0th Week Hilary 2022

22 books to read in 2022

Vaccine inequality: Disparity around the world

The British higher education system: Rigorous or rigid?

In conversation with former President of Poland Lech Wałęsa

0th Week Friday, 14th January 2022 cherwell.org Vol. 294 No. 1 Independent since 1920

Christ Church Board of Governors warned of jail time Isaac Ettinghausen reports.

The Charity Commission has warned Christ Church’s board of governors that they could face jail time if they mislead inquiries into an ongoing dispute with the dean.

The Very Rev Martyn Percy, dean since MT14, is at the centre of the conflict; since a 2018 dispute over his pay, the college’s governing body of 65 dons has been attempting to remove him. Following his exoneration at a 2019 internal tribunal, Percy has now been suspended pending a second tribunal over claims that he stroked a woman’s hair in the college’s cathedral a year ago.

Both the police and the Church of England have dismissed the sexual assualt case, and in December the college announced that it was setting up a medical board to determine whether he was mentally fit to continue as dean.

The dispute shows few signs it is reaching a conclusion; last July, mediator Bill Marsh, who has resolved disputes in the Middle East and Ireland, admitted defeat in an attempt to

reconcile the two sides. The College’s legal spending has run into the millions – even without the reimbursement of the dean’s own legal fees, a measure which the Charity Commission has recommended.

The Commission, which regulates educational institutions with charitable status such as Oxford’s colleges, has become increasingly concerned over the legal fees incurred over the course of the controversy. In a letter to Christ Church’s board of governors, the Commission’s director of regulatory services Helen Earner warned the body that it was a criminal offence to knowingly provide false or misleading information or to suppress, conceal or destroy documents.

The Times reported that “several dons are understood to be worried about their legal position and question whether they have been kept fully informed”.

Earner also complained that the minutes of meetings had been unnecessarily redacted, and that the body had failed to provide sufficient documentation on the financial impact of the feud, demanding a breakdown on the college’s annual spending including fees paid

to PR firms.

Late last month, attempts by the University’s chancellor were met by hostility on the part of the board of governors. Lord Patten of Barnes, the last governor of Hong Kong and Oxford’s chancellor since 2003, co-wrote a letter to the governing body on 20th December asking to be invited to its next meeting to discuss the dispute.

In the letter Patten, along with vice-chancellor Professor Louise Richardson, expressed concerns over the conflict, worrying that it was having a ‘deleterious’ effect on the University’s image.

Professors Dirk Aarts, Kevin McGerty, and Sarah Foot, the governing body’s leaders, known as the Censors, replied two days later, saying that they would meet with Patten and Richardson with positive updates. This was following a fractious internal email correspondence, between the censors and Martin Townsend, the former editor of OK! Magazine and the Sunday Express ...

Image Credit: Meraj Chhaya / CC BY 2.0

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Oxford SU continues boycott of NSS Maggie Wilcox reports.

The Oxford Student Union has launched their annual boycott of the National Student Survey.

Since 2005, the NSS asks final year university students in the UK about their education, work and wellbeing experiences every year. The anonymous survey, under the guidance of the Office for Students (a third-party regulator of higher education sponsored by the Department of Education), includes questions on student learning, career, internships and placement supports, and general wellbeing.

A notable absence from this year’s survey, compared to the past two, are questions relating to how COVID-19 has affected stu-

dents’ experiences.

Results from the NSS inform the commercially-produced University League Tables and are shared with universities and the public.

A main point of contention in the past, and the motivator for starting the boycott in 2017, was the survey’s links to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Historically, the TEF could have permitted higher performing universities to charge above the £9250 fee cap.

In part due to the success of boycotts across the UK, mostly in Russell group universities, the TEF is no longer linked to fees.

Furthermore, a tuition freeze was put in place by the government in 2019. However, Safa Sadouzi, SU VP Access and Academic Affairs, notes that “while the future of government policy remains so unclear, we must send a strong message that we will not take

part in this marketised point-scoring until we have more clarity on the future of the higher education policy.”

The SU also claims that competition fostered by the survey and league tables encourages universities to fund quick-fix solutions in order to improve perceived student satisfaction without tackling root causes. As well, past data has raised a variety of questions, notably regarding the survey’s negative appraisal of minority academics and innovative teaching.

A successful boycott of the NSS requires fewer than 50% of a university’s final year students to respond to the survey, and less than ten members of each course. This year, the SU hopes that Oxford will meet this target for the fourth time.

As Sadouzi states, taking part in the boycott is quite simple: “Just ignore the emails

and phone calls from [theNSS] and encourage others to do the same”.

Those who have already filled out the survey can still rescind their responses by emailing the organizers of the NSS.

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NEWS

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What’s inside?

24. Building belonging in both places: Learning to adapt to different paces of life at home and at university

3. Old Boris Johnson essay argues for return of the Parthenon Marbles 4. Transforming Silence: Changing Oxford’s sexual assault policy

30. The Ashes and the place of cricket in 2022

7. Back to the future: Putin’s return to classical geopolitics 9. Business Predictions for 2022 5. Ashmolean launches new podcast

Continued from page 1 ... who is offering PR advice as part of the Pagefield PR agency.

Sarah Foot, the censor representing the cathedral, wrote that “while we have to say we are happy to meet [Patten and Richardson], I am worried how The Times will spin this as further evidence that college isn’t properly governed and outside authorities are circling with intent”.

Aarts, the senior censor and a chemistry professor, wrote that “it is none of their business… at the meeting we can explain that we are dealing with an investigation of sexual harassment (takes five mins) and they may then make suggestions. Are they really going to suggest we don’t investigate?”

Townsend warned of the PR risks of an open conflict with Patten, describing him as “a still-popular figure who is well known to far more of the general public than Martyn Percy”. He continued that “It is to our advantage there is still only limited public interest in this dispute” and that “picking a fight with Chris Patten would change that.”

Junior censor McGerty suggested that a dispute may “severely” damage the reputations of Patten and Richardson, the latter of whom is leaving Oxford next January to become president of the Carnegie Corpora-

14. Music: In conversation with Manzél

tion, an educational philanthropic fund.

McGerty continued: “Were Richardson visibly to be on the wrong side of how sexual harassment was portrayed in the press, I would not be surprised if her position at Carnegie evaporated and although you [Townsend] say that Patten is well thought of, none of our undergraduates were born when he was governor of Hong Kong, none of them remember a time when he was an ‘acceptable Tory’ in the New Labour era, so to them he is a dinasour [sic] who has been chancellor of the university for essentially all their lives. Appearing on the wrong side of how sexual harassment should be handled would be pretty humiliating for them.”

Rev Jonathan Aitken, an ally of Percy and former government minister, told Cherwell: “I welcome the belated involvement of the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor. At present it looks as though they are going to be blocked and snubbed by the Censors…But if they are allowed to address the entire 65 strong Governing Body and show bold leadership then the engagement of the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor could be a game changer.”

Martyn Percy, the Censors, Martin Townsend, the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor were approached for comment.

32. Editor’s Corner: Interview with Michael Crick

News Shorts Oxford enters Univision The Student Union has entered Surrey SU’s ‘Univision’ talent contest. The deadline for audition submissions is midnight on Sunday 16th. Details can be found on the SU’s Facebook.

£50m in funding for new vaccine research centre Following a donation from Serum Life Sciences, the Poonawalla Vaccine Research Centre is due to be built on the Old Road Campus. It is Oxford’s largest ever donation for vaccine research.

Deleted Eternals scene filmed in Oxford Scenes from Marvel’s 2021 blockbuster were filmed in the Natural History Museum. Filming took place in January 2020 behind closed doors.

NEWS

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Oxford researchers use magnets and radio waves to diagnose cancer Matthew Clark reports on the development of new methods of cancer diagnosis at Oxford University.

A team from Oxford have pioneered a technique for diagnosing cancer in early stages with a 94% success rate. It takes advantage of the abnormal metabolic fingerprint of cancerous cells to detect them before it’s too late.

The University of Oxford study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, deals with subtle early symptoms that are too similar to minor ailments to be diagnosed effectively.

Our current NHS guidelines for treatment referral were designed around common organ-specific cancers with noticeable symptoms such as breast lumps. However, many cancers present with non-specific problems such as fatigue and weight loss so they are very difficult to diagnose.

The newly developed method of Biofluid Metabolomic testing is an inexpensive and non-invasive test that only requires a small blood sample.

The characteristic feature of cancer cells is their inability to regulate growth and division, leading them to grow into a tumor. Different types of cancer excrete many elevated waste products that are different to healthy cells. These include Beta-hydroxybutyrate, Acetylneuraminic acid and good old fashioned salt.

Traditional clinical diagnosis techniques are unable to detect these small differences until it’s too late, but the new NMR technique has managed to effectively do so.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a spectroscopic technique that uses strong magnetic fields to determine a molecule’s 3D structure. It works on the basis that atoms within the molecule have a positively charged nucleus – surrounded by negatively charged electrons.

When a molecule is trapped within the field of an NMR machine, there are two possible positions for the nuclei to adopt. They can

either align with the field, or flip around to directly oppose it. The easier ‘lower energy’ state for the nuclei is to be aligned so that’s how they all behave at first. Nuclei are able to flip from the comfortable aligned state into unaligned state, but only when they are supplied with enough energy. This is supplied in the form of electromagnetic radio waves.

The exact energy required for this flip to occur depends on the structure of the molecule. The more electrons each part of the molecule has whizzing around it, the greater the ‘shielding effect’ on the nuclei will be.

The more shielded the nuclei, the higher the energy (and frequency of radio wave) that is needed to flip its magnetic field.

The machine produces a spectrum of radio waves with differing frequencies and records exactly which frequencies are absorbed by molecules within the sample and their relative abundance. This technique is incredibly sensitive – able to pick up tiny amounts of obscure metabolites that would be impractical to test for with traditional methods.

Another brilliant part is the spectrum from cancer patients vs healthy controls can serve as a database for quick and efficient diagnosis in early stages.

Samples from 300 patients with concerning symptoms of cancer, such as fatigue and weight loss, were analysed. They were recruited through the Oxfordshire Suspected CANcer (SCAN) pathway, and a correct diagnosis was returned in 94% of cases.

In a press release from the University, Dr Fay Probert, lead researcher of the study from the University of Oxford, says: “This work describes a new way of identifying cancer. The goal is to produce a test for cancer that any GP can request. We envisage that metabolomic analysis of the blood will allow accurate, timely and cost-effective triaging of patients with suspected cancer, and could allow better prioritisation of patients based on the additional early information this test provides on their disease.”

Image Credit: Matthew Clark

An essay arguing for the return of the Parthenon Marbles by the former Oxford Unionpresident Boris Johnson has been revealed for the first time.

The essay, titled ‘Elgin goes to Athens – The President marbles at the Grandeur that was (in) Greece’, was written in 1986 for the Oxford Union magazine, Debate. Journalists from Athens newspaper Ta Nea found the article in an Oxford library and have made it public.

21-year-old Johnson notes the complex issues concerning the artefact’s location, stating ‘they are on the one hand the passionate national feeling of the Greek people, and on the other the sophistry and intransigence of the British Government’. However, he later expresses that the British government should ‘restore to Greece the sculptural embodiment of the spirit of the nation.’

Anvee Bhutani, SU President, underscores the importance of participating in the boycott, as it “not only affects [current students] but also those who may become students in the future”. The SU highlights that there are already a variety of alternative surveys at the University, department and college-level, including the Oxford Internal Student Barometer. Furthermore, other platforms allow students to voice their concerns and provide feedback on their university experience, including the SU itself, common rooms and subject reps.

The survey closes near the end of April and results are typically published in July. It is at this stage that the SU will see whether they have met the 50% threshold and completed a successful boycott.

On the web Vaccine Head Speaks Out Oxford Vaccine Center head: “We cannot vaccinate the planet every six months.”

Yan Chan

The Bike Project A new project is seeking to give bicycles to refugees.

Joshua Low

Old Boris Johnson essay argues for return of the Parthenon Marbles Charlotte Keys reports on a newly-revealed essay by Johnson.

Continued from page 1

The Parthenon Marbles, a collection of sculptures created under the supervision of Phidias, are also known as the Elgin Marbles after the man who arranged for their transportation to England.

Lord Elgin argued that the Marbles were authorised by an Ottoman edict to be taken to England at the turn of the 19th century.

However, no such official document has been found. Elgin later sold them to the British government in 1816 for £35,000, a controversial decision in Parliament even at the time. They have been located in the British Museum since their acquisition.

The debate over the Marbles gained momentum in the 1980s after the Greek minister of culture, Melina Mercouri, campaigned for their return. In those same years Johnson’s article revealed that he was sympathetic to the Greek campaign, hosting Mercouri at an Oxford Union debate on the matter. The chamber voted in favour of the Marbles’ return to Greece.

The British government has consistently disagreed with the Greek government over

the issue, arguing in 1983 against the return of the Marbles because the ‘transaction had been conducted with the recognised legitimate authorities of the time’. The current prime minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and culture minister, Lina Mendoni, have said that they are ‘stolen’.

Classics student Boris Johnson seems to have agreed with that view; however, as a politician he has rebuffed the Greek government’s request. In March, Johnson said that “the UK government has a firm longstanding position on the sculptures, which is that they were legally required by Lord Elgin under the appropriate laws of the time and have been legally owned by the British Museum’s trustees since their acquisition.”

Johnson, who wrote that “the Elgin Marbles should leave this northern whisky-drinking guilt-culture, and be displayed where they belong: in a country of bright sunlight and the landscape of the Achilles, ‘the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea’”, has since altered his stance and has aligned himself with the general opinion of Whitehall.

New Year’s Honours

7 Oxford University Members were awarded honours in 2022.

Meg Lintern

Brasenose Archaeology A new build at Brasenose has unearthed new archaeological finds.

Daniel Moloney

NEWS

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Transforming Silence: Changing Oxford’s sexual assault policy Pieter Garicano reports on the group leading this change.

CW: Sexual assault.

Led by (ex-)Oxford undergraduates and current graduate students across six faculties and sixteen colleges, the new campaign aims to be both a space to support survivors and a movement that prevents further sexual violence. They are perhaps best known to Oxford students through their instagram account @transformingsilence, which has accumulated 800 followers in a matter of weeks. In a wide-ranging conversation, Cherwell spoke to some of the key students involved with the movement.

Madeleine Foote (1st year DPhil in History, St Antony’s), Mary Newman (1st year DPhil in Medieval & Modern Languages, Trinity), Mia Liyanage (Balliol student 2016-2019 and one of the original complainants that sparked the Al-Jazeera investigation) and Lara Scheibli (PPE graduate, Women’s Rep at the Philosophy department) all met through what they called Oxford’s “whisper network” in the wake of the fall-out from the Degrees of Abuse investigation. Kaelyn Apple, another of the key complainants in the al-Jazeera investigation, is also involved in the group, but could not attend the meeting.

Mary told Cherwell that: “I simply tweeted, as Academic Twitter and Oxford Twitter blew up, how [I could] help, and I met Madeleine”. Madeleine, who had matriculated in 2011, had recently returned to pursue a

DPhil. To her horror, Peter Thompson, one of the key focuses of the al-Jazeera report, was the same Fellow she had heard rumors about a decade earlier. When the investigation broke, she too decided that it was time to act.

Linking up with other survivors and activists via acquaintances, social media and other channels, they soon decided to form an egalitarian collective which would both provide an effective support group to help victims achieve justice and prevent further sexual violence from happening. Madeleine said: “In the decade I was gone, the world changed. MeToo happened. And when I came back, it was clear MeToo hadn’t happened here, at the University of Oxford”.

Towards the end of Michaelmas, they started to get together, and decided to launch a staff-student symposium and produce a report on sexual violence before the end of Hilary Term.

The name of the symposium – Silence will not protect us – is a deliberate homage to Audre Lorde’s Your Silence Will Not Protect You. In it, Lorde deals with the relationship between language, action and violence. But, the group says, they want to make clear that “this is not a staff-versusstudent issue. This is one of solidarity and support.” They went on to clarify that “our work is as much aimed at staff as at students. Over half of those who have expressed interest to attend our conference are staff”. The projected line-up for the event includes Professor Sundari Anitha, Dr Anna Bull, Professor Deborah Cameron, Professor Elizabeth Frazer, Dr Mara Keire and Professor Alison Phipps.

Madeleine clarified that their criticisms of the process boiled down to three key

issues. These were transparency (“the University does not provide centralised statistics on sexual violence, and many colleges ignored our FOIs”), individualisation (“there seems to be no willingness to look at broader patterns rather than a simple case-by-case approach”) and a lack of clarity in terms of responsibility: “Every time it’s different processes, with different rules and demands. Sometimes it is the discretion of the department, sometimes the University and often it is just the college that is responsible. This can be incredibly hard for victims to navigate.”

Their calls for change go beyond the process that kicks in motion after sexual assault is reported. They want to see changes in what is considered inappropriate behaviour. According to their own research, only one university (UCL) completely bans romantic staff-student relationships.

Towards the end of the conversation, Cherwell asked how they personally experienced the response.

“The most common response to our work has been surprise. Most students and staff don’t know that Oxford has the highest number of staff-on-student and staff-onstaff allegations of sexual misconduct.“ “Most do not know that only four colleges (Linacre, Oriel, Regent’s Park, St Hugh’s) ban professors from pursing romantic and sexual relationships with students.”

“Most do not know that even if a student files a formal complaint of sexual misconduct against a member of staff, almost no college has a policy that obligates them to investigate before dismissing the complaint.” ”After surprise, the next response is anger. And usually, after people get angry,

they are ready to do something.”

The symposium Silence Will Not Protect Us is expected to be held on the 25th of February.

Oxford University and Peter Thompson have been approached for comment.

70% of 2022 offers made to state- Oxford Farming Conference educated students tackles sustainable farming in online session

Estelle Atkinson reports on latest admissions statistics for 2022.

The University has announced that for the 2022 incoming class of students more than 69% of offers to UK applicants were made to students educated in the state sector.

In last year’s admissions cycle, state school students received 68.7% of all offers, with 69.1% receiving them the year before.

The percentage has remained consistently higher since state school students constituted 59.1% of offer-holders in 2016.

The University announced that it ‘remains committed to offering fair access to all candidates, and early indications are that admissions from under-represented social groups continues to grow in line with last year’s figures.’ Last year, the state school admission intake hit a record high of 68.6%.

The University’s Opportunity Oxford scheme - which offers students from underrepresented backgrounds the means through which to transition to study at Oxford, including a residential stay in the lead up to their first term - is now entering its third year. Offers to the scheme have increased by 36.5% and have been made to 228 students.

This news comes as more than 3600 students received offers of places for undergraduate study on Tuesday, the 11th of January. This is 2.6% more offers than were made

last year, and means that 38% of the more than 20,000 students interviewed received offers.

The University said: “with strong competition for places at Oxford, the University would like to congratulate all successful candidates celebrating their offers today.

With early figures showing that applications averaged almost seven per place - a figure that is far higher in some subjects - all candidates who proceeded to the interview stage in the admissions process should be proud of their hard work and achievement.”

This was the second year that interviews took place online.

Humza Jilani reports on this year’s conference.

The 2022 Oxford Farming Conference, titled Road to Resilience, was held online from 5 January to 7 January. Industry leaders, activists, and politicians convened to discuss new approaches to building sustainable and resilient farming practices amid deepening economic and environmental challenges in the United Kingdom and globally.

UK Agricultural Ministers, including George Eustice, England’s Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and his counterparts from Wales and Northern Ireland, laid out their plans for government support for new approaches to farming.

The programme also included a session on the opportunities in farming and the food economy to contribute to the United Kingdom’s net-zero commitments. Farmers find themselves in the middle of emissions debates, with climate change poised to bite into crop yields and the agricultural sector contributing up 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions from the United Kingdom in 2019.

The conference also tackled lessons that pandemic-related supply chain squeezes carried for the future of global farming practices. The global agriculture trade keeps

agriculture economically viable, according to participants, and new approaches to keep open supply lines and trade routes are vital in times of disruption.

Specific features of the programme included a lecture entitled ‘Can I have some more: what’s on the menu for 2030?’ a talk from the OFC Honorary President, HRH The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, and a conversation between Dame Ellen MacArthur and OFC Co-Chair Sarah Mukherjee MBE on navigating towards a nature positive food system.

The session was conducted entirely online due to fears about the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom. The decision was not an easy one.

Joint Co-Chairs Barbara Bray and Sarah Mukherjee said: “whilst we are confident that the measures we had put in place to safeguard delegates were robust, the groundswell of concern nationally and internationally, combined with the lack of clarity about regulations likely in the weeks ahead, made this decision inevitable.”

“The OFC is in good financial health, but we must face the fact that this decision will create a very large deficit for us, as a small charity that dates back to the 1930s. However, the decision is the right one to make.”

Tickets this year were priced at £45. More then 1,000 delegates virtually attended the three day event. The conference has been held annually in Oxford since 1936.

NEWS

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Bridgerton’s Adjoa Andoh named Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor

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Meg Lintern reports on the newest visiting professor of Contemporary Theatre.

The Chair of Contemporary Theatre was founded through a grant from the Mackintosh Foundation at St Catherine’s College. It aims to encourage interest and participation in contemporary theatre throughout the wider university.

Andoh has directed and acted in a wide range of television productions. She starred in Doctor Who and Casualty, and also appeared as Lady Danbury in the lockdown hit Bridgerton, for which she was nominated NAACP Outstanding Supporting Actress in a TV Drama.

Her accolades on the stage are equally impressive. Adjoa Andoh is an Associate Artist at the RSC, where she has played Portia in Julius Caesar, Ulysses in Troilus & Cressida, and Helen of Troy in The Odyssey. She has also performed leading roles at the National, such as Serafina Pekkala in His Dark Materials, and at the Globe, where she conceived and co-directed Richard II. The Visiting Professorship was inaugurated

by Stephen Sondheim in 1990, and has since been held by an impressive array of theatrical figures, including Arthur Miller, Sir Ian McKellen, Diana Rigg, and Patrick Stewart.

The Professorship seeks to increase students’ exposure to individuals who have had a significant impact on contemporary theatre, and even contemporary culture. Adjoa Andoh certainly ticks this box: Bridgerton was streamed by 63 million households worldwide, and as the second season approaches, the involvement of one of its stars in the University will bring a hint of Hollywood to the Dreaming Spires.

Discussing her new role, Adjoa said: “Sir Cameron has enriched our vision of what is possible in our profession immeasurably. I hope as Visiting Chair in his name to honour his work amongst those Oxford students

who wish to make their contributions to the work and the art of storytelling; and to be in dialogue with other theatre makers, ever widening the stories told and the audiences invited in.”

Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the founder of the Visiting Professorship, said: ‘‘Since I was lucky enough to have Stephen Sondheim establish the Chair 31 years ago, when he revealed that he was as masterful a teacher as he was a composer and lyricist, I have been honoured that it has attracted so many legendary talents from the world of theatre and film.

“This year I am particularly delighted to welcome Adjoa Andoh, who is not only known as a brilliant contemporary actress, including her recent dazzling performance in Bridgerton, but also for her cutting-edge approach to directing and performing Shakespeare in London which has had a powerful impact on modern theatre.”

Commenting on the importance of the professorship to student theatre at Oxford, one student said: “having Adjoa Andoh as this year’s visiting professor will allow students to connect in person with the actress and ask their personal questions, allowing them to gain a better understanding of the industry, as well as the issues within it.”

There is no formal teaching requirement attached to the position, and everyone who holds the professorship can interpret their responsibilities however they like. However, it is expected that Adjoa Andoh will deliver an inaugural lecture at the beginning of her tenure. Previous visiting professors have also interacted with students through workshops and seminars throughout the year.

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Ashmolean launches new podcast Hope Philpott reports on the museum’s new justicefocused podcast.

Fingerprints, the Ashmolean Museum’s new podcast launching 21 January, will discuss topics including race, justice, colonial legacies and museums’ roles in decolonisation and restitution. The six-part series will examine these issues through the prism of objects held in the Ashmolean and across Oxford. Guests include Rhodes Must Fall founder member Simukai Chigudu, Pitt Rivers Museum curator Dan Hicks and the co-author of the Report on the Restitution of African Cultural Heritage, Bénédicte Savoy.

The first object discussed will be the Powhatan’s Mantle. The 17th-century Virginian cloak, likely belonging to a Chesapeake-area chieftain, features marine shells and figurines stitched to tanned buckskin leather. Writing on the Ashmolean’s website, Museum Director Xa Sturgis stated: “There’s simply nothing else of its size, significance and importance that survives from the Algonquian-speaking people of the region from that time.”

Yet, they also added, “Today, it’s displayed not in the context of those people who made it… but rather, of the white Europeans who collected it.”

Another episode will discuss the Benin bronzes in Oxford. The bronze and brass cast plaques, commemorative heads, animal and human figures, personal ornaments and items of royal regalia date back to 16th-century Benin.

British imperial forces violent looted the items in an 1897 assault on Benin.

Writing on their website, the Pitt Rivers Museum acknowledged the Benin bronzes as “one of the most explicit examples of British colonial power removing art by force…in the interests of imperial expansion.”

In 2021, Aberdeen University and Jesus College Cambridge returned Benin bronzes to Nigeria.

The Pitt Rivers Museum told Cherwell: “As

you will hear in the Fingerprints podcast that will be aired on 28 January, we have recently published The University of Oxford’s Benin 1897 Collections: Interim Report written by Dan Hicks, listing object by object what is held in the collections, something that no other UK institution with a similarly large collection has done yet.”

In response to questions about the timescale of returns, the Pitt Rivers Museum told Cherwell: “We understand the sense of urgency felt by many about actioning the physical return of these objects but the process and pace is led by our Nigerian partners and timings are defined by the pace of complex discussions taking place in Nigeria and elsewhere.”

In 2021, then Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden stated that the Benin bronzes ‘properly reside’ in the British Museum. In an apparent reversal from his former zeal to return the Parthenon Marbles, Boris Johnson recently remarked that the issue of their return to Greece was “one for the trustees of the British Museum”. Around half of the marble sculptures from c. 447–438 BCE were looted by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, in 1801-12.

The podcast is the third by the Ashmolean, following its Museum Secrets and Objects Out Loud podcasts. The six episodes will be released weekly from 21 January to 25 February.

Image Credit: Lewis Clarke / CC-SA-2.0

COMMENT

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Vaccine inequality: Disparity in the distribution of the Oxford-AZ vaccine around the world Kylie MacFarquharson writes about the impact of corporatism on vaccine distribution around the world.

O

micron has spread across the country, and it looks inevitable that we will soon surpass 200,000 daily cases. More than 1% of the country have tested positive for COVID in the last week, and the danger of novel COVID-19 variants has never been more clear. Each new person infected with COVID comes with increased potential for another mutation of the virus that could make it more infectious, or more able to breakthrough the protection created by vaccines. It is in all of our interest, therefore, to prevent the spread of the virus across the planet. Despite this apparent motivator to protect people worldwide, the United Kingdom, among others, is now giving its citizens their third dose of the vaccine despite almost 40% of the global population remaining unvaccinated. Among low-income counties, less than 10% have had even one dose.

The blame for this disparity can be put at the feet of many. At the encouragement of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the vaccine developed at Oxford was licensed exclusively to the multinational AstraZeneca (AZ). This is despite the fact that the vaccine platform used was 97% publicly funded. The defence of this move at the time was that the vaccine would be offered ‘at cost’ (not for profit) everywhere for the duration of the pandemic and in perpetuity in low-income counties. However, much of the manufactur-

ing of these vaccines has been done at India’s Serum Institute, which via some clever licencing arrangements has avoided this restriction, charging $7 per dose for the vaccine in Uganda, where the EU was charged $2 per dose by AZ. Given the terms of the agreement, it seems unsurprising that AZ appears to be in no rush to sell vaccines at cost to low-income countries, who remain essentially unvaccinated.

The reasoning behind Oxford University agreeing to this deal could seem unclear, given the proposed alternative of releasing the licence to produce the vaccine for free, “Open Source”. A very cynical answer would be the substantial profits that the University stands to make from the deal. These include $10 million upfront, a further $80 million in “milestone payments”, and 6% of any profits made. I would argue though that a larger cause is a pervasive neoliberal ideology. A sincerely held belief that there is no effective motivator beyond profit. In this framing, it is held that without the potential for a multi-billion dollar company to make money from a tragedy the vaccine would not be produced safely and ef-

“It seems unsurprising that AZ appears to be in no rush to sell vaccines at cost fectively.

While the exact involvement of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is unclear, I think it is unsurprising that Bill Gates, once CEO of Microsoft, would oppose the principles of Open Source. During his tenure at the

company, it used the internal policy of “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” to systematically disadvantage competitors by crushing Open Source projects. The dynamics of commercial pharmacology are different from those of computing, but I believe they are nonetheless worth comparing. To some, the work done by others, made available for them for free, is little more than a potential for more profit.

It is an open question where we can go from here. One proposal with widespread backing, headed by India and South Africa, was to waive patent protections for COVID vaccines internationally. This would allow countries to produce their own vaccines at cost, and could dramatically accelerate the worldwide rollout of the vaccines, helping us all. The move, op-

Heidi Fang on the dawning of a new term.

posed by the UK, has its own problems, many of which could be resolved by a more thorough sharing of data by vaccine manufacturers, a truly Open Source approach.

The pandemic is not unique in showing the greed of private corporations, but it does bring into sharp contrast the profound global inequalities that exist in healthcare, exacerbated by the actions of private capital, and founded on a political philosophy that can see no good beyond profit. Global health is one area among many where public goods are coopted by private interests to turn a profit. It is one area among many where lives could be improved by principles of openness, sharing, and transparency in the goal of the common good.

COMMENT

7

Back to the future: Putin’s return to classical geopolitics Ezra Sharpe gives an overview of Russia’s modern military advancements and what they mean for Europe.

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he Russo-Ukrainian border has been conflict-ridden for over a century. An estimated 100,000 Russian troops now lie in wait on the eastern frontier of Ukraine, ready to test the limits of Western lip service. Diplomatic frenzy has ensued; Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin discussed tensions and exchanged warnings over Ukraine on the 30th December, whilst US National Security Advisors continue to urge dialogue with Russian Foreign Policy aids. This is nothing new; Russian presence on Ukraine’s eastern-most border has become a routine exercise since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The strategic importance of Ukraine to Putin’s regime cannot be understated. Since the formation of the USSR in 1922, the insatiable Russian bear has always looked westwards for its next meal. The answer to conflict prevention lies in asking why this happens, and how we might prevent it.

Most of the grand theories of classical geopolitics were sequestered at the end of the Cold War. They were overly totalising, generalising, and universal to explain modern phenomena.

The new neoliberal world, with all its messy contradictions and complexities, was simply too vast and too unforeseeable to be predicted with grand theories, most argued. But Putin’s Russia has proven itself to be an exception, reviving the age-old, dusty theories of Halford Mackinder’s ‘Heartland’ and Nicholas Spykman’s ‘Rimland’ from the shadows. If the recent actions of Moscow are explicable, that is where the answer lies.

The inspired military mood of Moscow has prompted much debate amongst geopolitical strategists. Should the West adopt a line of appeasement, nodding to Putin’s unwavering request that the US rescind the eventual admittance of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO? For many analysts, this is just another one of Putin’s bluffs to add to the large catalogue of unrealised threats. To others, Moscow is slowly curating a milieu to exploit as a pretext for military invasion. Either could be possible.

That is why it is essential that the US, amongst other Western powers, take the initiative to mobilise active troops within Ukraine - albeit, without the intent to ever raise a fist. If the US is seen to flinch when clarion calls are issued and violence is threatened to be exerted, the consequences for global geopolitics could be fatal. Wars occur not when aggression is snuffed

“The insatiable Russian bear has always looked westwards for its next meal.” out early, but when peace is no longer deemed to be worth fighting for.

The best way to prevent war is not to deploy troops once it has already started – it is to ensure that the guns are never loaded in the first place. To achieve this, however, politicians and strategists must learn to identify the precursors of war when they lie brazenly before us, much like a canary in a coal mine. History proves that large-scale conflicts do not erupt out of thin air.

They occur when flickers of unchecked aggression become the status quo. And they also occur when pacifists become blind to division and identity politics, which sow the seeds for hatred, blame, and anger. Recognising the rationale for

Putin’s foreign policy is good, but understanding the common denominator in the outbreak of war alongside that is even better.

The most famous translation of geopolitical hypothesis into geopolitical reality has been through Halford Mackinder’s ‘Heartland’ theory.

Mackinder postulated that control over the core of Eurasian territory would be the key to global power: “Who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island Who rules the World-Island commands the world” The ‘Heartland’ would be the most advantageous geopolitical location, located at the pivot of Eurasia, inaccessible by militant sea-vessels, and impregnable through its harsh winters and vast land fortress. He argued that power would lie in the victory of the dominant land powers over the sea powers. This was built upon by Spykman’s ‘Rimland’ theory, which argued that the strip of coastal land surrounding Eurasia was more significant. The ethos of these theories can be seen in the repudiation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and Hitler’s invasion of the USSR in 1941. Despite sealing the diplomatic promise that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union would not invade one another during the Second World War, Hitler chose to do so anyway. Rather than being a symptom of power-hungry petulance, it was likely that gaining control of Eastern Europe, or the ‘Heartland’, was always in the Nazi blueprint. After all, the chief Nazi geopolitician, Karl Haushofer, was an avid disciple of Mackinder’s work which explicitly outlined that the successful invasion of Russia by a Western European nation could be used as a catalyst for the reclamation of global hegemony.

Putin is the most recent leader to follow suit, but with a new flavour. Of course, these theories are grossly outdated. They were written at a time before airpower had come into fruition, and where the power of the digital world would be nothing other than a figment of one’s imagination. Moscow has chosen to rewrite them instead.

Amongst other enticements, Putin’s desire to irreversibly absorb Eastern Ukraine into his desired territory can be reduced to two main factors relating to these theories: access to warm water ports, aligning with Spykman’s ‘Rimland’, and the expansion and protection of Eastern land power, reflecting Mackinder’s ‘Heartland’. In a globalised world, the ability to trade with ease brings economic leverage, and leverage brings power. For a country with such vast coastal territory, Russia has appallingly bad access to global sea routes and trading, with many ports frozen year-round.

The Crimean Port of Sevastopol is a missing piece to Putin’s strategic puzzle, providing warm water access to global shipping routes and allowing the Russian military to aggrandise control into the Black Sea and further beyond. Secondly, as in traditional cold-war fashion, any westwards territorial expansion is deemed as advantageous to the Russian regime, who see the US and NATO as omnipresent and ever-looming threats. To understand the actions of Putin, it is critical we attempt to analyse his motives. These examples do not tell us that Putin will invariably stick to Mackinder and Spykman’s geopolitical blueprints. But, crucially, they demonstrate that diplomacy over the new ‘Eastern Question’ only serves to kick the can down the road. If the well-thumbed geopolitical playbook continues to be followed with increasing resolve, we should preemptively prepare for escalated flare-ups along Ukraine’s eastern border.

Just as much as it is important to recognise Putin’s raison d’état, it is equally important to learn the signs of warmongering before conflict is allowed to ensue. Large scale wars are not momentary spasms in the peacekeeping status quo but rather emerge when

“Moscow is slowly curating a milieu to exploit as a pretext for military invasion.” small-scale escalations of violence are left unchecked. The First World War was not a global bicker over who was responsible for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; it was the culmination of decades of colonial jostling, battles for naval supremacy, and military sabre-rattling. By the same token, the outbreak of The Second World War was steeped in years of uncurbed aggression extending from Nazi Germany, both in its domestic and foreign affairs. Appeasement

does not work when you are sat across the table from warmongers. The placement of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border may only seem like a momentary spasm in the otherwise smoothly running peacekeeping operations of Europe. But it is these very glitches which, when left unchallenged, can mutate into actions far more deleterious.

Biden claiming that stationing US troops in Ukraine was “not on the table” is therefore a serious diplomatic blunder, severely weakening NATO’s standing by ruling out preventative military responses to Russian aggression. Global security cannot be left strictly to the realm of rhetoric. When world leaders claim their unwavering support for the retention of autonomy, sovereignty, and democracy, boundaries must be drawn and the red-line must be enforced.

Artwork by Ben Beechener.

Read the full article on cherwell.org

Is the Oxford collegiate system financially fair for all students?

Isobel Lewis

There are certainly big disparities between costs of accommodation at different colleges.

I’m at St Peter’s, and biased as I am in its favour even I can see that it might not be as well known to applicants as somewhere like Christ Church. Inevitably, a lot of students get pooled here in the interview process, meaning offer holders are faced with the choice between stumping up the exorbitant costs of living out in second year, because there isn’t enough room for us in college, and turning down a place at Oxford. That’s just one example of how the collegiate system can be uncompromising and unfair.

Zoe Lambert

Not at all! The wealthiest Oxford colleges are St. John’s, Magdalen and Christ Church; colleges renowned for attracting students from elite private schools. They then offer subsidised accommodation and meals alongside generous grants, providing financial support to those who least need it and therefore perpetuating the cycle of privilege.

Sonya Ribner

While I recognize that colleges have different financial circumstances and different accommodation available on site, colleges that allocate housing based on students’ financial resources unnecessarily differentiates between their students. I attend Magdalen where students cannot pay more for better accommodation and, thus, all room allocation is ballot-based. However, at a college such as St. John’s, which also provides accommodation for the full duration of undergraduate courses, there are a range of pricing options. Though this system may allow for lower prices than Magdalen can offer, the different pricing of housing is inappropriate because a student’s room should not be based on their ability to pay.

Vlad Popescu

The disparity between college resources and support creates a sort of paradoxical situation where concerns about access become meaningless- particularly when the colleges providing some of the best support for students from access initiatives are also some of the same colleges with the highest proportion of private school students. The financial disparity in the collegiate system is not only unfair but also counter-productive to creating a more accessible Oxford University.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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Science Snippets

Could artificial intelligence disrupt our world?

L. Sophie Gullino discusses why you should work on AI safety.

E Panda DNA found: A panda rolling down a hill- or is it…?

Probably won’t be able to tell… Researchers have finally uncovered the counterintuitive reason why pandas have the iconic fur patterning we all know and love: it’s keeping them hidden. Using image analysis on various photographs of pandas in both captive and wild settings, it was found that though we may be able to pick out these high-contrast furballs in captivity, the panda’s coat can evade detection of predators in natural habitats.

The different regions of a panda’s coat blend in with various elements in the background. Black fur breaks up the body outline and conforms with dark shadows.

White fur seamlessly morphs into snowy landscapes. ‘Intermediate’ (brownish) fur matches well with the earthy ground.

This mishmash of tones seem to provide pandas with multi-setting camouflage!

-Taylor Bi

Tech Tidbits

very time that Netflix recommends you a movie, or you ask Alexa for today’s weather, you are using an artificial intelligence (AI) designed to perform a specific function. These so-called “narrow” AIs have become increasingly more advanced, from complex language processing software to self-driving cars, however they are only capable of outperforming humans in a relatively narrow number of tasks.

Following the intense technological race of the last few decades, experts state that there is a significant chance that machines more intelligent than humans will be developed in the 21st century. Whilst it is difficult to forecast if or when this kind of “general” AI will arise, we cannot take lightly the possibility of a technology that could surpass human abilities in nearly every cognitive task.

AI has great potential for human welfare, holding the promise of countless scientific and medical advantages, as well as cheaper highquality services, but involves a plethora of risks. There is no lack of examples of failures of narrow AI systems, such as AIs showing systematic biases, as it was the case for Amazon’s recruiting engine which in 2018 was found to hire fewer women than men.

AI systems can only learn from the information they are presented with, hence if the Amazon workforce has historically been dominated by men, this is the pattern the AI will learn, and indeed amplify.

Science fiction reflects that our greatest

concerns around AI involve AI turning evil or conscious, nonetheless in reality the main risk arises from the possibility that the goal of an advanced AI could be misaligned with our own. This is the core of the alignment problem: even if AIs are designed with beneficial goals, it remains challenging to ensure that highly intelligent machines will pursue them accurately, in a safe and predictable manner.

For example, Professor Nick Bostrom (University of Oxford) explains how an advanced AI with a limited, well-defined purpose, could seek and employ a disproportionate amount of physical resources to intensely pursue its goal, unintentionally harming humans in the process. It is unclear how AI can be taught to weigh different options and make decisions that take into account potential risks.

This adds on to the general worry about losing control to machines more advanced than us, that once deployed might not be easy to switch off. In fact, highly intelligent systems might eventually learn to resist our effort to shut them down, not for any biological notion of self-preservation, but solely because they can’t achieve their goal if they are turned off.

One solution would be to teach AI human values and program it with the sole purpose of maximizing the realization of those values (whilst having no drive to protect itself), but achieving this could prove to be quite challenging. For example, a common way to teach AI is by reinforcement learning, a paradigm in which an agent is “rewarded” for performing a set of actions, such as maximising points in a game, so that it can learn from repeated experience. Reinforcement learning can also involve watching a human perform a task, such as flying a drone, with the AI being “rewarded” as it learns to execute the task successfully. However, human values and

norms are extremely complex and cannot be simply inferred and understood by observing human behaviour, hence further research into frameworks for AI value learning is required.

Whilst AI research has been getting increased media attention thanks to the engagement of public figures such as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and Bill Gates, working on the safety of AI remains a quite neglected field.

Additionally, the solvability of the problem, as well as the great scale and seriousness of the risks, make this a very impactful area to work on. Here, we discussed problems such as alignment and loss of control, but we have merely scratched the surface of the risks that could arise and should be addressed. For example, there are additional concerns associated with the use of AI systems with malicious intent, such as for military and economic purposes, which could include large-scale data collection and surveillance, cyberattacks and automated military operations.

In Oxford, the Future of Humanity Institute, has been founded with the specific purpose of working “on big picture questions for human civilisation” and safeguarding humanity from future risks, such as those resulting from advanced AI systems. Further research into AI safety is needed, however you don’t necessarily need to be a computer scientist to be able to contribute to this exciting field, as contributions to AI governance and policy are equally important. There is a lot of uncertainty associated with how to best transition into a world in which increasingly advanced AI systems exist, hence governance structures, scientists, economists, ethics and policymakers alike can contribute towards positively shaping the development of artificial intelligence.

This article is part of a collaboration with Oxford WIB‘s Insight Magazine.

Getting the right information Mauricio Alencar considers science’s challenges against misinformation.

S Brain cells in dish beat AI in video game.

Scientists from Cortical Labs found out that neurons in a dish learned to play ‘Pong’ faster than AI technology.

James Webb Telescope prepared for mission.

NASA’s giant telescope reached its final stage of deployment ahead of setting out to measure infrared radiation in space.

Image Credits (top to bottom): Popofatticus/ CC BY-2.0 via Flickr; Chris Rand / CC By-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons; NASA / Chris Gunn / CC BY-2.0 via Flickr

cience saved the world, and it will save the world. 2021 saw the wide distribution of COVID vaccinations, increased research into state of the climate crisis and the remedying of it, the installation of the world’s largest machine sucking carbon dioxide from the air in Iceland, the approval of a vaccine against malaria by the WHO, the landing of a NASA rover on Mars, and more. But the fight is on. Misinformation, ignorance, and shadowy stats are resisting progress.

Fake accounts, for one, are still something social media companies are trying to get a grip of. The exact aims of the people behind these accounts are equally ambiguous and ominous. It seems like all are getting fooled. Take top football clubs, such as Chelsea FC and Aston Villa, whose deals with Asian football gambling firms are promoted by people with fake Linkedin accounts whose identity cannot be traced.

And how convincing it has become to create a credible fake account, some of which have garnered huge online attraction to promote questionable causes, as it is the case with KateStewart 22, who is an admirer of Saudi Arabia yet is thought to be one of the country’s online propaganda tools. While conspiracy theory is just as unnerving, popular shady accounts can get away with not being held to account, able to stir up the untruth.

And even where initiatives are rightminded, honest, and in favour of positive change, discrepancies can be found. The Netflix hit-documentary ‘Seaspiracy’ led

by Ali Tabrizi shows just how vital it is

that we protect our oceans just as much as we seek to protect our land. Yet, as a BBC article questioned, “Is Netflix’s Seaspiracy film right about fishing damaging oceans?”. In some moments, the documentary jeopardises the reliability of all the information it provides in not being as rigorous as it is expected to be, using hyperbolic statistics from 2006 which are outdated and not providing enough detail in other parts. The documentary ends by directing the viewer to the possibility of eating only plant-based food.

That’s great, but I do wonder how accessible purely plant-based food actually is in cities, towns, and villages across the world. There’s still a long way to go before you can successfully advertise something

which is simply not widely available. The overall message of Seaspiracy risked being lost somewhere between the scenes, and ultimately thrown away altogether.

Information must not be caught up between these lines. It is as important that media companies are able to filter the truth from the false as it is that new scientific breakthroughs continue to be made. If such complex issues of information and data are not managed correctly, scientific solutions and corporate decisions which could save the world risk being delayed, or perhaps wrongly made, such that the decimal celsius degree catastrophically tips over.

Image Credit: Bob Mical / CC By 3.0 via Optimus.

BUSINESS & FINANCE

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Business and Finance: Our predictions for 2022

T

o bring in the new year, your editors have made 5 predictions about the business world for the next 12 months. We are not making any promises; these are just bits of rational forecasting combined with a dash of wishful thinking.

1. UK markets will cool down

After a pandemicrelated dip in 2020, the FTSE 100 has reached prepandemic levels; the M&A market boomed throughout 2021; and tech IPOs in London proved explosive.

With the Bank of England raising interest rates for the first time since the start of the pandemic, this year seems an opportunity for the markets to cool their expansive growth.

Cell-Based meat: A Potential Boon for the UK Economy?

Zoe Rhoades speaks to Ivy Farm Technologies about the future of the cell-based meat market in the UK.

W

inston Churchill once said, “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium”. Perhaps he had foresight in areas outside of politics, but today the cultivated meat industry has huge potential, and even the most conservative global projections suggest sales will be over $100 billion by 2040.

Cultivated meat is an alternative to traditional meat that is grown in a lab using the cells of a live animal. These cells are obtained by performing a biopsy, from which stem cells are extracted, manipulated, and replicated using a scaffold to direct their formation into a meat-like product. The final product is further manipulated to make it taste like meat which we would obtain from traditional farming practices. Ivy Farm Technologies is an Oxford spinout, founded by former engineering DPhil student Russ Tucker and Associate Professor Cathy Ye, using the

2. Clean and Green innovation will continue to grow

Funds have reflected a gradually more serious attitude to climate change, with ESG investing predicted to reach $1 trillion by 2030. Across the UK, the electric vehicle market can be expected to grow with the introduction of Clean Air Zones (such as the one coming to Oxford), further bolstering growth. People will be looking for stable, long-term investments. Clean and green innovation will be the way to go.

3. Artists will take further financial control

Elite film-makers are fighting back against studio control.

Adele recently influenced Spotify.

Taylor Swift took on PE funds and her old recording label. As independent music artists continue to grow, and social technology of continuous cell replication for production of cultivated meat. They argue that their technology is unique from that of competitors because of its distinctive scaffold system, from which growth results in a continuous harvest of cells, and its lower production costs.

Last year the spinout commissioned the consultancy, Oxford Economics, to produce a report laying out the dynamics of the cultivated meat sector. The report estimates that the global demand for cultivated meat would be about £10.3 billion, with consumer spending in the UK being between £850 million to £1.7 billion by 2030. The industry alone is expected to contribute between £1.1 and £2.1 billion of gross value to UK GDP. So, what does this contribution consist of?

The first component is the direct sale of cultivated meat products. This is expected to generate between £290-574 million for the UK economy. The industry’s spending on goods and services in the UK supply chain is expected to add between £414-829 million and the final £369-738 million accounts for wages paid to individuals involved cultivated meat industry and relevant supply chains.

Secondly, the cultivated meat industry is expected to generate between £266-523 million and this would be able to provide an annual salary for the equivalent of 5,000-10,000 teachers in UK schools, or 6,000-12,000 nurses if we assume the constancy of salaries

in real terms.

This report envisions the cultivated meat industry to gradually phase out the traditional farming industry. Cultivated meat

media allows for the rise in content creators more generally, we can expect these shifts in ownership of art to start trickling down to the smaller players.

and rules might be a catalyst of continued innovation.

4. Global investing in biotechnology will not lose steam

One year after rioters stormed the US Capitol Building, there is still a lack of regulatory mechanisms addressing misinformation or concerted efforts to stop it from propagating at its source. Misinformation does not deter user consumption or engagement significantly enough (be it a breach of democratic institutions or a raging pandemic) to disincentive its continued tolerance on social media networks or news channels. Unless this something dents their advertising revenues or ratings, if applicable, they’ll probably just shrug and move on.

As of October 2021, venture capital investment in biotechnology sector has reached $44.6 billion globally—that’s 1.3 times the previous year’s total.

Investors are not only excited about vaccines, but also its supply chains, technologies broadly applicable to COVID-19 and other diseases, as well as lab space. Eased clinical approval regulations in the US and Europe, deployed in response to the pandemic, also don’t appear to be tightening soon. This friendly combination of money offers the benefits of country’s dependency on imports, food security, and ensuring that UK farming is maintained to high standards.

However, the report does little to address how traditional farms will be affected by the

“The UK may become a ‘powerhouse for alternative proteins’.” cultivated meat industry, and it is unclear if the economic benefits reaped can help traditional farms become more sustainable in the transition. The CEO of Ivy Farm Technologies, Rich Dillon, explains that this report is the “missing piece of the jigsaw that fill in the economic benefits to the UK” and that if the approval can be obtained from the FSA, the UK may become a “powerhouse for alternative proteins, exporting our products and technology across the globe and reducing the UK’s reliance on imported meat”.

To gain access to the UK market, cultivated meat would be classified as “novel foods” and companies would be required to complete a full application set out by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA). However, this requires a thorough submission of administrative data, information about the novel food, certificates, along with scientific reports and opinions. As a result, the FSA’s process can take between 18 months to 3 years to approve new products.

Other challenges include meeting safety and ethical concerns around taking a biopsy in an “invasive and non-consensual procedure”.

The UK FSA needs to look at the advantages of being a ‘first mover’ in the cultivated meat industry and streamlining its regulatory applications process to make it easier for startups to sell their products to UK consumers. Neglecting this urgency means losing out on billions gained from first mover knowledge.

Image Credit: Ivy Farm Technologies

5. Media proprietors will face a misinformation metastasis

Quick Takes

“Goldman Sachs has told clients that bitcoin “will compete with gold as ‘store of value’”, citing its $700bn market capitalisation.”- Elizabeth Howcroft, Reuters

“The City of London is in danger of becoming a sort of Jurassic Park where fund managers dedicate themselves to clipping coupons rather than encouraging growth and innovation.” - Paul Marshall, Financial Times

“Although the headlines say a split verdict in the Elizabeth Holmes trial, it’s still a big win for prosecutors. She now faces a realistic 10 to 20 years in federal prison, based on sentencing guidelines. Far from a tie.” - Dave Aronberg, State Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida

EDITORIAL

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Masthead SENIOR EDITORIAL TEAM Jill Cushen (she/her), Charlie Hancock (she/her), Estelle Atkinson (she/her), Maurício Alencar (he/him), Thomas Coyle (he/him), Flora Dyson (she/her), David Tritsch (he/ him), Katie Kirkpatrick (she/ her) NEWS Meg Lintern, Pieter Garicano, Humza Jilani, Daniel Maloney, Isaac Ettinghausen COMMENT Sonya Ribner, Vlad Popescu, Zoe Lambert, Isobel Lewis FEATURES Leah Mitchell, Jessica DeMarco-Jacobson, Hope Philpott, Mia Hynes PROFILES William Foxton, Issy Kenney Herbert, Niamh Hardman, Klemens Okkels SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Jennivine Chen, Milo Mee BUSINESS & FINANCE Khusaru Islam, Hung Jen Wu CULTURE Clementine Scott, Jimmy Brewer, Anna Mayer STAGE Rebecca Walker, Dorothy Scarborough FASHION Ciara Beale, Madi Hopper, Iustina Roman MUSIC Flynn Hallman, Zachary Sutcliffe FILM Wang Sum Luk, Caitlin Wilson BOOKS Elena Buccisano, Eliza Browning LIFE Michaela Esau, Aikaterini Lygaki, Lucy Dunn THE SOURCE Anna Roberts, Shiraz Vapiwala, Thomas McGrath SPORT Edward Grayson, Oliver Hall FOOD Maisie Burgess, Rose Morley, Mille Drew PUZZLES Ifan Rogers CREATIVE Zoe Rhoades, Rachel Jung, Heidi Fang, Benjamin Beechener, Mia Clement

Cherwell’s view on the beginning

Jill Cushen (she/her), Editor-in-Chief Being a stereotypical English student, I have an app which notifies me of the ‘Word of the Day’. I read this every morning in an attempt to rekindle my intellectual curiosity, something which Oxford often manages to stamp out. On new year’s day, I was greeted with the word ‘ouroboros’.

Odd, you might think, for that to be the year’s first word of the day and something akin to intellectual wankery for me to discuss the significance of it here. But it’s a symbol which is particularly relevant at the dawn of a new year and is fitting for this week’s theme of ‘Beginnings’.

The ouroboros is a symbol with Greek and Egyptian roots depicting a snake or dragon eating its own tail. It represents the eternal cycle of destruction and re-creation. There’s something beautifully melancholic about a beginning because it’s also the end and the ouroboros perfectly captures this. The symbol is not representative of being stuck in a cyclical pattern, or remaking the same

mistakes, but rather, about the unity of all things and how change does not wipe away what has come before.

With a new year, and a new term, comes pressure to improve but accepting who we already are is surely more important. All of us, this paper included, will undoubtedly make mistakes this term but each day offers a new beginning and the chance to learn from yesterday.

That’s exactly what Charlie and I have aspired to do this term, not to give you a new Cherwell but to learn from past experiences and guide the paper through the next period of inevitable change and evolvement. We will, however, following the sage advice of Michael Crick on this edition’s back page, try to take ourselves a little less seriously! takes a considerable amount of time to put the paper together every week. I’m not just referring to the number of hours we spend grappling with InDesign late into the night.

Our ears and inboxes are always open to new stories and ideas, and we’re anways looking ahead to our next print edition.

Is it a lot of work? Yes. But there’s a special camaraderie which comes from the responsibility of handling this paper. It’s that camaraderie, and the shot of dopamine you get from seeing your name in print, which keeps people coming back. Jill and I have been working here for over a year, and have seen many faces come and go, and many others catch Cherwell fever and stay on. So here’s to the begininng of a new tearm, a new staff, a new team, and a new chapter of Cherwell!

Charlie Hancock (she/her), Editor-in-Chief When does term actually begin? It can’t be Monday of first week, thanks to the special kind of hell which is balancing collections with writing your first week essays.

For Jill and me, Hilary term arguably began in early December when we found out that we’d be taking the reins of this newspaper. I was taking a snowy stroll through Radcliffe Square when my phone pinged with the news. It was all rather cinematic. Once my elation (sorry to anybody in the surrounding libraries who heard my cheers) began to clear, the realisation that this is a huge responsibility began to sink in. Cherwell, with its one hundred years of history and fiftystrong staff, became ours to guide through the next champter of its second century, and hopefully not into the murky waters of our eponymous river.

We students journalists often get told we take ourselves too seriously. Maybe there’s some truth to that, and I’m certainly not the person to persuade you otherwise. But it

Leader: Oxford and the sustainable transport in our world

Maurício Alencar (he/him), Deputy Editor Guilty petrol-fuelled cars drive past the sign ‘Welcome to the City of Oxford. A Cycling City’ every day. Little has been done to stop this reckless attempt at invasion. Yet, the city itself has maintained its sustainable and healthy green-green-green image.

Anywhere between Worcester College and the roundabout (most of which is famously a Zero Emission Zone), cars are rare. Cyclists are everywhere, “helmet-on!” and “getsome-lights!” hecklers stand by Sainsbury’s Local 24/7, a man rides a gigantic unicycle past Magdalen Road Tesco every now and then, and pedestrians sneer at gullible tourists who bought a City Sightseeing bus tour around the city centre. Clean, efficient Oxford leads as the example to the world’s costly and pollutant transport networks.

That is, within the flat valley that spans somewhere between the god-forsaken roundabout and far treks beyond the train station. If you’re up in Cowley, like I am, you will know that the three-way choice to East Oxford is not all smooth riding. The cycle up Headington Hill is a cruel Tour-deFrance sweat-off. The gradient up Cowley Road is acceptable, though still gruellingly unpleasant and unpredictable after a long day’s work, not to mention the sheer num-

ber of crossings. Iffley Road is the optimal route up, albeit a serious detour for some. At some point over the course of many upward journeys, you may start to realise that your slightly shady £40-deal bike is facing its limits. While your fitness levels may surpass the average of the university’s croquet team, the English weather is sure to guarantee some wet n’ wild surprises throughout the year.

That may sound cynical, but such petty frustrations with bike travel suggest why cycling can only ever be so popular among populations. The pandemic was supposed to be a unique opportunity to transform metropolitan cities around the world into metropolitan parks. Sneaky hills may be but one of the several reasons why cycling has not grown as much as it should have. Other reasons may include potholes, poor cyclist protection from cars, and possible drowsiness from the scents of car exhaust.

Public transport exists. Hop on Oxford buses which (explicitly) only accept Brookes student cards and **not** Bod cards. Pay

“At some point over the course of many upward journeys, you may start to realise that your slightly shady £40-deal bike is facing its limits.” nearly £3 for a journey that you could have used to cop yourself a Tesco meal deal. The stealthy parasite that is public transport payment is mentally draining. Plus, given the infrequency of some bus routes, the narrowness of gaps buses often have to squeeze through, and the awkward limb-shuffles your body makes when making eye contact with other members of the general public, waiting on a bus in traffic is not very enthralling.

The elephant in the room when discuss-

ing environmentally sustainable modes of transport are planes. They are planet killers, but air travel provides a unique experience not many other modes of transport can offer: everyone faces the same way, the sound effects are soft on the ear, the views are always spectacular, and, oh yes, they connect people from across the globe. If Earth is at odds with planes though, then we all are.

That brings us to cars. Cars’ glamorous allure is still too much for the sinful man.

One’s control of the road, the radio, and the service station reflects one’s independence and authority. You are in charge. You are supreme. If you do not have a driving licence, you are weak, unworthy, even pitiable. Haha!

Luckily, electric cars are soon coming to a garage near you. From 2030, there will be a ban on selling petrol and diesel cars. God save the Queen. We all will live.

However, more environment-linked problems may arise in the future from the production and use of electric cars. Several problems regarding high costs, lithium waste, and charging points have not been resolved yet. So, do I buy some Tesla shares or not?

The question is whether it has all been left too late. The answer tends to be yes, we most certainly have. While we’ve been dilly dallying away at playing war and what not, the planet’s climate has been getting on with ‘changing’. Transport accounts for over one fifth of the planet’s carbon emissions.

At the beginning of every Oxford term, like hundreds of other students, I am in one of those guilty cars passing by the ‘Cycling City’ sign. This awkward paradox– driving into Oxford- ‘a cycling city’, never fails to confuse me a little. How else do you expect me to take 10 boxes of clothes, books, folders, pans, tea sachets, toilet paper, shampoo, a bit of booze and a dramatic amount of football memorabilia in and out of the ‘cycling city’ every term?

CUL CHER

CULTURE

BEGINNINGS

CULTURE

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CONTENTS CULTURE

12 | New Year’s resolutions: On the art of failing 12 | Discovery or rediscovery 13 | Dirk Bogarde’s psychosexual nightmare MUSIC 14 | In conversation with Manmzèl FILM 15 | Rewriting the detective story for the modern age THE SOURCE 16 | As the smoke burns down to my fingers by Alex Bridges BOOKS 18 | The 22 books on my TBR list for 2022 STAGE 19 | Cabaret & Spring Awakening: The art of reviving musicals FASHION 20 | The dark side of coquette 21 | A Euphoric fashion commentry on our generation FOOD

22 | It all begins with breakfast

COVER ARTIST Mia Clement

As a geographer and ecologist this Culcher theme of ‘Beginnings’ immediately brought up the imagery of a seedling sprouting upwards, finally reaching above the undergrowth of vegetation to capture Sunlight.

The colours and inspiration were taken from my very own oak sproutling in my garden, with darker tones as it was tucked away beneath a mesh of dead leaves and brambles.

We can choose our beginnings, whether it’s reaching a goal we thought was out of reach or the start of a new day.

New Year’s resolutions: On the art of failing Coco Cottam discusses the inevitable impossibility of our goals for the New Year.

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n New Year’s Eve, frantically cobbling together a resolution that might actually be doable, I went through my diary from 2016 and found an entry of old New Year resolutions. What surprised me was how little my goals had changed. ‘Eat healthier’, ‘spend less time on my phone’ and ‘read more’ are all equally as applicable five years later. So what’s the point?

What originated in promises of good conduct to Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, as a means of gaining favour for the year, survives as an industry of juice cleanses, Chloe Ting and publishers’ reading lists of ‘Books to Change Your Life’.You might have made some mental goals before midnight, or contributed some flimsy ambitions to a conversation about self-love, or maybe even written a list in your notes app (that vast, interminable junkyard), but the chances are you have, or will, fall behind. I will be the first

to say that I lasted an embarrassing three days on a goal to exercise daily.

And there’s a strong argument for the futility of New Year’s resolutions. A 2016 study found only 9% of Americans who made New Year’s resolutions felt they were successful in keeping them by the end of the year. Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz writing for The Guardian argues that social determiners inhibit our ability to commit to New Year’s resolutions, with factors like economic background found to impact the success rate of weight-loss goals.

Perhaps we should listen to Virginia Woolf, who in 1931 resolved to have none, but to be ‘free and kindly’ with herself.

Anaïs Nin concurred, ‘I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticising, sanctioning and moulding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.’ The shining star of New Year’s Eve timeline was Sarah Lazarus’s tweet, ‘no new years resolutions. it is the

circumstances turn to improve’.

And yet, there’s something quite lovely about a planet of people collectively making ‘impossible’ goals. As a child, I believed wishing on fallen eyelashes would make those wishes come true. Older and somewhat wiser, I’m fairly certain this isn’t the case, but I still wish on them. I think there’s something useful in asking yourself what you want most in your life at that exact moment. Sometimes it’s a cheese toastie and sometimes it’s a twomonth holiday to Bermuda.

G.K. Chesterton writes that ‘Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.’ Perhaps then, the annual attempt to verbalise what you really want is just as important as actually carrying it out.

Discovery or rediscovery?

Noah Wild explores the potential triumphs and pitfalls of making one’s debut as an artist.

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ne of the films expected to win big during the approaching awards season is The Lost Daughter, the first film from actor-turned-director Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Greeting Netflix on the final day of 2021, it seems aptly placed at the beginning of the new year, considering how central critical discussion has been about this being Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut. A profile in The Observer by Wendy Ide specifically explored her transition from ‘difficult’ acting roles to ‘lauded Hollywood director’. Critics are suckers for feature debuts, perhaps attracted to the energy that is created when a new voice seems to shake up the status -quo. In fact, the BAFTA, Grammy and Forward Poetry awards all award artistic debuts in isolation. There is a euphoric wonder spun when artists like Billie Eillish and Dua Lipa emerge with albums so assured and confident that they immediately dominate over experienced, veteran creatives, or when debut works with less than universal acclaim are celebrated by the niche who wish to state, ‘I liked them before they became cool’. The artistic debut has always acted as a magnet, in the sense that where critics seem to take pleasure from attempting to be the first to celebrate new voices in the field.

In the literary world, one of the most assured debuts of recent years has to be Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends which marked her as a one of the most distinctive of modern novelist to watch. This is perhaps partly due to the fact that it didn’t read like a debut at all.

Yes, her voice seemed refreshingly new in perspective and tone, exploring the life of a generation only beginning to be written about. But Rooney’s style is so

assured and confident, her characters so audaciously complex, varying on the brink of being unlikeable, that it seems you are reading a much more experienced novelist. As Zadie Smith reflects, “‘I love debuts where you just can’t believe that it was a debut,” – a fitting statement from an author whose own arrival with White Teeth in 2000 grappled with 150 years of history, whilst exploring themes of family, cultural alienation and religious isolation, a set up that would scare even the most accomplished writer. Both these authors have since become such a part of the cultural landscape that it seems odd to think they haven’t always been with us. Rooney’s second book, Normal People, seemed to look in the face of that ‘difficult second album’ mantra and ask the publisher to hold its beer.

Yet, whilst magnets attract, they also repel. Debuts often create an uncomfortable alienation in audiences, where arriving to break down the status quo causes more enemies than admirers. The Daily Mail called Sarah Kane’s play Blasted ‘a disgusting feast of filth’ in 1995. It is now one of the most celebrated artistic debuts in theatre, forcing respected critics like Michael Billington to apologise for being ‘rudely dismissive’ of the play. Here, the debut provided critics with a unique angle of attack, where the Sunday Times snarked that Kane ‘has a lot to learn’; as if believing you can write a play is in some way arrogantly overconfident. To Kane, the notoriety to her arrival as a playwright was as much a springboardweight as a burdensome springboard, first performing her fourth play Crave under the pseudonym Marie Kelevdon to distance herself from the notoriety surrounding her work.

Throughout the entirety of her all too short career, she struggled to break away from the reputation impression Blasted had forced onto her.

Moreover, the seeming glorification of the debut seems alien to the actual physical act of artistic creation. Prior to every first film, most directors will have completed countless shorts, most writers countless rejected novels, every musician abandoned songs. The debut is only the first moment the world itself is made aware of the artist, it is the first time that widespread judgement is invited. It is, far more like the arrival of Daphne to the London social scene in the first episode of Bridgerton than a birth of artistic endeavour. The debut lies in the presentation, not in the creation.

In fact, for Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter is not a debut but a new beginning, since her experience as an actor is surely long-term work experience for directing.

The film is best released at the turn of the into a new year to poetically foreground this fact, a theme frequently found within the film itself as character’s strive for reinvention. Similarly, Kane found a stylistic new beginning in Crave. As such, the new year is a time not of launching something new but of resetting and reconsidering; you can only build on what you have done previously. Like the new year, each new work is a second chance to affect your audience, cast out old themes that seem more stale than exciting. It seems no surprise that Sally Rooney has chosen to focus her latest book, Beautiful World, Where Are You? on the problems of sudden fame –, it highlights that debuts are indeed more problematic for an artist than we often think.

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Dirk Bogarde’s psychosexual nightmare Katie Kessler examines the career of actor Dirk Bogarde and his CW: Mentions of drugs, psychological abuse and suicide.

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here are two types of creative genius. There is the kind that can turn their hand to any theme and bring it to beautiful fruition. Think Shakespeare, the Beatles or Beethoven. The second type ploughs a single furrow many ways, telling one story: themselves. Every song Nina Simone sang throbbed with the pain of the African-American struggle, every Haruki Murakami protagonist has the same taste in music, and every Hitchcock protagonist has the same taste in blondes.

But what about actors? Can an actor — a job that by definition demands disguise in service of someone else’s vision — continue to tell the story of themselves?

I can think of at least one actor who did just that for most of his career: Dirk Bogarde.

Dirk Bogarde was one of Britain’s most beloved leading men in the 1950s, nicknamed ‘Idol of the Odeons’ for his slew of performances in matinee pulp produced by the Rank Organisation. In the 1960s he turned his back on romantic fluff in favour of a series of darker and more complex roles, including his best known role in Death in Venice. The latter part of his life was largely spent in a peaceful farmhouse in Provence, living with his partner, Anthony Forwood, and writing an impressive quantity of memoirs and novels. His autobiographies are witty collections of anecdotes and reflections on his early adulthood, his acting life, his experience of France and much more. Not a single one alludes to the fact that he was gay.

Dirk Bogarde did not come out during his lifetime. In 1986, not long before inviting TV chat show host Russell Harty to his home for an in-depth profile, he destroyed a host of letters and diaries in a bonfire in his back garden. With this act the details and exact nature of their relationship died with both parties. But for almost anyone who knows one thing about him beyond his name and occupation, Bogarde’s sexuality is of little doubt. This is largely down to anecdotal evidence provided by many of his contemporaries and close friends and John Coldstream’s biography. However, these posthumous affirmations alone do not account for how vividly Bogarde’s

secret in the public eye, and the buttonedperception as a gay man has persisted in up gentlemanly affect he perfected. “I public consciousness. I would maintain didn’t make it this far by being cuddly and that despite his reticence on the subject dear,” he said in response to Russell Harty in interviews, Dirk Bogarde was always commenting on his prickliness. Flashing telling the story of himself. Partly in his one of his charming, withering smiles, he books — as he archly commented to Harty added, “People need to be taught a lesson in that same profile, “you’ve got to read sometimes.” It is these glimpses of venom between the lines” — and, most remarkthat I find alluring about Bogarde, and it’s ably, in his performances. that that I look for in his performances.

You do not need to look far for overt exThis quality was picked up while he amples of this. After his breakaway from was still performing under Rank. While Rank, he took the highly controversial lead his reputation as a smiling leading man role in Basil Dearden’s 1961 film, Victim, throughout the fifties has prevailed, a famously the first English language film quick look at his filmography from the time to say the word ‘homosexual’ on screen. reveals that he was also often taken Radically sympathetic in its portrayal on for villainous or otherwise of the torment of gay men being dark roles, such as the murexploited by blackmailers derers on the run in Hunted while their very existence “Ultimately, that and The Blue Lamp. Even was criminalised, the his heroic characters are film was a monumental sometimes betrayed risk that Bogarde took is the singular by a certain artificialwith passion and story of Bogarde’s ity and aloofness in enthusiasm. He even their eyes, something penned a crucial that film production scene himself, where career: the vengeduo Powell and Presshis character Melville ful anguish of burger noticed with a d -mits the truth to displeasure about his his wife, that he desired performance as the darthe young man who was repression.” ing Major Patrick Lee Ferblackmailed into suicide. mor in Ill Met by Moonlight.

“You won’t be content until In the ‘60s he began to emyou’ve ripped it out of me,” he brace that inner darkness, opening the says. “I stopped seeing him because I shutters to allow a look into that well of wanted him.” Bogarde would consistently rage. We see it in the righteous anger of single out Victim as his proudest screen Victim, but arguably in more fascinating achievement, not least due to its role in detail in The Servant. Barrett is a characchanging anti-gay legislation by swaying ter plucked from the abyss, the trickster public opinion enough to pass the Sexual in a fable made nightmarish. The titular Offences Act in 1967. servant enters the home of a layabout Melville was the most overt and posiyoung aristocrat, Tony. He asserts his t i v e l y depicted role in a long line of power and ultimately manipulates Tony queer and queer-coded characters in into a pit of debauchery and degradation Bogarde’s repertoire. There was the for his own pleasure. terminally ill Aschenbach in Death in The film is a heady, psychosexual feast Venice, silently tortured by his longing that hinges on Bogarde’s mesmerising for a beautiful youth, the subtly camp performance. In the film’s early sections, and unrepentantly wicked protagonist of he is reserved, a little effete, quietly defCast A Dark Shadow, the far less subtly erential to his master’s wishes but parcamp and outrageous villains of Modesty ticular about his own tastes, especially Blaise and The Singer Not The Song, and where decorating the house is concerned. the sinister Barrett of Joseph Losey’s The His malice first reveals itself in small Servant. What is remarkable is seeing shows of passive aggression, and then in Bogarde’s face on so many of them after sudden shifts into gleeful sexual rapahe had established himself as Rank’s gociousness once he and the maid are alone to man for a handsome heterosexual lead together. The two devolve into childlike for most of the ‘50s. Yet even in these states, playing schoolyard games, petuearlier performances, you’d find the textlantly lashing out one minute and falling book cinematic codes that would fly over into each other’s arms the next. Once an unheeding viewer’s head: a fraught Tony has been reduced to a drugged up, and loveless marriage here, an offhand placid doll, Barrett looks at him with unreference to interior décor there, his masked pleasure, affection and sadism trademark saucy eyebrow quirk persisting mingling sicken- ingly on his face. He through it all. is an agent of havoc whose intentions But when I talk of Bogarde ‘telling the are never fully revealed, and in lesser story of himself’ through his perforhands could be nothing more than a mances, I’m not just talking about a few fixture of horror, but in Bogarde’s, we see quirked eyebrows and suga soul twisted by a life of repression and gestive comments. What resentment. shines through in so many Ultimately, that is the singular story of of his films is compelling Bogarde’s career: the vengeful anguish of bitterness. Within the repression. The Servant makes that anguish Wildean wit and affable its curdled centre, resulting in a desire flamboyance was a cold, that only knows how to destroy. In Barrett, grudge-bearing streak: Bogarde luxuriated in a side of himself he had a number of felthat he could allow to be cruel, lascivious low actors and directors and ungentlemanly. And even more satiswhom he inexplicably fyingly, he could direct that malice towards viciously turned against, the walking metaphor for English polite including John Mills and society, pushing it to the ground to lie at Richard Attenborough. his feet. Throughout his career, that dark This dichotomous perdesirous side would imbue his screen pressonality may have been ence with an arresting intensity that alforged in the threefold ways said: this is my story. fire of unresolved trauma from WWII, the stress of Image Credit: Film Star Vintage/CC BY 2.0 keeping his sexuality a

CULCHER EDITORIAL In a corner of my living room at home there is a shelf, crammed with the oversized, colourful spines of photography books my dad has accumulated over the years. It is funny how, even into adulthood, the urge to buy toys never deserts one. The need is satisfied for some by the purchasing of expensive motor vehicles; for others by the hoarding of lavish jewelry. For Dad, it is met by the acquiring of glossy photography books.

Toys though they may be, they are nevertheless excellent ones. My dad’s collection at home is marked by a strong affinity towards the American street photograph. Street photography is an improvisatory business; capturing people and objects in natural, unposed states, drawing out – poignantly, tenderly – ludicrousness in the everyday.

Their range of subject is broad, and distinctly American: bustling New York Streets, sun-bleached towns, and vivid, personal portraits. Events photographed are usually fleeting, existing no longer than the moment at which they were captured. The reflection of a pedestrian’s face in a shop-front; the alignment of a lorry with a billboard with a window.

Take, for example, a picture by Walker Evans entitled 42nd Street, dated 1929. It shows a woman, heaped in dazzling fur, gazing stonily towards the camera (I cannot tell whether she is looking directly at the lens, or just to the left of it.) She is outside, and behind her automobiles hum past in close rank. Her face is framed from above by the cutting horizontal of a bridge; to the right by the vertical of a staircase. The woman’s indifferent (or is it angry?) expression is unchanging – but this jars against the vivacity of the depicted scene. The picture is frozen, but is straining to move, to escape the moment. From my English living-room, I am able to look at this woman, this healthy, emotive woman – perhaps thirty years old – who will now be dead. Somehow, a person’s instantaneous glance has been brought within my smelling-distance, across the Atlantic Ocean and through ninety years of history.

Or, consider William Eggleston’s photograph, Memphis, c. 1969. A print of this picture, framed, sits on the wall of my living room. It has surveyed my breakfasts, lunches and teas for years – I have seen this photograph thousands of times. Taken from low on the ground, it depicts, side-on, a child’s tricycle, coloured an ebullient green.

The trike looms, taking up most of the frame. In the background, squat beige houses paint a picture of unglamourous suburban life. Between the tricycle’s legs, a shiny, sixties car fits snugly in its garage. I can imagine the smirk on Eggleston’s face as he sits, looking over his photographs, and sees the car, subordinate to the tricycle. The child’s toy; the adult’s toy. The child is the father of the man: in an unsuspecting suburb of Memphis this truth was caught on camera.

Jimmy Brewer Culcher Editor

MUSIC

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PLAYLIST BEGINNINGS SOUNDS In the theme of this week’s article, our team has selected songs that remind us of new year’s resolutions.

(JUST LIKE) STARTING OVER John Lennon Flora Dyson

FOUR SEASONS IN ONE DAY Crowded House Flynn Hallman

PEOPLE GET UP AND DRIVE YOUR FUNKY SOUL James Brown Flynn Hallman

In Conversation with Manmzèl performed under the name EM|ME, Emily felt the need for change. She picked a new name, Jimmy Brewer discusses the drawing on her Dominican heritage. In Domilatest release of Oxford-based nica (not the Dominican Republic, Emily was musician Manmzèl. quick to clarify), they speak Patois, a French dialect, which, when she was growing up, she aintaining a non-academic had heard her grandad speak on the phone. hobby alongside an Oxford “One particular night I couldn’t sleep, so degree is a challenge. Pressures I sat on my phone and saw whether I could from tutors, friends and oneself find anything.” Emily, with the aid of a Patois conspire to clog up time that could be used online dictionary, settled on Manmzèl as her to this end. But at the end of Michaelmas, I new alias. It means ‘young woman’ in Patois, had the opportunity to speak to a woman who coming from the French mademoiselle. manages it. Emily Meekel, aka Manmzèl, is a I was keen to ask Emily about how she interchemistry DPhil and musician, whose debut weaves the academic and musical strands of album is set to release spring 2022. her life. ‘It needs to stay fun,’ she stated. “My It was a bitterly cold day – the first of the year PhD is my priority, but I’m also very aware of to have that discernable winter sting that forces the fact that I can’t let it consume my life… I your hands into pockets or gloves. I arrived at our arranged meeting place – Café Nero on the could dedicate my life to it, and like, it would High Street – and ordered the ever-so-sensible be amazing, but for me it’s quite important mug of tea and granola flapjack combination. to have a balance.” She noted also that, like Over the café’s speakers was playing a twee, for most of us, the return to normality means instrumental version of ‘Michelle’ by The a far busier schedule: “in lockdown, it Beatles – one can only guess at the was quite good – obviously it was atmosphere that musical choice horrible – but there was so much aimed to evoke. more time. I noticed this term, Emily came in wearing a because everything’s back “During her days Balliol College puffer – a to normal, I just can’t coat that she usually breathe!” But the music and weeks in isolaavoided wearing, but and the work do compthat day was necessitalement each other well. tion, ‘it just came ted by the excessively “Making music, relaxing, low temperatures. She expressing myself in naturally.

It didn’t was amiable, clearly that way… and the PhD at ease in conversation – I can’t focus on that one feel forced, it just felt with someone she had not hundred percent.” met before. We sat down to Before coronavirus noimore mature.’” chat, and I began by asking sily arrived, Emily had been Emily about her musical career. questioning herself. “I was going After beginning her DPhil at Oxthrough this thing asking ‘why am I ford, Emily “didn’t make music that actively”, making music?’ If no one was listening to it, being so busy with the demands of a new city I wasn’t really enjoying it anymore, it kind and a scientifically rigorous research degree. of felt like a failure. Growing up you always “Then lockdown happened,” she said. “I went have this dream, that you’ll become this home for a bit, but I had to come back for labs, popstar, or whatever.” It was lockdown that and no one was here. Which was lonely in a was the great remedy. During her days and sense, but I also had so much time to make weeks in isolation “it just came naturally. It music again, and it felt very fresh.” She got to didn’t feel forced, it just felt more mature.” writing and reflecting. “It was nice to write “I’d like to think of myself as a female my stories again and notice to myself how Anderson .Paak,” Emily said. “I feel like I’ve developed from what I was like from my music is trying to be more energetic, the last couple of years.” Having previously sometimes more witty, or fast paced, and I

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NFTS & the music industry: Paradigm shift or pyramid scheme?

Zachary Sutcliffe discusses the effect of NFTs on the music industry.

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t the start of this year, Eminem changed his Twitter profile picture to an ugly drawing of an ape. The picture was worth £350,000. It was a non-fungible token, or NFT, from the billiondollar “Bored Ape Yacht Club” collection. This was not Eminem’s first foray into the growing market – he previously released his own, each with a unique instrumental beat – but it was a clear endorsement. With a total market cap of almost £20 billion, NFTs seem all but guaranteed to make further headway into the music world. But what will their growth mean for the industry?

To begin with, what is an NFT? In short, it’s a certificate of ownership using the blockchain, a decentralised ledger system which is also the basis of cryptocurrency. With an NFT, the blockchain stores a URL to the item, whether it’s an image or a piece of music, and the owner of said NFT, on a notionally unhackable network. It never stores the media itself, and if someone else gets hold of that

media they can copy it as they would any other file; but according to the receipt, it is still your file.

If you’re an aspiring musician, you may now be wondering: how does this help me?

To which the answer is: it doesn’t. Not meaningfully so. If you ask an NFT or blockchain fan, they can give you a million answers. You can sell music! Earn royalties!

Bypass the giant record labels! Something something Metaverse! All very fanciful stuff, with very little substance to back it up. At best, it allows you to do what normal intellectual property rights are designed to let you do anyway, probably with hazier legal backing. Mostly, though, these thrilling potential applications are hot air. NFT evangelists have to constantly invent new and exciting uses for their product, because at its core it has none.

When you mint and sell a music NFT, you are not actually selling music. You are selling a financial instrument, with your sound bolted onto the front to legitimise it.

Just as with visual art, the primary motivation behind NFTs entering the music industry is to introduce artificial scarcity and ownership into a medium to which it is alien. A digital artwork, just like a digital copy of music, isn’t really something you can paywall effectively. Photography meant that exclusivity was no longer in seeing artwork but owning it; digital art can be flawlessly replicated forever, so NFTs try and create a scarce “master copy” to sell. Streaming has done the same to music; thus, the same opportunity presents itself. Someone who buys an NFT of your musical masterpiece is not buying it to listen to. At best, they are buying it because they think it gives them status. More likely, they are buying it because they think someone else will buy it for more. They’re after the exclusivity of ownership, and the potential to sell that exclusivity to someone else further down the line.

Ah, but what if no other copy of the sound exists, as with our initial Eminem NFT? Well, that wouldn’t pose many benefits to the artist either. Again, this was already possible – take the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, sold in 2015 to Martin Shkreli for a vast sum. Only one copy was ever made; it thus has the same uniqueness as an NFT, with greater security since you own the physical album – after all, remember that the NFT is only a link, and the music itself gets stored on

see that in Anderson .Paak.” Listening to ‘Like a Woman,’ the first single from Manmzèl’s new album, the similarity is clear: the drum grooves are tight and a tongue-in-cheek vocal snippet kicks the song off. “I’d like to kiss ya but I just washed my hair,” says a sampled voice, before the track leaps into life with a catchy synth lead and supple bassline.

I was intrigued by the title of her single, ‘Like a Woman.’ The phrase is heavy with connotation, not least musically. There are apparent similarities to songs like Carole King’s ‘You Make me Feel Like a Natural Woman’ or Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ – but in these songs it is the validation of a lover that makes the person feel “like a natural woman”, or “like a virgin”. In ‘Like a Woman,’ things are framed differently. “Cuz now I know it’s not me but you that I despise,” Manmzèl sings.

Emily is looking to make a more cohesive product in her new mini-album. “Now I’m trying to get a record out that has the same overall sound,” she said. And from what I can tell, she’s going about it the right way. Her single, ‘Like a Woman’, is infectious, smooth, and impeccably crafted. Keep an eye out in spring 2022 for what will no doubt be a release full of swagger, soul and sincerity.

Read the full interview at cherwell.org.

Image Credit: Andrea Berlese.

a regular server. If that server gets hacked, anyone can take your music for themselves.

The only real advantage an NFT offers is that it changes hands much faster. What matters, then? Not the music itself, but the ability to declare ownership of that music, and critically, to sell it off as soon as you find a buyer.

So, what changes can we expect as NFTs enter the music world? Probably not many.

For all the pretensions of being more egalitarian than the industry as a whole, NFT markets are a very unequal landscape; about 80% of all tokens are owned by only 10% of traders. Sure, you don’t have to go through any corporate intermediaries to publish – but you don’t have to for SoundCloud, either, and that site also doesn’t charge you to upload, whereas NFTs cost money (and a colossal amount of power, giving them a huge carbon footprint) to mint. Ultimately, NFTs represent a new means of declaring ownership, and one that isn’t really more favourable to the artist than established systems. In the long run, it is likely that their social and cultural impact will be negligible. For all the hype, only a few will really be enriched by this new market, while desperate musicians and overconfident would-be Wolves of Wall Street – not to mention the climate – pay the price.

Read the full article at cherwell.org.

FILM

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Rewriting the detective story for the modern age

MUST SEE

Isobel Falk considers how the conventions of the detective story are critiqued in BBC drama The Girl Before.

NEW RELEASE The Tragedy of Macbeth Denzel Washington and Francis Macdonald star in a modern take on the gruesome tragedy.

CW: Racism, coercive control, sexual violence.

Warning: Contains spoilers!

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hero, vested with the authority of the law, doggedly pursues every lead that comes their way. With methodical tenacity, they unravel a web of lies to uncover the moral transgression at the centre of the plot. Truth is established, the guilty are punished, and order is restored. Details vary, but a basic structure persists: the detective drama formula has long been a mainstay of television. The BBC’s new drama, The Girl Before, reformulates this basic structure, but with a new intent: it attempts to speak into being a feminist crime story. With two Black women as its heroines, the drama takes the conventions of the detective drama in new directions.

The show unfolds in two parallel narrative timelines, following two women living at different times in the same, ultra-modernist smart home. Both women, Emma and Jane, have recently suffered trauma, and both enter into identical relationships with the house’s architect, the enigmatic and controlling Edward Monkford. As it transpires that Emma died in the house, it is up to Jane to unravel the events that led up to her death, discover whether Edward was implicated, and avoid the same fate herself. While at times the script can be overwrought, throwing in twists and turns seemingly for their own sake, the show’s close psychological study of its characters creates a real sense of menace that cuts through its melodramatic tendencies.

In recent years, the founding assumptions of the detective show format have found themselves on shaky ground.

After the reckoning of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, the automatic faith that the mainstream British public once held in the institution of policing has been undermined - a faith which many of these shows rely upon to function as drama. It can no longer be assumed that the hero’s uniform is a signifier of their virtue. The archetype of the noble, neutral police officer committed to the pursuit of truth has been undermined by mainstream recognition of police brutality and institutional racism. As such, the form of the detective drama

has been confronted with accusations of being little more than propaganda, manufacturing consent for the violent policing of marginalised communities.

The Girl Before places limited trust in the police: while the officers are not outright malicious, it is clear they have their own agenda. Career progression is prioritised above the wellbeing of victims, and truth is sidelined in favour of a convenient conviction.

Instead, it is the heroine Jane, a lawyer reeling from a recent miscarriage, who must discern the events leading up to the crime. Jane lacks the institutional power and detached retrospective viewpoint of a conventional detective, investigating a crime after it has happened. She is vulnerable, implicated, living in the same house as the victim, and in an eerily identical relationship with the same man.

She is compelled not only to establish truth, but to save herself. The drama does not wholeheartedly attempt to democratise the figure of the detective: as a lawyer Jane still has some legal authority in her sleuthing capacity, which gains her access to information and witnesses that another woman might not be granted. It is the successful legal professional, not the floundering marketing assistant Emma, who is granted authority to direct the untangling of the narrative’s web. But nonetheless, The Girl Before is significant in its transformation of the victim into the detective. Jane does not passively suffer for the audience’s gratification, but is granted the capability to save herself and find the truth about Emma’s death.

But the nature of truth, and the issue of its public demonstrability in the eyes of the jury and the audience, is also a problem for The Girl Before. The crime at the centre of the show - the death of Emma - occurs within a private home in the context of escalating tensions in her relationships.

The show grapples with the implications of coercive control, criminalised in 2015, and how this challenges our conceptions of crime and justice. Coercive control laws criminalise abusive behaviour in relationships beyond physical violence.

Traditionally, crime is conceptualised as a public problem: criminals are dangers to society, and need to be punished by the law. But the introduction of coercive control as a crime problematises this by turning our most intimate relationships into potential crime scenes. The private

spaces of the home, often considered personal and outside the scrutiny of the law, are suddenly brought into sharp, critical focus.

The criminalisation of coercive control has doubtless given protection to countless survivors of domestic abuse.

But The Girl Before, with its lingering external shots through the glass walls of the heroines’ home, seems to implicitly ask what the cost might be of the entry of the justice system into women’s private lives. The sense of menace in the show is heightened by the omnipresent surveillance technology in their home, rigged as it is with cameras, microphones, and a digital assistant in every room, and sensors collecting data from the kitchen to the shower. But we, as viewers, also become an intrusive gaze in the women’s private spaces. Our own gaze, conditioned by the formula of the detective show to expect bloodshed and then punishment, to critically and intrusively survey a woman’s life, is complicit in the violence visited upon Emma.

At the conclusion of The Girl Before, there is not one but three guilty men.

Emma’s boss and rapist is arrested, her controlling ex-boyfriend Si is accidentally killed in an altercation with Jane, and Edward goes to therapy in an attempt to confront his controlling compulsions in his personal relationships. The show does not entirely divest from the law as a means to impart justice, as the arrest shows, but it does broaden its scope to consider other responses to crime. The death of Si is perversely satisfying, but its accidental nature sidesteps the problem of disciplinary violence. The show’s restorative justice approach to Edward’s transgressions was the most interesting to me, in how it navigates problems of authority. He turns to therapy to work out the emotional problems that lead to his controlling behaviour, and the show suggests he might be rehabilitated. But the therapist herself is hardly a neutral party: she was Emma’s therapist, and subsequently helped Jane’s investigation by revealing tantalising tidbits of information that her duty of confidentiality allowed. The therapist is thus not entirely separate from the process of sleuthing that leads to punitive justice. Her implication in the show’s spectacle of disciplinary investigation means that restorative justice never

TO STREAM Yellowjackets The unsettling story of a girl’s soccer team stranded after a plane crash in the 1990s.

CLASSIC Paddington 2 The loveable icon gets up to more antics in the comedy made for adults and children alike.

becomes separate from the punitive work of the legal system. Edward’s therapy also functions as confession: he submits to the therapist’s authority in order to receive punishment and absolution.

The Girl Before is compelling, if at times it stretched my capacity to suspend disbelief. It is thoughtful in its attempts to reform the genre of the detective thriller, but it never becomes radical, remaining invested in conventional notions of authority, revelation, and punishment. Our detective is not a police officer, but is still a legal professional, and deploys her class-based privileges to unravel the truth about Emma. It is the police who punish Emma’s attacker. And the possibility of restorative justice is never completely uncoupled from the public desire for punishment. This feminist crime story is imaginative, but never truly subverts the problematic notions of truth and justice that pervades its genre.

Read the full article on cherwell.org.

Image: Max Vakhtbovych// Pexels Artwork: Wangsum Luk

THE SOURCE

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E H T SOU

RC E

As the smoke burns down to my fingers

by Alex Bridges CW: Self-harm, body horror Cinders, smoulders, ruin on earth Like throats that grab me by the – wait – And haul me slow through rough and tar And scratch me flying up and up, Singing night.

(Easy now, cantabile) Whirling day, birth of thought That far outstretch this meagre meet Of eyes that swim and fill with ash To blink a bloodshot world away And drink in rough, and burn, and heat Until she comes to kiss the dark.

I’d go gladly, by the end.

Artwork by Ben Beechener.

THE SOURCE

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The Demolished School

by Noah Wild Block A was the first to go.

The claw of a digger smashed through the rectangular arch of doorways, tearing down the wooden ceiling, rotten from years of leaking drains, eroded cladding.

Carpets ripped from floorboards, exposing wood on which footprints, preserved, almost rested in stasis, toe bending to heel, where students once pulsed together, rushing to lessons, or dawdling, taking the longer route with detours down past history, up to food tech, then disappearing.

In those geography rooms I had spent hours, head down in textbooks, staring at Sarah Lee, in the row next to me, her foundation cracked around the nose, studded earrings, hair like bronzed ember, cut at the shoulders, skirt too short for Sir, but it was all she could afford, passed down from her sister, who was shorter.

Next, the toilets dismantled, sinks to be recycled, scrubbed into new basins, to hold more tears after failed mocks and sudden dumpings; like Chloe (who Max had left for Yasmin, more attractive, funnier). She sobbed, reassured by friends hiding from the snap of teachers too busy for love worn woes, though Miss Green had cried in the very same cubicle ten years prior. Spending years of loneliness sitting on that toilet seat, a haven from slow lunch times with no friends, I knew the peeling paint as if it were my own palm, cream cracking, exposing the avocado green of the seventies.

Two builders chucked the piston and pipes into a skip at the nearest tip.

The toilet bowl cracked down the middle, a shibboleth. No thought for a ceramic that had seen Maria’s first period.

Submit your creative writing to The Source at: cherwelleditor@gmail.com

BOOKS

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Recommended reads POETRY COLLECTIONS With the work load of an Oxford degree, it can be hard to find the time to sit down and delve into a novel. Poetry can offer a solution: taking the time out of your day to read a poem or two offers a nice break without the same level of commitment. Our Books team recommend their favourites...

Pale Colors in a Tall Field

By Carl Phillips Carl Phillips’s Pale Colors in a Tall Field is a moving meditation on the place of the body within the natural landscape. In precise, lyrical verse, Phillips reflects on the passage of time in restrained language reminiscent of Greek and Latin he learned as a trained classicist. Exploring the intersection of nature, sexuality, and time, this beautiful collection examines both how we survive trauma and how we move past it.

- Eliza Browning, Books Editor

Hera Lindsay Bird

By Hera Lindsay Bird Bird’s self-titled collection is such a breath of fresh air... but that’s the kind of cliche she tears apart in this book.

Cavorting around the full range of human emotions, Bird creates eclectic images, constantly surprising the reader and offering new perspectives on common experiences. With topics ranging from Monica from Friends to break-ups to bisexuality, Bird is the perfect poet for those who tend to find the genre too pretentious or difficult to get into.

-Katie Kirkpatrick, Deputy Editor

Ariel

By Sylvia Plath Ariel, Plath’s second collection of poetry, was published posthumously in 1965 and embodies her artistic quest for a new kind of poetry. The poems included in this anthology range from transformations of everyday activities to descriptions of her often extreme and conflicting emotional states. Her use of powerful, violent and often hypnotic imagery in poems such as ‘The Moon and the Yew Tree’ makes this collection one that intrigues you, pulling you in and forcing you to derive your own interpretation. In classically Plath style, the language of her poetry brilliantly allows the contradictions within her work to co-exist. Ariel is moving, brilliant and a must-read for all fans of contemporary poetry.

-Elena Buccisano, Books Editor

The 22 books on my TBR List for 2022 Georgia Lin lists the books she’s excited to get to as the new year begins.

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aving decided to shove New Year’s resolutions to one side, my only vow for 2022 is to read more. I’ve been feeling quite nostalgic recently for the part of childhood where it was acceptable to sit for hours and devour a book in one go, content and with no other distractions.

That being said, here is my list of hopeful reads for the new year. A few are recommendations from friends, whilst others have been sat on bestseller lists for a while. Some are yet to be released and are by new and exciting voices that I think will be popular. In the mix are also some classics that even I don’t know how I’ve avoided for this many years (looking at you, Sylvia.)

If you’re stuck for your next read, I hope this helps a little! And if you have any recommendations yourself, I would truly love to know them...

1TheHamnet, Maggie O’Farrell imagined story of Shakespeare’s son

5 The Transgender Issue, Shon Faye Lauded as a monumental work in understand-

genre, Tartt’s detective story centres a group of classics students at their prestigious college.

6 Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart Set in 1980s Glasgow, Shuggie Bain follows the

Vuong’s debut collection of poetry; a delve into sexuality, masculinity, and experiences as an immigrant in America.

ing and celebrating what transgender liberation means in modern Britain.

15 Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Ocean Vuong

life of a young boy, tackling topics that range from alcoholism to the experience of queerness in working class communities.

16 Poor Little Sick Girls – A Love Letter to Unacceptable Women (2022 release),

7 Open Water, Caleb Azumah Nelson A lyrical depiction of an affair between two

artists in London. Azumah Nelson has been applauded for both the novel’s celebration of young black identity in Britain, and his unconventional and expressive second person narration.

8 The Right to Sex, Amia Srinivasan Srinivasan examines the politics and ethics of sex in society. Issues are discussed that range from race, pornography, to the politics behind conventional ‘attractiveness.’

9 Les Années, Annie Ernaux Ernaux is renowned for autobiography, yet Les

Années is also the biography of a whole generation. Spanning from 1941 to 2006, the narrawho died aged eleven. After being seriously tive follows collective lives and the changes ill in childhood, O’Farrell became fascinated they experience. by the Bard’s son, and how his death inspired the renowned play, Hamlet. She explores a life Notes on Heartbreak (2022 release), subjugated to the footnotes of history, and the Annie Lord Lord’s book explores the different shades of her legacy of grief. own heartbreak after a break-up. A columnist for Vogue, Lord’s writing is visceral and movSunset, Jessie Cave Sunset focuses upon two sisters’ relationship ing, as well as funny in her self-awareness. and grief. Known for her comedy Sunrise, Cave Animal, Lisa Taddeo also openly discusses the aftermath of losing a sibling. Sunset is a culmination of all these fac- Following the success of Three Women, Aniets of Cave, a both funny and heart-breaking mal’s protagonist is a deeply flawed woman, forced to confront the trauma of her past. story that honours siblinghood.

10

2

11

Ione Gamble Becoming chronically ill aged nineteen, Gamble discusses her relationship with feminism.

The trend of ‘girl boss’ empowerment was inaccessible to her and her disability, leading her to forge her own path and identity.

17 Nobody is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood Lockwood’s debut novel explores the reality of our lives online, and the power of human connection.

18 Owen

Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia

The story of a young woman who grows up isolated from her town, known to them only as ‘the marsh girl.’ A coming-of-age novel, tension occurs once she begins to yearn for acceptance and love from this community, with certain members becoming equally fascinated.

19 The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath Plath’s classic novel needs little explanation, often a steady place-holder on the ‘100 books to read before you die’ lists.

20 Catch-22, Joseph Heller Another permanent fixture on the ‘100 books

to read before you die’ list, Heller’s satirical novel is set during World War Two and exemplifies the foolishness of war. I also just want to know the origins of the phrase ‘Catch-22!’

12 Everybody: A Book About Freedom, 21 The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides 3The My Body, Emily Ratajkowski I have wanted to read this for a while, followfollow-on from Buying Myself Back, Rata- Olivia Laing Laing is personally one of my favourite writers. Her latest work examines the power and vulnerability of the body, questioning how it can experience and withstand oppression.

ing Jia Tolentino’s essay Pure Heroines; the Lisbon sisters are used as a prime example of the complication and limitations surrounding teenage girl characters in literature.

Challenging the marginalisation of black experiences in history, Olusoga’s wide ranging friends. Gifted children, their lives take dif- study spans from the Roman era to the ‘Black ferent paths after only one can afford further Lives Matter’ movement in 2020. education. The novels study the intersection of The Secret History, Donna Tartt class and gender, and the resilience of friendship.

Cited as the beginning of the ‘dark academia’

always overlooking the third Brontë sister, I am quite happy to learn that Tenant of Wildfell Hall is considered the Brontës’ ‘most shocking novel.’ Good for Anne.

jkowski’s essay discusses self-ownership and pressures from the male gaze in the modelling world. Growing up, Emily Ratajkowski was the beauty standard that many aspired to; it is this uneasy dynamic that makes her work so interesting.

4 Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante The Neapolitan series follows two childhood

13 Black and British: A Forgotten His- 22 Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë Originally on my list because I felt guilty for tory, David Olusoga 14

Artwork : Ben Beechener

STAGE

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Cabaret & Spring Awakening: The art of reviving musicals James Newbery compares two recent productions, examining what makes a good musical revival.

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was very lucky to see two amazing Frecknell’s 2019 production of The Duchess revivals of the iconic musicals Spring of Malfi made particular use of the opaque Awakening and Cabaret on consecutive and transparent glass boxes that Goold uses nights over the Christmas vacation. so effectively to explore ideas of captivity Both shows absolutely blew me away. and liberation in his production of Spring Yet I noticed how the styles of direction of Awakening. Yet what connects both directors Rebecca Frecknell (director of Cabaret) is a willingness to disrupt the ‘sanctity’ of and Rupert Goold (director the original texts. Both versions are “The show is of Spring Awakening) were ‘darker’ than their originals; radically opposed. Both shows in Cabaret, Redmayne as the just as relevant will surely receive multiple Emcee progressively adopts the Olivier nominations – but persona of a fascist dictator, to a Gen-Z which show will come out dropping his sexually audience fifteen top? And ultimately, what liberated clown outfit in makes a musical revival favour of a blonde wig and years after it successful? a brown shirt. Jessie Buckley Rebecca Frecknell’s big removes all the showbiz pizazz was originally directing break originally came that Minelli brought to the role of performed.” Sally in the film version – her voice at the Almeida Theatre (the current home of Spring Awakening). is stunning, but she chooses to speak Eddie Redmayne suggested that she put through much of the title song. Frecknell’s on a production of Cabaret after seeing the choice is bold but it pays off. The effect is West End transfer of her hit Almeida show devastating – Sally becomes a ghostly shell Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams. In of the person, introducing an ironic distance that sense, there is something intrinsically between the lyrics and the dramatic context Almeida-esque in her directorial approach. in which they take place. Spring Awakening

also opts for a darker approach; it feels more feel. Goold also has Hanschen (Nathan intimate and personal than the original Lea Armarkwei-Laryea) break the fourth wall to Michele Broadway version. The entire set particularly comic effect which I won’t spoil. becomes an enormous chalkboard which the However, I would say that only 90% of actors can draw on – the actors feel almost Goold’s decisions worked, whereas the organically in touch with the stage itself. surprisingly minimalist staging of Cabaret Goold’s introduction of Greta Thunberg’s itself created a consistency that Spring speech into ‘Totally Fucked’ added a new Awakening lacked at times. The decision to ecological framing to the show; cut the song ‘The Guilty Ones’ in Goold’s directorial touch revealed favour of the original Act Two “Can we ever how the show is just as relevant opening ‘There Once Was a to a Gen-Z audience fifteen Pirate’ felt like a mistake. The years after it was originally justify ticket prices glass at the back of the stage performed. of more than £200 felt distracting and I wasn’t I would argue that the reason quite sure what purpose it given the theatrical served; it wasn’t used as that both revivals are so strong is that the source effectively as the glass box at experience material itself encourages and the front. Yet I am being even requires an expressionistic especially picky – and given the involved?” sense of theatricality. In that price difference between the sense, they are gifts to directors tickets for Cabaret and Spring – the possibilities of invention are Awakening, it is no surprise that Cabaret endless. Frecknell’s Cabaret is performed has a slight edge. Frecknell defended the in the round, with a revolve effortlessly exorbitant costs of Cabaret, saying in The transporting us between the different Berlin Times that ‘a quarter of the house is £50 or locations. Spring Awakening on the other less, and we’re doing a daily lottery for £25’. hand is staged end-on with an ascending Can we ever justify ticket prices of more staircase that fills the entire stage – I was in than £200 given the theatrical experience awe with the level of fitness required for the involved – or are we just making theatre cast, who had to run up and down the steps expensive and inaccessible? The jury is out. for the entirety of its 2-and-a-half-hour What is certain is that the Almeida must be runtime. commended for their prioritisation of young So which show was better? It’s a close call, talent (the Assistant Director Priya Patel but I would just about say Cabaret. The Appleby only graduated from University in whole experience was so immersive to an 2020!) and affordable ticket prices. As a extent that I have never personally seen theatre, they are committed to training the done before. The Playhouse Theatre in the talent of the future, which is more necessary West End is completely redecorated to than ever as the industry continues to become the Kit Kat Club from the moment struggle under the pressures of the you enter the building. Similarly for Spring pandemic.

Awakening, the intimacy of the Almeida as a theatre helps to contribute to an immersive Image Credits: Marc Brenner

Hilary 2022: What’s On, Weeks 1-4 Week 1

Week 3

Week 4

Still to come...

The People vs. The Oxford Revue Venue: The Old Fire Station Date: 15 Jan, 7:30pm Company: The Oxford Revue After almost two years of silence, Oxford’s critically acclaimed student sketch troupe are making a triumphant return to the Old Fire Station stage.

The Importance of Being Nihilists Venue: BT Studio Date: 1st- Sat 5th Feb, 7:30pm Company: Honest Fool Productions The Importance of Being Nihilists combines farce with murder mystery to remind us of the shadow of mortality behind us all, however absurd our circumstances.

Wednesday, Death Meditation Venue: BT Studio Date: 8th-12th Feb, 7.30pm Company: Love Song Productions As the clock keeps ticking, and reality becomes unavoidable, a yoga teacher’s philosophy is put to the test in this Annie Baker-esque exploration of spirituality and mortality.

W5: Brain Freeze, BT Studio

Week 2 Little Hauntings: an Improvised Adventure Venue: BT Studio Date: 25-29 Jan, 7.30pm Company: House of Improv An improvised horror-comedy show about two people moving into a small town for a new life.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Venue: Oxford Playhouse Date: 2nd-5th Feb Company: 00Productions With a spoonful of murder, a dash of cannibalism and a sprinkle of young sweet love, Sondheim’s musical beautifully blends psychological drama and shocking plot twists to create the ultimate musical thriller.

She Felt Fear Venue: BT Studio Date: 8th-12th Feb, 9.30pm Company: Love Song Productions With integrated music and poetry, this new play delves into ideas of art, friendship, and growing up, offering a poignant look into how the choices we make shape our lives.

W5: Two Gentlemen of Verona, Jesus College Hall W5: Spinning Yarns, Fusion Arts W6: Persona, BT Studio W6: OUFF Short Film Festival, Various Locations W7: The Mikado, University Church W8: Sockpuppet, BT Studio W8: Intimacies, after Vallon, The Old Fire Station

FASHION

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Blacking down: What Jesy Nelson tells us about the fall of the phenomenon Madi Hopper discusses Jesy Nelson’s effect on blackfishing discourse.

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they felt comfortable going after someone lackfishing is a word that though whose other major claim to fame is the more or less unknown little damage done to her mental health because more than five years ago, has of online abuse. now become part of everyday The most interesting thing about this speech. While certain blustering whole controversy is how the accusation gammons still pretend not to understand of blackfishing has become one which is – that by applying a black aesthetic to a so heavily morally weighted that it seems white body it’s reframed in a way that to halo the person criticising the is more palatable to other white blackfisher – they’ve done people – most of us know what it is, and more importantly “It seems that one something bad, so they become an open goal for that it’s A Bad Thing To criticism. Despite having Do. Co-inciding with this of the consequences been the focus of a 2019 BBC growing awareness is the of blackfishing is documentary highlighting slow decline of blackfishing carte blanche to the damage trolling had as a rebranding technique. done to her mental health, Once a tried-and-true be criticised for driving Nelson to attempt strategy for those looking to absolutely anything suicide, ‘Boyz’ – the branding, gain clout, typically ex-child the Tiktoks, the performances else. ” stars and the entire Kardashian – has been the ship that launched a family, blackfishing is now a very risky thousand memes. You can see the impact business. Case in point ? Jesy Nelson. of being accused of blackfishing in the The ex-X-Factor star was at the centre of difference between the responses to two the latest explosion of the debate around clips – the Tiktoks that started it all, and cultural appropriation, and is likely the videos of her Jingle Bell Ball performance. first major celebrity (ok, that might be Let’s be honest here - the Tiktoks that pushing it) for whom the consequences of were released to hype up the new single, blackfishing have not only backfired but were blackfishing by the book. Grills, duactively tanked the attempted rebrand. rags, basketball shorts, big curly wigs Not only did it do nothing to propel her and a tan so deep that Jesy, who’s white away from her past as a member of a British, appears darker than her mixedbubblegum-turned-girlboss group, but it race ex-bandmate Leanne Pinnock. Add turned people against her so violently that

in the cohort of black/mixed-race male back-up dancers (which, when the song is all about liking ‘bad bad boys’ plays into some very nasty stereotypes), and there is no defence. It was a wince-makingly tonedeaf rebrand. Part of the issue is that her team seems stylistically to have thrown the book at her – if they had toned it (and her tan) down a little, it might have been easier to overlook. But by theming her comeback so heavily around an aesthetic that is so blatantly lifted from the black community (or basically a white person’s stereotyped idea of it), it’s hard to understand how they didn’t see the screaming backlash on the horizon. Most of the criticism was measured and valid – pointing out the appropriation and breaking down why it was bad for those struggling to keep up at the back. The next round, however, was in response to the Jingle Bell Ball performance. Even though Nelson was way closer to her natural skin tone, and wore an inoffensive costume, she got absolutely shredded online – for the performance itself. Now, of course you should be able to say what you like about celebrities online but bearing in mind her own history with online criticism it was quite surprising to see the speed at which the Jesy Nelson hate train was fully boarded.

It seems of the consequences of blackfishing is carte blanche to be criticized for absolutely anything else, which is handy to bear in mind when you think about the gradual shift away from the blackfish aesthetic over the last few years. Even those who’ve blackfished so

The dark side of coquette Iustina Roman explores criticisms of hyper-feminine fashion.

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CW: Eating disorder, pedophilia inine fashion caters too much to the male ately, we have seen a return to gaze, and that women* cannot be themselves hyper-feminine fashion which by trying too hard to appear beautiful and encourages all things “girly” and appealing to men, especially since being a beautiful. Inspired by Paris, balleri‘coquette girl’ is not just about appearance, nas, and it girls such as Blair but also personality and interests. For Waldorf of Lily-Rose Depp, one example, activities such as readof the most famous trends is ing, baking, and listening to “Rather than blaming Lana Del Rey are strongly known online as coquette.

A quick search on Pinterencouraged.

Moreover, those who embrace est will open up a world of simple and subtle makethis trend, perhaps it images associated with up is preferred, and we femininity: lacy dresses, all know how men love is more useful to look bows, Mary Jane shoes, to insist that natural or to those in the fashion flower prints and hearts. no make-up is the ideal. industry who propagate At first look, this trend In such ways, hyper-femmay seem harmless and inine fashion is perfect beauty standards beautiful. Many women* for attracting men, leading and dictate women’s to criticisms that it is not admit that they had an aversion to being “girly” as chilactually empowering as much bodies.” dren, and forms of internalised as it panders to the male gaze. misogyny continue to affect us. Being Even more dangerously, the ‘coable to express ourselves and embrace traquette’ community continues to come unditional beauty, simplicity and elegance is der fire for encouraging seriously negative empowering for many, by subverting gender topics—whether it be overt or subtle. When roles and using them to one’s own advantage. searching online, the trends in the physiIn fact, the word ‘coquette’ is used to refer to cal characteristics of people who embody flirtatious women* who flatter and manipuand embrace hyper-feminine fashion are late men to get what they want. In a way, it glaringly obvious: thin and light-skinned. could be said that hyper-feminine fashion Hyper-feminine fashion has been called out manipulates the male gaze and patriarchy on social media extensively for failing to ininto working for their own benefit. clude people of colour and a range of body Conversely, some believe that hyper-femtypes—to the point where some believe

they encourage disordered eating and unrealistic standards. The aforementioned role models of hyper-feminine fashion are, indeed, skinny white women.

Moreover, some argue that certain subcultures of hyper-feminine fashion slyly encourage characteristics which can be seen as infantilising and pandering to pedophilia: innocence, petiteness, and looking as childlike as possible are valued traits. Although a niche community which claims no such associations, one known as ‘nymphette’ is not far from pedophilia through buying into and sometimes sexualising childish fashion trends, and romanticising related topics such as Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.

Then, given such avid criticism, why is hyper-feminine fashion only getting more popular? One reason is because it is not the only trend to face such remarks. Y2K fashion, which has seen a huge resurgence in the last couple of years, faces the same issues. While that is not an excuse, body standards and gender roles have always existed, and one fashion trend is unlikely to make much difference. Rather than blaming those who embrace this trend, perhaps it is more useful to look to those in the fashion industries who propagate and dictate women’s bodies. There may be no solution and as long as we give problematic communities attention, they will continue to thrive. Even the

hard it was basically their entire brand are stepping away – think about the Kardashians, whose empire was built on the appropriation of the body-type and lipshape of black women, have allegedly had BBL reductions (although at the last count they had five kids by black men between them, which will be a heck of a lot harder to whitewash). There are a lot of theories as to why this is – first of all that, naturally, as a trend blackfishing was always going to have an expiration date, which is one of the major problems with the practice in the first place – that the non-black people who’ve hopped on the bandwagon for clout can just as easily hop off again, treating it as a phase rather than a real, solid aesthetic. More positively, you could say with more (though still nowhere near enough) proudly black artists at the top of their fields than even 10 years ago people have become more used to seeing the black aesthetic on black bodies, something that the decline of centralised whitewashed media has no doubt contributed to.

Cyncially, I’d also say that the biggest factor (though they’re all at play) is simply the increased accountability. And not only accountability, but the vulnerability it brings. It’s now a truth universally acknowleged - and that means that it is ok to jump on anyone caught doing it, and we all know that internet loves a dog-pile, especially one where you can then permanently justify your criticism as being from the moral high ground.

Hopefully, this means that it’ll be a trend that will continue to decline.

cottagecore aesthetic was criticised for a lack of diversity when it first rose to popularity, and came to be claimed by people of various backgrounds, body shapes, and gender expressions. It appears that the coquette aesthetic is on the same path, as many people are embracing and adapting it, making hyper-feminine fashion more inclusive.

In fact, the sad reality is that elements such as the male gaze and beauty standards are already deeply embedded in society, and practically inescapable—no matter which aesthetics we buy into, problems will always exist.

Whatever their reasons for liking and choosing a certain style, policing how women* choose to express themselves and what makes them feel good is even less empowering.

Image Credit: Jaguar MENA// Flickr.

FASHION

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A Euphoric fashion commentary on our generation Lily Sheldon explores the fashionable manifestation of gender and sexuality spectrums in TV show Euphoria.

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I like the way I dressed you but I’m worried I fucked with your gender expression,” Jules told Rue in their high school’s prom bathroom.

In Levinson’s HBO show Euphoria, the audience is drawn into the high school world and the relationship between Rue, an addict, and Jules, Rue’s new addiction. Jules is a trans-femme woman who has moved from New York into the suburbs which are haunted with the ghosts from Rue’s dysfunctional childhood. Season one explores the dysfunctional relationships of other high schoolers at this school; no character in the show has an easy life or is particularly personable. All the characters in the show, but especially Rue and Jules, in their fashion and presentation, provide nuance to our understanding of gender expression.

‘Tomboy’ fashion was first popularised as a high fashion style with Coco Chanel’s ‘Tomboy of Summer’ in the 1920s. Vogue covers throughout the 20th and 21st century capture how the ‘tomboy’ fluctuated in and out of fashion. However, the term ’tomboy’ has rightly fallen from grace due to the binary of gender that it sug-gests. Gen-Z fashion trends are less restrictive in comparison to the 20th century and Zendaya’s character attentively embodies this.

Rue is cisgender but has a distinctly non gender-conformative fashion: Jules describes it as ‘Seth Rogan-esque’. Throughout the show, Rue is inclined to wear shapeless and oversized layered clothing: if she is wearing something tight, it’s always accompanied by an item of clothing which is not fitted. In other words, she has Depop skater girl fashion without even trying.

In contrast to the other girls, such as Cassie, Maddy, and Jules, Rue is never sexualised by male characters and her relationship with her sexuality appears to be quite innocent. Unlike Jules, Rue never reflects on her own gender aside from saying that “she feels deeply uncomfortable” when Jules dresses her femme.

Gender does not appear to be on Rue’s mind but nonetheless we can understand her expression of self through her clothes.

Typical articles in Rue’s closet: a bomber jacket, oversized and graphic print long sleeve jumper and navy converse.

On the other hand, we frequently witness Jules’ understanding of her own gender. We see flashbacks of her trying on dresses when she was still male presenting and can understand the importance of makeup and glitter to her character. Her fashion is more traditionally femme than Rue’s, with her glittery eyeshadow palette acting as her clutch. But Jules’ fashion sense cannot be put in a box as it’s so experimental. When Jules goes to New York, she tells the person putting makeup on her that when she first wore eyeshadow it was like she had “levelled up” as a girl.

However, in the final episode she reveals to her therapist that she is having an identity crisis because she has always presented herself in a way that she thought men wanted. Despite being assigned male at birth, she, like Rue, grew up in the male gaze which has conflicted and confused her own understanding of gender and sexuality and how her fashion has been moulded by it.

Typical articles in Jules’ closet: a mesh long sleeved top, a pleated tennis skirt, tights and Dr Martens white boots.

Unlike HBO’s predecessors, alongside Jules and Rue, all the other female identifying characters experiment with their clothing choices. Maddy is not afraid of wearing a matching set of cycling shorts and a sports bra to school. Cassie loves pastels but also occasionally likes to sport a unique vintage piece. Kat’s outfits undergo the most transformation: from fashionable, ‘girl-next-door’ type clothes to dominatrix leather and chokers.

This contrasts with the consistently femme and conformative fashion of noughties’ TV: Gossip Girl, 90210, Pretty Little Liars and One Tree Hill. Yes, Emily in Pretty Little Liars may have been your sexual awakening, but we must admit: her whole friendship group wore the same clothes and, more problematically, never questioned or changed them. Fashion interlinking with gender expression was not discussed in these shows because the default for girls was uniformity: a.k.a tight, black sugar lips and low rise jeans.

Therefore, arguably the fashion in Euphoria is also a comment on society’s hypersexualisation of girls: no matter the age or context. In comparison to the neutral and unchanging style of the male characters, the female characters are consistently ex-

perimenting with their clothing. The girls are tormented by the glaring male gaze both in and out of school: internet revenge porn and nonconsensually shared nudes are ubiquitous. Sex has become readily available and the by-product is the sexual commodification of women. The access to anyone of any age on apps has forced these girls to grow up faster than previous generations. Unlike the aforementioned shows, clothing in Euphoria symbolises the female characters’ self-realisation of their bodies as sexual currency but how, on the flip-side, clothes can instead act as a tool of empowerment and self-expression.

In other words, the characters must claim their own sexualities before it is done for them.

Euphoria both emulates and pushes our generation to challenge our understandings of gender. It has led to ‘Ruephoric” inspo outfits on Pinterest boards, JulesXRue fanfiction and viewers begging to see what the cast wears IRL. The clothes in this show, therefore, don’t just represent this suburban high school but they instead shout out a generational truth. Euphoria presents how gender no longer dictates fashion but when it does, it’s not black and white. Women are no longer forced into corsets (even though Lizzo’s corset emblazoned with her face demonstrates their comeback) and blazers aren’t confined to menswear (thanks to Parisian actress Sarah Bernhardt, circa. 1870).

The word fashion comes from the latin word ‘facere’ which means ‘do’ or ‘make’ and not: “Hey everyone, according to your gender assigned at birth: dress the same!” Euphoria reminds us of this idea: gender is a construct, fashion is a personal choice and there is no one uniform; instead you must ‘do’ what you want and ‘make’ your own choices of expression because self-expression is not static. Let’s see what fashion boundaries the characters break in season two.

So, bring back your dusty year nine high-top converse.

Get a lip tattoo that says ‘rules’. And if you find yourself wearing a body harness to a Hilary formal for no particular reason… just remember to give special credits to Kat from season one, episode three for the inspo.

Image Credits: (top and bottom) @euphoria//Instagram

FOOD

22

The Christmas Dinner: A COVID Corrective Par Excellence

Recipe Fridge Shelf Frittata Trust me, this recipe is a gift to you at the start of the term.

Perfect for a lunch or a speedy dinner, this fried-egg fantasy will save a trip to Saino’s. It will handily hoover up any limp leftovers that are lying around, including those unidentifiable herbs and green leaves lurking at the back of everyone’s fridge. Except eggs, feel free to substitute any ingredient with anything that usually becomes a health hazard by the end of week eight, as delightful as that may sound.

Katya Alban discusses the perils of a COVID christmas kitchen.

T

here are many good things about tive in the house, the decision was made a family Christmas dinner. There to return south for Christmas; but not are also a few not so good. before stealing the whopping 7kg For starters, it’s always turkey she’d bought from the a wonderful thing to have a “Omicron: the local farmer. We certainly table laid full of the most are grinches. It is difficult delightful nibbles and Christmas guest being left at home with a treats. The dining room heap of food which only nobody wants but reminds you of the event table becomes something you didn’t get to cater of a work of art; a feeding of the five thousand who somehow manfor. For someone like my grandchildren who seem grandmother, a cook in to have grown about five ages to get themher time, there is nothing worse than wasted food. feet since granny last saw Thefact is that many them. Indeed, a Christmas selves involved.” dinner is always worthwhile, families have spent the last but the preparation certainly isn’t few weeks isolating, having been the most relaxed procedure in my exhit full blown by Omicron: the Christperience! Has the age of isolation changed mas guest nobody wants but who somehow that? Has what was once menial kitchen manages to get themselves involved in work become the saving occupational spite of all precautions. It is frustrating. grace needed for a Covid Christmas?

Especially when you become sick of proI fondly remember Christmases past ductive chores, uni work and yoga. That standing in the door frame; sipping holy trinity of ‘productive isolation.’ Has champagne and swaying helplessly as anyone else started a yoga teacher trainthe designated family chefs battled it out ing course? There reaches a point where in the kitchen. Fumbling around finding you need some serious occupation, and things to tidy, laying the table according to t h a t , ladies and gentlemen, is what a one set of family customs, then relaying it meticulously planned Christmas dinner to satisfy others. Anything but enter hell’s can be. Back at home, mum was on the veg, kitchen. An uncle stands raging in the my sister was on bread sauce duty, skyping corner while granny guards her Brussels my grandmother who was shaking her head sprouts station, insisting that they need on the other end of the line wondering what a little longer, though they’re already as on earth was going on. I was on tiramisu “soggy” as the bread sauce. Has someone duty: we had all the ingredients and they left the telly on ‘The Great British Bake needed using up and, to be honest, isn’t a Off’, you wonder? The snacks get more and tiramisu a better alternative to Christmas more tempting the longer the turkey takes, pudding? Father, unfortunately, was laying though you know you’d better wait for the in bed feeling absolutely drained. Covid full monty. “The gravy’s too thick!” had come and was there to stay for the next “At least it’s finished”, granny snaps, few days. grumbling over southern culinary perfecOur Christmas dinner wasn’t so bad after tionism. all. Food, like many wonderful things, can This Christmas, the family and I drove be made into a social and cultural event. Of all the way up to Sedbergh, a beautiful vil- course, not seeing extended family in the lage in the Lake District where we usually designated holiday window is a huge spend an idyllic few festive days doing not shame, but the opportunity to get hands much and eating plenty. Unfortunately, on in the kitchen for once is a nice change. we arrived only to find that my sister had Certainly, it is something I will be embractested positive on her lateral flow. With ing with full readiness in the years to come, an elderly and highly vulnerable rela- whatever Christmas Day might look like.

Ingredients (for one) 2 eggs 1 courgette, sliced 1 ring of chorizo, sliced Stalks and leaves of sad bunches of herbs (flat leaf parsley and coriander work well) 2 tbsp of crème fraîche Sweet chilli jam Half a lemon Dash of milk ¼ tsp smoked paprika Salt, pepper, olive oil

Method 1. Fry the chorizo off on a medium heat for a few minutes. As it’s sizzling, (turn it down if it looks like a threat to the smoke alarm!) beat up your eggs with the milk, some salt, pepper and the paprika. Add almost all of the chopped up herbs too.

2. Take the chorizo out of the pan, but leave the oil in for flavour.

Return the pan to the heat and add the courgettes, turning over occasionally until coloured.

Season up with some salt, pepper and lemon juice and remove them from the pan.

3. Now put the same pan (I really am minimising washing up!) back on a low heat. Add a little drizzle of butter / olive oil and pour in the egg mixture. Just let that cook through slowly, the fact that it is a frittata not an omelet will save any flipping disasters.

4. Assembly time. Eggs, chorizo, courgette, those last few herbs.

Finish anything that needs to be used up. A few dollops of crème fraîche and a drizzle of sweet chilli jam here.

It all begins with breakfast Marietta Kosma remembers Christmas breakfasts past and present.

I

t has long been said that breakfast constitutes one of the most important meals of the day. Really, there is nothing more refreshing than a hearty breakfast after a good night’s rest. Delicious food is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and especially during the pandemic, it became one of the few things left to enjoy. Still, many people often lack imagination for this early morning meal and end up making the same things over and over again; the average working person is looking for something quick and easy like cereal and milk, whilst others may skip breakfast entirely. Trying to get ready for work on time in such a hectic world can prevent us from having an adequate moment to pause, and to eat. However, no matter the hurry we were in, my family and I would always

make sure to have some kind of breakfast before starting our day.

Even though we would eat breakfast every day, what stands out as a tradition in my family is Christmas Day breakfast.

Breakfast on Christmas Day signifies the beginning of the festive season, the time when my mum gets off work, and my sister gets back from college. It is the season when everyone feels more relaxed as, instead of rushing and racing off, we get to spend the morning together as a family. It is the time when we become reminiscent of what the previous year has brought, both on a personal and family level. This special breakfast is a must; it has never let me down.

Christmas breakfast is something that all look forward to and always enjoy. My

mum cooks lavish treats, loving to take care of everyone. Mum’s breakfast consists of sunny-side-up eggs, some kind of meat (usually crispy bacon and turkey sausage), golden home fries, moist chocolate cake with vanilla icing, homemade biscuits with strawberry and fig marmalade that my grandma has made, pancakes which are eaten with maple syrup, and mimosas (mum’s favourite holiday drink). At the table we all usually start by grabbing a pancake. My sister always sits across from me and grandma right beside me. Then she will ask my mum if she needs any help yet: my mum will predictably and consistently answer in the negative. By the time we grab a bite of all these delicacies we are already starting to feel full, yet we continue eating more and more.

The choice of these particular dishes for breakfast reflects my mum’s American heritage, as well as her Greek cultural influences. American breakfast tends to be a combination of sweet and savoury dishes, whereas the Greek breakfast typically consists of savoury dishes only. As a Greek-American myself, I have a sweet tooth. I could solely survive on eating dessert and that is one of the reasons why I am so drawn to this particular sweet and special breakfast.

All in all, Christmas breakfast is a very special tradition for my family and one that we will continue to cherish. There really is nothing like waking up to the smell of hot pancakes and biscuits and I hope that one day, I too will continue this tradition with my own children.

LIFE

23

Hot girl summer for the highly sensitive Iseult De Mallet Burgess reflects on navigating hook-up culture as a highly sensitive person.

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fter my first year at Oxford culminated in a crushing breakup, I flew home to New Zealand and decided that it was time for a Hot Girl Summer. In a culture that equates hooking up with sexual liberation, it seemed natural that I, stained by all the vicissitudes of the end of an important relationship and wanting to explore my sexuality, would embark on a period of pseudo-relationships and casual dating.

We are, after all, constantly exposed to media and pop culture which extol the virtues of casual sex and permissive sexuality.

Uncommitted sexual encounters have become culturally normative; a 2012 study by The Kinsey Institute found that up to 80 percent of college students have reported having engaged in hook-up culture. As sexual scripts have changed over the past decades, people (particularly college students) have increasingly had more hook-ups than past dates.

It’s understandable that I viewed a

Hot Girl Summer in New Zealand as the answer to my post-breakup misery. The only problem, which I overlooked with heedless optimism: I am a highly sensitive person with a preference for intimacy and commitment.

A highly sensitive person (HSP) is a term for those thought to have a high measure of sensory processing sensitivity: a deeper central nervous system response to physical, emotional, or social stimuli. The brains of people with sensory processing sensitivity work a little differently than others’ – HSPs tend to be very deeply affected by negative experiences, easily overwhelmed by sensory stimuli, anxiety prone, and very emotional.

Predictably, these traits – while not necessarily weaknesses – do not stack up well against our cultural obsession with hook-up culture, nor did they lend themselves to my envisioned hot girl summer. Being asked out by strangers terrified me. Dates would drain and exhaust me. I didn’t know the word

“no”. I overthought everything. Hooking up with random people was, for me, anything but empowering. My so-called Hot Girl Summer aggravated the worst

“It’s okay not to want to engage in a culture centred around casual relationships. You don’t need to date to be whole.” parts of my sensitivity and turned me in to an anxiety-ridden mess.

I craved the blithe safety and deep sense of being known and seen that I felt with my ex, who was my best friend. I coveted the trust.

The intimacy. The way that they protected my sensitivity. The sense of meaning that accompanies building a relationship with somebody.

It became clear to me that

Horoscopes...

TAURUS

ARIES

20 April - 20 May

21 March- 19 April

I hope you have enjoyed your 0th week to the max, and please hold on to that serenity- you are going to need it.

Even though your ambition may take the better of you sometimes, with Hilary term quickly approaching, embrace your fiery side in all aspects of your life.

It’s a coping mechanism honey. !

GEMINI

CANCER

LEO

21 June - 22 July

23 July - 22 August

You will lose your keys.

I know it. Trust me. I’m looking out for you. So please clutch on to your keys are all times, or just leave them with a trusty friend.

Collections are over, celebrate your successes the true Leo way: buy your friends some drinks and turn the spotlight on yourself with your amazing outfits.

21 May- 20 June

Unlike most other sings that need to be told to shape it up and get things done, you on the other hand really need to calm down. There’s only one of you sweetie.

SCORPIO

exploring my sexuality needed to happen in that kind of context. One of trust, emotional connection and Austen-like slow-burn romance. Admittedly, this was difficult for me to reconcile with my internalised societal messaging around dating and the cultural pressure to participate in hook-up culture.

Aside from my sensitivity, there was also the compounding factor of merely being a woman. For all the benefits of hook-up culture, there is also an overwhelming body of evidence that documents significant gender differences in affective reactions to hooking up, skewed in favour of men. Women are more likely to report a negative reaction following a hook-up than men; a 2014 study by Baylor University suggested that the gender difference in regret over hook-ups is linked to negative emotional health outcomes. There is also the disproportionate danger of sexual violence.

This is not to say that women shouldn’t participate in hook-up culture, nor that those who do don’t value romantic intimacy – rather, that it’s okay not to want to engage in a culture centred around casual relationships. You don’t need to date to be whole.

Ultimately, my Hot Girl Summer didn’t go as planned, but it prompted a lot of soul-searching and self-growth, and for that I am thankful.

23 Oct - 21 Nov

VIRGO 23 August - 22 Sept I know that you can keep yourself grounded so I’m not going to waste your time. Instead, I’ll plead with you to accept that perfection is unachievable.

You deserve the world. Keep doing your thing and don’t let the hecticness of Hilary overpower your appreciation for yourself.

LIBRA 23 Sept - 22 Oct

I’m also really into some equilibrium in life, but sometimes it’s okay not to be okay. Inner balance is amazing, but don’t beat yourself up after a night out when the hangover hits.

SAGITTARIUS 22 Nov - 21 Dec You are doing great sweetie! Please take care of your gorgeous self, but most importantly, remember that your current boo needs some TLC at all times.

CAPRICORN 22 Dec - 19 Jan For your birthday, ask for a goat or a fish whilst you still can. The clock is ticking, and so is the opportunity to claim your next pet.

PISCES 19 Feb - 20 March Apparently, you are full of wisdom being the final sign on the zodiac and whatnot. So, I will not give you advice. Instead, please contact me through any of the Cherwell social media because I might be the one needing your help after all.

AQUARIUS 20 Jan - 18 Feb Your birthday month is quickly approaching: Prepare yourself for all the celebrations and emotional crises that come with that. Good luck.

Artwork by Ben Beechener

LIFE

24

Building belonging in both places: Learning to adapt to different paces of life at home and at university

Becca Funnell discusses enjoying solitude and being mindful whilst transitioning between living at

I

regarding this issue is the author remember anxiously sitting on Katherine May who uses the word the kitchen floor at home just “wintering” to describe the practice of before Hilary Term in my first slowing down, resting, and retreating. year, telling my family how I didn›t For me, the holiday is a kind of enforced want to return to a place where I had wintering, where I don’t have any other few close friends and I felt pressure to choice but to slow down quite abruptly show my tutors I was “good enough” to from the exciting chaos of term. Borrowing be there. I did not feel like I belonged.

May’s perspective, I can begin to see this It took the best part of two years for slowing down not as a bad, boring thing, me to build the sense of belonging I have but simply as a change in pace that allows now. These days I feel most myself when me to rest, reflect, and find a new way of I’m living in college with my fantastic living with different roommate; when habits and routines. a friend hears me Creating these new laughing across the “It took the best part of habits and breaking out quad and sticks her head out the window two years for me to build of term-time patterns to shout hi; and the sense of belonging I often isn’t easy. One friend told me that when I’m among the have now..” she takes herself out sweaty joyful mass of on a solo walk every Wadhamites at the end day, giving herself of a BOP, stubbornly “thinking time” to reflect on how she is refusing to give up on swaying with feeling. Although it sounds like a pretty a person on my shoulders until middle-aged habit, I’ve also started the end of ‘Free Nelson Mandela’. making this part of my life during the My problem now is that I miss all these holidays. I find so much joy in exploring things during the long Oxford holidays, green spaces around where I live, and it and I struggle to feel like myself. My definitely has helped me reflect, creating frustration at being stuck in the middle more space in my mind to calmly process. of nowhere, coupled with worrying This in turn allows me to enter a state that I’m not getting enough done and which psychologists call “flow” which feeling lonely at times, makes me pretty involves the practise of deep concentration, gloomy. This version of me feels so enabling me to let go of time and of my different to how I am at uni, and I don’t problems. Sound good to you? Then I like it, which adds to the general gloom. really recommend trying a calm slow walk, One person I’ve been inspired by

or another activity like drawing or yoga, E.g.: “you live and learn” and “nothing is and paying attention to your thoughts. worth sacrificing sleep over” As well as giving me the space to This way of journaling ensures I’ve think and reflect, walking is one way I processed everything that happened in a can enjoy spending time alone. Being day so I can get a good sleep, and it provides alone can seem like quite a scary thing many laughs when I read back particularly sometimes. In a world where social media dramatic entries - the ones I write after is flooded with images of people doing a night out are hilarious and mostly awesome things together, aloneness is illegible. Most importantly, it helps me portrayed as a bad thing, synonymous work out what has affected my mood and with loneliness. We forget about the other what has brought me joy. By reflecting on side of the coin to loneliness – solitude. my daily activities whilst living at home, I Stephen Batchelor, Buddhist teacher and have been able to create new patterns that author, talks about solitude as an “art” leave me feeling fulfilled, and like I belong. or a “practice” that enables imagination The number one thing I find myself and creativity, offering a much-needed grateful for at the end of the day are positive perspective on aloneness. His the people I’ve been around and the view on solitude is that it can only be conversations we’ve shared. Reflecting found by getting in touch with your on how much people mean to me prompts physical and sensuous body. I agree that me to put an effort into connecting with being less in your mind and more in your friends from uni during the holidays, senses is central to as well as spending enjoying aloneness. time with friends “Being less in your mind and family at home.

Recently on my walks I’ve started to engage Connecting with and more in your senses more sensorially people both indirectly is central to enjoying with the spaces and directly makes aloneness. ” around me: touching a huge difference to leaves, hugging my happiness and trees, the whole sense of belonging, shebang. I get a lot of funny looks when and its only something I’ve realised I tell people about this, but you can’t through practising solitude. There is a knock it till you try it, and I promise it paradox here: by spending time alone and will help you get more into your senses. turning inward, we discover the value Another “practice of solitude” that of human connection and togetherness. has helped me with my university to I find practising solitude and building home transition is journaling. Like belonging as practices really encouraging. many people, I don’t have the patience This perspective frees me up to keep to write a detailed diary so I use a very learning new ways of living without the systematic list-like way of journaling that pressure to get it right the first time, and takes me about 10 minutes before bed. dissolves the stigma attached to periods of The general structure goes as follows: loneliness. It›s all a constant work in 1. “Today, three moments/things/ progress. While it might seem daunting people I am grateful for are…“ that we will never really be done with 2. Something I did that day that was finding our belonging, I think its much brave or new better than unconsciously moving through 3.A super quick description of my day our lives without reflecting on what makes us feel good at the end of the day. Without 4.A check-in with how I am feeling – “I feel…” this reflection, we tend to subscribe to how someone 5.A phrase that gives me perspective else defines a “good life”. on whatever I have experienced that day.

John Evelyn

An inside look at the Oxford Union Much like John Evelyn, the union has decided that, after a long spell of messy and toxic matchups, this term it’s time to branch out and try a three-way.

You might recall that the last time something similar happened, the Union was about to couple up with an Australian gentleman, but some chap called Ron got in the way. As is often the case when one’s first option falls through, the Union ended up in a four-way with some slightly older folks and things got a bit weird.

Hopefully, this time, the longer build-up will mean everyone is more comfortable when the moment finally comes.

The Rapid Climber has reConnected with the dynamic duo that is European Girlboss x European Boyboss. The LMH Enforcer, on the other hand, was Inspired by the musical clout of David Guetta and the career prospects of the Campus Ambassador. John Evelyn hears he is planning a 70 person slate social this Saturday at LMH in paralysing fear that he might not get his campaign started soon enough.

The Univ Queen has renewed her OUCA Prime subscription and express-shipped two veteran hacks from the university’s

other favourite society. John Evelyn hopes she remembered to put the purchase on her personal debit card and presents her with the Garbage Collector of the Week award for reaching deep enough into the bin to pull these two out.

It’s dating season in the union, as each slate desperately tries to fill its final officer position. John Evelyn has heard that the ROs are thinking of putting all the slate leaders and eligible single hacks on an island together to see if they can find The One. They say there are many Fish in the sea, but at present no one seems to be getting any bites. Senior appointed are currently sheltering together in a coffeeproof bunker, however a little birdie told John Evelyn that one member may have been temped over to the electoral dark side…

Meanwhile, all wait with bated breath to see who, if anyone, the Privately-educated Progressive will look down upon favourably from her high throne. We can only wait and see whether this planned three-way does indeed come to climax, or if someone pulls out beforehand with cold feet.

More to come. John Evelyn x

LIFE

25

Cherpse!

Daniel and Eliza Daniel Moloney Second Year Brasenose College History

“Both of us tried to figure out if we were each other’s blind date.”

First impressions?

She was sweet and fashionable.

Eliza Browning Third Year LMH English First impressions?

He’s really cute and I liked his jacket.

Did it meet your expectations?

Surpassed them – I was unsure what to expect.

Did it meet your expectations?

She was really nice and easy to talk to.

What was the highlight?

Both of us trying to figure out if we were each other’s blind date.

What was the most embarrassing moment?

I asked what her name was twice.

What was the highlight?

Yes! We had coffee and an interesting conversation for about an hour.

Looking for love?

Describe the date in 3 words: Interesting, funny, great.

Email cherwelleditor@gmail.com or message one of our Life editors!

Is a second date on the cards?

Yep.

What was the most embarrassing moment?

We both looked around for each other a bit and I was nervous to say anything in case it was the wrong person.

Luckily I was right.

Describe the date in 3 words: Fun and relaxed.

Is a second date on the cards?

Yes :-)

Words of Wisdom from...

RUSTY KATE *WARNING* This mildly comedic column has been written by a drag queen agony aunt. It is not for the faint hearted and contains sensitive topics which may cause distress to some readers. Be prepared for dirty douche water, relationship issues, adultery, and finding out why your Dad never loved you.

Hate men? Losing the will to live? Wondering how to remove that Alpecin-Caffeine shampoo bottle from your arse? Good old Aunt Rusty is here to help! Rusty Kate is Oxford’s premier cum-filled crossdresser, known for turning looks, tricks, and straight men seven nights a week. She’s decided to take a short break out of her busy schedule of carrying Plush’s Drag & Disorderly shows to act as Cherwell’s Dragony Aunt, and help sort out your pathetic little lives one horrendously uncensored column at a time. Remember to submit your questions through the link on the Cherwell Facebook page – you’re guaranteed complete anonymity. Unless you lose an Alpecin-Caffeine shampoo bottle up your arse (looking at you, Ben Jureidini) Right, onto the issues that the SU are currently writing some very important petitions to the university about…

Dear Rusty, I think I fell in love with one of my closest friends last term. I thought the separation from her over the vac would help me come to my senses, but I think I’m still in love with her. Is it in my head? Am I confusing close friendship with romance? Do I tell her knowing she probably doesn’t feel the same? Help an emotionally confused gal out!

Love is always in the head, dear. Just give her some and I’m sure she’ll give you a yes or no answer. You do need to tell her how you feel, though. There’s no use bottling all it up just for it to all come squirting out later (that’s how lesbianism works, right?). In the words of the great Macklemore, love is love, and by the sounds of it, you’ve got some loving to give her. Romance and close friendship can be hard to separate, especially as queer people – we shag our friends, and are borderline celibate with our partners.

Why not ask her out with the angle of an open relationship? Those always go well!

How the hell do I find someone who is not completely insane, not a weirdo and just interested in something casual? I want a no strings casual hook up - is that too much for a girl to ask for? I’m dying here, Rusty, help. Where are all the hot men hiding?

Darling, the answer is simple – all hot men who are completely devoid of attachment or any ability to sustain intimacy are gay. You’ll find a plethora of options on Grindr – bisexuals and homoflexibles alike will be perfectly happy to give you everything and more, as long as it’s seen as casual. They don’t want to meet your parents, but they will pound you close enough to death that you’ll be meeting your maker. Just remember, the diamond emoji doesn’t mean they like jewellery – you’ll need to bring something smokable for those types.

How can I get out there without using dating apps?

Go out there just like your mother used to do, the good old-fashioned way. I’ve heard the hard shoulder on the M40 is a good place to meet people.

26

FEATURES

The British higher education system: Rigorous or rigid?

Viren Shetty discusses the failings of the British education system and looks to other countries for a solution.

‘

I first realised I wanted to study History and only History when I was 7 and visited the Tower of London on a school trip. From then on, History was the only lesson I looked forward to and became all I wanted to study all day every day.’

I’ve endured almost three years of study at Oxford and, more recently, spent hours trying to convince employers that the skills from my degree really are ‘transferable’.

Reflecting now and comparing myself to others around the world in the same position, I’m forced to ask whether I really was speaking honestly at interview or if a couple of Maths or Economics courses in my third year would have served me better for the world of work ahead.

Choosing one or two subjects to study at university at 18 seems like a very normal, natural progression in the English system. Eleven subjects at GCSE, three or

four at A-Level and then, finally, you pick your favourite one. Oxbridge interviews are set up not only to find the most gifted at particular subjects, but those most passionate. ‘Passion’, we’re told, is what will get us through twelve essays a term in the same subject, every term, for three years.

The vast majority of university students, however, are not passionate enough to take their love of their subject further. Love for one’s subject mysteriously, and quite suddenly, peters out in the third term of one’s third year as most of us hit the job market and the idea of masters or PhD level studies terrifies us.

An education system which takes this ito account, which isn’t gearing us up to fall in love or out of love with the academic profession is surely more desirable. Being forced to or even just having the option to take a wider array of courses ought to

make us more attractive on the job market and prepare us for life. Taking this back further, a broader 16-18 curriculum, which doesn’t let us drop Maths, essay subjects or

“An education system... which isn’t gearing us up to fall in love or out of love with the academic profession is surely more desirable.” a language ought to leave more doors open when it comes to deciding what to pursue

FEATURES numerical, reasoning and language skills to refer to. However, this isn’t an argument for general studies courses or more practical education post-16. It’s a case against siloing young adults into specific departments and in favour of interdisciplinary studies.

The liberal arts program and high school curriculum in the United States speaks

“Many schools are pressured by the harsh quantitative scrutiny of league tables to push students into taking ‘easier’ subjects or those taught by the best department. The positive feedback cycle here is damaging.” volumes for the advantages of an interdisciplinary education. Many universities lay out compulsory courses in essay-writing, modern foreign languages or science for freshmen and sophomores, while allowing students to pursue their interests by majoring and minoring in subjects in their final two years. It also gives university professors a lot more freedom to curate interesting, popular courses that don’t necessarily fit within a particular department’s framework. ‘Beyoncé Feminism, Rihanna Womanism: Popular Music and Black Feminist Theory’ at Harvard or ‘How to Stage a Revolution’ at MIT are two examples of ‘out-of-the-box’, interdisciplinary courses that we rarely see the likes of in the UK. In an academic climate gripped by movements to diversify the canon, encouraging universities to make their options ‘popular’, to fight it out on the ‘student market’, is surely a good thing.

The English academic’s rebuttal would be that three years of specialised learning in Biochemistry, Classics or Maths takes one to a far higher standard than one could get by taking a few ‘major’ modules a year. The liberal arts education leads to a surface-level understanding of a few subjects, without taking you to the depth of knowledge which you would need for ‘proper research’ to really add something to the discipline with your final dissertation. There is a case for specialisation in certain subjects in which knowledge is cumulative. This is particularly evident in subjects like Law or Medicine, where the English system somewhat ‘fast-tracks’ 18year olds and shaves a couple of years off their professional debut. However, the case for a multidisciplinary approach in the humanities and even some science subjects is strong. From personal experience, I would argue that being able to take papers in Philosophy, Economics and English would add significantly to my study of history and might mean I didn’t ignore the parts where politics becomes ‘mathsy.’ Equally, the benefits of interdisciplinary ‘modes of thinking’, applying a ‘scientific brain’ to ‘artsy questions’ have been well researched and argued.

Moreover, few would suggest that top institutions in the United States, Continental Europe, or Asia are hampered in the quality of their graduates, teaching staff or research capabilities by a secondary or tertiary education program which does not encourage specialisation. In fact, exposing students to new subjects, ones which they

27 might not have considered at school level, can give birth to high quality graduates and researchers whose passion for their subjects started late in their academic careers.

Multi-disciplinary study at university could also help to address this country’s youth employment or higher education crisis. Ever since increasing numbers of young people started attending university at the start of the century, cries about ‘pointless degrees’ or ‘too many people going to university’, often from the right, have dominated debates about the place of universities in society. If we do want to maintain higher education as a valuable tool for social mobility, perhaps broadening curricula, even at top universities, is the answer. Perhaps it could encourage universities like Oxford to consider our education holistically: what skills do we really want to come away with, which untapped areas do we still want to explore? This would evidently be more beneficial than a drive for first-class degrees at any cost and, in the Oxbridge context, competition between colleges and within departments.

While Liberal Arts courses have popped up at a number of institutions in the UK, the norm still remains the specialised degree and the underprepared graduate.

Even the process of choosing A-Levels is a restrictive process for young people.

Students are often likely to pick their options based on particular departments’ track record or the ease with which they can achieve top grades. The decision to drop a particular subject simply because of a bad teacher, department or school type is evidently restrictive and problematic. Often the case for taking a particular subject is strengthened by a particular charismatic teacher or which subjects are deemed popular. Many schools, moreover, are pressured by the harsh quantitative scrutiny of league tables to push students into taking ‘easier’ subjects or those taught by the best department. The positive feedback cycle here is damaging: worse departments with fewer students at A-Level end up receiving less funding, and so on. For certain subjects, this can also feed into a worsened state-private school divide once at university, with subjects like Classics often seen as the domain of the economic elite. With the aim of equal opportunity, therefore, a less narrow school-level education may be a solution.

The most obvious argument for specialisation at A-Level arises from the fact

“Everyone has different strengths. We should allow teenagers to express their individuality, choose their subjects and excel in their strengths. ” that everyone has different strengths. We should allow teenagers to express their individuality, choose their subjects and excel in their strengths. This is rooted in a particular view of education which sees all children as different, with different processing abilities: people think in different ways and everyone has their own strengths.

Not letting people drop subjects which they’re bad at could lead to disillusionment, poor mental health, and all-round negative associations with school. Letting every teenager choose their own subjects, it is argued, allows them to engage with their interests and fulfill their potential.

A-Levels, moreover, aren’t mandatory.

the standardised English education system ends at 16, with a range of options, from BTECs to the increasingly popular apprenticeship scheme, available after. Those who argue in favour of a more ‘practical’ education often focus on the fact that ALevels are not and have been increasingly less important for career aspirations. This isn’t unique to England: Germany has Berufsschule (‘vocational schools’), which allow those over 16 to study alongside a three- or four-year apprenticeship, while France has a separate stream for those who want to take the ‘vocational baccalaureate’.

Mandating a core curriculum until 18 is, therefore, potentially linked to the United States’ higher high school dropout rate than the UK and more general dissatisfaction with education.

This is compounded by the fact that the A-Level system is very popular. The English Education System is, undeniably, quite highly regarded around the world. Cambridge International A-Levels are taken by the economic elites all over the world, from Hong Kong, to India, to South America.

They are seen as a gateway to academic success, to prestigious higher education institutions and a demonstration of true academic mastery.

It’s important, however, to deconstruct this reverence for English schooling.

Education has been an area particularly defined by the colonial experience in many countries around the world. The idea of being part of an educated super-class still runs deep and possibly shapes existing feelings of respect towards the A-Level system.

Alternatives are on offer within the UK too. Scottish schoolchildren take more

“I’d argue that the key to a more ‘useful’ education is to treat young people as individuals and parts of the workforce, rather than as potential future academics.” subjects to Highers Level and many private schools have opted to also offer the International Baccalaureate, which forces students to pick a true range of six subjects, taking three to ‘Higher’ Level. The impact of the IB on low-income US students was found to create ‘more rigorous classrooms, students who participate in more extracurricular subjects and who had greater higher educational aspirations.’ However, the likelihood of us as a nation or schools more generally switching to such a system appears unlikely.

Gavin Williamson, former Secretary of State for Education, recently said that the purpose of education is to ‘give students the skills for a fulfilling working life’. While the answer to this could be vocational training from a young age, I’d argue that the key to a more ‘useful’ education is to treat young people as individuals and parts of the workforce, rather than as potential future academics. A more holistic education, one which accepts a need for depth while maintaining linguistic, literary and numeracy skills developed from a young age, could reinvigorate teachers and students and improve falling university satisfaction rates.

Artwork by Ben Beechener.

Editor’s Response The Cherwell Features Editors give their thoughts on this week’s article.

Jessica DeMarco-Jacobson While the grass may seem greener on the other side, the American education has its share of issues. One of the major issues in the system is the lack of cohesion. Each state has its own standards, so curriculums are different depending what state you live in. As someone born and raised in Georgia, I experienced the effects of this firsthand. I attended half of elementary school in a low-income area, and I distinctly remember the tattered textbooks and supplies that the district provided the school.

My mother (who works as a public elementary school teacher) has often expressed her frustrations about the school district. The gives teachers only a short time of the day to teach social studies and science, putting less importance on those subjects. Because her school is in a low-income area, it receives extra funding. However, the Title I program provides only $500-600 of funding per student per year and often fails to improve school services and activities. In brief, the American education institution may look better on paper, but in reality, it suffers from many systemic complications.

Leah Mitchell I started my secondary education in the International Baccalaureate (IB) system, following the Middle Years Programme (MYP) framework. When it came time to apply for my IB sixth form subjects, I hit a snag; it turned out that although I had thought being able to take six subjects would grant me greater breadth and flexibility, in fact the strict requirements on which subject combinations I had to take combined with the difficulties for the school of effectively timetabling students for so many different lessons meant that I was not able to take the subjects I wanted.

Ultimately, I ended up moving to another school and taking four A-Levels and an AS level instead, granting me both my desired amount of breadth and the flexibility which, counterintuitively, I found lacking in the IB system.

Although I went on to study a single subject at university, I chose one (Classics) which I felt to be inherently interdisciplinary. I can well admit the value of a well-rounded education - but we should not jump to conclusions about how this goal is best achieved.

Hope Philpott As a fellow History student, I share Viren’s concern at the potential uselessness of our single honours degrees when we step into the real world. I find it sad that at age 14 I resigned myself to nine subjects, at 16 to three and at 18 to one, because that’s all my school offered and I was told a single honours d e -gree was less competitive. I also envy the diverse learning experiences of other universities and programmes.

Years abroad should not be restricted to languages courses as they are at Oxford; they should be encouraged and subsidised for all students. I believe in education for education’s sake, because I think learning is pretty powerful. The current UK education strips students of the right to enjoy an interesting range of subjects for longer, and break up historic tomes with some coding, theories of music or differentiation.

Profiles

28

In Conversation with Lech Wałęsa Charlie Hancock interviews the former President of Poland, Leader of Solidarity, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Wałęsa about the fall of Communism in Europe, and the rise of populist leaders in Poland and Hungary.

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here can’t be many people who repressions, and a state of near civil war as have inspired both an opera and a partisans loyal to the government on exile U2 stadium anthem. President Lech who had once fought against the occupying Wałęsa may well be one of the most Nazis turned their attention to the communist famous electricians in the world, having been authorities. Both partisans and civilians were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize win 1983 for subject to mass arrests and executions. Antihis non-violent agitations against communist communists responded by attacking prisons rule in Poland as leader of the Solidarity and detention camps, attempting to free the movement. The first recognised independent political prisoners they held.

“In the 1940s and 50s we tried an armed trade union to be recognised in a Warsaw Pact country, Solidarity directly caused the end of struggle – that didn’t work. In the 60s and 70s communist rule by pressuring the government we tried strikes – that didn’t work”, he says, to hold an election in 1989, which saw Wałęsa reflecting on how opposition to the Communists become the first President of Poland to be changed. The strikes of the 60s and 70s may not have led to the fall of the regime, but they elected by popular vote.

We speak via an interpreter over Skype. taught Wałęsa and other activists hard lessons which led to the later Wałęsa is in Gdańsk, success of Solidarity. the city which includes “Practicality, to Wałęsa, March 1968 saw protests the enormous shipyards across the country where Solidarity was emphasises action and erupt against the government born. He is an animated over the high price of speaker, gesticulating learning from one’s food, and frustration freely to emphasise the promised important phrases. mistakes for the future.” that liberalisation under He still has his iconic Gomulka’s leadership moustache which made him instantly recognisable in photographs had failed to materialise. The month also saw from the time, albeit now white and slightly protests by students, writers and intellectuals more groomed. He’s wearing a grey rollneck who were branded as Zionists, with the explicit sweatshirt bearing the KONSTYTUCJA – implication that the dissidents were not Polish.

Wałęsa encouraged workers at the ‘Constitution’ – slogan which has become a symbol of protest against the populist Gdansk shipyard not to join the supposedly government. He wore a similar shirt to the spontaneous protests against the dissidents state funeral of President George H.W. Bush, which were sanctioned by the government. The shipyard because the centre of huge protests in and has even said he will ask to be buried in it.

Wałęsa describes himself as a practical man. December 1970 against rising food prices. The which affects not only the way he approaches strikers, which spread to cities across Poland problems, how he breaks their solutions down were met with gunfire, killing 45 and injuring like an instruction manual. Practicality, to 1000 people. He lost his job at the shipyard, was Wałęsa, emphasises action and learning from arrested multiple times as punishment for this one’s mistakes for the future, even if those agitation.

But as an organiser of further protests, he got mistake are painful. “I never forget anything I have practiced. I have eight children with my results. Further mass-protests and strikes in protest against high food prices, and in favour of wife!” he says mischievously at one point Wałęsa’s success as a labour organiser can gaining greater civil liberties erupted in August in part be attributed to this practical approach, 1980. The strike in Gdansk was ignited by the and his persistence in organising industrial firing of Anna Walentynowicz, a crane operator action and negotiations. He attributes his drive who had been involved in organising earlier to stand up to communism, despite its risks, to protests. The striking workers successfully his upbringing. “I took it in with my mother’s pressured the shipyard’s management into milk”, he says, adding that his family had a meeting their demands over pay and labour history of anti-communism. “Whenever there rights. The resulting Gdańsk Agreement, signed were conversations about anti-communism at by the strikers and communist authorities, permitted the formation of trade unions which home, I lapped it up.”

The People’s Republic of Poland was formally were unaffiliated with the state. Solidarity was established in 1952, seven years after the Red founded as the country’s first free trade union Army ‘liberated’ Warsaw and established a on September 22nd.

“Many of the people at the top of the provisional communist government.

“The Communist system was imposed on Communist pyramid studied in the West,” Poland after the war. It was never accepted by Wałęsa explains. “They were slightly sceptical Polish people,” Wałęsa says as we discuss the and they weren’t so much trying to defend history of anti-communist resistance in the Communism as they were trying to defend country. The post-war years saw severe political their positions of power. So it was possible to do a deal.”

The Gdańsk Agreement didn’t stop the government from imposing martial law in December 1981 to counter political opposition and Solidarity, which represented a third of the working population. Wałęsa was arrested, as were 6000 other Solidarity activists, and imprisoned for almost a year. Solidarity moved underground, albeit with the backing of the CIA who provided funding, organisational advice, and helped them spread their message through clandestine newspapers. Wałęsa tells me that Solidarity’s resistance through his time is thanks to the organisation’s determination and reasonableness: “Communism couldn’t combat that.”

After his release, Wałęsa was awarded the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize for “non-violent struggle for free trade unions and human rights in Poland.” He didn’t collect the award in-person in Oslo, fearing that he would not be allowed to re-enter Poland. His wife Danuta accepted the award on his behalf.

Despite the international acclaim Wałęsa has received for his undoubtedly enormous contribution to the course of history, he has been facing accusations that he had acted as a paid informant of the secret police in the

practical democracy,” he says, according to 1970s. Wałęsa has denied these accusations, the ‘Wałęsa Model of Practical Democracy’, claiming that they are politically motivated. which he uses to break the system down into A special court cleared him of charges of three practical areas. Poland scores full marks collaboration in 2000. The controversy reared for its constitution and legal system, but voter its head again in 2016, when documents which turnout in elections is low, and Wałęsa doesn’t appeared to show his involvement were found think many people are willing to stand up for by the Institute of National Remembrance, change. an organisation dedicated to identifying and Poland’s political troubles extend beyond archiving crimes committed under the Soviet the country’s borders and into Europe. Along and Polish Communist regimes. Again, Wałęsa with Hungary and Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz Party, defended himself, saying that the documents the PiS frequently clashes with Brussels over were forged to discredit him. Historians have the bloc’s promotion of progressive values and acknowledged that the secret police used to attempts to encourage the rule of law. Wałęsa fabricate documents to compromise members has said that Poland should be thrown out of of the opposition. the EU over the PiS’s advances on the judiciary.

What made Solidarity different from But he also opposes ‘Polexit’, and speaks at previous movements? The movement’s size Pro-European demonstrations alongside and breadth meant that it encompassed Donald Tusk, the former President of the otherwise polarised facets of Polish society: European Council, who the anti-communist left was an active member and political right wings, of Solidarity’s Youth liberals and nationalists, “We realised if we all Committee. and the intelligentsia “I’ve been saying this and workers, as well as came together in solidarity for twenty years: every atheists and believers.

Wałęsa tells me that the we could achieve success.” vehicle must have a driver. The fight against hatred of communism Communism was a Polish acted as a common matter which involved Polish people. Once that denominator between these disparate groups. battle was won, we came to the challenge of “Through a system of trial and error, we trying to rebuild Europe. I passed this challenge realised if we all came together in solidarity we on to the Germans. could achieve success. We realised we had to be “I would like it if Poland was the driver. But a monolith to stand against communism.”

Poland doesn’t have the resources or influence.

“When the Soviet Union collapsed, we lost Germany does. Together with France and Italy, that common denominator. In modern times, they have the ability to enact changes and find we no longer have that to unify different two solutions for each problem.” people.”

But implementing solutions in the EU Wałęsa answers become longer as our requires consensus between member states. conversation turns to the present political Poland and Hungary recently vetoed the situation in Poland, pausing more regularly so bloc’s COVID-19 recovery plan and €1.8 our interpreter can keep pace. His presidency trillion seven-year budget because of plans to saw Poland transition towards a free-market link a member state’s access to funds to their economy under the Balcerowicz Plan. He tells adherence to the rule of law. me he sees the present political order as going “If we can’t do it with Poland and Hungary through a transition of its own – a transition in the camp, let them destroy the European from an age where nation states define the Union,” he says bluntly. “And five minutes later, world, to an age of continents and globalisation we’ll propose a new one.” In order to access the which he believed is yet to solidify. He calls this rights and opportunities presented by this new in-between state the “Epoch of the Word and union, prospective members would have to Discussion”. agree to a fresh series of obligations. “We have What kind of discussions are taking place to establish these rights and obligations in in this epoch? Wałęsa breaks the answer down such a way that this nonsense we see couldn’t into three questions. What should the coming possibly happen.” epoch be based on? He identifies a conflict Wałęsa now travels the world promoting between people who want to build a society on Poland’s non-violent transition to democracy, freedoms, and those who say that we can only speaking about human rights and the start talking about rights once the core values challenges and opportunities posed by the of a society have been laid out.

Epoch of Discussion he told me about. He has a What should the economic system be?

Wikipedia page dedicated to the many awards, “Certainly not communism,” he makes clear. state decorations, and honorary degrees he “Not because it’s good or bad, but because has received from across the world. Wałęsa it’s never worked anywhere.” But equally, the never studied beyond his current form of capitalism vocational training as won’t do. “It worked for the old system of states “The populists have taken an electrician, which he tells me he regrets. “Had and countries. But it led I been a student, I would to a rat race of nations, over the initiative and have ten Nobel Prizes, which led to mass unemployment. Many everyone is sitting around not just one!”

In the model of many people just couldn’t and watching.”

US Presidents, Wałęsa keep up with the pace.” founded a eponymous His third question is one institute to preserve I knew I wanted to explore the memory of the Solidarity movement and the moment our interview was confirmed: How its place in history, and to educate future do we deal with the demagoguery of populist generations. I end by asking him what message politicians? “Populists and presidents give the he would give if he was speaking to an audience same diagnosis, that everything needs to be of students at Oxford. changed. It’s just that the populists’ solutions “My generation opened up opportunities to the problem are wrong.” for your generation. The world is yours. My Wałęsa is a fierce critic of the current Polish generation has broken down a lot of barriers. government, who he has accused of attacking Now you have to make the best of it, without the rule of law and democracy. In 2020, the NGO these barriers and borders. It’s up to you to Freedom House downgraded its assessment of decide whether my generation has succeeded Polish democracy as ‘consolidated’ to ‘semior not. Because if you fail, you’ll blame us. consolidated’. In the five years since the Law “Previous generations were scarred by wars and Justice Party (PiS) came to power in 2015, and revolutions. Nobody trusted anyone. It’s they have used their control over the formerly up to you to convince people and open up your independent body responsible for appointing minds to other people. Because right now, the judges to promote party loyalists to the newly populists have taken over the initiative and created Disciplinary Chamber. Polish judges everyone is sitting around and watching.” and international observers feared that the chamber would put pressure on the judiciary to issue rulings which fall in line with the With thanks to Anthony Goltz and Roman government’s wishes.

Picheta.

The problem is that we’re only learning democracy, we’ve never had it before,” he says.

Image Credit: He sees the situation as so dire that he has Jindřich Nosek / CC BY-SA 4.0 claimed a ‘dictatorship’ is being created in Poland. “In Poland, we are less than 50% of a

COLUMNS

What’s going on in the chapel?

Alice Main (she/her) on her role as a Chapel Warden at Lincoln College.

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hen coming up with an idea for a column, I found myself thinking of my college chapel. I am a chapel warden at Lincoln College chapel which is very important to me, so I thought it might be nice to share some of the things we get up to and explain some of the more confusing things that go on in college chapels. Before we begin, it might be good to start with a little note about some of the language that can be used to describe what happens in chapels, as things can get a bit confusing. Denomination is a term used to describe which branch of Christianity a chapel is part of, and these different branches may influence the different services offered or styles of worship (Lincoln chapel is Church of England, for reference). Incidentally, you

Questioning Otherness

Jacob Grech (he/him) on how migration is inspiring new visions of Europe.

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he late Franco Battiato was one of Italy’s greatest, but also most improbable, music stars. After decades experimenting with avant-garde styles, Battiato achieved major commercial success in the 1980s with albums that offered a unique interpretation of the cantautore (singer-songwriter) tradition, crafting lyrics rich in esoteric, philosophical and religious imagery.

His best-known song, 1981’s dance floor hit Centro di gravità permanente, begins with a reference to Matteo Ricci, a 16th-century Jesuit scholar who travelled to the court of the Ming dynasty emperors. In Voglio vederti danzare, he sings about dervishes, hinting at his interest in Sufism.

Battiato went on to participate, together with fellow artist Alice, in the Eurovision Song Contest as an established musician -

29 may also hear terms like ‘high church’ or ‘low church’ being used to describe churches- this sounds very odd, but it’s just a way of indicating how much ritual is involved in a church service. I would probably describe Lincoln as a mixture of ‘high’ and ‘low’, which will make slightly more sense when I begin to walk you through a mini calender of the services in our chapel.

Morning Prayer Seeing as this is the first service of the day, Morning Prayer seems like a good place to start. If you aren’t a morning person, I’m not sure this would be the service for you as you do need to be up a bit early. I find that combining it with a college breakfast in the company of the other wardens (much nicer than soggy cereal by yourself!), gives me the incentive to get up on time. Our Morning Prayers are fairly simple and last no longer than 20 minutes so you could describe this as our most ‘low church’ service.

One thing that I think makes Lincoln slightly unique is that our Morning Prayers are sung, which in most circumstances is a lovely way to start the day. However, when you are full of freshers flu and mid essay crisis it might be a better idea to go back to sleep for a bit (take it from me, week 4 of Michaelmas was something I would rather not revisit). If you like simple and quick worship, then Morning Prayer is for you- just remember to wear a jumper, because chapels are very cold in the morning!

Weekday Eucharist For those who haven’t encountered the term Eucharist before, please don’t run away; this column isn’t about to become a theology lesson! Eucharist is another term for Holy Communion, where worshippers are offered the blood and body of Jesus in the form of bread and wine. One of our jobs as chapel wardens is to assist the chaplain during Eucharist, which is mainly carrying things to and from the alter and ringing a little bell in the important bits

of the Eucharistic prayer. I find this all slightly nerve wracking due to the fact that the water and wine are kept in very delicate (and I assume very expensive) glass bottles, and the chapel floor is marble which of course is a recipe for disaster if you arent paying attention to what you are doing. Weekday communion services usually take place at lunchtimes or in the evening, so they are a good option if you would like to take communion during the week. I would tend to go to an evening service because I can combine it with a formal dinner (also our chapel is gorgeous at night!). However, these tend to be quieter services, so if you prefer something slightly more social then a Sunday service or evensong might be nicer for you.

Sunday service The stereotypical church service! This is nearly identical to the weekday Eucharist, but there will probably be slightly more people (so you may not be picked on to do a reading!)

The highlight for some is probably the ‘breakfast’ afterwards, which in Lincoln consists of various pastries and pieces of fruit with a lot of coffee and tea. If you have had a bit of a rough week I would recommend this, as its a good opportunity to have a nice chat with friends. However, you do have to be wary of ‘Serious Theological Discussion’ which can be slightly intense but please don’t be put off by it as we usually get back to just general chatting.

Evensong The big one. If you want to get the full Oxford Chapel Experience, go to an Evensong at least once. At Lincoln, this service consists of readings, organ recitals, the choir singing and often a visiting preacher to do the sermon. I would advise turning up slightly early to get a good seat and staying for drinks afterwards, which is a good way of either asking the visiting preacher any questions you may have or meeting up with friends before formal (my main bit of advice would be to get to the drinks

before the choir do!) One of my more memorable evensongs (technically lessons and carols, please forgive me.) is when I got stuck in the anti-chapel with a small child, my tutor and a large bottle of red wine that had smashed all over the floor. It’s safe to say that it’s never dull in Lincoln chapel!

Whilst this isn’t an exhaustive list of all the things that go on in college chapels (I haven’t even mentioned the book clubs or other events run by the chaplains!), it will hopefully be useful if you are slightly confused about what goes on. As this column series continues, I will go through some of the people you may meet in a college chapel and take you on a little tour of some of the notable chapels in Oxford. I look forward to having you along with me and I hope we have fun!

Image Credit: Matthew Foster

mainstream, but uncomfortably so. Although Eurovision is intended as a celebration of a shared Europeanness, it is also associated in the minds of many with musical reenactments of long-running conflicts between countries.

Battiato’s entry, I treni di Tozeur, does something quite different. It invokes the landscape and history of another continent altogether.

Tozeur is a town in southwestern Tunisia, and the frontier referenced in the lyrics is the nearby Saharan border with Algeria. Although the song goes on to reference interstellar voyages and spaceships, setting a Eurovision entry in part on a North African railway seems more than whimsical or eccentric, although Battiato’s music celebrates both these qualities.

In all three songs I’ve mentioned, Battiato toys with the frontiers between the orient and the occident, but in so doing, questions how ‘natural’ they are. Beyond a fascination with their cultures, there is in his music a certain identification with people frequently labelled as ‘other’ than European.

North Africa has had a particularly complicated relationship with Europeanness – from the insistence that Algeria was as French as Paris, to the many thousands of Italians, French, Spanish and Maltese who settled across the region in the nineteenth century. This history remains a painful one to address. Subtler influences, such as the role of Islamic philosophers like Ibn Sīnā in translating, interpreting and preserving Greek and Roman texts over the Middle Ages, are seldom acknowledged.

One element has not changed: for the purposes of defence, Europe extends far into North Africa. In recent years, this has meant strengthening barriers against migrants; the Central Mediterranean route is increasingly the main concern. With the deal between the Turkish government and Brussels to hinder migrants from making the perilous journey across the Aegean or EU-Turkey land border, it is from Libya and Tunisia that migrants increasingly depart. This is a dramatic reversal

from 2015, when nearly 900,000 made use of renewal, a springboard for critical thinking. As the eastern route, in comparison to just over Orlando puts it, they “helped us question that 150,000 in the Central Mediterranean. idea of state, as Europe’s constituent fathers Over 650,000 refugees, primarily from Sub- began to after the war”, not least because they Saharan Africa and the Middle East, arrived in provide an opportunity to reassert an identity Sicily alone in the last decade. The ability of that goes beyond current political borders – a parties like Matteo Salvini’s Lega (formerly a cosmopolitan Mediterranean identity. party that advocated for the secession of Italy’s This means reinterpreting Palermo’s Arab north) to make gains across history, which lives on Southern Italy indicates in in its geography and part the power of hostility Moorish architecture, “An opportunity to to migration. and asserting the However, there are reassert an identity that city’s connections to important counter curIstanbul and Beirut goes beyond current rents. Consider the NGOs as much as Paris or maintaining search-andBerlin. This is a call political borders.” rescue vessels. National for a cultural reimaggovernments, when they ining – a long-term do not refuse outright to project to alter people’s accept these ships into their ports, frequently relationships with their past and, it is hoped, delay and leave vulnerable people in limbo. the demographic changes of their present. In COVID-19 has only made this more common often surprising ways, this is already happen- Maltese authorities, for instance, first closed ing, with migrants themselves in the lead. their ports altogether and have continued to But the outlook remains bleak – fortress argue that they can offer no “safe place” be- Europe is institutionalised and deeply popucause of domestic infection rates - and, being lar. Mayor Lucano was sentenced last year to on the frontline, are “full up”. thirteen years in prison for “aiding and abetFrequently, those who have stepped in are ting illegal immigration”. Among his offences, leaders at the local level – mayors and the assigning garbage collection contracts to coalitions of citizens they are able to rally. migrants’ cooperatives and helping a Nigerian Palermo’s mayor, Leoluca Orlando, frequently mother gain a residency permit through mardefied Salvini when he was interior minister riage. Throughout much of Europe, activists to admit rescue vessels and has campaigned operating in a similar spirit of internationalto abolish the residence permit that restricts ism face harassment and regular clampdowns the mobility and employment possibilities from authorities, not to mention abuse fuelled of many arrivals. The former mayor of Riace, in part by legacy media. a small town in Calabria, Domenico Lucano, It seems a truism to say that the arrival of revitalised his declining community by as- migrants causes those already living somesigning empty properties to refugees – first where to contemplate, however briefly, their Kurdish refugees in the late 1990s and later own identity. The typical response is defenpeople from dozens of countries. sive; ‘the other’ can only dilute and threaten Besides humanitarianism, what drives cultures understood as monoliths. But perhaps these projects is frequently a recognition it can also be genuinely inquisitive and creaof the perennial multiculturalism of their tive, causing people to question who they own homelands. Migrants can be a source of were, and who they might be.

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Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil shirt Mauricio Alencar discusses the politics of football symbols in Brazil.

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n the 7th September 2021, Brazil celebrated its Independence Day. In São Paulo, to mark the day, thousands of marchers descended on Avenida Paulista.

The atmosphere perhaps was not so jovial, however. Anxious and irate marchers had in truth showed themselves in São Paulo to back Bolsonaro’s vision for a supposedly orderly and progressive Brazil where God is above all, and to lambast the Supreme Court’s tyranny for investigating Bolsonaro, and to gather some Trumpian momentum in the fight against the unlikely and unconvincing possibility of electoral fraud one year before elections take place. The radiant yellow colour the flood of marchers had created was a familiar one, a shade of yellow that would normally be attributed to the Seleção’s iconic football kit.

But as Bolsonaro spoke to the thousands, the yellow of the Seleção shirt had seemed to defamiliarise itself from football, and had now become the token symbol for Bolsonaro’s far right agenda.

It’s nothing new, politicians using football for their own good. Some of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup triumph can be accredited to General Medici’s, Brazil’s dictator, interest in politically investing in the national team and using his military to improve the players’ fitness levels. The country’s leading football writer, Juca Kfouri, writes that “I never let the dictatorship steal even what was most intimate to me”. Football and politics could easily

be separated. Brazil’s success on the pitch could never be a politician’s success.

Pelé had potentially consummated the hazardous marriage between Brazil’s dictatorship and its football when he shook hands with Medici. In a review of Pelé’s documentary film on Netflix, Jonathan Liew of The Guardian writes: “Of course, he admits, he had an inkling of what was going on, even as he posed for photographs with General Médici at official functions, beaming and shaking hands in pictures he must have known would be distributed around the world as pro-regime propaganda. But even now there is no real contrition, no twinge of moral anguish, much

“But as Bolsanaro spoke to thousands, the yellow of the Seleção shirt had

seemed to defamiliarise itself from football.” less genuine remorse at a course of action he insists was the only realistic choice.”

But it indeed was his only realistic choice.

Access to education, let alone high-quality education, is limited. The Brazil team’s visit to the presidential palace was less of a polite invitation than it was a stern-faced command. The denial of a handshake with

a dictator perhaps would not be the most sensible choice for Pelé’s own career as a footballer in the years after. It’s easy in retrospect to assume Pelé should feel regretful for not forming his own defiant identity off the pitch. Carlos Alberto Torres, the captain of the 1970 team, put it in an interview in 1988 that the players were only interested in “our careers, the professional pride of winning a World Cup”.

Then, the effervescent colours of Brazilian football in 1970 carried a natural purity and artistic uniqueness that could be protected against invasive socio-historical readings. The handshake was not a handing over of Brazilian football’s collective mould of individual romanticism to the state’s powers.

Dani Alves, the world’s most trophy-successful player living in a new age of player activism where footballers’ political voices have become ever more significant, finds himself in very different circumstances to the position Pelé and his teammates found themselves in the aftermath of their 1970 World Cup triumph. Dani Alves has publicly supported Bolsonaro in using his slogan “Brasil above everything, God above everyone” on Instagram- Pelé was never deliberate in showing his support.

Neymar’s dad commented under Alves’s post with a fist-bump emoji.

Lucas Moura is another prominent footballer to have declared his strong support for Bolsonaro. Polling suggests that Jair Bolsonaro in fact has a very high disapproval rating across the country, despite the mass demonstrations on the 7 September. It is very much in Dani Alves’s consciousness that his political voice carries a significant level of importance to politics in the country.

And as Dani Alves’s apparent words of support for the former military captain are complemented by an image of him wearing the national football team’s shirt, the iconic Brazilian shirt seems to embody not the national pride shared by a whole country, but a nationalistic pride felt by a minority in a country.

It should come as little surprise that the Brazilian shirt seems to have had its symbol stolen. In part due to a number of factors including the 7-1 defeat, performances at recent World Cups, a growing European-led distaste for the “joga bonito” style, and the demise of the reputation of Brazilian leagues, Brazilian football’s pedigree now finds itself in a vulnerable state.

An untidy culmination of Brazilian football’s recent failures came in Brazil’s World Cup qualifier against Argentina, where health officials rushed onto the pitch midplay to tell some of Argentina’s Premier League players to quarantine – they had been in the country for three days prior and the whole world had been alerted to the fact that they were in the squad ready to start. In a country where over 600,000 people have died from COVID-19, this sudden dismissal had nothing to do with health safety.

This was a moment in which the incompetence of the country’s various governing bodies and the general bagunça of Brazilian politics had violated, trespassed, and over-spilled onto the country’s most valuable safe-space. The purity and innocence of the Seleção has finally been ruptured, eclipsed, and defaced by political calamity.

The far-right capitalised. It’s Jair’s shirt… for now.

The Ashes and the place of cricket in 2022 Ed Grayson discusses his personal experience of watching England in light of recent Ashes failure.

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y whole life, I have been an avid cricket fan. I began playing the sport aged 9 in my back garden with my Dad, and I seemed to have a knack for it. I self-taught myself to bowl and was coming out with some relative quickies in no time, at least for my age.

This was all not long after the passing of

Upcoming Oxford Oxford Lancers go headto-head with UCI on 23rd January OURFC Blues play England U20s on Saturday 15th January Oxford Men’s Blues Basketball face Oxford

my grandfather who himself had been a top player, representing his school side in just his first year at school.

It seemed to be a way for my father and me to connect with the memory of my late grandfather whilst doing something we both know he would have been very proud of. It is, of course, a great regret of mine that the man I called ‘Gangar’ never got to see me play.

Cricket is a dying art; a game that, many say, is moving behind the times. With dark, imperial undertones, the success of the sport proliferated at home and throughout the Empire in the 19th century, intended to ‘civilise’ the natives of the colonies. The success of those such as Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli in India, for example, are triumphs over such ignorance. But through their nation’s participation in a sport played almost exclusively by ex-British colonies, it is also an awkward reminder of both cricket and Britain’s imperial past.

The Ashes, too, was born out of this imperial context. After the first Australian win on English soil at The Oval in 1882, the satirical sports newspaper The Sporting Times claimed that English cricket had “died”, the body of which would be “cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. The English captain of the next 1882-3 tour to Australia, Ivo Bligh, vowed to “regain those ashes”, which, in fact, he did.

Nearly 150 years later, we find ourselves as English fans in the same predicament that

Mr Bligh found himself in 1882. The first test ended in Australia this year with an Aussie win by 9 wickets; the second by 275 runs; the third by an innings and 14 runs. As I write, Jonny Bairstow is 103 not-out in the fourth test; but his persistence seems rather futile. Nevertheless, I imagine it can’t hurt to score runs on Aussie soil.

The defeat Down Under however, is particularly worrying this year in light of the developments taking place behind the scenes at the ECB in the past couple of years. Test cricket is no longer a priority. Short-form games are prioritised, and receives most of the funding.

The Hundred, a success, I will admit, is indicative of this neglect; and even though last summer was as brilliant as it was, particularly for the women’s game, this Ashes proved to be a test at the side’s resolve and capabilities at the long form of the game.

Australia does, of course, have the Big Bash, but evidently is better at balancing its short and long-form foci. Perhaps lessons could be learnt from our Aussie cousins; I would advise they should be, however hard it may be.

This leaves English cricket in a precarious predicament at the dawn of 2022. It is not a sport, perhaps, that is attractive to younger audiences; nor is the test team at a level

where the country is as captivated by their talent as we were last summer with the football at the European Championships, though the one-day sides are quite impressive.

It is, indeed, a dying art. Or is it evolving?

As a purest, I see its supposed ‘evolution’ as dangerous, and lacking precedent. The Ashes, a source of national pride but also one of the most fantastic athletic spectacles on the planet, cannot continue to fade into the abyss as this series threatens for the English.

But perhaps this is a case of “adapt or die”.

I know the game I fell in love with as a child, that I remember my grandfather through, will not be the same again in the 21st century. But what I do know is that I wish it to survive. My mind is not made up yet as to how, but in light of the Ashes, it appears it might be made up for me sooner rather than later.

Image Credit: Davidmollyphotography / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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Booze in the game: Crouch’s new plans Mauricio Alencar talks about the conseuqneces of Tracy Crouch’s new alcohol plans.

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y dad’s biggest pet peeve: half-time binge drinking. After getting up from his seat to let the dizzy drunken man shuffle past just as half time is approaching, he starts cursing loudly and violently, albeit in Portuguese. Missing precious seconds of a football match sends him the wrong way. The English fan’s matchday habits of leaving seats early, or arriving late from the concourse, so that they can grab a pint at half-time has its collateral damage.

Tracey Crouch, who is leading the “fan-led review” of football governance, revealed that the government could lift the ban on drinking alcohol inside football grounds “in view” of the pitch. This ban has existed for 36 years due to the extent of hooliganism in the country. The new age of beer might be coming our way.

The sit-down-stand-up choreography, which is English football’s reluctant alternative to the Mexican Wave, is a famous routine, well known and excellently rehearsed by all fans who regularly attend matches.

This routine may be happening a whole lot

“Mix beer with a sore defeat, and the pint cup could become an effective weapon for the football fan.” more often if the drinking ban is lifted. Why wait till half time to grab a drink? Very soon, you might be able to get your pint in midway through the first half. Cue the friendly yet frustrated chants of “is this a fire drill?”.

Supporters are allowed to drink at the cricket or the rugby “in view” of the pitch. With all due respect to cricket and rugby, football’s instants of excitement are often rarer, shorter, more dramatic, manic, adrenalinefuelled, action-packed, moment-of-truthcharged, g’wan-silence-yeaaaah-defined.

Football’s crazy. There are no tea breaks.

There is no courtesy, or least any sign of respect, shown to an opposition player lining up their penalty kick.

When your team scores, the full pint in your hand might be up in the air, soaking all those around in warm, stale beer. Can you imagine the scenes: a thousand men

dancing and singing under golden showers?

If they’re selling Darkfruit Strongbow in the concourses, it won’t just be splashes of gold flying about in the stands, but also pink and purple. Old Trafford, the Theatre of Dreams, will surely be known as the Theatre of Drinks. Getting drenched in beer may be enticing for the young football mavericks, but it’s certainly not for all match attendants.

There’s Boxpark on an England matchday for that.

Tracey Crouch makes the point that halftime drinking means “we kettle people into drinking quickly”. There are compromises to be dealt with though when it comes to football and drinking. It would perhaps be too harsh on English football fans to introduce Scottish football drinking rules, which would mean that all alcohol is forbidden in a football ground. On the other hand, it would most likely be far too permissive to let stands across the country once again turn into beery water parks, and let stadiums’ staircases turn into sticky slip n’ slides.

There is also a strong sentiment among the British public that football fans simply can’t be trusted. As shown on the recent documentary series Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League, The Times wrote that football in the 1980s was a “slum sport played in slum stadiums and increasingly watched by slum people”; many people believe that the culture of these darker times survives today; many perceived the scenes on Wembley Way in July to be the manifestation of this.

At first, the ban would only be lifted at lower leagues, so that data could be collected.

Tracey Crouch’s main reason for lifting current restrictions on drinking was to help the lower league clubs, whose beer sales account for much of their annual income. Though it may be hypothetical to say so, mix beer with a sore defeat, and the pint cup could become an effective weapon for the football fan. You could see pint cups flying like arrows onto the pitch when the opposition scores, much like what the abusive Hungarian fans did against England. Matchday incomes earned might quickly be offloaded on FA fines and other policing costs. Then again, with that in mind, we could see more Declan Riceinspired celebrations, where opposition players pretend to chug beer from cups.

Surely, those celebrations would be so iconic that EA Sports would have no way of not including them in PEGI 3-rated FIFA games by 2024.

Booze seems set to return to football. The nature of this new age in drinking- a consolidated revival of hooliganism or the nativity for carnival atmospheres in football grounds?- will certainly be one to look out for.

Image: Marco Velch/CC BY 2.0 via Flickr

Oli Hall’s Oxford United Updates

Club Update As we move into a new term here at Cherwell, we are excited to bring you more coverage than ever of Oxford United. We will have updates from the club every week as well as a series of feature length interviews with players and staff, focussing on the behind the scenes running of the League One club.

As it stands, the men’s team sit fifth in League One, firmly inside the playoff places and just six points off the top two. They fell to a disappointing first away defeat in three months with a 2-0 loss at Lincoln City last time out after goals either side of half time from Anthony Scully and Morgan Whittaker.

Wycombe Wanderers are next up on Saturday 15th and U’s fans will be hoping for a big performance with a win

set to lift them above The Blues and into third in the table. Matty Taylor has been the star man so far this season, with his ten league goals so far averaging out to one every two games.

Oxford United WFC, the club’s women’s team, are currently sitting pretty in second in the FA WPL South, the third tier of the women’s game. They are trailing pace-setters Ipswich Town by five points but off the back of five consecutive league wins, they will be confident that they can kick on and fight for the league. The winners of the division will enter a play-off to enter the FA Women’s Championship.

Latest match report Oxford United fell to a first away defeat in League One since September at the LNER Stadium. Goals from Anthony Scully and Morgan Whittaker saw Lincoln City to what was ultimately a comfortable victory for the side that had started the day in the relegation places.

The U’s started the game in fifth and were looking to build on their points tally ahead of a crunch game against promotion rivals Wycombe Wanderers next week. They did start well too, with Matty Taylor getting in behind the defence to force a save from Josh Griffiths in the Lincoln goal.

After that the Imps began to take control of the game and Simon Eastwood was called into action inside 15 minutes, tipping an effort from former teammate Chris Maguire onto the post. The pressure soon told when Lewis Fiorini played in Scully and the Imps striker duly curled in to score for

his fourth goal in as many games against the visitors.

Matty Taylor thought he had equalised for United just after half-time but saw his goal ruled out for offside. After that, there was a brief spell of dominance for Oxford before debutant Whittaker was on hand to sweep home a scrappy second goal for Lincoln and leave the Yellows with a mountain to climb.

Things went from bad to worse for the visitors when Herbie Kane was dismissed for a challenge on Fiorini in the 77th minute.

There were no more clear-cut chances for either side and the game finished 2-0.

Wycombe are next up for Oxford at Adams Park before a return home to host Sheffield Wednesday in two huge matches that might just go on to define their season as they push for a place in the Championship next year.

Image courtesy of Oxford United.

CHERWELL

32 Medium Sudoku

Hard Sudoku

Micro Cryptic Crossword

Adjacent digits along the red lines must have a difference of at least 5.

Across: 1. Used organ recklessly – not safe! (9) 6. Top of house hides back in complicit tabloid (5) 7. Student passes driving test, now gets paid (6)

Down: 1. Lottery ends in a stalemate (4) 2. Wrong tone for F (4) 3. Become proficient at spreadsheets (5) 4. Mash old pear for show (5) 5. Head of St. John’s makes even odd (5)

Pencil Puzzle - Hanjie Hanjie comes from an old Japanese word meaning ‘judge picture’. It is also known as Nonogram, Oekaki-logic and other names. It was first created by Non Ishida, a Japanese graphics editor whose work on using skyscraper lights in 1987 led her to create the puzzle and called it ‘Window Art’. Japanese puzzler Tetsuya Nishio also independently created the puzzle at around the same time.

The numbers at the start of rows and columns tell the number of squares shaded in along it. For example, a clue of “4 1 6” would mean there are sets of 4, 1 and 6 black squares, in that order, with at least one white square between each set.

Send your solutions to puzzlescherwell@gmail.com

Editor’s Corner: Michael Crick Michael Crick was Editor of Cherwell in Michaelmas Term 1977. He went on to become one of England’s leading political journalists, was a founding member of the Channel 4 News Team and has worked extensively with the BBC. How would you describe your experience working at Cherwell?

Exhilarating and exhausting. A dress rehearsal for life.

What is your best memory from your time at Cherwell?

The layout sessions in the cramped office behind the Union which lasted from about 6pm on Wednesday night to about 6am the following day. Then, next morning, I often went on the trip by car to the printer, Roger Goodhead, in Bristol, where we would reward our all-night efforts with a huge cooked breakfast in the greasy spoon cafe next door while the papers were being printed off.

In those days, we had no computers and had to lay out the pages ourselves by pasting typeset columns of copy onto a layout board for each page. We had to construct the headlines by rubbing letters onto the layout boards from transfers printed on plastic sheets known as Lettraset - a delicate, time-consuming process, and often the letters cracked. I wasn’t a very good editor but I saw myself as the master of Lettrasetting.

What is the biggest lesson you learnt during your time as editor?

Check your facts. I think it was actually the term after I was editor, on one of the trips to Bristol, that half-way through the paper being printed, a colleague rang from Oxford to say that the flag on All Souls College was at half-mast, and when he’d asked why at the All Souls lodge, the porter told him it was because the University Chancellor, the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, had died. I

felt so pleased when we managed to squeeze ‘MACMILLAN DEAD’ into the Cherwell Stop Press. Only it wasn’t true. All Souls - and thereby me and Cherwell - had been the victim of a student hoax, and Macmillan would live for another ten years. Still, I’m probably the only journalist ever to kill off a Prime Minister. Remarkably, even though Macmillan was Chancellor of the University, there were no repercussions. Crick had failed to make the most elementary of checks. Mind you, a national newspaper - the Telegraph, I think - fell for the hoax too!

Would you have done anything differently as editor?

I would have concentrated a lot more on producing serious, fresh journalism which was likely to make an impact beyond Oxford. So much of our energy and time in those days was taken up with other aspects of the venture - the business side, the layout, and terrible factional battles. The journalism was almost an after-thought at times.

Did your experience at Cherwell help you in your career?

Undoubtedly, though I’d previously been involved in a fortnightly paper, The Mancunian, at my school, Manchester Grammar, and several Cherwell editors - including Howard Davies, Haig Gordon, Martin Sixsmith & Mike Thompson - had previously edited The Mancunian.

Perhaps the bigger influence on me was that I was also business manager of Cherwell a couple of terms before I was editor, which probably gave me even more valuable experience than

editing the paper. The challenge was to raise £300 in advertising revenue every week, which involved a lot of trudging round Oxford shop by shop. The two roles of being business manager and editor led to me founding a couple of OUSU publications, the Oxford Handbook and the Oxbridge Careers Handbook, which both lasted 30+ years, and raised huge sums for both Cherwell and OUSU over that time. My personal ambition was that eventually Cherwell should be a daily paper, like the Harvard Crimson, but I was in a minority of one on that, and it never happened, of course.

I also set up my own short-lived publishing business in my final year at Oxford which lasted for 2-3 years. I became quite entrepreneurial at Oxford, and this was an important feature of my reformist campaign when I twice ran for Union president in 1979 (the second time successfully). I sometimes wish I’d gone into business rather than journalism.

What was the biggest story you published?

The then Union president and future deputy PM Damian Green being thrown dangerously into the Cherwell river by a bunch of drunken rugby club louts from Magdalen, while the future Attorney General Dominic Grieve looked on. The story was revisited by the national press a few times in recent years.

How did Cherwell change throughout your time on staff?

I introduced a new feature - the Pushy Fresher contest - which lasted for at least ten years, and future winners included the socialite fraudster (and Boris Johnson chum) Darius Guppy, and also Nick Robinson (about which I occasionally

tease him), while Jacob Rees-Mogg was also nominated for the dubious honour. Two years after I was editor, in 1979, when I was President of the Union, I anonymously wrote the Pushy Fresher column, assessing the nominations week by week, only to be exposed in the final issue by that term’s editor who, without warning me, thought it only fair that I be credited for my work. This led to me being accused of trying to influence the Union elections - in alleged breach of the Union’s then absurd and draconian election rules. To avoid conviction by the Union election tribunal - and possible expulsion from the presidency with only a few days to go - I disappeared to Cambridge and lay low.

How have you seen the paper evolve since?

Cherwell has changed hugely since 1977. We only had enough advertising income for about 8 pages a week, which is tiny compared with the current 40 or so. The modern Cherwell breaks a lot more stories - I notice it makes great use of Freedom of information. And it’s a lot more serious, but it can also be be dull at times, and be far too earnest, and lack a sense of fun. Computers have also transformed production, and eliminated the need for professional typesetting. Cherwell also seems to have several co-editors at once, whereas in those days it was almost always one overall editor per term. None of this “collective” nonsense - I was firmly in charge and the buck stopped with me, though I admit I was a pretty poor editor overall. But it was one of the formative experiences of my life. Wonderful, heady days. I only wish I had a few more pictures from that time.