Cherwell 1st Week Vol.272 No.2

Friday 2 May 2014

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Inside: C+ investigates Race and Ethnicity in Oxford

James Watson on discovering DNA and courting controversy

Sunny Hundal on diversity and blogging

Cherwell Independent since 1 920

1st Week Vol. 272, No. 2

“Shocking” report reveals entrenched culture of racism Jack Doyle Deputy Editor A COMPREHENSIVE OUSU REPORT on racial equality has revealed massive disparities between white, and black and minority ethnic (BME) students’ experiences of race at Oxford.

The report, produced by the OUSUaffiliated Campaign for Racial Equality (CRAE), has revealed a wide range of experiences of race and racism that Charlotte Hendy, OUSU VicePresident for Welfare and Equal Opportunities, called “shocking”.

Nearly 60% of Oxford’s BME students believe that racism is a problem at Oxford, and report having felt unsafe or uncomfortable at the university because of their race. Only 38.7% of white students agreed that racism was a problem at Oxford.

A significant proportion of the entire student body reported witnessing or experiencing racist humour or racially-charged abuse. However, 64.3% of Oxford’s BME students believed that they did not feel they had a safe space to discuss race at the university, whilst just over half of white students said that they did.

Union in turmoil as Librarian walks out

Continued, page 15

Lads’ mags: have Union Librarian refuses to sit next to President as internal tensions mount they just moved?

Max Long Editor

Ella Richards Deputy Editor

AFTER A WEEK of turmoil at the Oxford Union, Kostas Chryssanthopoulos, the Union Librarian, walked out of the Thursday debate following an impassioned speech in which he declared that he refused to “sit next to a President who does not believe in freedom of speech”.

The Librarian’s intervention comes after a week in which the Oxford Union has seen itself embroiled in controversy as the Union President sought to use the Society’s money to cover his legal expenses after student website The Tab published allegations, which President Ben Sullivan has called “demonstrably false”. The decision, which was passed on Monday, was then challenged by a Special Adjournment Motion proposed by Chryssanthopoulos and signed by 39

other members.

Following the proposal of this motion, an extraordinary Standing Committee meeting was called to withdraw the decision to cover the President’s legal fees, which was passed by eleven votes to three.

However, a number of members remained dissatisfied that the issue was not to be discussed at the open debate on Thursday.

The Librarian’s intervention followed the customary opening speeches by the President, Ben Sullivan, and the Secretary, Lisa Wehden, which are usually reserved for private business to do with the Society. However, the Librarian then launched into a two-minute speech in protest against Sullivan, in which he claimed that, “I refuse to sit next to a president who believes that such actions are acceptable. I refuse to sit next to a president who does not believe in freedom of speech, and I

refuse to sit next to a president who has lied to members and tried to cover it all up with your money.

“I cannot in all good conscience continue to sit here tonight and remain silent in the face of a President who shows such disdain for the society he has pledged to serve”.

Chryssanthopoulos claimed that Kostas Chryssanthopoulos claimed he had “suffered repeated and personal attacks” before vacating his seat in the chamber his attempts to have a “free and open discussion” were “blocked”, adding that “If we had nothing to worry about then why should it ever matter where such a discussion takes place”.

Following his speech, Chryssanthopoulos walked out of the debating chamber to strong applause,

leaving the Librarian’s seat vacant.

Commenting on the speech to Cherwell, Ben Sullivan said, “I am happy to answer any questions on my conduct, however these questions are supposed to be raised in the chamber during questions to officers and Kostas’s decision to include them in his speech shows that it was a purely political move.” Responding immediately after the speech, the President, speaking in front of the chamber, said, “Thank you for that Kostas and I hope you get a few more votes because of that outburst”.

Chryssanthopoulos’s speech was then followed by a defence of the President by Union Treasurer Charles Malton, in which he told the chamber that, “as a committee we made the decision that it was damaging to the Union to allow that to happen, that those false claims about things... continued, page 5

Comment, page 9

Food in art and literature Culture, page 24

Swapping revision for the East Side Life&Style, page 13

Cherwell | 02.05.14

2 | News

Oxford celebrates May Day

MAY MORNING ONCE AGAIN saw thousands of revellers awake at 6AM outside of Magdalen College Tower to witness the annual choral perfromance of the Hymnus Eucharisticus, which was composed by a 17th century Magdalen fellow.

Amidst a foggy dawn, the traditional celebration passed trouble-free. Rachel Capell, City Events Officer at Oxford City Council, comment, “We are pleased with how the event went. Our security team did a great job throughout the morning and it

was great to see approximately 5,000 people celebrating the start of spring at this unique and traditional Oxford event.”

In total, the South Central Ambulance service reported that five people were treated for minor injuries “related to May Morn-

OUSU votes to cancel “inadequate” Safety Bus service OUSU Council have decided to end Oxford’s involvement in the long-running welfare scheme

mandated the Vice-President for Charities and Community to ensure that the Safety Bus runs the duration of the Oxford University term.

The Current OUSU VP for Charities and Community, Daniel Tomlinson, told Cherwell, “Recently, I have been in discussions with Brookes about the Safety Bus and it became clear that they were not able to require the volunteers to sign codes of conduct for their behaviour, about which we have had concerns. They also won’t keep a record of the number of University of Oxford students that use the bus.

“OUSU now has £12,000 to spend on an improved safety scheme, or other things that students think are important. I’ve been mandated to report back to students before the end of term on progress of finding an alternative, and I’ve already started speaking with local taxi companies and Common Room Presidents about potential alternative schemes.”

Robert Walmsley Deputy Editor

OUSU COUNCIL VOTED to cancel the Safety Bus on Wednesday night. The motion, supported

by OUSU Council, stated that it believed the current Safety Bus service was inadequate and failing Oxford University students.

The Safety Bus service is run in partnership with the Oxford Brookes University Students’ Union, and costs OUSU £12,000 per year to run.

The service provides a safe means of transport for students late at night.

However, no information is available about the number of Oxford University students that use the bus, despite OUSU repeatedly asking Brookes Union to collect the information.

A survey conducted two years ago, by the

then OUSU Vice-President for Charities and Community, found that 70% of respondents had never used the bus during their time at Oxford University, while 20% had used it once and 10% had used it more than once. The average waiting time for the bus was found to be 16 minutes, with 17% of users having to wait more than 20 minutes for the service. A small number of users who had used the service found the volunteers “confrontational”.

The Safety Bus is run with the help of student volunteers from Oxford Brookes who are given training by Brookes Union. However, one of the key concerns raised was that volunteers are not asked to sign any form of contract or agreement regarding their expected conduct.

Another concern with the service is that it does not run for 25% of the full Oxford University term. In Trinity term of 2012, OUSU Council

“

70% of respondents had never used the bus service In the debate on the motion, concerns were raised that bus and taxi companies might be reluctant to transport students who were seriously drunk. However, a lack of willingness to reform the current service led to the Council voting to cancel the bus.

A first year historian said, “Without the safety bus, I don’t know how I could’ve gotten a member of my college home one night.”

Oxford Brookes University Student Union was unavailable for comment.

ing revelry.”

May Day itseld saw continued festivities with a large number of Morris dancers performing across Oxford whilst students recovered.

Samuele Volpe

The week in figures

£1,200 Legal fees that Ben Sullivan tried to get the Oxford Union to pay on his behalf

91 Number of followers Zachary Spiro has on Twitter

7 Number of days until Babylove closes to relocate

02.05.14 | Cherwell

News | 3

University governance a “misguided dictatorship” Tutor uses article in the Oxford Magazine to criticise the University’s central administration Dorothy Finan News Reporter A CHRIST CHURCH TUTOR has criticised Oxford’s central administration as a “misdirected dictatorship”.

Peter Oppenheimer, Student Emeritus at the college, argued in the 0th week issue of Oxford Magazine, a weekly publication for university staff, that the solution to administrative problems can only be to cut ties with the UK government and become fully self-governing.

“After decades of efficient and enlightened self-rule by the academic community, a bare 15 years has sufficed to replace it - how irreversibly remains to be seen - with inefficient and misdirected dictatorship by central bureaucracy”, he wrote.

He further attacked the fact that University administration defers to the government over the concerns of those within the University.

“The perception and conduct of central officeholders vis-à-vis the academic community switched abruptly in the early 2000s from servant to overlord. In economic terms the administration, having formerly been the agent of those engaged in teaching and research, seems now to view itself as principal in the academic enterprise, with the teachers and researchers as mere agents and subordinates.”

He also criticised the University for its handling of new buildings and the city environment following the controversy over University building projects such as Castle Mill. “Ill-designed student apartments at Castle Mill, disfiguring the eastern side of Port Meadow, have caused outrage among the citizens of Oxford and been condemned in the strongest terms as a disgrace by the Planning Minister, Nick Boles.”

He further accused University administration of not being entirely meritocratic in appointing academic staff, due to “administrative interference with the process of academic appointments, for example in cases where there is a lack of shortlistable female candidates”.

He blamed its disregard for the concerns of its students and staff on excessive adherence to the demands of Whitehall, and argues for a greater degree of autonomy, with a radically different fees system based on the American model.

“At prosperous American universities, high fees charged to wealthy students are (apart from the fairness aspect) a way of relieving calls on the endowment. Princeton (Oxford’s

partner university) has an endowment only about one-third of Harvard’s but it has less than half the number of students.”

The revenue that the University does generate from fees, he argued in the piece, is used ineffectively under a “ludicrous” policy of targeted underspending by the PRAC (Planning and Resource Allocation), the body that allocates funding across the University. He further said that money spent on “assorted Institutes or Centres” and some visiting appointments could be better spent elsewhere, and recommended cutting several hundred central administrative personnel to save money, arguing that there is “no alternative measure that would save anything remotely approaching this amount”.

He further recommended establishing endowments for teaching that could provide funding independent of fees.

Professor Oppenheimer has previously spoken out in favour of cutting non-academic jobs.

In an article published in 2009, he supported

“

The administration seems now to view itself as principal in the academic enterprise plans to reform the Careers Service by decentralising and reducing one-on-one consultations.

Students contacted by Cherwell have questioned Oppenheimer’s comments. OUSU President Tom Rutland said, “These comments seem somewhat overblown to me. There are advantages that stem from having a collegiate university (such as having close knit college communities) but there are drawbacks too, such as disparity in teaching hours and rent costs.

There are definite benefits to having some centrally provided services.”

University administration was attacked similarly in the 8th week Hilary edition of the magazine, which highlighted the growing disparity between highest and lowest-paid university staff, as well as suggesting that the Vice Chancellor’s pay was disproportionate by comparison with other management positions, including the permanent secretaries of government departments.

The Unievrsity declined to comment on the matter when contacted by Cherwell.

Queen of Spain visits Oxford Queen Sofia attends a Colloquium and a formal meal at Exeter College Max Long Editor HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN SOFIA of Spain visited Oxford last Tuesday as part of the celebrations commemorating the 700th anniversary of Exeter College. Queen Sofia is an honorary fellow of Exeter and the patron of the Queen Sofía Junior Fellowship , established to fund scholarship into contemporary Spanish literature and culture at the college. Exeter is also home to the King Alfonso XIII Professorship of Spanish Literature, established in 1927.

The Queen attended a colloquium on Spanish literature and its study in the University of Oxford, which was first cemented with the establishment of the School of Modern Languages in Oxford in 1905. At the colloquium, which was held at the Taylorian Institution, speeches were delivered by the current holder of the King Alfonso XIII Professorship, Professor Edwin Williamson, Dr Daniela Olmor, holder of the current Queen Sofia Junior Fellowship, and three students; Artem Serebrennikov, a DPhil student, as well as undergraduates Matt Stokes and Daisy Thompson. Each spoke about their personal experiences in the study of Spanish as well as their individual research interests in the field.

In a speech given during a formal lunch afterward at Exeter’s hall, Queen Sofia gave a brief speech in which he said, “I am truly happy to join you for the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of Exeter College, an august institution which throughout its history has contributed to the development of society through its remarkable educational vocation and its excellent academic achievement.

“Spain shares in the joy of this commemoration, not only because the Chair of Spanish Studies which, since 1927, has borne the name of King Alfonso XIII, but also because your uni-

versity is one of the leading centres for teaching and studying Spanish, one of the world’s great languages, together with English.”

Her Majesty was then taken on a tour of the college gardens by college rector Frances Cairncross, during which Queen Sofia was introduced to Spanish students from the college.

Queen Sofia, who was born into the Greek Royal family in 1938, married the current King of Spain, Juan Carlos in 1962. She studied at Athens University before spending time at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge.

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4 | News

Cherwell | 02.05.14

OUSU building cleaners receive living wage Alex Stronell News Editor THE LIVING WAGE campaign celebrated a further success this week, as a new pay rate for cleaners working in the OUSU buildings came into effect. Last May, then-OUSU President David J. Townsend promised that staff working in their buildings would receive the living wage, after a Cherwell investigation revealed that cleaners in the OUSU buildings were being paid over £1.00 per hour less than the living wage at that time.

As of 1st May, staff working in the University buildings run by the Estate Services have recieved the living wage, now set at £7.65 per hour. The Estate Services manage some 235 buildings owned by the University.

Andrew Grey, Chair of the Oxford Living Wage Campaign, told Cherwell, “As the student-led Oxford Living Wage Campaign is an OUSU campaign, it is especially good news that all OUSU cleaners are now paid the living wage. OUSU have worked hard to ensure this happened, and it is very encouraging to see that the Living Wage is increasingly being implemented across the University.”

Grey continued, “Now that the University has made this significant step forward, the Living Wage Campaign hopes that the departments and colleges who do not yet pay the Living Wage will realise how important it is to do so.”

Posting on the OUSU blog, Dan Tomlinson, VP for Charities and Community wrote, “OUSU’s Living Wage Campaign has been out talking to cleaners in Wellington Square regularly this year. Their stories are what move us to campaign for the living wage. Working long hours, across multiple jobs, at unsociable hours and being paid less than the living wage is something no-one should have to do. We all deserve dignity in our work.”

He continued, “But the work goes on. As long

“

This is probably the most crucial time in the campaign’s history as we keep meeting staff at our University who are being paid less than the Living Wage, we will be here. The University has a big decision to make this summer on the issue of the Living Wage so this is probably the most crucial time in the campaign’s history.”

The Oxford Living Wage Campaign has seen a series of successes this year, having secured the wage for workers at St Anne’s, Mansfield, the Balvatnik School of Government, as well as the Maths, Physics, Biochemistry, and Education departments.

The UK living wage is calculated annually by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. The current wage is set at £7.65, up from £7.45 last year.

A spokesperson for Oxford University told Cherwell, “We are pleased that the living wage will now be paid to all contracted staff working in University buildings managed by our Estates Services. The University has made considering ethical matters in its procurement practices a priority, which includes the payment of a living wage.”

Correction Cherwell would like to apologise sincerely for the misquotation attributed to Mr Will Hutton in this column last week. Mr Hutton was referring to the debate over a 50p tax for incomes over £150,000 rather than £50,000.

Oxford Morris dancers reject racism accusations Morris dancers reject the accusations that their painted faces are associated with racism Megan Gibbons News Editor MORRIS DANCERS taking part in the May Day festivities has said that they paint their faces black simply in order to protect their identity and not for any racial purpose.

The long-standing Morris dancing tradition in Oxford was recently criticised by students for causing offence, due to some of the dancers taking part in the annual Folk Weekend event painting their faces black. In an article recently published by the Oxford Student, some students reported that they found the dancer’s decision to “black up” offensive.

Cherwell spoke to Jeff, a Morris dancer on the streets of Oxford. We questioned him why he decided to paint his face black and whether he realised that this could be seen as offensive.

He said, “I black my face so that no one knows my identity, it’s an old tradition based on Pagan beliefs.

“Some people think that us painting our faces is racist but it’s not like that. It’s about hiding from the church, or it used to be, because they considered it a pagan ritual and in the past people were ostracised if they were seen taking part.”

When asked why he got involved in Morris dancing he commented, “It’s not to do with religious beliefs, I’m not religious. I saw the group dancing at Halloween and I thought that could be a bit of fun. It’s a very social activity and we often hang out in the pub after we’ve been dancing.”

In a post on the Facebook group ‘Skin Deep’, there was some discussion of the controversy.

The post included a photo of Morris dancers in

Oxford who had ‘blacked up’ for the weekend’s folk festival and May Day festivities.

There were a number of comments on the post about the controversy surrounding this and its possible offensive nature.

One student posted, “In my opinion regardless of the origins of the tradition the fact remains that it could be associated with ‘blackface’ which in any other context is seen as very racist so I don’t think it’s okay.”

Cherwell spoke to Roger Comley, the Morris Ring area representative for the South Midlands. He explained that, “There are many different troupes of Morris dancers, some who

paint their faces black and some who do not.

“There are a number of different reasons for this and no one really knows where the tradition came from.”

He also noted, “It is seen particularly in the Welsh troupes because traditionally those involved were miners and charcoal burners who had to protect their identity by painting their faces black because they did not want the owners of the mines to know that they were taking part.”

The exact origins of the face-painting are debated, as are the origins of the Morris dancing tradition itself.

Vice Chancellor second highest paid uni boss in UK Oxford University’s Vice Chancellor earns the second highest salary for his job in the country Esther Hodges News Reporter IT HAS EMERGED that Professor Andrew Hamilton, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, is the second highest paid university boss in the country.

In the year 2012-2013, the Vice-Chancellor received a pay-package of £434,000 - including pension - which is a 2.36 per cent increase on his 2011-12 salary.

This news has sparked concern amongst those who are currently campaigning for higher wages for all of Oxford University’s academic staff. While Hamilton’s 2012-2013 pay increase of 2.36% was nearly in line with the inflation rate of the time (which was recorded at 2.9% in July 2013), academics were offered a far smaller wage increase.

The President of the University and College Union in Oxford, Terry Hoad, who campaigns for higher wages for academics and helped organise two academic strikes last year, pointed out this discrepancy. Talking to Cherwell, he said, “The University and College Union is about to consider whether to accept a pay offer which would see a 1% increase for 2012-13 and 2% for 2013-14.

That offer represents a further significant cut in the real-terms value of our members’ pay, losses which have been suffered annually for a long time.

He continued, “It is therefore galling that the already high salaries of vice-chancellors, including our own in Oxford - salaries that are many times higher than those of most other university staff - are increasing by very large amounts. It is not that redistribut-

ing the Vice-Chancellor’s pay increase among those other staff members would give them significant increases, but more that we are not seeing much sense of collegiality and evenhandedness.

“Vice-Chancellors have demanding jobs, but all university staff share responsibility for the very important work of sustaining the teaching, learning, and research for which Oxford has such a distinguished record. The Oxford Magazine has looked to the Vice-Chancellor to take a lead in work to ensure ‘our well-being into the future as a world-class university founded on academic and democratic values’.

Those values should surely include the principle of fair rewards for all those on whom that well-being depends.”

However, the University of Oxford has said that the Vice-Chancellor’s salary is simply a reflection of the university’s wealth and global standing.

A spokesperson for the university stated, “According to last year’s Times Higher World University Rankings, Oxford is the number one university in the UK and number two in the world. It is consistently ranked as one of the two best universities in the UK and among the handful of best universities in the world. Its research output is vast, it has an almost billion-pound-a-year turnover, not including the colleges and the Oxford University Press, and it has great institutional complexity.

The Vice-Chancellor’s salary reflects that.”

This view is not necessarily

shared by Oxford students. A member of the Oxford Activist Network, Xavier Cohen, said he thought the example of the Vice-Chancellor’s pay was indicative of what he termed the ‘marketization of education’.

He told Cherwell, “A democratically unaccountable and unelected technocrat takes charge and power away from the members of our university, when we have not asked them to, and frames this power in terms of a burdensome bureaucratic responsibility that they deserve tremendous remuneration for.

“The VC’s pay and power effectively takes pay and power away from the members of our institution, and to fight this means fighting the anti-democratic neoliberal rationality that it comes from.”

Other students appear firmly in agreement with Cohen’s point. Katharine Baxter, Keble student and student activist in last year’s academic strikes, said, “In a year when striking staff have, effectively, been fined for participation in unionised industrial action it is unacceptable that Oxford Vice-Chancellor Andrew Hamilton is the second highest paid VC in the country.”

Oxford NUS delegate Nathan Akehurst added, “Vice-Chancellors’ salaries have risen by 8% in the last years whilst lecturers have faced the longest sustained pay cut since the Second World War. Pay distribution in HE (and in society in general) is unfair, which is why NUS voted to campaign for managers to be paid a maximum of five times the lowest-paid worker’s salary.”

Despite receiving a pay-package which is just under three times larger than David Cameron’s salary of £142,500, Hamilton’s salary still falls short of that of the new director of the London School of Economics, Craig Calhoun.

According to The Times Higher Education, Calhoun received £466,000 in 2012-2013, making him the highest paid university boss in the UK.

02.05.14 | Cherwell

News | 5

Librarian storms out of Union debate

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continued from page 1 that went on at meetings should be put right, because those kinds of falsity should not be allowed to be published... and that’s why I, along with many others voted to pay the legal fees, to defend the Union, not to defend Ben Sullivan, but to defend the Union.

“They [the lawyers] were employed not in a personal capacity to defend Ben Sullivan, they were employed by this organisation, to protect its reputation against things which were incredibly damaging, incredibly serious, and incredibly untrue.”

Malton invited members who wished to direct questions to the President to do so in their own speeches after the main debate had finished.

“If you are a member of the Union there’s free speech, if you want to make points, if you want to argue about it, if you want to say that what we did was wrong then after this there will be the opportunity for questions to officers.

“Feel free to slow down the debate, feel free to interrupt the excellent debate we’ve got this evening, with brilliant speakers, some of

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whom have travelled a very long way to come and speak to you, if you want to do that by all means you’re very welcome to. We believe in free speech, and I wouldn’t want to stifle that for a second”.

The Librarian’s walkout follows Wednesday’s open extraordinary Standing Committee Meeting, at which the Committee voted to withdraw a controversial motion passed on Monday agreeing to cover £1,200 legal fees for the Union President. The expenses were originally passed by the Vacation Standing Committee and then ratified on Monday where Chryssanthopoulos was one of only two members to vote against the decision.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Ben Sullivan admitted to members that he had “made a mistake” by allowing the motion to pass. Speaking to Cherwell, he said, “the Standing Committee made the decision to withdraw the expenses claim this afternoon in response to opposition from a number of Union members. We stand by the fact that, in principle, covering these expenses is something the Union should be able to do, but the Standing Committee is always happy to listen to members’ concerns”.

Chryssanthopoulos claimed during his speech that he had been the subject of “a persistent campaign against me for ever questioning him, I have suffered repeated and personal attacks.”

The Librarians allegations follow the resignation of fellow Standing Committee member, Katherine Connolly due to what she described as an “untenable” work environment. Such fears were mirrored by one Union member who commented “The Union at the moment is not a healthy working environment, with committee members being targeted for their moral principles” The debate, entitled “Promiscuity is a virtue, not a vice”, proceeded as normal.

Job at Oxford said to distract Lord Patten from senior role at the BBC Lord Patten has been accused of not being able to do his job at the BBC because of being Chancellor of Oxford, and his five other paid jobs Tom Calver News Reporter BBC TRUST CHAIRMAN and Oxford University Chancellor Lord Chris Patten has been accused of being “distracted from serving licence-payers properly” in a letter from the BBC Radio Forum.

The letter, sent to culture secretary Sajid Javid, urges that the “grave failings” by the BBC under Patten are not repeated, asking that the appointment of his successor, due to begin work in May 2015, be “as transparent as possible so that the best candidate for the job is picked.”

The BBC Radio Forum, a national message board for licence fee payers, represents 4,000 supporters who include BBC radio producers, the TaxPayers’ Alliance and MediaWatch-UK. The letter was written on behalf of “thousands of listeners who have petitioned the BBC about various management failures in recent years” According to the letter, Patten has “proved himself to be a particularly poor BBC Trust chairman in terms of his main duty, which is

representing the interests of licence fee-payers.

“He has been a dreadful advertisement for the BBC due to his astonishingly patronising approach to anyone who has ever questioned him on any matter relating to the BBC.” Patten’s tenure as BBC Trust Chair has been frequently characterised, to borrow the words of Peter Oborne, by a “lack of grip” and an “evasion of responsibility”.

In particular, the letter referred to his role in the controversy s u r-

rounding the Pollard Report which looked into the Jimmy Savile affair in 2012. Patten refused to allow the report to be changed, even though Nick Pollard, who chaired the £3m inquiry, admitted its exclusion was “a mistake”.

However, in the letter, BBC Radio Forum spokesperson Tamsin Vincent suggested that the failures of his tenure were down to “outside interests” which have “distracted Lord Patten from serving licence payers properly.”

Alongside his unpaid

position as Chancellor of Oxford University, a role he has held since 2003, Patten also has five other paid jobs.

The Forum’s letter asked that the government do “all that [they] can to insist that Lord Patten’s successor is required to do the job on a full-time basis. Lord Patten claims to devote ‘3 to 4 days per week’ to the BBC, for which he is paid £110,000.”

However, Oxford students have been quick to defend the time commitments of their Chancellor. Recognising Patten as a “very eminent figure in British public life who masterminded John Major’s 1992 election campaign”, first year Jesus historian Joel Nelson told Cherwell: “I find it unsurprising that a man as distinguished as Chris Patten should be extremely busy.

“Harold Macmillan was Oxford chancellor, and he must have had the same, if not more on his plate than Patten.” Exeter’s Phil Bell also claims to having “spoken to him once at a barbecue” and says “he was very friendly”, evidence that the Chancellor still makes time for social occasions. Both Patten and the BBC Trust refused to comment on the letter.

Cherwell

EDITORS Max Long (Magdalen), Joe Iles (St Anne's) editor@cherwell.org DEPUTY EDITORS Robert Walmsley, Delia Lockey, Jack Doyle, Samuele Volpe, Ella Richards NEWS EDITORS Alex Stronell, Megan Gibbons, Tom Hall, Charlie Atkins (Broadcasting) NEWS REPORTERS Rohan Arora, Nick Hilton, Rowan Borchers, Leandra Bias, Ellen Brewster, Will Carter, Rebecca Grant, James Rhodes, Nikita Makarchev, Joe Hill, Stanislas Lalanne, Esther Hodges, Jennie Han, Joel Mann, Georgia Latham COMMENT EDITORS Alice King, Nick Mutch, Sybil Devlin (Blogs) INVESTIGATIONS EDITORS India Miller, Jessica Hao LIFE AND STYLE EDITORS Chloe Ingersent, Erin Goldfinch, Tess Colley (Broadcasting) CULTURE EDITORS Emma Simpson, Luke Barratt, Joel Casey (Broadcasting) FASHION EDITORS Leah Hendre, Niluka Kavanagh (Broadcasting) SPORT EDITOR Jonathon Turnbull PUZZLES EDITOR Aneesh Naik BROADCASTING EDITOR Lily Taylor FOOD AND DRINK EDITOR Elizabeth English ART AND BOOKS EDITORS Isaac Goodwin, Joel Nelson FILM AND TV EDITORS Marcus Balmer, Oliver Johnson STAGE EDITORS Jordan Reed, Naomi Polonsky MUSIC EDITORS Rushabh Haria, Helen Thomas DEPUTY COMMENT EDITORS Niamh McIntyre, Tom Carter, Samuel Rutishauser-Mills, Cameron Joshi, Rachel Dobbs, Evy Cavalla DEPUTY LIFESTYLE EDITORS Emily Brown, Natalie Stumpf, Sara Semic, Emma Cookson, Rhiannon Gibbs-Harris DEPUTY BROADCASTING EDITORS Tess Colley, Lakmini Wijesinghe DEPUTY FASHION EDITORS Rebecca Borthwick, Nam Phuong Dinh, Sara Sayma, Jack Davies, Antonia Whitton DEPUTY SPORT EDITORS Jamie Farmer, Jacob Rabinowitz PHOTO EDITOR Kathryn Hodkinson PHOTOGRAPHER Alexander Benn ILLUSTRATOR Sage Goodwin NIGHT LAWYER Jo Lyall BUSINESS TEAM Holly Jackson, Rohan Arora, Stephanie Austera, Emma Lipczynski, Elizabeth Rutherford, Anju Jacob OSPL CHAIRMAN Jonathan Adams (chairman@ospl.org) MANAGING DIRECTOR Kalila Bolton FINANCE DIRECTOR Minyoung Seo COMPANY SECRETARY April Peake DIRECTORS Rowan Borchers, Hugh Lindsey, Christina Maddock

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COMMENT Why academics must write in plain and simple English Tom Carter Deputy Comment Editor

E

instein once quipped that, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” As soon as I arrived at Oxford, it came to my attention that much of what academics and students write is utter gobbledygook. Some academics seem to take pleasure in constructing sentences completely incomprehensible not just to the layman, but even to students of their own subject. All I can do is

“

this like, and that it is more likely an elaborate bluff. By ensuring that you do not understand a thing they are talking about, they trick you into thinking that they know exactly what they are talking about. From my own tutorial experiences, I smell a rat. After all, it is only when I do not have a clue about what I am saying that I bullshit to the maximum. If I start using words like “discourse” or “subjectivity”, I know I am really in trouble. Conversely, it is only when I actually know my stuff that I feel comfortable using simple phrases.

Don’t just take my word for it. The late Dennis Dutton, a philosophy professor from the University of Canterbury, was so incensed by this ‘awkward, jargon-clogged academic prose’ that he set up a “Bad Writing Competition” to find the most egregious examples of it.

This needless jargon goes against the purpose of academia wonder why. What does it prove? Do they show that they are such geniuses that they find it impossible to communicate with lesser mortals?

Or maybe the ideas they are trying to convey are so complex that they require impenetrable terminology?

Take this example from a book of literary theory. “The lure of imaginary totality is momentarily frozen before the dialectic of desire hastens on within symbolic chains.” This is what David Foster Wallace called “deformed English” and what George Orwell described as attempting to “give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

I suspect that it is not an academic’s high calibre of intellect that forces them to write

What follows, the winner of the competition in 1999, is a perfect example of this pernicious evil. Let me present an extract from a work of Judith Butler; fasten your seat belts, folks, you are in for a ride. Its absurd pomposity means it deserves to be quoted in full.

“The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.”

I admit I don’t have a clue what this means.

Do you? Dennis Dutton doesn’t. He says, “To ask what this means is to miss the point.

This sentence beats readers into submission and instructs them that they are in the presence of a great and deep mind.

Actual communication has nothing to do with it.” At least one intellectual has got it right.

This needless jargon goes against the purpose of academia. In the context of a world where academics are continually engaged in a desperate search for something, anything, to justify the continued funding of the study of the humanities, academia cannot subsist in its own little bubble. Academics have to make a consistent effort to make their specialized research accessible to

the wider intellectual environment and even to the general public. As much as they might contest otherwise, academics are not being employed to engage in some obscurant hobby of theirs. Thus, the language with which they frame their research should be equally accessible. Whilst it doesn’t have to be Wikipedia Simple English, there is a happy medium to be had and one that is not weighted to the bullshit end.

“

There is little point in having an idea unless you can convey it In a similar vein, tutors should not get so wound up when students use simple, even colloquial, English, so long as it is grammatically correct. After all, when I applied to Oxford, it was beaten into me that it was the quality of the idea that counted, not the complexity of the vocabulary used to convey it. If that was not a façade to tempt innocent sixth formers in, then it should still stand on arrival at university. There is little point in having an idea unless you can convey it clearly. Mark Twain once said, “I never write ‘metropolis’ for seven cents when I can write ‘city’ and get paid the same.” With simple, elegant style, he gets right to the point.

Tutors and students, cut the crap. It achieves nothing but making the writer look like a pretentious twit.

I end with Einstein again, who explains the problem much better than I ever could. “Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius— and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.”

Yes Is the UN Rapporteur’s cri

Cherwell on the go

Niamh McIntyre and Radhika Seth debate Ras

App available for iPhone and Android Namh McIntyre Deputy Comment Editor

C

omments made recently

by Rashida Manjoo, which claimed there is an ‘in your face sexist culture’ and ‘a marketisation of women and girls’, in the UK led, to widespread indignation and an attempt to overwrite the suffering of women. The Daily Mail’s headline ‘Britain’s ‘boys’ club’ culture makes it the most sexist country in the world says UN expert... who is from South Africa, the rape capital of the world’ was indicative of the pervasive assumption that sexism is ‘worse’ in other countries and therefore should take precedence over localised feminist activism.

The rapporteur did not claim Britain was the ‘most sexist’ country in the world, but that sexism was more ‘in your face’ than other countries she had visited, offering an analysis of the ways in which misogyny is manifested rather than a like-for-like comparison with other countries.

Manjoo’s critics often cited South Africa, where it has been estimated that 40% of women will be raped at some point in their lifetime, or Saudi Arabia, where there is no prohibition against statutory or spousal rape.

Such a qualitative approach trivializes the experience of sufferers of domestic and sexual violence in the UK; assertions that women have ‘never had it so good’ disregard the fact that 85,000 women are raped and 400,000 sexually assaulted in the UK every year. While sexual assault may be more prevalent in other countries, it is extremely disconcerting to see this used to overwrite the experience of women in the UK. Rashida pre-empted the backlash her criticism of the UK would cause, drawing attention to the complacency created by ‘legal and policy responses that are often limited to some harmful practices’ while ignoring broader structural oppression. The report makes a sensitive case for the interaction of practises of open misogyny, normalized by media representation and groups such as Women Who Eat On Tubes.

The confidence expressed in gender equality often relies upon universalizing the experience of middle-class, heterosexual, usually white women in the UK. Contrarily, the UN report is particularly concerned to articulate marginalized perspectives, like those of asylum seekers, BME women, prisoners, LGBTQ women and the unemployed.

An example of structural sexism is the effect of the government’s austerity measures on women. Rashida measures not only the direct impact austerity is having on women by depriving them of crisis centres and trauma services, but also that of general cuts to the welfare system which affect poverty and unemployment, and are contributory factors to violence against women and girls.

The rush to defend the UK, by comparing it with other countries’ records of violence against women, silences the real and pressing issues highlighted by the preliminary UN report. The media’s mocking of Manjoo only serves to validate her judgments about the continued prevalence of misogyny in Britain.

Comment | 7

02.05.14 | Cherwell

Cherwell

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

Letters to the editors

Since 1920

DisUnion

May Day Tradition

Numbers

Psyked

It is with great sadness and regret that this editor has been following the developments in the Oxford Union Society over the past few weeks. From a society which contributes significantly to the intellectual and cultural life of the university, the constantly flowing stories of back-stabbing, confrontation and discord from amongst its leading members are more than a disappointment.

The alarming frequency of these truly unpleasant anecdotes, which come to light after practically every election, is slowly beginning to erode the reputation of the society to an unnecessary extent, and leading an ever greater number of members to apathy.

There is no reason why the Oxford Union should be anything more than a society in which debating is fostered, and a place where genuinely inspiring speakers are hosted on a termly basis. The political machinations and petty rivalries are an unnecessary distraction in a society which generally serves as a positive force in university life.

This editor believes the Oxford Union needs to move with the times. There is no reason why the strength of tradition need be undermined by a fresh look at its outdated rules. If the Union wants to maintain its reputation, keep attracting world-renowned speakers, and not alienate the vast majority of students in the university – who pay a pretty penny each Michaelmas in order to be members – then an open and frank discussion needs to take place with a view to enacting significant changes in the way in which it is run.

This year, like every year, a large contingent of this University decided against the sensible option of sleeping, and instead spent all night at a variety of locations in Oxford before arriving at Magdalen bridge in the early hours of the morning to bask in the morning sunlight and listen to the Magdalen choir sing from on high.

The reason given: tradition. Of course May Day has a long history, rooted originally in preChristian religious tradition, and many of the rites derive their origin from Anglo-Saxon pagan festivals. As such, Morris dancers can be seen throughout the town, May Queens are crowned, and maypoles abound.

Yet an all-night stint in Park End is a more recent development. And this is what makes May Day such a feature of the Oxford calendar, and provides an insight into Oxford University as a whole.

It represents our u nusua l relationship with tradition.

Tradition, despite necessarily being concerned with the recapitulation of past events, is inherently fluid. May Day might have been around for centuries, but the way it is celebrated by students alters with the times as we find a way to express some sort of individuality.

This is often the case with Oxford. The institution is undeniably historic, and as such, there is much that has remained the same. But at the same time we must adapt to the times, maintaining a balance between originality and tradition.

Ellen, Ellen - £150,000 a year not £50,000 a year. Where did that come from? I am underwhelmed.

I truly thoroughly enjoyed meeting you, your team and seeing your editorial meeting. Mainly I enjoyed the sort of geeky guy in a parka who ate his way through an entire packet of very cheap looking jammy dodgers during the meeting and didn’t offer any of the others one…

Will Hutton Hertford College “It”

Plum Sykes Fashion journalist, novelist and socialite

Can you come to OxStu tonight very quickly to do it?

Nick Toner Oxford Student Editor-in-Chief

On Exile Hi guys I really hope you haven’t been missing me too mutch.

Not Interested

Nick Mutch New Zealand

I’m afraid I have no interest in writing a piece for Cherwell. On the occasions I do respond to requests for comment or information it is selectively used providing an unbalanced view of the issue.

We’re not trying to scare anyone. BUT. Baing suit season is creeping up on us.

Mark Blandford-Baker Magdalen College Home Bursar

James Pinnacle Slimming Technology

Tweet of the Week

Bathing season

iticism of UK sexism just? No

shida Manjoo’s judgement of sexism in the UK Radhika Seth Contributor

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anjoo’s comments about Britain’s ‘boys’ club sexist culture’ described the treatment of women in the UK as worse than that in most emerging nations. Her decision to place the social implications of Page Three, in which women have consented to appear, above the daily violence women face in countries like Azerbaijan and India is alarming.

A Home Office report found up to 1.2 million women in the UK experienced domestic violence in the past year, showing a serious need to address this problem. But if we consider Manjoo’s example of India, a country in which most domestic violence cases remain unreported, there is a qualitative difference. The low numbers of accusations are not only due to the fear of women becoming destitute if abandoned by their spouses, but also because, as a 2012 UN report revealed, 39% of women in India think

it is justifiable for a husband to beat his wife. Legislation against sexual harassment has only been recently introduced and is rarely implemented. Manjoo’s comments regarding the ‘visible’ nature of UK sexism suggests that women can at least be outspoken about the injustice they face.

While women are underrepresented in the British parliament, politicians cannot make misogynistic remarks without fear of public reprimand. However, members of India’s Socialist Party are vocal about the need for women to conform to male expectations of correct moral behaviour. Abu Azmi, a regional unit chief of the party, publicly declared that women who have sex before marriage should be hanged. Even the party’s leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, excused a recent rape case in Mumbai by saying, ‘boys will be boys.’

Such views are not confined to the peripheries of Indian politics.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), predicted to form the largest part of the coalition after the upcoming elections, has an extensive history of violence against women. In the 2002

anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, minister Narendra Modi, did little to stop the sexual torture and mass murder of women. Asaram Bapu, a spiritual leader endorsed by the BJP, refused to blame the perpetrators of the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. “The victim is as guilty as her rapists,” he said.

“She should have called the culprits ‘brother’ and begged before them to stop. Can one hand clap? I don’t think so.”

Beside such misogyny, the UK ought to be proud of its position as a liberal democracy in which many politicians advocate equality. Women are free to both express their discontent and campaign for change. Putting the ‘sexist lad culture’ of the UK alongside the genuine widespread oppression of women in so many countries only insults women in the developing world for whom rape, violent beatings and forced marriages are daily occurrences. Sexism in the UK is far less widespread and severe than in countries like India, and an acceptance of this fact should not be viewed as imperialist self-congratulation.

RIGHT OF

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

Cherwell | 02.05.14

8 | Comment

Robert Walmsley talks diversity and OXSTEW blogs with journalist Sunny Hundal THE

Christ Church wins approval for a cull of hipsters in meadows

C

ontroversial proposals to cull hipsters in the meadows of Christ Church College have today been approved by Oxford City Council. Research carried out in 2012 determined that hipsters are a contributing factor to the decline in local wildlife, predominantly due to the animals passively inhaling handrolled cigarette smoke and various diseases that are passed by hipsters to the animals, such as affluenza and bovine TB. Recent years have seen hipster numbers increase threefold due to their natural predators – goths – becoming more domesticated and welcomed into mainstream society, with many people choosing to have them as friends and even lovers.

Without another visible subculture, hipsters have been able to adopt more nuanced affectations and unique interest points which has led to many reproducing rapidly. Added to this, the recent economic downturn has seen most hipsters’ skillsets (which include blogging, music production and juggling) become less and less desirable, leading to an increase in sightings during the daylight hours.

A pilot cull of hipsters in Gloucestershire and Somerset drew criticism for its ineffectiveness and cruelty, but local farmers and government officials have heralded the cull as the only way to deal with this increasing threat. It is understood that Oxford City Council have consulted with both Gloucestershire and Somerset councils and intend to adapt their methods and techniques based on feedback from the pilot, especially with regards to repellent and bait methods. The pilot concluded that the most effective repellent was Coldplay’s XY album, with The Best of Cliff Richard turning out to be considered ironically cool and therefore best used as bait.

A spokeswoman from Oxford City Council told Cherwell, “They’re very different situations, but with a similar solution. We are not looking to eradicate this group, but merely reduce their numbers to a more tolerable size.”

Somerset Council have also released a report on different attempted methods of reducing the hipster numbers. It found that leaving a trail of gluten-free vegan brownies to the edge of a cliff had proved a quick method of disposing of a large number at once; however, this has been rejected by Christ Church as the banks of the River Cherwell are deemed not high enough to be certainly fatal.

The cull is intended to drive down sharply numbers of these creatures in the meadows, although the Council have so far not confirmed which method of destruction will be used.

Cherwell understands it has been proposed to leave vintage archery sets by shady trees across the area and hope for the best.

Following a successful trial this summer at Christ Church, the cull will be extended to Magdalen College Deer Park where concerns have been raised that hipsters have attempted to scale the fence and ride the deer. We interviewed Julia Barnsley - a second year Classics student from Wadham - just outside Magdalen.

She told us “Deer are just such gentle creatures.

They’re like horses with the most amazing head pieces. I know my Instagram followers would love a photo of me and my spirit animal.”

Sources say that Julia Barnsley is on a provisional “hitlist” compiled by Christ Church in conjunction with the city council, although this has been neither confirmed nor denied by either organisation.

The cull will begin Tuesday at 2pm and is expected to last throughout the summer.

Troy Gambino

Robert Walmsley Deputy Editor

S

unny Hundal came to journalism in a very different manner to most. In a world where the established media has been increasingly been trying to move online, Hundal succeeded in creating his own career by effectively using the internet to build his own platform through blogging.

Hundal started blogging at Pickled Politics but is most well-known for the blog Liberal Con-

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India has a lot more cultural power than it has economic power spiracy, which became the UK’s most popular left-wing blog under Hundal’s editorship.

Since then Hundal has proceeded to write for a number of publications in the print media, including for The Independent, The Guardian, Metro, New Statesman, The Times, and Financial Times.

Hundal explains how he came to blogging and then journalism through online publishing. “I used to run a magazine called Asians in Media that was entirely a web project. It became an online magazine which lots of people in the industry read, because it broke news. I was an unknown then. Online publishing gave me a chance to break out and get noticed – that would have been very difficult five to ten years before that. Blogging was simply an extension of this. I got into it because I saw blogs, at the time, while I was running Asians in Media and saw this fantastic conversation going on.”

Analysing why he started blogging, Hundal identifies his desire to provide a perspective that he thought was missing from most political debates. “I sought to bring to the blogosphere a point of view about progressive Asians with liberal ideas. I thought that voice was missing, so I wanted to bring that to the blogosphere especially, and as a medium I thought a blog was a good way to do that.”

“With Pickled Politics, my first blog, the mission statement was to offer people a more progressive liberal voice from the Asian community and to illustrate that these voices existed even though they were being drowned out by the national media, the ethnic media and politicians themselves.”

When I ask him whether he believes that voice is still missing, he comments, “I certainly think that there is a tendency, especially in the news media, to see Asians as ethnic blocs or as a religious bloc and to assume that religious voices are representatives of voter opinion, when they’re not. Certainly, organisations that have put themselves forward as representing ethnic voices or religious voices, I have felt, were not progressive enough.”

However, Hundal believes it is still not easy to challenge the conservative voices in the media. “I used to get criticism, all the time, for challenging the Muslim Council of Britain, the Hindu

Forum of Britain, and the Sikh Federation. We published a manifesto in The Guardian about this, in 2007, saying that these so-called community leaders only speak for themselves and not for the communities they claim to represent.

“Having a range of voices out there and allowing those people to tell their own stories is certainly the best way to tackle that.”

By the time of his second blog, Liberal Conspiracy, Hundal had already established a reputation for himself as a distinct voice online. Consequently, when he launched Liberal Conspiracy the aims were far broader. “With Liberal Conspiracy, the mission statement was to offer a hub for left wing opinion, views and campaigning in a way that wasn’t there before. When I launched it in 2007, there certainly wasn’t a place like that – now, there are obviously far more. In those days there were lots of bloggers working in their own spaces.

There wasn’t a place people could go to – a collective space. I felt that someone had to create that so I did.”

Hundal has remained true to his roots by continuing to blog, but now also regularly writes for established media outlets. Recently, Hundal has written extensively on India, particularly about violence against women there. He published his first book, India Dishonoured, on this subject in May 2013 as an ebook with Guardian Books, which soon made it into the top five of Amazon’s non-fiction bestseller list. When I ask him, which direction he thinks India will go as its economy continues to

develop, he responds “I think that India has a lot more cultural power than it has economic power. The diaspora is spread all over the world and those people are very active in the politics and economics of those countries.

I think in that sense, India punches above its weight in some ways even China doesn’t.

India is a very proud nation. They have this sense of history and they think that this country is great and always will be great. That’s one of the reason why, in India, they always see themselves as competing against China, because they want to see the glory days of India becoming one of the world powers again.”

“There is so much corruption there I think it is very difficult. Over the next few decades I think that India will plod along unless something drastically changes – and I don’t see that happening, unfortunately.”

Hundal’s work on India is interesting, be-

“

If the internet was not there, I would now not be a journalist cause it seems to mark a new direction in his work towards anticipating the world’s emerging news stories and helping to bring them to the fore. Talking to Hundal, it becomes clear that much of his success has come from his ability to anticipate the changing media landscape. However, it still came as a surprise to many in October 2013, when Hundal announced that he was standing down as editor of Liberal Conspiracy to become Journalistin-Residence at Kingston University, as well as to pursue other projects. Reflecting on his decision to become a part time lecturer at Kingston University, he says. “I suppose that it was a natural progression for me.

I’ve always been interested in how technology shapes journalism. I’ve become a journalist by using online media to spread my stories. If the internet was not there, I would now not be a journalist.

“Not enough people appreciate how internet culture can enrich journalism and how you need to understand how internet culture works in order to further that journalism and get more people to read it. You can’t just translate print onto online – it just doesn’t work like that.

“I only teach part time and I find it very enriching. It is great to be able to help students and say look at what you can do, in a way that you couldn’t twenty years ago.”

02.05.14 | Cherwell

Comment | 9

Lads’ mags have not disappeared, they’ve just moved April Peake Contributor

W

hen the news of Nuts’ imminent closure first hit the nationals I welcomed it, seeing it as a positive step forward for feminist activism. I can still find little cause to mourn the passing of the publication, which to me has always appeared to objectify women rather than provide an empowering platform for models to exercise independent choice.

I always supported the Lose the Lads’ Mags campaign, because of the belief that these magazines do more harm than good to feminism.

By objectifying women and propagating sexist attitudes, these magazines certainly risk lowering female status and pave the way for a culture of disrespect and violence towards women.

One need only consider the Plush assault on Teddy Hall student Jeanne Ryan at the end of Hilary Term to see that violent misogyny is very much alive and well - even at our university. It could only be the normalised view of women as sex objects that would prompt a man to grope a female stranger in a club and respond so angrily when she didn’t welcome his advances with open arms.

I also never found the argument that lads’ mags celebrate the female body, thereby awarding women status, convincing. There is a clear double standard between topless men on covers and completely naked women poised with a seductive ‘come hither’ glint in her eyes - but what really gets me is that this sexualisation of the female body is overtly heterosexual. Surely if glamour modelling celebrates the beauty of the female form, there would be no need to tailor these magazines solely towards men, excluding lesbian women from the target readership.

The lack of respect these magazines have for women is obvious when one considers how they responded to the requests for ‘modesty bags’ to hide their front covers. Publications like Nuts ignored overarching public opinion,

preferring to be pulled from high street retailers than to respect the wishes of ordinary women made uncomfortable by their covers. How can it be argued that these magazines empower women when they ignore the complaints of the people they are supposedly celebrating? Not to mention the argument that exposing staff and customers to explicit covers can legally constitute sexual harassment and discrimination.

Regardless of any feminist outlet that models argue these publications award them, I cannot regret the passing of a publication which so flagrantly ignores concerns that their content objectifies women and is potentially damaging.

But while I am relieved that one less publication containing pornographic material will be sold in everyday spaces - an act which normalises this sexualisation of women - I still cannot

argue that Nuts closing is a win for feminism, simply because of the reason for its closure.

The BBC reported that the readership of lads’ mags like Nuts, Zoo and Front decreased by more than seventy per cent over the last eight years. By the latter half of 2013, Nuts’ sprint run had fallen to nearly a sixth of its peak circulation. The general consensus is that Nuts magazine is facing closure due to the proliferation of internet pornography, rather than changing ideology prompting a decline in sales. The stats certainly support this line of thinking as according to Websense, the number of porn sites rose from 88,000 to nearly 1.6 million in a four year period.

The appeal of these videos are obvious – where readers of lads’ mags are limited to photographs of posing models, viewers of online

videos have a limitless supply of hardcore pornography for absolutely nothing. Videos such as ‘Fill the gagging bitch with cock’ and ‘Pornstar Nicki Hunter rammed in all holes’ are likely to provide sexual pleasure but quite clearly perpetuate the misogynist ideology that concerns critics of lads’ mags.

It is true that the models in lads’ mags may be at risk of exploitation - particularly if they are not as reputed as figures like Jodie Marsh who have the influence to dictate what they are comfortable doing. But the women in videos on Redtube may have been filmed without their knowledge or have been coerced into participating – or the video could have been leaked without their consent. This explicit content not only encourages a sexualised and objectified view of women, but on occasion will even display violent or sadistications; eighty-eight per cent of scenes in porn films contain acts of physical aggression, according to Covenant Eyes.

The content of these videos certainly has the potential to do more harm than can be ever claimed of lads’ mags – without necessarily providing the formal employment which will be lost with the closure of magazines like Nuts.

Women who happily posed for these publications as an empowered act or to further their careers (as many actresses have done) cannot benefit from the porn industry in the same way.

The internet porn industry cannot be contained in the way that lads’ mags can; behind a modesty bag, these publications cannot normalize the oversexualisation of women to anyone other than the paying reader. Internet porn is accessible to men, women and children of all ages and is untraceable – with a few clicks all browsing history is gone forever. Parents may not even realise what their children are being exposed to until the damage has already been done.

The social and economic costs are significant even if one argues that Nuts closing is for the greater good. While I’d be happy to see the back of lads’ mags, these publications at their worst are certainly the lesser of two evils.

The Campaign Andrew Grey, Chair of Oxford Living Wage Campaign

Why we need the Living Wage

T

he Oxford Living Wage Campaign exists to change the fact that many University support staff are not being paid enough to cover their basic living needs. It’s widely recognised by all major parties that income below the Living Wage is not enough to survive on. The Living Wage is a carefully calculated figure set every year by the Living Wage Foundation, and it determines the amount a person living outside London needs to earn is £7.65 an hour to have a reasonable quality of life.

“

Work should keep people out of poverty, not in it Our campaign has spent a lot of time talking to cleaners and other staff in departments and central buildings who earn less than the Living Wage. In do-

ing this, we have heard first-hand of the difficulties this causes staff, some of whom have to work multiple jobs to earn enough to survive on. It simply is not fair that our staff, who provide essential services for the University, are working for a wage that doesn’t provide them what they need to live on. Work should give people financial stability, and keep them out of poverty, not in it.

The Campaign was started in 2006 when a small group of students first recognised that the situation needed to change. Since then, the campaign has grown significantly. We now have a regular group that meets once per week, and we are followed by over 650 people on Facebook and Twitter.

We have three main objectives, which are to see that staffs in all colleges, all departments and all central buildings of the University are paid the Living Wage. However, because of the University’s structure, we have to tackle each of these objectives separately. Nevertheless, the campaign has made significant progress. Over the past year alone, we have seen two new colleges (Mansfield and St. Anne’s) commit

to the Living Wage, one new department (Education) commit to the Living Wage and have helped to ensure that all staff in central University buildings are being paid the Living Wage.

None of these actions would have been possible without the campaigning of students. All of these changes have been great, but if we really want to see more happen we need to keep campaigning.

Our biggest aim for the coming term is to

“

We need to keep campaigning see the University make the strongest possible commitment to the Living Wage. We would eventually like to see them commit to paying the Living Wage every year to all staff in central buildings and departments.

If we’re to achieve this, a number of committees have to agree. However, we are pleased to announce that after an

event last term, the first committee to discuss it decided in favour of the Living Wage.

The Chair of the Committee, Dr Stephen Goss (Pro Vice-Chancellor for Personnel Equality), explicitly stated that the Living Wage Campaign encouraged the committee to take the matter of the Living Wage forward. We are making progress. But we can’t do it without ordinary students making an effort and getting involved.

The bigger the group, the stronger the message we convey to the University that students care about how much their staff are being paid.

If you want to be part of sending that message, get involved by coming to our meetings on Thursdays from 5-6pm at the OUSU building on 2 Worcester street.

You can also show your support by checking us out at: facebook.com/OxfordLivingWage twitter.com/oxlivingwage youtube.com/user/OxfordLivingWage ousu.org/get-involved/campaigns/livingwage

PUZZLES

The new Entz officer was having difficulty fitting in at JCR Committee meetings...

DEFINE: ‘fulciment’

TRIVIUM King Louis XIX ruled France for only 20 minutes on August 2nd 1830, after his father Charles X abdicated and before he himself abdicated, making him the shortest reigning monarch in recorded history. It is believed that he spent these 20 minutes being entreated by his wife not to resign while his father wept.

CONNECTIONS

Which of these is the correct definition of this word?

Spot the connection:

1. A state of contentment 2. A prop or support 3. A flanking military manoeuvre

1. The only prime minister of the UK to have been assassinated 2. The people’s princess 3. A popular department store

CRYPTIC CROSSWORD Across 1. Brimming with wonder? Sounds like quite the opposite!

(5) 3. Biblical man hosts another biblical man without air conditioning (5) 7. I cut a jar? Odd. Put it together and judge! (11) 8. Computing lessons are the very thing (2) 10. Strange place for an eagle to be heard? (5) 12. Fashionable home? (2) 13. Very damp in Crewe today (3) 14. Maiden born French (3) 15. A modern form of greeting: presenting half a toy (2) 16. Steer clear of a hole (5) 17. Carry out Barnet shindig (2) 21. I see marital trouble appear (11) 22. Space agency left behind is whiney (5) 23. A gypsy’s scent (5) Down 1. Reversing taxi in first class counters (5) 2. For instance, Java in the beginnings was an archipelago (4) 4. To quote praise (4) 5. Poetic burger joint? (5) 6. Liver disease caused sir’s choir to fall apart (9) 9. Tow out the pair (3) 10. Ate up a letter from Greece (3) 11. Finish building the den (3) 12. An explosive new phenomenon: id contains root of egotism (3) 15. Middle Eastern nation uses old fashioned address for gents (5) 18. A rope twisted is an evening’s entertainment (5) 19. Redding is found at the back of the book (4) 20. Loin burnt on floor surface (4)

Email Aneesh Naik at puzzles@cherwell.org for clues or solutions

SUDOKU Difficulty: Hard

PROFILE Nick Mutch talks genes, prejudice and mental health with James Watson J

ames Watson comes across as a parody of the mad scientist stereotype. He drifts his head from side to side, and seems to snigger at every one of his own answers; his facial expressions show absolutely no relation to what he is talking about and he breaks into what looks like a smile as he movingly describes the plight of those with mental illness (watch the recent Big Think interview he did if you want to see this for yourself.) Ever since the afternoon he and Francis Crick swanned into The Eagle, a small pub a short distance from Kings College, Cambridge, to announce that they had “discovered the secret of life”, Watson has been one of the world’s most revered scientists.

He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Medicine with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, was for several years director of the Human Genome Project, Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbour University and is arguably one of the most successful authors in the history of science. His intimate and frank account of the discovery of the DNA structure The Double Helix was hugely successful and was ranked by Modern Library as the 7th most important non-fiction book of the 20th Century. He was even named, along with Crick, as one of Time Magazine’s top 100 people of the 20th century. It should be stressed that they did not, as is commonly claimed, “discover DNA”, which was done in 1869 by Johann Miescher.

Rather they were responsible for discovering the double helix structure of DNA, and building

“

Of course society can never be fully equal; ugly girls for instance are just born ugly! the 3D models that demonstrated its veracity.

Any discussion of the discovery must include the fact that the crystallography of Rosalind Franklin was crucial to the discovery, which was passed to them by Wilkins. She could not share the Nobel Prize herself, as she tragically died in 1958 of ovarian cancer and the Nobel is not awarded posthumously.

He has also come under fire for much of his career for a large variety of controversial statements.

He wrote of Rosalind Franklin, in The Double Helix that: “by choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities... she would never wear lipstick to contrast with her straight black

hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English bluestocking adolescents… it could not be helped thinking that the best place for a feminist was in someone else’s lab.” He stood down from the Chancellorship of Cold Spring after saying in a 2007 interview that he is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – people who have to deal with black employees find this is not the case.”

I meet him after a lecture he gave at the Oxford Martin School, and true to form, he answers an early question about how to reconcile peoples’ differing genetics with the wish for an egalitarian society by saying “of course society can never be fully equal; ugly girls for instance are just born ugly! They can’t help it if they have a funny nose or something.” He instead scorns a “political correctness brigade” and the “Marxified science” of those who emphasise the cultural origins of our differences. He probably enjoys his visit to Oxford however; he recently described Cambridge as being full of “well dressed, attractive, intelligent girls.”

Strangely enough, Watson appears to have no real malice about him. He seems genuinely clueless as to why his opinions could cause any offence whatsoever, as if he is too wrapped up in his own head to give any thought to the world around him.

He elaborated more on his own struggles with mental illness; his son Rufus was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and he has been on a quest to find the genetic causes of mental illness ever since. This is the subject he is lecturing on. He tells us that this is the reason he started investigating mental health, telling me that the only scientists are those with “a personal interest in the subject.” He stresses his belief that psychiatrists and psychologists are not “real scientists” or “outsiders not capable of understanding it. “Most psychology departments aren’t real science departments. They’re nearly as bad as anthropology” he laughs “but not quite. Completely dominated by political correctness.”

After Rufus’ diagnosis, “he was left unable to care for himself” and Watson elaborates on his theories on the genetic causes of mental illness.

Primarily, it is “100% a genetic predisposition, but this does not mean that there are not environmental factors that affect it.

You should not smoke marijuana for instance if you could be prone to schizophrenia. It could tip you over the edge.”

He is pessimistic on fast progress however, postulating that it will take “at least 10 years before the exact genetic causes of mental disorders

Ill u

could be identified. It’s not just one gene that will cause mental illness, but could be hundreds of genes that can cause the brain to malfunction.” But then again he admits he “never could have believed my genome would have been sequenced within my own lifetime. The initial hope was that we might be able to sequence the genomes of viruses”. Virus genomes contain thousands of letters, in comparison to the human genome which contains over 3 billion). For comparison’s sake, this would take approximately 16 years of uninterrupted typing

“

He seems genuinely clueless as to why his opinions could cause any offence whatsoever for someone to transcribe.

His own genome cost a 7 figure sum to sequence, but he predicts that it will be a short

st

io r at

n:

Sa

g

o eG

od

w in

while before “sequence scanning will be a trivial cost.

The real cost will come from interpreting your results.”

He expects the next big breakthroughs in biology to be in “the field of metabolic diseases, as we are only just now understanding what a healthy diet really is, despite years of misinformation.” He is not at all opposed to genetic screening, saying that it would be very useful to screen people before they decide to get married, arguing that this way you could nearly eliminate the chances of someone getting a disease such as cystic fibrosis which is caused by two recessive alleles.

James Watson is proof, for me, that genius does not necessarily coincide with common sense or common standards of decency. He is one of the world’s most consequential scientists, whose position in history is secured. His writing is thought provoking and entertaining, if not always objective.

But my abiding memory of our interview is the laughter on his face as he told me and the young woman I was with that “ugly girls are just born ugly!” As if he genuinely thought he was being funny and that we would agree with him. It is his own fault that what those who meet him will take away will be his outrageous comments about women or minorities, rather than his scientific genius.

LIFE&STYLE John Evelyn

‘Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!’

The internationally recognised signal of distress, the call that echoed from the telegraph system of the Titanic and the black box of MH370.

Derived from the French ‘M’aidez!’, they are syllables which can strike fear into the heart of highest flying pilot and the lowest sinking submarine – and, if the wantonness of Thursday’s wee hours was anything to go by, left much of the drunken, disorientated Oxford population crying for ‘help’ as well.

The Lord of Misrule wreaked his havoc and merrily departed once again. Ancient pagan rites of fertility translated into the usual array of faded club stamps, empty baggies and anxious trips to the GUM clinic. Thousands of years of Saturnalian tradition were distilled into contentious black face-paint, old people waving handkerchiefs and pleading posters ordering people not to jump off Magdalen bridge. The crowd – a fraught mix of wideeye’d children, wide-pupil’d students and multitudinous police – watched on in the drizzle. It was all a touch Wickerman, only the Green Man was wearing Converse under his costume and nobody set fire to Nicholas Cage.

All things were bright, beautiful and ordered in estate: the hacks went to Itchy Feet; the hipsters went to Bully; the cunts went to Bridge.

At “40 years of OUSU ft Itchy Feet!” - aka OUSU’s Midlife Crisis, complete with existential angst about the meaninglessness of its achievements and Awkward Dad dancing – student politicos clutched at votes and, failing that, each other. The fecund spirit of springtime penetrated the hearts of the greasiest of greasy pole-climbers; the gods of love Returned to Officiate over proceedings. In particular, one Exonian’s Ella-quently articulated and Rich-ly twisted machinations prompted the blooming of romance between an unlikely pair. He, a hack of the highest degree, lost and lonely without his slate; she, a lowly nobody without even a polling card to recommend her. Josh-ing aside, Love vindi-Kate-d against all the odds.

Hit me with gossip.

John Evelyn

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

Cherwell says:

Cringe Clubber

Was the stench of desperation and free shots ever any stronger than in Roppongi? This week’s Cringe Clubber brings you the graceful gesticulations of a member of the infamous Regent’s Rabbits drinking society. We are privileged to catch this auburn bunny’s guiles in action. Observe in the bottom left a carrot standing to attention: a gentleman takes a sly peek at the bounding tit-bit. Alas, she is too busy sniffing for the limelight to take any notice. In the background, a Bunny In Training can barely contain her tequilaflavoured excitement.

Creaming Spires

Ollie Antcliff Pembroke, 2nd Year Chemistry Dashing chemist hopes to form strong bonds This week I contentedly accepted an invitation via Tinder to date someone’s “very attractive friend”. Girls with short hair – the domain of an edgy, feisty woman – intimidate me a bit. The look tends to reminds me of a young boy since soft feminine features often resemble youthful features.

But fortunately Holly pulled it off; she was all woman. I probably talked a little too much, but it soothed my narcissism and Holly was kind enough to listen. I was initially disappointed by the venue choice (I had hoped for a crazy recommendation like finger-painting), but the home comforts of the KA helped to relax us into some embarrassingly self-deprecating conversation. On the whole it was a calm, enjoyable, but fairly mundane date.

Holly’s genuine desire to keep it fairly short ensured it wasn’t terrible, although we couldn’t avoid an awkward parting at the end as we scrabbled for something to say that wasn’t just “bye”. I guess having a blind date arranged through Tinder was never going to lead to perfection.

Unlike a young boy’s Wonderfully relaxed Yes

Holly Whiston Wadham, 2nd Year English Lady with hair as red as the flames of Tinder (still) seeks compatability Resistance was futile. Once my friend Chloe, Cherwell Lifestyle Editor and very scary lady, had decided that I was going to be next week’s blind date, I had no say.

An excellent jawline and good choice of jumper seemed promising, but things went vertiginously downhill from there.

I am a leftie feminist vegetarian who can list every New Statesman columnist in order of preference. He was an ex-public school rowing lad with a vibe that was more Made in Chelsea than Made in Dagenham. One of his opening gambits was to suggest that we went to the ice rink, “except there are always so many chavs there”. Unfortunately I didn’t have a copy of Owen Jones to hand to smack him round the head with. I also fucking hate ice-skating. It’s probably unfair of me to pass judgement after an hour and forty minutes.

But it was also impressive that within that window, he managed to blithely bring up ‘sluts’ and ‘trannies’, and explain that dyslexics shouldn’t get extra time ‘because you don’t get extra time in real life’. I’m happy staying single.

He was wearing an earcuff Problematic No

Are you tired of being single and alone? Volunteer for a Blind Date at editor@cherwell.org

The Etonian. OK, he may not actually have gone to Eton. It might have been Harrow, or Paul’s or Westminster, but wherever it was, he can definitely afford a bloody nice suit and to take you to Malmaison for dinner.

He has manners on the outside, your parents would love him and he has a holiday home somewhere in Monaco that you’d love to blag your way to. So why are so many posh boys single? Well. They’re looking for wives, dear, and somehow this sex columnist isn’t really meet-the-parents material for these chaps. They’re not exactly open-minded, despite their attempt at rebelling by living in a house in Jericho with some awfully nice housemates, one of whom will invariably be called Iona.

How did I meet him? Bridge VIP (because I could sneak my way into that one). He’s easy to spot – red trousers may be passé now, but rocking a well-cut blazer, monogrammed cufflinks and his college drinking tie (even if it is wrapped around his head) was an easy clue. He actually bought me drinks, and even paid for a taxi, generous fellow. After all the tension, because of course he’s too well-bred for PDA, I was expecting magic and fireworks on a kingsize bed with a goose feather duvet.

But not only was his bed a single, but all he was into a round of missionary, followed by a good long sleep before waking me up with some freshly scrambled eggs. Of course, he was a lovely chap, but when he started talking about his latest grouse shoot (I’m serious), I found myself dropping off, and excused myself – politely – home. I didn’t even feel a naughty, delicious twinge of guilt walking past mothers with young children at 10AM. Sure, they still covered their children’s eyes to avoid looking at me, but in all honesty, running into a friend walking down St. Giles (hi C!) with no tights on that a chilly morning was the highlight of the encounter.

I used to be jealous of the girls with incredible hair who frequent Brown’s with these men on Saturday nights, but no longer – as I’ve figured out, they’re not expressionless because they’re too posh to show emotion, they’re – quite plainly – just bored.

02.05.14 | Cherwell

Life&Style | 13

Swapping revision for the Upper East Side Naomi Polonsky leaves French and Russian for Frank Lloyd Wright and ruthless real estate

W

ith the looming prospect of 24 hours in Exam Schools next term, I was apprehensive about sacrificing two weeks of my Easter holidays on a trip to New York. These fears were short-lived when I thought of what this stateside sojourn would entail: walks in Central Park, Broadway shows and syrupy blueberry pancakes.

So I swapped the ancient walls of Cambridge (yes, I’m sorry to say I live in the ‘Other Place’) for the glinting spires of Manhattan, banishing all thoughts of Pushkin and Proust, Balzac and Blok.

New York is a special place. It’s more than just a city – in the words of the great Jay-Z, it’s an “(Empire) state of mind.” My first few days in New York were a journey of discovery of the many idiosyncrasies of Manhattanites: Firstly, while in England the phrase “how are you?” automatically elicits the empty response of “fine, thanks, how are you?”, across the pond it has ceased to be a question at all. If you try to respond, your addressee will probably look back at you in a confused and quizzical manner.

Secondly, sportswear is an entirely acceptable form of clothing for any situation. Admittedly, lycra leggings and trainers are more comfortable than most everyday

clothes and you are prepared if you happen to suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to exercise. But I draw the line at businesswomen who insist on sporting (pardon the pun) a pair of squeaky white trainers with their work suits.

Thirdly, coffee in paper cups is more than just a ‘beverage’, it’s an indispensable symbol of the Manhattan way of life. You will undoubtedly have seen yuppies (probably in sportswear) rushing along, clutching out-sized paper cups.

But have you ever seen them actually take a sip out of them? No? That’s because they don’t.

These paper cups are symbolic of the mass consumption and fast pace that characterise Manhattan.

The Upper East Side is a bizarre universe unto itself. Osteoporotic octogenarians, facelifted beyond recognition live in homes of unbelievable opulence. Most apartment blocks on blossom tree-lined Park Avenue are co-ops i.e. they are co-owned by all the inhabitants. The application process for an aspiring resident is famously brutal and involves a thorough character appraisal, close inspection of your family’s bank accounts for the

past few hundred years and even an interview with your pooch. Moreover, Park Avenuers are not particularly concerned with diversity, even if you can afford these luxurious lairs, so if you happen to be nouveau-riche or our face doesn’t fit, your application is likely to be ungraciously declined.

A couple of days after this expedition into the world of exclusive living, my sisters and I made our way to MoMA to see what contemporary art in New York had to offer.

‘Density vs. Dispersal’, an exhibition celebrating the museum’s acquisition of Frank Lloyd Wright’s archive, showed off the work of perhaps the greatest American architect.

Intriguingly, though a serial designer of New York skyscrapers, Lloyd Wright controversially believed that they should punctuate the countryside, rather than cluster together in cities.

Lloyd Wright also designed the Guggenheim Museum, my next cultural destination. The Guggenheim is an architectural feat, rising from its Fifth Avenue site in a white spiral, the interior resembling a seashell, so as you progress through an exhibition you ascend

Country Diary

Bang!

The Science Column

Female Ejaculation

F

Marco Naranjos

eminist scholar and anti-pornography campaigner Sheila Jeffreys described female ejaculation as a male invention, driven by sexual fantasies about lesbians. The topic has been making a splash for centuries, with European scientists discussing female ejaculation since the 1700s… it couldn’t possibly be all make-believe, surely?

In Japan, the phenomenon is known as shiofuki, and is believed to be associated with the highest possible pleasure achieved during sex. So much love is given to female ejaculation in Japan that one porn star gained the title ‘Shiofuki Queen.’ Back in England, squirting is less popular.

The British Board of Film Classification even removed a section of film from ‘British Cum Queens’ in 2002 when they said that the profuse fluid gushing forth could only have been urine, and is thus banned under the Obscene Publications Act. The Feminists Against Censorship responded with a stream of evidence on ejaculation, but the film committee was still unsure.

Certainly, my medical textbooks don’t ooze out much knowledge on the topic, with most discharge either labelled as vaginal lubrication, stress incontinence, or resulting from sexually transmitted disease. However, female ejaculation is often described as a clear fluid or milky-white. Some biochemical analyses in recent years show that female

ejaculate contains PSA, a substance also found in male ejaculate, but is low in urea and creatinine that are found in urine. In men, PSA makes semen more liquid and less viscous once the semen is in the vagina, to help the sperm swim freely.

Perhaps in women, evolutionarily, it is a way of helping the same process, especially in someone who has experienced intense pleasure.

Anatomically, the source of female ejaculation may be the Skene’s glands, which are thought to be the female version of the male prostate.

The difference is that the existence of Skene’s glands in women is highly variable.

In women who have Skene’s glands, they are usually found in the front wall of the vagina, close to the G-spot.

This would also explain why female ejaculation is associated with pleasure. Furthermore, some women have openings from their Skene’s glands into the urethra (where urine comes from), whilst others have openings leading to the vulva. This is perhaps the reason why there is so much controversy about female ejaculation.

No specific function has yet been assigned to the Japanese-loved shiofuki. Whether it is just a remnant of female development, or whether it is a mechanism of cleaning the urethra to prevent STDs, or whether it is in fact a way of helping sperm enter the uterus if the male is ‘worthy,’ one thing is for sure, research is being done to study the phenomenon – some juices are truly flowing!

both physically and intellectually. While I was there, the six rotundas were dedicated to an exhibition on Italian Futurism while a couple of side galleries contained a 30-year retrospective on the African American photographer-cumvideographer Carrie Mae Weems — a beautiful exposé of the black experience in America; subtle yet candid.

This brings me to my favourite person on the trip, the African American cab driver who took us to the airport. On learning that we were from England, he asked my Dad which football team he supports. When he heard that my father had been loyal to West Ham since the age of seven, the unimpressed cabbie replied: ‘West Ham?! They suck, man. They don’t do nuthin.’ My dear father got told.

All in all, New York is a unique place. It really is the world’s biggest melting pot. Whether you’re a recent Ukrainian immigrant or a Native American, in New York it doesn’t matter who you are.

Unless you’re trying to buy an apartment on Park Avenue, that is.

Then it really matters.

W

Shotover Park

e cross South Park when it is already getting dark. It’s been raining for the past two days, but tonight the sky is clear and stars are beginning to pockmark the sky, presided by a lamp of a moon.

The grass is still wet, soggy, puddled; if you stand quietly enough, you can hear the water trickling downhill in a series of miniature channels over which our boots slip and sludge clumsily.

At the top of the park we sit beneath a Sycamore overlooking the city. Only a few spires remain illuminated now, shedding light on weathered rock, alone; exposed.

Soon we’re off again, walking along dimly illuminated streets, passing the dilapidated Thistle and Crown. We cross the ring-road and soon the real climb begins. The road loses its pavement and the banks become steeper and lined with tall trees. Eventually the walker is exposed to a long, open ridge.

Few students make the trek out to Shotover, and those who do make it all the way out of town usually do so by means other than their own feet. And yet, there’s something more fulfilling about leaving one’s doorstep, crossing the blurred boundary out of town and into a silent environment, before returning by one’s own feet. Shotover is one of Oxford’s truly liminal spaces – open, forested, liberating, naked – yet still clearly undetached from the biref glimpses of Botley’s gridded housing.

Shotover is part of a private estate, and the subject of a peculiar Daily Mail article from 2010 entitled, “Queen’s friend calls in police after his estate is overrun with people having outdoor sex”.

On a warm sunny day, the sloping field to the South is filled with young children playing ball, and families barbecuing or sitting on rugs. On one such unique day, when sun, breeze and even weekend accomplished a stunning afternoon, I was offered chicken wings and a drink by a friendly Albanian couple before I set off to discover the endless minute valleys, grassy clearings and woods.

These small woods are surprising in their variety; one moment one is surrounded by tall oaks, the next by ash, birch, hazel or willow. All these trees, and the rich wildlife which surrounds them, is meticulously noted, recorded and published in leaflets by Shotover Wildlife, a small organisation run by local volunteers.

But right now it’s not sunny: it’s nearing midnight, and we’re not so concerned with the names of the trees or the wealth of the wildlife around us.

Sitting in a comfortable oak, we look down into the valley at Botley, the lights a sea of gloworms.

Places are not the same by night. They are transformed. Shapes and forms take on different sizes, colours and shades. Perspective becomes blurred, sounds sharper. When I first began going on nightwalks, making short outings to Addison’s walk, I was often scared, on edge, even in the safe surroundings of college walls. But soon I came to endorse the dark; I enjoyed noting the differences, appreciating my newly darkened, muted surroundings as a different place entirely.

I soon became fascinated by the shape of branches against the dimmed sky; sinewy black ink rivulets upon a pastel shade.

We walk down from Shotover and cross the bypass; the lights on the street glare and confuse our eyes, and I wish I had slept there.

14 | Life&tyle

Houmous Girl

El la’s Bargai n o f the Week 4 Easter Eggs for £5 at Thorntons

Fit College Reg ent ’s

h c r hu C t s i r Ch

Mansfield4

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Wadham 5

Rory Smith and Lily Slater

6

Morgan Harries and Andie Gbedemah

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The finest young minds in the country were locked in a seemingly interminable dispute over issues of incredible nuance and complexity.

“I fucking hate Park End.” Said Houmous Girl.

“Babylove,” opined Obnoxiously Opinionated Guy, “is a Kafkaesque circle of hell.”

There was a vague air of disquiet hanging over the room. Worryingly Intense Girl had seemingly developed a psychosis, and was quietly rocking back and forth on the floor. This in itself was nothing unusual, but the debate over which small room the gang were going to drunkenly stumble around in for a couple of hours had reached hitherto unheard-of heights.

Obnoxiously Opinionated Guy languidly stretched out his legs, causing his omnipresent leather trousers to creak at the seams.

He was going head to head with Houmous Girl and there was no way he was backing down.

“But I might bump into Rower Lad at Park End,” retorted Houmous Girl. “I don’t want him sniffing around my dungarees all evening.”

Obnoxiously Opinionated Guy delivered a fifteen minute monologue on sexual liberation in the 21st century. “… a social construct!” he concluded, packing away his overhead projector and handing out copies of The Female Eunuch.

“So let’s hit the cheese floor.”

The mere thought of interacting with a thousand or so actual human beings was enough to push Worryingly Intense Girl over the edge. With a squeak, she slipped into blissful unconsciousness.

“Worryingly Intense Girl is worryingly blacked out.” observed Oxford Fetishist. He then made a joke about exam pressure that was too banal to even write down.

It was probably for the best.

Last time Worryingly Intense Girl made it as far as Park End, she had fallen into a swoon at the merest sniff of a WKD. Rower Lad had made a beeline for Houmous Girl, delicately skipping across the dancefloor with all the grace and finesse of a rutting rhino. Unfortunately then Worryingly Intense Girl had stood between him and his quarry. Rower Lad ploughed through the fainting weirdo without noticing her.

“Fuck,” said Houmous Girl with crushing finality, “Park End.”

Cherwell | 02.05.14

Christ Church’s chilling charisma or Regent’s feline flair? Vote now at www.cherwell.org

Top 3

1

In a tutorial

What’s the topic for discussion this week?

Great Expectations, Cold War relations between the US and the Soviet Union, the life-cycle of parasites?

Either way you know it’s going to be super awkward.

2

Spots to...

HUMANS OF OXFORD

Bump into your ex

At the Ashmolean

Of course their parents had to be here for the weekend. Yes, that 3rd Century Chinese Vase is amazing. But what isn’t quite so amazing is your lack of basic communication skills, it seems.

Claire, Ashmolean employee

3

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

Cherwell Blind Date

Well, at least you know they aren’t getting laid either. But sweet, public, visceral revenge could soon be yours.

Looks: Repulsive.

Chat: Moronic. Again? No. Not even if hell froze over.

30

S e co Favourite piece in the museum?

Inter nd I love the bodhisattva in gallery 38. It’s peaceful and view so serene. It’s very calming.

Most underrated section of the museum?

I think they should look round the back of the second floor, at the Baroque collection and the Dutch still lifes. It’s a bit hidden away.

Funniest thing you’ve seen at work?

It’s probably some of the visitors. We get lots of Oxford eccentrics.

There was a man telling me about his vasectomy at the front door.

Any other funny moments?

Oh, the times when celebrities visit. We had Ian Hislop. Also some people from Downton Abbey visited. The old ladies started acting like teenage girls. They were all giggling.

“On Sunday afternoons I enjoy taking a turn around my grounds.”

Ro

��

1 0 1

“You asked me once, what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already.

Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.”

O’Brien

Tourists (especially those with cameras) They are always, always in your way.

Whether they’re taking the perfect photo of them holding a tower, or are trying to fit as many people in to one picture (or into a phone box) as humanly possible, they are still preventing you from getting to your ‘very important’ next commitment (dinner). The only (small) consolation is that the £8 they paid to get in subsidises everything and the gems they provide for Overheard at Oxford...

Investigation: Race and Ethnicity “Racism is a constant presence in Oxford students’ lives” Comprehensive report reveals vast discrepancies between students’ experiences of racism at Oxford Anne Meeker, co-chair of the Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality

I

t’s a pretty common conversation pause in CRAE meetings — someone mentions, for example, another blackface incident at a bop, and someone else chimes in with another a racist remark on facebook, and someone echoes with their latest all-dead-white-men syllabus. Everyone pauses, and sighs: “oh, Oxford.”

We recognize that adding our Race Survey data to the conversation around race at Oxford is not going to make anyone’s day. As Oxford’s only dedicated campaign for racial equality, we know how easy it is to be discouraged in dealing with issues of race at Oxford that are prevalent and entrenched enough to look like a fact of life.

But even though racism is a constant presence in people’s lives here at Oxford, we have also seen change for the better in this university and believe that even more change is possible. We wanted to share the gains we’ve already made, and the actions underway, be-

“

Racism is a constant presence in people’s lives, but we have also seen change for the better cause knowing that there is something we can do is what keeps us engaged in trying to make things better. By sharing this here, we also want to ask for your feedback on what we’re doing. From CRAE’s various projects, we have found that conditions inhibiting racial equality at Oxford fall into four categories: 1) A lack of diversity in the student body, which produces a ‘splinter effect’ isolating A COMPREHENSIVE OUSU REPORT on racial equality has revealed massive disparities between white and black and minority ethnic (BME) students’ experiences of race at Oxford.

Just over half of the student population believes that racism is not a problem at Oxford.

However, the University’s racial makeup overwhelmingly favours majority voices: 79% of the student body is white. Many ethnic minority students’ academic and social experiences, the report suggests, are marred by discrimination.

According to the OUSU report, which surveyed 528 Oxford — UK and international — students studying at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, 59.3% of BME students report having felt uncomfortable or unwelcome at Oxford because of their race or ethnicity, compared to 5.4% of white students.

Race appears to be a significant part of the Oxford experience even before students receive their acceptances. Before applying, 41% of BME students believed their race would affect their time at the University, in contrast to 8.4% of white students. As they went through

minority ethnic students in different colleges and departments 2) A curriculum that fails to capture the diversity of non-Western thought, peoples, and cultures, including a lack of diversity in Oxford’s teaching staff that further prevents critical re-evaluation of the existing curriculum 3) A pervading culture that struggles to welcome differences in race and ethnicity, including through the normalization of racial banter or unquestioned acceptance of racial and ethnic stereotypes 4) A sense of social isolation among minority ethnic students, including through a lack of spaces that are perceived as ‘safe’ to discuss race When we presented these findings and the data from our Race Survey to the University administration at our historic 2014 Race Summit, we were extremely encouraged by their enthusiasm and support for tackling these issues, and especially their commitment to investigate how curriculum across the university might be adapted to promote an understanding of all of the world’s best minds, not only those from the male, white West. Part of this will also involve an investigation into hiring practices to promote and support applications by minority-ethnic faculty members, who play a hugely important role in the creation of a respectful and vibrant multicultural academic community.

Beyond our work with the University, however, we are making our own efforts to tackle these issues by creating new spaces for public discussion of race and ethnicity and all things related, especially in events with other societies like the OUSU Disabled Students’ Campaign and WomCam’s Women of Colour group. We are also looking forward to the 2014 launch of the Alternative Reading List Project, a student-driven website as a place for students to share sources from perspectives that are not on their reading lists—but should be. To get involved or find out more, CRAE meetings are every Thursday at 6pm in OUSU, and are open to all Oxford students regardless of race or ethnicity. We are also reachable by email at crae@ousu.org. applications and interviews, 29.7% of BME students and 11.2% of white students felt that race factored into their own experiences of the admissions process.

Once their university career begins, race and ethnicity impact students in tutorials and social situations alike. Attitudes towards and experiences of race vary, but, according to the OUSU report statistics, it remains a prevalent, and in some settings, under-addressed, part of Oxford student life.

Racial biases and racist attitudes affect a significant proportion of the student body regardless of race. 39.5% of white students and half of BME students report having heard or been the subject of racial jokes or comments that cross an unacceptable line. 74.1% of white students and 80.5% of BME students agree that Oxford’s student body is not adequately diverse.

When it comes to teaching and administration, the OUSU report suggests, BME staff members can provide a positive role model to ethnic minority students — but 71.7% of BME students and 48.8% of white students feel that Oxford’s

White students: do you believe racism is a problem in Oxford?

BME students: do you believe racism is a problem in Oxford?

Chiara Giovanni, a student at Magdalen College, discusses the issues surrounding race in Oxford “The way to end racism is to stop talking about it.”

“You’re just over thinking things.”

“Why do you always have to bring race into this?”

I Yes (38.5%)

No (42.6%)

No (61.5%)

Yes (57.4%)

Source: 2014 Student Race Survey, CRAE staff is not diverse enough.

Official statistics demonstrate that students’ impressions Oxford’s academic staff lacking diversity are not unfounded. According to the most recent information available about minorities in higher-level academia, a comprehensive 2011 University and College Union survey, Oxford has one of the greatest hiring gaps for professors of different racial and ethnic backgrounds in the UK. Only 3.9% of Oxford’s professors are from a BME background, compared to 6.4% at Cambridge, 9.1% at Kings College London and 8.1% at Oxford Brookes.

Addressing racial equality and affecting change may be a complex process: many students report feeling lack of clarity about how and where to discuss race-related issues.

Additionally, a significant discrepancy appears to exist between white and BME students’ perceptions of the extent to which racism at Oxford is a problem.

64.3% of BME students believe they have few to no safe spaces to talk about race at Oxford, despite just over half of white students feeling

there are adequate safe spaces for such discussions. While just over half of white students know a place where they would feel comfortable reporting a racially charged incident, only 28.9% of BME students can say the same.

The likeliest place to report a racial issue, students agree, would be their college or department administrations. However, an overwhelming majority of both BME and white students say they would not feel comfortable discussing a racial issue with their college administration. 69% of white students felt they could discuss racial issues with their college’s welfare and peer support group, but only 39.1% of BME students saw those as safe spaces for racial discussion.

A spokesperson for the University of Oxford said, “Oxford University is committed to selecting students on the basis of academic ability and potential alone. We spend more than £5.5 million each year on outreach work to encourage students from all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds to apply to Oxford.

“It is not surprising that bright, articulate students from Oxford, Harvard and other leading universities are discussing what more can be done to ensure a fully inclusive university experience for all our BME students. We are committed to listening to our students, and last month we held a Race Equality Summit where senior University members met with students and heard presentations about their experiences. At this summit, and in structured interviews and focus groups with BME students held over the last year, many of the same points made in the CRAE survey were raised. As a result staff and students have agreed to continue working together to deliver the best possible academic and social experience for all Oxford students.”

Most recently, serious discussions of race in Oxford have gone online. For instance, the Tumblr page ‘I, Too, Am Oxford’, a photo project where BME students stood holding whiteboards with statements confronting common perceptions of race at the university, went viral last month. A counter blog, We Are All Oxford,

appeared soon after as a protest to the campaign’s perceived lack of racial inclusivity.

Charlotte Hendy, OUSU Vice-President for Welfare and Equal Opportunities, said, “The findings that OUSU’s CRAE presented were shocking, and it is clear that there is a long way to go before we are rid of racism and racial inequality at Oxford. Following the Race Summit, we are now working collaboratively with the University to address the issues highlighted, including the current lack of curricular diversity in some disciplines. It is evident that race and ethnicity affect all areas of student life, not only for BME students but for all students; it is exciting that OUSU’s CRAE have been able to secure this issue on the University’s agenda and to see it being addressed wholeheartedly.”

One self-identified BME postgraduate student told Cherwell, “The people who most need to

talk about race aren’t going to seek it out for themselves. We need serious reassessment not only of admissions figures and recruitment techniques, but also wider dialogue

n discussions about race at Oxford, the assumption is always present that black and minority ethnic (BME) students or People of Colour (PoC) are somehow seeking racism in every facet of their daily lives; that we feel vindicated when we can whirl around and point the finger at racism as the cause of our problems. This is false. There is no reason for us to want to experience something that can crush us at both an institutional and a personal level.

We want the eradication of racism more than anyone. After all, 59% of the BME respondents didn’t expect racism to affect their Oxford experience, matriculating with a light heart and clear ideals. I was one of them.

As a light-skinned Woman of Colour who grew up in a predominately white area, where cultural divisions were not visible and colour-blindness is the order of the day, I never thought of myself as someone ‘of colour’. I measured myself academically against my white peers and blithely believed I had never experienced any ‘real racism’, making it all the more a shock when my experiences at Oxford opened my eyes.

Colour-blindness is an appealing concept, but when the majority of BME students have felt uncomfortable here due to their race — and I congratulate those who have either never experienced a problem or simply taken a rather struthious attitude to it all — it clearly hasn’t succeeded in its aims. It is time to eradicate the problem instead of ignoring it.

The overwhelming lack of representation among academics and courses is the logical place to start. Britain’s appalling response to Lenny Henry’s campaigns for diversity demonstrates that racism is not just physical attacks or slurs, but also sneering rejections of legitimate pleas for visible role models.

It isn’t about ticking boxes or filling quotas: I have suffered from depression as a result of feeling invisible — unimportant — while studying a course stuffed with white authors.

When all your tutors are white too, in whom do you confide? It isn’t a problem that can be solved by a cheerful nod to the International Fair; its roots lie deep in the nature of Western academia and the myth of a meritocracy that conveniently rewards more white men than anyone else.

The necessary first step is being listened to, and we ask this of you because it still doesn’t happen. This report is a significant breakthrough, but will achieve nothing if everyone continues to pretend there isn’t a problem; that these findings aren’t worth taking seriously.

Being laughed off when we question a racist bop theme, listening to yet another wellmeaning white person protest that they have ‘non-white friends’, consistently failing to see ourselves celebrated in portraits, on college alumni lists, in academia: these are real problems.

They are not the product of hypersensitivity, or the starting point for a ‘theoretical debate’: these are our lives, and we ask that you treat them as such.

Quick facts

4/1 BME students who said that there are not enough safe spaces to discuss race and ethnicity at Oxford

59.3%

White students for every black and ethnic minority (BME) student at Oxford

64.3% BME students who said they had ever felt unwelcome or uncomfortable because of their race / ethnicity at Oxford

Investigation: Race and Ethnicity “Racism is a constant presence in Oxford students’ lives” Comprehensive report reveals vast discrepancies between students’ experiences of racism at Oxford Anne Meeker, co-chair of the Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality

I

t’s a pretty common conversation pause in CRAE meetings — someone mentions, for example, another blackface incident at a bop, and someone else chimes in with another a racist remark on facebook, and someone echoes with their latest all-dead-white-men syllabus. Everyone pauses, and sighs: “oh, Oxford.”

We recognize that adding our Race Survey data to the conversation around race at Oxford is not going to make anyone’s day. As Oxford’s only dedicated campaign for racial equality, we know how easy it is to be discouraged in dealing with issues of race at Oxford that are prevalent and entrenched enough to look like a fact of life.

But even though racism is a constant presence in people’s lives here at Oxford, we have also seen change for the better in this university and believe that even more change is possible. We wanted to share the gains we’ve already made, and the actions underway, be-

“

Racism is a constant presence in people’s lives, but we have also seen change for the better cause knowing that there is something we can do is what keeps us engaged in trying to make things better. By sharing this here, we also want to ask for your feedback on what we’re doing. From CRAE’s various projects, we have found that conditions inhibiting racial equality at Oxford fall into four categories: 1) A lack of diversity in the student body, which produces a ‘splinter effect’ isolating A COMPREHENSIVE OUSU REPORT on racial equality has revealed massive disparities between white and black and minority ethnic (BME) students’ experiences of race at Oxford.

Just over half of the student population believes that racism is not a problem at Oxford.

However, the University’s racial makeup overwhelmingly favours majority voices: 79% of the student body is white. Many ethnic minority students’ academic and social experiences, the report suggests, are marred by discrimination.

According to the OUSU report, which surveyed 528 Oxford — UK and international — students studying at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, 59.3% of BME students report having felt uncomfortable or unwelcome at Oxford because of their race or ethnicity, compared to 5.4% of white students.

Race appears to be a significant part of the Oxford experience even before students receive their acceptances. Before applying, 41% of BME students believed their race would affect their time at the University, in contrast to 8.4% of white students. As they went through

minority ethnic students in different colleges and departments 2) A curriculum that fails to capture the diversity of non-Western thought, peoples, and cultures, including a lack of diversity in Oxford’s teaching staff that further prevents critical re-evaluation of the existing curriculum 3) A pervading culture that struggles to welcome differences in race and ethnicity, including through the normalization of racial banter or unquestioned acceptance of racial and ethnic stereotypes 4) A sense of social isolation among minority ethnic students, including through a lack of spaces that are perceived as ‘safe’ to discuss race When we presented these findings and the data from our Race Survey to the University administration at our historic 2014 Race Summit, we were extremely encouraged by their enthusiasm and support for tackling these issues, and especially their commitment to investigate how curriculum across the university might be adapted to promote an understanding of all of the world’s best minds, not only those from the male, white West. Part of this will also involve an investigation into hiring practices to promote and support applications by minority-ethnic faculty members, who play a hugely important role in the creation of a respectful and vibrant multicultural academic community.

Beyond our work with the University, however, we are making our own efforts to tackle these issues by creating new spaces for public discussion of race and ethnicity and all things related, especially in events with other societies like the OUSU Disabled Students’ Campaign and WomCam’s Women of Colour group. We are also looking forward to the 2014 launch of the Alternative Reading List Project, a student-driven website as a place for students to share sources from perspectives that are not on their reading lists—but should be. To get involved or find out more, CRAE meetings are every Thursday at 6pm in OUSU, and are open to all Oxford students regardless of race or ethnicity. We are also reachable by email at crae@ousu.org. applications and interviews, 29.7% of BME students and 11.2% of white students felt that race factored into their own experiences of the admissions process.

Once their university career begins, race and ethnicity impact students in tutorials and social situations alike. Attitudes towards and experiences of race vary, but, according to the OUSU report statistics, it remains a prevalent, and in some settings, under-addressed, part of Oxford student life.

Racial biases and racist attitudes affect a significant proportion of the student body regardless of race. 39.5% of white students and half of BME students report having heard or been the subject of racial jokes or comments that cross an unacceptable line. 74.1% of white students and 80.5% of BME students agree that Oxford’s student body is not adequately diverse.

When it comes to teaching and administration, the OUSU report suggests, BME staff members can provide a positive role model to ethnic minority students — but 71.7% of BME students and 48.8% of white students feel that Oxford’s

White students: do you believe racism is a problem in Oxford?

BME students: do you believe racism is a problem in Oxford?

Chiara Giovanni, a student at Magdalen College, discusses the issues surrounding race in Oxford “The way to end racism is to stop talking about it.”

“You’re just over thinking things.”

“Why do you always have to bring race into this?”

I Yes (38.5%)

No (42.6%)

No (61.5%)

Yes (57.4%)

Source: 2014 Student Race Survey, CRAE staff is not diverse enough.

Official statistics demonstrate that students’ impressions Oxford’s academic staff lacking diversity are not unfounded. According to the most recent information available about minorities in higher-level academia, a comprehensive 2011 University and College Union survey, Oxford has one of the greatest hiring gaps for professors of different racial and ethnic backgrounds in the UK. Only 3.9% of Oxford’s professors are from a BME background, compared to 6.4% at Cambridge, 9.1% at Kings College London and 8.1% at Oxford Brookes.

Addressing racial equality and affecting change may be a complex process: many students report feeling lack of clarity about how and where to discuss race-related issues.

Additionally, a significant discrepancy appears to exist between white and BME students’ perceptions of the extent to which racism at Oxford is a problem.

64.3% of BME students believe they have few to no safe spaces to talk about race at Oxford, despite just over half of white students feeling

there are adequate safe spaces for such discussions. While just over half of white students know a place where they would feel comfortable reporting a racially charged incident, only 28.9% of BME students can say the same.

The likeliest place to report a racial issue, students agree, would be their college or department administrations. However, an overwhelming majority of both BME and white students say they would not feel comfortable discussing a racial issue with their college administration. 69% of white students felt they could discuss racial issues with their college’s welfare and peer support group, but only 39.1% of BME students saw those as safe spaces for racial discussion.

A spokesperson for the University of Oxford said, “Oxford University is committed to selecting students on the basis of academic ability and potential alone. We spend more than £5.5 million each year on outreach work to encourage students from all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds to apply to Oxford.

“It is not surprising that bright, articulate students from Oxford, Harvard and other leading universities are discussing what more can be done to ensure a fully inclusive university experience for all our BME students. We are committed to listening to our students, and last month we held a Race Equality Summit where senior University members met with students and heard presentations about their experiences. At this summit, and in structured interviews and focus groups with BME students held over the last year, many of the same points made in the CRAE survey were raised. As a result staff and students have agreed to continue working together to deliver the best possible academic and social experience for all Oxford students.”

Most recently, serious discussions of race in Oxford have gone online. For instance, the Tumblr page ‘I, Too, Am Oxford’, a photo project where BME students stood holding whiteboards with statements confronting common perceptions of race at the university, went viral last month. A counter blog, We Are All Oxford,

appeared soon after as a protest to the campaign’s perceived lack of racial inclusivity.

Charlotte Hendy, OUSU Vice-President for Welfare and Equal Opportunities, said, “The findings that OUSU’s CRAE presented were shocking, and it is clear that there is a long way to go before we are rid of racism and racial inequality at Oxford. Following the Race Summit, we are now working collaboratively with the University to address the issues highlighted, including the current lack of curricular diversity in some disciplines. It is evident that race and ethnicity affect all areas of student life, not only for BME students but for all students; it is exciting that OUSU’s CRAE have been able to secure this issue on the University’s agenda and to see it being addressed wholeheartedly.”

One self-identified BME postgraduate student told Cherwell, “The people who most need to

talk about race aren’t going to seek it out for themselves. We need serious reassessment not only of admissions figures and recruitment techniques, but also wider dialogue

n discussions about race at Oxford, the assumption is always present that black and minority ethnic (BME) students or People of Colour (PoC) are somehow seeking racism in every facet of their daily lives; that we feel vindicated when we can whirl around and point the finger at racism as the cause of our problems. This is false. There is no reason for us to want to experience something that can crush us at both an institutional and a personal level.

We want the eradication of racism more than anyone. After all, 59% of the BME respondents didn’t expect racism to affect their Oxford experience, matriculating with a light heart and clear ideals. I was one of them.

As a light-skinned Woman of Colour who grew up in a predominately white area, where cultural divisions were not visible and colour-blindness is the order of the day, I never thought of myself as someone ‘of colour’. I measured myself academically against my white peers and blithely believed I had never experienced any ‘real racism’, making it all the more a shock when my experiences at Oxford opened my eyes.

Colour-blindness is an appealing concept, but when the majority of BME students have felt uncomfortable here due to their race — and I congratulate those who have either never experienced a problem or simply taken a rather struthious attitude to it all — it clearly hasn’t succeeded in its aims. It is time to eradicate the problem instead of ignoring it.

The overwhelming lack of representation among academics and courses is the logical place to start. Britain’s appalling response to Lenny Henry’s campaigns for diversity demonstrates that racism is not just physical attacks or slurs, but also sneering rejections of legitimate pleas for visible role models.

It isn’t about ticking boxes or filling quotas: I have suffered from depression as a result of feeling invisible — unimportant — while studying a course stuffed with white authors.

When all your tutors are white too, in whom do you confide? It isn’t a problem that can be solved by a cheerful nod to the International Fair; its roots lie deep in the nature of Western academia and the myth of a meritocracy that conveniently rewards more white men than anyone else.

The necessary first step is being listened to, and we ask this of you because it still doesn’t happen. This report is a significant breakthrough, but will achieve nothing if everyone continues to pretend there isn’t a problem; that these findings aren’t worth taking seriously.

Being laughed off when we question a racist bop theme, listening to yet another wellmeaning white person protest that they have ‘non-white friends’, consistently failing to see ourselves celebrated in portraits, on college alumni lists, in academia: these are real problems.

They are not the product of hypersensitivity, or the starting point for a ‘theoretical debate’: these are our lives, and we ask that you treat them as such.

Quick facts

4/1 BME students who said that there are not enough safe spaces to discuss race and ethnicity at Oxford

59.3%

White students for every black and ethnic minority (BME) student at Oxford

64.3% BME students who said they had ever felt unwelcome or uncomfortable because of their race / ethnicity at Oxford

13.9 per cent: is it enough?

C+ takes a look at the admissions statistics for BME students

C+ sums up the admissions statistics

Applications by ethnic origin, 2013 entry (% of total)

A

dmissions statistics have formed the centrepiece of much of the criticsm of Oxford’s lack of ethnic diversity. And looking at the 2013 admissions statistics, it seems the the problem persists. White students made up 80.7% of those who applied to do an undergraduate degree at Oxford for 2013 entry, but 86.1% of acceptances were made up of white students. The success rate for all non-white applicants was, at 17.1%, several percentage points lower than the 25.4% success rate for white applicants.

However, these figures should not be taken entirely at face value: as the University argues, it is true that a much larger of BME students apply to the most competitive courses, when compared with their white counterparts. For instance, in 2013, 11.3% of Asian and Asian British Oxford hopefuls applied for Economincs & Management, one of the most competitive courses in terms of that ratio of applications to places, while only 2.9% of white applicants applied for the same subject. The fraction of BME applicants applying for other particularly competitive courses, such as Medicine and Law, are also high, at 18.0% and 9.3% respectively for BME applicants as a whole, compared to 2.9% and 5.8% for white applicants.

The survey conducted by CRAE also shows that a significant proportion of BME students were concerned about how their ethnicity might affect the admissions process before they even arrived at Oxford. 41% of BME respondents said that, before applying, they expected racism to affect their experience of Oxford; only 8.4% of the white students who participated in the survey shared the same concern.

Furthermore, a 29.7% of BME respondents said that they had felt that their race or ethnicity would affect their experience of the Oxford admissions process; only 11.2% of white students said that same thing. However, the CRAE report notes that responses to this question were somewhat ambivalent: some BME students suggested that they had thought they would have a better chance of receiving an offer as a result of university goals on increasing diversity, and a number of non-BME students said that they thought they might be discriminated against for the same reason.

Quick facts

29.7% Proportion of BME students who felt that race would affect their experience of Oxford admissions

36%

Proportion of BME applicants who apply for Law, Medicine and E&M

11.6%

Proportion of white applicants who apply for Law, Medicine and E&M Sources: CRAE survey, University of Oxford

Mixed background (5.5%)

Chinese (2.1%)

Arab (0.4%) Other (0.7%)

Black or Black British (2%)

Acceptances by ethnic origin, 2013 entry (% of total) Mixed background (5.4%)

Chinese (1.7%)

Arab (0.2%) Other (0.4%)

Black or Black British (1.1%) Asian or Asian British (5%)

Asian or Asian British (8.9%)

White (80.7%)

White (86.1%)

Source: University of Oxford website

Raphael Mokades, founding director of RARE, on reevaluating our approach to “BME”

I

arrived at St Hugh’s in 1997. This was the era of Cool Britannia. Oasis, Blur, and Blair (the untainted, pre-Iraq version) were big. So was smoking. No one had mobile phones and if you wanted to access the web you had to use the college Computer Room. There were no online social networks and there was no instant messaging.

So, in many ways, Oxford in 1997 was a different place. Some things, however, don’t change much. I spent a good deal of my time at university supporting a now-defunct organisation called the Oxford Access Scheme, which aimed to get more “inner-city and ethnic minority people” (our language then) into Oxford. And the same debate rumbles on.

After many years working in this field, firstly at Oxford, then at Pearson, and then since founding RARE in 2005, I have three observations and three suggestions.

Firstly, let’s distinguish between international students and home students.

Oxford is a publicly funded, UK university and it is reasonable to look at the subsidised UK population studying there and see if it is representative. And there is good data available on this. Obviously the experiences, and the voices, of international students are important: in analysing where we are in relation to race in the UK, however, it does not make sense to include international students in our calculations.

Secondly, all minority groups are not the same. The headline stat is this: about 14% of the UK population is non-white, and about 13% of home undergraduate admissions to Oxford last year were non-white, so the two are about in line. However, talking about non-white or black and minority ethnic (BME) people as a whole

masks significant variations between different ethnic minority groups.

Comparing the percentage of people in the general population with the percentage admitted to Oxford (based on University of Oxford statistics for 2013 entry and 2011 census data) I found that the “BME” category, in relation to representation, means nothing. Mixed white and Asian people are significantly overrepresented at Oxford – much more so than white people, who are only very slightly overrepresented. So are British Chinese and British Indian students. Mixed-race students of black heritage are mildly but not markedly underrepresented.

And black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani students are very significantly underrepresented, with fewer than half as many students from these backgrounds in the university as there should be. So if there’s one thing Oxford should do on race, it’s focus outreach efforts on these under-represented minority groups. Specifically, we need to (i) raise educational achievement in these groups (this is part, though not all, of the reason for their under-representation at Oxford); (ii) encourage bright students from these groups to study a wider range of subjects than just law and medicine (another part of the reason for their under-representation), and (iii) build relationships with bright students from these groups to show them Oxford is for them too.

And, finally, it appears to be impossible for a minority student at Oxford to talk about any negative experience without (i) this being interpreted as an attack on the university per se and (ii) the national media picking it up. The I Too Am Oxford campaign – many of whose organisers and participants are prominent in access efforts – is a prime example of this. By contrast, efforts by these same students to broaden access to Oxford are ignored by the local and national media. It seems that “black student happy at Oxford, seeks to broaden pool of like-minded people” isn’t a story, but “Oxford racist” is.

So, where to go from here? My first suggestion would be that, if you care, get involved. Two years ago I helped set up Target Oxbridge, a programme to get more black, state-educated

students into Oxford and Cambridge. It works.

We have a 50% success rate so far. We need volunteers to help us and there are other initiatives with similar goals out there. And if focusing on race, or on some ethnic minority groups, makes you uneasy, read Observation 2 above again.

It is also essential to fight ignorance. If you hear a fellow student make a racist comment, stand up, be counted, and face that student down.

Last but not least, lobby your college, the university, and OFFA to do more on race. The current government seems to regard the social mobility agenda as the answer to all problems of equality. It isn’t. The particular issues facing black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi students are not just about poverty. There’s an interplay of

“

The “BME” category, in relation to representation, means nothing factors including culture, religion, and gender which need separate and individual attention.

A lack of social and cultural capital within these groups has a big impact, both on academic achievement and on the navigation of the UCAS process – in other words, the cumulative effect of people within your ethnic group not attending top universities (as a result of class and in some cases active discrimination) makes it less likely that you’ll have someone to advise you on how to go about getting in. This can be changed, by identifying promising students from these groups and building relationships with them, one by one. It would be great if, in another fifteen years time, the NSVPN for each of these groups were over 80% - this will only happen with pressure from the student body.

Raphael Mokades is the Founder and Managing Director of Rare, a recruitment agency for ethnic minority graduates.

02.05.14 | Cherwell

Food and Drink | 19

Disco Soup return to Oxford It’s time to rethink how we do food, suggests Tom Wood

E

xam season is upon us, and along with the libraries full of miserable finalists (including myself, unfortunately) it’s time for the annual avalanche of e-mails from college and university offices warning against the fines for trashing. It’s easy to scoff at the arbitrarily large sums that they impose for such heinous acts of mess-making, but one of their objections is a truly important one: the issue of food waste. A bag of flour may not seem to be a huge loss, and I doubt the many homeless of Oxford would appreciate being given it instead of you chucking it over your friends, but it represents a rather less obvious and more insidious problem. Recent studies have shown that the average UK family throws away the equivalent of six meals a week. Yet, I hear you cry, no thrifty student would ever do such a thing, but stop and think - how many times have you cooked a bit too much pasta, or left vegetables to turn to soup in the bottom of your fridge, or even just dumped a Hassan’s halfway home in a pang of self-loathing and regret?

We’re all guilty of it, and it’s with this realisation that a number of charities and community groups have sprung up to tackle the problem head on. One particularly active group in Oxford is Abundance, a loose collective of like-minded people from all backgrounds and ages coming together to prevent the waste of fruit in gardens in and around the city. Through the winter months, small teams go around pruning trees for free (and passing this knowledge on to others) and come back in the late summer to collect any unwanted fruit to turn it into preserves and food to share with those most in need. It was through Abundance that I disco-vered (sorry) Disco Soup, an inter-

national movement that seeks to raise awareness of food waste through fun and free public events. The organisers, taking their cue from the original Schnippel Disko (stop laughing) in Germany, rally local business and wholesalers to donate any unused or unwanted produce that can be turned into tasty soups, which are then given out to members of the public, from businessmen to the homeless.

Following the success of last year’s event, Oxford’s own Disco Soup is returning this coming Friday to Bonn Square (opposite the Westgate shopping centre) for an afternoon of peeling and partying. Anyone can come along and get stuck in with the preparation of the donated fruit and vegetables, or even just come along for a free lunch as an escape from the clutches of the library. If last year is anything to go by, the event won’t go unnoticed even in the midst of the most frenetic shopping - a number of local bands will be playing, adding free music to the free food. I’ve found over the last few years, and I’m sure you’ve felt the same at times, that it’s all too easy to get stuck in the Oxford bubble, but as I approach the end of my time here I’m realising that there’s a world out there in every sense. Events like this are perfect for meeting people who are not students (I’m talking proper grown-ups…) and for getting involved in the local community, in a way that college life can’t offer. In any case, I hope I’ve convinced you to stop and think next time you cook dinner or go shopping of what you really need - after all, you could save enough for a post-exams party that is a whole lot more fun than chucking flour about the streets. As for cava, on the other hand…

Disco Soup is taking place on Friday 9th May at Bonn Square from midday to 6pm

Recipe of the

Week

Supertasty brownies

Ingredients (Makes 12+) 250g butter or margerine 200g chocolate 80g cocoa powder 65g self-raising flour 360g sugar 4 large eggs Method 1) Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees or gas mark four.

2) Melt the butter and chocolate in a bowl and mix until smooth. Ideally do this in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, but microwaving the mixture in 10 second bursts will also do the trick.

4) If you want to add any nuts or dried fruit, now’s the time to stir them in. If not then stir together your dry ingredients in a separate bowl.

5) Combine both mixtures well, then add the eggs and mix until the batter is smooth and slightly elastic.

6) Pour into a tray (24cm will do all the brownies at once, but you can do a few batches if your tin is smaller - just cut the cooking time by a third), and bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes. Like the cookies from last week, brownies harden after cooking, so you want them to still be a tad gooey when you take them out of the oven.

Eat warm with ice-cream or have cold as a tasty snack!

Cocktails with Cai Channel the spirit of the Caribbean with a glass of this week’s cocktail, Planter’s Punch With the weather this miserable and the work piling up, Trinity Term isn’t off to the most auspicious of starts. On days like this, as I write my column far past the deadline and in between tutorials, I can imagine nothing better than lying on a beach in the Caribbean with a glass of something juicy and alcoholic which is why this week’s cocktail is the Planter’s Punch.

The cocktail originates from Jamaica, and so it is no surprise that it makes very good use of rum, which itself is made from the sugar cane leftovers from one of the Caribbean’s biggest industries.

This particular cocktail is on the IBA’s Official List of Cocktails. This means that it does in fact have an ‘official’ recipe, however there are still plenty of variations you can try out if you’re

feeling adventurous.

It may be listed in the IBA’s Official List of Cocktails as one of ‘The Unforgettables’, but you can rest assured that if you drink plenty of these, your night will be more forgettable than you might have initially thought...

The easiest way to remember the recipe is through the medium of poetry, and indeed there is a handy little rhyme which the wealthy Caribbean plantation owners developed over time to remember how to make this particular cocktail.

One of sour Two of sweet Three of strong And four of weak.

Perhaps not a masterpiece, but it does the job, especially if you’ve had

a few already and are looking for more! Despite not being the official recipe, this week we’re taking our lead from tradition and using this verse as our guide. So try to whisk yourself away from the grey reality of the start of summer and channel Jamaica with the Planter’s Punch.

Ingredients 1 part lime juice 2 parts sugar 3 parts Jamaican rum 4 parts water and ice Method Shake the rum, juice, and sugar together vigorously with ice. Strain into an ice-filled glass, top up with water if you so wish, and garnish with fruit.

Review: LMH weekly formal

LMH is one of those colleges with a weekly formal, at the upper end of the price band (£9 college, £11 guests), which means that they tend to push the boat out slightly.

Given that it’s a former all-women college, as we take our seats it’s rather refreshing to sit in a hall surrounded by portraits of women for a change. Given the college’s distance North of the city centre (apparently it’s snow-capped during winter) we felt we had deserved our meal when we arrived.

High table filled in, a quick benedictus benedicat, and the proceedings were kicked off. The starter was leek and potato soup, rather thin, but with a good taste – there’s not much more than can be said about a soup. The bread was brought round in baskets and served to us – it was disappointingly dry, although I approved of being able to select what type of roll I wanted.

The main course was a lot more exciting,

“

It might not be the night of your life, but you could do worse for £11 a whole joint of lamb, on the bone. This was an excellent idea, and lavish in the extreme for a formal hall, but unfortunately the kitchens lacked the skill to carry it through to the end.

The lamb was good for what it was, and the sheer quantity was impressive (and, as always, reassuring), but there was nothing in the cooking that made it stand out. It seemed under-flavoured, and a bit watery, perhaps not cooked for quite long enough.

It could have done with some garlic and rosemary at the very least.

With it came sides of mash and vegetables, served in thin aluminium dishes in the middle of the table. The mash, like the bread, was also a bit dry, a dash of milk or cream needed. Altogether enjoyable but not spectacular.

The main was an improvement on the starter, and I’m pleased to say this trend continued. The dessert was an apple crumble, but a crumble unlike any I’d experienced before. It was free standing, coated top, sides, and bottom in delicious, well, crumble. How they got the mixture to stay together so well as to hold in the apple is beyond me. With the exception of Trinity (a hard college to beat in such matters), we’d never had such a good crumble at Oxford.

If you get the chance to eat at an LMH formal, take it. It may not be the culinary night of your life, but you could do a lot worse for £11.

Isaac Goodwin and Gayatri Gogoi

PHOTO Moroccan Magic

By Kate Hodkinson

FASHION From Catwalk to Closet: Folklore Valentino showcased their Spring/Summer 2014 Folklore collection at Paris Fashion Week. This years Coachella goers fell in love with the trend; think Vanessa Hudgens and Kylie Jenner. The high street soon caught on and there are plenty of affordable ways to get this year’s festival-chic look, and just in time for the great British Summer!

PARISIAN PINK SUNFLOWER FRINGE KIMONO £22.99, NEW LOOK There are two trends in one with this New Look fringed kimono! We’re loving the idea of combining this with a pair of leather shorts, to balance out the sweet girly tone with a more punchier look. Take this trend to the A-list level with a pair of “don’t look at me” sunglasses, some gold jewellery and long 70’s inspired waves.

Cherwell’s fashion team explores the industry’s pressure cooker atmosphere.

T

he suicide of L’Wren Scott last month shocked the fashion world, with figures across the industry mourning the loss of the talented fashion designer. As Vogue EditorIn-Chief Anna Wintour wrote, “L’Wren was a total perfectionist, someone who absolutely embodied everything her marvellous clothes stood for: strength of character combined with a confident and powerful style.”

But the word ‘perfectionist’ here is slightly troubling, for it causes us to question whether it was the difficulties in Scott’s fashion business that lay behind her suicide, with her company believed to be in heavy debt.

Of course, if this is what caused her to end her life (L’Wren’s spokesperson has denied such reports), we can never know for sure.

However, the mere speculation that it might have been is worrying in itself and is an alarming reminder of just how high-pressured the fashion industry is.

Indeed, we all know about the pressure faced by models in the industry and the constant demands for them to be a certain size. The continual revelations of the lengths that some models will go to, in order to achieve this are shocking - from snorting cocaine to the recent craze of swallowing cotton balls.

Although the popularity of size-zero models is indeed on the decline (Debenhams recently introduced size 16 mannequins to their store) the demands for ultra-thin models continue to prevail, with the average fashion model weighing 23% less than the average woman. This is certainly a problem, has been for a long time and will continue to be so.

However, it is not only the models who must abide by such heavy demands. Often overlooked are another group of people who are also subject to the fashion ‘pressure cooker’ – the minds behind the clothes. Facing phenomenal demands, they must work around the clock.

It’s no longer enough for a designer to produce garments which are ‘nice’ or ‘pretty’. Instead, it seems they’re all in a competition to create the most exceptional of pieces – very few of which are actually wearable! I was able to review the Concept Show for Oxford Fashion Week this year, and I was struck by just how much imagination, creativity and innovation was behind every piece.

The work that goes into every part of the fashion industry is often underestimated. At the inquest into the death of Alexander McQueen in 2010 - a renowned designer who, like L’Wren, also committed suicide - his psychiatrist, Dr Stephen Periperoa, explained how “he certainly felt very pressured by his work… He was getting a great high from it and then, usually after a show, he would have a great come down”. For McQueen, the demand for ‘perfection’ became all too much.

Was this also the case for L’Wren, another ‘perfectionist’? We can only hope that the fashion industry is not to blame for the suicide of L’Wren Scott. But with reports, by friends, saying that she had become severely depressed at the result of her company’s decline, alongside Scott’s last minute decision to pull out of London Fashion Week, this is a real possibility. And a devastatingly sad one at that.

Niluka Kavanagh

MULTI-COLOURED CLUTCH, £22.00, ASOS LEATHER ANKLE-STRAP SANDALS, £29.00, ZARA We think pairing these two very stylish items would be the perfect introduction to this trend. With neither of them being too in-your-face or garish, they’re just enough to brighten up an LBD (and the sandals will even hide your toes if exams have left little time for pampering and pedicures!)

EMBROIDERED A-LINE SKIRT £36.00, TOPSHOP Hands down, Topshop has the best folklore collection on the High Street. Their expansive range allows you to embrace the trend, whatever your individual sense of style. The ornate detail on this skirt guarantees it will survive the season to become a timeless piece in your wardrobe.

Images (Clockwise from top): New Looks, ASOS, Zara, Monsoon, Topshop

DELAWARE STONE COLLAR NECKLACE £35.00, MONSOON If you’re looking for a way to brighten up a plain black top, we really advise heading over to Monsoon.

Their range of aztec jewellery is huge, but this necklace is our favourite!

VALENTINO - www.mydaily.co.uk

Suit and Tie

Street Style

“The Blazer” The thought of wearing a blazer can usher in shuddering inducing flashbacks of high school, when the same jacket was “suitable” for snow, sleet, showers and sun. Luckily, blazers can now be worn the way they are supposed to be – a light weight jacket which can bring an element of smart to a more casual look, and replace the coat which will soon be too warm to wear.

Beginners: A navy blazer is the easiest to work with; like our H&M pick for £39.99 (left). Paired with a plain shirt, slim fit chinos, and finished with a pair of brogues provides a perfect and easy smart casual look. Accessorise with a pocket square: Topman has a brilliant washed-out striped blue one which will add a needed touch of personality.

For an intermediate look which anyone can achieve, why not combine a simple blazer with a bright, printed T-shirt for the ultimate in easy summer styling.

Fashionistas: For a more individual and casual look, focus upon contrasting colours and patterns. This camouflage blazer from Jack and Jones definitely won’t see you getting lost in the crowd, and it’s statement enough to last you over the next couple of summers. We recommend pairing it with dark jeans and a fairly simple shirt. Matching camouflage socks optional!

Shirt: Talulah, Leggings: Topshop, Boots: Cola Han, Necklace: Spanish market, Bracelet: First Nation Art from British Columbia

Fashion Matters

Charlotte McDonald, St. Peter’s

22 | Fashion

Cherwell | 02.05.14 Alexandra wears: Pink blazer: Primark, Shirt: Bershka, Trousers: Zara, Necklaces: Zara, Sandals, Primark, Dress: Vintage Clare wears: Blazer, camisole, skirt, dresses and necklace: Zara, Jumper: GAP, Sandals: Mimco,

02.05.14 | Cherwell

Fashion | 23

Models: Alexandra Littelwood & Clare Saxby Stylist: Rebecca Borthwick Photographer: Leah Hendre

Neapolitan Dreams

Th is

CULTURE

theme... k’s e we

Consumption

Imaginary eating: food in art and literature In the build-up to Live Below the Line, Emma Simpson examines consumption and creativity

E

ver ones to be drawn in by a punny title and the promise of alcohol, my literati friends clubbed together last term to buy a book entitled Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist. Not long after came designer Dinah Fried’s Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature’s Most Memorable Meals. No puns, but painstaking and aesthetically gorgeous photographic recreations of the best literary meals, from Heidi’s cheese on toast to a rather disturbing depiction of a pile of bones and rot-

ting vegetables from Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

The recent prevalence of these books is because, however ridiculous it may seem, the preparation and consumption of ‘A Rum of One’s Own’, ‘The Pitcher of Dorian Grey Goose’ or (brace yourself) ‘The Deviled Egg Wears Prada’, like the books they are named after, hold the promise of taking you briefly out of your world and into the world of literature — and then, fairly (Jonathan) swiftly, down into the world of the very drunk.

The link between artistic pursuits and more carnal ones is old. Since the advent of writing, food and drink (along with sex) have been among the most popular topics.

As basic needs that also must be found and prepared, and which can, on top of that, be immensely pleasurable, we are programmed to be obsessed with what we put in our mouths.

The most common themes in cave paintings are bison, deer and cattle: rarely are there drawings of human beings, but drawings of what we ate are everywhere. The Bible is a classic example of the use of food as a metaphor, with the forbidden fruit, the miracle of the loaves and fish, the ritual of the Eucharist, and countless more food references. This even continued into the first poetry: Old English texts tend to have a worrying (and hopefully metaphorical) obsession with cannibalism.

Further back, texts such as Petronius’ Satyricon explore banqueting and feasting in indulgent detail. In art and literature, food becomes a cultural symbol of class, of race, of ideals.

With the emergence of a literary canon, our obsession with recording what we eat has taken a turn for the meta in the creation of imaginative cookbooks based on the food eaten by literary characters.

The world of literary cookbooks is a place where our natural obsession with food mixes with our desire to immerse ourselves in imaginary worlds. A personal favourite is Tove Jansson’s Moomins Cookbook, which is full of jam and potatoes, but there is also Dinner with Mr. Darcy, Drinking with Dickens, The Joyce of Cooking, and hundreds more.

And it’s not only books that get their own cookbooks. There is also the Artists & Writers’ Cookbook, featuring culinary suggestions from figures such as photographer Man Ray, who details his ideal “Menu for a Dadaist Day”. His “Dejuner” includes the instruction, “Take the

olives and juice from one large jar of prepared green or black olives and throw them away. In the empty jar place several steel ball bearings... with this delicacy serve a loaf of French bread, 30 inches in length, painted a pale blue”.

There is also John Keats’s Porridge: Favourite Recipes of American Poets. William Cole notes in the introduction that such collaborative recipe books can be seen as a metaphor for poetry, with “the poet as creator, inventor, who makes out of a few necessary ingredients a magic potion”.

Cooking is a creative pursuit in itself (although as a side note, ‘creative’ and ‘cooking’ are words to be used together at your peril — or at the peril of whoever is eating your creation).

“

We are programmed to be obsessed with what we put in our mouths There is also an argument that creative pursuits are recipes of a sort — after all, art is a cycle of borrowing, transformation and invention. And art is, as Oscar Wilde noted, a commodity — second only to the most literal consumer product there is: food.

It turns out, then, there is a reason we are all obsessed with instagramming pictures of our pizza with an egg on it. You are what you eat — but you also are what you read, watch, listen to and create. Combining the two is both the ultimate form of self-expression, and the ultimate in self-indulgent consumption.

Starts Friday

Friday

Saturday & Sunday

Sunday

Test Run Modern Art Oxford

Switch ft. EZ O2 Academy Oxford, 10pm

The Room Magdalen Film Society, 7pm

In this new feature at Modern Art Oxford, the gallery is, according to the press release, “offering visitors access to the creative process”. The first incarnation will focus on the act of creation and will involve performance artists’ projects

Back by popular demand for a second set in one year, DJ EZ will draw crowds to the O2. One of the biggest garage DJs around right now, EZ (real name Otis Roberts) knows how to put on a show. His last set was characterized by his imaginative remixes, including ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.

Some Like It Hot Phoenix Picturehouse/St. Anne’s, 6.15pm/8pm

Picks of the Week

In a bizarre turn of events, St. Anne’s is screening the 1959 classic Some Like It Hot starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, only a day after the Phoenix Picturehouse. With such a proliferation of showings, you’d be extremely remiss to go through the weekend without seeing this tale of cross-dressing jazz musicians.

Quite possibly the most exciting listing on the Magdalen Film Society’s termcard, The Room is famed as being the worst film ever made. After an incomprehensible talk at the Oxford Union and subsequent Cherwell interview last term, the film’s director, writer, producer and star Tommy Wiseau is enjoying a resurgence in popularity amongst the dreaming spires.

Culture | 25

02.05.14 | Cherwell

Top 3

Milestones Cherwell picks out a key moment in cultural history. This

... Cooks

1

Long John Silver from Treasure Island (1883)

It is easy to forget that the fearsome one-legged pirate who so terrified and beguiled readers in Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic 1883 work, Treasure Island, was a cook. More specifically, he was the ship’s quartermaster. We’re not told much about his cooking abilities, but as a character he has few peers. Embodying the archetypal pirate, with a wooden leg and a parrot on his shoulder, Long John Silver, or approximations thereof, has been the stuff of nightmares for fictional sailors since his creation.

2

Smokey Joe’s Café Buddy Holly (1959)

Originally a song by The Robins, a pioneering R&B group of the late 1940s and 50s, Buddy Holly recorded this cover in 1959. Smokey Joe is another terrifying cook. The song tells the story of a seemingly harmless flirtation that goes sour when it is revealed that “that chick belongs to Smokey Joe”. Smokey Joe himself quickly threatens the song’s protagonist with a knife and expels him from the café. Holly resolves never to return again. After all, “why risk my life when that Smokey Joe’s a crazy fool?”

3

Remy from Ratatouille (2007)

This charming Pixar tale tells the story of Remy, the rat who, after being forced to abandon his home, resolves to become a chef. He discovers a young garbage-boy at a fancy restaurant in Paris and starts to control the boy’s actions by pulling his hair — an action that should seem sinister but just comes across as cute — and ends up turning the kid into a celebrated chef thanks to his own unique talents. Don’t ask why Remy’s a really good cook. He just is a really good cook.

week, Luke Barratt looks at the Geldof-led ‘80s upsurge in charity rock

I

n 1984, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure co-wrote ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’, a massive hit single that raised £8m for charity, remained the all-time best-selling UK single for thirteen years, and established music as a means for raising money for charity, spawning Live Aid and the later incarnations of Band Aid. Its famous chorus “feed the world” has become iconic in the struggle against Third World poverty.

However, it is George Harrison’s 1971 single, ‘Bangla Desh’, that is widely considered to be the first true charity single. But it wasn’t even The Other Beatle who first had the idea of using music to raise money for a good cause. In 1742, Handel held a charity concert in Ireland at which he first presented his Messiah. All the money made went towards prisoners’ debt relief, the Mercer’s Hospital, and the Charitable Infirmary.

Despite these precursors, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ and the subsequent Live Aid concert organized by Mr Geldof himself remain one of the most iconic moments in musical, and cultural charity history. The list of artists who made it to the studio to record the song on November 25th 1984 is quite staggering: Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, George Michael, Sting, Bono, Phil Collins, the list goes on.

A number of artists also recorded m e s sages f o r the B-

side of the single, including David Bowie, who said, “It’s Christmas 1984, and there are more starving folk on our planet than ever before.”

The song comes under a lot of criticism, often over its wording, which creates an implicit divide between the affluent West and the starving Ethiopians — “do they know?” — but the lyrics are to some extent aware of this.

Bono chimes in at one point with an ironic “well tonight thank God it’s them, instead of you”. It is impossible to get away from the song being a case of rich musicians singing to affluent Westerners, but the self-awareness present throughout is often missed, and, in any case, it is the effect that matters.

It’s not just the approximate total of £50m raised by the song itself and the concert following it; it’s the US follow-up involving Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and others, it’s the huge rise in awareness as a result of popular culture taking up the cause of the starving majority and it’s the mass of charity records and charity concerts that it has spawned. Yes, it seems crass and yes, it’s all sickeningly self-congratulatory, but these aspects are part of the reason that this sort of thing works — the 2004 song ‘Grief Never Grows Old’, released in aid of the Indian Ocean tsunami was an appalling piece of crap, but I still bloody bought it.

‘Do They Know It’s Chr ist mas’ has a remarkable legacy, especially for such a bad song, and we would do well to think about the good it did before we criticize its intelligence or sensitivity.

Poetry Corner To appear in Poetry Corner, email a poem (at most 20 lines long) to culture@cherwell.org.

Well Well, you have my attention.

You were a sharp silhouette; Sharp like the end of a cigarette across The street, in the dark, Peripherally present, A slight, winding tension.

You have my attention.

I saw your lithe, darting run Your screwed-up courage in the rain, across The street, I saw your coming, cold and green, Your steady-eyed approach, Your set intention.

Well, you have my attention.

And then your hand was in my hand Tremblingly cold, I closed around, across Fingers that slipped from mine As quickly as though you were My own invention.

You have my attention.

Andrew McLean

Somerville College

Cherwell Etc. This term sees the launch of Cherwell Etc., an online home for the creative endeavours of all Oxonians.

Visit our frequently updated content at cherwelletc.tumblr.com.

Contribute your own fiction, art, photography and anything else by emailing culture@cherwell.org.

Top Pick

Sunday

Tuesday

Starts Tuesday

Thursday

Exhibition & Garden Party St. Anne’s quad, 2-3pm

Neon Soul Cellar, 10pm

Waiting for Godot Oxford Playhouse, 7.30pm

Why Art Matters: William Kelly Ashmolean, 6.30pm

2nd week sees the return of the annual St. Anne’s Arts Week, and this party seems like the best way to kick things off. There will be a barbeque. There will be tie-dying and henna. What’s more, the College’s Fine Art students will be showcasing the best of their artwork. With music from St. Anne’s own music ensemble and at the cheap price of £3, this is an event well worth your time.

Neon Soul is a night born in South London, but transported to Oxford for, you guessed it, St. Anne’s Arts Week. There’s live music and they’ll be spinning House, Funk & Soul until the early hours, but it’s already looking busy so it might be worth getting there before midnight. To quote their Facebook page, “BE THERE OR BE SQUARE SOUL SISTASSS.”

Curious Incident Productions presents a version of Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece.

If you’ve never seen Waiting for Godot, this is a great opportunity to do so for only a fiver. The play consists of two men, Vladimir and Estragon, endlessly waiting for a man named Godot to arrive but — SPOILER ALERT —he never does.

Internationally-acclaimed US artist William Kelly is, according to the name of his talk, an “artist of conscience”. He will be talking about his life, from being a taxi driver and a welder to a residency at the Victorian College of Art, Melbourne. Booking is, apparently, essential.

Picks of the Week

26 | Arts & Books

Cherwell | 02.05.14

For your eyes only: spying from the Cold War to Al-Qaeda Isaac Goodwin discusses the intricacies of espionage with author, historian and columnist Ben Macintyre

B

en Macintyre has become an authority on spies, an expert at crafting gripping stories. Stories which, if made up, would certainly be accused of being implausible. His latest, A Spy Among Friends, follows the story of Kim Philby, one of the ‘Cambridge Five’, and the greatest double agent ever seen, whose memory still overshadows the secret services.

I meet Ben after a talk at the Oxford Literary Festival, which packed Christ Church Hall.

He’s a natural story teller, and in the hour long lecture took us through Philby’s life with such skill and enthusiasm that the characters come to life in his words. Afterwards, we grab a table in the tea room off the side of the hall, and I admit to having forgotten pen and paper, upon which he pulls both from his pocket and hands them to me. A long time correspondent at The Times, he claims to have fallen victim to this himself many a time.

Macintyre writes about the Cambridge spies but, he tells me, there was an Oxford spy ring too. Of course, it wasn’t really up to much, he jokes; Macintyre is himself a Cambridge man.

Nevertheless, its recruiters were the same Soviet agents that won over the Cambridge group so, he reassures me, there was no Russian bias to ‘the other place’!

Macintyre has always been interested in spies — he was himself ‘tapped-up’ at Cambridge, recruited for the secret service. Apparently it went no further than the interview when, he says, they realised pretty quickly that he wasn’t spy material.

What is it about spies that so attracts us, I wonder, and particularly captures Macintyre?

“I think spying is one of those subjects that’s a great backdrop for all the things that we all think are important, like loyalty, love, betray-

To this day, it is the charm of people such as Philby that stands out — he was above suspicion, he was “one of us”, the “right sort of chap”. It’s telling that his only vetting for the secret service was a word from the head of MI5; “I know his people”. “If he’d walked into a room you’d have thought ‘my God, the lights have all gone on’, only he was wicked, I mean, a really bad man, but such fun, and so funny! He had an old world charm — to us there’s something creepy about that sort of charm now”.

Philby was invisible in his day — now he’s the

“

al, drama, adventure, war…I mean, the actual process of spying is quite interesting, but it’s the kind of emotions and the human, moral issues that it throws up that really get us.

“It’s the sort of thing you’d quite like to write about in a novel, but because it’s all true, you don’t have to make anything up”. Certainly, the spies of Macintyre’s books are almost too good to be true. Eddie Chapman, the subject of his book Agent Zigzag, was a criminal turned double agent; “he’s a dreadful man, but incredibly good fun, a wicked womanizer and shocking figure, but incredibly good fun to write about.”

Agent Zigzag may have been a crook, but he was ultimately a British agent, involved in winning the war. Ben’s latest, about Kim Philby, is different — “this is the darkest of the

Cambridge Five. This is about a dense, brutal, intimate betrayal between two people, one of whom thought was the closest friend there could possibly be, so it has a psychological brutality to it”.

Has Philby been as much fun to write about?

A figure who ruthlessly handed absolutely everything over to the KGB, responsible for possibly thousands of deaths. Absolutely, Macintyre tells me, he offers “much more opportunity to get right deep inside the psychology of men who to us seem strangely of another world — this kind of clubby, male friendship, where they sat around all day talking about cricket”. This was a world where men had come through the war together and felt a deep, inherent belief in each other.

It’s the sort of things you’d like to write about in a novel, but it’s all true so you don’t have to make anything up very stereotype of a spy. Who is the modern day Philby, the modern invisible man? “Now the invisible spy is a young Muslim woman from Bradford — she’s the perfect recruit for MI5 because she can penetrate Al-Qaeda cells and the like, but she’s also the person that AlQaeda are after”.

The parallels are clear; “they’re all fishing in the same pond, as they were in 1930s Cambridge. MI5 is full of young Asian women — and it still haunts them today, the fear that, already in the system, are people like Philby, ‘clean skins’ in the trade term, who have got in because they look right.”

your Ashmolean Loading Know Violet Pegg meets the world’s most famous violin the Canon O Cherwell calls for new additions to the literary establishment

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harles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip has transcended its medium and spawned a global enterprise. At the height of its success it was featured in over 2,600 newspapers, remaining relevant to generations of fans through the timeless themes addressed by so many of its beloved characters. Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, Peppermint Pattie and Charlie Brown have risen above their immediate context of a strife-ridden, postwar America and offer timeless, thought provoking entertainment for millions of fans.

Starting life in the 1950s, Peanuts is a pioneering work of comic strip art. Previously the medium was defined by either slapstick comedy or puns. Schulz did away with these conventions, utilising minimalist art and the use of blank, empty spaces to create an eye-catching work, equally attractive in black and white, and later, bright and simple colours. Stylistically the strips are superb, with an astonishing range of emotions possible on the children’s seemingly simple faces. The grief endured by Charlie Brown after his team’s inevitable defeat, the quizzical appearance of Rerun and Lucy’s perpetual fury are artisti-

cally engaging, and this feature alone would distinguish the work.

However, it is the content that truly sets these strips apart. Within four panels Schulz can evoke strong feelings of pathos without undermining the strip’s humour. Perhaps understandably from a cartoonist who believed his relative unhappiness lent the strip its distinctive appeal, Peanuts features the subjects of depression, dislike, race relations, Vietnam and narcolepsy.

Today such humour is commonplace whereas in the 1960s and ‘70s it was positively ground breaking.

The combination of minimalist art and economical language is what makes this strip truly outstanding and worthy of comparison with other literary forms. While other comic strips like Garfield have achieved comparative success, they cannot escape Peanuts’ shadow or surpass their humour. Peanuts is unique.

Featuring perhaps the widest range of characters of any cartoon, bar The Simpsons, which regularly references Schulz’s work, Peanuts is a testament to its originator’s creativeness and natural wit that over almost half a century the characters stayed funny and relevant.

n the second floor of the Ashmolean there is the room filled with fantastic strings — lutes, violas, cellos and violins. At one end stands a glass case, with a single, seemingly new fiddle on display. This is the world’s greatest violin.

The Messiah, as this Stradivarius is known, has an unusual history. Made in 1716, this violin comes from the heart of Stradivarius’s ‘golden period’ in which he made all his greatest instruments. For reasons unknown he never sold it, and it remained in his possession until his death, over twenty years after he had made it. What it was about this violin that made him so unwilling to sell it will never be known.

Some years later, in 1775, Stradivarius’s son did sell the instrument, and, after passing through the hands of an Italian nobleman, Count Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue, the Messiah ended up in the possession of the extraordinary Luigi Tarisio. Tarisio was of lowly birth and trained as a carpenter, learning to play the violin as a hobby. However, he became a great collector of instruments, travelling up and down Italy with an expert eye and making regular trips to Paris where he sold instruments to dealers.

However, an instrument he could never bring himself to sell was the Messiah. In fact, he constantly spoke about it, boasting to the Parisian dealers of its unblemished condition, fine craftsman-

ship and excellent qualities, to the extent that one wit, the violinist Jean-Delphin Alard, exclaimed, “your violin is like the Messiah, everyone expects him but he never appears”, thus christening the instrument with its present name.

It was not until Tarisio’s death that Jean Baptiste Vuillaume , a Parisian dealer and lutier, was able to get his hands on the Messiah, along with 24 Stradivari and 120 other fine violins, all stuffed away in the attic room in Milan where Tarisio’s body was found.

Vuillaume modernised the instrument, grafting in the longer, less angled neck, and yet, still the Messiah remained unplayed. From there it ended up in the collection of the Hills in England, who bequeathed it to the Ashmolean on the condition that it never be played. The violin was last played in 1891 by Joseph Joachim, who praised its sounds for its “combined sweetness and grandeur.”

The instrument is a sort of time traveller, as new today as it was almost three hundred years ago, in absolutely perfect condition and virtually unplayed. Copied by mass manufacturers in its millions, it is, in many respects, the perfect violin.

Film & TV | 27

02.05.14 | Cherwell

Not Your Ordinary Odeon Landmarks of cinema G Fergus Morgan uncovers the secret world of alternative cinemas

oing to the cinema is not always a treat.

Although your experience is obviously largely dictated by the quality of the film on show, there are several other factors worth considering. Perhaps if that annoyingly chirpy 12-year-old girl would shut up you could focus on the protagonist’s affected mumble better. Perhaps if your seat was not bejewelled with used gum you could sit more comfortably. And perhaps if the large man with the unfortunately audible chewing would cease his incessant popcorn munching for just a minute, you could hear what the bad guy’s plan was. No, to avoid these irritations, and for a truly memorable experience, one must look beyond the archetypal and mundane multiplex and venture into the unknown realms of alternative cinemas.

Some alternatives offer luxury. Take The Electric Cinema in Notting Hill, for example.

A cinema has existed in one form or another at 191 Portobello Road since 1911 and the current venue claims to be “one of the world’s most lavish and user-friendly cinemas.” This

innovative group screen a mixture of classic films and new releases on the rooftops of buildings in Shoreditch, Peckham and Kensington. Viewers sit back, listen through wireless headphones, snack on barbecued nibbles and relax as the stars appear both overhead and on screen. The only drawback to this otherwise magical experience is the classic problem with outdoor British events; should the weather take a turn for the worse, warm clothing is essential.

This is less of an issue with Hot Tub Cinema, which seats viewers in inflatable hot tubs to watch movies. Established in 2012, Hot Tub Cinema developed from a party where founder Asher Charman decided to screen films onto a bed sheet hung from his window, watching them with friends from a tub in his garden. Since then, his project has expanded, now hosting evenings on rooftops across the UK. However, this may not be a wise choice for hardcore cinephiles as attention can stray slightly from the film, lost in a blur of champagne and 40-degree bubbles.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) John Schlesinger’s masterpiece is the only X-rated film to ever have won an Academy Award

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is no hollow boast; in addition to their 65 plush leather armchairs (all with footstools and side-tables), it boasts three leather sofas,

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Viewers underwent Nurse Ratched-style therapy before a showing of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and six double beds from which to enjoy a film. Everyone gets their own cashmere blanket too. Instead of a bucket of coke and a box of popcorn the size of a telephone box, the cinema’s bar offers gourmet cinema snacks as well as booze. Tickets aren’t cheap though: £18 for a regular armchair and £30 for a double bed.

If this still seems too conventional, The Rooftop Film Club may interest you. In the evening during the summer months, this

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Understandably, concentration is probably difficult to maintain when surrounded by half-naked 20-somethings. In hot tubs. On a roof.

If you are somehow still concerned about the lack of adventure in your cinematic habits, then perhaps you should consider registering with Secret Cinema. Calling themselves a “community of all that love cinema, and experiencing the unknown”, Secret Cinema organises truly extraordinary ways of seeing movies. A film (which is secret) is screened in an appropriate location (which is secret), on one date every month (which is secret). All is revealed in an email sent out shortly prior to the screening, along with a compulsory dress code.

Every Secret Cinema event is highly themed and audience members are very much involved in the occasion; viewers underwent Nurse Ratched-style therapy before the 2010 showing of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and in 2011, at a screening of Gillo Pontecorveo’s Battle of Algiers, filmgoers were interrogated by military personnel in abandoned underground tunnels beneath Waterloo train station. Safe to say, a strangers’ irritatingly loud mastication would have paled into unimportance on that occasion.

On cherwell.org this week...

ur online reviewers were left with polar opposites this week. On the one hand, John McDonagh’s latest film Calvary was found to be a pitch-black comedy that managed to ask searching questions of church and community in Ireland. Given five stars, this is a must-see.

Inspired by the partnership of director McDonagh and actor Brendan Gleeson, Cher-

well decided to look back at some of the great partnerships of Hollywood’s past and present. From Ford and Wayne to Brando and Coppola, remind yourself of the great duos that have shaped modern cinema. Finally, switching to a less poignant gear, The Love Punch, starring Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan, was amusing in parts but hardly a ground-breaking piece.

Review: Mad Men

t’s Valentine’s Day in the second episode of the seventh season of Mad Men. Surprising in a show that works so hard for contemporary authenticity, tethering its characters to moments in American history (we’ve had assassinations, “I Have a Dream,” and, by my count, a moon landing is coming before too long), “A Day’s Work” depicts a yearly event that feels detached from chronological associations. The episode is insular, and the story lines, which develop and resolve themselves within its 45 minutes, parallel those that have been brewing for some time.

A bunch of misinterpreted roses are the primary agitator of office politics. At the end of the season premiere, Peggy Olson, alone in her apartment, sank to her knees in tearful frustration, and this week fares little better.

Spotting the roses on her secretary’s desk, and assuming that they have been sent from Ted Chaough, she is made to realise her error. A day that begins with it embarrassment — courtesy of Ginsberg’s cutting quip that “she has plans, look at her calendar! February 14th: masturbate gloomily.” — ends with humiliation and shame, as Ted attempts to get in contact. We are reminded of Peggy’s arc from secretary to creative copywriter in earlier seasons as, now the joint-head of creative, she uses her power to unjustly blame her secretary in the way she so stubbornly resisted as a former underling.

It is the subsequent movement of secretaries that provides most of the show’s in-office story lines, which deftly address some of the continuing tensions. It isn’t just Peggy who wants a new secretary, but when Joan attempts to move Dawn to the position at reception, Bert Cooper pointedly objects.

Shirley and Dawn make light of their situation while making coffee, and in a perceptive moment call each other by their own names, mimicking the ignorance of t h e

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idnight Cowboy was one of Dustin Hoffman’s first major film roles and it established him as one of the greatest character actors in Hollywood. It is considered an American classic mainly for its unlikely, but mesmerising, central relationship of the cowboy-turned-gigolo Joe Buck, played

by Jon Voight, and a down-and-out cripple in New York, Hoffman’s Enrico ‘Ratso’ Rizzo.

What starts as a story of going to the big city in search of opportunity shortly becomes one about survival and the inhospitable side of urban life. And although it’s not far off 50 years old, Midnight Cowboy remains a deeply moving film about life for the less lucky.

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white characters that freely muddle the two. It is a great moment in an episode full of them, and demonstrates that the writing has not suffered despite AMC’s increasing curatorial presence. Dawn’s character in particular has been developed with patience over the last couple of seasons, and the sympathy she generates within the audience is finally rewarded

by Joan’s decision to promote her, as a form of quiet protest. Never has the show been more heart-warming than during Dawn’s tentative smile as she sits in her new office.

Though many things remain the same in the seventh season, the audience meets the provocations of new boss Lou Avery, who is definitely not the same as old boss Don. As Don’s pretence about still being in work is shattered by Sally’s trip to the office, the episode heads toward a tremendously assured emotional climax, where his attempts to challenge Sally about her whereabouts, but finds that he no longer has the trust and respect, or the power they bring, to extract answers from her. Kiernan Shipka’s acting is pitch-perfect, and there is something tender and disarming about her world-weary delivery that reflects on the actress’s abilities as much as it does the writing of her character.

The Don Draper of season seven is forced to accept that his new status demands more listening than talking. Another Valentine’s Day passes him by, and this time it is a reminder of his diminishing future career, Mad Men’s inexorable pace is finally overtaking him.

Matthew Main

Cherwell recommends...

om Hardy is known for playing muscular, full-throttle, seething men, from his underwritten role in The Dark Knight Rises to his mesmerising performance in Bronson. In his latest acting turn, however, as the eponymous anti-hero of Steven Knight’s Locke, Hardy gives a performance both subtle and nuanced. He carries the film, not only due to his engaging performance, but because he

has to; the entire 85 minutes of the film is set in a car, with only Locke on screen and simply the voices of other characters (his wife, his mistress, his boss) over the phone. Taking the idea of paired-back filmmaking to its extremes, Locke is an intense, character-driven film that takes an extremely simple premise (a man in a car with a phone) and makes it so much more than the sum of its parts.

28 | Music

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Cherwell | 02.05.14

Hudson Taylor: camcorder to Vevo Lucy Thompson chats to the Irish folk duo about the rise of the internet band

F tUnE-yArDs, Nikki Nack

t’s the third full-length release from experimental music project tUnE-yArDs, AKA Merrill Garbus. It’s a deliciously confusing and messy mixture of squeaky synths and world music drums.

From the dictaphone and GarageBand history of 2009’s BiRd-BrAiNs to the success of sophomore effort w h o k i l l in 2011, Garbus has never been one to shy away from exploring new sounds and layering them with commercial melodies. Nikki Nack is no exception.

On this record, Garbus drops the music completely on ‘Why Do We Dine On The Tots’, for a spoken interlude about Grandfather Lou and a Tupperware dish (and eating children.)

Two tracks later, she’s deployed a pseudo R&B beat that quickly becomes overtaken by barking sound effect samples. It’s like listening to a vocoder wonderfully explode and the result being converted into a DJ set. It may not be catchy, but it’s certainly a party.

Yet, for the lack of obvious catchiness and powerful lyrical content to fill the gaps, Garbus tells us “we wouldn’t let them take our soil,” on ‘Left Behind’ in a defiant message amongst the musical madness.

It’s high energy fun and fearlessness that is at the core of this record, but there’s no compromise on sophistication as a result.

Helen Thomas

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THUMPERS, Galore

his synthpop duo is the project of two former members of indie band Pull Tiger Tail and they have already been tipped for great things. In an age where electronic acts such as Bastille and Alt-J have broken into the mainstream and topped charts.

In keeping with their name, every song is characterised by heavy reverberated drum beats, which provide a solid backing to pronounced piano chords and interludes of mischievous synth motifs.

‘The Wilder Wise’ and ‘Unkinder (A Tough Love)’ stand out as meaningless yet feel-good pop gems, while the syncopated drums of ‘Come on Strong’ bring a new edge to the otherwise regular beats.

The mellower ‘Now We Are Sixteen’, a collaboration with ball-headliners Summer Camp, fails to capitalise on what could have been a powerful partnership. Rounding off the record are the four minute wonders ‘Running Rope’ and ‘Together Now’, which one can imagine being crowd-pleasers at any live show, with their loud choruses and triumphant synthesised trumpets, or being played on repeat in your local River Island.

Overall, when Galore is released in June, it will greet you like a summer fling: harmless, friendly and will hopefully leave you with no regrets. But neither will it leave you with a profound impression Silas Burgundy

rom Justin Bieber to Ed Sheeran, there’s a whole new group of pop artists breaking into the industry from DIY YouTube roots.

But the plethora of musicians putting music online makes it harder than ever to sift the talent. Six years after their first video was posted, Hudson Taylor, comprised of brother duo Harry and Alfie Taylor, have made their brand of happy-go-lucky harmonised folk-pop one of the hits. They’ve got powerful husky vocals, brilliantly catchy melodies, outrageously good looks and those Irish accents. You know you’re gonna go far when you’re the perfect recipe for a teenage crush. Recent single ‘Weapons’ marks their first big budget cinematic video, and September will see the release of their debut album. Cherwell chats to Alfie about the journey to this point.

Back in 2008, Harry and Alfie went on holiday and managed to generate an international fan base before they’d even considered making music together. “Harry had brought the guitar, which we took to the beach with us one night.

Then this group of about five or six German people asked us to play some cover songs. Everyday the crowd got bigger and bigger. There were Germans, Canadians, Americans, people from all over the place.”

And when it was time to go home? “They said they wanted to hear more of us singing, and requested we put stuff up on YouTube. The week after we got back we started to put up videos, first covers, then our own songs. That’s how the whole thing started.” Starting with a peroxideheavy camcorder cover of ‘I’m a Believer’, they busked online and on the streets of Dublin, and still do impromptu live performances. “It’s funny to see people’s reactions when we play on the Tube or train.”

The rise to popularity may not have intimi-

dated the duo, but when the band moved to London from Dublin two and a half years ago, they were not so confident. “Initially it was very difficult. We’d not really prepared ourselves and we had no money. I was only 17 and Harry was only 20. It was just the two of us; no family or friends, so it was pretty daunting.”

They drew on the experiences for their first EP, Battles. “That inspiration worked on every level. There was even a song about our next door neighbour who kept knocking because he got pissy that we were always playing music.

“When we first moved over we didn’t know what an A&R person was, or even a PR person or manager. We were in the deep end and had to

“An album stuck in limbo”

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nybody who has been even vaguely aware of Pixies’ steady release of EPs and their recent sudden lineup changes will know that they have had a crisis on their hands. And material was the least of their problems. Since reforming in 2004, the band have been touring constantly and have released a steady stream of EPs that have been greeted with mixed reception. The content of these EPs constitute the majority of Indie Cindy’s content, and so it was really a question of whether the finished item, the next great landmark following 1991’s Trompe le Monde, could defy expectations.

But, let’s face it, the tough truth is that a band that has been around for so long that even our parents are fans (and probably were so before Fight Club brought them to a new generation) ought to do one of two things: either reproduce the original sound so closely that they make everyone wonder where they’ve been, or to depart from the old and focus on bring their sound to a distinctive new level — a move towards the electronic is customary here.

Indie Cindy seems to be stuck in limbo between the two. Both the opener ‘What Goes

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On Indie Cindy, howls are raised, but no statement is made Boom’ and the title track try hard to recapture the bands unpredictable yet iconic sound.

Unfortunately, most songs fall far from their objective, ending up sounding overworked and ultimately unimpressive. On the other hand, tracks such as ‘Silver Snail’ are lyrically

Pixies, Indie Cindy

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learn really quickly.”

After a homemade background, the move to cinematic in the recent video for ‘Weapons’ seems like a big step for the pair, especially when the song’s background is so personal: “It was about a friend of mine and Harry’s who was breaching into a state of depression. We wrote the song for them.”

But it’s this foundation in the personal which makes the band stand out. It has been their project from the start, and that hasn’t changed now they’ve been signed. It’s been a six year journey, but now they’re really ready to bring their simple, natural talent to the offline music industry.

Where are they now?

Cherwell delves into the later careers of one-hit-wonders so you don’t have to

interesting, while ‘Blue Eyed Hexe’ evokes the good-old headbang-worthy, hellraising sound we know and love thanks to the impressive guitar riffs of Joey Santiago and drum work of David Lovering. The synth-heavy ballad ‘Andro Queen’, probably the most innovative of all the tracks, fails go anywhere interesting, instead awkwardly propping up Black Francis’ weathered vocals — it feels as though every artist is making a statement lamenting the roboticism of society these days.

Ultimately, for a band that built itself around a reputation for rockability with a slightly scrappy texture to their songs and bizarre lyrics, many howls are raised but no statement is made. Some of the songs are worth revisiting, but as a whole the album is somewhat mundane and under-whelming. It is probable that things could have gone much worse, but after such a great hiatus the band must still be asking themselves “where is my mind?”

Rushabh Haria

My first concert was a Westlife one.

I even have a commemorative 2001 bean filled bear to remind me of the occasion. It wasn’t something cool like Arctic Monkeys or a hazy recollection of Greenday at my first Reading festival. I was a full-blown, annual Wembley-stadium-gig-attending Westlife fan until the age of 12. So you can imagine my distress when, in 2011, they announced it would all be over after a Greatest Hits album and farewell tour. What a way to go.

However, the boys haven’t completely slipped through the dazzling net of stardom.

Nicky and Kian became celebrity C-Listers with the former’s performance on Strictly Come Dancing and the latter’s win on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!

Alas, it has not been a happy ending for all.

Frontman Shane announced almost immediately after the split that he was 18 million pounds bankrupt. But he’s bounced back with a solo career and appearance on X Factor, so there’s no stopping him now. That love for the music; sometimes you just can’t fight it.

Stage | 29

02.05.14 | Cherwell

Oxford’s Garden Show Luke Rollason gives us a guide to al fresco theatre in Trinity

Review: King Lear at the National Luke Barratt reviews Shakespeare’s tale of fortune and family

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rinity can be a tough term. It may be gloriously sunny outdoors, but if you’re in your first or final year you’re probably going to spend a significant proportion of it in a library. For everyone in between with nothing to do however, there are college garden shows. Lots of them. So many, in fact, that Christ Church seems to be staging two this year. But never fear, Cherwell is on hand to help you navigate this sea of mostly-Shakespeares with its hot tips for Trinity Term 2014. Joking aside, whilst the Bard does feature heavily on this year’s roster, what is clear is that the garden shows are as innovative, diverse and bonkers as ever. Read below for immersive theatre, eco-friendly gender-bending and Barry White in flight.

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The Hot Ticket Worcester: As You Like It (6th week)

Following last year’s brilliant Merchant of Venice performed on a lake (well, on the ground in front of the lake. And occasionally on boats) Worcester’s newest contribution to the garden show crop is an all-female production of As You Like It. Worcester has a long history of producing hugely successful garden shows that attract some of Oxford’s best actors, and this year looks to be no exception. What is doubly impressive about this production is director Charlotte Fraser’s fearless and untraditional approach to its heritage, combining gender-bending extreme even by Shakespeare’s standards with an eco-friendly production, staged in a hidden area of Worcester’s gardens. A guaranteed sell-out.

In their words: “Girls dressing as boys. Trees.”

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The Big One Brasenose: Brasenose Arts Week (3rd week)

Less a garden show, more a collection of them, the Brasenose Arts Week also happens to be the one of the University’s biggest college summer arts festival. This year includes a rehearsed reading of Lungs directed by Howard Coase, and UKIP: The Musical, which promises to expose “the reality of the imminent immigrant-fuelled apocalypse.” Cherwell recommends, however, turning up on the day and finding out what’s on offer for yourself.

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The Traditional One Christ Church: Othello (6th week)

They’ll be facing tough competition from As You Like It, but there’s plenty to suggest that this production will be able to hold its own. For a start, the near-constant presence last term of director Luke Howarth in Pret A Manger, script and notebook in hand, suggests that this is no mere amateur attempt but a real passion project. The team plan to play to the strengths of Christ Church’s Sixteenth-Century architecture as a backdrop for shadowy figures and silhouettes, whilst retaining the plot’s credibility by restoring the play to its roots. If you like your Shakespeare without frills (though possibly with ruffs) this may be the outing for you.

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The “Not A Garden” Show Magdalen: Timon of Athens (4th week)

A late-night (21.30 start), immersive production set inside the cavern of Magdalen’s medieval hall, inviting audiences to experience the opulence of Timon’s court sat at its candle-lit banqueting tables. The production promises a “non-traditional, dark and dream-like take on the notoriously mysterious play” that will unfold around as well as before its audience. Immersive theatre is even rarer than black comedies about suicide and tubas, and this certainly seems an intriguing prospect.

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The Enigmatic One St John’s: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (4th week)

The team behind this torch lit production are remaining tight-lipped about what audiences should expect come 4th Week, except for ensemble-driven physical theatre and a “Secret mid performance — think Barry White in flight”. Another attraction is the chance to see Hypnotist Film’s Alvin Yu and Frankie Murray Brown in their debut stage roles. You heard it here first.

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The Obligatory Performance of “She Stoops To Conquer” Christ Church: She Stoops To Conquer (4th week)

Another year, another production of Goldsmith’s classic. This production plans a “seductive” 1930s makeover for the Eighteenth-Century comedy, performed in the “highly exclusive” Cathedral Gardens.

In their words: “Love, disguise, theft and mischief.”

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Special Mention Mansfield: Father God (3rd week)

In their words: “Jesus crucified on the Gormley statue.” Gulp.

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oming to the National Theatre’s production of King Lear with no knowledge of the play, I was a little apprehensive.

Shakespeare, if not done well, can be obscure, no matter how used to the register you are.

My fears, however, were completely groundless. The cast did, from my humble point of view, complete justice to the Bard’s work, and produced three-and-a-half hours of gripping, intense, emotionally draining theatre.

The play is long. The decision to allow it such a running time cannot have been taken lightly, but it was definitely the right one. The sheer emotional weight of the play comes from its scale, and not just a temporal scale. The Olivier is a grand theatre, and the moving parts of the stage were used to full effect, with Simon Russell Beale (Lear) raised high off the ground on a thin walkway, his Fool clinging to his leg as he declaims to the raging tempest. By contrast, when the blinded Gloucester attempts to kill himself by jumping off what his son has fooled him into thinking is a steep cliff, the same walkway is raised only a few feet from the ground, to hilarious results.

This illustrates another extremely successful element of the production: the humour.

The Fool is notably unfunny, but this seems unavoidable — Shakespearean humour is notoriously lost on many modern audience.

Nevertheless, humour is present. On one occasion, it backfires slightly. The whole audience titters at the death of Burgundy, who overplays his ‘I die!’ line.

Weird as this is, in general the direction of Sam Mendes is superb. The atmosphere of the play is stifling, with Lear’s madness and his family’s plots overwhelming us with a sense of the inevitability of its tragic ending. And when it comes, what a tragic ending it is. Bodies are strewn across the stage as Tom Brooke’s brilliant Edgar bemoans the terrible scene The acting is truly astounding. Sam Troughton makes a brilliantly despicable Edmund,

Tommy Jolowicz Univ

whose villainy we guiltily enjoy in an Iago-like manner. Anna Maxwell Martin’s Regan moves stylishly from a sycophantic girl to a cruel seductress. But it is the old man himself who really steals the show. Simon Russell Beale appears completely immersed in his rôle, perfectly balancing little tics that illustrate his descent into madness and the booming soliloquies that make the play great. His speech to Gloucester on the folly of law and order is delivered with immense poignancy; you can feel the king struggling to hold his fragmenting mind together.

The Fool, too, is impressive. The special relationship between him and the king is played beautifully, as he easily gets away with saying things that others might have been killed for.

When Lear bludgeons him to death, the scene is so understated that the audience is for a moment as uncaring as the king himself.

It is difficult, without prior knowledge of the play, to evaluate how it fares with some of the more complex themes. What one does gain, apart from a sense of suspense is a sense of the overriding atmosphere. Lear’s descent into madness is a desperate struggle. Beale’s king goes kicking and screaming into the asylum at one point, a moment which is symbolic of a wider battle with his growing insanity. In the second half of the play, as he wanders around France (which on the set for some reason looks strangely like Africa) giving out flowers and spouting nonsense, we are reminded of his earlier plea that he have anything other than madness inflicted upon him.

In all, the play is a stunning showpiece, a loud spectacle. But it is also subtle. Undercurrents of feeling and trickery ebb and flow throughout, and all is brought to a satisfyingly brutal conclusion in the way that only a Shakespeare play can manage. The audience is left staggered.

The production is being broadcast by NT Live at the Phoenix Picturehouse on 11th and 15th May

Know Your Thesp Upon his arrival in Oxford, Tommy plunged himself into the drama scene, snogging his way around the stage (and sometimes his audience...) in the immersive production, “O Human Child”.

Since then, he has taken steps to becoming a comic hero for the masses, performing stand-up at Audreys and sketches in the Univ Revue, for which he also wrote.

After an understandable break for the trials of Mods, Jolowicz is back with his latest creation, “Unchained Felony - a sketch show within a sketch show” (can our brains cope with this man’s genius?) at the Burton Taylor Studio in 7th week. One not to be missed, we feel.

30 | Sport

Cherwell | 02.05.14

Oxonians ready for World Orienteering challenge Two Oxonians are selected to represent GB in the World Universities Orienteering Championships

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n orienteering, current World Champion Thierry Gueorgiou once said, “No matter how hard you work, no matter how great your talent is, your mind is the ultimate weapon. Most of the runners use it against themselves!” Bearing this in mind, you would hope that Oxford could produce some talented orienteers, and it would seem, with two athletes now selected for the World Universities Championships, that this is the case.

The two athletes, St. Anne’s student Peter Hodkinson, and recent Exeter graduate Alan Cherry, are now gearing up for the World Universities Orienteering Championships after successfully making the Great Britain squad for the event which will take place in the Czech Republic.

Cherry is taking advantage of a rule which allows the participation of any former student who has graduated within a year of the World Championships.

Both Alan and Peter were Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme scholars here, and are ranked among the best Orienteers in the coutnry, with Peter currently ranked 11th, and Alan 30th.

Peter, who was the Blackwell’s Scholar and nominated for Oxford University Sportsman of the Year 2013, formed part of the Oxford men’s team relay which finished 3rd at 2014 BUCS Championships in Leeds this February.

In 2013 he placed highly in both the varsity cross-country event and the varsity steeplechase. This will be Peter’s 2nd trip to a World University Championships after he travelled to Spain two years ago after a run of performances including 3rd in the Senior British Championships and 3rd in the BUCS Championships which led to his selection.

There is more Oxford interest too, as the team manager is former Sports Federation Administrator Edward Nicholas.

From the 12th to the 16th of August the Great Britain team will take part in a series of races, ranging from sprint races, to long distance

relays.

Taking place in the Czech region of Olomouc, the discipline requires both athletic and mental prowess, as athletes must be both quick across difficult terrain, and able to correctly locate the checkpoints which form the orienterring course.

Hodkinson told Cherwell, “This will be the second time I’ve raced for Oxford and Great Britain at the World University Orienteering Championships. My big targets are the Sprint and Relay events, in which I am hoping to win medals. Orienteering requires a mix of navigation skill and running speed, which I plan to continue to work on by training with the Athletics club throughout Trinity term.”

The event is held biannually, usually at a location in Europe, and in 2012 the championships were held in Alicante, Spain, and saw Sweden and Switzerland come away with the most successful medal hauls, whilst David Schorah was the most impressive British participant, taking top 20 finishes in several events.

To provide a short history of the sport, orienteering first gained popularity as a military exercise in 19th century Sweden. Then the term simply meant the crossing of unknown land with just a map and compass.

By the 1930s, orienteering was becoming popular in Europe as inexpensive and reliable compasses became available. After World War II, orienteering grew popular worldwide and in 1959, an international conference on orienteering was held in Sweden to discuss the formation of an orienteering committee. As a result, in 1961 the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) was formed and represented 10 European countries.

Orienteering is not just the preserve of elite athletes though, on Saturday 3rd May, this year’s orienterring cuppers is taking place in the vicinity of University Parks between 2:30pm and 4:30pm, so there is an opportunity for novices to perhaps appreciate the difficulty of this unheralded outdoor pursuit.

Tables and Results Varsity Karting Results

BUCS Women’s Tennis Midlands 1A

BUCS Women’s Rugby Premier South

BUCS Men’s Rugby League Premier South

Team

Gap

#

Team

P

GD

Pts

#

Team

P

GD

Pts

#

Team

P

GD

Pts

James Lambton

Oxford

--

1

Loughborough 2

9

74

25

1

Cardiff Met 1

9

522

45

1

Loughborough 1

8

370

24

2

Richard Morris

Cambridge

+6s

2

Warwick 1

9

72

24

2

Gloucestershire 1

7

356

30

2

Gloucestershire 1

8

210

21

3

Callum Hughes

Oxford

+11s

3

Oxford 1

10

8

14

3

Exeter 1

8

117

29

3

Nottingham Trent 1

10

5

15

4

Alistair Senior

Cambridge

+15s

4

Birmingham 1

10

-40

10

4

Oxford 1

10

-322

14

4

Oxford 1

9

-278

9

5

Sam Rebbettes

Oxford

+17s

5

Nottingham 1

10

-44

7

5

SW Pontypridd and Cardiff 1

10

-223

11

5

St. Mary’s 1

7

29

6

6

David Bickerstaffe

Oxford

+19s

6

Oxford 2

10

-70

4

6

Cardiff 1

10

-450

4

6

Northampton 1

10

-336

-6

7

Josh Burton

Oxford

+26s

8

Tibet Fontayne

Cambridge

+33s

9

Ed Bellamy

Cambridge

+34s

#

Team

P

GD

Pts

#

Team

P

GD

Pts

#

Team

P

GD

Pts

10

Scott Houghton

Oxford

+34s

1

Bath 1

10

94

30

1

Birmingham 1

10

107

24

1

Birmingham 2

10

38

187

11

James Ross

Cambridge

+35s

2

Oxford 1

10

-2

16

2

Loughborough 2

10

70

21

2

Birmingham 3

10

112

135

12

Robbie Stevens

Cambridge

+42s

3

Exeter 1

10

18

16

3

Nottingham 1

10

29

15

3

Warwick 1

10

5

133

13

Nathan Hinton

Oxford

+42s

4

Bournemouth 1

10

10

13

4

Nottingham Trent 1

10

-55

12

4

Oxford 1

10

-6

93

14

Doug Henderson

Oxford

+43s

5

LSE 1

10

-12

11

5

Oxford 1

10

12

12

5

Lincoln 1

10

-13

70

15

Ryan Jenkinson

6

Cardiff Met 1

10

-108

0

6

Bedford 1

10

-163

6

6

Nottingham 2

10

-36

32

#

Driver

1

Cambridge lapped

BUCS Men’s Tennis Premier South

BUCS Men’s Squash Midlands 1A

BUCS Women’s Netball Midlands 1A

02.05.14 | Cherwell

Sporting The Sporting Bio Rock Stars

This week Samuele Volpe pays tribute to one of snooker’s early stars.

Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins Former Snooker World Champion

T

he story goes that Alex Higgins kept himself alive over the final few weeks of his life solely by drinking Guinness. The man who made snooker a national event met a tragically sad end ravaged by cancer and alcoholism, but during the 1970s in particular, the man was a waistcoat-wearing force of nature.

He was known as ‘the hurricane’, and this epithet referred to his speed around the baize, but also to his volcanic temper. His many misadventures date back to even his early teenage years when he failed in an attempt at becoming a jockey in England ­— because he put on too much weight by drinking (Guinness again), and eating chocolate — being forced to return to Belfast. Then, during an early phase of his career, he was forced to move from house to house whilst squatting in Blackburn, because the street he was living in was being gradually demolished.

Over a lengthy snooker career, Hurricane Higgins found himself repeatedly on the wrong side of the game’s authorities, most notably in 1986 when, during a game, he decided to head-butt the referee.

1990 also saw a slew of unedifying incidents as, at a press conference to announce his retirement at the UK Championships, Higgins punched a tournament official.

To make things worse, this later indiscretion came hot on the heels of Alex’s now infamous threat to have fellow player Dennis Taylor shot, and consequently he was banned from the sport for the following season, retirement or no retirement.

On another occasion, after he won his second world title in 1982, Higgins is said to have interrupted a disciplinary meeting three times: First to express his contrition at his offence and deliver champagne to the World Snooker board, secondly to bring his infant baby into the room repeat his apology, and then thirdly to angrily ask, “Is there a fucking decision or what?” Needless to say the board then revelled in imposing a £1,000 fine…

His friendships with the likes of Oliver Reed and Rod Stewart were well publicised, and they, along with the drinking — he often laced milk with vodka in order to hide his boozing — would drive his then-wife Lynn to divorce. There was then a girlfriend who stabbed him three times in the late 1990s, and there remains an apocryphal story about battering another ex with a hairdryer too. Women did not find Alex Higgins easy to live with.

It’s easy to forget amidst the cocaine use and the craziness, but the man was a seriously impressive snooker player. Snooker’s only real current superstar, Ronnie O’Sullivan, said of Alex that, “He was one of the real inspirations behind me getting into snooker in the first place”, whilst in his recent memoir about life with Higgins, his contemporary John Virgo explained that, “He could lose a frame but do so in such a style that when he returned to his seat the applause would be such that you would have thought he had won it.”

In spite of his many foibles, Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins was vital to the sport of snooker, and his death left the world short of a true rock’n’roll personality.

Sport | 31

We need to talk about footballing violence Jamie Farmer wonders why footballers get away with criminal acts on the pitch

F

ootball has seemingly constant run-ins with the law — recently betting syndicates, World Cup bribes and racism have stormed the headlines. Yet there is another blotch on football’s record­ — one that seems to remain somewhat under the radar.

We live in a society where it is generally understood that everyone is (or ought to be) equal under the law. But you might be forgiven for questioning whether this principle is true when following the merry-go-round that is Premier League football. The number of incidents of serious violence during football matches is significant. Examples are not hard to come by: Cast your mind back to when the antics of Joey Barton and Luis Suarez received widespread condemnation.

Barton, a recent speaker at the Oxford Union, deliberately elbowed and kicked two opponents in the final game of the season against Manchester City. Describing the incident, he claimed on Twitter that, “the head was never gone at any stage, once I’d been sent off, one of our players suggested I should try to take one of theirs with me”.

Suarez was penalised by the FA for biting one opponent with a ten-match ban for violent conduct and racially abusing another, gaining an eight match ban and a £40,000 fine.

In both instances, the FA stressed the importance of the players acting as role models. But surely these acts go beyond merely setting a bad example? Both players received fines and lengthy bans from the Football Association, but how is it acceptable that these actions did not receive further attention from the police?

Such behaviour, were it to be committed in any other situation could lead to an arrest.

Barton could potentially have been charged with battery, Suarez with battery and racial harassment respectively.

There are some defences for such actions. For example, you can consent to a minor assault (although it would be surprising to hear that Ivanovic was actively consenting to Suarez’s bite). Also, some might venture to suggest that the transgressions committed in professional sport are an accepted part of participation – it

is expected that there may be a risk of injury, that someone might ‘lose their head’ and go beyond what is acceptable ‘in the heat of the moment’. Admittedly we do have to seriously question whether it is desirable to get the police involved in all instances of violence. Indeed certain sports, such as boxing, are perfectly legal despite the high possibility of serious injury and even death.

However, boxing is a special case, and transgressions on a football pitch where a player deliberately performs a dangerous act are very much outside the rules of the game.

Indeed, footballers have not been immune in the past. Former Everton striker Duncan Ferguson was given a 3 month sentence for a head-butt whilst playing for Rangers in 1994.

But there are many more cases which have not been perused. Roy Keane’s assault on Alf-Inge Haaland is

perhaps the best known. In his autobiography, Keane recalled “I’d waited long enough… I fucking hit him hard…the ball was there I think…

Take that you c***”. The resultant injury potentially shortened Haaland’s career.

Could it be that the reluctance to charge footballers is creating a sub-culture of violence in football? There have been some recent highprofile incidents behind-the-scenes. There have been two such incidents at Swansea’s training ground this season, one to which the police were called. In response, manager Garry Monk claimed “you get it every now and then but that’s because they want to win”.

It is understandable why wronged players rarely press charges. Team unity is considered paramount, whilst lengthy legal processes can harm careers. Managers often justify poor conduct by citing the “passion” of the players, as if violent conduct is acceptable on such a pretext.

Yet even if one can understand why incidents behind closed doors go unreported, it does not follow why those in broad daylight in front of 30,000 spectators are ignored.

The inaction of the police and the attitudes of those defending players damages the integrity of the sport, if football is going to gain some respect, surely it is time to address this problem.

Toulon and Saracens are finalists for a reason Oli Johnson-Munday discusses the consequences of last weekend’s Heineken Cup semi-finals

A

midst football fans charging around with abacuses trying to figure out who will win the league if X beat Y, some rugby has been going on. This weekend saw, in its last year, both Heineken Cup semi-finals: Saracens vs Clermont Auvergne and Toulon vs Munster, the former being a spectacular romp, the latter being pretty dull.

Two years since Clermont Auvergne beat Saracens in the same competition 22-3, in a match described as men against boys, the tables were turned. A much beefier and more aggressive Saracens humiliated their French guests, at a half empty Twickenham.

Clermont are famously undefeated in 76 home games, but, fulfilling French rugby’s stereotype, they are a very different beast in away games. In fact, there was nothing intimidating about their performance, and without injured skipper Aurelien Rougerie, they looked toothless and slightly confused on the end of a 46-6, 6 try hammering.

Pundits pointed to the “Southern Africans” of Saracens as having a particularly large influence: a reference to flair favourite Schalk Brits, and Jacques Burger, the Namibian captain.

Brits continues to ignore the traditional front row preserves of static pushing, being portly and sporting intimidating beards by showcasing twinkling toes and soft hands normally found only in the delicate world of the backs.

Burger played like Lewis Moody if Lewis Moody had been a better player, throwing himself around relentlessly. The gain line was Burger’s from start to finish, and even Sivivatu and the other experienced Clermont players looked out of ideas.

The most annoying man in world rugby, Chris Ashton, was, f r u s t r a t i n g l y, on very good form.

He isn’t the biggest, quickest, or m o s t elusive r unner, but he is in the right place at the right time a lot of the time. He bagged a brace and created a third for Chris Wyles, and even man-

aged to restrict himself to a toned down swan dive.

Upsettingly for England fans who remember various defensive failings from Ashton, he will probably be on the plane to New Zealand with England as a result. Personally, as a Welsh fan I’m delighted at the prospect of Ashton reclaiming his England place.

More exciting, from an English point of view, are Stuart Lancaster’s talks with Steffon Armitage, probably the stand out English back row of the last few years. Lancaster may look to make an exception to his no foreign-based players rules. He is big, strong, scary and very mobile for a man that looks like he is more of a Hassan’s than an Itsu customer. Chris Robshaw should start worrying.

Toulon predictably beat waning European giant Munster through Jonny Wilkinson’s predictable boot, although he did miss one kick, which was probably the most interesting thing to happen in the match. Simply, he remains very good at kicking, which is good, I suppose.

Toulon’s 7 penalties and a drop goal trumped Munster’s converted try and 3 penalties, 24-16.

The midfield oomph of Bastareaud was telling, and Toulon’s stuttering effort seemed to overpower Munster’s stuttering effort.

Reportedly Toulon had already booked accommodation in Cardiff for the final before the semi-final. Unfortunately, I think Wilkinson and his highly salaried team mates can probably start to decide which champagne to ice too.

Unless Burger & co can keep Toulon behind the gainline, and nullify the threats from big lumps Armitage and Bastareaud, the career of Jonny Wilkinson will end on a high.

Sport

INSIDE: Jamie Farmer talks football and law Oli Johnson-Munday on European rugby

Oxford race to victory in Karting varsity Antony Houghton summarises Oxford University Motor Drivers Club’s victory over the Tabs

A

s the Oxford Karting team arrived at the Rye House Raceway, a feeling of excitement was palpable. The team was coming off the back of an extremely successful season in the British Universities Karting Championship, where the A team had achieved 14th place, its best result since 2008, and the B team its

best ever result at 26th.

Cambridge meanwhile had finished the season 22nd, although their captain Richard Morris did manage to bring home a race victory in the first round at Buckmore Park. The excitement was multiplied at the unveiling of the brand new Varsity Motorsport Cup, bought

to replace the old one which seemingly went missing several years ago. Quickly though, all of the drivers took to the circuit to take advantage of the practice session, some to learn the circuit for the first time, others to get to grips with the new, grippier tyres being used on the Club100 karts.

These tyres certainly seemed to go down well across the field, with the differences in lap times being only a few seconds, something incredible given the difference in experience across both teams. When the hour of practice time was over, a short safety briefing led into the qualifying session where there were ten minutes for the drivers to go out and set their best possible lap time.

Oxford managed to lock out the front row of the grid, with Balliol’s James Lambton on pole, closely followed by the club president, Sam Rebbettes of Worcester College, but Cambridge’s Richard Morris was right behind them on row two. The race got off to a messy start, with Oxford’s Doug Henderson being taken out in an incident at the first corner, and a black flag being awarded to Sam Rebbettes for jumping the start. Oxford driver Matt Diffey also received a black flag for colliding with another driver and knocking them off the track.

At the front, James Lambton was beginning to pull out a lead over Richard Morris, and further back a fierce battle was being fought with the gap between eighth and eleventh being less than two seconds. Oxford’s Scott Houghton managed to steal ninth place from Cambridge’s Ed Bellamy with three laps to go, but lost it again when the pack got held up by one of the much slower back markers.

The chequered flag fell, and Oxford’s James Lambton took first, leading Cambridge’s Richard Morris by six seconds, with Oxford’s Callum Hughes taking third place. With the top fifteen drivers scoring points according to the MotoGP scoring system, and Oxford receiving a ten point penalty for two black flags they received during the race, the teams waited anxiously for the race organisers to tally up the results.

Finally, the announcement was made; Oxford had won by 72 points to Cambridge’s 58. It was a truly stunning drive from James Lambton, leading the race from start to finish, special mentions also going to Sam Rebbettes for the fastest lap of the race at 41.832 seconds, and Scott Houghton for climbing an incredible eight places to finish tenth. The Oxford team made up for last year’s loss in style, and they look forward to competing in the BUKC in June.

Oxford’s biggest sporting event about to kick off

Jon Hubbert explains the attractions of the soon to begin Oxford croquet extravaganza

O

ver the coming week, Oxford will see the much awaited Croquet Cuppers competition begin in earnest. Perhaps surprisingly, in terms of participation Croquet is the biggest sport in Oxford, with close to 500 teams entering across the University. As such it is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Oxford sporting calendar. I mean, who hasn’t dreamt of sipping champagne in the sun, mallet in hand?

The competition is played in a knockout format in which each round consists of two pairs of matches, with the overall winner progressing. The winning team is the one which either wins both of the matches in that round, or wins the most points, in the event that each side wins a pair game.

The game itself is a tactical one as each pair takes it in turns to strike their two balls, and it is as much to do with stopping your opponent gaining any points as it is to do with scoring yourself. There are six hoops on a croquet pitch with a peg in the centre, and the ball must follow a specific path going through each hoop twice before hitting the peg to end the game.

A point is gained for every time a ball goes through the hoop (so there are 12 points to be

gained per ball from the hoops), and a final point is gained for hitting the peg, hence the winning team in a pairs match is the first to reach 26 points.

However, a roquet can change the state of a game in the blink of an eye. If your ball hits another, on your next turn your ball is placed in contact with the one that was hit, and you can then strike it as hard as you like.

So you can be just next to that final hoop, on the cusp of victory, when you are sent to the boundary at the other end of the pitch!

Last year’s victors were New College 2, captained by William Mycroft but with such a massive amount of competition, this is one tournament which could be won from anywhere in the draw. Teams like last year’s surprise package, Exeter 3, who are captained by Exeter’s Croquet Commisioner Thomas Taylor and are now seeded, will be determined to break the New hegemony.

Cherwell Sport will bring you updates as the tournament reaches its latter stages, but there can surely be no better way to spend a sunny afternoon than by taking control of a mallet and winning a fiercely-competitive game of croquet!