared, and they’re rightly scared, of economic uncertainty, and crime and terrorism and so on. But they’re being offered scapegoats. Talk is cheap, tough talk is cheap, legislation is cheap, and picking on vulnerable scapegoats is cheap and easy. The bottom line is, it’s a quick fix but it doesn’t work. It’s pure divide-and-rule, and I think the powerful have been doing this to the vulnerable all over the world forever.” Chakrabarti talks about the political and economic elite whom she holds responsible for so many of the human rights issues which exist in our society with anger. “Tony Blair was so tough on asylum seekers, and what an irony, when this man is now a great world traveller. He’s the globe-trotter of the first-class lounge. “The biggest irony of all is: capital is globalised, the internet is globalised, climate

s tr

ous important cases against the government. Harriet Harman had been a lawyer at Liberty years before. There’s a famous case called ‘Harman and the Home Office’ where she’s taking on official secrets and” – a slightly derisory laugh here – “abuses of power and so on.” Harman, of course, was heavily involved in the 2010 scandal surrounding MPs’ expenses. After she failed to make MPs’ expenses exempt from the Freedom of Information Act in 2009, it was revealed that she was amongst 40 MPs who had secretly repaid wrongly claimed expenses between 2008 and 2010. This scandal is extremely important for Chakrabarti’s perception of the state of modern politics. When I wonder why people are so disillusioned with politics at the moment, she is quick to reply. “We’ve had crises of trust. The government misled us over weapons of mass destruction. That’s the executive. Then you’ve got MPs, who were wagging their fingers at ordinary people saying ‘don’t be a benefit scrounger, don’t commit crime and anti-social behaviour’ on the one hand, and on the other hand rifling through the till – that was MPs’ expenses. So now we’ve lost trust in the executive and the legislature; then we have the bank managers, who we think are the most trustworthy people, and they’re in the back room with a roulette wheel, and we lost trust in them. And then even the journalists, who we rely on to hold power to account, with phone hacking and all that, and then the police… “It’s not necessarily that these institutions are more awful than they’ve ever been, it’s partly proper scrutiny and exposure and so on. However, we do need these institutions, because democracy relies on institutions. We do need government, we do need a parliament, we do need journalism, we do need banks. These various institutions, particularly the political leadership, have not done enough to show us a new direction and inspire us; instead they’ve been leading us down this cul-de-sac of politics of fear and hate and xenophobia.” The recent rise in xenophobia in Britain, argues Chakrabarti, grew out of political battles in the late 90s, when Michael Howard and Tony Blair “fought an authoritarian arms race in British politics”. “Yes, it was law and order and terrorism, but it was immigration too. Many of their battles in the courts in the mid-90s were about immigration. They started putting home affairs issues on the front pages again. And then when 9/11 happened that escalated, and immigration and anti-terror policy became conflated. Administrative detention, to which immigrants have been subject for a long time, now became used as a device for circumventing criminal charges in the anti-terror context. With rhetoric and politics you demonise the other, and then you use immigration-type laws as anti-terror laws.” It is often argued that the rise of UKIP and otherfar-rightpartiesacrossEuropeowesmuch to hard circumstances brought on by the recession.Peopleindifficulttimes,itissaid,aredriven to the authoritarian right. “I don’t think they’re

Ill u

on Gaunt famously referred to Shami Chakrabarti as “the most dangerous woman in Britain” in his column for The Sun, a label which he apparently intended to be negative. Chakrabarti seems now to wear it as a badge of honour. In her time as Director of the human rights group Liberty, the organisation has campaigned on behalf of whistleblowers, fought against legislation such as Gordon Brown’s proposals for 42-day pre-charge detention for terror suspects, had the courts confirm that evidence obtained through torture is inadmissible, and fought modern slavery, amongst a myriad of other causes. Despite all this, Liberty is still not that widely known. Chakrabarti explains, “We’re a multi-disciplinary team of human rights campaigners. In particular, we’re the cham-

Luke Barratt talks to Shami Chakrabarti about Liberty and human rights

COMMENT

Warwick’s occupation shows students how to fight

After the violent clash with police at Warwick, students need to be steeled against the possible risks they face James Elliott Deputy Comment Editor

hile most students were packing up to head home for Christmas, myself and a group of friends camped out on the top floor of a conferewnce centre in the University of Warwick, the most visible and notable of last term’s resurgent wave of student occupations. You may have missed how this began. Students carried out a peaceful sit-in for free education in a reception area of a University building, not unlike the Exam Schools sit-in that took place a year ago here in Oxford. They were then met with police tasers and CS gas being sprayed in students’ faces. This was unprecedented – the first use of such weapons on students at a British university. Students then occupied a university conference centre in protest at the police violence. Rather than apologise for management’s decision to call in the police, or condemn the police brutality, Vice-Chancellor Nigel Thrift rushed to defend the heavy-handed tactics. The demonstration following the use of CS gas saw over a thousand students gather on Warwick University campus, the largest demonstration in the institution’s history. Following that, students rushed into the Rootes building, the University’s most lucrative conference centre, and set up an occupation that was to last almost two weeks. This was a commercialised space in the University, reclaimed by the student community in protest not only at how education was being marketised, but also against how the institution perceived and treated its students. In response to this occupa-

Cherwell on the go

App available for iPhone and Android

tion, the University went to the courts to seek a possession order and an injunction, banning occupations on campus for a year. They have effectively criminalised the last form of protest available to students, when all other channels are closed off. The student protests that have bubbled up over the last 12 months have resulted in a variety of responses from management, some of which have been as draconian as Warwick’s. Two students at Birmingham were suspended for nine months for their part in an occupation, while the University pushed for them to be expelled outright. Five students at Sussex

Yes

status quo where norms become ‘good behaviour’. Any student wishing to challenge that, to question the way we organise our universities, our society, puts themselves at great personal risk. University bosses are not our friends. The

“

Universities have criminalised the forms of protest available to students bosses who cut cleaners’ pay, victimise their union activists and then cajole them, are the same bosses who demand that we pay more tuition fees, that our loans are privatised for profit, that our repayments are changed, and that our welfare as students is secondary to our purchasing power as consumers – all the while raking in an average of over £250,000 a year, and in our own Vice-Chancellor Andrew Hamilton’s case, £424,000 a year. It needs to be understood that violence on the part of the university and the police is not an unexpected twist, but a part of the struggle. If we fight, then people will be hurt, arrested, beaten by cops and tear-gassed. Someday soon, those tasers brought to the Warwick sit-in could even be used. But leading activists are suspended and threatened with expulsion to cow the rest into accepting the present order. These are risks that Warwick students have shown they are willing to overcome. The challenge for the rest of the student movement is to join with them

Should there be exclusionary z

Mary Reader and Kayleigh Tompkins debate whether exc

Mary Reader Comment Editor

University were suspended for organising an occupation to protest the outsourcing of 200 jobs on campus, later to be reinstated after a campaign. The mechanisms by which universities repress people are well known. The more interesting question is why universities act in this way. It is not simply a feature of ‘the neoliberal university’ which is repressive. My father’s university, Lancaster, tried to expel him in the 1970s for his part in organising an occupation there. The pre-Blair ‘public’ university could be just as repressive towards students. Education has always been a function of the

he ‘Back Off’ campaign to create ‘exclusionary zones’ outside abortion clinics has generated a great deal of support in recent months, including a petition with over 100,000 signatures. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) has found a substantial increase in the number of anti-abortion protestors actively blocking, harassing or intimidating women entering clinics. BPAS have therefore called for legislation to make ‘buffer zones’ of at least 10 metres. The campaign has attracted support from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Rape Crisis England and Wales, the Royal College of Midwives, and Violence Against Women. In addition, Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband have recently considered legislation on this topic. Abortion has always been, and always will be, a highly sensitive issue. It is really important in such emotive debates to consider how the status quo could affect the most vulnerable. Imagine you are a rape victim. You have made the difficult but completely understandable and legitimate decision to have an abortion, albeit not without regret and huge conflict of emotion. But, having made that decision, you arrive at the

clinic to be confronted on the steps with posters and leaflets illustrating dismembered foetuses, banners screaming ‘Protect the Embryo’ and even recording equipment testifying your entrance into the clinic. The sad truth is that these protests are not just nuisances for patients; they have a very real effect upon women’s state of mind before having an abortion. Anti-abortion groups

“

There is nothing free about intimidating others trade on this power. Such groups claim that they are “educating” women about the reality of abortion. But the images they use are not representative of the vast majority of cases; they are created as propagandist pieces of emotional manipulation. The leader of Abort67, Ruth Rawlins, says that they are helping women make “an informed choice”. But emotional blackmail does not help people make rational choices. BBC Newsbeat spoke to a 21 year old anonymous woman who had an abortion at a Marie Stopes clinic and found the protestors “really upsetting”. She said, “It’s not like you haven’t thought it through and

you’re just doing it on a whim. Nobody has an abortion on a whim. So it just reinforces a bunch of emotions that you don’t need and probably can’t handle much at that point in time.” One BPAS patient claimed, “If it was my first appointment I probably wouldn’t have come in. I had to phone a family member crying as I didn’t want to walk past.” So long as abortion is legal in the UK, there should be free and accessible provision where there is need, without the threat of social condemnation or intimidation. Of course, ‘exclusionary zones’ will not completely solve the problem. But it will provide a ‘safe space’ around clinics so that patients will feel as protected, safe and relaxed as possible. Opponents argue that this is an infringement of free speech and the right to protest. It is nothing of the kind. There is nothing free about actively intimidating others, especially some of the most vulnerable people in society while they are receiving a legal operation. The ‘free speech’ card is recurrently used to legitimize exclusionary and intimidating actions. It is rarely used to protect the rights of those in society who are most likely to be silenced. Of course, free speech should be exercised at times in the debate around abortion. The steps leading to the abortion clinic provide neither the correct time nor the place

Comment | 9

16.01.15 | Cherwell

We need students to participate

Engaging students in politics is vital and simple James Blythe OUSU Vice-President (Access & Academic Affairs)

xford students, indeed students all across Britain, are dangerously disengaged from politics, both national – only 40 per cent of us have registered to vote – and local – only 14 per cent voted in the OUSU elections, attendance at common room meetings is often ropey and our student political parties are populated by tiny groups of dedicated keenos. I’ll hold my hands up as pretty much the archetypal Oxford student politician: I am a sabbatical officer of the student union, and before that was JCR president and a member of the Labour Club.

“

We must make politics achieve more for you You won’t be surprised to learn that I don’t think the solution to the problem of engaging students in politics lies in gimmicks or politicians trying to be cool. The solution, and my proposal for 2015, is simpler than that: politics needs to have more

impact. Both national and student politicians often seem more interested in personal gain than in making change happen. It’s my view that only when student politics makes a tangible difference in the day-to-day lives of more students will we have created a real incentive for students to care. OUSU is changing: finally, thanks to last year’s team, we’ve got the budget we need. Your sabbatical officers now have the support necessary, and we are all committed to changing this university. To achieve this, I’ll be launching OUSU’s first ever Vision for Education this Hilary. This process will involve OUSU spending serious time listening to what Oxford students want from their education, and then planning a campaign effectively and systematically over the next five years to make that happen. Feedback on prelims, better doctoral supervision, a more diverse curriculum: we’ll be joining up the most vital student academic issues for the first time, and campaigning on them consistently, year after year. I believe students are some of the most passionate, proactive and progressive people in the world. I’m proud to serve the students of Oxford. You deserve politics to achieve more for you. Only once we do more for you will we have earned the right to moan about you not engaging with us. If you care about education at Oxford, get involved in the Education Vision process this term by sending me an email at access@ousu. ox.ac.uk

Inside OUSU Our anonymous OUSU insider gives us the inside scoop on this week’s resignation

n Sunday, Yasser Bhatti’s resignation as Vice-President for Graduates will formally take effect. In a statement that pulled on every heartstring, he cited the “intensity” of the role. How confusing that the OUSU full-time officers are almost completely anonymous to us, yet apparently their job is really hard – does this stack up? This column will give you the weekly lowdown on what’s happening in your Student Union. With a large number of officers taking up important positions this term, we won’t shy away from making sure they do their jobs. From a new Graduate Women’s Officer who caused controversy during hustings by discussing ‘risk aversion’ for women (a phrase seen by some as supporting the myth that the victim is to blame for sexual assault) to one of the new charitable trustees of OUSU being derided by the Student Union’s Scrutiny Committee, which was “unable to find evidence that anything has been achieved”, it will certainly be an intriguing term. So let’s return to the question above: do the full-time OUSU officers really work so hard? It depends on a couple of things, particularly which full-time position you’re talking about. At the more intense end, you have the Vice-President for Access & Academic Affairs – currently held by James Blythe. Yes, that is just one position, even though you’d think ‘academic affairs’ covers quite a bit of the university experience. The person who holds this position usually leaves anything regarding graduate academic affairs to the Vice-President for Graduates, so it’s no surprise Bhatti found himself with plenty to do. With a long list of university committee meetings, each with their own epic set of papers, and a sea of OUSU governance, a parent such as Bhatti was always going to find it hard to balance his family with his work for

zones outside abortion clinics?

clusionary zones outside abortion clinics should be legal Kayleigh Tompkins Contributor

qual rights for women has, unfortunately, always been a radical concept to some. In the 1910s, the idea of female franchise was a revolutionary one and in their campaign for the vote women chained themselves to railings, went on hunger strikes, even detonated bombs. While methods of demonstration have changed, women have continually challenged existing social structures and attitudes in a manner that certainly did not pander to traditional ideas of female behaviour. These forms of protest are ‘radical’ and they are visible. In the 1960s and 70s, women began to live in ways that challenged the traditional idea of nuclear families. Feminists like Lynne Segal sought empowerment through collective living. Other radical feminists rejected any kind of relationship with men, instead advocating lesbianism, asexuality or celibacy. Here, again, accepted social norms were dismantled by groups of women seeking emancipation in ways that were novel and shocking to some parts of society. Today, inspiring men and women are continuing to challenge sexism, standing up against cat-calling,

unfair media representations and rape culture. People continue to take a stand, refusing to be cowed by negative responses. Fear is a tool of oppression and by refusing to mitigate their actions they refuse to be oppressed. It is when we place the issue of legal exclusionary zones in this larger historical narrative that it

“

We must face up to those who challenge us becomes more contentious. The idea that women making brave and difficult choices about their bodies needs to be hidden away, as though it were something shameful, is disquieting. When women experience ‘slut-shaming’ for exercising their sexual agency, it is a powerful and sad reminder that there will always be those who will attempt to shame women for exercising their rights. By closeting a woman’s right to choose, this action itself becomes one of ‘shaming’. The creation of exclusionary zones suggests that abortion is not an action condoned and accepted by society. This is surely the wrong message to be sending to

graduate students. The Student Union should be disappointed that a member of an under-represented yet important group (student parents) has been unable to do a job they obviously had the motivation for. Congratulations to him on achieving a 10 per cent student discount for local buses, amongst other things, though. Following Bhatti’s resignation, we can look forward to what might be the bestpublicised election of the Vice-President for Graduates ever (Bhatti was elected with 231 votes). Possible candidates include Nick Cooper, who was elected in last term’s elections to take over the role in the summer, and may consider running to extend his tenure, but it is unlikely he can suspend the status of his DPhil any further.

“

We won’t shy away from making sure they do their jobs What about the runner-up in Michaelmas’ elections, Danny Zajarias-Fainsod? After a disappointing 96 votes, he may have decided OUSU is not worth the trouble. Perhaps the most romantic choice would be Jack Matthews, so-called “OUSU dinosaur”, whose personal website lists five years of elected activity for the Student Union, but never a full-time position (though this is not through want of trying). In his final year at the university, could his political story become a fairytale? Next week: an inspection of the new set of parttime officers. “Who are they? What do they do? Will they do it very well?”

women making brave and difficult decisions. Hiding away has never beaten the bullies. History shows that acting visibly in the name of feminism has lead to great feminist achievements. Despite the inevitable angry reaction from some segments of society this causes, it has never, and should never, deter women from challenging oppressive structures in the search for equality. By continuing to practice openly the culture that feminists believe in, whether mainstream patriarchal society agrees or not, a fairer and freer culture can become normalised. I realise this point of view is selfish. No woman should feel she has a duty to stand up to anyone, especially those that harass or intimidate others. She should not feel indebted to a grandiose narrative of resistance in a situation as emotional and potentially vulnerable as abortion. Ultimately, we do need safe spaces for women to make their choices. However, we must face up to those who challenge us. Exclusionary zones may hinder us by hiding away what we want to proudly assert, by making it abnormal. By openly challenging norms that prevent progress, we can stand tall. For those who can and who want to challenge these norms, we must stare our oppressors in the face, assert our rights proudly, not hidden away behind legal curtains

Have your say If you would like to respond to any of the features in this week's edition, contact the Comment section at comment@ cherwell.org

10 | Comment

Cherwell | 16.01.15

Roger Bootle discusses his forecasts for OXSTEW Europe’s economic prospects in 2015 THE

Vice-Chancellor to take a voluntary cut to his salary

xford’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton, has today announced his intention to reduce his salary from £424,000 to £50,000 a year. His announcement follows a social media campaign from Oxford students highlighting the disparity between his wage and that of the lowest-paid staff at the University. In a statement released today, Hamilton praised the hard work and dedication of all the University’s staff, and acknowledged that the extent of disparity in pay between certain staff members was not actually justified by their differing job rôles. “It turns out that, on reflection, my job isn’t 30 times harder than anyone else’s, so I’ve come to the conclusion that I probably don’t deserve 30 times the pay-package,” he said. “Furthermore, it’s getting harder and harder, as my salary gets bigger and bigger, to maintain that the University’s finances are in a terrible predicament, and that the only way to rescue them is to raise tuition fees to £16,000. Hopefully now that I’ve taken a paycut my campaigning in that area will seem a little less monstrously hypocritical.” When asked what inspired this move, Hamilton credited pressure from the student campaign against his pay-package, but attributed his ultimate decision to actually act on this pressure to an anonymous undergraduate who attended one of his termly breakfasts. “I set these breakfast meetings up,” said Hamilton, “to take the pulse of the ordinary undergraduate student. One such ordinary student pointed out that I earned over 20 times what his mother, a primary school teacher, earns, and that whilst her day involved seven hours in the classroom and an evening of marking homework, mine involved breakfast, coffee with the master of Christ Church, lunch with a benefactor of the University, afternoon tea with an old school friend, and formal hall at St. John’s. Of course, this is a long and gruelling day by any standards, but I could see his point that it was not quite 20 times as gruelling as his mother’s work day.” “Another student made the interesting point that the Prime Minister earns only £142,0000, nearly three time less than the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and that holding ultimate responsibility for the welfare of British citizens versus a handful of students should be reflected to a certain extent by your pay-packet. From that moment onward I resolved to take a realistic look at my salary and how I could really show that I am one of you, that I am one of the people. Leszek Borysiewicz, the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, or ‘the dirty Tabs’ as I’ve heard them affectionately callled by students, still earns in the ball park of £334,000, so I think it shows Oxford’s progressive nature that I will be making changes first.” The University confirmed to The OxStew today that the £375,000 a year that would have gone on Mr. Hamilton’s salary is to be put in a hardship fund for staff and students. The fund, to be named ‘The Hamilton Big Thank You Fund’, will give small emergency grants to anyone within the University suffering from unexpected financial hardship. “Although this fund will make only a small difference to people’s lives,” Hamilton acknowledged, “I think it adds something to the symbolic gesture that I’m making. I care about the University as a beacon of learning and education, not as a money-making machine and I want my salary to reflect that.” When asked if he had considered making the University of Oxford an accredited Living Wage employer, thus perhaps alleviating the need for such hardship funds, the Vice-Chancellor declined to comment

Harry Gosling Deputy Comment Editor

or almost everyone, the New Year brings with it a fresh sense of optimism, a feeling that this year will be different, better even, than the year just passed. But after only a week of 2015, the overbearing reality of the state of the world’s affairs seems quite enough to extinguish any lasting optimism. Conflict and change, it appears, will be common themes in 2015. But how do we go about forecasting political and economic trends, as well as significant events that will undoubtedly punctuate the year ahead? It was with 2015 in mind that I looked forward to interviewing Roger Bootle, Executive Chairman and Founder of Capital Economics, an independent macroeconomic forecasting agency. The firm, as Bootle is proud to admit, has “a really quite impressive track record”, and emerged as the top economic forecaster of 2014 in a Sunday Times study. In an amusing twist, it becomes apparent that Bootle is able to empathise closely with my experiences as an undergraduate at Merton, having also studied PPE there. Much to my

“

It looks like there will be considerable change in 2015 disappointment, he confirmed that Merton had the same reputation when he was an undergraduate as it does now. Bootle mused that it had good food but “it was pretty academic,” and everyone regarded it as full of students who “work all the time and don’t have any fun”. It is interesting, we agreed, to see how reputations and trends persist through time. The notion of trends persisting across generations is one that Bootle applies to his own macroeconomic forecasting. He informs me that both he individually and the firm Capital Economics have a very different approach to other macroeconomic forecasters. “We place a lot of emphasis on history. At Oxford when I was a graduate student, I was briefly supervised by Sir John Hicks who although he was a great theoretician, was also very interested in economic history. He made me constantly want to look at previous periods

for historical parallels with today’s events. So, for instance, when it came to Britain’s exit from the ERM in 1992, which was probably one of our greatest forecast successes, I was fully aware of the experience of 1931, when Britain came off the Gold Standard. Most of the economists in the City were not.” It is Bootle’s ability to relate current events to historical trends which appears to set him and Capital Economics apart from the competition. Given his impressive forecasting record, I decided to pick his brains about what he expects from the world in 2015. Bootle suggests that elections in Greece scheduled for later this January are “already the big story of 2015”. Opinion polls point to victory for Syriza, the far-left populist party. Its leader, Alexis Tsipras, wants to maintain the country’s status as a member of the Eurozone, but end austerity arrangements, repudiate some of Greece’s debt burden, and ditch the bail-out conditions imposed by Germany and the ECB. “A very interesting package,” muses Bootle, a hint of irony in his tone, “I think there’s a significant chance that Greece is going to be out of the Euro.” Were this to happen, what would be the plan? Bootle, referring to his winning entry for the Wolfson Economics Prize, insists that people would have to continue using the Euro and that “accordingly the denomination of the new currency [the Drachma] should be exactly the same, so that people carry on using the Euro domestically.” Tantalisingly he tells me: “We’ve had a certain amount of interest in the [Wolfson] report and the issues it raises from at least one government in the Eurozone.” Unsurprisingly, however, Bootle declined to disclose to exactly which government he was referring. With much of the continent in dire straits, many people, I suggest to Bootle, will w o n d e r why the UK would want to cont inue its close relationship with Europe, at the expense of

free trade with China and the US for example. He agrees that the EU is “a very flawed institution” but contends that the UK and Europe have “a number of interests and attitudes in common” and that therefore “it makes sense for us to have some sort of association. The question is what sort of association that should be.” Reform is needed but seems unlikely to happen soon, given the bureaucratic nature of many of the EU’s institutions. Bootle does not, however, agree that Britain should vote to leave the Union should there be a referendum during the next Parliament. “It is possible, it seems to me, that for political reasons, if we left, the remainder of the EU could be quite nasty with us, even if it was against their immediate economic self-interest.” Britain cannot simply pick–andchoose which parts of being in the EU it wants to retain, and which parts it wants to discard. The European question has no easy answer it seems. Concluding the interview, I begin to recognise the balance of change and continuity as we move from one year to the next. As Bootle shows me the way out, he asks me whether I’ve got Collections before term starts, recounting his experiences of them during his time as an undergraduate. It looks like although there will be considerable change in 2015, some things always remain the same

The Campaign Josh Hagley, Oxford Students for Animals

Dairy-free ice cream at G&D’s would make a real difference Oxford Students for Animals’ ‘Less Meat More Veg’ campaign began by working on making life easier for vegetarians and vegans at Oxford colleges. However, since college food is not the only way students feed themselves, it seemed the campaign could be taken further. People decide to explore veganism for various reasons, and with the growing amount of interest in reducing animal product consumption, OSFA’s campaign aims to make vegan food more accessible both in and out of colleges. With such a successful promotion of animal product-free food in several Oxford colleges, OSFA decided it would be beneficial to look at places that students eat out

of college. G&D’s caught the attention of OSFA for several reasons, but primarily because all three branches have high student interest and early opening and late closing times. Additionally, high quality dairy-free ice cream is already available in supermarkets, and we should therefore look towards providing the product in popular cafés, like G&D’s, making it easier for vegans and those who are lactose intolerant, as well as drawing in those looking to reduce animal product consumption. As a society primarily interested in issues surrounding animals, OSFA recognises the lack of attention towards the treatment of animals in the dairy industry. A commonly held view is that, unlike the

meat industry, the dairy industry does not kill its animals. However, dairy is a business, and in order to deliver the product from cow to consumer, the young calves must be removed as soon as possible. The calves are separated shortly

“

OSFA aims to make vegan food accessible after birth, which is psychologically distressing for young animals. Male calves are shot on site and sold as cheap meat or veal. In order to lactate, the female cows must be impregnated every year, often by

artificial insemination, and when they are no longer of use financially, are sent to slaughter. Colourful pictures of happy cows in G&D’s is ironic, as is the company’s statement, “We like cows and dairy products.” Of course, OSFA’s campaign is not aiming to force veganism on people. We just want to provide a dairy-free alternative for anyone interested to try it. Hopefully, however, we will show more people that there are environmental and ethical impacts of the dairy industry, which will lower demand and hopefully lead to a nation less dependent on dairy. To sign our petition go to: www.change.org/p/g-and-d-s-oxfordintroduce-dairy-free-ice-cream

PUZZLES

DEFINE: ‘tmesis’

TRIVIUM

Owen Paterson, the former Environment Secretary who ordered the infamous badger cull, once kept two badgers as pets!

CONNECTIONS

Which of these is the correct definition of this word?

What links:

1. Transfer an idea telepathically 2. The process of book-binding with pigskin 3. Insertion of a word into another word

1. Socrates 2. Hermann Göering 3. Romeo Montague

CRYPTIC CROSSWORD Across 1. Top hits include ‘Spilt Cider’ and ‘Bungled Siege’ (9) 7. Biblical brother abandoning hopeless itinerance looking to become whole (6) 8. In France, not a bird to be found. Those days are over! (4,2) 9. Dessert: pork knuckles and seismic activity (11) 12. Firm writing desk (6) 13. University man in garden calls Bobby (6) 14. Broken up; desperate; hopelessly looking for a change at the end (9) Down 2. Endlessly cowwoked grating (6) 3. Dusky carer, in his excitement, grasps note with lupus crawling all over it (11) 4. Looking for something a bit sexual? Soft-core it is! (6) 5. Avoided waiting by the sea (4,2,3) 6. Read in France: ‘Of Trying and Hating’ (9) 10. Explosive diatribe, despite alienating one bishop, remains a diatribe (6) 11. Put one over on the university fool (6) Email Aneesh Naik at puzzles@cherwell.org for clues or solutions

SUDOKU Difficulty: Hard

LIFESTYLE John Evelyn

elcome back dear readers from what I hope was a truly splendid Christmas respite for your weary academic

souls. While I have no doubt that many of you will be pleased to return from the winter chills of an Oxford-less Nativity, I am bound to report happier tidings from one Lockey Univite. Instead of being stranded with merely those to whom she was related on December 25th, her festive season turned out to be more Sunny than snowy. Settling straight in, my sources inform me that the Queen’s man in question was soon garbing himself in Delightful clothes taken straight from his host’s patriarch’s wardrobe. One must also hope that you, most beloved readers, found yourselves suitably inebriated to see in the forthcoming year. It is my pleasure to confirm that at least a portion of our community discovered themselves in such a state, to rather salacious consequences. One such Pillow Princess found herself with a Rosie glow in the early hours of the year, as their Brasen display of affection was perhaps a little too much for their unfortunate room (albeit not bed) mates. Sources close to the action tell me that one left-leaning observer, when confronted with a blouse to the face, found that she could stay no (dolli)more in that sordid den of sin, leaving without further word. Alas, I am unable to determine whether the intertwined pair interrupted their lustful deeds to follow the beleaguered lady, or whether they waited until the inevitable climax before beginning their search. Remaining with the Guardian-reading portion of the student body, the people’s leader and all-round Teddy bear found a hostile crowd on his return to our fair city. Trotting across the bridge between his residence and that evening’s Kingly watering hole, this second year was confronted by more than ice picks. Some passers-by apparently took issue with his appropriated Barbour jacket and saw fit to stain his apparel with ammunition of the ovarian variety. With his sights on a green seat in a certain House, this man of the people may have to get used to such a yolky reception. Finally, it is our sad duty, most loyal readers, to announce a loss to these pages. A long-standing and much valued feature of our records has sadly passed into monogamy. Although she will be Teriba-ly missed, I feel bound to congratulate this Wadhamite on her Diamond discovery. Until next week, my friends, I must wish you farewell and many felicitations for the coming term.

Can ‘fitspiration’ make us healthier?

S. R. Taylor explores the debate about the #Fitspo phenomenon

s we’ve settled into January, it’s become clear why it’s dubbed ‘diet month’. Newspapers and magazines are full of the ‘New Year, New You, New Body’ clichés. The solution to an improved, ‘more healthy’ you is a lifestyle change that involves losing weight. Looking at the poster girls for ‘healthiness’, ‘health’ looks like a defined pair of biceps, a chiselled set of abs, and a keyhole thigh-gap flanked by solid quads. In other words: an absence of body fat. Is that really ‘healthy’? ‘Health’ should not just be about physical wellbeing. Discussions of mental health, particularly with regards to body image, and eating disorders are extremely important. There’s an awful lot we don’t know about eating disorders. Evidence suggests that 1.6m people in the UK suffer from them and that 89 per cent of those people are female (National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence). Fashion magazines have long been criticised for an unhealthy emphasis on one’s appearance, and in 2012 a coroner even blamed the fashion industry for the suicide of a schoolgirl

“

We now have a discourse of health which has lost one of its oldest adages, the ‘healthy balance’ who had been suffering from bulimia. Conversely, health and lifestyle magazines have rarely been condemned for promoting negative mental wellbeing because this would be utterly paradoxical. But just because they champion that simple five-letter word in their titles, does that mean they are actually endorsing it?

The virtual world of social media is also revealing. If you type #thinspo into Instagram’s search engine, it’ll yield no results. If, however, you key in #fitspo, you’ll find over 15 million. ‘Thinspiration’ is the online glorification of thinness and eating disorders. ‘Fitspiration’ is

apparently the ‘healthy’ version. But the fact that the demise of the former and the rise of the latter was simultaneous suggests that we are dealing with a Lernaean Hydra which is not something that can be easily censored. Fitspo perpetuates the same trends as thinspo because of its excessively meritocratic mentality. Supposedly, if you can work hard enough, then you’re entitled to feel good. If you can’t, you deserve to feel like a failure. In comparison to thinspo, it’s argued that fitspo encourages a healthier body image because it doesn’t focus on low BMIs. But by placing excessive emphasis on having low body fat and eating ‘clean’ foods, fitspo can encourage similar unhealthy

HUMANS OF OXFORD

Spotted in the Bod Classics Library, To the Silver Fox in the ld. I but I’m sure you cou You don’t teach me, and Eros from your Agape know you know your around Oxford’s finerst I bet you could show me e trees’ for any of us not pinus eructus (that’s ‘pin !) . you so wise and worldly as peering over her Iliad Love from, Poor Venus

John Evelyn

Got gossip? Email gossipevelyn@gmail.com with the juicy details!

thoughts and behaviours as thinspo. A disorder has recently been identified by the chair of the British Dietetics Association, Ursula Philpot known as ‘orthorexia’ – the unhealthy obsession with eating only ‘clean’ foods. Essentially, the disorder does not necessarily cause the sufferer to be physically malnourished because they don’t obsess about controlling food quantity but rather food quality. Researchers have shown that social problems and mental rigidity are more obvious dilemmas. If orthorexia were a recognised disorder like anorexia, fitspo would probably be censored like thinspo. But it isn’t, because ‘healthiness’ is terminologically imbued with positivity. It seems though that ‘healthiness’ has taken on a far too narrow definition because it has been constructed against an equally narrow conception of ‘unhealthiness’. We cannot deny that obesity is a problem in the UK; 23.1 per cent of the population is obese. However, cultural anxiety over this issue has fostered perception of health into dichotomous categories of ‘fat’/’thin’, ’guilty pleasures’/‘clean foods’ and ‘unhealthy’/’healthy’. We now have a discourse of health which has lost one of its oldest adages, the ‘healthy balance’. Essentially, the ‘healthy’ ideal presented in the media is aesthetically attractive by today’s beauty standards, and wrongly conflates ‘healthy’ with ‘thin’. This aesthetic is created and primarily driven by the beauty and fashion industries so that ‘healthy’ is synonymous with ‘skinny’. If, however, health was perceived more broadly as a spectrum rather than black and white categories, which incorporated mental as well as physical wellbeing, we might be able to shift the construction of the healthy ideal into a more achievable place. There should not be a definitive depiction of health. Humans come in all different shapes and sizes and we need to celebrate diversity and broaden our perspective of health

This is contemporary art. Tomatoes make everything better.

To the girl in to be study in the Gladstone Link who appears g for a BA in Fa cebook, You don’t know m e, bu t I do know th changed your at yo past hour, th cover picture four times u have at boyfr iend ba you’ve stalked your frien in the ck d’s for using sarc to 2009 and you have a pe new as nc with the volu tic ‘st ickers’ on Facebook hant me up. chat... I might add yo could be your u when I’ve finished wr iting loveheart- eyed th my wink y fac emoji if you wi is; I e. ll be Love <3 your (not-so -creepy be Facebook -I-promise) so friend. on to

Lifestyle | 13

16.01.15 | Cherwell

Making Headway Cherwell presents important personal accounts of mental illness TW: Drug use, suicide

want to begin this column by saying that I do not want to be pitied. I am a strong person and I have been through a lot in my life. I have bipolar disorder, which began when I was 17. My mind was constantly overwhelmed and spinning. I couldn’t focus on anything, especially my work. I had been having strange thoughts since I was 14 or 15 which I had been able to cope with. But when I was seventeen it was different. I was just completely overwhelmed and I started hearing things that weren’t there and hallucinating. I would sometimes think I was an actual God and then, later in the day would be reduced to thinking that I was damned by the Devil. I went to my doctor and he then forwarded me on to a psychiatrist who made weird jokes and generally made me feel like I was a freak. My favourite piece of advice from him was that “doing more exercise would make me feel better”. The psychiatrist did also prescribe me drugs, but the instructions he gave were quite vague and I began feeling slower, less sharp. I also began hoarding the pills and then taking six in one go which allowed to me hallucinate and live in a kind of cocoon. So much of my time was spent hallucinating and it seemed so real and so beautiful that the reality moprhed into a terrible nightmare that I could escape from. One day I was on the verge of suicide, completely unsure of what was truly real and what wasn’t. I called 999 and spent a bit of time in hospital. I gradually weaned myself off the drugs, gave myself some time to recover and stopped talking to people who would share everything with me emotionally but never listened when I needed it. I felt a lot better. Sometimes my mental health problems rear their ugly heads but now I know what to do and how to deal with it and where to go if it gets to be too much.

Intelligence: A Matter of Mindset?

hen faced with a difficult assignment, do you give it your best, or do you give up in despair after a few feeble attempts? It is well-known that intelligence is far from being the only factor in academic success. Moreover, it is not uncommon for talented children to be the first to give up on a challenge. Why are some people so reluctant to make any effort? A team of scientists from Stanford University pondered this very question back in the eighties. They observed the behaviour of a group of 11 year olds asked to complete a series of problems. The first problems were doable, but the last four were designed to be too hard for the children to solve. As soon as the children started on the difficult problems, different behaviours emerged. Some children would get anxious and start fidgeting. They would make excuses or try to divert the conversation – “This is not really my thing.” Other children would try hard and get absorbed by the problem – “I’m almost there.” There was no measurable difference in intelligence between the two camps – up to the difficult problems, both groups had been doing equally well. In comparison, their performance on the hard problems differed significantly. There was a huge contrast in performance between the determined group and the helpless group, with few children scoring in between. Some determined children had even managed to solve a couple of the hard problems, whilst none of the helpless children had. So, what caused half the children to give up so easily? The answer is a fixed mindset versus a growth

mindset. People with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence is a fixed quality: you are born with a certain degree of intelligence and it does not change. These people are generally unwilling to take up challenges, because failing might discredit their intelligence. This causes the helpless behaviour we saw in the 11 year olds. People with a growth mindset are often more determined. They are aware that if they study hard, they can become smarter. Their perception of the world is not one in which they are subject to their innate intelligence. Instead, they know they can influence their intelligence through their own actions. As the performance difference between the two groups of 11 year olds shows, mindset is a self-fulfilling prophecy. With a growth mindset, your intelligence might increase while with a fixed mindset, it does not. Fortunately, being aware of a fixed mindset helps in developing a growth mindset. Educators and parents also have a huge impact in the development of a growth versus fixed mindset with praise being a key factor – in particular, the nature of the praise. Whilst people tend to praise children’s ability or intelligence, research shows that this is counterproductive. To help a child develop a growth mindset, one should praise hard work, perseverance, learning from errors, and improvement. One study observed mothers interacting with their one to three year old babies. The more a mother used ‘process praise’, the more likely a child was to have a growth mindset and a liking for challenge five years later. The right kind of stimulation at a young age is most effective but it is never too late to start working on your mindset. Jennifer Jochems

Is porn making our sex aggressive?

Bex Watson considers some everyday side effects of porn TW: Violent sex

oday I have a very long bath. I put my pyjamas on. Take my makeup off. And I sit. It’s now 10pm. And I still feel grim. Blurs are all I can piece together. My hair being pulled from its scalp. Pain in my legs as they are forcefully pushed against my body. A gagging sensation. Boobs harshly bitten. This is not about rape. This is about consensual sex. It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. You can be in pain, and still be having sex with a ‘good’ person. The first thing I have to say, and which will be probably be struck down with “oh leave it out!”, is that I hate porn. My mental devil’s advocate interrupts, “It’s an expression of oneself. It’s harmless. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.” Yadda. Yadda. Fine. I’m not debating whether porn should exist. Though it may have applied mean expectations onto my aesthetic for longer than I like to think about, I have never hated it. I have mourned its presence, but I have never got severely riled up about it. The problem finally rings out to me today. I start to think more closely about another of its issues. The issue of indoctrination. Perhaps this seems obvious to you. I had thought of it before, certainly, just not in the sense of mainstream indoctrination. Porn, it seems, is what can give the impression that everyone enjoys forced deep-throat, slammed bodies, and wrenched hair. While this can be hot for some, it makes me feel like a rag doll. As my male friend helpfully puts it, “I’m sure missionary is great fun when you haven’t been exposed to hours of violent sexual imagery. But it makes some people just feel like they should be kicking the shit out of each other to have good sex” ‘Aggressive sex’ can be great. But there’s sex with passion and then there’s sex where you are made to feel powerless. As it goes on, my drunken mind silently chose to endure. They don’t realise what they’re doing, it would have been be weird if I said something. So I endured. And that leads to problems of its own. Today I battle with my mind – was it my fault

that our sex was so horrible? They were surely ignorant of what they were doing. They would have stopped if I had said something. What an idiot I am! Perhaps. But just as the guy carried on, adhering to an

“

This is not about rape. This is about consensual sex image and an idea that had been presented to him for probably ten years, I carried on feeding this image that all women like having their hair pulled, being gagged, and their boobs

being bitten. I allowed him to think that there was nothing wrong. Because in my head, the pain was irrelevant. Irrelevant compared to the shame and fear – comfortably tied up in my mind – of telling him so. I felt instinctively that I ought to be submissive to this bizarre and upsetting power dynamic. And now my spine still hurts. My vagina hurts. And I think about the disapproving eyes of the woman who gave me the morning after pill. To those who are inadvertently violent during sex – I hope this delivers some kind of perspective. Don’t expect that someone will necessarily be up for something just because you are. To those who might experience the same thing – I’m sorry. I will suggest to you SAY SOMETHING. But if I’m honest with you, just as I would never tell the perpetrator how he made me feel, if I am to experience the same offence again, I cannot say whether I would just choose silently to submit

Bexistentialism

Life is tough for this second year

hilst some may have used the vac to detox on debauchery, mine instead pleasantly supplies a collection of disasters which aid me in my constant journey closer to becoming a parody. This involves interpreting the whole ‘sitting by the fire’ Christmas vibe in a hip and nouveau way by accidentally managing to set alight two items of my clothing at a party, with a single tea light. Constantly running from those damned dignity police, I am thus happy to head back to Oxford. But first, I have a deadline. Because, yep. You are subjected to me once again, and all the pain that comes with it. I would say I’m sorry, but I’m not. At least you don’t have to BE me. And so I begin to discuss my last week. Must. Appear. Cool. And. Edgy. The problem? In my last week or so, the friends who haven’t already moved on from Base-Camp to cooler places, stream back to their respective unis. I wave my handkerchief sadly, and return to my posh and non-edgy

“

I imagine $$$ swirling like snowflakes work establishment. To the burn of 8am until finish shifts and a boss who hates me (though, on requesting work for January, I am told, “we would LOVE to have you back, sweetie”. The email gives off such strong undertones of sickly bullshit that I throw up a little in my mouth). The objective and unquestionable hate began sadly on my first shift in April. On learning that I am at Oxford, she turns her head sharply away. It turns out she was at Brookes. I learn too that her husband left her for her best friend (do I look like her best friend??). The psychoanalysis is exhausting. Fellow workers laugh in bemusement at the way she treats me, demanding me to unveil the grand reason why. I woefully sigh. If only I knew. But finally – my last shift. My mind is kind and nudges me. I remember that I’m not delving into hell for the, err, hell of it. I’m getting money! I imagine $$$ swirling like snowflakes (admittedly, it’d be more useful if they were £££, but that wouldn’t be so cool, bae). The week’s payslips arrive. Workfriend nervously sifts through the envelope, and then bites her lip. “I don’t think you’ve been put back on the payroll.” I wade on. As the shift draws to a close she hands me a discarded £6.20. “She may eventually pay you, but you’ll never get your tips.” I clutch the money tightly in my hand. When I unclench, an angry 20p-induced dent remains.

Luke’s Bar g of the We ain ek A box of Frubes for 90p in Tesco!!

14 | Lifestyle

Cherwell | 16.01.15

r e t es c r Wo

Fit College

Creaming Spires

Re ge n

t’s

“S

Cher well 6

OxStu 36%

Euan Graham & Clem Haxby

Sam Livingstone & Imogen Crane

Worcester’s whacky duo or Regent’s Bohemian babes? You decide!

Think you’ve got what it takes? Email lifestyle@cherwell.org to enter the famously fierce competition

Blind Date Surya Bowyer Keble, 1st Year English

Freya Judd Somerville, 2nd Year English

What did you procure from your Facebook stalking?

I wanted to try and maintain some oldschool surprise so I refrained from stalking…

I somehow managed to restrain myself. First impressions?

First impressions?

Wavey.

Really friendly, if slightly irritated – turns out she had been waiting a while.

Did he dress to impress?

Did they dress to impress?

See above.

Urm, subtly perhaps? We were both pretty laid back in our sartorial choices.

What did you talk about? We chatted about Wuthering Heights, being a fresher, and travelling in India a bit as well too.

What did you talk about? We had a wonderful conversation with topics ranging from English, travelling desires, and the self-perpetuating nature of student-run organisations.

...no English student stereotypes there. Were there any awkward moments?

I think I managed to make up for my tardiness...

Perhaps the 30 minutes before Surya arrived when the Greens staff obviously thought I was the world’s biggest/loneliest noob.

Were there any awkward moments?

Apart from that, no. After that we had a grand old time.

Well, standing in Green’s right at the start before slowly approaching her and asking tentatively,

How many times did his leg brush against yours?

“You’re not here for a blind date by any chance…?” Not the most suave of openings, I must say. How many times did her leg brush against yours?

There was a very large coffee table in the way. Surya is an English fresher at Keble who is interested in theatre, waviness and film. He is less interested in being on time.

Effervescent, cynical, approachable. Marks out of ten? The date or the person? Because the date was good fun and Freya’s lovely. Will there be a date number two? I have no idea. I guess we’ll just have to see...

He is: Edgy.

None. Though the table between us helped. Describe Freya in three words.

Describe Surya in three words.

Wavey. Freya is a sassy Somervillian second year English student who is also keen on theatre, the arts and feminism. She always has great topics of conversation and really interesting opinions.

Fre$h. Marks out of ten? 6.9 exactly. 0.1 lost for lateness.

What their friends said Sick of Tinder? Looking to be swept off your feet? Volunteer for a Blind Date at lifestylecherwell@gmail.org

Will there be a date number two? I’m sure we’ll bump into each other in the Keble O’Reilly. Whether it’ll be on a date... We’ll have to see.

o, how many guys have you slept with?” my date asked over his fourth pint (bottle of rose for me instead, please). I was so taken aback that I forgot to be offended by the heteronormative assumption. “Why do you ask?” I mumble, unsure where this was coming from. Thoughts flash through my mind, none of them good. Does he want me to go through them one by one, like suddenly we’re in Four Weddings and a Funeral? You’re cute, babe, but not Hugh Grant cute. Or does he think I have herpes? Or he’s scared that I’m a virgin? Or he’s just simply curious, because somehow our previous conversation about essay marks turned him on so much all he can think about are my pants? And their various past visitors? I’m an open kinda girl, but if you want my detailed sexual history and you’re not a GP, you better have a good reason for it. “I don’t know. You seem like a very confident, sexy person. I was just curious.” The guy gave me a flirty wink and changed the subject, like the good boy that he definitely wasn’t. But by then my attention was hooked. You want numbers? Let’s talk numbers. And the conversation suddenly became very informative. I’m not going to disclose the figures here, just like I didn’t disclose them to my nosy admirer. Partly it’s because I don’t think numbers matter a fuck, unless you have a habit of entertaining a large proportion of the populace down below without condoms. The other reason is that, well… I could do a count up if I really tried (and you never know, maybe one day I will), but I’m not a mathematician; I get lost in the particulars. When I was a teenager only discovering my sexuality, and then a newly single young woman with all of Oxford open to me, numbers mattered a great deal. Part of me was proud of every ‘notch on my lipstick case’ and danced to ‘Promiscuous’ when getting ready for a night out. The other part wanted to stuff a rosary down my throat each time the list grew by yet another name. Or vague memory of a name. Or just college, subject, and shirt colour. I’m not even sure how I feel about it myself, why would I share with him? The point is, I have had sex with many people, don’t have any STIs, and God has not sent any thunderbolts in my direction yet. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like my date shared this sentiment. I’m not even angered by the double standard anymore; it just bores me. But when a man says, in an apologetic tone, that he finds it a bit weird if a girl had more than ten partners, I’m not gonna stick around the pub for much longer. No new name on the list that night.

S ATION G I T S INVE

Illustration: Mariota Spens

Investigation: Hall staff “reduced to tears” and forced to wear makeup Scouts made to work unpaid overtime after poor communication by management Employees claim “managerial spirit” is coming at a cost to Scouts and Hall Staff

£8.50

£8.00

Living Wage Rate = £7.85

£7.50

£7.00

Colleges (Queen’s and St Hugh’s) said they were looking into getting accredited Colleges (Wolfson, St Antony’s, St John’s and St Hilda’s) still paying staff under £7.85 an hour

All Souls Nuffield Keble Wadham Linacre Wycliffe Hall Balliol Hertford Jesus LMH Mansfield Merton Pembroke Queen’s St Hugh’s St Stephen’s St Hilda’s St John’s St Antony’s Wolfson

16 2 4

Colleges/PPHs confirm that they now pay their staff the Living Wage, but only is accredited

Which colleges pay the Living Wage?

C+ surveyed 270 students, interviewed 3 members of staff, and received information from 20 colleges about their minimum wages

“It seems like everyone is keen to pretend that they don’t exist” TomCalveranalysestheresultsofC analysestheresultsof + ’sinterviewswithcollegestaffandthecolleges’responsetocriticism

Tom Calver Investigations Editor

he above comment was left by a Somerville student responding to our survey, and it highlights the issue of “pretending” which I encountered throughout this investigation. Some of the scouts and hall staff we spoke to allege that some colleges have previously pretended that staff have been paid in full, when overtime pay was still owed. Other colleges give staff the chance to provide feedback through liaison meetings and forms, but the staff we spoke to felt scared to do so, feeling that their suggestions “won’t be acted on”. Perhaps the worst pretending act we heard of, as detailed in Samuel Rutishauser-Mills’ feature, was when college authorities supposedly forced staff to go by different names when they work because their birth names sound “too foreign”. One staff member shrugged it

“

These alarming issues must be addressed by the colleges in question off when I asked him about this, as though it was common practice – yet there are surely few things more demeaning than depriving someone of their own name. It goes without saying that these alarming issues must be addressed by the colleges in question. If they are truly concerned with the wellbeing of their staff, they can begin by respecting them through the wages paid. Reassuringly perhaps, at least 16 colleges now pay their staff the Living Wage, yet only Hertford is accredited as a Living Wage Employer (meaning that they guarantee to pay all

staff, including contractors, the Living Wage as it increases with inflation). This discrepancy is alarming, and represents a reluctance to commit to provide staff with the financial security they desperately need to live in one of the country’s most expensive areas. While the national rate has recently been set at £7.85, Oxford’s excessively high housing prices and general cost of living means that the minimum Living Wage rate is, at best, a bare minimum.

leave, very good pension contributions... and an annual bonus. “We are also in the process of initiating an overall College pay and benefits review.” Worcester, who did not tell Cherwell exactly what their minimum wage paid to staff is, explained, “Worcester is aware of the living wage

A look at the progress made by Oxford’s Living Wage Campaign

“

Employers should acknowledge the fact that Oxford’s cost of living is comparable to London As put by one of the scouts I spoke to (see page 18), “You’d have thought they could at least pay us a few pence above that, to show that they’re not just concerned with hitting targets?” If employers are taking the needs of their staff seriously, they should acknowledge the fact that Oxford’s cost of living is comparable to that of London, where the Living Wage rate is £9.15 per hour. Two of the colleges who admitted they didn’t pay all staff the Living Wage were keen to justify themselves by listing some of the other benefits available to their employees. St John’s, for instance, which pays its staff £7.47 if they don’t have an NVQ Qualification, told us that they offer “a generous non-contributory pension scheme after one year of service”. They assured us, “For comparability with other colleges who place their employees on the Oxford Staff Pension Scheme, the equivalent rate of pay with an employee pension contribution of 6.35 per cent would be £7.95 for staff without NVQs.” St Antony’s, meanwhile, assured us that its rate of £7.21 “does not include a number of employee benefits such as extensive annual

and continues to actively review the salaries and other benefits of its staff in relation to both local and regional standards.” Elsewhere, St Hilda’s – paying some of its staff £7.65 – is “aware of the situation with regards to the Living Wage”, and told us that they “continue to give it active consideration”.

USU has backed the Living Wage Campaign since November 2011, although the student union didn’t get accreditation itself until last August. Cherwell reported that as late as May 2013, OUSU was still paying its cleaners 15 per cent less than their own campaigners had demanded. This year’s VP for Charities and Community, Ruth Meredith, reminded us, “Last year, the central University abolished the lowest grade on its pay scale last year, which was the only one below the Living Wage – a big win for my predecessor, Dan Tomlinson, and the campaign. “This, in effect, means every department is paying the Living Wage, as long as they pay in line with the central University, which to the best of my knowledge they all do.” Despite agreeing to pay direct staff the Living Wage from April 2013, the University has yet to accredit. It was announced in November of that year that all but four of all University departments

hired employees of contractors who were not paid the Living Wage. Stephen Rouse, Head of the University’s News & Information Office, told Cherwell, “The story about the four departments back in 2013 related to employees of contractors used by those departments. All direct employees of the central University are paid the Living Wage (at least) and have been for some time. “For many years, Oxford has ensured that everyone employed by the central University is paid the Living Wage. The University has been considering further steps on the issue of the Living Wage and hopes to make an announcement in the next few weeks.” Josh Platt, ex-JCR President of Hertford who oversaw his college’s campaign for accreditation, told Cherwell that he hoped for a “domino effect”, expecting others to follow suit. “We need every single Principal standing up and saying, ‘My students have been campaigning hard for this – what are we going to do about it?’ “There is no reason that staff at any other college should be treated more unfairly than those at Hertford.”

Both Queen’s and St Hugh’s told C+ that they were looking into getting accredited. A spokesperson from St Hugh’s explained, “We are committed to increasing [our lowest pay point] in line with the Living Wage calculations in November, each year. We are working towards accreditation and hope to make progress with that in 2015.”

Visit Cherwell.org to read more about the stories mentioned, and also to stay up to date as other colleges take steps towards full accreditation.

College staff treatment Samuel Rutishauser-Mills spoke to a former Jesus employee about bullying she experienced at the College

he Jesus College website lists an impressive number of commercial products. Bed and breakfast style accommodation, conference packages and private dining services all give a sense that the College is more than a mere academic institution. The “We’re on Trip Advisor” stickers and “Five-star hygiene” rating signs greeting visitors on entrance to the lodge give the sense, if anything, that one is entering a hotel. Of course, such enterprise is to be expected; the College has to generate extra revenue somehow if it is to meet all its costs. But to what lengths are they prepared to go to achieve this? A number of students would argue that the increasing corporatisation of the college is creating an unfriendly, impersonal and vacuous atmosphere. However, this narrative has recently taken a nastier twist, one which has brought the Jesus College staff into the mix. Recently appointed catering managers have left staff feeling bullied and harassed in their pursuit of an impassive standard of service, presumably only for their non-student customers. Many members of staff, some of whom have worked at the College for over a decade, recently quit their jobs due to the increasingly unfriendly environment they have found themselves working in. I spoke to Sara, who was, until the last few weeks, a member of the catering staff. She told me that she was prepared to share an account of her recent treatment by the College, as well as the experiences of some of her co-workers. Sara first talked to me about Theresa, who, after 12 years of service for the College, left last month. According to Sara, this was due to the harassment she received by the new managers, which started to make work unbearable. “She was continually watched over as she worked, receiving criticism about her appearance and how she interacted with the customers.” Giving

an example, Sara told me, “Theresa never wore make-up in her life. When the new management took over, they asked her to start wearing it and to make more of an effort with her appearance.” Furthermore, “For 12 years she wore trousers to work, and had never worn a skirt. But one day they insisted she start wearing one to make herself look better. It upset her tremendously.” Within a couple of months, these frequent demands took their toll, and Theresa quit her job. Sara also talked about Helen, another member of the catering staff who quit her job at the

“

They were in fact given their names when they joined the college, as their real ones were deemed too “foreign”

ing over backwards to generate revenue. Sara then began to describe her own experience, and why she had decided to quit her job. She told me she had worked at Jesus for a couple of years and would have stayed longer until a number of unpleasant encounters with new managers changed her mind. “For two years I tied my hair up, and no one said a thing,” Sara told me. “But then it suddenly became an issue – it wasn’t up enough. I was called into meeting after meeting after meeting – five in the space of three weeks, they wouldn’t let it go.” The second meeting left her in tears, but by the end she started becoming more exasperated than upset. “One day I was called up at 4am to attend to a young relative whose mother was in hospital. I had to miss work that day. But the managers were not impressed and I was told on the phone that there would be a meeting about this. In the meeting I was told to give notice next time, which is tricky to do at four in the morning for an unplanned hospital visit.”

“In the fifth meeting about my hair, one of the managers took me into a room with a brush and said she would do my hair for me. It was obviously a patronising thing to do, and it was then that I realised this had gone too far; two days later I handed in my notice.” In total, at least five members of staff have left the College in the space of a few weeks due to perceived mistreatment. Some of these people had no other job as a fall back, meaning for them unemployment is simply more preferable to staying on. This is surely unacceptable – a college should be a friendly place, in which staff feel part of the community and not ‘the help’. As students, we must not become indifferent to such mistreatment under our very noses. It is no good espousing worldly ideals if unfairness occurs right under our noses for our four cheese ravioli. The names in this piece have been changed. Jesus College did not respond to our comment request.

end of last year after more than fourteen years at the college. According to Sara, “Helen had taken some time off from work for health reasons. When she returned she asked for reduced hours to allow herself to ease back into the work. The College wouldn’t allow it, and Helen found herself becoming exhausted from the full time work. One day she just stopped showing up. Of course, the college did nothing to acknowledge her years of service and that was that.” Sara also told me that they were in fact given these names when they joined the College, as their real ones were deemed too “foreign”. This was before the change of management, but is telling of a longer program of mistreatment of staff at the college, as a consequence of it bend-

Student Comments “There appears to be a divide between the scouts, who are mainly Eastern European, and other college staff, such as hall staff, who are mainly Western European or British.” —Exeter “Most people get on well with the bar staff, but the scouts are another matter. It seems like everyone is keen to pretend that they don’t exist.” —Somerville “Our scouts appear to have a very high turnover.” —Lady Margaret Hall “You can quite easily tell the hierarchy of employees and those at the bottom seem only too aware of that.” —Merton “Respecting scouts amounts to more than being superficially pleasant face to face. People will smile and chat happily to their scouts, then leave kitchens and bathrooms in chaos for them to deal with, undermining these positive gestures.” —Magdalen “A number of students seem to treat college staff like the ‘help’, as if they’re just a body of people who are there to respond to any and all demands.” —Jesus “I feel they are very separated from our lives as students and any conversation is only really thank yous and so forth.” —Pembroke “They should be paid the Living Wage but aren’t. There should be more training available to scouts.” —Worcester

A student who worked as a scout told C+ of unpaid overtime and staff feeling as if their opinion doesn’t matter to management Anonymous Student

’ve worked with the scouts about five months in total and I can’t say that I have been mistreated. On the contrary, whenever I had some issues (meal entitlements not being fair between the different types of student workers, for example), the Lodge Manager and Bursar helped me more than I could have hoped. However, the way the scouts see the college is completely different to the way the students do. When students are in college, everything is nice and quiet. Each scout has to do the same job over and over again and they normally work with the same group of students. So

“

It happened quite a few times that the scouts didn’t get paid their welldeserved extra money far, the only issue I can remember was when people leave a big mess at the end of term and it’s a bit tricky to clear it all up. They do get extra help in those cases. However, things get a bit out of control during vacations when the workload ranges from nothing to humanly impossible. There is very bad communication between the Domestic Bursar, Lodge Manager and conference coordinators, and it is often the case that they get told to do something when in fact they have to do the complete opposite. A particularly bad experience was when there were two events happening consecutive-

ly and the changeover was supposed to be on a Sunday. Everyone knew about it, and the scouts got all the rooms ready by Friday. However, after Housekeeping closed that day, the conference team booked another 30-40 arrivals for Sunday. And it ended with one scout working until 11pm, having been in since 9am – there were no apologies, nothing. They also don’t get paid overtime properly. If college needs people to work more than usual, the scout can choose to get a day off, or get paid time-and-a-half. However, despite this being a rule that the Domestic Bursar made very clear in a meeting with the scouts and the Lodge Manager, it has happened quite a few times that the scouts didn’t get paid their well-deserved extra money at the cut-off date. Another thing which shocked me were the feedback forms they had to fill in. Most felt like their opinion didn’t matter or that there’s no point writing what you actually think of the job because the manager is going to question it and make you feel like you’re in the wrong. Finally, this summer the scouts’ contract was changed, and they are no longer allowed to have lunch unless they stay for 30 minutes longer. They were extremely upset about this for a good few days.

Cherwell | 16.01.15

“Someone told me she feels insecure talking to students whose parents might be rich bankers or famous actors”

A scout describes his relationships with students and managers, as well as the realities of living in Oxford

Anonymous Scout

came to England five years ago, and I’m in my third year here. I don’t want to speak too negatively about the staff and students at my college because on the whole, I do feel respected by them. There was one instance when a staff member called the scouts “greedy pigs” because we took too much of the free lunch allowance, but comments like that are quite rare. The management make a good effort if it’s your birthday, for instance. We get on well with the other departments – before Christmas some of the scouts and catering staff

“

The main problem is that we’re at the bottom of the power chain. You often feel like your suggestions won’t be acted on went on a night out with the porters. One of the more senior staff members and I do a good Fawlty Towers sketch together. It’s hard to say whether we’re listened to. Management hold a few liaison meetings with us and there’s a suggestions box in the basement where our main office is. The main problem is that we’re pretty much at the bottom of the “power” chain. You often feel like your suggestions won’t be acted on when they’ve got their own ways of how to run the place. There’s been a bit of a shift in the past few years – a lot of colleges, mine included, have been seized with a kind of “managerial spirit”. There’s a big focus on making money. If you’re a manager you need to ensure results. People don’t necessarily like or need change for change’s sake. Also, before this managerial era you could rise up through the ranks. Someone here started out as a scout about 30 years ago and has now made it to one of the managerial posi-

tions. I don’t think you can do that anymore – it’s a shame, but I guess you need a degree to do nearly everything these days. I guess it’s just that a lot of colleges are trying to keep up with the zeitgeist. We hosted conference after conference this summer, and I don’t think there’s necessarily a bad thing, just as long as it’s translated into more pay for us. We do get a bonus over the conference season though, and there are plenty of extra shifts going. There has been a noticeable change in my pay this year, whereas before that they’d often add on just one per cent. I just fear that the college, having matched this Living Wage rate, will think ‘that’s that job done’. You’d have thought they could at least pay us a few pence above that, to show that they’re not just concerned with hitting targets? £7.85 won’t get you very much in Oxford. My frustration is perhaps more with the town itself than the College. Rent and bills are extortionate – personally, I think that the council should put a cap on it. It makes me furious when estate agents with flashy iPads show me round tiny cupboards that they expect you to buy and live in! A colleague of mine has to work three or four hours at college, then another few hours at a school as a cleaner. It’s unavoidable if you’re raising a kid by yourself and you’ve got a mortgage to pay. Still, it’s an enjoyable job if you go in with the right attitude. I feel – I hope – that the students respect me. You’re never going to win over everyone – I’ll mainly speak to the same ones again and again, particularly those who started at the same time as me and are now in their final year. The scouts who don’t talk to students often don’t speak much English or they’re naturally a bit shy. A friend of mine who struggles with the language joked to me this morning, “I must come across as crazy for not talking to the students.” Another told me that she feels insecure talking to students whose parents might be rich bankers or famous actors. These problems will crop up every now and then, and it’s a great shame, but the students themselves aren’t usually responsible. That said, more students should acknowledge that many scouts have had to go through things in their lives that undergraduates are too young to even imagine.

Student survey results 59% of students feel that college management respects its hall staff, but only 45% feel that scouts are treated with respect

68% of students feel that they have a good relationship with both hall staff and scouts, yet 39% of students claim not to know any hall staff by name

81.5% of respondents could name at least one scout,

while over half spoke to scouts (52%) and hall staff (56%) at least three times a week Only 10% and 4% of those surveyed felt that they actively did not have a good relationship with their scouts and hall staff respectively

Do you know any of your college’s hall staff by name? More than one (21.5%) Yes (39.5%) No (39%)

An update from OUSU’s Living Wage Campaign Ruth Meredith

OUSU VP (Charities and Communities)

Fergal O’Dwyer

Oxford Living Wage Campaign Co-Chair

he OUSU Oxford Living Wage Campaign is at an exciting point. We’re working with several colleges on moving toward either paying the Living Wage, or accrediting, and believe that we’ll see this pay off over the next six months. We’ll be carrying on our core work of speaking to staff and supporting college campaigns, but we will be reaching out to even more students this term. I am dismayed that there remain any colleges who think it’s acceptable to pay their staff below the Living Wage, when Hertford has proved that it’s possible to pay more, and to promise to continue paying it. The campaign has always been clear that to speak of a college community whilst not paying staff enough to live on is unacceptable. All staff – scouts, fellows, gardeners, presidents – should be part of college communities, and Living Wage accreditation is an important part of making that happen. Hertford’s accreditation was the result of sustained student and staff activism. Their decision would never have happened without it, and I’d really encourage students to challenge their colleges on why they haven’t accredited yet. The momentum that the campaign is gathering at the moment reflects the growing

Sam Couldrick

Oxford Living Wage Campaign Co-Chair

anger at the scale of national in-work poverty. It is vital that prestigious institutions such as Oxford University set a moral as well as a practical precedent: we must make work pay. The news of Hertford’s accreditation was very encouraging, and we are hopeful that there will be more to come very soon. This is now as good a chance as any to make real,

“

The news of Hertford’s accreditation was very encouraging, and we are hopeful that there will be more to come soon long-lasting change. That’s what accreditation stands for. This didn’t happen overnight. There were students working on this before I had even chosen which A Levels to study. It’s been a long road and there’s still a way to go, but there is a real buzz at the moment and that’s great. The tide is with us.

Food & Drink | 19

16.01.15 | Cherwell

Recipe of the week: Fried Garlic Sandwich Bar Review: This week, Rhiannon Gibbs-Harris makes quite a stinky sandwich Balliol

andwiches are the best. They can be eaten at almost every occasion, they’re great hangover cures, and nothing is more comforting. I’m personally obsessed with Taylor’s hot sandwiches but, unfortunately, my bank balance is less keen on them. This sandwich contains the two ingredients which people either love or hate: garlic and blue cheese. This is an unusual combination but these ingredients contrast wonderfully with each other and the fumes of the garlic are an excellent cure for a hangover. I usually find fried garlic to be too bitter in taste and it is really important to make sure that you don’t burn it. This is why I fry it with a little sugar (preferably soft brown sugar). The thing with garlic is to not separate it into individual cloves until you’re ready to cook with it so that it doesn’t shrivel up and turn green and bitter. Peeling garlic itself is horrifically difficult but if you separate the cloves out, dunk them in ice water and then cut off both ends, the rest of the skin should then come off fairly easily. Admittedly this is a fairly decadent recipe for one but if you bought a longer baguette then you could easily cut it and share it.

Ingredients:

1 garlic bulb 250g blue cheese Pinch of soft brown sugar 1 small baguette Bacon (optional) Rocket (optional)

7. Cut blue cheese into thin slices.

8. Place blue cheese on top of garlic. 9. Allow to melt slightly then add any other ingredients.

Method: 1. Heat some butter in a pan, making sure that it doesn’t burn. 2. Add the sugar to the pan and allow it to dissolve into the butter.

33222

3. Cut the garlic cloves into slices about half a centimetre thick. 4. Place garlic slices in hot butter. 5. Allow the garlic to fry in the butter until only slightly browned. 6. Remove the garlic from the butter and place inside the baguette.

A birthday party to remember Liquor Review Despite low hopes Ching Lee goes to Atomic Burger and has a great time This week, we take a look at the various gins on the market

Hendrick’s Gin (£26.00, 41.4%) This Scottish gin prides itself on its quirky taste, but it is neither as bold nor as distinctive as its (admittedly impressive) marketing suggests. This is not necessarily a bad thing – the promised tastes of rose and cucumber sit comfortably in the background, making the gin sweet and fruity without limiting its versatility too much. Its flavour makes for a poor martini, but it’s lovely with tonic and makes for a refreshing summer drink. So I would perhaps recommend this for people who don’t really like gin. Greenall’s Gin (£14.50, 37.5%) Greenall’s are perhaps better known for producing Bombay Blue Sapphire, among other household names, but if you expected them to save the best for themselves you will be disappointed. There’s nothing really terrible about it, beyond its Ed Milliband level blandness. Its insipid flavour is very easy to drown in a cocktail and perhaps this is for the best. For its cost, however, you may as well stick with its more obvious rivals. Oliver Cromwell London Dry Gin (£9.99, 37.5%) Don’t let the name or the serif-font on the label fool you – despite lacking the label of “everyday value” this is Aldi’s own brand gin. While this does explain the price tag, the award winning quality is a real surprise. It has repeatedly placed higher in taste tests than rival brands more than twice the price and definitely deserves to. Classic yet spicy, this gin has no artisan pretensions but lacks the harshness of anything else in its price range (like Tesco). It may still be too dry for some people’s tastes, but this could be easily rectified with a bit of sugar. Something we should try? Email lifestyle@ cherwell.org with suggestions.

n case you didn’t know, this comic-book themed diner offers you a free burger on your birthday, provided that you prove it with ID. Since it was my birthday I begrudgingly allowed my friend to talk me into having my birthday party here. Neither a fan of burgers nor comics, I had never been enticed to go in until I found out about this deal, especially given its slightly tacky exterior. I was more than happy to see that the menu was varied (down to what you want your burger to be made out of, and whether you’d like malt added to your milkshake). They served us with smiles on their faces and in their voices, and spread around the good cheer. When we showed up on the night, we were immediately welcomed and shown to our table at the back of the room, below the TV screen that was showing old music videos on loop. Stepping inside, you feel like you’ve entered a cartoon world – even our table was bright and multi-coloured. Drinks followed shortly afterwards (apart from the one that they had overlooked), in milk bottles and they were creamy, frothy, cold, and bursting with flavour. Adding malt is free, so a friend and I had malted shakes for the same price as my other friends who had normal shakes (i.e. £3.25) . As for the burgers, the clean plates said it all. Juicy meat, with a light burger bun that was crucially not greasy (though they were prepared and gave us extra napkins), with generous fillings. To give you an idea of the prices, they range from £8.25 to £10.95 and you can “go Atomic” with any of the burgers, i.e. double their size. The sides were superb too – crispy thin fries, potato or sweet potato came with the burger. You can also order onion rings, extra top-

pings on your fries, and salads. Understandably, by the time we got to the dessert, even though we were only sharing, our extended bellies meant that we weren’t really in the mood for it. Sadly, the Wookie Cookie Sundae (£5.95, inside are oreos and a chocolate butterscotch sauce) did little to change that, but it was upstaged and partially melted by the flame from the portable ‘campfire’ we had to roast marshmallows in. I was particularly impressed by their investment in these burners, which you could use at the table for the ‘Roasty Toasty Marshmallows’ (£3.95), having not expected much (I was half expecting them to be roasted before being brought to the table) because of the dessert’s low low price. Atomic Burger is a great place to eat with your friends, serving delicious food with

“

A great place, serving delicious food with good humor good humour and in a fabulous environment. It took my friends and I on a trip down memory lane, and we felt like children again, sitting around the campfire, which was nice since I was feeling particularly old that day. This is my new restaurant of choice for an informal evening out, and should be highly recommended for any upcoming birthday celebrants

aving reviewed a few bars by this point, I wanted to start the term off with a bang and so I decided to review the most frequented of all: Balliol. Balliol is in many ways the college bar to which every other is compared and every Crazy Tuesday it’s completely full. With this in mind, I took my college daughter on a Tuesday so she could experience this rite of passage. The first thing I must say about Balliol is that it isn’t particularly well-designed. The ceiling is too low, there aren’t enough toilets, it’s kind of grotty, and if you didn’t manage to nab that table early, there’s no hope of sitting down. The drawings on the wall of famous Balliolites are kind of take-them-or-leavethem (I leave them) and the pool table is a nice touch but if it’s a busy night then it’s unlikely you’ll be able to play. It kind of seems like Balliol designed the bar for significantly fewer people and then became a victim of its own success when the crowds started showing up en masse. However, the signature drinks are still fun (even if they do run out of the Balliol Blue all the time) and it is a fun place to be. The selection of alcohol is very impressive

“

This bar is the victim of its own success and it’s of course very very cheap here too. My beer was well-pulled and the bartenders are nice, if a little overworked and everybody seems to be in a relatively good mood. I’ve never been to Balliol bar and had a truly shitty time. The fact that it’s so central means bar-hopping is easy and if you’re there with someone who’s dull as fuck you can always ditch them easily. But then other people can be slightly standoffish and people don’t chat unless they’re wasted which can make it an oddly lonely experience, especially if you’re relatively sober (as I was that night). The most social place to be is often smoking outside but unfortunately no one here is that sociable either, and everyone seems to be smoking alone (where’s the fun in that?). In my mind, going to Balliol bar is as much an ‘Oxford Moment’ as matriculation or punting and this means it’s incredibly difficult to really give this bar a rating. It has its issues (overcrowding, claustrophobic-ness) but in the end it manages to get a very good blend of location, price, and atmosphere. So, to be honest, it is fair enough that this is the college bar to which every other bar is compared, but that still doesn’t mean that it’s the best bar in Oxford. My feeling about Balliol bar is that it attempts to be a typical student bar in a place which doesn’t really offer the typical student experience which is why it has become so successful. Unfortunately this has meant that it’s become slightly clichéd and slightly uncool to go to Balliol bar. I personally feel that this really has become a place which is just for freshers, which was fine for my daughter but I really felt too old.

PHOTO

SHADES OF AFRICA - RACHAEL GRIFFITH

FASHION Fashion Matters Louise Benton confronts the trainer dilemma

long standing pet peeve of mine is the trainer trend. As the seasons have passed, the foul, often rubber, shoe monstrosities have bred and multiplied on the feet of otherwise sane human beings. Even Dior brought out a trainer. Is this really what the fashion world has come to? Shoes people use in sport to absorb their sweat? Christian must be turning in his grave. Don’t get me wrong, the trainer has a well-deserved place in your average girl’s wardrobe; they can put an extra bounce in your stride on that final leg of your morning run, they can deflect the stabbing pain of a rogue epée when fencing and they can, in certain styles, add a tasteful splash of colour to a monochrome sports legging. What concerns me is when they are removed from the gym bag and placed on a catwalk. The struggle became real when I purchased some beautiful neon pink, Nike Roshe running trainers. As I slipped my feet onto the generously cushioned sole, not unlike Cinderella and her perfectly fitting glass slipper, I reached levels of shoe comfort that I could never have understood in my leather Chelsea boots or my patent brogues. Not only could I walk to lectures before 9am, I could skip and bound. That was the day that I sold my very tasteful soul to Nike and Sweaty Betty. The transformation was gradual. I justified this indiscretion by pairing them with yoga leggings and sweatshirts. To the common passer by, I was on the way to the gym.

“

What concerns me is when trainers are removed from the gym bag and placed on a catwalk It wasn’t long before I reasoned that clubbing is a very active pastime, so really it was appropriate that I should wear them out in the evening. After that I found that I had no objection to wearing trainers in any situation; what Dior says, goes. I had lost my way. Through a careful programme of Pinterest boards and tailored shirts, I am curbing my bad habit and I urge you to do the same. The problem only begins with trainers though and I am comforted that I am yet to commit the ultimate crime against fashion, which thankfully has (so far) been ignored by Vogue. The football shirt. I am saying nothing against football supporters out there and by all means wear your favourite shirt to your favourite stadium to support your favourite team. But does anyone want to see the glimmer of sweat-proof polyester elastacine fabric, sitting unflatteringly like a shapeless sack when out and about? I would be the last one to suggest that you should suffer to be beautiful but comfort and style are not always at odds. Might I direct you towards a cashmere jumper and some advice: put temptation out of your way and simply do not buy attractive trainers.

The original Calendar Girls: more WOAH than WI

Rosie Gaunt finds the Pirelli Calendar exhibition in Milan to be food for thought

s certain as a bad hangover on New Year’s Day are the resolutions and self-made promises of January detoxes, cleanses and health kicks. Amongst all the talk (and let’s face it, it’s almost always just talk), there is hope, because with the new calendar year comes new calendars; and if you want inspiration that’s going to last all year round I suggest you buy one, a naked one. I’m not talking about one with 12 months’ worth of scantily clad, heavily photoshopped Justin Bieber photos, or Page Three girls on a beach, I’m talking about true art in celebration of the human form. ‘Form and Desire’ is the aptly named exhibition of 40 years of photography from the best of the best of these calendars: the Pirelli. The location of the exhibition is as fitting as its name: the fashion Mecca that is Milan. While clothes are few and far between in the shoots, the models, stylists and photographers are some of fashion’s finest. The 2015 Calendar is shot by Steven Meisel, styled by Carine Roitfeld and features Adriana Lima, Joan Smalls and Natalia Vodianova to name just a few.

Previous photographers include Richard Avedon, Peter Lindberg, Bruce Weber, Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Testino and Karl Lagerfeld, whilst the likes of Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Helena Christensen, Heidi Klum and Eva Herzigova appear as models. Pirelli is fashion, and not just because, as Vivienne Westwood famously announced, “Fashion is about eventually being naked”. The exhibition in its own words is about photography as a “testimony of particular changes, of new styles, of new ideas, of many creative and technical innovations”, just as fashion is. The 200 photos in the exhibition are displayed accordingly – not chronologically, ironic given that is an exhibition of prints from calendars. They are grouped in five rooms, each room’s collection highlighting a different aspect of the calendar that has run through 40 years of different concepts and photographers. Finally, Meisel’s photos for this year are presented, and they have saved the most overtly sexual for last.

The first street style blog

Elif Acar rediscovers Edward Linley Sambourne’s work

he street style blog exploded onto the nascent blogging scene as the new craze-du-jour in 2007. Seven years later, every major fashion city is saturated with ‘photographers’ roaming its streets, approaching well-dressed strangers with the flattering request of “Could I take your photo for my blog?” ‘Street-stylists’ may be patting themselves on the back for inaugurating this new phenomenon, but in reality, credit is owed to famed Punch cartoonist Edward Linley Sambourne. Considering that he was shooting the fashionistas of South Kensington in the early 1900s, it’s surprising it took a century to catch on. The work of this amateur photographer is unique as a rare glimpse into the casual dress of the Edwardian woman. With its depiction of the constrained but immaculately coiffed woman grimacing in her discomfort, it offers a stark contrast to the stereotypical image of contemporary dress. Though they might seem rather prim to us Oxonians in our crop tops and tight jeans, Rebecca Richardson insists that i n an Edwardian context these shots are “laced with erotic undertones”. It didn’t take long for the blossoming fashion industry to seize the opportunity to monetize this ripple of social change, sexing up silhouettes and creating the ‘ideal’ hourglass figure. Indeed, the maxim of ‘sex sells’, prominent in today’s fashion media, was active, albeit passively, in a time governed by moral and social judgment. Amongst all this praise of his uncredited revolution, Linley Sambourne’s work is somewhat tainted by his dubious methods. ‘Candid’ is the operative word here. With the use of a concealed camera, his subjects were entirely oblivious they were being photographed. Before the days of CCTV, this clandestine operation may feel like an intentional and active violation, perhaps altering the impact of his project. However, I can excuse Edward his surreptitious ways – his work, limited by a lack of resources, was unique for the time and every Katie, Tom and Emily has him to thank for their current corner of the internet

However, there is another surprise too, amongst all the latex and fetish gear: Candice Huffman. She is the calendar’s first plussize (read: normal size) model. “My presence on this set,” she said, “the most glamorous in the world, is a sign that things are really changing.” She’s right, of course. Having visited the exhibition during a vacation spent scoffing pizza and pasta in Italy, I hoped to find inspiration for a cleaner, leaner 2015. Instead, I found true inspiration for a happier, but no less glamorous, one. Some might say that in this age of Facebook event pages and smartphone reminders there is no longer a need for the traditional calendar, but I believe they still have a place, marking the passing of time with regularly changing art. Unfortunately this is inspiration that I cannot hang on my wall all year round, as the calendars cannot be bought but are merely sent to a select and secret lucky few. So, while I’m working on looking ‘sexy’, not ‘scary’, in the hope of one day getting sent one, I suppose I’ll have to content myself for the moment with the R AG Blues Naked Calendar

tyle Meet the Eds:

Street Style

Rosie Gaunt Christ Church, 2nd year, Classics and Italian H&M knit & dress, Gucci bag, Crafted faux fur sandals “Black isn’t just for winter.”

Elif Acar Trinity, 2nd year, Law Topshop coat “This cold British excuse for spring is no reason not to include brights in your seasonal wardrobe.”

Go to www.cherwell.org/fashion and follow us on Facebook & Instagram @cherwellfashion to see more

22 | Fashion

16.01.15 | Cherwell

into the woods

Fashion | 23

16.01.15 | Cherwell

Photogr apher: christopher william cox Model: meredith leston

Th is

CULTURE

theme... ek’s we

Genius

“Washing the dust of daily life off our souls”

Fergus Morgan examines the difficulties endemic in attempting to portray genius

“T

he purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls,” according to Picasso. Assuming one of the most influential artists of all time knew something about the trade that kept his kids in shoes, we should accept that good art involves the individual, facilitates clarity of understanding, and, in general, gives people a bloody good, thought-provoking time. Art should cleanse, art should inspire, and art should invigorate. How is this best achieved? To that, there is no single answer. Picasso and his avantgarde contemporaries may have argued that provoking the viewer into re-evaluating their preconceptions was key. One imagines that politically motivated artists like Banksy or Ai Weiwei would attempt to engage with the viewer on an ethical, rational level. But in the global, commercially-driven spheres of popular music and film, I would suggest that emotional involvement is paramount. The latest Taylor Swift song or Hollywood blockbuster seeks to find success with as large an audience as possible, and to do that, it utilises recognisable (if not always relatable) emotions in an evidently manipulative way. In short, it attempts to involve the viewer or listener by making them feel. And this, for the most part, is a tremendously effective approach. Its artistic merit placed to one side, I think you would be hardpressed to find anyone who wasn’t just the tiniest bit affected by Frozen,, or by Katy Perry’s ‘Fireworks’. Yeah, Katy, I will make them go oh-oh-oh as I shoot across the sky-sky-sky. But what happens when complex, real-life stories are approached through these, for want of a better word, populist mediums? Are awkward, un-fairytale-like themes butchered into cute, kitsch banalities? Are difficult issues ignored in favour of happier conclusions? Is high-level academic

theory reduced to the most layman of layman’s terms? Is fact entirely reduced to disrespectful fiction? The stories of Alan Turing and Stephen Hawking are particularly relevant examples because two films depicting their lives, The Imitation Game and The Theory Of Everything respectively, have been released in the past few months, both to widespread critical acclaim. No-one could argue that the stories of their lives are straightforward. Alan Turing suffered childhood tragedy when his best friend died of tuberculosis, he endured the traumas of both world wars and played a major role in ending the second by cracking the Enigma code, only subsequently to be prosecuted for homosexuality and to commit suicide in June 1954. Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease whilst studying for his doctorate in Cambridge. His continued devotion to pushing the boundaries of cosmology is undoubtedly inspiring, but his personal life, particularly his strained relationship with his first wife Jane, is far from formulaic. How are their stories and achievements treated in their

respective biopics? The Imitation Game, which starred Bendict Cumberbatch as Turing, was damningly labelled “multiplex-friendly” by Christian Caryl and “soft-focus cinematic capital” by Catherine Shoard. It is difficult to disagree. Although undoubtedly an emotionally engaging and artistically sound film, it deserves the heavy criticism it received, both for its exceedingly tentative attitude towards Turing’s homosexuality, which is rarely more than hinted at throughout, and for the frustratingly brief description of the science that led Turing and his team to break the Nazis’ “unbreakable” code. As a result, The Imitation Game is little more than the cinematic equivalent of a charttopping Katy Perry song: predictably moving but ultimately unrecognisable to the point of disrespect. Its is a shallow success, one built on hackneyed themes, limited pretensions to scientific complexity, and above all, cheap sentimentality. The Theory Of Everything addresses the difficult issues at its heart with considerably more courage, with Eddie Redmayne’s powerfully physical portrayal of Hawking providing a major contribution. We are left under no illusions as to the

Too Much, Too Young

Deep Cover

Skeletor ft. Ignite the Sky Set Fire to the Stars Q&A

Friday - Saturday, 7.30pm Burton Taylor Studio

Friday, 10-3am The Cellar

Saturday, 6.30pm O2 Academy

Tuesday, 6pm Phoenix Picture House

A one-man show by actor-cum-comedian Jack Bennett, arguing that life-changing decisions should not be left up to teenagers. Promising a mix of humour and seriousness, Bennett aims to amuse by asking big questions.

The legendary hip hop night at Cellar returns, this time co-curated by P Money, and taking on, as one might expect, a distinctly grimy flavour. This also serves as the Oxford stop of the ‘Originators Tour’ for P Money, Big Narstie, Darq E Freaker and others. £8 entry with a flyer.

If you need a heavy metal fix for the beginning of term, this is the night for you. Featuring headliners Ignite the Sky,and four other supporting acts, prepare to get your mosh on.

A screening of the film that follows Dylan Thomas’ hellraising tour of American universities in the 1950s, starring Elijah Wood and newcomer Celyn Jiones. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with producer AJ Riach.

Picks of the Week

viscerally debilitating nature of his condition, nor are we fobbed off with a cosy, wide-eyed love story; the strain the Hawkings’ marriage is placed under is foregrounded, and

“

Neither Turing nor Hawking are paradigmatic Prince Charmings and they should in no way be treated as such the thought-provoking implications are never side-stepped. Even his scientific theories, which are so far evolved from my own intellectual capacity as to be virtually nonsense, are, if not detailed fully, at least sketched in. And as a result, it is infinitely more powerful. Art should wash the dust of daily life off our souls, as Picasso said, and in the world of film, it is emotional engagement that truly registers as a good soul-cleansing sesh. Both The Imitation Game and The Theory Of Everything involve the audience, but only the latter does so to a commendable extent. Neither Turing nor Hawking are paradigmatic Prince Charmings, and they should in no way be treated as such. They are both exceptionally intelligent individuals who have achieved remarkable scientific leaps and who have had to face the stigmatisations society has placed in front of them. Their stories, and those like them, should be treated with the respect and complexity they deserve

Culture | 25

16.01.15 | Cherwell

Milestones Cherwell picks out a key moment in cultural history. This week, Ollie Johnson extolls the brilliance of the invention of the beer widget

G Inane book cover quotes

ou walk into Waterstones. You meander to the ‘Celebrity Autobiography’ shelf. You see The Gospel According to Chris Moyles. You stop. You wonder if you should buy the book. You wonder why anyone would buy the book. You go back to whether you will like the book. You’re trapped in a quagmire of indecision. But then you notice a Simon Cowell quote on the cover – “You will love this book.” Thank the Lord. You’re converted. Money is exchanged. Dreams are made. It’s difficult to imagine how little confidence authors must have in their own work to think that placing a fantastically inane quote on the cover is a good idea. Unless you have the mental willpower of a squirrel, why would a quote by Bill Gates saying, “This is a very important book,” sway you into buying any piece of literature? Shakespeare didn’t need to call in a favour from a mate just so he could plaster “Yeah, it’s alright” on the cover of Macbeth. No matter how “riotously funny” Davina McCall found Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook , I will always have more faith in my own powers of rational decision-making. Book covers need only two things: a title and an author. That’s it. It’s a formula that has worked for literally hundreds of years. A quotation of any sort is entirely surplus to requirement, all the more so if an ex-Big Brother presenter or a random talking head from the media is the one being quoted. After all, isn’t life lesson number one not to judge a book by its cover?

enius and innovation go hand in hand. Any brain brilliant enough to be considered genius will inevitably produce something to improve the world around them, and these inventions are what drive human achievement. Just take a moment to think where we’d be as a civilisation without the wheel, the plough, the printing press, the refrigerator or the ballpoint pen. Consequently, the modern man is no longer plagued by the tribulations of the past. The telephone means we no longer have to wait an agonisingly long time for a handwritten letter from a loved one. The jet engine means we can travel thousands of miles in the time which our ancestors would have taken to travel tens. Yet, we are constantly affronted by fresh problems in our lives. Take the greatest issue facing our species in the current era: the quest to relax. In a world that is rapidly running out of food, water, inhabitable space, fossil fuels and bees, the importance of kicking back, opening a can of beer and just chilling has never been greater. It is at this juncture that we meet the greatest unsung inventors of the Twentieth Century: Alan Forage and William Byrne. They had the common person’s concerns at heart. Canned beer was the pivotal step in allowing the public to relax in the comfort of their own homes. But it was also widely known that lesser carbonated beers had never successfully survived the canning process. Guinness, the company for whom our dynamic duo worked, set up Project ACORN (Advanced Cans

Of Rich Nectar) to valiantly resolve this issue. Their solution was the widget, the most beautiful ball of hollow plastic the world has ever known. This elegantly simple creation was filled with nitrogen during the canning process, and placed in the beer so that it would re-release the gas once the can’s tab was pulled. This created the ideal level of gas bubbles and liquid. What that means in layman’s terms is a cracking foam head on every can of Guinness, Tetley’s and John Smith’s you could ever imbibe. The widget not only makes sure the foam is as substantial as one pulled in a pub, but the additional nitrogen also ensures the foam is creamier and better tasting. Consequently, it was a win-win for Guinness on every front; it meant their stout tasted good whether on the go or at a bar, and it meant they had a new product to mass market. By 1989l, in a quest for innovation that began in 1968, Forage and Byrne’s genius had pushed human achievement to its greatest pinnacle yet. So the next time the year 1989 springs to mind, remember it wasn’t significant just for the collapse of the Berlin Wall. And the next time you kick away an empty Guinness can into the gutter and hear a mysterious rattling noise as it rolls, remember what that noise means. That noise is the siren song of the widget, the answer to humankind’s most profound problem (surrounding the issue of effectively canning lesser-carbonated hops-based drinks). For now, we can revel in all our beers having sufficient foaming heads. And really, who couldn’t do with a bit more head?

Poetry Corner

To appear in this space, submit your work to our Tumblr blog cherwelletc.tumblr.com/

Deadwinter She woke up to deadwinter, The air thin and holding her breath Like it held the sun in late July, When the light would trickle Down like the lion’s honey Between the motes Beneath the clouds. The air thin and filling her bones Until her closing hands were slow And her grip felt flimsy on the handlebars The treads’ grip flimsy On the ice. The air thin and running down her sides Between the layers Of fleece and wool. The air thin and whispering in her ear “Oh, touching and insupportable loss” Of balance on the ice. The air too thin to hold her. Andrew McLean

Top Pick

Shit Pick

Alvin Roy Reeds Unlim- William Blake Special Print- Mark Watson: Flaws ing Demonstration ited Tuesday, 8.30-11pm The Bullingdon

Friday-Friday, 10-12pm, 2-4pm Ashmolean Museum

If heavy metal isn’t your thing, then this relaxed night of jazz at the Bullingdon might be much more up your street. It’s free entry all night, so turn up and enjoy syncopated beats from the winner of the British Jazz Band Contest (in 1960).

As part of the Ashmolean’s extended exhibition on William Blake, guest curator Professor Michael Phillips will use a Nineteenth Century printing press to demonstrate how Blake himself would have performed the printing process.

Quids In

Thursday, 7.30pm Oxford Playhouse

Friday, 10-3am Lava Ignite

Multi-award winning comedian Mark Watson returns to the Playhouse for his latest tour, Flaws. His darkest and most personal show yet, it also shows a return to the verbal and physical dynamism of his younger days.

An alternative to Wahoo on Friday, this night at Park End promises “top tunes, incredible drinks deals and an unforgettable party atmosphere”. Free entry before 11. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, you probably just have discerning taste in how you spend your leisure time.

Picks of the Week

Cherwell | 16.01.15

26 | Art & Books

Jonathan Yeo: the controversial yet charming artist

Emma Irving talks celebrities and surgery with Britain’s leading portrait painter

onathan Yeo is interviewing me – and oh, he’s good! “How’s Oxford?” he asks, with the ease of genuine interest. “What are you doing over the holidays?” It’s almost impossible to dislike Yeo – he’s all twinkly eyes and charm, even down the phone. I wonder if Britain’s leading portrait artist, with a landmark exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and a major 2014 retrospective at The Lowry to his name, is actually most talented as a master in charm offensive, which might originate from the artist’s close observation of the games people play. “No matter how much [people] try to put a particular face on when you first meet them, at some point they let their guard down. But sometimes you’re dealing with manipulators of their own image – actors, models, politicians all fall into the same category – and you can’t always be sure with people who are so good at doing that whether what you are getting at the end isn’t just a very sophisticated performance.” And what actors, models and politicians. They include Damien Hirst, Paris Hilton, and a glistening, naked, flagrantly pregnant Sienna Miller, as well asTony Blair’s infamous official portrait. On painting celebrities, Yeo notes, “Obviously it’s harder when you’re dealing with people [whom] you tend to know a bit about, [but] I try to go in neutral and without any preconceptions.” I query whether portraiture is arguably a record of an interaction rather than a portrayal of the sitter. “All portraits are a document of the relationship between artist and subject. It’s more interesting if you can start with a relatively blank sheet and see how [the subject] comes across to you.” So is the success of a portrait related to how much you like the person? “The ones I feel like hanging onto are the ones where I’ve enjoyed the process because I’ve enjoyed their company. You don’t always have to like someone. Sometimes you haven’t particularly liked the subject, but you

might adapt well to collage because of the way I tended to break things up on top of the painting anyway, and the obvious question therefore was where would you get a lot of skin going in the source material.” It was a similar situation with a series of portraits documenting women before and after cosmetic operations, “I got distracted for a while by all the possibilities [for meaning] with that … working out how much you could read into that person’s motivations and self-doubt and compulsion to follow fashion or a certain way of being seen and what they

“

have had a strong enough reaction to them... to make something interesting of it. The ones that don’t work are the ones where you get bored along the way.” I am struck once again by his conviviality, how Yeo manages to be both figurehead of the contemporary artistic intelligentsia and naughty schoolboy, permanently perched on the edge of a chuckle. He also defies art scene fads. “It seems obvious to me that fashions always change and people who’ve got something interesting to say will always have relevance.” A trustworthy schoolboy, then, with languid tones that are punctuated only by the sharp wit skimming beneath the surface. No wonder the establishment likes him. Except, that is, when he decided to collage the President of the United States, amongst others, in hardcore porn. As you do. Apparently, however, it was not the response to a

Loading the Canon Lily McIlwain calls for the addition of Gil ScottHeron‘s fictional writing to the literary establishment

iven his status as one of the twentieth century’s most influential poets and musicians, Gil Scott-Heron’s early prose fiction has had a tendency to be somewhat eclipsed. The ‘godfather of rap’ took a year out of a degree he never finished to complete his novel The Vulture, which was published simultaneously with Small Talk at 125th and Lenox in 1970; and, while he did go on to publish another – The Nigger Factory – in 1972, the LP Heron made of Small Talk was to mark the beginning of a recording career from which he would not look back. The Vulture is ostensibly a murder mystery – one which weaves together the lives of four men as it relates the story of the death of John Lee – but the novel is not so much a thrilling page-turner as a rich, poetic evocation of the lives of young black New Yorkers in the 1960s. The prose is imbued with the rhythms of Heron’s poetry, and it hangs somewhere between fiction and music even as it describes the grittiest of drug-related murders; indeed, when the characters name (as they often do) the songs playing at certain moments of their story, it only provides a label for the organic beat that has been running through the words themselves. The political consciousness and satirical edge present in Heron’s recorded music are equally felt in The Vulture, and there’s no denying that it’s a novel which is going to make you uncomfortable. The visceral reality of the world his characters inhabit gives you the feeling that you should just shut up

and listen – this murder mystery is not one that invites the reader’s judgment. The Vulture captures better than most other novels of the time the intangible atmosphere of the era it describes. You’re really living and breathing it until you’re hit with a killer line, such as, “They had decided long ago that the game of life really was not worth playing, because the inventor of the game kept most of the rules a secret,” that reminds you that this is the work of a poet who has constructed with absolute mastery a world that to you seems so very, very real. The ‘mystery’ element isn’t by any stretch the most exciting part of the book – indeed, the revelation of the murderer is so anticlimactic that it’s not initially obvious who it is – but it doesn’t matter; this novel is important. You only have to read it to know.

cancelled commission from Bush that the press made it out to be. “[The subjects] were very much public images and so they were trading off their reputations,” he explains, “I wasn’t trying to give any sort of insight into who these people actually were, it was a purely Warhol thing of using their reputation as public image and playing with that.” A social comment then? “They all in some way trade off sexuality or nudity or their attitude towards things. [The project] became just as much about the proliferation of pornography… five, six years ago the pervasion of pornographic and semi-pornographic images in the media and advertising seemed to be increasing, and so we had immediate access to them all.” There’s a defiance to him too that can be seen in these pieces that writhe with eroticism and intensity. “I was aware that my style

All portraits are a document of the relationship between artist and subject were doing to themselves, rather than any kind of penetrating, psychological character study.” “As I’ve gone on, I’ve gotten more into letting in [other possibilities for meaning within portraiture], subtly layering complex narratives or wider ideas into a picture. I think it’s a shame not to try that, not to be a little bit ambitious.” And then? “There was a logic to [the series], but I was very aware that it would be a playful thing as well ... it’s fun then when people realize what they’re looking at and that changes their relationship with the picture as an object. And then you go into a whole new territory beyond painting, so that’s the fun of it really.” We’re back with the witty schoolboy, tongue very much in cheek

Review: Hilary Mantel’s short stories

Ben Cooke explores the novelist’s ‘Maggiephobia’

33322

f her many accolades, Hilary Mantel can perhaps be most proud of arousing the Daily Mail’s ire. She did so by doing what novelists are supposed to – spotting that which is too directly in front of everyone’s noses for anyone else to notice. To her we owe thanks for observing that Thatcher was a ‘psychological transvestite’ and for noting that the media sees Kate Middleton as a doll on which to hang clothes. Her talent for capturing an attitude in one wry, glancing phrase is abundantly displayed in her latest collection of stories – The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – as is her deeply felt ‘Maggiephobia’. The first story, ‘Sorry to Disturb’, easily eclipses the rest. This autobiographical piece recalls the years she spent in Jeddah, Saudia Arabia, where a Pakistani businessman’s knock at her door resulting in a comedy of crossed cultures and crossed wires. Yet the overall impression is not comic, because it is as much a sketch as a story of a woman, both claustrophobic and agoraphobic, trapped far from home in a cockroach-patrolled flat, and unwilling to venture into the unfriendly city. Unfortunately, not all the stories are so good. ‘Winter Break’ follows a couple’s taxi journey, where the driver hits some creature then finishes it off with a rock, and dumps its corpse in the boot. The classic structure of the short story is identifiable: the ambiguity, about whether the ‘kid’ the car hit was of the four-legged, grass-chewing sort, finds its inevitable resolution in the final sentence. The trouble is, no author in their right mind would finish a story by saying, “Oh, it was just a goat,”

so we already realise the car actually hit a human child long before Mantel confirms it. Like ‘Winter Break’, ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ describes a bourgeois life interrupted – by the Prime Minister’s eye operation at the hospital near the narrator’s house, then by a call from an IR A assassin requiring a vantage point. The cliché-heavy dialogue which these two very different antiThatcherites exchange dissipates the early promise of the story. This makes it the crassest of what is generally a subtle and highly readable collection

Film & TV | 27

16.01.15 | Cherwell

A Brief History of Hawking

Rachael Griffith finds The Theory of Everything empirically excellent

Landmarks of cinema Metropolis (1927)

A seminal work of art as well as a movie, Fritz Lang’s expressionist masterpiece examined a rapidlymodernising, mechanical world

orking during the relatively quiet, artistically rich years of the Weimar Republic, Fritz Lang’s magnum opus Metropolis was a combination of modernist, technological and proletarian concerns. In a medium that was still establishing itself, Lang’s film follows poor worker Maria and wealthy heir to the eponymous city Freder as they try to overcome the gulf between worker and elite in a future ruled by industrialists. Machine women, Futurist architecture and social commentary, then, are the three main ingredients of this seminal work, which has been rescored numerous times by the likes of Freddie Mercury and Adam Ant. Essential viewing for anyone interested in 20th-century cinema, Metropolis remains as poignant and potent as it was in 1927.

2014: the year in review Tom Barrie revisits last year’s films. How many do you remember?

33332

was so desperate to see this film. I thought Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones would be the ideal combination, and, sure enough, their acting was brilliant. Redmayne’s portrayal of Stephen Hawking was raw and (albeit to a non-medical eye) accurate. Jones is excellent in the role of a strong, but not strong enough, woman. You are invited to see Hawking as a man without that illness that so often seems to define him, and it is refreshing. His relationship with Jane is sweet and passionate; you are shown two people who fall into simple and uncomplicated love. That is, until the heartbreaking thud that sees his glasses smash against the cobbles of a Cambridge court, when it suddenly gets far more complicated. Until around the half way point, this film was without a doubt five stars. I guess this is the problem with biopics. Firstly, they have to show real life, so they cannot have the manufactured happy ending of fictional films. Secondly, they have to represent what really happened, so angles are not going to be taken to kindly. The film is very one-sided in this respect, attempting to be overly sympathetic towards Stephen, whilst mostly blaming Jane for their relationship’s demise. This leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable, but that is almost certainly the aim of the film. It questions what we would do if our boyfriend or girlfriend were

diagnosed with such a serious, degenerative disease. Could we do any more than try our best? However, apart from the slight factual imbalance, this is a brilliant film that endears

“

This is the problem with biopics - they have to show real life, so they cannot have the manufactured happy ending of fictional films the viewer to both Jane and Stephen. The strength of Jane and enduring humour of Stephen shows that there can still be hope in such a dreadful situation. It should be a call to arms for those still battling illnesses and terrible situations. There is still something you can achieve, for everyone has a talent. As Stephen himself said, “Where there is life, there is hope.” Thus, the film is an excellent combination of real life sadness, and inspirational moments. I shall be very surprised if there is not an Oscar in the running

Close up Hilary TV

o, what’s coming up this term on TV? Well, if bearded men in leather is your thing, The Musketeers is returning to BBC1, minus Peter Capaldi, due to him being otherwise occupied saving the planet. Swords and seduction not doing it for you? For the more morbid of us, Olivia Coleman and David Tennant both return to ITV in the BAFTA award-winning Broadchurch, as writer Chris Chibnall continues to cover the fallout from the first season’s murder. Despite an abortive American remake, the second season shows no sign of letting up on the drama. Coming up over on Channel 4 is an innovative three-sided series by Queer as Folk creator Russell T. Davies. Cucumber, Banana and Tofu will air on Channel 4, E4 and 4oD respectively. Let us hope that Davies’ new brain-children lives up to the hype, and that they’re less ridiculous than their titles. The

demon-hunting Winchesters also make a comeback as long-running cult drama Supernatural returns to our screens, moves to E4 after being dropped by Sky Living last March. In soap land, the mystery of Lucy Beale’s murder continues to feature in EastEnders. We are, however, promised a gripping resolution as part of a special live episode in February – one which, if the last live episode is anything to go by, will at least offer some comedic value even for the non-soap inclined. For those of us lucky enough to have Netflix, Sons of Anarchy, The Office (the US version, rather than the original Ricky Gervais vehicle) and House of Cards also return, which could make a curious triple bill. So, eat your hearts out, students – those essays and problem sheets can always be put off for another hour or so. Eve Beere

ast year was, like any other 12 months in cinema, a mixture of highs and lows. Early in the year we saw the usual glut of Oscar contenders, with January releases of the utterly harrowing 12 Years A Slave and Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street, a film whose ultimate moral was lost under mountains of coke and hookers and obscured by the fact that once again, Leo was snubbed at the awards. February saw the surprise highlight of the year, The Lego Movie, which amazed and delighted at every turn. March’s The Grand Budapest Hotel was, by contrast, less than impressive. Wes Anderson swapped substance for style and upset the careful balance that had made his films brilliant since 1998’s Rushmore: there was little emotional punch in this chocolate box of a movie. Bushy beards were the flavour of the month in April with the darkly comic Catholic drama Calvary and similarly biblical Noah. Superhero season got underway tentatively with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, then continued in earnest in May with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Time travel was central to X-Men’s plot, but it wasn’t handled nearly as well as Edge of Tomorrow, the true standout sci-fi movie of the year. Gripping performances from Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt helped reconcile elements of Groundhog Day, Saving Private Ryan and video game aesthetics for thrilling results. Summer began with a fallow month, as June witnessed the release of 22 Jump Street, a placeholder of a movie, and the trainwreck that was Grace of Monaco. Transformers: Age of Extinction did nothing to lift the quality of summer blockbusters, despite becoming the highest grossing movie of 2014. All was not lost, however, as Boyhood emerged as the most moving movie of 2014 and the boldest undertaking of the past ten years. Though far from flawless, the triumph of artistic endeavour over real-life practicality which it represented was hugely significant. July then ended as it began, with another, better, blockbuster,

in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy. August was a month of sequels where originality was thin on the ground. Inbetweeners 2, Sin City 2 and Expendables 3 were all forgettable. Nonetheless, Marion Cotillard offered a moving performance in the quiet gem Two Days, One Night. In September, Oxford’s PR department soiled themselves as The Riot Club singlehandedly destroyed decades of access work, whilst Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last hurrah, A Most Wanted Man, did similar damage to the reputation of the CIA in the War on Terror. The feel-good award for 2014 went to Pride, before David Fincher took things firmly back to his disconcerting best in October with the ice-cold Gone Girl. This, and the disturbingly stylish Nightcrawler, stood in contrast to the lukewarm offerings of the mawkish Love, Rosie and Brad Pitt’s Fury, before Mike Leigh topped off an excellent month by trying his hand at something different with Mr. Turner. The quality continued into November with the mind-bending Interstellar and a brilliant turn from Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game. Hailed as the best British film of the year, anything less than a nomination for Cumberbatch from the Academy would be a travesty. It was also the beginning of the end for the Hunger Games franchise, as Mockingjay: Part 1 flew the nest to decent reviews and $675m in box office takings. The following month, there was another conclusion in the form of the final Hobbit film – a spectacle of suitably epic proportions that proved too much for some. Meanwhile, Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings came under attack for alleged racist casting whilst The Interview came under literal attack. In all, 2014 proved that cinema is in a healthy state. From the billion-dollar blockbusters to the grainy arthouse charmers, creativity is fomenting, formulae are being perfected and ideas are cross-pollinating. Here’s to an even better 2015

Cherwell | 16.01.15

28 | Music

3 The vinyl revival: just a fad or here to stay? Sara Semic reviews the year of vinyl and the inventions carrying it into 2015 3 3 F 3 People are truly recon2

Ghost Culture Ghost Culture

ysterious London producer, Ghost Culture, has debuted with a spectral eponymous album. Contorted and disfigured basslines drone into grinding disarray, as whispered vocals drift over the sonic chaos. He describes himself as emerging from the London fog, but after a late night listen it’s fair to say it’s more the other way round. Track after track draws us into the mists of Ghost Culture’s gloomy and seductive netherworld. The man on the shadowy cover is 24 year old producer James Greenwood. Initially his credentials were scant, confined to the dark recesses of bedroom synthesizers and optimistic SoundCloud uploads. But after making a name for himself at the Phantasy Label, he was offered his big break by boss Errol Alkan. The result is captivating. The opening track ‘Mouth’ weaves undulating strands of laidback beats into a curt finish before segueing perfectly into the stand out track ‘Giudecca’. It’s an addictive and catchy tune that mixes dark gloopy beats with an accessible dance floor feel. The album gets mellower mid-way with ‘Glaciers’. It feels like a ponderous recycling of the promising start and as such, is the only low point. It finishes, however, with the delightfully loopy ‘The Fog’, a suitably murky and mysterious end to a murky and mysterious album. Overall, a strong effort that promises much for the future. Mark Barclay

or the record, vinyl sales never fully disappeared, despite the efforts of the shiny, streamlined compact disc to smash them. But, with music industry giants such as Spotify and iTunes rendering the CD obsolete, we are now seeing the analogue countertrend. The record is becoming an antidote to our soulless streaming culture – not just for the die-hard audiophiles and nostalgic collectors, but for a younger generation too. Last year – for the first time since 1995 – over 1.3m LPs were sold in the UK, with Pink Floyd, Arctic Monkeys, and Jack White driving this surge. A similar trend can be seen across the Atlantic, where 9.2 million vinyls were sold – the highest since Nielsen began tracking the data. Vinyl sales were in fact the silver lining of a cloudy and miserable picture of overall album sales, which fell again last year. Carl Smithson, manager of Cowley’s independent record shop and champion of the analog, ‘Truck Store’, has also borne witness to this trend in the store, where there’s been

a marked upsurge in vinyl sales over the last two years. “For me, the most interesting aspect is the sheer diversity of people getting into, or back into, vinyl,” Carl says. “There’s the traditional audiophiles and collectors of course, but there’s also been a big surge in younger buyers.” “The other great thing with vinyl,” Carl enthuses, “particularly in this world of playlists and iPod shuffles, is that people are truly re-connecting with the concept of an album as a complete work. People are making a point toflisten to these albums in their entirety and are choosing the format which adds most value to that experience.” For all the inadvertent effects that online music services have had on vinyl sales, there have also been some smart moves made by the music industry, accounting for the timing of this resurgence. Including a download code with vinyl records has allowed object fetishists and collectors to listen to music without depreciating the value of the vinyl, while events such

3 The Second Coming of D’Angelo D’Angelo and the Vanguard 3 A Black Messiah 3 33334 3 2

Låpsley Understudy

f her new EP, Understudy, is anything to go by, then Holly ‘Låpsley’ Fletcher is clearly one to watch for 2015. Since her appearance on the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury, her career has really taken off, and her record deal with XL Recordings signed in October was the first step in what promises to be an exciting 12 months for the eighteen year old singer-songwriter. Her sweet, folkish voice speaks for itself, and is showcased throughout the EP though perhaps best of all on ‘Dancing’, the EP’s final track. These tremendous vocals are laid over simple percussion and synthetic beats, creating an understated yet incredibly powerful sound. While the first track, ‘Falling Short’, might be the song grabbing all the headlines with its wailing vocals, the second song, ‘Brownlow’, is perhaps the most exciting, and its complexity and maturity suggest that there is a lot more depth to come from Låpsley in her future releases. Låpsley’s lyrics belie her years and show great emotional intelligence, with the EP taking on an almost mournful tone overall, and sounding like the work of a much older and more experienced musician. All in all, this is a hugely exciting beginning to the year, and we’ll undoubtedly be hearing more of her in the months to come. Let’s hope her future releases won’t fall short of the promise revealed on Understudy. Kieran Vaghela

lthough a month has passed since the release of D’Angelo’s new album, Black Messiah, the buzz around his unforeseen comeback isn’t dying down yet. The hype over his ‘second coming’ is warranted by his fifteen year long vanishing act, which was shrouded in speculation and intrigue. His last album, the R&B slash neo-soul masterpiece Voodoo, has been bled dry for nearly a decade and a half whilst the long-in-the-making follow-up became another studio myth for despondent fans. But patiently waiting for 14 calendar runs has been rewarded big time with this offering, which feels almost more like one, monumental piece of music than a sequence of songs; a river meandering from one after-hours jam session to the next, masking the effort and labour behind it. In ‘Sugah Daddy’, the standout track, D’Angelo reminds us in his silky smooth voice

“

Patiently waiting for 14 calendar runs has been rewarded big time that you “can’t snatch the meat out of the lioness’ mouth/Sometimes you gotta just ease it out.” Having been once hailed as the next Martin Gaye and dubbed ‘the R&B Jesus’ by Robert Christgau in 2000, the singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer found himself crippled by the overwhelming pressure of stardom, causing him to retreat from the spotlight completely, much to the dismay of fans pining for his chiselled torso as flaunted in the video for ‘Untitled’. During his hiatus, D’Angelo had two stints in rehab, grappling with drink and drug addiction, some run-ins with the law and a near fatal

car accident in 2005. In the meantime, America had its first black president, and a Jay-Z and Kanye West discography. There are moments of nostalgia, a large dose felt poignantly in the lines, “I just wanna go back, baby/Back to the way it was”, as well as in the album’s analogue warmth, which sets it apart from the ultra-synthesized R&B vocals we’ve become so used to hearing. But with its political message, underlined most explicitly in ‘The Charade’s’ “All we wanted was a chance to talk, ‘stead we only got outlined in chalk” and the timing of the release, following the Ferguson protests, it is right on cue. D’Angelo doesn’t shy away from the reality of his intervening years, singing, “So if you’re wondering about the shape I’m in/I hope it ain’t my abdomen that you’re referring to” in ‘Back to the Future (Part I)’. But his effortless virtuosity and soaring, inimitable vocals, are enough to quell any slight trepidations, and sate a fifteen year long appetite. Sara Semic

as Record Store Day have brought about huge media attention. These trends are also being reflected in the changing nature of record stores. “The ‘High Fidelity’ style snobbery is

“

necting with the album as a complete work

simply not viable anymore and it’s being replaced with a much more welcoming shopping environment,” Carl tells me. Despite this seemingly increased access to the vinyl format, the entire industry is still only a drop in the ocean of overall music sales (two per cent). One of the perpetual problems faced by the industry is insufficient infrastructure in manufacturing the large wax discs. The resurgent wave of vinyl popularity is putting even more pressure on the already tiny number of record pressing plants and driving prices up further, making a vision of vinyl as more than a niche product a distant reality. Until now, that is. Not only has America’s largest record pressing plant, United Record Pressing, promised to open a second plant, eventually tripling its capacity, but the DVC (Desktop Vinyl Cutter) – a project started by Australian engineer Paul Butler Tayar and tech team Machina.Pro– is now under development after a crowdfunding campaign. Tayar hopes to democratize the vinyl industry with his “turn-key” stereo cutting system, which lets you plug in your audio and cut straight to vinyl – the final frontier to absolute music self-sufficiency. Carl, too, is optimistic about another fruitful year for record sales. And these latest developments in vinyl manufacturing could just be the cherry on top

Where are they now? Cherwell delves into the later careers of one-hit-wonders so you don’t have to When listening back to Nizlopi’s 2005 hit ‘The JCB Song’, it’s easy to understand how the song reached number one. Detailing the stolen moments of a young child with his idolised dad, it instantly had a dual demographic. Both love-starved children and overtly sentimental types rushed out to purchase the single, although the weepy latter may have burst apart at the seams on the way to Woolworths. A primary school disco was not complete without hearing Nizlopi listing various toys, or the cringey “rhyming” couplet ‘My dad’s B.A. Baracus,/Only with a JCB, and Bruce Lee’s numchuckers’. It was cheesy, but endearing. The band had the makings of greatness. Listening back, they sound like that sicklysweet cherub Ed Sheeran who’s made bags of cash since being their one-time roadie. So why haven’t Nizlopi? Despite producing two further albums and touring incessantly to often sold-out venues (and supporting Christina Aguilera), for some reason, they just haven’t managed to compete with the big boys. Maybe all they need is their old friend Ed to put in a good word.

Stage | 29

16.01.15 | Cherwell

Overheard at The Pillowman

Poetic justice? Hamlet on trial

Colette Lewis interrogates implications of a collision of stage and courtroom

Is this the interval or the end? I don’t “ know whether I should get an ice cream or my coat!

West Side Story: Jets in the city

Fay Watson previews Byzantium Productions’ upcoming show

est Side Story is an iconic musical. From the music to the story, it has a special place in all our hearts, whether it’s your all-time favourite or because you repeatedly listened to ‘Something’s Coming’ during your Music GCSE. Consequently, drifting into the rehearsal room mid-song, I was immediately lost in nostalgia at the expert vocals of Brandon Levin (Tony). This will be a production which is true to what we know and love about the show. But a sense of nostalgia is definitely not all that Byzantium Productions’ West Side Story has to offer. With original choreography by Ed Addison, a cast of over 30 committed actors and a full orchestra brought to the stage under the watchful eye of Eric Foster, it is sure to be impressive. Furthermore, as Clemi Collett – Maria – notes, it is “a very ‘raw’ version of West Side Story.. The show is aesthetically incredible, and the dancing is stunning, but at the same time I feel as if it’s really explored the depth and meaning behind the text.” The play follows the rival gangs the Jets and the Sharks, set in the oppressive environment of 1950s Manhattan, counting racism and violence among its themes. It is about how hate breeds hate – something as pertinent to a 1950s audience as it is to us today. At its core, however, is the love story between Tony and Maria. From “Balcony Scene (Tonight)”, it was evident to see the chemistry be-

“

Dom Applewhite, the director, aims not to have “cardboard cutout” characters tween these two; they have obviously worked hard on conveying the love story that thrives throughout a story full of hate. Speaking of this to Collett, she describes their relationship as “a true and impulsive love, which is coloured,

and in t h e end destroyed, by the world around them”. Put quite beautifully, Maria is “a woman who has learnt to love, but now also to hate”. Yet, while these themes are addressed, the show does not forget its humour. This was made especially evident by Helena Wilson’s Anita in what is sure to be a showstopping ‘America’. Furthermore, I was wildly impressed with the slickness and potential of all the numbers I saw in this first stumble run given they still have a few weeks left of rehearsal. Dom Applewhite, the director, spoke to me about his aim to not have “cardboard cutout” characters. He said, “In my mind, musical theatre acting often looks bland precisely because the actors have been directed according to the emotions of the scene, rather than allowing them to happen naturally.” One major way of questioning this has been through Maria, who, whilst a great character, suffers from her position as a woman. This is evident in a number of ways, such as Maria being given only one solo compared to Tony’s two. To combat this, he has actively tried to be aware of the stereotypes and has researched feminism in musical theatre – “It’s an old musical, but we’ve definitely imbued it with a Twenty-First century attitude!” What was most palpable about the run was the sense of excitement among the cast seeing each other’s work for the first time; they seem to know they are on to something good. And, given what I’ve seen and the fact that already a quarter of tickets have sold, I have to agree. Something’s coming indeed and I can’t wait to see it West Side Story is on at the Oxford Playhouse from 4th to the 7th February.

ught Hamlet to have been prosecuted for the death of Polonius? A courtroom drama in more than one respect, Roger Bernat and Yan Duyvendak have created Please Continue (Hamlet), a fascinating piece in which one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters is literally put on trial for his actions. This is a theatrical experience that transcends the boundaries between reality and fiction in a way unlike anything I’ve seen before. Hamlet, Ophelia and Gertrude were all actors but the lawyers, judge, clerk, and psychiatric expert were professionals who were instructed to treat this case just like any other. Each night the experts are completely different people, sourced locally, meaning that each trial is unique. The production I saw was in France, following the French legal system, though it has been performed in several European countries, each true to their own judicial systems. I realised that my sympathy for Hamlet as a character influenced how I viewed the case. In this particular production, Hamlet benefitted from an especially enthusiastic defence lawyer, who somewhat overshadowed any sympathy we felt for the depressed Ophelia. Following the trial, the jury was selected randomly from the audience and given half an hour to settle on a verdict, under the guidance of a legal professional to keep things to time. The experiment was as much an examination of the ethics of Western judicial systems as it was of our interpretation of these characters. The statistics of previous decisions were read out, with outcomes ranging from condemning Hamlet to decades of incarceration, to completely letting him off. Somewhat inevitably, true legal accuracy was held back by the limits of theatre and

room for theatrical entertainment was faced with the limits of the legal realism. Admittedly, three hours of having to concentrate on an intense legal process in French is not how I usually choose to spend my Friday evenings. Nevertheless, this was an immersive, extremely thought-provoking experiment. As the audience had no idea who would be chosen to participate in the jury, we had the

“

This was an immersive, extremely thought-provoking experiment unusual feeling of being actively, inescapably invested. The fourth wall was thus not merely broken but completely non-existent. The trial also evoked a number of philosophical questions about the idea of determining guilt in such a context. The variation in verdicts, despite the case file always being identical, is a profound comment on the fallibility of any legal system. Indeed, rather than really determining Hamlet’s guilt or innocence, I found that this theatrical experiment simply highlighted the enigmatic nature of the charac ter, as well as the difficulty of ever truly ascertaining someone’s motives beyond all reasonable doubt

Know Your Thesp David Meredith St Peter’s

een not to give other people the spotlight, David Meredith is not only a member of the Oxford Revue, but also funk band Mama Brass and somehow still finds time to tread the boards every now and then. When asked if he actually finds time to do his degree, Meredith reassured us that “firsts are for nerds” – words to live by. As well as having appeared in three sketch shows at the Edinburgh Festival, Meredith also starred in last term’s Dahling You Were Marvellous, a show described in glowing terms by Cherwell as “a play”, and will be participating in this term’s Audreys, which we’re told will be “big”. Determined to bring you the answers to the most pressing theatrical questions of today, Cherwell wasted no time in quizzing Meredith about which star of stage or screen he would choose to aid him in a zombie apocalypse, and which he would sacrifice mercilessly to the undead hoards. With a coldly

Machiavellian approach, Meredith leaves Irish actor and comedian Ardal O’Hanlon on the grounds that “he peaked with My Hero, and has since contributed not much at all.” Demonstrating his capability to think on his feet in a situation where death by zombies is a very real possibility, asked for his choice of companion in adversity he replies, “I don’t know, someone who’s dead? Confuse them.” His dream show to put on? ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, John Ford’s incestuous tragedy featuring Game of Thrones level violence and sexual depravity. This seemed the perfect opportunity to find the answer to a burning question in theatre journalism: the Oxford Revue Committee – shag, marry, kill? In an illuminating and troubling response, Meredith replies, “The Revue Committee is actually about 10 people, so we could all just marry each other or something.” Comediancest? LOLygamy? We’re not sure, but we are concerned.

Cherwell | 16.01.15

30 | Sport

Blues footballers tour Japan Ronaldo wins third Ballon d’Or Successful tour of Japan bodes well for season run-in Real Madrid star emerges from Messi’s shadow to triumph

to the Blues, despite the Blues being 6-0 up at one point. A stunning second-half brace from Mike Essman and a goal on his return for Matt Smith were overshadowed by five brilliant passing goals from Keio University.

ningley’s second goal of the tour. The Blues continued to build and were rewarded when Smith scored a sumptuous strike on the 70th minute from the edge of the box into the top-right corner to make it 2-0 to the Blues. For the remaining twenty minutes, the Blues’ defence held out to complete two wins in a row. The Blues then moved to Kyoto – via Yokohama where they watched Gamba Osaka prevail in the Emperor’s Cup Final (the Japanese equivalent of the FA Cup Final) – to play their third game against Kyoto University. The third match of the tour saw a team depleted by injury and starting in a previously untested formation of 3-5-2. These factors took their toll and the Blues found themselves 3-0 down at half-time after a dubious first-goal, with a suspicion of handball, a penalty and a fantastic passing move seeing Kyoto take firm control of the game. In the second half, the Blues reverted back to their more usual 4-4-2 diamond and the quality improved immeasurably. Unfortunately, they didn’t manage to grab a goal back, despite carving out some good opportunities, and the game finished 3-0 to Kyoto. For their final match, the Blues moved onto a whirlwind visit to Osaka. Their game against Osaka University saw an evenly matched first half produce no goals. However, within a minute of the restart, Osaka found their goal through a well-hit strike from the edge of the area which went in off the post. The Blues were not disheartened and fought back. They were rewarded after an hour when a Jake Dark cross took a deflection that deceived the Osaka goalkeeper and crept in at the near post. The Blues pushed for a winner but were unable to find one and the result in the end was a draw.

Luckily the Blues’ early lead was enough to see them win a truly astonishing game. Two days later, the Blues had their second game against Tokyo University and the opposition must have had no idea what to expect – apart from goals – after hearing of the previous game’s result. However, the match against Tokyo University proved to be less of a goal fest. A 0-0 score line at halftime reflected the lack of clear-cut chances created in the first half. In the second period, the Blues got their passing game going and a brilliant cutback from stand-in right back Sam Gomarsall provided the assist for Tun-

The fantastic games on the pitch were matched off it as the Blues enjoyed the sights of Tokyo and Kyoto, with notable highlights being Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Nakamise Market, a visit to Jiyugaken College and Roppongi in Tokyo, as well as the Golden temple and the Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto. The Blues players also got a chance to stay with students at both the Tokyo University and Kyoto University which was a hugely enjoyable experience for all, as well as giving the Blues form and confidence for their final four BUCS matches, in which they are hoping to achieve promotion

Ben Szreter Contributor

he men’s Blues football team completed a successful tour of Japan over the Christmas vacation, winning two, drawing one and losing one of their four games in a 10 day tour of the country. In the first football tour of its kind in 45 years, the 17 Oxford players competed against some of the top universities in Japan. Starting in Tokyo, the Blues played games against Tokyo University and Keio University – who have recently had a player, Yoshinori Muto, move into professional football and even play for the Japanese national team. The first game against Keio University saw the Blues 4-0 up at halftime with goals from captain Rubenstein, Tunningley, Beck-Friis and a first Blues goal for Tsaptsinos. However, a stunning second half saw a final score of 7-5

Quick Fact

7-5

Final score in the 1st match against Keio University

Emma Williams Sport Editor

nce again we saw the big two, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, shortlisted for the greatest individual prize in football: the Ballon d’Or. The greatest (and only) surprise was the inclusion of Manuel Neuer, the best goalkeeper in the world right now, as he showed during his victorious World Cup last summer. However, the mere fact that he is a goalkeeper is perhaps why it came as a shock to some people when he was the third player to be short-listed for the award. Once the three contenders were announced from the original list of nominees, it then opened the floodgates for lengthy debates on who would win the award this week. In most debates, whether in the global press or just between football fans, Manuel Neuer was written off pretty early. While he is undoubtedly the best goalkeeper in the world, it would be extremely difficult to ever compare even the greatest goalkeeper to two outfield players as talented as Messi and Ronaldo. There came the real debate: whilst it seemed for much of the year that Ronaldo would comfortably win the award (with Messi out with injury), Messi’s record-breaking in the second half of the year as La Liga’s highest ever goalscorer as well as the Champions League’s highest goalscorer, made the decision seem slightly less obvious. However, with Ronaldo’s victory in the Champions’ League, and Messi failing to win a major trophy in 2014, the result ended up being simple. Ronaldo’s stats for 2014 were incredible: with a huge 52 goals in just 43 games and 17 assists, he really was the best player in the world last year. He also made those goals count, and helped his Real Madrid team to a tenth Champion’s League title. According to the voting stats, he won the award

Tables BUCS Netball Midlands 2A

BUCS Men’s Hockey Premier South

BUCS Women’s Lacrosse Premier South

Team

Pts

Team

Pts

Team

Pts

1 2 3 4 5 6

Oxford 1st Loughborough 3rd Birmingham 2nd Nottingham 2nd Warwick 1st Coventry 1st

5 5 5 5 5 5

4 4 4 2 1 0

12 12 12 6 3 0

1 2 3 4 5 6

Exeter 1st Bath 1st Oxford 1st Cardiff Met 1st Bristol 1st Oxford Brookes 1st

9 8 8 8 8 9

6 4 4 2 2 1

20 15 13 9 6 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

Cambridge 1st Exeter 1st Oxford 1st Exeter 1st Bath 1st Southampton 1st

8 9 8 8 9 8

8 6 5 5 1 0

24 17 15 14 3 0

BUCS Men’s Football Midlands 1A

BUCS Basketball Premier South

BUCS Women’s Football 1A

Team

Pts

Team

Pts

1 2 3 4 5 6

Oxford 1st Birmingham 1st Bedford 1st Coventry 1st Notts Trent 1st Birmingham 2nd

6 6 7 6 5 6

4 3 3 3 2 1

12 10 10 9 8 3

1 2 3 4 5 6

Nottingham 1st Loughborough 2nd Oxford 1st Birmingham 2nd Cambridge 1st Worcester 1st

7 7 6 7 7 6

5 4 3 3 1 0

16 14 12 11 3 0

Team

Pts

1 2

East London 1st Brunel 1st London South Bank 1st Bath 1st Oxford 1st UCL 1st

6 6

18 18

7 6 6 7

3 3 1 0

9 9 3 0

3 4 5 6

with some ease, with 37.66 per cent of the vote, whilst Messi got less than half that (15.76 per cent). What was more of a surprise though was how close Neuer was to Messi, with a total of 15.72 per cent of the vote. That was completely academic, however, as Ronaldo bowed and walked onto the stage in Zurich to collect the prize for a second year in a row. The question now for the future is: will Messi

“

According to the voting stats, Ronaldo won the award with some ease stay fit and get back to his best or will Ronaldo truly establish himself as the best player in the world for another year? As a football fan who does not support either Real Madrid or Barcelona, I would really like to see Messi fit and back to his best and to be able to watch the two giants of football battle it out to break more records. Also announced on the night were the FIFA/ FIFPro World XI, the the Coach of the Year, and the winner of the Puskas award. The best 11 in world football consisted of Neuer in goal, joined by his international and club teammate Lahm in a defence also made up of Brazilian PSG centre backs Thiago Silva and (perhaps the most surprising entry to the team this year) David Luiz. Sergio Ramos and Toni Kroos of Real Madrid, Iniesta, Di Maria, and Robben made up the rest of the team, as well as Ronaldo and Messi of course. James Rodriguez’s wonder goal for Columbia against Uruguay – the famous chest-and-volley from the World Cup – won Goal of the Year, beating Van Persie’s header and Roche’s volley. Lastly, Joachim Löw won Coach of the Year, guiding Germany to World Cup success, famously defeating hosts Brazil 7-1

Has your team done something worth writing about? If you would like to write about a sporting event you’ve been involved in, email sport@cherwell.org

16.01.15 | Cherwell

Sport | 31

Cross Country varsity: a contested affair The Cross Country Club captain reports on a controversial women’s Varsity encounter and an unexpected Dark Blue victory for the men Alex Howard Contributor

tarting as clear underdogs and facing the strongest Cambridge team for a generation, Oxford’s men’s Blues took a rousing victory on Wimbledon common in the 124th Gentleman’s Cross-Country race. The women’s team also faced one of the strongest line-ups Cambridge has produced in recent history, and were faced with a hard battle. However, controversy struck the women’s race, when half the field lost the course and took a shorter route, denying Sophia Saller victory. Having lost both races in 2013, the Oxford team were out for revenge and started strongly in the women’s four mile race, with Sophia Saller taking a convincing advantage from the start whilst her compatriot Kate Niehaus sat at the front of the chasing pack. This race was particularly significant in that it was the first change of format since its inception in 1974, with each team now fielding seven runners, five of whom would score points, one more on both counts. This in turn places far more reliance on a squad’s depth, and, as the race unfolded, Cambridge started to take more control of the race, with all seven of their runners packing in close behind the leading Oxford two. With a little over a mile to go, controversy struck, however, when a pack containing all seven Cambridge runners and Kate Niehaus took a wrong turning through the thick woodland, re-emerging onto the course in front of Sophia. Despite her brave attempts to get back amongst the group, Sophia was unable to reclaim her lead and unfortunately denied what would have otherwise been a commanding victory. After lengthy discussions, it was decided that Cambridge would be awarded the team victory, and Sophia the individual victory, due to their respective decisive positions when the runners lost the course. Credit must go to Ox-

ford captain Suzana Markolovic for accepting this result with grace. It was therefore left to the Oxford men to salvage victory, having also lost the lower-team races at Cambridge the previous weekend. However, as the runners forded the ‘watersplash’ in the early stages, a sight which has become synonymous with one of the longest running cross-country events in the world, Cambridge seemed to be taking a stranglehold of the race. Two recent Great Britain internationals, Alex Short and Lewis Lloyd, took the lead along with a number of their team mates, with only one Oxford runner for company, Adam Speake.

Over the next mile or two, though, as positions started to settle down, Oxford clawed their way back into it, with a large front pack of eight or nine runners emerging, evenly split between the two sides. It was at this point that the race turned in Oxford’s favour for good, with one of the leading Cambridge runners, Alex Milne, spraining his ankle whilst going through rough terrain. The Cambridge pair of Short and Lloyd began to build a lead over the rest, but the damage was done with Oxford vests swarming the front of the race. The only task now left was to hold off the challenge of Cambridge runners working their way through the field.

They were able to hold on, however, and this would be how it finished – with Cambridge winning both first and second place, and Oxford filling seven of the next eight placings. What was more impressive, though, was that these seven Oxford runners would be separated by less than 45 seconds over a 39 minute and 7.5 mile race. Jamie Parkinson was to lead them home in third place, showcasing his extreme talent, given that he had only taken the sport up seriously over the last few months. Packing close behind were Will Christofi and Adam Speake, who both improved tremendously on their performances last year, with Speake particularly excelling in his last year

Are referees really that bad or do we just expect more?

Claire James considers whether the wide-scale criticism levied against top-flight referees is justified or has been blown out of proportion Claire James Contributor

eferees are traditional targets of football’s ire, but over the packed festive period the criticism reached new heights. A host of big names has slammed the recent performances of several Premier League referees. Predictably, managers were the main sources of complaint. In typically outspoken fashion, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho complained on December 28th that there was a ‘campaign’ by the media and other teams to turn referees against his top-of-the-table side. Mourinho’s comments, after his side’s 1-1 draw with Southampton, in which he felt Cesc Fabregas had been denied a penalty kick, landed him with an FA charge of ‘improper conduct’. Garry Monk, Steve Bruce and Sam Allardyce have also joined the growing chorus of managerial complaints against recent decisions. Indeed, the anger extended into officiating itself, with several ex-referees expressing their concerns at current standards. Graham Poll, a former Premier League and FIFA official, argued that over this “disastrous festive period”, top-flight referees “have sunk to their worst performance level that I can remember”. He questioned the position of Mike Riley, an ex-referee who now heads up Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), which oversees the seventeen Premier League officials. Keith Hackett, head of PGMOL from 2004-10, concurred with Poll that “the current group of professional referees is the worst we have seen”, and was even more scathing in his complaints. Hackett claimed that Riley should be sacked, along with five of his select group officials: Mike Jones, Andre Marriner, Lee Mason, Chris Foy and Lee Probert, if the latter fails a fitness test. However, others involved in the English game have sprung to the defence of today’s referees. Kenny Dalglish disagreed with Poll about refereeing standards, stating, “I don’t

think the performance of referees today is any worse or better than it was five or ten years ago.” Dalglish puts the rise in complaints down to the higher levels of scrutiny in the modern game, a view he shares with the Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini. The City manager pointed out that TV viewers have access to “five or six different... angles” of an incident, and overall argued that “referees in England are very good... I don’t have any complaint[s].” Oth-

ers emphasise the fact that referees only have a second to make a decision and then communicate it effectively. They also have to juggle many other competing demands, such as effective positioning in an increasingly fast-paced game, player management and teamwork. Some people also point out that managers can use refereeing decisions as scapegoats for their own team’s poor performance. Furthermore, referees are rarely praised in

the media for the vast majority of decisions that they do get right. The latest figures shown to the BBC by PGMOL claim that decision accuracy is at its highest recorded level, clearly contesting the eye-catching claims made by Poll and Hackett. Big decisions by Premier League refs are made correctly 95 per cent of the time, whilst for decisions in the penalty box that figure rises to 98 per cent. Offsides are adjudged correctly 99 per cent of the time. PGMOL points out that top-flight referees have every aspect of their performance evaluated using the latest technology, and attend regular training events to improve in specific areas. The FA has shown strong commitment to excellence in refereeing, especially through the foundation of the National Referee Development Programme in 2011 and the opening of the innovative St. George’s Park training facility in 2012. The Premier League’s decision to introduce goal-line technology at the start of the 2013/14 season has also helped to increase the accuracy of crucial goal/no goal decisions. Further technological advances, such as a video decision review system as suggested by Dalglish, are also under investigation. Ultimately, referees only hit the spotlight when they make the occasional, inevitable human error, as the marked lack of controversy from last weekend’s games attest. Many view Mourinho’s emotive allegation of a ‘campaign’ as obviously groundless, as every team, in any season, will inevitably encounter some refereeing mistakes. As Howard Webb, the ex-Premier League and World Cup final referee who is currently technical director at PGMOL, told The Independent last month, “The standard of Premier League refereeing, irrespective of what you might get from post-match [manager] interviews is very high. I sit watching the feeds coming in every single week. [It is striking] the number of times I have driven home thinking, ‘That was another good day”

Sport

Ben Szreter reports on the OUAFC’s tour of Japan

OURFC win a record fifth consecutive Varsity

Claire James asks whether referees’ standards are high enough

This week’s Sport in brief OXFORD UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION Football Club’s Blues completed a successful four-match tour of Japan, winning two matches, drawing another, and losing one match. During their tour they visited Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. The Blues enter the last four matches in their BUCS Men’s Football Midlands 1a league at the top, two points clear of Birmingham and Bedford, with promotion in their sights – read our detailed report on page 30. OXFORD UNIVERSITY HOCKEY CLUB’S second and third teams faced mixed fortunes on the field, with the Occasionals winning their first match of the calendar year 3-0 against Indian Gym 3rds, whilst the Infrequents we defeated 4-0 and 1-0 against Southgate 3rds and Wimbledon 4ths respectively. The women’s teams were similar, with the Radicals losing 8-1 to Buckingham 2nds and the Mavericks overcoming Phoenix & Ranelagh 2nds 7-4. OUBC ENJOYED A SUCCESSFUL TRAINING camp in Le Temple-Sur-Lot in Aquitane, France. With the Varsity Race coming up soon, the boats will gear up to try and defeat Cambridge (yet again) after completing a superb Trial VIIIs race. Here the club practiced a full trial race on the same stretch of water on which they will compete in the actual BNY Mellon Boat Race on Saturday 11th April 2015.

A triumphant Oxford win 43-6 in their biggest ever victory over Cambridge Emma Williams Sport Editor

s the two great rivals readied themselves to face each other once more in the 133rd Varsity Match, there were high expectations on both sides. Whilst Oxford had dominated recent meetings between the two and were looking for a fifth consecutive victory, Cambridge had enjoyed better form this season and looked to be slight favourites before kick off. This particular Varsity Match had even more significance to it than usual however. Due to it being a century since the outbreak of the First World War, the two universities decided to remember the 55 Blues who lost their lives in the Great War by reading out each of their names and having a two minutes silence before kick

off. Every captain of the colleges that lost a Blue in the war was there on the college strip, and formed a special guard of honour as this year’s teams walked out onto the pitch. There was a brief sense of unity in the stadium as fans of both teams, old and young, paid their respects to those young men who had fought and given their lives for their country. Once respects had been paid and the national anthem sung, the unity between the two universities had vanished and the teams were ready to battle. Right from the start, Oxford dominated play and possession, and it wasn’t long before Egerton made that dominance count in the 11th minute, scoring Oxford’s first try. The first half, however, was not completely comfortable for Oxford, with Cambridge scoring two penalties to Oxford’s one. With only four points in the match, Cambridge seemed as though they

were still very much in the game leading up to half time, but a late try by Macdonald eased the nerves and gave the Dark Blues an 11 point advantage at half time. The second half, however, was when the thrashing really began. Two serious injuries for Cambridge saw two of their key players stretchered off and the impact was obvious after that. Four tries from the Dark Blues saw them end the match as comfortable winners with six tries scored in total, and fly-half Cullen kicking 13 points. This victory was not just comfortable, but was the biggest in the history of the Varsity Match and was the first time either team had scored more than 40 points. Not only that, but it was a fifth successive victory for Oxford – also a Varsity Match record. It was a game in which Oxford truly showed their dominance

OXFORD UNIVERSITY CROSS COUNTRY Club had a varied varsity match in which the men were successful, whilst controversy plagued the women’s match. Nevertheless, both Oxford teams came up against what were arguably the strongest Cambridge teams for a long time, making the men’s and women’s accomplishments all the more imressive. For a detailed report on all of the action in this year’s Varsity match, read our report on page 31. THE U21s OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY Rugby Football Club also defeated Cambridge in a highly anticapted game, winning their match at Twickenham 36-12. The Oxford University Ski and Snowboard Club could not match their success of last year, and were beaten by all five Cambridge teams in the Varsity Races. However, Oriel College managed to restore pride to Oxford’s Varsity Trip efforts by winning the Cuppers, with Worcester College also making a decent showing.

The Cherwell guide to watching sports in Hilary Term

We’ve summarised the next term of spectator sporting events for you to figure out how to spend your time not working Tushar Kelkar Sport Editor

re you looking for a better method of procrastinating? We have created a simple summary of the upcoming major sporting events over the course of the term, to help you while away your time, isolated from essays and problem sheets. The American Football Season will come to an exciting close with Super Bowl XLIX, the 45th edition of the Super Bowl, where the American Football Conference champion will face the National Football Conference champion on February 1st. Do not be put off by the late kick-off time (23.30 GMT) – this spectacle is an incredible way for all members of college to come together and pretend to be as American as possible and experts on the convoluted, yet highly enjoyable, sport. Expect lots of booze, Katy Perry and Lenny Kravitz providing halftime entertainment, and unacceptable amounts of snacks and unhealthy food – think American-style Thanksgiving and Christmas

rolled into one. The crowd-favourite football season continues as usual, with the race for the Premier League looking like a two horse match between Manchester City and Chelsea. The two square off on Saturday of 1st Week at Stamford Bridge, with many more high-profile clashes over the course of the term. With the Rugby World Cup coming up this

Autumn, this Six Nations will be a key indicator of how the preparations are going for the major northern hemisphere teams. We will see World Cup group rivals, Wales and England, going head-to-head in what is sure to be a tense, but no doubt great, encounter. Expect fierce rivalries to show themselves in your JCRs as supporters of all nations get behind their team.

2015 means it is World Cup year for cricket, with the competition taking place in New Zealand and Australia. In total, 40 matches will offer cricket connoisseurs across Oxford plenty of opportunities to watch live matches to pass the time – it seems unlikely, though, that this event will be able to draw the same crowds that Super Sunday football matches might. Nevertheless, given the loyalty many Oxonians have to their respective home countries (no matter how tenuous the connection they have with the countries in question), these matches are sure to provide hours of entertainment. English cricket fans will watch with trepidation to see if the decision to axe Alistair Cook as captain of the ODI squad pays dividends, and whether they can overcome their especially poor World Cup record in recent years, having not made it to the semi-finals for more than two decades. To make sure you enjoy all of these sports as a college, talk to your JCR Sports and Entz Reps, get the JCR-funded snacks ready for the big match days, and make sure your work is done so you can really enjoy what is sure to be a great term of sport