5th Week Trinity Term 2022

May 27th 2022

5th Week

Vol. 295 No. 4

Interview with DJ Cuppy p.3

Independent since 1920

Catz-tastrophe: St Catz plans 11.8% rent hike Cecilia Catmur reports.

St Catherine’s College has proposed a 11.8% increase in rent and hall prices for the next academic year (2022-3). College accommodation rent would increase from around £1480 to around £1654 per term.

Each year the college reviews its domestic spending to estimate living costs for the following year. The 11.8% inflation in college living prices is an estimated figure for next years’ domestic costs which does not include any profit for the college.

This proposal is in line with the current high inflation rates. The UK annual inflation rate increased to 7% in March 2022, the highest since March 1992. Currently prices are rising by 9% a year in the UK. Other factors are also contributing to this figure. The Covid-19 pandemic meant the normal cost model for accommodation could not be used to predict this year’s costs.

In Hilary Term 2021, the college received no rent.

The college has found that the amount they increased rent by was lower than costs increased by. The fees this year received from students were not substantial enough to cover all accommodation and domestic costs. Another aspect which has led to this increase in student living costs is St Catz’s recent commitment to paying all of their staff the Oxford living wage. This increase in staff wages will result in a greater cost to the college, which is expected to be covered by an increased price for student rent and hall.

Rebecca Powell, a current JCR access rep at St Catz, found the news “disappointing”.

She said: “While I appreciate that the college has financial needs and restrictions, I have serious concerns with regards to how this will impact the student body. The cost of living in Oxford is notoriously high and, in combination with restriction to work during term

time, I feel that this will be another blow to students from lower-income backgrounds.”

On being asked whether she was aware of the possibility of college accommodation prices increasing prior to accepting her offer, Rebecca commented: “I knew that it was possible for rent rates to fluctuate slightly but an increase of 11% was certainly not expected…

[I am] completely sympathetic to the reasons that college have outlined [but] these factors should not be at the expense of those already in financially precarious situations.”

Discussions between the college student body, and its staff and finance administrators, have begun. The JCR is running a survey to assess the financial standing of its student body. It hopes to use this information to inform the college about the likely impacts of this rent increase upon its students. This will inform further decision making.

Rebecca does find it “reassuring” to know that negotiations between the college and JCR representatives are taking place, and she hopes the collection of data about students’ finances will provide “significant evidence that these rent increases are unacceptable”.

Nonetheless, she does still have “considerable reservations about whether these negotiations will have a significant impact”. An 11.8% increase is, at this stage, a suggested figure. The college has not yet committed to increasing rent and hall prices by this amount. However, with colleges across the University facing financial pressures, St Catz is likely to be one of many to increase prices for its students. When asked to comment, St Catherine’s college told Cherwell: “St Catherine’s is committed to ensuring that the experience of students living in College is the best it can be.

“The College is still working in collaboration with the JCR and the MCR on proposals for accommodation rates for the 2022-23 academic year.

Three students facing £150 trashing fines Charlotte Keys reports.

As the finalists start finishing and prelims approach, Cherwell can report that University staff working for the Proctor’s Office are actively attempting to catch students

trashing in University parks, and issuing them fines. In a comment to Cherwell, the University confirmed that three students had received such fines. A student who spoke to Cherwell was fined £150 from University Proctors in the parks of infringing regulation

“The current rates for undergraduate accommodation at St Catherine’s are the fifth lowest when compared to all other Oxford colleges. The College will continue to do everything it can to ensure that accommodation rates reflect only the actual cost to the College of the room and utilities, and will work with student representatives when doing so. When calculating these rates, St Catherine’s uses the actual predicted costs 3.3(1), despite the student claiming that they did not partake in any trashing.

The incident took place on the 6th May, when the Medicine students were celebrating the end of their examinations by trashing.

Employees of the University tasked with maintaining discipline were spotted roaming the parks, looking for students to catch red-handed. Students engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse, attempting to follow a University tradition whilst avoiding the hefty fines now attached.

Continued on Page 2

for specific services used, rather than an averaged estimate, which tends to be higher.

“Our students are our first priority and we appreciate that the current financial climate may be challenging for them and their families. We will continue to support each of our students in any way that we can, including through initiatives such as the Student Support Fund.”

News

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What’s inside?

4. St Benet’s Hall special report

10. Wilde at heart: In Conversation with members of the Lincoln Drama Society

5. Oxford nuclear fission revolution: First Light Fusion

11. How does the monkeypox virus replicate?

7. Cherwell end of year soirée and more Ox news

15. Carrie: Performing the unperformable 17. A Drink,

by Edmund McClarn 20. Beyond the Etonians: Simon Kuper’s Chums in

12. Work is hell: What corporate bureaucracy looks like 8. Party to privelege, priveliged to party: College balls and socioeconomic exclusion

Continued from page 1 The student who spoke to Cherwell claimed that they were merely caught up in the chase, and were not even participating in trashing. Speaking to the publication, they said that they ‘poured roughly a tablespoon of lubricant on a friend’s head as we were leaving the park. I then put the packet of lubricant back in my pocket, before I was retrieving it from my pocket, I handed it to him. He then proceeded to throw it on the ground behind him, and issue me the £150 ance to regulation 3.3(1), that states that ‘no student member shall, in any place or thoroughfare to which members of the general public have access within six miles of Carfax, throw, pour, spray, apply or use any thing or substance in a way which is intended, or is likely, (a) to cause injury to any person, or (b) to cause damage to, or defacement or destruction of, any property, or to cause litter’. stating, ‘I did not however, as I explained to him, cause injury to anyone, damage any property (as the water-based lube was on his hair and washes out instantly), or litter’.

The student claims that their actions did ‘not satisfy’ any of the criteria listed above.

Therefore, the student believes that they should ‘not face a punishment’ and that the University Parks where many other stu-

13.

22. Main character syndrome - column

Love Island goes sustainable?

dents were being trashed as it was the day their exams. The student notes that many their actions.

Whilst the student requested an appeal as they claimed that they were not intending to do any actions listed in the clause, the appeal was refused. The student claimed me’. However, in the rejection of the appeal the University told the student that the behaviour was ‘likely to cause litter’.

Exam season brings the return of Senior Proctor Professor Jane Cherwell that ‘throwing food and other materials in exam celebrations is wasteful and disrespectful. We know that our students are committed to sustainability and urge them to extend this to their exam celebrations this year’.

Whilst the practice has been a few years already, it was reported by Cherwell earlier this year of the University’s now planned

24. An apology from Oh Well...

students engaged in ‘trashing’, considering the action ‘antisocial behaviour’. This message has been reinforced on the university website with a page dedicated to ‘Exams: Celebrate Sustainably’. ‘strictly enforced this year, as a breach of the University’s Code of Discipline’. Failure plinary action’.

The University has instead compiled suggestions for students looking to commemorate the end that students should ‘have a night out’ and ‘make the most of this opportunity to celebrate with your friends’. Another that students should make sure to take any ‘rubbish home with you’. dents with biodegradable ‘trashing’ equipment, despite University policy now meanwhen ‘trashing’. All money collected from the ‘trashing’ hardship fund, which aims to assist students at the University who are strugculties during their course.

Image Credit: Howard Stanbury/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

News Shorts CNN’s Clarissa Ward at the Union Ward spoke about her career as a foreign correspondent reporting from major political events and conflict zones across the world. Image: Peabody Awards/CC BY 2.0

Government cuts ties with NUS over ‘antisemitic rot’ The National Union of Students will not be allowed to represent students on panels organsied by the government.

Prince Charles speaks to Oxford students The heir to the throne spoke with students from underrepresented groups to hear about their experiences and the challenges they . Image: Ed Nix

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News Lagos to New York, Monaco to Oxford: Meeting DJ Cuppy Isaac Ettinghausen meets the international DJ, million-pound philanthropist, continental celebrity...and LMH student.

DJ Cuppy is a busy woman. “I flew back in from Monaco yesterday” she tells me as we prepare for a photoshoot in her lush North Oxford house. Later that evening, she’s DJing at an Oxford Ball. “And tomorrow, I’m back in London for my show on 1Xtra”. It seems surprising that she finds time for anything else, but along with music she runs the Cuppy Foundation, a charity which last year fed 70,000 Nigerian children a day. On her days off, she rubs shoulders with celebrities like Anthony Joshua, flying across the world on lavish holidays. She says that Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder, called her the most influential Black woman on the platform. She also happens to be a graduate student, here in Oxford.

Florence “Cuppy” Otedola, 29, is the daughter of Nigerian oil tycoon Femi Otedola. Born in Lagos, she moved to London at age 13 and is currently undertaking her third degree, following a BA in Economics at King’s College, London, and a Masters in Music at New York University with a MSc in African Studies at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

When I meet her, she’s impossibly charming and – decked out in her trademark all-pink – impossible to miss. At any given question, she launches into a beginning/middle/end monologue so effortless it seems rehearsed, and she pretty much directs her own photoshoot, pointing out the spots with the best lighting and moving at two-poses-a-second (much to our relief, as inexperienced students).

While education has clearly been a big part of Cuppy’s life, it may seem initially at odds with her lavish celebrity lifestyle. However, she makes no effort to hide her student status – recent Instagram posts have seen study sessions interspersed with videos of club appearances and interviews (with, of course, the caveat that the studying was done in her family’s home in Monaco). She told me that sometimes she felt she was living “between two lives”; Cuppy the student and Cuppy the DJ, even doing research

and working on essays backstage at shows.

Here, in Oxford, it is Cuppy the student that clearly shines through. She tells me about her thesis, on mobilisation strategies for women in Nigerian politics, and her other academic interests. In fact, she explains that one of the reasons she came to this degree in Oxford was because it involved field research – something she hadn’t done before.

In every way, Oxford life seems like an escape for her. Her home in Oxford – while undoubtedly an upgrade on standard student digs – is a far cry from her life in London, a home filled with pink and award cabinets, not to mention an entire recording studio. “Oxford allows me to be a little bit more present. And, you know, yeah, I think it’s really nice that sometimes, what is expected of me as an Oxford student is to just learn, rather than what’s expected of Cuppy which is to perform and deliver.”

That being said, with 9 million Instagram followers – whom she calls her “Cupcakes” – alongside a host of high-profile roles such as Pepsi’s “DJ Ambassador”, her fame is hard to escape.On Radio 1Xtra, she finds herself “every weekend talking to millions of people, then I’m on stage of festivals, DJing with thousands of people.” With the weight of such an enormous following, does she find it hard to reconcile her public persona with her private one? “What I really struggle with is informal settings,” she says. “That mental state of pressure and performance sometimes isn’t needed.

And I find it hard to turn it off”.

However, her biggest impact is not in Oxford; in 2017, she founded the Cuppy Foundation. The charity started with her personally sponsoring seven young fans. Then, mystified, “we started getting hundreds of applicants… I couldn’t just keep sending people money from my account”. Eventually, the Foundation became more structured and began fundraising from outside, joining with Save the Children to take advantage of their infrastructure.

Lincoln chapel vandalised Maggie Wilcox reports on last week’s act of vandalism.

The Lincoln College chapel was vandalised in what the college chaplain has called an act of “abuse and damage”.

A group of individuals, whose identities have not yet been released, entered the chapel sometime between 1pm and 9pm on Friday 13th May. The chaplain revealed in an email sent to students and staff following the incident that various acts of vandalism were committed.

The acts of vandalism included the rearranging of furniture and furnishings, burning of Easter candles, writing of strange symbols on hymnals and service books with black makeup pens, defacement of the embroidered cross on a linen used in Holy Communion, grinding of charcoal into the cloth covering the altar’s side table, and crumbling of charcoal (intended for use in burning incense) across the linen altar cloth. Many of the objects which were defaced were blessed for use in Christian worship.

Disturbingly, these actions took place during an unplanned power cut. Internal emails reassuring students that maintenance and IT staff were hurrying to solve the problem also reveal that their own battery backups went

down for a time as well.

Everything destroyed can be replaced, but Lincoln chaplain, Revd Dr Andrew Shamel, says it constitutes a “direct attack on God or at the least Christian faith itself” for some believers. Desecration of aspects of the Christian altar are offensive and hurtful to Christians. For example, the Paschal candle symbolizes a special form of Christ’s presence in the Church after the Resurrection at Easter and the destruction of this holy object is highly disrespectful. Destruction of any sacred object is akin to “a precious heirloom, a work of art, or a memento resonant of a loved one”, Revd Dr Shamel explained.

The college chapel was originally built in the early seventeenth century in a late Gothic, perpendicular style and consecrated in 1631.

Statues on the front pews and ornate ceilings were added in the 1680s. Apart from restoration work that took place in the 1990s, the Chapel has remained mostly unchanged since the late seventeenth century. Notable features include enamelled windows by the master painter Abraham van Linge which depict various

One major event was the Cuppy Gold Gala, a fundraising event held at the Hilton in Abuja and attended by many of Nigeria’s upper crust, including her billionaire father Femi, vice-president Yemi Osinbajo, and Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person. “I kid you not, by chance,” she says, “I happened to raise 14 million pounds.”

Eventually, she partnered with Save the Children, as well as the United Nations, to deliver programs such as malnutrition awareness, breastfeeding sensitivity training for religious leaders, and COVID PPE to disadvantaged communities in Nigeria. The Foundation’s website describes her as “a beacon, a light for those in darkness, a home for those without shelter, a shield for the defenseless.”

So what’s next for Cuppy? She hasn’t re-

leased any music since 2021. While she took a break from DJing over Hillary, she’s still found the balance difficult: ”even just coming in this afternoon, I’ve got to rush back for a gig, then I’ve got to come back tomorrow, then I’ve got to rush back to the BBC…I’m 30 this year, right. So I maybe don’t have that zest that I used to.”

While she has a massive interest in education, she’s not sure that she’ll immediately carry on as a student. She’s been offered a fellowship at a prestigious US university, and Cambridge are using her foundation as a case study for their philanthropic centre. She says she’ll find it very hard to step out of academia, but “you know, Isaac, I need a break. This is my third degree, my second master’s, and I need a break. I’m empowered but exhausted.”

Image Credit: Daniel Stick

a pine ante-chapel.

Revd Dr Shamel raised particular concerns over the treatment of the objects on the altar table: the Paschal candle, linen corporal cloth, and the table itself. These objects are used in the rite of the Eucharist, which symbolises the last supper Jesus ate with his disciples, and a “mysterious recapitulation Revd Dr Shamel raised particular concerns over the treatment of the objects on the altar table: the Paschal candle, linen corporal cloth, and the table itself. These objects are used in the rite of the Eucharist, which symbolises the last supper Jesus ate with his disciples, and a “mysterious recapitulation

adding “I hope it is clear how the scattered charcoal and deep marking marring these fabrics and surfaces set aside for the Eucharist would be so problematic”.

A similar instance of chapel vandalism in Central Oxford. In 1984, Cherwell reported that two Brasenose College students ransacked that college’s chapel and left behind a number of satanic images like pentagrams and inverted crosses. The two students, who also had a history of disciplinary infractions, confessed the same morning to their “drunken prank”.

Each object on the table is loaded with symbolism. The white tablecloth symbolises the special role of the altar table in the ceremony, while the smaller corporal cloth is used to delineate the focus of the blessing of the bread and wine and collect crumbs from the consecrated bread. “Many Christians regard each crumb of the bread of the Eucharist as precious and so it much not be lost or trod upon,” he said,

danced on the roof of the Principal’s lodgings.

The JCR President of the time denied that the College was a “place for Devil worshippers”, and said “the incident has left Christians in the college very perturbed, very upset. The fact that these people infringed on spiritual beliefs is appalling.”

Image Credit: Lincoln College

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News Special report: Students in disarray as St Benet’s Hall set to close Suzanne Antelme reports on plans to cease funding to St Benet’s Hall and reallocate its students to different Oxford St Benet’s Hall announced on the 16th of May via its official mailing list that the University Council has decided not to renew the Hall’s license as a Permanent Private Hall (PPH), raising the possibility of permanent closure for the Hall.

The email expressed hope that the Hall might continue to operate but said that “as and when this is no longer the case” the Hall would work to place current students at other PPHs or colleges to complete their studies. St Benet’s Hall was originally founded in 1897 as a place for the monks of Ampleforth Abbey and elsewhere to study at Oxford, having since welcomed students from all backgrounds.

Cherwell spoke to the Hall’s JCR President, Julian Danker, who said the Hall’s students had been “hit hard” – for the younger years by uncertainty and for finalists by “the news that their home for the past three or four years might cease to exist soon”.

The JCR has been taking an active role, running additional welfare events and staying “constantly in touch” with Hall and University officials. Julian said he expected “certainty about students’ futures by the end of this academic year”.

In the meantime, the Hall’s students had the opportunity to speak with the University’s ProVice-Chancellor for Education, and steps are being taken to ensure students can claim mitigating circumstances for their exams. Julian felt confident that the “community spirit that has always existed at Benet’s is as strong as ever” but expressed sadness at the possibility that the Hall’s unique traditions, such as “the lack of a high table and the personal introduction of each guest at formals”, might be lost. He added that there “is also great concern about the future [of the Hall’s tutors and non-academic staff]”.

Cherwell also spoke to Mikyle Ossman, a first-year student who was quick to say he had enjoyed his time at the Hall and mentioned the active work of the Hall’s JCR. Ossman said his year group only found out about the financial issues over the Christmas break, triggering “panic on group chats”.

He also expressed confusion with the Hall’s decision to accept students in 2021 if financial problems were already evident and criticised a lack of communication, saying “we were more or less in the dark over whether they would rectify the problems outlined in the Christmas email. […] Therefore when the [most recent] news came it hit us quite hard.”

Ossman is anxious not to face a ‘phasing out scheme’ which would see his cohort remaining in the Hall as the final year group in a shrinking community. He indicated he thought most of St Benet’s first-years shared his preference to be moved to alternative colleges, if this becomes necessary, in time for Michaelmas 2022, giving them the best chance to integrate.

The University of Oxford’s governing body opted not to renew St Benet’s license at a meeting on the 9th of May in light of the Hall’s continuing financial insecurity, confirming that the Hall will not take on any new students in October 2022. The decision to suspend St Benet’s undergraduate intake was initially announced in mid-December 2021 in a joint statement

issued by the University and St Benet’s that said the Hall’s “financial prospects are so uncertain that the University cannot be confident that the Hall can support a new undergraduate cohort”.

The Hall’s financial troubles seem to stem from its efforts to legally separate from Ampleforth Abbey Trust (AAT), the owner of the Hall’s premises. It is unclear how much progress was made on this initiative, as according to the Hall’s website its governing body, St Benet’s Trust, is still a wholly owned subsidiary of AAT. The planned separation was apparently meant to help the Hall become a fully-fledged college, but it also meant the Hall needed to prove it was financially viable on its own. Acquiring ownership of its premises was a key part of this mission, and failure to convince the University that it would be able to do so was important in influencing the December decision to suspend admissions.

Late in December 2021 Cherwell reported on the Hall’s apparent success in securing financial support in the form of an “agreement in progress” with Westminster College Trust to acquire the Hall’s premises from AAT and lease them to the Hall for £1 per year (with a view to later acquisition by the Hall). Westminster College Trust also “pledged” to underwrite the Hall’s losses up to £300,000 per year for at least three years. This agreement, however, was apparently not finalised before the University decided to pause the Hall’s undergraduate admissions.

Westminster College Trust has not responded to Cherwell’s request for comment.

The email from 16th May also informed students that AAT have now placed the Hall’s premises on the market. A spokesperson from the Trust told the Tablet that the University’s decision not to renew the Hall’s license placed the AAT at “an unacceptable level of risk”, and

that while they had always hoped the Hall would be able to purchase the buildings, the Hall had not “produced the desired [funding] results within the necessary timescale”.

It seems the Trust has been aiming to sell the properties at least since December 2021, when the Hall’s Senior Tutor, Dr Gower, told the Oxford Student that AAT had taken an “independent” decision to sell the properties, unrelated to the planned legal separation and rather motivated by “not having sufficient resources”.

The Hall’s August 2019 financial report stated that while it needed to increase its own fundraising income, it had “received a guarantee of support from … [AAT]”. The Trust’s financial report from August 2019, however, said their “overall level of free reserves”, excluding fixed assets, was a “£3.4 [million] deficit”. The report noted that “if it became necessary the Trust could potentially seek to realise some of the land and buildings not essential to the ongoing core activities and hence raise some funds through their sale”.

A spokesperson for Ampleforth Abbey’s Trust told Cherwell: “Financial support was provided with a view to St Benet’s reaching a position where it would be capable of generating its own reserves. ”In recent years St Benet’s Trust has been moving towards independence from the Abbey Trust initially as part of a plan to gain collegiate status within the University of Oxford. In order to do so the Hall would need to own its own buildings and be financially sustainable. The Abbey Trust took out a loan in 2018 to enable St Benet’s Hall to expand into a second building in Norham Gardens with clear timescales for that loan to be re-paid by St Benet’s Trust. It was always the preference of the Abbey Trust to sell

both the property in Norham Gardens and in St Giles ... but St Benet’s fundraising campaigns and funding options have not produced the desired results within the necessary timescales.”

The spokesperson insisted that “The University and the Hall are committed to ensuring that current students can complete their degrees at Oxford University with the same quality of education.”

The recent developments at St Benet’s Hall coincide with those at another institution linked to AAT. Ampleforth College, the boarding school founded by and built next to Ampleforth Abbey (which AAT represents), might also be facing a ban on taking in new students after it was rated “inadequate” by Ofsted following an independent investigation in 2018 that said it was “difficult to describe the appalling sexual abuse inflicted over decades [on the pupils]”.

Between developments at Ampleforth College and St Benet’s Hall, the Sunday Times has speculated that the “network of leading Catholic institutions” established by the Ampleforth monks is “breaking up”. The AAT told Cherwell: “The situation of St Benet’s is unrelated to Ampleforth College.”

St Benet’s Hall was the last single-sex college in the University of Oxford, only admitting women in 2016. Until 2012, the master of the hall was always a Benedictine monk.

In 2013, the student barometer survey showed that St Benet’s had the highest overall student satisfaction out of all 44 constituent colleges and permanent private halls of the university.

However, without renewing their license as a PPH, it is likely that the college will be unable to host students after the end of this academic year.

Image: Janet McKnight/CC BY 2.0 via flickr.com

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Not Here, Not Anymore holds protest against Oxford Uni’s sexual assault policy Meg Lintern reports on the Not Here, Not Anymore protest.

On Sunday 22nd, crowds of students convened outside the RadCam as part of a protest organised by Not Here, Not Anymore (NHNA). against the use of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) in colleges and push Oxford University towards improved sexual assault policies. It is associated with It Happens Here, a group linked to the Oxford Student Union which has been promoting a safer university environment free from sexual assault since it was founded in 2013.

During the protest, a series of speakers voiced the demands of NHNA and described their personal experiences of the cultures of “silencing and victim blaming” that exist within Oxford University. co-chair of Oxford University Labour Club. She read aloud the open letter which NHNA has addressed to Oxford University and published on their Instagram linktree. She said: “Oxford can and must do better to prevent sexual assault amongst students and protect survivors. To take up your place to study at one of the most prestigious institutions in the world should not mean you forfeit your right to learn in a safe environment. Education should not cost an exposure to danger.”

Hamilton voiced concerns that Oxford’s to tackle systemic sexual misconduct, since each of the colleges has an independent set of policies and procedures. She said: “You should not be at a higher risk of being assaulted or mistreated in the aftermath of sexual violence based on your college.”

Widespread calls for the universalisation of sexual misconduct policies across Oxford colleges have followed in the wake of highIn 2021, a postgrad at Balliol described how she was treated with “hostility” after making a victim of rape.

In light of this, NHNA’s open letter states that “all colleges should adopt the same sexual misconduct policy so students are not forced to gamble with their safety based on where they are accepted or pooled to”.

Kesaia Toganivalu subsequently addressed the audience, saying that she was “sick of seeing well meaning infographics but no actual

change”. She described her own experience of sexual assault, having been attacked by “someone I knew and trusted”, and she stressed that “it is not the job of survivors to beg [for protection]”.

She criticised the University for worsening the trauma of survivors: “How are survivors meant to be able to heal if rusticating has such big stigma?”

“I have the same punishment as the person who assaulted me,” Kesaia continued, referring to the responsibility generally placed on survivors to avoid environments where they might encounter their assaulter. “[Colleges] are rich as hell, they can afford to care, but they just don’t. I’m f***ing sick of this system and it needs to change.”

Hannah Hopkins, women’s rep at St Anne’s, added: “I’m so tired of Oxford not addressing things as they are, and caring more about reputational damage than the safety of students living there.

“Rape in most cases is legal in Oxford colleges… cases are run by professors who aren’t trained.”

Discussing the role of NDAs in Oxford colleges and the urgency of banning them, said: “NDAs are forced onto survivors who are in all directions.”

The NHNA campaign is actively urging JCRs to lobby their colleges to ban the use of NDAs. can force every other college to change.”

Jeea and Nicola, the two co-chairs of It protest. They stated that “sexual violence is one of the biggest threats facing our students today”, but urged students affected to turn to the resource guide circulated by It Happens Here and NHNA for guidance and support.

With a growing Instagram following of 545, the NHNA campaign is gaining traction. Having posted an image of the NHNA sticker covering the O of the Oxford Union sign, it seems that their mission is to not only tackle cultures of abuse in colleges, but also within Oxford’s societies, ultimately pushing for a more coherent and legible approach to sexual violence across the university.

Photo credit: Ceci Catmur

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Oxford nuclear fusion revolution: First Light Fusion Humza Jilani reports.

scholars. No one applied.

With a snap of its oversized claw, the tiny pistol shrimp, which has an average body length of between 3 and 5 centimetres, fires off a savage shockwave of bubbles at a volume that rivals the clicks of a sperm whale, three-hundred and twenty times its size.

As Nicholas Hawker – a then-DPhil candidate in Oxford’s Department of Engineering – researched these small but mighty creatures and their perplexing shockwaves, a wild idea sprung up. The pistol shrimp’s ability to create such a powerful shockwave, despite its small size, might mean that it is possible to utilise focused shockwaves to trigger the conditions for nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun.

As an energy source, nuclear fusion produces no carbon emissions and a very small amount of fuel could theoretically power a house for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It could be the closest thing to a silver bullet in the global quest to transition away from fossil fuels. Yet, fusion remains prohibitively expensive and currently consumes more energy than it produces, making it commercially unviable for the near-term.

With his creative application of pistol shrimp research, Hawker may have found in the oceans an answer to a vexing problem that nuclear fusion scientists had searched for in outer space stars. Projectile fusion was an unexplored approach that could crack the code to make fusion viable within the next ten to thirty years.

In April, First Light Fusion successfully combined atomic nuclei through projectile fusion, demonstrating an exciting proofof-concept in the race for commercially viable fusion. Cherwell interviewed a representative from First Light Fusion to share its decade-long origin story, from the labs of the University of Oxford to the forefront of scientific breakthroughs today.

Before they launched the startup, Hawker and his DPhil supervisor, Professor Yiannis Ventikos (now at University College London), put out an advertisement for a fourth-year project student. Hawker and Ventikos hoped to tap into the raw talent and ambition of these young

now runs the target design team at First Light Fusion, answered their call in 2010.

“I saw the advertisement, and I said to myself that this looks terrible and that I will not apply for this!” Betney told Cherwell.

Sometime later, Betney found himself in a meeting with Dr. Ventikos, who reassured him that he need not worry about what was written on the advert and that he should take the plunge.

“I decided I really wanted to be involved in this project, but I was not planning to join as an employee straight away,” he added, “It was a hyper risky startup with just two people and no one knew if it’d last 6 months, much less over 10 years.”

Today, the conversation around fusion has certainly shifted from earlier uncertainty to greater optimism. “I am very positive about the future of fusion,” Betney told Cherwell.

“I know that our technology is good. We have a good program to get to where we want to be. Fusion technology all around the world is really progressing. A lot of other research companies and projects are getting really interesting results,” he added.

Instead of superheating reactants within a strong magnetic field, First Light Fusion aims to fire a salvo of small copper projectiles at hypersonic speed into a tiny capsule, thereby transferring energy from each shot into a coolant. They hope to demonstrate energy “gain,” wherein the process will generate more energy than it consumes, within the next two to five years.

And with so many of the fusion efforts centred in and around the University of Oxford, First Light Fusion is part of a burgeoning community of researchers and startups.

“It is amazing that so many startups are starting here in Oxfordshire, such as Tokamak Energy,” said Betney.

“With all of this around us, I would say to Oxford students: take up exciting opportunities. If you want to work at the cutting edge of science and research, going into new areas, believe in yourself. These problems are really interesting!” Betney added.

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Editorial Masthead EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Maurício Alencar, Estelle Atkinson SENIOR EDITORIAL TEAM Pieter Garicano, Leah Mitchell, Clementine Scott, Shiraz Vapiwala, David Tritsch, Wang Sum Luk NEWS Meg Lintern, Humza Jilani, Isaac Ettinghausen, Charlotte Keys, Annie Lu, Izzie Alexandrou COMMENT Georgie Cutmore, Isobel Lewis, Hope Philpott, Sonya Ribner PROFILES Aarthee Parimelalaghan, Sam Zia, William Foxton INNOVATION Matthew Clark CULTURE Meg Goundry-Napthine, Caitlin Wilson, Elena Buccisano, Charlotte Kutz FILM Flynn Hallman, Mayu Uno MUSIC Marlon Austin, Flynn Hallman STAGE Neily Raymond, Anna Stephen, Anya Biletsky BOOKS Fariha Uddin, Paula Odenheimer, Madeleine Hopper FASHION Madeleine Hopper, Yuri Hwang, Anna Roberts THE SOURCE Jessica DeMarco-Jacobsen, Aaron Low LIFE Aiktarini Lygaki, Bruno Armitage, Michaela Esau, Adam Collins pigeons FEATURES Jimmy Brewer, Imaan Haidar, Daisy Clague, Sara Hashmi COLUMNS Matilda Piovella, Anneka Pink SPORT Oliver Hall PUZZLES Ifan Rogers CREATIVE Ben Beechener, Eve Gueterbock, Charlotte Rich-Jones, Aleksandra Pluta, Rachel Jung PHOTOJOURNALISM Ceci Catmur, Cyril Malík, Jessye Phillips, Meghana Geetha, Michelle Marques, Niamh McBratney, Teagan Riches, Jana Nedelkoska, Daniel Stick, Amy Van Wingerden VIDEO Kaly de Oliveira Cerqueira, Taylor Bi, Yushi Zhao, Zack Thomas MARKETING Jacobus Petersen

Maurício Alencar (he/him), Editor-in-Chief There’s no place I dislike more than Park End’s main dance floor and no place I love more than the Spirit lounge on a Thursday night, otherwise known as Anuba as it used to be called. I will always choose £4 cocktails and drinks, reggae and vibes, Adele covers, and you’ve-got-to-show-me-love medleys over cringe high school music, creepy DJ shout-outs, bouncers with no sense of their spatial awareness, and overpriced drinks.

Because who has ever in their life left Park End saying “I really love it when the main DJ yelps ‘this one’s for all the pretty ladies out there’, or, arguably worse, ‘shoutout to Bob for getting his third vaccine’? Who has ever thought that Bridge’s corridor, otherwise known as its main dancefloor, was great to walk through? All I want to do is get to that sodding smoking area, for crying out loud!

If you’re one to sweat your cheeks out so much that some stranger’s sweat starts pouring onto you from the ceiling above, then please, by all means, spend your nights dancing the night away at Plush. That’s as much as I’ll say on it. £15 or more entry to Bully or O2 Academy sounds wonderful, totally cheap

and worth the price. I doubt Jericho-based Oxford students would ever want to make their way all the way to Cowley anyway. …Unless they’re on their way to Café Baba, of course! A night out at any place that ends in “bah” cannot be topped. Anuba, Café Baba, Oxo Bar. And if you love quickfire sound effects, wait till you hear about Hank’s.

Controversial as it is to say, the Tikki ‘Bar’ at Park End is the sole exception to this rule; they just churn out whatever boring stuff is being played in Park End’s main dancefloor.

It is the most overhyped location in Oxford.

Glamorous opened up recently. Went once.

Not sure if I am a big fan. It will never live up to ‘Bah’ status. Bah status requires a certain threshold of vibe, drinks, music, and fun.

Anuba has all those parts. So when you next go to Anuba on a Bridge Thursday, you know I will be in there singing ‘Hellooooo….

Adele). When you’re next on the Park End dancefloor, please sort yourself out.

Cherwell, we were always writing about the Union.” But whether this role is contributive or correlative, I am not sure. Did the 80s era editors of Cherwell observe and report on the culture surrounding them, as we purport to do now, or did they, and do we, contribute directly to the rise of Oxford’s elite?

If the ‘chums’ only ever convened behind closed doors, if no one cared what they got up to and their names were not easily found in Cherwell, would they be in the Times today?

A large part of how I assess an article’s value is its potential use as a historical record. I want people to, 50 years from now, use 2022 Cherwells as effectively as Kuper has. I never take publication of students’ names lightly, as for some this may well be the first in a long series of mentions in the press.

Estelle Atkinson (she/her), Editor-in-Chief Simon Kuper’s new book - Chums - which details the “troubling amounts of political power wielded by a very small and privileged Oxford elite” opens with a quote from a 1989 edition of Cherwell: “The keener observers of British public life will have noticed a particular breed of Establishment men and women.

They’re over forty, smugly successful and successfully smug. Chances are they were also educated at Oxford.”

Kuper’s research takes him back through various copies of “yellowing student newspapers from the 1980s,” pages upon which he saw familiar faces - Boris Johnson’s election to president of the Oxford Union, Michael Gove named alongside him as one of five Union hacks involved in a “romp shocker”.

Kuper identifies the phenomenon of a smooth transition from trivial Oxford ‘fame’ straight onto the national stage. Britain’s premier Conservative politicians are a product of the uniquely privileged atmosphere at Oxford, which historically saw the Union as its primary arena.

Turning the pages of Chums, it’s clear Cherwell had a role to play; Kuper tells readers “at

Leader: BeReal has the potential to change student social media usage for the better as a grid post or a story, but this past term has changed my attitude. I still use social media, but instead of meticulously planning Instagram story On paper, BeReal doesn’t sound particularly revolutionary. There’s the central gimmick of the

Clementine Scott (she/her), Deputy Editor and early adulthood, it’s Instagram. I try to resist the shallow stereotypes associated with people, and especially women, who avidly use social media, but when the acquisition of Instagram

by Facebook coincided neatly with my entry into ence it’s had over the last decade of my life.

We experienced in real time the development of Instagram from place where Year Sevens deposited photos as mundane as a blurry shot of their Starbucks, to the home of the circa-2018 infunction it’s become today. For a while, I thought this app would continue to be a protagonist in my myself whether a given moment worked better

experience, anywhere between 10am and 10pm), but beyond that it has the potential to become as homogeneous as Instagram, just in a different way. Instead of posed pre-bop pictures in student kitchens, we get hundreds of pictures of people’s essay crises in the Rad Cam from different angles.

“Instead of meticulously planning Instagram story content, I merely wait for the BeReal notification.” me, makes all the difference. BeReal, along with Wordle and other late-pandemic phenomena, only happens once a day and thus has an inherent mechanism to control addictive behaviours, but it is not only parents scaremongering about phone addictions to whom this feature might appeal. When one only feels obligated to post one photo per day, the pressure to document every single second disappears and my brain can more

easily switch off content-hunting mode.

Conversely, BeReal places a healthy amount of pressure on that one crucial picture, which deters me from wasting time far better than an impending essay deadline ever could – the app has taught me to be conscious of whatever I’m doing at the present moment just in case that value in smaller moments that aren’t conventionally ‘Instagrammable’. We can also live peacefully in the knowledge that the potential for data breaches is low; the data an app can accumulate from random daily snapshots is surely less than Instagram’s highly curated, consistent displays of its users’ interests.

As well as taking the pressure off of social media, BeReal also helps us have a more healthy relationship with external validation. Even on BeReal much as they would on Instagram, I understand that my picture of my laptop screen not particularly exciting, so my expectations are low and I don’t mind that the only people who regularly react are my boyfriend, parents and a couple of friends. The concept of taking a picture of whatever’s in front of you is worlds away from the agonising process of selecting what to post from an Instagram photoshoot; when the bar is already on the ground for how interesting the content needs to be or how attractive you need to look, then the expectation for people’s effusive reactions are equally low.

Time will tell whether the lessons to be learned from BeReal will stick, or whether it will be remembered as Trinity 2022’s passing fad. But in the meantime, each day I will stay healthily destrikes.

7

Bulletin

Week 5: Cherwell Red > Fifth week blues

8

Comment Party to privilege, and privileged to party: College balls and socioeconomic exclusion Jack Twyman discusses how Oxford’s college balls reinforce elitism and socioeconomic exclusion.

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oday, while the ‘traditional’ barriers to Oxford that state school students face are slowly being eroded, even once here, many financial obstacles remain firmly in place to separate students into the haves and have nots. The phenomenon of college balls is perhaps one of the best illustrations of this division.

Last weekend, as I walked along Cornmarket in the late evening, in the sky above me were brilliant cascades of fireworks; live music filled the warm air, and I could imagine, from the laughter that filtered over the rooftops, that drinks were flowing freely. A quick check of social media showed me what I had expected – many college balls were in full swing.

There were Ferris wheels. Acrobatic dancers. Ball gowns. Tailored suits. Live music.

Open bars. And then I pulled up my news app and saw the latest updates on the unfolding cost of living crisis engulfing the country. I began to realise the hypocrisy of the university I am a member of. Its reputation of excellence and its infamous ‘experience’ exist in nothing but name for its most vulnerable students, and exclude those who cannot afford the associated costs.

My college, Regent’s Park, has the cheapest ball in Oxford, but even that’s still £50.Many of my peers from other colleges tell me of prices well into the £200

“The social exclusion of those students who, understandably, can’t afford these price tags will only exacerbate the imposter syndrome faced at this university.” and £300s, if not more. This is in addition to the consideration of an often expensive outfit. Even something as rightly controversial as trashing could be said to be far more financially accessible, and therefore even something which generates a sense of equality, when compared to the extravagance of college balls.

The disarray of university policy with regards to socio-economically exclusive activities is very real. The social exclusion of those students who, understandably, can’t afford these price tags will only exacerbate the imposter syndrome faced at this university. As will the enjoyment of students who decided to endure the

burden of cost: those who didn’t bat an eyelid at the price tag will enjoy a carefree experience, but those who spent maybe two entire weekly budgets on it will carry the nagging thought of the exorbitant cost throughout the night. Some colleges even force students off their premises and out of their accommodation for the duration of the ball, sometimes into the early hours of the morning. They show no regard for their students’ wellbeing or consideration for what they will do if they cannot afford to attend their college ball.

I concede that there are many people who do enjoy college balls, from many demographics, and this is not to say that they are undertaking a morally wrong endeavour. Instead, I would pose to them the idea that if the revelry of college balls was toned down, this would do away with the need to subsidise expensive tickets and allow the resources used for this to be redirected towards arguably better causes, such as charitable endeavours or initiatives which benefit the whole student community in a longer-term way. Perhaps more student support services could be funded, better day-to-day meals provided, or even lower cost housing or vacation residence. Surely this would be a better use of resources, even if some of the opulence of the ball had to be stripped back? A dinner in Pembroke Hall, for example, costs £6.67 and has to be purchased 6 days a week when living in college on-site - subsidising this would solve a more immediate and constant issue.

Yet the persistent and explicit drive towards ever increasing grandeur is a problem emblematic of the ills facing the University of Oxford and its community today, alongside the upper socio-economic echelons of society more generally. Students do not need a ball to engage socially with their community - most balls are held on college grounds which are free to access normally. But do you need a ball to get impressive photos for Instagram? Much of the evidence I see online attests to this. Oxford students share a unique approach to social media. It seems that academic competitiveness manifests itself in a rivalry to have the ‘best’ time, and most importantly prove to other students that this is definitely the case.

The need for validation from social media is a trap that far too many Oxford students have fallen into.

So, are they really just focusing on enjoyment?

Balls are a m a n i fes t ation of the

hierarchical independent school culture that persists in Oxford. It is unfortunate that many haven’t realised the joy of a less elitist social activity. “It’s never worth the money to go to a big college ball - you pay for the novelty of the thing,” one student remarked to me. There are many other ways to have a fun, sociable evening, if

“Balls are a manifestation of the hierarchical independent school culture that persists in Oxford.” you can bear to forgo the novelty: a picnic at Port Meadow or University Parks, perhaps. And Formal Hall thankfully offers a relatively affordable means of enjoying occasions centred on historic tradition at Oxford. So what is the need for college balls - after all, aren’t they just a glorified bop? I sympathise with the heavy workload Oxford burdens students with, and the conflicting social schedules that are hard to coordinate; it can be a welcome reprieve to have an event organised and know that you will be among friends – if you can afford to throw money at the problem.

Students arriving from private schools have on average been the recipient of three times the educational resources than their state school counterparts. They also can be the beneficiary of scholarships reserved for former students of certain private schools. A study found that in Oxford preliminary exams, ex-private school students achieve proportionately better results. Ex-state school students, like myself, who have had to work hard to reach the level of our privately educated peers may not be able to contemplate spending an entire afternoon and evening at a ball.

State school students also have to contend with private school alumni’s domination of the University’s sports and music clubs and their associated socials. It could be

said then that social interaction at Oxford is itself a source of inequality. Is it a coincidence that those private school students that often are more likely to have the financial luxury of going to these grand social affairs are (marginally) outdone in final exams by ex-state school students, despite the uneven playing field?

Things don’t have to be this way. There are many alternatives to the dichotomy of having an expensive, extravagant ball, or not having or going to a ball at all. For example, Wadham has a ‘Ball for All’ scheme which allows students who would struggle with the cost to purchase reduced price tickets, though these are still £50, so not exactly ‘for all’. I do believe that potential future schemes, inspired by Wadham’s but which go much further, and combined with other cost-friendly initiatives can lead to a much fairer and healthier ball season in Oxford. On Facebook I have already seen groups set up dedicated to borrowing and sharing ball outfits, which eliminate much of the additional costs that a ball ticket generally entails. Still, maybe even the concept of a garden party, or something informal but with an aurora of occasion, could be a better solution.

The recent prevalence of cheaper garden parties, more informal but with an aura of occasion, is encouraging.

College balls in all their grandiose extravagance are outdated. I have decided not to attend my college ball, despite its relative affordability, and despite the social exclusion that arises from that decision. Instead, I will be donating what I can to a charity close to my heart: Rainbow Migration, who help vulnerable LGBTQ+ individuals migrate to safe countries. I am privileged to be able to consider redirecting the cost into a donation, but my point still stands. And so does the principle. I have no desire to be party to an archaic tradition that entrenches the internal division that is so readily persistent in Oxford. Time for change can always be and is always now.

Image credit: Queens ball / CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

9

In between practicality and principle: A partial observer’s advice for the French left Maya Thapa-O Faolain discusses how disunity among the French left has curtailed their electoral success.

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etween “la peste et le cholera” there are no good options. This was the pithy slogan brandished by a protester who felt that the choice between the two candidates in the second tour of the French presidential election was no better than having to choose whether to have the plague or cholera. Forced to decide between two equal evils, in this protestor’s perspective, is really no choice at all. This reflects the prevailing sentiment of the French people toward the second tour – in which the two candidates from the first round with greatest share of the popular vote go through to the final round - of their country’s presidential election. Even those who reluctantly voted Macron in order to faire barrage (blockade) against the far right did so with a heavy heart. In short, the second round became a vote of necessity.

This was certainly the case on the left – the two final candidates in the ring represented the centre-right (despite Macron’s attempt at creating some strange depoliticised ‘neither right nor left’ version of politics) and the far right. But in the first round, left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon came third by a hair’s breadth: he had polled at 22%, placing him somewhere between 0.8 and 1.2% behind far-right candidate Marine le Pen, at 23%. His narrow failure to qualify as one of the two most

“If the entire left-wing electorate had voted for Mélenchon [... he] would have amassed a greater slice of the electoral pie than the incumbent Macron himself.” successful candidates, which would have put him through to the second round, is symptomatic of the stagnation of French politics which has been growing over the past five years. Inevitably, the second round of the presidential election overlooked the issues which tend to concern the left: there was a telling silence around issues of the environment, improving public service, workers’ rights, and France’s abhorrent pattern of femicides.

Why, though, did Mélenchon fail to make the final cut? Not, in fact, because of the strength of the right, or even the centre, but because of disunity among the left. This is the fault both of candidates who failed to withdraw and of the electorate who failed to put aside ultimately minor differences (especially compared to the ideological gulf that separates any of these candidates from Macron, let alone the openly Islamophobic Le Pen). Six

candidates stood on the left in the first round, amassing approximately a third of the total vote. Mélenchon was the heavy favourite – the other candidates swept up around 10% of the electoral crumbs. Crumbs though they may be, their agglomeration could have put the left through to the second round, and with some comfortable breathing room. Consider for a moment this entirely fictional scenario: if the entire left-wing electorate had voted for Mélenchon, or if all of the other left-wing candidates had dropped out, Mélenchon would have amassed a greater slice of the electoral pie than the incumbent Macron himself. Instead, Ecologist Yannick Jadot polled at 4.4%; anticapitalist Philippe Poutou at 0.8%; Workers’ struggle candidate Nathalie Arthaud at 0.6%; Communist Fabien Roussel at 2.4%, and Socialist Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo at 1.9%.

This is not to say there are no differences among the candidates (there are), nor that Mélenchon is faultless.

Indeed, I am rather resistant to several aspects of his foreign policy – something Jadot has railed against, particularly with regard to Mélenchon’s ‘non-aligned’ geopolitical position given the divisions cutting at the heart of the world order (I refer specifically to Russia’s horrific war on Ukraine). But the point of this article is not to examine the specific policies of each candidate – in any event, the time to do that has come and gone. Mélenchon’s programme was complete, extensive, had been cross-checked

by NGOs – specifically climate NGOs – and declared feasible. He was the only left-wing candidate who was polling at anywhere higher than 15%, and, as I keep insisting (sorry), the differences among the left are minuscule in comparison to those between left and right. And I do believe that everyone on the left was severely disappointed with the options they were presented with during the second round. Had they read the polls, they would have known that voting for other candidates on the left would actively harm the chances of seeing any left-wing candidate making it through to the second round. This, in turn would make it far more likely that centrist/centre-right Macron (who was always going to make it through) would face up against an openly racist, homophobic, climate crisis-denying candidate, thus making the famous ‘presidential debate’ a chance for him to combat these inflammatory ideas with cool reason, rather than facing any serious challenges to his policies. I would venture to say Macron’s wager was precisely this: having refused to participate in the first round of debate, he knew he would not face a serious and faceon political challenge from the left, and counted instead on showing himself as the voice of reason against Le Pen’s divisive, choleric, and indeed unfeasible, ideas.

As for the electorate: in an election, there are two key axes you have to consider: principle and action-potential (which might also be labelled ideological and pragmatic respectively). Anyone who is actively engaged in politics surely believes they are out to improve people’s lives (I have a very, very hard time believing this about

the far-right, but I suppose they would say they are trying to make a ‘safer’ world by removing ‘enemies’ from the apocalyptic universe they whip up in some virtual reality lab – in which one risks being beaten up (probably by an immigrant) the second one leaves home). Let’s, then, use the left as an example. All the candidates ran on a basis of wanting to increase social equality, and reduce environmental catastrophe – they each presented slightly different ways of achieving these aims, but these issues were their meat and potatoes, so to speak. So if you are voting on the left – a core principle of which is solidarity - a desire to improve the lives of those most marginalised mem-

“When faced with unity or annihilation, it is time to put aside minor differences, and think about ultimate aims – if not for ourselves, then for those who will suffer under the opponent’s policies.” bers of society. That could be because you are part of this demographic, or because you are ideologically inclined that way.

By way of analogy, permit me a small digression. Imagine I am tasked with designing a car to drive along a desert road from point A to point B as fast as possible.

To be successful, the car must a) be fast and b) be able to drive well in a desert. A fast car that doesn’t drive well in a desert will be useless, and a car that drives well in a desert but isn’t fast won’t be much good either. My point is that you have to try and translate your aim into something that achieves what you wish to see implemented within the system you are given. You should of course be making constant effort to change the system – if a desert is not a good

environment for a car (it isn’t), then you should be trying, between races, to pave the road. But the time to complain about not having a paved road, and thus refusing to design a desert-appropriate car, is not two minutes before the race. Similarly, the time to complain about Mélenchon being insufficiently revolutionary, as some bemoaned, and thus voting for a candidate who will poll 0.6%, knowing that this effectively amounts to lending your vote to something you abhor (the far right) is, to me, utterly illogical.

I am not an apologist for a purely pragmatic approach to politics. But when faced with unity or annihilation, it is time to put aside minor differences, and think about ultimate aims – if not for ourselves, then for those who will suffer under the opponent’s policies. I am certain that everyone on the left would rather have seen Mélenchon face Macron – even if the former hadn’t won – if only to have two weeks debating issues that have been sidelined by the incumbent’s administration, and metaphorically spat upon by his opponent.

Going forward, the left in particular needs to think about how it can most effectively see policies implemented that align with its overall vision. For there is, I would hold, an overall vision, but, like an impressionist painting, the whole can be perceived only from afar, rather than within an increasingly fragmenting swirl of similarly coloured mush. Perhaps this ‘afar’ is where we are now – where the far right has amassed an unprecedented 41% of the vote in the second round and the right is once again in power for five years.

Hopefully, this dire state of affairs will allow the left to see the common ground they share, now that they’re being confronted with something which they find so alienating. It does seem things are moving in this direction, with a growing left-wing coalition presenting itself for the legislatives in June. We will see how the ballots are cast.

Image credit: Pierre-Selim / CC BY 3.0 via wikimedia commons

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Profiles

Wilde at heart: In Conversation with members of the Lincoln Drama Society Wang Sum Luk interviews Ellie McDougal and Liam Stewart about their involvement with a new production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

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t’s practically a cliché to say that with such short and busy terms, there are more events happening in Oxford than any person could keep track of. Most people, quite sensibly, want a place at the well-known events—the major drama productions, the speakers at the Union who everyone’s heard of, the most opulent and extraordinary balls.

But some love deserves to be spared for the events that aren’t as well publicised.

The Lincoln Drama Society’s performance of The Importance of Being Earnest isn’t a huge production—in fact, Ellie McDougal, who co-directs the play alongside Lara Hatwell, tells me that funding issues played an unexpectedly positive role in staging the play. “We experienced some issues with funding the play”, she tells me via email, “but the accommodations we had to make ended up really pulling the production together.

With no funding for staging or lighting, we decided to do a naturalistic performance in Lincoln College’s ‘Beckington Room’—a beautiful, seventeenth-century panelled room that used to be the Rector’s lodgings. room has acted as a phenomenal set for Earnest – I cannot imagine the play without it now!”

First performed in 1895, this play by Oscar Wilde is a farcical comedy about the double lives of two young Victorian gentlemen, Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing, and how these collide with their standard social obligations. Ellie elaborates on the play’s subtext, stating that “in one word, it is a play about language. Wilde’s genius lies in his ability to utilise linguistic symbols and Earnest is his best demonstration of that genius. The play’s characters use language to argue, to confess love, to tell the truth, to lie”.

She calls the play’s conclusion a display of “language’s emptiness and its power”, arguing that it dramatises Wilde’s philosophy as expressed in the essay “The Decay of Lying”, which argues that art’s purpose is “the telling of beautiful untrue things”. But Wilde’s play isn’t merely concerned with philosophical abstraction; Ellie tells me that while she loves Wilde’s work in general, she

particularly likes this work “for how rigorous a social commentary it is…

It is a play that reminds us of how our own lives are pure theatre”. She notes how the play is “entirely cynical” about the structures that Victorian society was built on, satirising its preconceptions about class, gender, and marriage.

This is a point on which Liam Stewart, who plays the roles of the manservant Lane and the butler Merriman, agrees.

For him, the play’s brilliance lies in its writing: “Full

“Full of paradoxes and often complete nonsense disguised in rhetoric, they are hilarious and infuriating in equal measure.”

of paradoxes and often complete nonsense disguised in rhetoric, [the characters’ interactions] are hilarious and infuriating in equal measure. This makes it hard to root for anyone in particular, but also makes it impossible to hate any of the characters either, even though a lot of what they say is highly questionable to say the least.”

His roles, which serve as a more serious foil to the follies and eccentricities of the upper-class protagonists, also speak to Wilde’s use of the play as social commentary.

They “highlight an important contrast between upper and working-class worlds in the play. Lane, especially, is a sobering juxtaposition to Algernon’s witticisms; pointing, without saying very much, to the triviality and callousness of Wilde’s upperclass characters”. Even though the roles of Lane and Merriman are comparatively minor, the silent shadow they cast over the play’s farcical schemes is part of what makes this work endure.

So what was the process of putting the play into production like? Ellie tells me that the Lincoln Drama Society staged Arthur Miller’s All My Sons last term, a serious drama exploring American society in the aftermath of World War Two, so they wanted to choose something that was dissimilar in tone and content.

“Looking to the 1890s felt natural de siècle writers handled satire and social commentary together,” she says, noting that Wilde’s play was “hilarious but still held its weight in 2022”, with its famous wit

making it an easy choice. From this point on, the production ran smoothly, a fact which she attributes to how a rehearsal schedule was drawn up in advance, allowing everyone

“Be prepared to laugh so hard you pee yourself a little.”

to know their roles clearly and prevent the production from interfering with academic work. “My academic interests lay broadly within theatre anyways, so directing a play feels quasi-productive to me”, she adds.

As someone who’s never been involved curious about how one might become a part of it. Ellie points to the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) as a starting point, as well as college drama societies, saying “university is a chance to try out new things and see what interests you, so don’t be intimidated if you don’t have a lot of acting experience, loads of people don’t”. Liam gives me a similar answer: “I would say just go for it”, he suggests. “I haven’t done much acting at all in school, but I think while at uni you might as well try new things! The rest of the cast have been very lovely and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process so far.”

So, what is the play expected to be like?

Liam tells me that viewers should expect “an evening of hilarity, a wonderful cast, [and to] come away with a better understanding of when it is and isn’t appropriate to indulge in Ellie’s answer, though, is briefer: “Be prepared to laugh so hard you pee yourself a little”.

Photographs by Ellie McDougal

11

What’s new?

Innovation

How does the monkeypox virus replicate?

Matthew Clark explores the weird genome of the virus that has been spreading across Europe and the US and how it evades the

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o one really talks about poxviruses anymore. Well, except for chicken pox – but that isn’t a real member of the poxvirus family (smallpox, cowpox etc.) chicken pox is actually a type of herpes called the varicella zoster virus. everything about its name is a lie!

So far, it appears that monkeypox is less infectious than SARS-COV-2 and the symptoms, although physically dramatic, are less dangerous.

Prof Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology, University of Nottingham, said: „The fact that only one of the 50 contacts of the initial monkeypox-infected patient has been infected shows how poorly infectious the virus is. It is wrong to think that we are on the brink of a nationwide outbreak.“ explore what this virus actually looks like and learn what the bits and bobs do. This makes the situation feel less uncertain and give you something tangible to think about.

Monkeypox is a DNA virus with a 190 kilobase genome (1Kb = 1000 rungs on the

Oxford professor Peter McCulloch’s team develops new guidelines to improve use

Matthew Clark Do you want to read another article about the monkeypox virus?

No? I can’t blame you, because I didn’t really want to write one. I figured the details would be out of date - minutes after printing – or I would just keep things so vague and generalized that it would be useless.

Instead of writing about this particular monkeypox outbreak, I thought it would be interesting to look at all the nuts and bolts of the virus responsible.

What does monkeypox do inside your cells, and how is this different from COVID-19?

healthcare settings.

Oxford co-leads a population scale study, highlighting the ongoing risks of COVID-19 in cancer patients after vaccination.

Alzheimer’s Research UK awards £39K research funding to Oxford professor Colin Akerman, to study the role choloesterol on the disease.

Editor observations:

For ~50 years we haven’t had to worry about poxviruses because smallpox, the most dangerous variety, was eradicated in 1977. This was a tremendous achievement, but it led to most countries phasing out vaccinations. cause it would be wasteful to put healthcare resources into a near non-existent threat.

On the other hand, our immune system’s lack of exposure to any poxvirus material could make us more vulnerable to emerging variants.

In 1958, a new member of the poxvirus family was discovered in monkeys. For once, this virus was given a clear and simple name: Monkeypox. In 1970, a child in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was found to be infected. The process of a pathogen crossing from an animal host to a human is called Zoonosis.

Monkeypox became endemic to many African countries, and over the last few decades there have been a couple of small outbreaks in other continents after travellers returned. For example, in southern For this 2022 outbreak: In non-endemic wide cases, 30 of which are in the UK. Peter Horby, director of the Pandemic Sciences Institute at Oxford University, told BBC Radio 4‘s Today programme that „it is an unusual situation where we seem to have had the virus introduced but now ongoing transmission within certain communities“.

He said that the key message to people with symptoms was to „seek attention, get diagnosed and then to be isolated in some way at home so that they don‘t spread it on“.

DNA ladder). This is far larger than SARSCOV-2’s 30Kb genome, but that doesn’t necessarily make it ‘better’. We humans consider ourselves to be top of the tree of life but our 3.2 billion bp genome pales in comparison to countless organisms, such larger.

Most viruses are incredibly lazy. They don’t produce any replication machinery, and they just leach off the hosts. The pox viruses are special because they produce their own enzymes for transcribing RNA and replicating their DNA genome. This feature also makes them weird amongst DNA viruses because most of them penetrate the nucleus to use the cell’s DNA replication enzymes. Pox viruses on the other hand likes to stay in the cytoplasm. plasm is that they are right next to all the ribosomes that crank out their proteins and remain close to the cell membrane where their progeny can leave and infect more cells. However, this is an incredibly risky strategy.

Our innate immune system has evolved to detect molecular ‘patterns’ of foreign organisms. These range from weird sugarprotein bonds that are only found in bacteria, to common molecules like DNA being somewhere they shouldn’t.

The presence of DNA in the cytoplasm is a tell-tale sign that a virus is present because it is supposed to be stored in the nucleus.

A cytoplasmic enzyme called cGAS binds to DNA, and this change in shape activates it ling molecule. This signal prompts the cell to shut down its metabolism and send out hormones that activate the immune system called interferons.

Unfortunately for us, poxviruses are one step ahead. They produce a protein called F17 that interferes with mTOR: A master regulator of metabolism. This counteracts the cGAS signal, and it even leads to the cGAS enzyme being destroyed!

Even if Cgas was fast enough to sound protein called B8 that binds to interferons.

This stops the infected cell from communicating with the immune system.

When all else fails, infected cells try to destroy themselves to protect the rest of the body (this process is called apoptosis).

Unfortunately, poxviruses won’t even grant cells this mercy. Their 16L protein binds to the pro-apoptotic factor BAX, preventing it from reaching its target in the mitochondria.

For all these reasons, the best chance your immune system has to identify the virus is in between replication cycles as it Well, that’s all very interesting, but how is this going to help us design vaccines against pox viruses?

One of the most important steps in researching SARS-COV-2 was establishing that it entered cells by binding the ACE2 receptor. Solving the structure of the spike protein allowed us to visualize exactly how it contacts ACE2 and design effective vaccines that block this.

The mechanism of Poxvirus fusion with body cells remains mysterious and no spered yet. I am excited to see how this outbreak of monkeypox will inspire further Image: Matthew Clark.

Culture CONTENTS CULTURE

12 | Oxford’s rock and roll: A very short introduction 12 | Work is hell: What corporate bureaucracy looks like

FASHION

13 | Love Island goes sustainable?

MUSIC

14 | The brilliance of ‘Skinty Fia’

FILM

14 | Love without words: The quiet storytelling of Heartstopper

BOOKS

15 | “The world outside our window”: Musings on Marvel

STAGE

15 | Review: Carrie - Performing the unperformable

THE SOURCE

16 | Like Porcelain 17 | A Drink

12

Oxford’s rock and roll: A very short introduction Oscar Fraser Turner discusses why Oxford’s contributions to the world of rock feel so limited.

T

he Rolling Stones’ guitarist Keith Richards called rock and roll “music from the neck downwards”. Oxford, as probably the most ‘neck upwards’ university in Britain, has had an unsurprisingly small impact on the genre. The university website’s ‘Famous Alumni’ page lists 120 Olympic Medal Winners, over 50 international leaders, 55 Nobel Prize winners, but only one musician (a jazz artist). A more comprehensive list of famous Oxonians names 43 composers, 13 conductors, seven musicologists, even a didgeridoo player.

And yet while pop and rock music dominate the charts, only seven Oxford alumni have and four rock and roll musicians.

Of the three ‘pop’ artists, two managed from Brasenose in PPP and now makes electronic music. Bulgarian-Liverpudlian Mira Aroyo didn’t graduate. She chose singing over her DPhil in biochemistry because she “was young and it seemed a lot more fun at the time to travel the world playing music.”

Benjamin Hudson McIldowie graduated from St Anne’s with a degree in English literature, and is probably the most successful

of the three. Under the alias Mr Hudson, he helped produce Kanye West’s 808’s and Heartbreaks, even providing the vocals for “Paranoid”, “Say You Will”, and “Amazing”.

The most famous rockers to survive any amount of time at Oxford University were the singer and the pianist of Foals. The group was formed in 2005, while all four founding members were scattered between Magdalen College School and Abingdon School. Lead singer Yannis Philippakis went on to read English literature at St John’s, but quickly dropped out to form the band. Instead of learning Middle English, he “wanted to form a band to play house parties, rile the people who didn’t like dancing, steal their girlfriends and play music.”

Edwin Congreave-Foals’ pianist-read English literature at St Hugh’s. He told Cherwell in 2010 that he dropped out because he “didn’t yet know what direction my life was headed… I needed some time

The society has since chosen to rebrand itself as the Oxford Alternative Music society.

The Foals started off around 2006 playing at the Zodiac–the O2’s predecessor - and the now-closed ‘Cellar’ that lived opposite Plush on Frewin Court.

Rock and roll and academia has never been the most compatible pairing. Oxford University rock and roll output may be poor, but our music scene thrives in other genres.

Our choirs have bred some of the most popular singers of the last millenia. Our colleges are host to everything from funk bands to jazz groups to musical theatre performances. We even have the UK’s best acapella group. Yet rock and roll stubbornly lives on outside our “barbed wires and spiked walls.” On this front, our locals have us beat.

“Rock and roll and academia has never been the most compatible pairing ”

Read the full article at cherwell.org.

Work is hell: What corporate bureaucracy looks like Caitlin Ashleigh Wilson explores the artistic potential of dull corporate aesthetics.

J

ean-Paul Sartre wrote that hell is

is an office job. The stereotypical image summoned by nine-to-five drudgery is cheesy inspirational posters, fabric-lined cubicles, and shared kitchens with cupboards stuffed full of chipped coffee mugs. Its more bougie counterpart, the corporate aesthetic, is straight lines, suits, chrome, and grey carpet, perhaps more upscale but similarly dull and impersonal. Two television shows capture this office aesthetic best, deploying it to different ends but motivated by the same desire to play with the idea of the office as hell.

The Office, in both its American and British iterations, capitalised on the familiarity of middle-management mundanity to create a backdrop for its humour. The workspace populated

by Jim, Pam, Michael, and Dwight became the site for its characters to fall in love, make friends, fight and pull pranks. For sitcoms like The Office, recognisable locations are important to establish the relatability of its characters; Friends has its coffeehouse, How I Met Your Mother its bar, Brooklyn Nine-Nine the bullpen of a police station. The titular office establishes the relationships between characters spatially – Pam behind the reception desk, accessible to Jim but also out of reach, Michael in his office, separate from the open plan cubicles and their workers despite his desperate desire to belong with them.

The characters overcome the dull nature

of their office jobs through their relationships, and any happiness and fulfilment the characters find are generally despite the day-to-day bleakness of their jobs.

In Severance, a newer show by Apple TV directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle, the corporate imagery takes a darker turn.

These workers are Severed, meaning their brains are surgically split between their

around a vending machine, and walk down bland hallways. What it is precisely the workers are doing is mysterious – they themselves don’t know what the encoded numbers they receive relate to, a jab at the meaninglessness of much office work.

The visuals of Severance brilliantly enhance this uncanny plot - the physical workplace in Severance is designed to

work and home life, neither remembering the experiences of the other, thus becoming two separate people in one body. Despite its more ominous tone, the show uses similar aesthetic nods to office life to The Office – the four workers in the Macrodata Refinement Department sit in cubicles covered in dark green felt, gather

resemble an office in a dream. The piles of papers and long hallways look almost true to life, but look closer and you’ll find they’re slightly off. Despite being set in the near future, the computers look like something Jobs and Wozniak might have dreamt up in the ’70s. Fluorescent lights beam down on the workers in repeating

squares, yet the lighting is always pleasantly warm. One of the workers, Dylan, proudly collects prizes like finger traps and Waffle Parties for efficiency. Everything about the office reinforces the characters’ the outside world, just doors that lead to a warren of seemingly endless hallways hiding more departments of an unknown quantity.

Of course, there’s a strong realworld basis to this surreal aesthetic. A 2017 study by the American Working Conditions Survey found that 20% of Americans faced hostile, threatening environments at work. A recent poll by Metro easily summoned a list of fifty things people hate about going to the office. Whether enlivening the office space through comedy or skewing capitalism through satire and horror motifs, both The Office and Severance point to the ubiquity of working in soul-sucking locations with little regard for individuality and expression. With a huge number of former officedwellers working from home either part or all their workweek post-pandemic, maybe it’s time we finally let go of the office.

Would anyone, except TV set designers, miss it if it died?

Read the full article at cherwell.org.

Image credit: Tumisu / Pixabay License via Pixabay, Nathanel Love / Pixabay License via Pixabay, arezkichek33 / Pixabay License via Pixabay

13

Fashion

Love Island goes sustainable?

Madi Hopper explores the implications of the show’s new eBay partnership.

T

– and, much appreciated by a material girl like myself, an opportunity to break the show’s long-running relationship

he beloved (well, depends who’s asking) show Love Island has announced that, when it returns for its eighth UK season, it will partner with eBay to clothe its contestants. This is quite a change from the previous partner ISawItFirst – a quintessential fast fashion

of fast fashion retailers – boosting the positive environmental impact even further. Another potential issue is of the look itself – a lot of people use eBay to buy bits and bobs which are hard to

– and an extremely interesting one coming from a show that is, let’s face it, more or less the spiritual home of fast fashion. With despite the multiple daily costume changes required by island life and one of the most famous ex-Islanders, Molly-Mae, having been appointed ‘Creative Director’ for fast fashion juggernaut PrettyLittleThing, not to mention assorted other former c o n t e s t a n t s “As a show, Love regularly Island isn’t exactly partnering known for setting a good with fast f a s h i o n example for just about brands on anything, so the sudden a smaller decision to eschew fast scale, it’s fashion seems rather not a show out of character.” that has history w it h slower fashion. It c o u l d be a sign of the times – the show’s target demographic, is, after all, the generation who made charity shops fashionable – although I would like to remind you that outside the Oxford fashion bubble, thrifting is still somewhat outré, with a lot of people still turning to PLT &co. for their shopping needs.

It could also be a bit of a PR stunt – as a show, Love Island isn’t exactly known for setting a good example for just about anything, so the sudden decision to eschew fast fashion seems rather out of character - albeit one which, interestingly, received far less attention both online and in the think-piece-y news

Island aesthetic has previously been super of the era and interesting when you think that eBay (though a good refuge from getting absolutely reamed than you might expect, given what a hot topic our shopping habits continue to be. The eBay partnership could be an attempt to clean up their image as a byword for single-use fashion, a reputation which wasn’t helped by the constant criticism surrounding Molly-Mae’s work for PrettyLittleThing - a brand which has repeatedly attracted controversy for its low-cost, lowquality clothing and even worse working conditions.

Whatever the motivation, however, the end result is the same – eBay will become as overpopulated as Depop and we shall all have to seek refuge at Vinted.

Just kidding. Although there is truth in the idea that this deal could help popularise shopping second hand amongst those who previously been fast fashion loyalists, it seems unlikely that the show will make a big song and dance about sustainability,

as it’s not really in keeping with their vibe.

This means that we might see a bigger increase in more sustainable shopping as a simple trend, rather than being motivated by ecological concerns. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – anything which helps wean people off the fast fashion mentality is obviously good – but it does present an interesting dynamic.

I, for one, will be interested to see where they go with the styling. One thing about having a single brand as your sponsor is that it gives the cast a relatively cohesive look – something that would be a lot harder to pull off from a trawl through eBay’s depths. If the contestants are

on Depop) isn’t necessarily known as a fashion marketplace. Of course, this whole shebang utterly fails to address the elephant in the room: the way Love Island functions as a twenty-four-hour-catwalk, with contestants refusing to wear even the same pyjamas for more than a few days.

Arguably, if they wanted to advocate a truly healthy example of fashion they’d give the contestants some sort of capsule wardrobe and have them make do with that. But part of the show’s appeal is the

the show, would it be from a big wardrobe

clear that the visual stimulation of seeing conventionally attractive people in shiny new clothes is a not inconsiderable part of the entertainment function of the show.

But at the end of the day, anything that turns people away from fast fashion is a good thing overall, and if Love Island is what it takes - who am I to question it ?

Image credits (clockwise from top): Lippincott Studio / Adrian Frutiger / public domain marked via Wikimedia Commons;

organise them by colour, decade, or style ? The potential for a ‘dressed in the dark’ moment looms large, especially given the current taste for maximalist fashion - a look which, though effective if well thought through, can sadly often end up a washing line. But - think positive! - it could also be an excellent chance to crack the homogeneity of the Love Island look

run being the best part of two months, the contestants would probably start to look a little like cartoon characters if

14

Music Cherwell Recommends SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

The brilliance of ‘Skinty Fia’ Josie Thornton explains why she enjoys Fontaines D.C.’s third album so

I

The

Guardian NME

Stone

Rolling

ALRIGHT Kendrick Lamar

IDLES Danny Nedelko

Read the full article at cherwell.org.

Image credit: Paul Hudson/ CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Image credit: Kenny Sun/ CC-BYSA-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons, Simoncromptonreid/ CC-BY-SA-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Film

Love without words: The quiet storytelling of Heartstopper Eleanor Zhang discusses how Heartstopper’s use of innovative visuals.

CW: abuse

“Silence can be poetic and meaningful”

Must See: LGBT+ Films

MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM

THE HALF OF IT

Read the full article at cherwell.org.

Image Credit: StockSnap / Pixabay Licence by Pixabay, Dom J / Pexels Licence by Pexels

15

Books

“The world outside our window”: Musings on Marvel Khusrau Islam highlights the significance of the upcoming Penguin Classics Marvel Collection.

I

t was recently announced that Penguin Classics would be publishing special editions of certain Marvel comic books. The comics will be part of a ‘Penguin Classics Marvel Collection’, which will present origin stories and seminal tales from characters published under the Marvel Comics brand. These stories are not only attention-grabbing for their visuals, drawing on a rich tradition of American cartooning, but many generations. The Penguin Classics decision marks the growing respect for comics as a medium of stories, and may herald the advent of more interesting and ambitious stories in the comic-book industry. A short history of comic books leads you into the 1930s: they began by reprinting newspaper strips, but soon, they were featuring their own content.

debuted: Superman in Action Comics #1.

At the time, the comic book format was seen as less prestigious than the strip, so it took a few years for the superheroes to grace the back of a newspaper.

For Stan Lee, the leading creative behind Marvel Comics, “Marvel has of the world right outside our window”.

In the period following the advent of the superhero, the Second World War was on the mind of many comic book writers.

Captain America was introduced in 1941 with an illustration of him punching Adolf Hitler, while in 1945, Batman #26 contained a story of a futuristic Batman called “Fura”, which sounds suspiciously like ‘führer’. More recently, comics have in modern America. The X-Men became a symbol for the struggles of in the 90s about the “Legacy virus” being a direct parallel to AIDS epidemic. Miles Morales, a black Hispanic teenager, is the new Spider-Man, while Kamala Khan, a Muslim student from New Jersey, has a TV show coming soon.

Of course, these comics have sometimes mis-stepped in their presentations, such as the Chinese villains produced in 1937 caricaturing the “Yellow Peril”. Depictions of women have also been somewhat lacking. They were often subject to far greater violence than male counterparts,

and often purely for the sake of a male character’s development. During the 1950s, Wonder Woman constantly found herself bound and shackled (since the head writer for the character felt that women enjoy submission), and her problems revolved around marriage and love. However, by the 70s, she became a symbol for feminism: she displayed “strength and self-reliance for women”.

These comics represent how people’s values have changed and evolved across the decades.

Recommended Reads

of comics on wider media. As the books published by Penguin Classics inspired subsequent literary culture, these comics have pervaded modern pop culture to the

The Fall of Rome

identity are commonplace, and SpiderMan made it to Broadway.

The decision to create the collection represents the recognition of the comic book not as a genre, but as a medium. We now,

comics

test

boundaries

and

consequences of colonialism and social divisions in Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, and Spider-Man confronts human struggles, such as the grief that plagues his life in costume in No One Dies.

Perhaps these comics are not on the level of Dostoyevskian classics, but they are unique achievements in story-telling, and cultural touchstones that deserve their place in the great literary canon.

We are back with another recommendation from the team, this time an intriguing novel dealing with a crucial

Martha Southgate

As a classicist it feels cliché to be recommending a book where the protagonist is a high school Latin teacher, but in truth this novel is about much more than learning declension tables (though that does feature). The novel concerns the only Black faculty member at a US private school, and his clashes with a new scholarship student over issues of the place of POC at predominantly white institutions.

It highlights the ongoing discussions about the decolonisation of Classics, without compromising on its gripping, almost Greek tragic, narrative.

- Clementine Scott, Deputy Editor

Stage

Review: Carrie - Performing the unperformable Noah Wild reviews Founding Fellas Productions’ ‘Carrie: The Musical’ at the Oxford Playhouse.

F

ounding Fellas Productions have made an interesting choice in staging Carrie: The Musical at

catastrophic production history, the musical is famously one of the biggest flops in theatre history – but given the current popularity of dark, teen-angst products like Heathers: The Musical, the choice is unsurprising. Based on the Stephen King novel, the tale of bullied, isolated teen Carrie White is wellknown.

Considering that Carrie discovers she has telekinetic abilities after her first period, there is also an opportunity to reshape it with feminist interest.

The musical, with a score by Fame! songwriters Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore, begins with teens, though with a more concrete sense of concern than in the similar openings of Fame! and Heathers. It is fortunate that Vanessa Silva’s violent, searching choreography saves the opening number from cliché. As Carrie, Harriet Nokes

delivers the rock score – with its leaping pitch and pulsating, brightly cluttered rhythms – with ease. Nokes’ scenes with Eleanor Dunlop, playing Carrie’s devoutly religious and controlling mother Margaret White, are the highlight of the production.

Dunlop, who was a standout in Persephone last year, shines in this role. Her vocal depth is powerful, her voice almost on itself whilst holding an eerily cold falling into tense despair in her second act ballad.

Grace de Souza enjoys every second onstage as Chris, the high school ‘mean girl’, with a sickly smile throughout, whilst Luke sensitivity that contrasts the swagger of musical theatre mainstay Peter Todd. To these supporting characters the musical the cast manage to bring an admirable

depth. Beth Ranasinghe, as Carrie’s Ellie Tutt and Gillian Konko are noticeable sympathetic PE teacher Ms Gardner, aptly moves from harsh authority to the softer performances. Tutt’s delivery of the hipsympathy of student-teacher friendship. thrusting, thigh-bending opening number The role of kind-hearted Sue, who is particularly memorable. In the second attempts to reach out to Carrie to the half, Emma Starbuck and Sav Sood bring disgust of her peers, is split between a necessary humour to the prom sequence. two actors, Grace Olusola and Gianna The challenge of any interpretation Foster, across the run. They take very of Carrie is in its staging of Carrie’s different interpretations. Foster’s telekinetic abilities. The stage voice more typically suits the effects successfully conveyed material, with her ecstatic a levitating statuette malice gradually replaced and self-propelling “Nokes’ scenes with by wide-eyed idealism. books. However, the production’s finale Eleanor Dunlop, playher deeper voice brings a restrained softness there is no re-creation ing Carrie’s devoutly that contrasts Sue’s of the classic pose classmates. It is an so iconic in Brian religious mother, are interesting choice de Palma’s 1976 to split the character film version.

Yet the the highlight of the this way, given that the haunting movement two performers have a of the ensemble has production.” very different dynamic great impact, and the production’s use of remotesupporting cast struggled to fully control mechanics is skilful. meet the demands of a challenging Founding Fellas Productions have rock score, though when the band – managed to prove that Carrie: The Musical under the musical direction of Beth is worthy of greater attention. This team Fitzpatrick – surges into full rock-ballad has demonstrated the value of a musical mode, the cast are aptly supported. once deemed to be unperformable, Considering that the true test of any and that is worthy of praise. musical is in the quality of the ensemble, there is stable grounding to the production.

Image credit: Simon Vail.

S E O H U T

16

RCE

Like Porcelain Caitlin Wilson

‘God, I love ornate shit’.

Max was in the corner of the thrift store, hunched down on his knees, crammed into the triangle of empty space beneath a huge bronze-framed mirror resting against a packed shelf. He was weedy and short, could cram himself into any small space and did, frequently. We were quiet on this trip, ponderous, thinking about the lecture we had just attended – ordinary language philosophy. We were first years, so we thought we held unique insight into the mysteries of the universe and alternated between an unquenchable desire to pontificate on them and a deep yen to keep them secret. We used words like pontificate and yen, unbashful. Every so often, one of us would find something pretty or funny, and point it out to the other, who would sigh in delight or emit a humoured huff air through our nostrils. I loved making Max laugh. We were in a weird stage, not just friends but technically nothing more.

‘Don’t break that mirror, Max’, I said, thumbing through a stack of vinyl nearby. ‘As if we need more bad luck’. That earned a nostril-huff. Success.

We had a running joke that we were angels of chaos. It was true that bad stuff seemed to happen to or around us when we were out. Once, a woman got her handbag stolen, and as the guy ripped it from her arm she tripped and pushed Max into the road. He fell to the ground, and his bare knees hit the asphalt. They were scabbed for weeks, and Max picked and picked them, so much that months later the scars were raised and white, rough to the touch. I imagined. I’d never touched them.

Max made a sound again, a sharp inhale this time, followed by a muffled curse. I rushed over to the mirror, crouching down to see Max underneath. He was looking at his ring finger, on which a tiny bead of blood was pooling, then spilling down onto his palm.

‘Found a spindle, sleeping beauty?’ I quipped. He smiled lopsidedly, and I could tell his finger stung. I sat down cross-legged at his side, both of us shielded from view by the mirror. I was reminded of sleepovers as a kid, making tents out of sheets and drying racks, playing Truth or Dare and I Never. I wondered what Max was like as a preteen.

Probably awkward and pimply, like me. I reached for his hand, pulling my spare face mask from the back pocket of my jeans. We didn’t wear masks around each other anymore, we figured if one of us got COVID the other would – we basically lived in each other’s pockets.

On the shelf behind Max were rows of porcelain teacups, some with floral designs, some rimmed with gold, all winking like a mouth full of shiny white teeth. I pressed the mask to his finger, stemming the flow of blood. It felt sacred somehow, clasping his hand in mine, in this close and humid shop. Our faces were very near.

‘I’m going to have to pay for that, I bet’. Max said, gesturing to where the shards of porcelain teacup sat around his feet. I grasped him around the neck and kissed him, my chapped lips against his smooth. I pulled back. He was quiet. I waited. Pretty or funny? Then he nostril-huffed. Oh. Max got up and paid for the teacup, while I scooped up the little pieces carefully, holding them in my palm. I had a strange desire to pocket one of the bits, but decided it was far too maudlin. We left the shop, and everything felt different, but really it was the same.

When I got home, I found a tiny dot of bright red blood on my sleeve. I washed the shirt so many times, over and over. It never came out.

17

A Drink

Edmund McClaren I rise from my screen and enter the horizontal darkness above its frame, itself over the river I do not see. Why is it that when I attempt to do serious work I am always accosted by something miraculous I wouldn’t see in leisure? Two adjacent torches in the distance, not glowering out of plastic but real fire, oppose each other in the night I am looking through. They are angled perfectly for me to see and be unable to discern whether they dwell in two windows of a cottage or in the hands of wanderers sisterly going their way along the hillside.

Even when they remain in place I can’t be sure if when one dims slightly a fire is going out or one of the prospective figures has climbed up steps. If the steps are there, I cannot help but assume they are leading up to the brow of an ancient mound and perhaps to a temple there. This is how fairies worm into the world. They travel through the excess of a mind, from knowledge to projection, hill to square, and go unobserved until they are believed in.

Suddenly I am imagining two girls climbing into a bed of grass, blue in blackness, as a coven of two. They have danced with fires a little in their time.

But now is enough. They are already going down into the roots of birches by the moment I glance them. Their eyelids are overgrown in rich weeds. They are strange and apocalyptic although their sleep will certainly keep them safe. I relax my eyes and turn down to the screen. One light is left.

Two have gone. It demands I read, and type, and contribute work.

I have wasted a certain amount of my time and yet what was I doing before I did? Geese I am unable to see siren in the massive emptiness over my head. Umbrellas folded stand like hooded figures about the bank. Lights around me pulse like lighthouses at sea. I am working here. I am trying to work at five o’clock at night reviewing books, analysing Greek plays, in the middle of Winter. Perhaps I’ll order a drink.

But before I stand I have the realisation that when I was dreaming, or whatever I was doing, the only lights that seemed around were the torches and screen. No lights, no lighthouses and no buzzing headlamps seemed to pulse behind me. I was caught up. Or rather, now, at my laptop, typing this, I have been caught. The beams in the distance were shimmers in the web that tightens presently as I struggle to leave.

Is there any reason I am mesmerised more by my recollection than the event itself? Maybe this moment will also seem unimportant when it goes by and a more interesting thought supplants it.

But that won’t alter the fact that, right now, I am aware of the felt significance of the present. It is no stretch at all for me to say that what I feel about this feeling, or remember about this particular memory, is instrumental like the fabric of the soul.

That is perhaps the wrong word and yet it conjures up the transparent sheet that I am thinking about. The thing that lives in devices of consequence, and things with meanings, I know looks like that. A watery orb that sloshes with bubbles and bellies, and a topaz tone inflected with emerald.

That is the being my looking back at my dream exposes it as.

It is itself. It must be. It is the world and life, and because I myself am alive I cannot deny it, no matter if I later deny the form it appeared in. Even if I revoke the sludge, and do away with the lakemoss, and everything belonging to the black lagoon, it will linger like a ghost, the ghost of a ghost. It will be a fading image and an image. Polaroid, then vector. But each one on the same material before my eyes, conveying the same absolution independently.

Yes, I will have a beer.

cherwelleditor@gmail.com

18

Life

On break ups: Dumping exes and expectations Clementine Scott questions the narrative of the heartbroken woman.

Artwork credit: Ben Beechener

I

n a perverse way, I think I was excited for

For the full article, go to Cherwell.org.

John Evelyn

An inside look at the Oxford Union -

-

or teen drama, the immediate aftermath of

i

Horoscopes... TAURUS

PISCES

AQUARIUS

SCORPIO

CAPRICORN

GEMINI

CANCER

ARIES

-

SAGITTARIUS

accessory that deserved to see -

LIBRA

VIRGO

LEO

Artwork by Ben Beechener

19

Cherpse! The world according to Rusty...

Reeza and Anika

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 themes of dirty douche water, laxative abuse, possessed pendants, and my mother.

Reeza First impressions?

Did it meet your expectations?

What was the highlight?

What was the most embarrassing moment?

Describe the date in 3 words: Is there a second date on the cards?

“I walked straight past him.”

New restaurant cooks up Keralan cuisine Oliver Hall reviews Tribe’s food and ambiance on Cowley Road. space

of

three

months

is

Anika First impressions?

Did it meet your expectations?

What was the highlight?

What was the most embarrassing moment?

Describe the date in 3 words: Is there a second date on the cards?

Looking for love?

“The cod is punctuated by the flavour of white tamarind, a truly unique spice that is almost impossible to find in the owner, it consists of UK.”

20

Features Beyond the Etonians: Simon Kuper’s Chums in today’s Oxford

Pieter Garicano questions how far the Oxford experience has changed since the days of Johnson and Gove.

CW: classism, racism, sexual harassment

S

imon Kuper of the Financial Times tells me he is an unlikely candidate to draw back the curtain on what he calls “the Oxocracy”. A card-carrying member of the establishment he shines a lihim. Besides, raised in the Netherlands, Kuper came to Oxford equipped with an outsider’s eye. More than just an exposé of an institution he “had a wonderful time at” or a compilation of party gossip, Chums is meant to provide the necessary context to grasp today’s ruling class.

Throughout, he argues that a unique mix of public school arrogance and Oxford frivolity produced a dominant generation of politicians. Its ranks include David Ca-

meron, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Dominic Cummings. The book shows how they were shaped by the University and how Brexit was born. It also deals with life at the University as it was then – a life perhaps all too recognisable for today’s undergraduates.

Arriving in Oxford just as Johnson left, but in time to catch Gove and Rees-Mogg, Kuper notes that these characters were infamous as students. From his desk at Cherwell, he had an early front row to the antics of many of today’s front bench. Boris Johnson was one of the most prominent undergraduates of his day. Jeremy Hunt was the boring and bureaucratic president of the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA). Gove and Rees-Mogg were constantly lampooned by yesteryear’s Cherwell, a publication then characterised by constant irony and an ob-

session with these big personalities.

The men who grew up to become these characters were, in some respects, a diverse bunch. Some, like Cameron, were blue-blooded representatives of the hereditary elite.

Others, like Gove, were products of the postwar meritocracy. This mix of hereditaries and

Yet, as much as there were differences between them, they had more in common.

Nearly all were male. All were white. Almost all belonged to the ‘elite’ even before arriving. In the composition of its student body, the Oxford of Chums is a far cry from today’s University. Kuper recalls asking the only

“Kuper recalls asking the only AfroCaribbean undergraduate in from his college what the percentage of Afro-Caribbeans at the University was; the student retorted, “Percentage? There are six Afro-Caribbean undergraduates at the entire University”. aspirationals had fuelled the upper classes throughout British history, and through close relationships and favourable institutions kept a stranglehold on much of the establishment.

Afro-Caribbean undergraduate in his college what the percentage of Afro-Caribbeans at the University was; the student retorted, “Percentage? There are six Afro-Caribbean undergraduates at the entire University”.

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The history which the Oxford Tories learned revolved around themselves too. ‘Men like them’ had ruled over nearly a quarter of the earth’s surface for much of the past century. Spoon-fed a diet of imperialist nostalgia and martial glory from birth, the grey mediocrity of post-war Britain taunted them.

However, Oxford Tories went to University upper classes. The dismal 1970s had been replaced by Thatcher’s 1980s British exceptionalism. Here was a group of men and women who had seen Brideshead Revisited on TV and were determined to make Oxford theirs again. Kuper emphasises that even then it was an anachronism. It was a conscious effort at imitation of their forefathers, not ‘authenticity’. Without the sense of wartime the upper classes of old, it ended up being a farcical parody. While most students of that time were listening to The Smiths, this small group set out to copy Sebastian Flyte.

Tories was Brexit. Birthed as an undergraduato the lives of men whose views of England no longer matched reality. Also, as Kuper notes, the ideals behind Brexit assured them personally of a future. They claimed ownership over Westminster; Brussels was a much more hostile place to men like them.

The University provided an easy backdrop.

Inseparable from the men that inhabited it, Oxford shaped their way of life. It rewarded style over substance, and rarely asked for much depth. The book explains how the academic standards of Oxford in the 1980s were different. Tutors were often unqualitutor ‘unapologetically preferred tall blond public schoolboys and girls’. A don at Kuper’s college had a reputation both for exposing himself and trying to recruit students into the intelligence services.

And, while providing a golden ticket to the elite, the entrance was rigged against almost everyone else . For some, admission was guaranteed from birth. Even if things went wrong, their privilege would save them. An anecdote from the book mentions Toby Young (now a polemic social commentator). Having failed to meet his offer from Brasenose of two Bs and a C, he was at risk of losing his place.

A phone call from his father, Baron Young of Dartington, saved his spot. Ironically, Baron Young happens to be the man responsible for writing the 1945 Labour manifesto and coining the term ‘meritocracy’. For those who did not belong to the narrow upper and upper-middle classes, entrance to Oxford was restricted, if not impossible.

Yet more striking for today’s Oxonian is how little has changed. It is true that the largest personalities of today are no longer Etonians cosplaying Evelyn Waugh. Yes, the student body is, slowly but surely, becoming more representative of the wider population.

And, as Kuper mentions, today’s admissions are four times as competitive, fairer, and much more international. But, fundamentally, the institutional structure of the University described in Chums, the incentives Oxford creates, and the undergraduate life it feeds are not all that different.

Kuper’s paragraphs on the ‘essay crisis’, the rhetoric rather than deep academic learning refer to the Oxford of the 1980s. Yet, they will ring as true for today’s undergraduates as they did then. At the time, Cherwell reported on the notoriety of Simon Stevens (now a former NHS chief executive) as a legendary tutorial faker who once got halfway through reading his essay before his partner revealed to the tutor that he was reading from a blank sheet of paper; the same anecdote was told by a tutor about a contemporary student only a few months ago.

It goes beyond the structure of the classes and tutorials. PPE, a degree which then was considered to skate too thinly over three subjects in three years, continues to be criticised for the same reasons. With an academic year

£146. The current price of the membership is almost twice that, at £286. Even an ‘access’ membership costs £169.95. Meanwhile, the prominence of hacks in Oxford life may have grown greater still. Kuper tells me of many

“Without the sense of wartime sacrifice and duty that had characterised the upper classes of old, it ended up being a farcical parody. While most students of that time were listening to The Smiths, this small group set out to copy Sebastian Flyte.” lasting just 24 weeks, depth is hard to achieve.

With face-to-face time limited to just a few hours each week, the emphasis will always be now as then, the most important parts of University life are those that take place outside the classroom, ranging from drama to rowing or student politics to socialising. A survey from Kuper’s time indicated that the average student worked on their degree for just twenty hours a week. This continues to be the norm for many students today, even if a tutor quoted in the book explains that the expectation is now forty.

Like Kuper, this is not meant to insult Oxford. The University is a wonderful place and, by many objective standards, the world’’s reading the book must raise questions for Oxonians today. If the structure of undergraduate life then had such adverse outcomes and is so worthy of condemnation – and the structure fundamentally hasn’t changed – what does that imply for Oxford now?

Kuper doesn’t just single out the University itself. He dedicates multiple chapters to the Union, a place that served as a political ries. Failings in today’s cabinet are traced to habits encouraged then, from electioneering and ‘binning’ to an emphasis on rhetorical nue to be an intrinsic feature of the Union, even if those partaking have changed. I ask him if, now that Etonians no longer run the teaches you to ‘hack’ and ‘knife’. Kuper responds by highlighting greater inclusivity at the broader University, where 69% of those admitted are now from state schools.

One wonders, however, how much this

of the big names then, “It’s not that I hated them. I just was not very aware of them. They were very far for me. I was very far from them.

We had our own lives. I had a very happy life.”

Boris Johnson was exceptional precisely because he was one of the few undergraduates known to the wider student population.

Today, social media allows many students to become ‘big names on campus’. Scandals rapidly become common knowledge, even as the permanence of the internet means the stakes are ever higher. To be sure, Cherwell would write pieces like 1988’s ‘Union hacks Gove. But its reach and frequency was a fraction of Oxfess’ today.

Undoubtedly, Kuper is aware that many is to be done”. Radically, he even proposes shuttering the institution and making it graduate or research only. He celebrates the Dutch or German systems while noting that they do not deliver close to the same level of academic excellence. Nor, as Kuper is aware, are the best universities in these countries immune to similar accusations of elitism. He (rightly) notes that shutting Oxford would see different universities (Imperial, King’s College London, and so on) increase in prestige, as would-be Oxonians seek education elsewhere.

What remains unclear from the book is if Kuper’s primary criticism of Oxford today is who gets a spot, or what the University does to students once they arrive. Despite arguing against the abolition of private schools, it seems the upper- and upper-middle class grip on Oxford bothers him most. However, as he writes repeatedly throughout, Oxford’s inta-

“If the structure of undergraduate life then had such adverse outcomes and is so worthy of condemnation – and the structure fundamentally hasn’t changed – what does that imply for Oxford now?” affects the outcome. Indeed, the participants have changed, but the place, once they arrive, hasn’t. Like the University, the Union highlights its greater inclusivity – but the incentives and politics remain. In many ways, it is student politics that has changed the least.

This term will see Union members vote once again on whether slates should be banned, as they once were in Johnson’s day.

Even the inclusivity increase is complex. The book mentions the cost of Union membership in the late 1980s being £65.

of wider society. What – broadly – hasn’t changed is the incentives students face upon matriculating and the structures within the institution that will shape them.

“To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.” This quote serves as Chums’ epigraph and summary. In good Oxford fashion (and as Kuper acknowledges), the catchy Napoleonic quote is probably apocryphal.

The book that results is entertaining, eminently readable, and very recognisable. Yet,

for those of us who are twenty now in Oxford, it raises the question: faced with anall too similar environment, will we turn out different? “To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.” The quote serves as Chums’ epigraph and summary. In good Oxford fashion (and as Kuper acknowledges), the catchy Napoleonic quote is probably apocryphal.

The book that results is entertaining, eminently readable, and very recognisable. Yet, for those of us who are twenty now in Oxford, it raises the question: faced with an all-too-similar environment, will we be different?

Image credit: artwork by Ben Beechener

Members of the current Cabinet who attended Oxford: - Boris Johnson (Balliol College, 1983) - Dominic Raab (Lady Margaret Hall, 1993) - Rishi Sunak (Lincoln College, 1998) - Elizabeth Truss (Merton College, 1994) - Michael Gove (Lady Margaret Hall, 1985) - David Frost (St John’s College, 1984) - Jacob Rees-Mogg (Trinity College, 1988) Source: Wikipedia

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Columns Chronicles of an Oxford Prole

hear of no humble Judes participating in literary circles, drinking societies, or asserting their thes-

“I want to see them starving, The so-called working class.

Their wages weekly halving, Their women stewing grass.

When I drive out each morning In one of my new suits

there is no longer a fear of scalping in town-gown

To clean my car and boots.”

(Philip Larkin)

gered in the aftermath of genocide, both physical

D

earest reader, permit an old humble

summer-morn forsook those dreaming spires in search of the verity only found within coal, and confounded my rural keeping, tossing me back to this base and brickish skirt once gloom of rain and mist, beneath that wizened but fearfully blood-shot sun, this putrid vessel one may humbly call a mind begins a-turning, while Zuleika Dobson charges past with her nohoard of black-clad spectres slipped solemnly past the doors of the Sheldonian, that my cogs began to turn upon the crowd and wonder: how many gowns of those apparitions contained

Main Character Syndrome

nutshell and look deep for the bustling prole life

ming pen of our beloved Hardy, whose earnest protagonist can only dream of becoming a fore realising that the gates are strictly barred to “no book he had ever written contained less of his own life”, as a working-class man of letters, this theme of unattainable education was not

couched in panelled oak and dim lighting, as it is a place

ironic distance when we repeat such no-

ger a fear of scalping in towngown riots, we must hunt for shell and look deep for the

entirely separate meander, and yet the matter cannot be closed without a simple nod to the truth: grammar schools cannot be considered in the same sentence as non-selec-

included within “state school admissions,” in terview preparation scene, Rudge brusquely states what most were all thinking when the reader a rather sour aftertaste of the play, -

of comic relief, a perpetually underestimated many knees have knocked at the prospect of termining their success? How many whispers of received pronunciation have perforated

grammar school student is entirely different to midst of the positive descrimination debate, we should take into consider the “sanitised” state school, or rather Grammar, student that is stereotypically accepted: the purged tongue that rattles against the palate with no impeding glottals to harry the speech, the clean saranwrapped parents who have unembarrassing which is rife amongst Grammar school students, Why? The contours of their minds have not is indeed a truth universally acknowledged that a prole in possession of reasonable mental faculties must be in want of a good tramping of not lucky enough to have a Hector to carve the ivory of their minds, accents, and presence and

are only so many times that something can be said ironically before it reveals a latent

friends, followers and employers: we mould -

of the things we might traditionally have

The truth is that we have become accustomed to seeing ourselves through other

the consumer choices we have been taught to associate with what we take ourselves to

because we are constantly confronted with our own image, but also because the image must at once appear authentic despite being curated, and meaningful despite its fleetingmind that they were being perceived, but they

The impulse to create more compelling representations of our own lives is indicative of how we increasingly resem-

“...there are only so many times that can be said place to look either immacu- something ironically before it lately put-together, or indeed to look un-put-together, but in a managed and seductive

Steadily feeding upon its live wriggling victims, the 1950s Grammar School machine churned out its fair share of Jude success

-

Read the full column on Cherwell.com Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons and Wellcome Collection

papers or Facebook groups

The library is as much an opportunity

the English education sys-

ern towns, but perhaps we should err on the side of caution, at the risk of stigmatising

me look erudite, or does it make me look as

W

need to improve diversity within the scholarly

proceedings, Rudge becomes the archetypal access admission, a demonstration of a col-

people even when, in an act of naïve pleasure, -

e are obsessed with appear-

supposedly because he had thought it to be “quite a modest place,” hones in on the garish

place in literature beyond the merry regional

appearance for meaning and consistency, and -

Alex Beard explores how social media firms have conquered our lives and remade us in their own image.

grammar school and scholarship students in

being called in tumultuous streets, and the that adversarial relationship has long since been reconciled—- well, in a matter of speaking —and now scholar and serf relations are an awfully

Frank Owen gnawes on the Christminster Gristle

barricade that wards away working-class

always ascribed to commodities fashion brands would not be viable if the bits of fabric they

valuable than unbranded bits of fabric) were not associated with some logic in order to market ourselves to potential

The impulse to narrativise this virtual personality generates the To be the main character is to construct an account of the world in which you are the at the same -

collapsing living standards and looming inglessness and disempowerment, maybe it is only natural that we relocate ourselves within our own narratives and flatter ourselves with are to believed, then the the thought that we are being perceived, if only and in a sense becoming, because that would mean the representation, is a that other people found

suffocating and alienating

sense, we ape celebrities, the original people-

the media and the morbid curiosity of their

for what we think other people think our lives should look like, rather than what they and in a sense becoming, the representation, scribe, then why is it that so many of us seem with the attempt to impose meaning on our down the same well-trodden career paths as generations past, and to be measured against the same standards of success, without any

all-consuming selfawareness and mutual surveillance, which pticon, we would do well to remember that most people are too busy thinking about being perceived to actually perceive anyone looking for in our lives by trying to embody the images we construct of ourselves, which will only ever be poor and insufficient apis not contingent on the perception of others, and confront critically the digital apparatus which makes this harder than it

23

Sport

A Global League: How the NBA finally conquered the world Oli Hall explores the exciting future for women’s football in England.

F

three of the contenders for the NBA’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award were born outside the United States.

Easy to brush aside as coincidence on the moment for the league’s governing body and is the culmination of years of work behind the scenes.

All of the top three sports leagues in the United States have been trying their best to crack the global market over the last few years. For a number of reasons though, basketball has very much been leading the way. For decades now it has been investing in overseas markets, differing from the NFL and MLB by offering not just increased media coverage but also support and routes for aspiring foreign players years ahead of its rivals. That came to a head with the foundation of the Basketball Without Borders programme in 2001. In association with FIBA, the sports global governing body, the annual training camp brings the best prospects from around the world together to train and show their talents off to prospective NBA teams. It was here that one of this year’s his big break. The Cameroonian attended in 2011 before being drafted in 2014 and his suc-

cess has seen an extraordinary year-on-year 40% increase in subscriptions to watch the league in Africa.

There are of course other reasons that basketball has been able to break into foreign markets far more easily than the NFL and MLB. ington Bullets way back in 1978, 27 years ahead trip to Mexico. This was arguably only possible thanks to basketball’s global reach as a sport in general. By the 1930s it was already hugely player was playing in 1946. Similarly, across Europe

and in France and Spain in particular, the EuroBasket Championship tournament is hugely popular in its own right. Its place in the Olympics has undoubtedly done it favours too and the aura Barcelona in 1992 saw international viewership numbers surge.

The result of all this has not just been formarkets now make up 10% of the NBA’s estimated $10bn revenue and after a brief hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, the league next pre-season.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

ever NBA game to be held in the Gulf against the Atlanta Hawks this October, just one more demonstration of how his popularity has revitalised a franchise that was once trapped by its isolated market.

Major League Baseball has announced that they will resume their London Series senior vice-president of MLB International and he has defended their comparatively sluggish expansion by highlighting its vastly differing rules, “With soccer or basketball, the concept is fairly simple: there’s a rectangle, and you get the ball in the goal or in the hoop. Baseball is a bit more nuanced”. That much hasn’t held back the NFL though and they have recently announced that their global games will make trips to Germany and Canada next season in addition to their overwhelmingly successful annual clashes in London and Mexico.

So, only time will tell as to whether or not America’s other major sports can follow suit but for now at least the NBA can revel in its success. Things are great as they are but the future is even brighter for America’s most marketable, fastest-paced, and most popular sport.

Image: Kenneth Lu, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.

Miami GP: Highlights from F1’s first outing in Florida

OU Sports Ball Awards Sportsman of the year: - Andrew Hong - Nick Civetta - Tobias Schroder Sportswoman of the year: - Amelia Standing - Grace Molloy - Yvonne Chart Blues team of the year: - Australian Rules Football Women’s - Fencing Women’s - Hockey Men’s

Alex Tennant-Holder dives into the latest addition to the F1 calendar.

T

his year’s inaugural Miami Grand Prix has proven to be an exciting but controversial addition to the Formula 1 calendar. Across a weekend of scorching track temperatures, crashes, and some very tight racing, here are some of the highlights from the new circuit.

The biggest winners at Miami were, of course, Red Bull and Ferrari. Max Verstappen made an early overtake at turn 1 to take P2 from Carlos Sainz, before making a successful move on pole qualifier Charles Leclerc just 9 laps in to lead the race. From there Verstappen claimed a comfortable victory, despite late pressure from Leclerc after a Safety Car restart. After some troublesome runs in practice, Sainz managed to steer clear of the barriers to bring home a 2-3 finish for the Scuderia; while Red Bull’s Sergio Perez kept hot on his tail throughout the race to end with a top-four red-blue lockout. George Russell drove brilliantly for Mercedes, recovering from a disappointing P12 qualification to finish the race in P5 – just ahead of his far more experienced teammate Sir Lewis Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas continues to impress at Alfa Romeo, bringing up the rear of the two Mercedes cars to score important points for the team.

Other strong performances came from those starting at the back of the grid. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon gained a remarkable 12 places over the course of the race, while Williams’ Alex Albon gained 9 places after a tough series of battles in the midfield.

Mick Schumacher’s growth in confidence has begun to show, as the young German driver made several impressive moves before fighting a contentious battle with Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen to find himself in with a chance of scoring his first points in Formula 1. Approaching the final few laps of the race Schumacher’s luck ran out, however, as he had an unfortunate collision with compatriot Sebastian Vettel on the 52nd lap which took both cars out of commission.

The weekend proved disappointing for British rising star Lando Norris. Initially starting well, Norris dropped several places before being clipped by French driver Pierre Gasly on lap 41, forcing his McLaren to spin towards the barriers while its right rear tyre bounced away like a Miami Heat basketball. Norris’ incident caused a yellow flag, which allowed the pack to tighten up and gave several drivers new opportunities to gain positions in the final laps of the race. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this was George Russell, who finally

made his pit stop during the flag, saving himself valuable time and keeping ahead of Hamilton once racing resumed.

Outside of the race itself, F1’s arrival in Miami has not been without controversy.

The design of the circuit itself has been accused by some fans of being ‘boring’, while the fake ‘marina’ that was constructed on the circuit using a wooden boardwalk and printed tarpaulin has drawn ridicule from many. The level of celebrity pre-race hospitality and a very ostentatious post-race ceremony (punctuated by a police bike escort for Verstappen through the very much walk-able stadium tunnels) were not so well-received by some fans. Others have criticised the recent additions of the Miami and Las Vegas race weekends by accusing F1 directors of simply holding races wherever they may be able to sell premium ticket packages – putting money ahead of the sporting spectacle. The FIA’s ban on wearing jewellery in cars also created tensions between race directors and some members of the paddock, as champions, Hamilton and Vettel both sternly protested the measure. However, it seems the FIA has no plans of withdrawing the ban, despite having granted certain drivers exemptions for the Miami race.

Looking ahead in the 2022 season, there

remains a great deal for fans to be excited for – 17 more races are scheduled to take place and there is still all to play for at the top of the championship. Ferrari will hope to pull away from Red Bull, who are merely 6 points behind the Scuderia in the Constructors’ table. Leclerc and Verstappen’s battles at the front of the pack have provided plenty of entertainment and will hopefully continue to do so, while fans of the struggling Mercedes team will be hoping to see the Silver Arrows start to rectify major issues (such as the extreme car porpoising) that are currently plaguing their efforts. With midfield rivalries emerging and tables that already look very different from those of 2021’s championship, next weekend’s Spanish GP should be one to look out for.

24 Medium Sudoku

Hard Sudoku

Pencil Puzzle - Shikaku Lines need to be drawn on the grid subject to these rules: 1. Each region contains one number which says how many cells are in it 2. Each region must be rectangular

Extra regions: Connected grey cells must contain numbers 1-9 exactly once.

Two-Speed Crossword Cryptic Clues Across: 1. Repacking it causes holder to take change of clothes (8) 3. First load of things (3) 6. Assistant retraces latest party shambles (9) 8. He’s in computer science making a game (5) 10. Small matter concerning young people (6) 11. Dried grape is in rain (6) 13. Age back during 50s is allowed (5) 14. Touch down and start off escape to countryside (9) 17. Sense of humour is crisp (3) 18. Oriel cat nets over the counter octopus leg (8)

Concise Clues Across: 1. Luggage carrier (8) 3. Large amount (3) 6. Clerk (9) 8. Board game (5) 10. Underage people (6) 11. Dried fruit (6) 13. Permitted (5) 14. Scenery (9) 17. Free from liquid (3) 18. Flexible appendage (8)

Down: 2. Final school exam is balanced? (1-5) 4. Gin + tonic @ turf, perhaps a sin? (4,8) 5. New CD a dream away for Oscar (7,5) 6. Order asian meal, squid perhaps? (3,6) 7. Rosy hiker lost in north of England (9) 8. Marine creature found in plastic or aluminium cans (5) 9. Buy time at market booth (5) 12. Educating gifted grad students about beginner cooking ingredients (4) 15. Trendy earring displaying colour (3) 16. Occult oddly lacking division (3)

Down: 2. Exam taken at end of secondary school (1-5) 4. e.g. Tangent (4,8) 5. Oscar (7, 5) 6. Lobster e.g. (3, 6) 7. Type of terrier (9) 8. Reef material (5) 9. Market unit (5) 12. Cake ingredient (4) 15. Colouring agent (3) 16. Remove (3)

Send your solutions to puzzlescherwell@gmail.com

After the Union Union article went totally viral because Oh Well is the best, Oh Well sends out its most uncaring apologies to all the NonPlayer-Character fools that believed us. This was a great judgement on the part of Oh Well, and we hope this happens again and again and again.

Oh Well apologises for telling the truth

We are now taking active steps to address the OEC (Oxford Entitlement Complex). This complex describes the phenomenon of the average Oxford student believing that, because they are privileged enough to attend the University of Oxford, which is RANKED NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD, which all your friends at home who didn’t get into Oxford also know as you talk about it all the time, which they absolutely despise you for, which you laugh off with the weird obsession that an Oxford 2:1 is better blues you experienced, which you tell your siblings and family who didn’t go to Oxford about, which they don’t quite understand

because they didn’t go to Oxford, which you get frustrated with because you actually have the power to make a difference in people’s lives with your Oxford degree, which leads to the sad realisation that you are lonely and have no friends, they are better than everyone else.

Disciplinary actions have been taken. The authors have been rewarded with vouchers to a tonne of formals where they can show themselves off on their Instagram and Snapchat stories about how amazing it is to be at such an old university, a bunch of carnations to prove that no other place has such pretty traditions as Oxford, a load of VKs to at least show that Oxford students do go out at least a bit, and a couple of butlers to clean up after the mess they leave literally everywhere they go.

Internal procedures are well underway. Oh Well has set out a target to write ten times as many bad stories about Oxford students than previously before.

Oh Well sincerely hopes that Oxford students will stop thinking they are way more important than they actually are in the future. Although we don’t hold out much hope. Oh well.