7th Week Hilary Term 2022

Voices of Ukraine

‘Stirred to breathless heights’: Wolf Alice Concert Review

Setting the bar high: On running the college bar

In conversation with Adam Fleming

7th Week Friday, 4th March 2022 cherwell.org Vol. 294 No. 5 Independent since 1920

Putin’s ‘hockey buddy’ funded Teddy Hall and Saïd Business School Charlie Hancock and Maurício Alencar report.

As the Western world moves to sanction overseas Russian money, Cherwell has found that St Edmund Hall and the Saïd Business School accepted donations from Vladimir Potanin, the oligarch and metals tycoon who is the second richest man in Russia.

Potanin, 61, has a net worth of $27 billion, as estimated by Forbes. In 2020, he was included on the US Treasury’s list of 210 Russian oligarchs, businessmen and politicians under considerations for sanctions, dubbed ‘Putin’s List’. He is widely known for regularly playing ice hockey with Putin. Potanin’s fortune fell by $3 billion on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. Potanin also served as the Deputy Prime Minister for 7 months between 1996 and 1997.

In 1999, Potanin founded the Vladimir Potanin Foundation to “implement largescale humanitarian programs” in the fields of “culture, higher education, social sport and philanthropy development”. The foundation donated £3 million to St Edmund Hall in 2018

to endow a research fund for Earth Sciences, and to jointly establish the Vladimir Potanin Associate Professor and Tutorial Fellow in Earth Sciences with the University of Oxford.

The endowment also funded the three-year Vladimir Potanin Tutorial Fellow of Russian Literature and Modern Languages.

The foundation also granted $150,000 to the Saïd Business School in 2017 for a fellowship scheme for the Oxford Social Finance Programme. The school selected 15 Russian charity workers to attend this programme between 2017 and 2019.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s allowed well-connected individuals to profit from the bloc’s transition to a market economy by gaining control over newly privatized state assets. Many of these deals were done privately, without competition. While in office, Potanin proposed the controversial ‘loans for shares’ scheme, which is seen as having furthered the rise of the oligarch class. This scheme effectively caused the consolidation of oligarchs’ control over the Russian economy. ‘Loans for shares’ encouraged wealthy businessmen to loan money to the Yeltsin government in exchange for

state-owned shares in companies, many of which extracted and processed Russia’s abundant natural resources.

Of the programme, he told The Financial Times: “It is the biggest PR tragedy of my career. Of course, the privatisation process has to be transparent. And in our case it was not. My plan was different. I wanted to privatise the companies with banks and qualified people, raise their value, and then sell them.”

Through this scheme, Potanin and his longterm business partner Mikhail Prokhorov acquired a 54% share in Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel). The two businessmen separated their assets in 2007, leaving Potanin with 34.6% of the shares in Norilsk Nickel. The company’s total assets amounted to $20.7 billion in 2020.

On top of being the world’s largest producer of nickel, Norilsk Nickel is one of the world’s largest industrial polluters. In 2020, the company produced 1.9% of total global sulphur dioxide emissions. The company has announced that it intends to reduce suphur dioxides from its plants in the heavily polluted Norilsk region by 90% by 2025 from a 2015 baseline.

A spokesperson for St Edmund Hall told Cherwell that the gift was accepted “in good faith and at a time when relations with Russia were in a substantially better place. This was a one-off donation and the College does not anticipate any further funding from The Potanin Foundation.

“The College is deeply concerned at the events happening in Ukraine and sincerely hopes that a peaceful outcome will soon be reached,” they added.

The Saïd Business School told Cherwell: “The grant went through the University’s robust approval process and the partnership ended in 2019. The focus of the programme is to improve the social impact and philanthropic work of charities and non-government organisations (NGOs) across the world.

As a global business school with students and alumni from across the world, we have been deeply saddened at events happening in the Ukraine and hope a peaceful outcome is soon reached.”

The University of Oxford, Interros, and The Vladimir Potanin Foundation were approached for comment.

Socratic Soc free speech spat after debate cancellation Izzie Alexandrou reports.

The Oxford Socratic Society, a forum for discussing philosophical question, has been embroiled in a free speech row after cancelling a debate on the ethics of abortion. The motion, “Is abortion before 24 weeks unethical?” was set to be debated last Friday.

In a Facebook post, Socratic Society announced that they would not be able to facilitate a “valid and safe environment” in which to host the discussion. The decision came after a number of people contacted the Society to object to the motion.

The President of the Society, Tom Martland, advised that the Welfare officer should chair the debate; she is the only woman on committee. He told Cherwell: “as someone

with a uterus, it seemed much more appropriate that she should shape the discussion.”

However, following the concerns raised, the Welfare officer and reps became unhappy with the debate going ahead. When asked why the committee agreed to change the proposed motion, Martland told Cherwell: “The Treasurer, Secretary, and I all agreed that, without a suitable chair, and with no welfare support in place, things should not go ahead.” According to Martland, the main concern with hosting the debate was that it would “ignor[e] the voices of those who had been elected to represent silenced individuals.”

“Based on the very specific circumstances before us, I felt (and still feel) that it was the right decision to change the motion.”

The vote to change the motion was not unanimous, however; committee member

Sebastian Pearson told Cherwell: “While I understand the committee’s concerns, I don’t think that closing down dialogue is the best solution, especially on an issue that directly affects 1/3 of UK women and indirectly impacts almost everyone.

Even the former CEO of BPAS, a leading UK abortion provider, tweeted to condemn our announcement and emphasized the importance of “open discussion.”

In the above-mentioned tweet, Ann Furedi, the former CEO of BPAS, said: “Conversations with those who think differently to ourselves are challenging in the best of ways. I know I learn with every debate I have.”

Furedi, who has spoken on this issue before, claims that “we need to challenge, debate and convince – not ignore those against us.”

Although Martland stressed that the cancellation did not mean that the society

endorsed censorship or avoidance of difficult questions, the Facebook announcement attracted significant criticism of these exact issues. Many Society members addressed the ► Continued on Page 2

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What’s inside?

3. Cherwell Sextigation

24. The Life Editors’ guide to living your best life during the vac

6. How meritocracy fuels Oxford’s burnout cycle

28. A letter from Lviv, Ukraine 17. The World As We Know It by Shiraz Vapiwala

7. The political power of gender expression: Lessons from female dictators

18. Rubbish representation in schools, syllabuses and beyond 20. It was acceptable in the 70s: Cherwell’s guide to 70s fashion

15. ‘The fairest of them all?’: Hollywood’s problem with visually represented villainy Continued from page 1 troubling implications and raised questions about the importance of debating controversial topics.

One commenter questioned what would be required for a “valid and safe” discussion to take place. “If Socratic Society, a society designed for debating, doesn’t feel it can facilitate a valid environment for this debate, it begs the question who can?”

Another commenter argued that the decision went against the “spirit of the society.”

“Socrates pursued the truth to the very end. For its namesake, SocSoc should do so likewise – no question should be off limits.”

Martland, commenting on the Facebook post, described this idea of the “spirit” of the society as “mythic.”

Alex O’Connor, an ex-president, and co-founder of Socratic Society, who is also known as the YouTuber “CosmicSkeptic”, said that Martland’s comment was somewhat upsetting: “The reason I was involved in founding the society is because I felt like it did owe something to its members - a place to discuss ethical issues with a focus on the ones which are most important.”

When asked about the precedent that the cancellation of the motion sets, O’Connor told Cherwell: “Without an explicit explanation of what conditions would be better, it leaves a lot of room for future committees to look back at the incident and interpret it as a red line around the subject.”

The cancellation of the official Socratic Society event did not prevent members meeting anyways and discussing the motion. The event took place at the same time as the official Socratic Society debate was due to be held.

Organised by O’Connor, the debate was popular, with around 20 participants. Of the group who met, 50% of attendees were women, with 50% of attendees identifying as ‘pro-life’ and 50% identifying as ‘prochoice’. O’Connor stresses that this outcome of an equal split was not created by design.

28. Impacts of the RussoUkrainian crisis in Romania

32. Nigel Lambert: 12 years refereeing Oxford Martland, while commenting on the competing event, told Cherwell: “I’m just somewhat frustrated that the people involved saw things so one-sidedly.

“Holding it simultaneously seems to me to tell the women involved in SocSoc as organisers that they are fighting a losing battle.”

The controversy raises questions about the future of the society. According to O’Connor, Socratic Society should commit to reconsidering the motion, and state the specific conditions under which a safe environment can be facilitated. That way, the society can make clear that cancellation was no infringement on freedom of speech.

Refusing to indicate the conditions under which such a debate could be held indicate an implicit unwillingness to discuss controversial subjects, which would ultimately “go against the ethos of what the society was founded on.”

When asked under what circumstances a debate like this should take place under, Martland told Cherwell: “I cannot pretend to know exactly the thresholds and dynamics required to hold the discussion in the right way, but I am fairly certain that this situation didn’t meet them.”

“After all, the point is to listen, and to understand, where our own understanding is limited: all of the women ever involved in organising SocSoc were telling us that this shouldn’t go ahead.”

“I hope that, in future, we will be more able to consider and make suitable the exact circumstances under which we hold a discussion like this.”

Regardless of what happened, O’Connor, co-founder and ex-President made clear the society must clarify, in a transparent way, how they will create this “valid and safe environment”.

He asserted that a failure to do so could undermine the fundamental justification of Socratic society; a place to hold challenging, ethical debates.

On the web Lord’s Cricket Ground to stop hosting Varsity match This year will see the final cricket Varsity competition played at the historic ground Cecilia Catmur

Former MI6 Chief speaks on Ukraine crisis at Oxford Union Sir John Sawyers also discussed Putin and his time in the secret service Meg Lintern and Cecilia Catmur

A Letter from Lviv, Ukraine A Ukrainian ex-Oxford student asked Cherwell to share this letter from Ukraine’s sixth-largest city Rostyslav Averchuk

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CHERWELL SEXTIGATION: EXETER TOP SHAGGERS, ST JOHN’S LEAST STRAIGHT COLLEGE, KEBLE STUDENTS ‘CRAP IN BED’ Cherwell’s Investigations Team reports on the sexual habits of students at Oxford University.

A Cherwell survey of students at Oxford University has found that the average number of sexual partners students have is 7.7 in total, with students having an average of 5.2 partners while at university.

Respondents from Exeter reported the most sexual partners with the average number being 17.8. This was followed by Brasenose, Trinity and Somerville, while Corpus Christi reported the fewest total sexual partners at 2.5.

Theology, English, and Biochemistry students are among the most sexually active, with theologians reporting an average of 13.5 sexual partners in total. Computer Scientists are Oxford’s least promiscuous students, their mean number of sexual partners since arriving at University being 0.

St John’s is the college with the most LGBTQ+ students, with 68% of respondents identifying as not heterosexual. John’s was closely followed by Worcester and St Annes.

The Queen’s College is Oxford’s straightest college, with 75% of respondents identifying as heterosexual. On a University-wide scale, 49.8% of students identify as straight.

The form of contraceptive most frequently used by students is condoms with 41% of respondents opting for this method. 23.58% of students do not use a method of contraceptive.

When asked about their masturbation habits, 28.5% of female students responded that they masturbate 2-3 times a week, while 28% of both male students and nonbinary students responded that they masturbate 4-5 times a week. 20.7% of female students masturbate ‘rarely’ compared with only 6.8% of male students. Lady Margaret Hall took a clear lead in college masturbation habits, with 56.30% of respondents masturbating 4+ times each week.

57.8% of respondents claimed to have broken lockdown restrictions for sexual activity, with 13.1% claiming to have done so at least 20 times. Oxford students said that the pandemic had a negative impact on their satisfaction with their sex lives. On a scale of

1-5, 1 being ‘a lot less sex’ and 5 being ‘a lot more sex’, the mean response was 2.3.

One respondent told Cherwell that Covid has had a disproportionate impact on people’s sex lives: “I went very quickly in HT20 from casual sex to a relationship to long distance with my new partner, and when we were able to be in the same place again my sex drive had really decreased due to the long isolation. Two years later, it’s still something I’m working on, and is just one way in which the pandemic has changed young people’s lives in unpredictable ways.”

46.8% of students have had sex in a ‘public place’, with respondents listing a number of picturesque locations across Oxford. University Parks and various college libraries were among the most common responses, while the Park End cheese floor, Gatwick Express, New College Mound, and Blenheim Palace all received mentions.

Where are you most likely to find someone to bring home? Students say its Plush, bringing in 22.5% of the vote with Park End coming in at second place with 20.7% of the vote. A night at the Bullingdon, however, is unlikely to lead to a hook up, with only 3.1% of respondents lending the club their votes.

Overall, students reported a mean level of satisfaction with their sex lives of 3.3 out of 5.

One student responded that men at Oxford are “cautious and afraid of intimacy” and “overly cautious in initiating sexual interactions”. Another said that it’s easy to have sex and casual relationships at Oxford but added that “the short intense terms (especially with moving-out obligations for many people) make relationships especially difficult”.

Others voiced concerns over the sexual appetite of certain Oxford students with one student saying that “Keble students are crap in bed” and another asking “Why people so kinky and so vanilla? Why do tory boys have to be like that?”. One respondent offered up advice on having sex at Oxford, sharing that “Piers Gav helps, it is amazing to find fellow queer students for hookups and more”.

RUSTY KATE’S PARTING GIFT: HER PAGE 3 DEBUT

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CHERWELL TOWN HALL: Meet the candidates for Union Presidency Pieter Garicano and Estelle Atkinson discuss problems, pledges, and potential speakers over coffee with the three candidates for the Presidency of the Oxford Union.

Planning on voting today, but don’t have time to read through each candidate’s manifesto? The Cherwell Town Hall allows you to compare all the candidates in one go and make an informed decision.

Rachel Ojo is a second year Philosophy, Politics, and Economics student at University College. She wants to make the Union less toxic: less drama, fewer burnt bridges, and more inclusivity. Citing tense relationships with societies such as the Afro-Caribbean Society and the LGBTQ+ Society, Ojo wants to see to it that no one ever feels that they are intruding on someone else’s space when engaging with the Union. She seeks diversification of both speakers and Union members, and, if elected, would be the first black female President of the Union. Ojo says her slate has a lot of political diversity, something she believes is reflective of the Union as a society.

If Ojo could invite any three people to speak at the Union, she would choose Former First Lady Michelle Obama, Actor Viola Davis, and Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern.

Ojo’s message to voters is this: “If you’re thinking the Union isn’t a place for you, I’ve been there. I’ve had that feeling. But I just want to assure you that the Union is improving. We are trying our best, and we will make it a place that you can be proud of.”

Born and raised in California, Anjali Ramanthan, a second year Law student at Christ Church, wants to have a hand in shaping the global conversation. When asked about what drives her to run in the Union, Ramanthan, like many, references the infamous Malcolm X speech at a 1964 Debate, saying “that’s what the Union is capable of.” She tells Cherwell, however, that she’s not sure the Union is currently meeting that level of potential: “I think the answer is no.” Ramanthan has felt a sense of alienation during her time in the Union; even as an officer, she says, she experienced deep institutional hostility.

Ramanthan told Cherwell, “When I ask a question or when I want to clarify something in the rules [...] the response I get is “it’s so obvious”. And it’s weird to me. Because it is

not obvious to me and it’s certainly not obvious to most members.”

If Ramanthan could invite any three people to speak at the Union, she would choose Vice President Kamala Harris, Director of the British Museum Hartwig Fisher, and the last President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani.

Ramanthan’s message to voters is that “the people I want to see in the union, are people who don’t feel like they belong there.”

Survivor of a terrorist attack and an activist for education, Ahmad Nawaz, a second year Philosophy and Theology student at Lady Margaret Hall, has seen much press.

The role of that same press was what drove him to the Oxford Union; in his experience the power of the Union is shaped by the media attention it receives. In the UK, and abroad.

Nawaz believes that the Union has been too quick to give its powerful stage to controversial speakers who want to make

“narrative based speeches”. A speaker like Jordan Peterson, he says, would probably not make it under his presidency. ‘Activists’, he says, need some academic backing.

If Nawaz could invite any three people to speak at the Union, he would choose Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, Bollywood Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

Nawaz’s message to voters is: “If you look at the manifestos, we have the best team.

They care about people, not just at the Union..and putting that sort of energy into the union making sure that everyone feels comfortable would be the primary aim.”

Pictured, left to right: Anjali Ramanthan, Rachel Ojo, Ahmad Nawaz Image Credit: Meghana Geetha

Oxford’s twin city in Russia has spoken out in support of Ukraine

Study links US Stand Your Ground laws to 700 additional homicides every year

Cecilia Catmur reports on Perm’s protest against the invasion.

Meg Lintern reports on a new study into the controversial laws.

This weekend Oxford experienced numerous protests in solidarity with Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Over 4000 km away in Perm, Oxford’s twin city in Russia, protests have also broken out. Residents have spoken in support of Ukraine.

Karen Hewitt is the chairman of the Oxford Perm Association. She is also a professor at Oxford University and an honorary Professor at Perm State University. She has shared that the Association is “appalled at Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.”

In Perm, members of the Oxford Perm Association have been protesting and “supporting [Ukrainians] in their outrage and grief.” These protests have joined the call, “Not in My Name” (taken from Boris Johnson’s statement “I do not believe this war is in your name.”) Similar protests have been taking place across Russia.

Oxford made its first contact with Perm in 1989, founding voluntary links in 1991.

The two cities have been officially twinned since 1995. Links between the two cities are not restricted to the university. Participants involved in this connection span to Oxford City, Oxfordshire County, Sobell House Hospice as well as to Perm City administration, Perm Hospice and Perm-Oxford Organization.

Perm is Europe’s most easterly city. It is located 900 miles east of Moscow. On the outskirts of the Ural Mountains, it is surrounded by forests, and the Kama River runs through the city. With 1.2 million in-

habitants, it is Russia’s sixth largest city. Of particular note, it has three universities, the famous Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theatre, and the renowned Perm Museum of Art. The Oxford-Perm connection has usually been limited to social and cultural exchange. The Oxford Perm Association organizes events between Russia and England. For example, the association has hosted group exchanges between Oxford University and Perm State University. In addition, volunteers have run events such as dancing, sports tournaments, art displays and journalism conferences across all ages.

This encouragement of cross-cultural exchange and interest is key in raising awareness and support. The society was quick to comment and express their stance on the current war in Ukraine. The protests in Perm are critical to the Association’s strengthening and maintaining Oxford’s strong ties to this city and its inhabitants.

Image Credit: A. Savin via Wikimedia Commons

A new study has revealed that Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws, which allow protection for individuals who use deadly violence in self-defence, have resulted in an additional 700 homicides in the US each year since their introduction.

Under SYG laws, people have no duty to retreat before using deadly force in selfdefence. This allows greater legal protection to those who use lethal force.

According to a new study published in the JAMA Network Open, the law is linked to an increase in homicide rates of 11% nationally, but up to 28% in some states. Research was led by a team from the University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, and collaborators at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The evidence collected suggests that the expansion of self-defence laws may lead to increased violence, resulting in the unnecessary loss of life.

Advocates for SYG laws claim that they protect the public by enabling retaliatory violence when faced with a significant danger. Critics, on the other hand, believe that the sanctioned use of deadly force is likely to enable greater levels of violence.

Furthermore, some believe that SYG laws could encourage discrimination: implicit and explicit biases of threat perception could discriminate against certain minority groups, leading to higher rates of death amongst these populations.

These concerns have been tragically realised in recent years. The killing of 17-year-

old Trayvon Martin in 2021, the killing of Armaud Arbery in 2020, and the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse in 2021, have all centred around the SYG laws.

According to Senior Study author Dr David Humphreys, from Oxford’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention, “Stand Your Ground laws have been enacted in the majority of states, and more states are currently debating their introduction.

“Supporters argue that introducing these laws will improve public safety by deterring criminals, but this research finds the opposite, showing that rates of violence increase (sometimes dramatically) following the adoption of these laws.”

The study considers the impacts of SYG laws in 23 states between 2000 and 2016.

Researchers found that the laws were linked to increases in homicide and firearm homicide rates of 8% to 11% across the United States. Florida was the state with the highest increase in homicide rates, seeing a 28% increase following the introduction of SYG laws. Increases in homicides were found to be higher in southern states, but no states saw a reduction in homicides or firearm homicides. The laws were found to affect all Americans, regardless of race, sex, or age.

Lead author Dr Michelle Degli Esposti, also from Oxford, says, ‘It is critical that policy and law-makers consider the scientific evidence on the risks associated with Stand Your Ground laws before passing more lenient laws on the use of lethal force in selfdefence. More research is needed to understand why these laws have serious negative impacts, but research consistently shows that, in most contexts, the laws are leading to unnecessary and avoidable loss of life.’

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EXCLUSIVE: Politics Faculty refuse to record ‘Politically Sensitive’ China lectures

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Daniel Moloney reports on the faculty’s decision to restrict access to lectures on China’s political system.

For the last two years the Faculty of Politics and International Relations has deliberately restricted access to a lecture titled “Is China a Democracy?”. It has also restricted access to a lecture titled “On China”, which was delivered in week 5 of Hilary term.

Emails obtained by Cherwell show that lectures, delivered by Professor Thornton of Merton College in week four of Michaelmas 2020 and week three of Michaelmas 2021, were labelled “politically sensitive” and not recorded. They further reveal that Professor Todd Hall’s lecture “On China”, which has also been labelled “politically sensitive”, was only delivered live.

The emails, sent by Ms Durga Sapre, Politics Undergraduate Studies Coordinator, also reveal first year students were required to sign a legal undertaking in order to attend the live online lecture given by Professor Thornton. Freshers, who wished to remain anonymous, told Cherwell the undertaking represented an agreement not to disclose the contents or participants of the lecture. Any students who refused would not have been allowed to attend, despite the lecture forming an integral part of their Practice of Politics module. Those who watched the lecture in 2020, and those attending Professor Hall’s lecture, were not required to sign an undertaking.

Several first years declined to discuss the lecture at all, citing fears over the consequences of breaking the undertaking. However, Tallulah Brady, a first year PPEist, told Cherwell that she was “not at all bothered” by the fact the lecture was not recorded, stating it was boring and she had no incentive to watch it again. While also refusing to discuss the contents of the

lecture in detail, Tallulah stated that she did “not remember there being anything particularly controversial” about the material. On the subject of the undertaking and the lecture’s politically sensitive label she commented “I was/am under the impression it was given this level of caution to protect the contributors and participants from potential consequences.

Exactly what those consequences are or could be I do not know.”

This confusion about what in the lecture constituted politically sensitive content is echoed by Struan Hancock, a second year PPEist who attended the lecture last year: “I believe Oxford is a centre of learning where it is possible to have frank and free discussions about difficult issues.

I’m confused why the department felt the need to remove the possibility of students re-watching the content.

“The lecture was a nuanced analysis with opinions from multiple viewpoints on the state of democracy in China. Who do they believe will be offended by an academic conversation?”

The inaccessibility of the lectures, which students only have one chance to watch, could have a negative impact on the learning of all students. It threatens to further disadvantage disabled students, for whom access to recorded lectures is a very important accommodation. The removal of this provision could jeopardise their equal right to education and opportunities at the University of Oxford.

The Politics Faculty declined to comment on this story.

Image credit: Edward He via Unsplash

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Oxford exhibit to dispel ‘curse of pharaohs’ myth Humza Jilani reports on the Bodleian Library exhibit beginning on April 13.

Many school children know the ominous tale well. When Howard Carter, a British archaeologist, ventured to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt and rediscovered King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, a curse lying dormant for millenia awoke. Some members of Carter’s team died in short order, lending credence to the haunting story known as the ‘curse of the pharaohs’.

Long derided by archaeologists and historians as a silly work of fiction, the myth is finally set to be dispelled by a Bodleian Library exhibit coming on April 13. The exhibit will show that rumours of such a curse spread long before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s curse, and were trafficked by shady mystics sceptical of Egyptology.

After Lord Carnarvon, one of Carter’s associates who entered the tomb with him, died in 1923 from a blood infection, the media in the West sensationalised stories of the pharaonic curse, drawn from the claims of mystics. Major newspapers, such as the New York World and the New York Times, published stories about the curse. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, famously endorsed the curse, suggesting that “elementals” had taken Carnarvon’s life.

Egyptology was met with scepticism in the early twentieth century, as fears of the unknown mixed with an appetite for Gothic horror gave way to openness to the rumour.

The exhibit will show that the curse was propagated by a frustrated archaeologist excluded from the original discovery team by Carter.

A string of deaths that shortly followed Carnarvon’s fueled those rumours. A man who X-rayed the mummy fell victim to a mysterious illness. Another succumbed to

arsenic poisoning, and it was believed that an affluent American died shortly after setting foot in the tomb. These deaths, the exhibit will show, were simply coincidences that did not even occur in close succession.

Sceptical historians have pointed out that the vast majority of people who entered the tomb with Carter went on to live long, healthy lives.

Although Carter dispelled such rumours as “tommy rot” at the time, he also indulged them in his own writings. He published a semi-fictional account of the discovery that includes a story of his canary dying from a cobra bite at the moment he entered the tomb.

The exhibit will include fascinating primary source documents. It has handwritten correspondences between members of the discovery team and a telegram from a mystic warning of a curse. That mystic, later identified as Ella Young, an Irish poet, claimed that sandstorms in the desert and Carnarvon’s death were the works of the pharaohs.

The exhibit has been curated by Richard Bruce Parkinson, Oxford professor of Egyptology, and Dr. Daniela Rosenow, who works at the Griffith Institute, Oxford’s Egyptology centre. It will launch on April 13, alongside a new book titled Tutankhamun: Excavating the Archive.

Image credit: By Roland Unger / CC BY-SA 3.0

COMMENT

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How meritocracy fuels Oxford’s burnout cycle Sophie Lord considers the implications of Oxford’s meritocratic culture for its students.

S

omething seems to snap in our collective conscience five weeks into an Oxford term. Suddenly, we find ourselves reaching for a third or fourth cup of coffee and spending hours staring blankly into space despite the extensive reading list open on our laptop. For four weeks, essays and problem sheets seem feasible even alongside a busy social schedule but now the thought of even typing out an essay title is pushing it.

I could be over-exaggerating, but complaints of loss of motivation and burnout do seem almost universal as we hit fifth week.

Academic burnout brings social burnout, with texts from friends left on delivered for days on end as chronic tiredness just makes you want to curl up and sleep, rather than spend another night in Bridge.

I can’t quite tell if it is comforting or problematic that this is such a unifying experience that there is a label for it – the infamous ‘Fifth Week Blues’. Despite this term being widely used by both students and tutors alike,

“This meritocratic culture works as a source of motivation, giving us goal after goal to work towards, and subsequent satisfaction when you achieve it...” nothing seems to change. Expectations from tutors are the same as they were at the start of term, if not higher, even though everyone

feels like we are pushing and pushing for a non-existent, unreachable goal.

‘Why don’t we have a reading week?’ is a question guaranteed to be heard in conversations amongst students in fifth week, as their tutors tirelessly explain that the intensity of an Oxford term couldn’t be lengthened any further. Realistically, though, no one is asking for another week of relentless reading and mechanical essay-writing.

We just want a bit of a break.

The desire to simply breathe, to spend a day without a to-do list etched into your brain, is a completely natural response to our unnatural environment. This environment is one that the high-achiever functions in - that the Oxford student thrives in, even - and also has an intense hatred for. I think this is what has normalised fifth week burnout. Everyone here works hard, managing to adapt to the intensity of the environment and cyclical deadlines. For a few weeks, this meritocratic culture works as a source of motivation, giving us goal after goal to work towards, and subsequent satisfaction when you achieve it – but this can’t last forever. This seems to lead us to one question, then - would the institution be the same without this intensity?

In order to answer this, we need to think about if there is a purpose underpinning the character of the term. As I’ve mentioned, it keeps us motivated as we have no choice but to write essays over the span of a few hours and continuously work. If I’m feeling cynical (and slightly Marxist) I’d say we are being trained to be good future workers, as the pressure fuelling an Oxford term seems to construct a direct bridge to a highly efficient workplace.

Perhaps we are being taught to consistently prioritise work more than anything else, naturally leading us to a lifestyle in which family, hobbies and social life will always fall secondary to the most imminent deadline.

Investment banking is cited as the classic example of this. The top firms and companies demand long working hours and a work-life balance is pretty much impossible - you work hard, because you know you are in a place that expects you to work hard - for high monetary reward but arguably little emotional reward.

I wonder if this cycle of working for the sake

Heidi Fang on balance...

of working is universal. Rather, I feel it entraps individuals from disadvantaged groups more than others and overlaps with the concept of imposter syndrome. All students, regardless of socio-economic background, are deemed fit by the Oxford admissions process to neatly

“If I’m feeling cynical (and slightly Marxist) I’d say we are being trained to be good future workers.” slot into this meritocratic culture. However, the fact that you are pushed to work hard may encourage someone who lacks security about their place at Oxford to work even harder.

State school students across Oxford, for example, might constantly find themselves trapped in this cycle in an attempt to introspectively prove their place here. It is worth questioning whether a meritocratic culture truly works if it exacerbates social divides, or if it leaves people constantly trying to prove themselves rather than learning for the sake of learning.

On the other hand, it is undoubtable that studying in this manner teaches you skills

that fall outside the actual content of your degree. You are forced to be organised, to improve, to persist, to not simply float. Having traces of these qualities got us into Oxford in the first place but being here pushes them further as they are solidified by the term structure. From this perspective, its terms make Oxford what it is.

But let me return to my original point – even if this is true, we still just want a bit of a break.

Undoubtedly , this article is not going to revolutionise the Oxford term structure. I simply echo the desire held by most for a reading week. We could maintain the fastpaced nature of the term and the motivation it brings, an environment that works well for most, but recognise that this cannot be sustained. I think it would do both our mental health, and quality of work, a favour.

Though we can recognise the benefits of a reading week, I don’t think we will ever get one. The best you can do is to respect when you may need a break, and give yourself one, this week more so than ever. Utilise college welfare events, text friends who you haven’t seen in a while, and take a little more time to relax rather than working. Feeling tired and unmotivated at this point is, ultimately, normal – and the Hilary bubble we are currently in will not last forever.

Image: Danny Chapman/ CC BY 2.0 via Den Store Danske

COMMENT

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The political power of gender expression: Lessons from female dictators Georgie Cutmore discusses the gendered nature of authoritarian leadership.

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CW: Misogyny hina’s three thousand years of written history has seen just one legitimate female sovereign: Wu Zetian of the late 600s. Charismatic and ambitious, she spent thirty years rising through the ranks of concubine, Consort, and Dowager to finally claim official sovereignty in 690. Though posthumously dubbed “Empress”, she styled herself “Emperor” and was keenly aware of the political power at stake in matters of gendered discourse.

As for her own imperial name, “Zhao”, she issued a new Han character, which comprised strokes highlighting the moon, a symbol for the female ‘yin’, and the sun, a symbol for the male ‘yang’. By controlling and rewriting language, she proposed that her position as Empress was a harmonious unification of traditionally male and female strengths.

Wu is not unique among female dictators and leaders in her ardent attention to her own gender performance, and the implications of it. In an era calling for postgenderism and the erosion of binary gender, it is important to recognise and understand the historic, and lasting, phenomenon of gender expression as a tool for political ends.

When asked to call to mind the mental image of a “dictator”, or a “despot”, or an “autocrat”, you’d be forgiven for imagining a moustached middle-aged man, perhaps balding, raising his arm in a military salute. Even the Advanced Oxford Learner’s Dictionary teaches students of English that a “dictator” has often obtained their “complete power” over a country “using military force”.

The tight relationship between the office of dictator and its corresponding armed forces is a historic one and likely needs little explanation. A traditional route to political power has been to rise first through the military or to topple the existing authorities by coup d’état. Dictators then depend on military might to assert their regimes; could an individual lacking in military experience truly command the full respect and loyalty of the army? Machiavellian enquiries aside, we begin to see why there have been so few female dictators across history. In the modern era up to the twentieth century, women have usually been excluded from military service, and the field is still overwhelmingly maledominated. How, then, we might ask, have the few powerful female dictators and leaders of history come to take up the mantle?

Rulers Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) and Aung San Suu Kyi (1945-) have much in common.

They were both educated at Oxford University, both became prime minister-figures of

“Female leaders have deliberately used performative identity politics to reinforce their own legitimacy to rule.” their respective countries, and, crucially, were both daughters of previous national leaders – Jawaharlal Nehru of India, and Aung San of Myanmar respectively. This

is a well-trodden path. Many of the most culturally famous female dictator figures have come to prominence due to their links with politically powerful men. Eva “Evita” Perón (1919-1952) and Jiang Qing (19141991), known to contemporaries as “Madame Mao”, spring to mind here. The de facto or legitimate reigns of powerful women - Gandhi, Suu Kyi, Perón and Jiang included - have often been directed and overshadowed by the legacies of their male counterparts.

The traditional discourse surrounding women in power has, as such, construed female leadership as rare, and unusual. Women have been painted as dependent upon their powerful husbands or male kin for political legitimacy. Indira Gandhi was dubbed “goongi goodiya” - Hindi for ‘puppet’ - by those who saw her as a weak and easily manipulable figurehead for a male-dominated Congress.

Stock archetypes of negative femininity have also been drawn upon to criticise women in power for occupying space in the public sphere.

This goes back to the days of Wu Zetian and beyond. Wu was said to have eaten her own children, and contemporary commentators used her as the basis for pornographic materials, stressing her beginnings as a concubine. She was, essentially, painted as the antithesis of the modest, maternal, ideal woman. Through making such claims to her immorality, her rivals aimed to weaken her political legitimacy. And this treatment is not unique to Wu. A string of female leaders throughout history have been characterised as evil, immoral, and dangerous women.

Given this historic discourse surrounding women in power, it is unsurprising that women seeking power have felt pressure to acknowledge and use their gender in ways that men have not. Perhaps women feel forced to own up to their gender identity before it is seized and turned against them. The famous 1566 Speech to Parliament by Queen Elizabeth I saw her make the following concession: “Though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed queen”.

While defending her gender, she appealed to traditionally masculine traits and to her paternal family line to claim legitimacy of rule. But she simultaneously asserted the beginning of a new era in which the legitimacy of her rule was tied to her female identity as “queen”. Across various nations, social expectations of what a leader should look and behave like have compiled over centuries and have largely been established from male models. These expectations have firm roots in society. Women have grown up with internalised pressure to conform to these models of ideal power in order to be taken seriously as leaders.

But we also see cases where female leaders have deliberately used performative identity politics to reinforce their own legitimacy to rule. Women have emphasised their “feminine” or “masculine” characteristics to a greater or lesser extent to achieve political ends. Margaret Thatcher’s ‘housewife’ campaign saw her photographed in the kitchen and depicted carrying shopping baskets. She sought to stress her suitability for public life by emphasising that she had the management qualities required to make a good home and to be a good national leader. But, equally, she practised humming exercises and voice training to lower her pitch and develop a distinctive, typically masculine, tone, which might be viewed as more trustworthy. Women in power have often had to broadcast more “masculine” characteristics, and simultaneously weaponise their femininity, for their authority to be taken seriously.

Is this the case in politics today? Must women perform their genders to retain political legitimacy? In my view, the short answer is yes. The gendered insults thrown about in national parliaments – such as Jeremy Corbyn’s “stupid woman” remark about Theresa May in 2018, or, in France last year, the attack on Mathilde Panot as a “fishwife” - suggest that gender, or at least awareness of gender, still plays a large role in high politics.

Scholars have pointed out that women in twenty-first-century government institutions sometimes serve a representational function. They are a symbolic presence, seen to stand for all women, and seen to legitimise a government by making it look liberal and democratic.

Women are expected to perform their

“And in many ways, to back the rise of a female dictator seems a little bit like a tossup between one’s own ethical ideals and supporting supposed female empowerment.” gender - to visibly make known their “womanness”. The unsaid expectation nowadays is that female MPs speak about and work on the problems which predominantly affect women – such as abortion, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. Female MPs have done just this over the last thirty years and, as such, we’ve seen the privatisation of what counts as “public issues” as well as improvements to the socio-political condition of women

more generally. But this phenomenon has also had the unintended function of placing female politicians as singular spokespersons for all “women’s issues”. Current female MPs are expected to act as female politicians, not just as politicians. This pressure is incredibly unfair. It leads to a tendency for generic and angry claims blaming female leaders for not having done enough to help women or focus on “women’s issues”. Where is this pressure on male politicians? Surely these issues should be a focus for all politicians, regardless of their gender.

The ideal situation within high politics would be the complete deconstruction of the gender narrative. This way, women would no longer feel forced to conform to or perform aspects of their gender identity. But this is probably a utopic fantasy. We can hold out hope that, as binary categories of gender continue to be broken down and eroded, it will soon be so normal to have individuals of all genders in power that the public sphere takes on a more genderless climate. But, given the lasting power of using gender expression as a legitimising power tool, it seems unlikely that this will occur any time soon.

Will we see more women in positions of leadership in the future? If current trends are anything to go by, then yes, this is likely. Will we see more women in the office of dictator in the future? This is harder to answer. Dictatorships, to my mind, are never an attractive option. And their historically military nature still excludes women. And in many ways, to back the rise of a female dictator seems a little bit like a toss-up between one’s own ethical ideals and supporting supposed female empowerment.

As we look to the future, and the possibility of more female leaders and dictators, the real point is that we should remember our history.

Gender, and gendered discourse, has always been an intrinsic element of politics. We should be aware of performative gender expression in politics and recognise when it is being used, and for what ends.

Was Timmy Chalamet’s face really worth all the fuss?

Isobel Lewis

Apparently one of those fangirls really does have a telepathic connection with Timmy. How else could the hordes have descended on the Old Bod so quickly? It’s really no wonder that Timmy is famed for his sickly pallor: who wouldn’t look a little pale if an entire student body decided to stalk you en masse for a week? My own smug declaration that I was indifferent to Tim and the film set did actually hold out for an impressive 24 hours. By the time I succumbed to the fever, though, the Old Bod librarians had unfortunately mastered the art of telepathy too. Those of us who arrived on the pretext of doing work were immediately turned away, so I never did lay eyes on the face. You’d think that a velvet-clad man with famously prominent cheekbones wouldn’t be so hard to spot really. I guess I missed my chance to find out and now I’ll never know.

Zoe Lambert As one of the privileged few who accidentally caught a fleeting glimpse of those delicately chiselled cheekbones and porcelain skin through the iron-wrought gates of the Bodleian; I can attest that the face of Timothee Chalamet was most definitely not worth the hype. Small in stature and with the look of a rather pale, sickly victorian child about him, he was entirely eclipsed by the magnificent maroon crushed-velvet coat (which itself did actually warrant the crowds of frenzied students clustered under the bridge of sighs). That said, I don’t begrudge Timmy his moment of striding around rad cam decked in an unearned scholar’s gown. While his face was most definitely not worth all the fuss, the faces of anticipation and excitement lining broad street could have melted even the stoniest Chalamet-critical heart

Sonya Ribner Timmy Chalamet must be really charismatic because for an entire week it crossed the English Channel and flooded the hearts, minds, and social media feeds of every Oxbridge student abroad in Europe. Sure, I was physically in Paris, but in spirit I was with my friends who saw Timmy on High Street, at New College, by the Sheldonian. Honestly this is great for us. Good to know that when we’re sneaking friends from other colleges past porters, that we can cite an obvious exception to the “only college members allowed in college” rule.

Vlad Popescu I think Oxford is a model institution for all the wrong reasons - familiar of the microcosm of all the faults and corruption within British politics, the destination of so many after leaving here.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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Science Snippets

Generation sharent: Are hyper-exposed children the price of social media fame?

Caitlin Wilson discusses the cost of social media fame to generation Z childhoods.

New findings published in Nature pinpointed the origin of a recent detection of Fast Radio Burst signals from space to a tight, spherical cluster of stars 12-million lightyears away. This a type of star cluster that typically composes of old stars.

Scientists unearthed the fossils remains of a previously-unknown species of dinosaur: this species of meat-eating dinosaur had puny arms, and were most likely to have used its powerful head to ram its prey.

Tech Tidbits

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elcome to the world, Generation Z! Smile for the camera! Your childhood was hyper-exposed.

Your young lives were documented via photos and videos, uploaded, shared, liked and commented upon by people you will perhaps never meet. Your parents are so proud of you, and want to share you with the world, but what does that mean for your future?

In the internet’s early years, the emphasis on child protection was placed on limiting what children could see on the internet. Now, the concern has shifted; children are a social media commodity, whether financially or simply within social groups. Their images, names, and locations are often given out freely online by parents without consideration for the potential impact on their future lives and privacy. So ubiquitous is this kind of parental oversharing that researcher Stacey B. Steinberg coined a name for it in 2016: sharenting.

Steinberg explores the delicate line that exists between parents’ right to post about their lives online and a child’s need for privacy. The challenge for policy-makers and internet users alike is to decide whether a parent’s desire to share images of their child supersedes the child’s right to privacy. I contend it should not. So, what should be done? Once we can acknowledge it’s gone too far, how can we intervene?

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises in article 16 the importance of a child’s right to privacy, and states “No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.”

In practice, however, individual states’ laws regarding online privacy differ greatly, and most often the nuts and bolts of children’s online access and exposure are decided by the social media platforms themselves. Whether a child is able to access a platform is the purview of the platform’s terms of service, and many rightly have policies regarding gaining consent prior to the uploading of content containing children. However, parent-run social media accounts which centre much younger children are omnipresent on sites like Instagram and Youtube. Instagram and Facebook allow users to choose who sees each post, potentially limiting the audience for pictures of children.

Still, this decision is left in the hands of the parents. Mandating that accounts containing the visible faces of children under thirteen – the age of use of most social media sites - must be private would better future-proof children’s privacy.

A further concern comes from ‘sharents’ who are hopeful influencers, enticed by a huge financial incentive should their child become the next internet star. Indeed, one of Youtube’s wealthiest creators of 2019 is an eight-year-old boy who rose to fame by opening children’s toys on camera. Recent discussion surrounding the responsibility of platforms to protect children from exploitation and exposure has centred around this kind of mega-famous child creator, as well as the ‘family vlogger’ genre of Youtube creators and TikTok stars. These channels, while run by adults, primarily draw audiences through filming and posting the daily experiences of their babies or children, sometimes from the second of their birth.

These children, it‘s unnecessary to remark, have no say in their participation, while their image is freely disseminated to millions of strangers across the globe. Few would disagree that this is a violation of their privacy, and that their parents’ actions will have a significant impact upon their future employment and, perhaps, safety.

It’s not so simple, however, to villainize every social media parent. TikTok’s Maia Knight began posting videos of her twin girls for her

own enjoyment. She likely never expected to grow an audience of 7.6 million followers, who give her children affectionate pet names and call themselves the children’s collective father.

While Knight could withdraw from the spotlight and take her children offline, her account is now generating enough of an income that she can remain at home with her children and set them up for a safe, financially stable life.

Walking away from this kind of stability is surely not an easy task. While the concerns for the safety and privacy of these young lives remains, my ire resides with the systems that exploit us all, children and adults alike, when it comes to surviving in the digital age, rather than mothers like Knight.

The complex problems brought about by the internet age require nuanced solutions.

Ultimately, child content creators should be protected under both privacy and child labour laws in their home country. However, this would require an immense legislative overhaul, and would likely be pushed against by large and powerful corporations behind social media platforms. So what can we push for in the meantime? Many are actively campaigning for social media platforms like Youtube to demonetise content which centres children under the age of thirteen until such legislation can be created. This action would disincentivise over-exposing children for financial gain and would decrease the exploitation of children too young to give their informed consent. Many tabloid websites and magazines are opting to blur the faces of celebrity children to protect their privacy. It is not unreasonable to suggest platforms like Instagram require the same level of protection for ordinary kids in their terms of service.

Social media is real life; the images we share, information we give and discussions we have are part of our life story permanently. While parents‘ desire to share the lives of their little ones are often borne out of the best intentions, a child’s right to determine the course of their lives on their own terms, on-and-offline, should take precedence.

The wonderful world of Oxford’s science societies Mauricio Alencar explores the range of Oxford societies related to science and technology.

Russia limits Twitter and Facebook usage in country: Russia is monitoring its citizens’ use of Twitter. Access has been “severely restricted”. VPN services, which circumvent restrictions, are able to be used but can often be expensive and difficult to gain.

Anonymous, cyber-attack group, declare war on Russia in response to the invasion in Ukraine. Anonymous have since tweeted military intelligence from Russia, though it is unclear if the information is correct.

Image (top to bottom): CSIRO / CC-By-3.0 via wikimedia, Ashutosh / CC via PixaHive, World’s Direction/ CC0 1.0 via Flickr , sik-life via Pixabay

O

xford is today the scientific hub of the world. Need a cure for malaria?

Just call Oxford. Need a Covid vaccine to be produced in less than a year? Oxford is the place. In fact, in the technological side of innovation, multinational organisations such as F1 are flocking to Oxford University to offer scholarships and invest in education. So, academics are making groundbreaking strides in innovation and research, but what are the students up to, and how are students connecting with each other? Various Oxford societies exist as a point of reference for socials, for events, and for other career-related activities. How do I connect with other students with shared interests? Here is a summary of 5 Oxford societies: Oxford University Geological Society Rocktails may be the go-to event of the year. Unlimited booze for £10 entry for guests. Unreal. The society is chiefly aimed at Earth Sciences students, bringing together a community of earth scientists from different colleges together. However, for the landmark event taking place every term, members of the society can invite friends. They also have positive relations with a number of companies and work with

them at an annual Careers Fair. So, what are you waiting for? Get in touch with them, and you will not regret it. Having been to a rocktails myself, I can confirm that the earth scientists are pretty radical.

Oxford MedSoc and Tingewick Medics have to be friends. At the end of the day, they will be here when we have all left after our third and fourth years of our degrees. Another tight-knit bunch of legends, the medics get up to a bunch of exciting activities, such as Tingewick, an annual pantomime show performed to patients at the JR, fundraising for Oxford Hospitals Charity and Calon Hearts. Oxford MedSoc have also hosted names such as Henry Marsh, who wrote “Do No Harm”, and David Nutt, a drug policy chief. The horizons for medics reach beyond the hospital and doctor-life.

Oxford University Racing Club This one is for all you motorsport fans. Just this term, the society invited Ryan Walker from the Mercedes F1 Systems Engineering team for a talk. They have also hosted engineers from Williams Racing. The society takes part in the Formula Student racing competition each year, Europe’s most established educational motorsport competition.

Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society

Oxford AI Soc get up to a range of really exciting events. Just this term, they have hosted a project event on AI and Sustainability using OxAI Labs and Dell Technologies, hosted a talk with Ross Upton, Founder and CEO of Ulltromics, and held Themed Discussion evenings in pubs. Blending topical AIled discussions with socials is the future of the typical Oxford society.

Oxford University Nature Conservation Society Looking for an escape from your degree without going completely off course? Interested in environmental sustainability? This important society, which is ever more important to us in today’s world of climate change and deforestation, holds some fantastic events over the year. This term, they have created a volunteering event in which students joined up with Wild Oxford to clear overgrown fern in Raleigh Park. They have also hosted talks with Peter Shepherd, Director of BSG Ecology, and Rebecca Lent, Executive Secretary of the International Whaling Commission. Topics have included “exploring innovative approaches to collaboration with local communities” and “Global Priorities for Cetaceans: science and stewardship in the face of emerging threats”.

BUSINESS & FINANCE

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Oliver Bullough on London, thieves, and crooks The Business Editors report on Oliver Bullough’s views on how London’s financial and legal systems have helped fuel the wealth of Russian oligarchs.

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s an unpredictable conflict continues to evolve in Ukraine, the UK government has taken legal measures in quick succession targeting Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and their economic connections to the UK. So far this has included freezing assets of select individuals and Russian banks involved in bankrolling the occupation, imposing travel bans, calling for the removal of Russia from SWIFT, and seizing property.

While the UK government has received praise for these policy moves, they have shined the spotlight on Russian oligarchs and how they have benefited from British financial and legal institutions over the years.

Oliver Bullough, the author of Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule The World And How To Take It Back, came

Inside Nvidia’s failed takeover of Arm David Rovick Arrojo explores the causes behind this deal’s collapse and its ramifications for the global chip industry.

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n the 8th February, SoftBank announced the collapse of Nvidia’s proposed $66bn acquisition of Arm Limited following ‘significant regulatory challenges’. Nvidia, a leading chip designer specialising in processors for gaming and training artificial intelligence, first announced its takeover of Arm, a chip designer whose IP powers the vast majority of the world’s mobile devices, on the 16th September 2020. Over the following year and five months, regulators from around the world expressed concerns over potential monopolistic effects on the global chip design industry posed by the combined entity. After struggling to assuage concerns, both sides mutually agreed to end the deal and trigger an automatic $1.25 bn break-up fee between Arm and Nvidia.

Nvidia’s Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) chips are used in the data centres which power the cloud computing platforms of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Alibaba, as well as crypto-currency farms. They also come with a developer-friendly software ecosystem which can be used to squeeze out maximum performance from their designs.

Arm specialises in energy-efficient Central Processing Unit (CPU) chips. However, over the last several years, tech companies like Apple and Amazon have announced their own GPU and CPU chips designed to integrate seamlessly with their own hardware and software products, threatening Nvidia’s leading position in the industry. Arm, also

to Oxford discuss his views on this issue at the invitation of Cherwell and Oxford Finance Society. He moved to Russia in 1999, where he worked as an investigative journalist for Reuters and covered the war in Chechnya. Witnessing firsthand the wealth disparity between the cities and countryside, wars, and human rights abuses inspired his curiosity in its root cause: corruption.

Bullough put Russian inequality into context by pointing out that “the richest 500 people in Russia own approximately more than 99.8% of the population… [today’s Russia] is even more unequal than it was on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution”. Many of these oligarchs obtained their initial wealth by owning and selling state assets following the collapse of the Soviet Union and/or by maintaining deep-seeded relations with Putin.

When discussing corruption in Russia, its hard to ignore the role that London

plays in moving the money. Since the fall of the USSR, elites from its successor nations became clients of financial services firms in London and investors in UK assets. “If you are a Russian oligarch, you have very particular skills…none of those things involve learning how to structure your assets offshore by a series of interlocking extremely complicated shell companies in multiple jurisdictions. You need someone to do that for you”, explains Bullough.

These offshore structures are often used by the wealthy who don’t wish to pay taxes or have their identities revealed. Chatham House estimated in 2018 that £90 billion of illicit funds are laundered through London annually. Additionally, reports indicate that £1.5 billion worth of property had been purchased by Russians accused of corruption or with Kremlin links, though it is unclear to what extent this is just the tip of the iceberg.

In addition to not knowing the true extent of what oligarchs own, there is a lack

of budget and staff for enforcement agencies like the National Crime Agency (NCA) to tackle this. Its former director-general, Dame Lynne Owens lamented in 2020 in an Intelligence and Security Committee report the difficulties of policing “wealthy people with access to the best lawyers” with the latter knowing well that eventually the NCA would run out of resources to pursue this further.

As for recent government moves to axe incentives like the Tier 1 investor visa scheme and imposing sanctions, Bullough equates it to ““watching the government do too little too late”. However, he insists this is wide-ranging issue and not just Boris Johnson’s fault: “Labour was just as bad… Everyone’s been bad”.

To combat the issue of widespread corruption, he recommends that countries “take this problem seriously and not to just deal with processing suspicious activity reports and nothing happens to them, but actually…study them to prosecute people.” Bullough feels that the UK’s current set of laws are as good as other comparable nations, but issued a warning: “if we’re not prepared to resource the fight against oligarchs… then obviously we’re going to lose.”

Image Credit: Hung-Jen Wu

threatened by larger tech companies, would have enabled the combined entity to stave off this threat by optimising chip designs to work seamlessly with each other on mobile devices and data centre mainframes. Additionally, Nvidia, whose chips have a reputation for being power hungry, would have benefitted greatly from Arm’s specialism in streamlined, energy efficient chips. Finally, Arm’s prowess in designing ‘light-weight’ hardware custom-built for specific artificial intelligence, IoT and systems networking purposes would have afforded Nvidia the luxury of expanding rapidly into hot market segments by inheriting Arm’s existing integrations with tech ecosystems. For Arm, ownership by Nvidia would allow for the R&D budgets necessary to compete with global chip giants AMD and Intel, the latter of which has struggled to maintain its industry leadership over the last decade. As such, the deal made a lot of sense for both entities.

Regulators and industry leaders ultimately provided great opposition to the deal. Arm licences IP out to hardware product manufacturers and designs chips used in over 95% of the world’s ‘premium’ smartphones, for example, and is therefore seen as integral to the electronics industry. Regulators across the globe were concerned about Nvidia’s ability to control prices of Arm-developed

making it much harder to recoup its initial $40bn purchase price. It pledged to keep Arm as an independent entity, but regulatory scepticism ensued. With long delays to

Quick Takes

“Over the following year and five months, regulators from around the world expressed concerns over potential monopolistic effects on the global chip design industry posed by the combined entity.” technology, or even restrict access from their competitors. This would have had an impact upon prices and innovation for endconsumers. Despite this, Nvidia argued that to pursue such an anticompetitive strategy would have been “self-defeating”, resulting in massive losses to Arm’s revenue and

“It is likely that the Arm takeover would have allowed the chip design industry to compete on equal footing with America’s leading technology companies, thereby offering some buffer to their ever-expanding dominance. “ regulatory anti-trust investigations caused by the global pandemic, it became clear that the deal would not obtain approvals needed to reach a close by the hard deadline of September 2022.

The greatest threat to competition for the chip design industry appears to come from end-to-end consumer tech giants such Amazon, Apple, and Google, who favour designing their own hardware to seamlessly integrate with their existing products. It is likely that the Arm takeover would have allowed the chip design industry to compete on equal footing with America’s leading technology companies, thereby offering some buffer to their ever-expanding dominance. While this may have outweighed any potential anti-competitive aspects of the Arm deal, the US regulators nevertheless seemed all too keen to oppose, potentially being aware of the reputational benefits from taking a tough stance on the deal, amidst growing societal divisions over the true cost to society of “unrestrained profitseeking”.

As global connectivity rises, we should recognise the growing importance of the sector in people’s day to day lives. Arm and Nvidia have both continued to grow their revenues, while Arm is looking to debut with an IPO before March 2023. The question of who designs and manufactures our chips will surely be worth paying attention to.

Describing recent run on the Russian Ruble, “This is a kind of financial nuclear bomb that is falling on Russia.”- Sergei Aleksashenko, former Russian Deputy Finance Minister

“The construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany has shown how many politicians in the EU are prepared to sell out western values for the chance to make a good deal.” - Mateusz Morawiecki, Prime Minister of Poland

On Rishi Sunak’s planned £12bn rise in national insurance, “The proposed increase remains illogical and will be even more ill-timed given how circumstances have rapidly changed since it was announced.” - Stephen Phipson CBE, CEO of Make UK

EDITORIAL

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Masthead SENIOR EDITORIAL TEAM Biggest Dick Energy, WhatsApp Screamer, Cherwell Mermaid, Ball Boy, DILF of the People, Drama Queen, Common Grounder, The Long Hauler NEWS New era of news, Hack by association, “I know him actually”, Pete Buttigieg, Losing cuppers team COMMENT French Son-tana, ‘Spice it up’, also an OSPL boss!, only one with InDesign FEATURES I get paid for this at home’, Queen of the edit, ‘What’s happening at History Soc’, Tonsilitis Queen 2.0 PROFILES Joining from afar, ‘Cherwell Old Hands’, More BBC journalists, Our Danish King SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY The poshest accent in the office, the mad scientist BUSINESS & FINANCE Khusrau Islam, Hung Jen Wu CULTURE Culcher’s biggest interviewer, the mathmatician who suprises us all, the one who’ll bring down Google STAGE Most functional 3rd year, Culture’s most politically informed FASHION Cherwell’s roving reporter, The college puffer hatter, One day she’ll report on Japanese style (if she ever makes year abroad) MUSIC Radiohead’s top spotify listener, N/A FILM Cherwell’s artist in residence, the filmiest of film students BOOKS Bookisano, the actual (American) english student LIFE average lay in at the airport enjoyer, head of cherpse THE SOURCE Most fashionable non-fashion editor, fashionably late, number one fan of pigeons SPORT Balliol benchwarmer , Writing addict FOOD Queen of PVC trousers, InDesign superstar, @milliedrewfood plug plug plug PUZZLES Diolch yn fawr CREATIVE Zoe Rhoades, Rachel Jung, Heidi Fang, Benjamin Beechener, Mia Clement

Jill Cushen (she/her), Editor-in-Chief I write these words after rereading an old essay on the theory of narrative endings.

My former self argued that a book, a page, a chapter, all must come to an end, but a narrative is not finite nor does it cease to exist after the final full stop. As soppy as it sounds, that’s a sentiment that Charlie and I will hold onto in our future states of ‘irrelevance’.

Cherwell has completely consumed and shaped my Oxford experience. I’ve met and worked with people who have shaped my life impermeably and forever. Every term, us editors like to joke about what we’ll do to fill the Cherwell void. Spending more time on my degree might be a start but I don’t regret where my priorities have been over the past couple of months.

I wrote in my first editorial that we would inevitably make mistakes. We did. Not many but a few. I’ve realised that some people are not out to get me but out to get someone, and in this position, Charlie and I put ourselves in the firing line. Remember that there are faces behind that C, that we are students just like you, and that every Oxfess will most definitely be seen and oftentimes, taken to heart.

I am immensely proud of what our team has achieved. I often felt like Big Brother

Estelle Atkinson (she/her), Deputy Editor The only diary I’ve ever kept for more than a few days was during a two week stay at my grandma’s house in the Essex countryside.

It was the summer before my first year at Oxford, and my mom and I were staying in a small cabin out in the garden, which had just about room enough for a bed, narrow desk, and two sealed suitcases.

We had spent the earlier part of the summer watching BBC Four’s Detectorists, a television series which follows the Danebury Metal Detecting Club as they trawl the hazily sunny English countryside; it seemed something of a mirage to us. The backlit poppies, recently ploughed fields, and breezy English oak branches sparkled to the tune of the series’ theme song, sung by folk singer-songwriter Johnny Flynn. We found ourselves, in the equally hazy transition from summer into the early, warmer days of Autumn, faced with the opportunity to live as buoyantly as the poppies, with Johnny Flynn playing in the background.

Where we might have enjoyed an incredibly unstructured couple of weeks, we found ourselves rigidly following the schedule of the ocean’s tide. A short drive away from my grandma’s house is Brightlingsea Beach, which features a pool refreshed by the high tide, a small harbour for paddle boats and the more irritating jet skis, and sandy

watching over our staff, keeping an eye on every group chat and only butting in when there was a problem. But I know how hard everyone worked and am grateful for all your contributions.

The senior editorial team has been magnificent. Not only are they an incredibly hard working bunch but we laughed a lot and it’s been a pleasure working with such a ‘fit’ team. I’m so proud of all of you and I hope that we did you proud as your leaders.

Finally, to my partner in Cherwell crime, the person I spoke to more than anyone else this term, Charlie - this has been a rollercoaster, but it’s been wonderful experiencing it with you - all of our late night calls, the much-needed rants, our choffice hysteria. It has been such a privilege working with and learning from you!

It’s been amazing and agonizing. I’ve hated it and I’ve loved it. Cherwell, thank you for having me. ful people on this masthead. It has been an honour to work with you all, and I am so proud of you: from the new recruits who have learned on the job with aplomb, to the old-hands who have become perceptive editors and fearsome reporters.

A special mention must go to our team of deputy editors, who have brought their dedication and creativity to the table every week. Jill and I could not have done it without you.

Jill. I could write a whole other editorial about how much I have loved working with you since we met on the news team last year. You have been an indespensible comrade and friend, and I will treasure the time we have spent together.

This job can be stressful at times, but it is the people who get you through those late nights.

I know the paper will be in safe hands with Maurício and Estelle at the helm, leading a new team of trusty deps, steering this historic paper onwards. stretches until the sand turns to mud. In terms of swimming, most locals - and the swimmers are mostly locals - favour Splash Point: a series of concrete steps leading down to a deeper descent into the groynes, aptly named, as the water splashes over the sea wall on choppy days.

Open water, and specifically cold water swimming, has recently seen a surge in popularity, a trend which has also inspired a number of students here in Oxford to take it up in Port Meadow, and Hinksey Lake. The swims are organised in such a fashion as to bring like-minded people together. This usually occurs through Facebook groups. My mom and I, however, showed up for our first swim at high tide to find a group of swimmers - primarily women, primarily older - frolicking, for lack of a more accurate word.

Splash Point is unswimmable when the tide is low and the mud flats are left exposed, leaving a comfortable hour of swim time once each day. We quickly realised that despite the lack of formal organisation, this group

“I silently swelled with an immense gratitude for the tide, for both continuing to come in and for continuing to create joy in its purest form..” of swimmers was a community united in their shared tidal-centric schedule. After a few days, we began to talk with some of the women. They revealed that they had been making up stories about me and where I maybe came from. Thereafter, each high tide we would be greeted with the same warm “hi ladies!” And after every swim, my mom and I

Charlie Hancock (she/her), Editor-in-Chief I arrived at Oxford knowing that I wanted to edit Cherwell. I knew I wanted to be a journalist, so joining Oxford’s leading newspaper was a no-brainer. I attended my first news meeting zoom before term had even begun.

Seeing my name in the 0th week edition of MT20 felt like I had made a little mark on this city.

The paper became a joyful constant in my life, and some would argue my entire personality. My year on staff at Cherwell has been full of surprises, and surreal opportunities. Looking back on it, it has been a catalyst for immense personal growth, alongside professional advancement.

Jill and I knew we wanted to change things under our editorship. I’d say we’ve achieved our goals, and I’m proud of what the paper has become. we wanted to make our articles more relevant to the Oxford community; we wanted to bring some bite to our comment and features; and we wanted to make our news coverage more ambitious. We’ve taken bigger risks, and ruffled a few feathers in the process.

But we seem to have stuck the landing.

Journalism is about people. People at the irworst and their best. My time at Cherwell would not have been what it was without the wonder-

would stop by the beach cafe for a bacon bap and hot chocolate, which became more and more welcome the faster the water’s temperature dropped. Everyday my diary read: “swimming again with the high tide ladies.”

As the days went on, fewer swimmers showed up. There were tides where we had the stretch of sea all to ourselves, and comments from chilly passersby - “warmer in there I reckon!” - were frequent. The same person had been serving us our bacon baps and hot chocolate each day, and she began to question our persistence as October neared.

On our last day in Brightlingsea, she greeted us: “hello! I knew you crazy ladies would come!” to which we had to bid her a sad goodbye.

I had returned for solo visits, and swims, throughout the following year, but it was only over a year later that my mom and I returned together. Still with Johnny Flynn playing in the hire car, we made our way to an early morning high tide at Splash Point.

This time, the memory of summer did not linger; it was undeniably winter. The water was so cold it was painful, and we only managed to immerse ourselves for a minute or so.

While there was no crowd of swimmers, immediately we recognised a couple of our friends from the summer before last. I could tell that they didn’t recognise us. Still, the women introduced themselves, unknowingly, for a second time. They were as cheery and welcoming as when we first joined the high tide swimmers, and we never corrected them. Instead, I silently swelled with an immense gratitude for the tide, for both continuing to come in and for continuing to create joy in its purest form, like clockwork. I am content that if I were to swim tomorrow, at high tide, I would most likely find a friendly face that knew and understood how the sea guided me throughout some of the most peaceful and reviving weeks I’ve lived so far.

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CONTENTS CULTURE

12 | Switiching Big Tech off and on agian 13 | In conversation with Katie Melua

CULTURE

Exploring a new beginning for tech ethics

MUSIC 14 | ‘Stirred to breathless heights’: Wolf Alice Concert Review

Anna Mayer reflects on the Institute for Ethics in AI’s colloquium in partnership with TORCH.

FILM 15 | ‘The fairest of them all?’: Hollywood’s problem with visually represented villainy

ince the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in 2018, it has become apparent that we have reached a tipping point in our relationship with the tech industry – a point where the interests of tech giants and the customers they are meant to serve are no longer aligned. In fact, they are radically misaligned. The utopian vision for a future in which technology would inevitably make the world better, safer, and more prosperous has given way to a distinctive brand of nihilism, wherein our future is at the whim of the technologists who designed it, the venture capitalists who fund it, and the politicians who allow it to continue unchecked. We have, almost all at once, become aware that what hides within these shiny interfaces is the erosion of privacy, the rise of populism, the degradation of our well-being, and the dissolution of the very fabric of our democracy. We now stand in the middle of a full-blown tech-lash.

The Institute for Ethics in AI, part of the Philosophy Faculty here at the University, brings together world-leading philosophers, and other experts in the field of the humanities, with those developing and using artificial intelligence in the arenas of academia, business and government, in order to navigate this cultural moment.

They aim to enhance the quality of public deliberation concerning the ethi- c a l implications of these digital technologies with such profoundly world-changing potential. I attended the first of their online events in Hilary term – a collaboration between the Institute and the Philosophy, Law and Politics Programme, the livestream was a book discussion of System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How to Reboot, the manifesto of three Stanford professors: Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami and Jeremy M. Weinstein.

The book exposes our current predicament – the authors point the finger at behemoths like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon who have sacrificed fundamental human values on the altar of optimisation and efficiency. They reveal the way in which big tech worships the ability to grow fast and scale endlessly with no sense of either social responsibility or ethical rigour. As a result, we see current and potential ethical crises raised left, right and centre, by notions of consumer privacy and surveillance; bias, discrimination and injustice in algorithmic decisioning; and existential threats posed by artifical intelligences. This extends to even more tangible problems, such as job displacement resulting from machine-learning and robotics, and even computing’s increasingly ruinous effect on our habitable environment. Predictive policing and facial recognition technologies, voter profiling and autonomous vehicles encroach upon us, alongside more insidious threats to human well-being such as the treatment of human attention as a scarce commodity, the pervasiveness of ‘always-on’ culture, and the evergrowing pressures to compete in constant information provision and consumption.

Big tech companies have only very recently begun to reckon with these moral

THE SOURCE 16 | Prophecy by Aaron Low BOOKS 18 | Rubbish representation schools, syllabus and beyond

in

STAGE 19 | Reviews: The Dumb Waiter & Brain Freeze FASHION 20 | Cherwell’s 70’s How To Guide FOOD 22 | Setting the bar high: On running the college bar

COVER PHOTOS

This paper, our final print edition of Hilary Term 2022, marks the end of our staff’s time in their current roles, and for many people, the end of their time at Cherwell. To commemorate a stellar term of journalism, laughs, lay-ins and Choffice antics, this week’s cover features a collage of our most cherished moments from the past term!

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implications of their products – or rather, holder returns and stock prices pushes attempt to project the appearance that tech companies to accelerate innovation this kind of reckoning is taking place. It without properly considering its consewould not be unfair to say much of the quences. And while the notion that tech work of tech ethicists is not measurable, companies will choose profit over social actionable or even useful within the congood in every instance is a misconception, text of the tech industry’s existing pracit is indeed the case that the organisationtices and priorities. Ethical principles are al resources necessary for morality to win very rarely translated into the practical out need to be justified in market-friendly and tangible language of business. They terms. In this respect, it is undeniable fundamentally lack any institutional that the market sets the terms of the deframework. In this sense, it is far too bate. The process of avoiding measurable easy for the tech industry to avoid taking downside risks and promoting the upside responsibility for creating, applying and benefits of more ethical technologies is regulating their products ethically. Tech’s certainly onerous, and market fundamenenthusiasm for ethics paraphernalia is oftalism always comes out on top. Moral ten merely ‘ethics washing’ – an elaborate victories can often look like failures and strategy to deflect criticism and dodge ethically questionable products generally censure. For example, Google formed a earn big bonuses. As such, technological nominal AI ethics board in 2019 with no innovation finds itself, more often than actual veto power at all. And so, for all not, driven by greed – and thus the move the lip service paid to these problems, the to prioritise ethical action within technoethics guidelines of many organisations logical innovation is a moral imperative. remain vague, indistinct, and incredibly All at once, it is becoming apparent to us hard to implement. Organisational practhat big tech firms should be implored to tices are ignored; checklists, procedures prioritise their impact on users, regardand evaluative metrics are abandoned less of profit potential. in favour of platitudes and truisms conReich, Weinstein and Sahami are tained in buzzwords, slogans and hollow standing right at the centre of this colsentiments. The phrase ‘don’t be evil’ lective cultural moment of realisation. is, quite ironically, one of the Understanding the nuances of cornerstones of Google’s the transforming effects – corporate code of conduct. for better or worse – of Indeed, those within the tech industry at the “All at once, it is the microcosm of the social and political tech industry remain level is, as the Inbecoming apparent to generally reluctant stitute for Ethics in to pass the baton to AI understands it, us that big tech firms ethics and philosotruly ‘urgent and phy as a specialised important work’. should be implored to domain. OptimisaThere is still hope, tion culture is a though, that we prioritise their impact key motif of System can cultivate an Error, and, indeed, ethic of responsion users, regardless of bility ethics are often and accountviewed with an eye ability within the profit potential.” toward smarter, better, industry. faster, optimised apSystem Error isn’t a proaches. Many within the diatribe against technoltech industry position themogy. Rather, it’s a truly hopeselves as those best suited to tackle ful call for the vindication of tech ethical challenges in the most optimised from this cesspit of ethical ignorance, ofway, rather than less technologicallyfered in the optimistic spirit of anticipated inclined stakeholders, such as elected ofliberation. It certainly does not deny the ficials or advocacy groups. (They wouldn’t often ruthless monopolistic dominance be entirely mistaken – take, for example, exercised by the tech industry and its the comical levels of complete cluelesssense of profound social irresponsibility. ness demonstrated by US lawmakers The positive message of the book, though, during Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional is the possibility of the democratisation of hearings in 2018.) Engineers are trusted the technological choices that will invarito discern the ethical stakes of their own ably affect our future. The digital economy products, and thus digital technologies can be brought under democratic control! are granted exemption from the scrutiny This democratisation begins with us makof democratic processes. Technological ing these valuable connections between solutionism recasts complex social phethe seemingly self-contained universe of nomena as neatly defined problems with the tech industry and the wider world. definite, computable solutions or as Each of us can be, as Reich, Sahami and straightforward and self-evident proWeinstein put it, ‘enablers and shapers of cesses that can be easily optimised. The technological change in society’. In their work of the industry consistently and view, a democratically controlled and soconstantly falls short of the reality of its cially owned digital economy is not a pipe ethical crisis. dream, but rather a very achievable goal The technology-market link has fuelled for tomorrow’s technologists and users a growth trajectory the industry is atalike. We may live to see the day where tempting to ruthlessly ride to ever-rising digital infrastructure becomes something levels of profitability and prosperity. The which prioritises not profit, but public quest for rapidly growing revenues, sharegood.

CULTURE

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The power of positive voices: In conversation with Katie Melua Clementine Scott & Jimmy Brewer speak to Katie Melua about songwriting, Silk Roads, and her new series of workshops for students.

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here do we come from? I mean, where does it all come from, all this? – the books that we read or skim; the computers that we frantically tap; the cultural values that press upon us in every decision we make? Some would posit the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans as the progenitors of our western society.

Stories of names like Cleopatra, Socrates and Caesar abound in British accounts of ancient history, at least. However, Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, points to Persia – loosely corresponding today to Iran and the -stan countries – as the bubbling cauldron from which much of the modern world emerged.

Indeed, this book and its particular rewriting of history sits at the heart of a collaborative project here in Oxford with Georgian-born singer-songwriter Katie looks to cultivate in her workshops – in Melua. In the coming weeks, she will be their lyrics: Joni Mitchell, Nick Cave, PJ leading a series of songwriting workshops H a r v e y . Melua remarks that in song – a for students that will culminate in a performed medium – effective lyricism is concert at the Sheldonian in April. We constituted not just by the choice of words, recently had the opportunity to speak to but by a myriad of other adjacent linguistic Katie about the project. considerations: dialect, intonation, pitch, When asked about her hopes for the pacing and accent. She is concerned about workshops, Melua says that she wants first the neglect of these aspects in songwritand foremost to ‘put on a beautiful show ing. ‘In the circles I have worked in, there is a much greater emphasis on musical in April, with some exquisite pieces and songs; original songs that writing than there is on the lyriare written by the students.’ cal writing.’ Melua seeks to Her longer-term – and balance these two aspects of composition in these more grandiose – aim workshops, moving tois to ‘create real deep “Katie Melua’s project interest in the art of wards a lyrical ‘fluidsongwriting from is tangible, whilst ity’ that she believes a lyrical point of can sometimes go maintaining grand missing in a song. view, not just a muIt is the book sical point of view.’ vision. Its seeds are The Silk Roads that How will she know when this lofty goal has been chosen has been realised? promising, and may to inspire lyrical ‘fluidity’ and focus When, ‘in 10 to 15 years’ time,’ she flower into a thing of in the sessions. According to TORCH’s ‘walk[s] into a store, perhaps at Christmas rare beauty.” website, the book will aid participants ‘to write time, and hear[s] really songs that explore journeys great, uplifting, meaningful through time, geographies, pieces of music, that aren’t just and cultures.’ It seems a somewhat repeating the same, you know, over and over.’ arbitrary choice of text – a tribute to If you do not already know who she is, the ‘humanities’ that the project must, Katie Melua is a musician who has achieved perhaps artificially, incorporate. I have vast commercial success – in 2006 she was no doubt, though, that its author Peter the UK’s best-selling female artist. She saw Frankopan, Worcester College historian, precocious fame when, at just 19, her debut will be pleased. topped UK album charts. Today, she is 37 ‘I hadn’t actually heard of the book until and has released eight albums. Her songs I started these talks with TORCH,’ Melua are characterised by her rich singing voice says, though is flexible in adapting to its and easy-listening arrangements that tus- suggestion. ‘I started reading it, and I sle with the sentimental. thought it was phenomenal,’ she recounts, ‘One of the things that I’d like to focus with adequate emphasis. Melua’s natural on is a lyrical duty of care,’ Melua tells flair for displaying enthusiasm shines Clementine. She cites artists who she through in her answer here. She makes believes have this ‘duty of care’ – that she links to Georgia, the country in which

she lived until she was eight, which lies precisely on the Euro-Asian trading routes that give Frankopan’s book its title. Melua then drifts into childhood r e m i n i s c e n c e s : ‘music was everywhere in Georgia,’ which meant she was able to move to the UK ‘… with great excitement, because it was the country where The Beatles and Led Zeppelin were from.’

Her story gleams against the backdrop, provided by Silk Roads, of crosscultural journey- ing and migration.

We finished by asking Katie what words of wisdom she has to impart on the young creatives on the programme.

Melua wants to make them aware of their ‘voices of influence’, by which she means the plethora of accents and vocabularies and vocal pacings that we encounter every day. These could be singers – Melua credits Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell as having influenced her inner ear – or just the talk we overhear. ‘There can be positive voices of influence, and negative ones,’ she says, going on to give an anecdote about a manager of hers from whose mouth perennially comes the word ‘dude’.

‘Since working with him, I always use the word dude, too,’ she admits.

Katie Melua’s project is tangible, whilst maintaining grand vision. Its seeds are promising, and may flower into a thing of rare beauty. Whether in 10- or 15-years’ time we will walk into a store – perhaps around Christmas time – and hear really great, uplifting, meaningful pieces of music, remains to be seen. In the meantime, you can go and hear the songs written by the participants in their final concert on Thursday 28th April, at the Sheldonian Theatre.

Image credit: Joergens.mi//Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0

CULCHER EDITORIAL Acclaimed singer-songwriter and Visiting Fellow Katie Melua has collaborated with a group of students, faculty from the University, and local community organisations to create an original musical performance inspired by History Professor Peter Frankopan’s best-selling book, The Silk Roads. Developing new songs as part of a cross-disciplinary experiment in collective writing and creation, the group has taken inspiration from The Silk Roads to write songs that explore journeys through time, geographies, and cultures.

This unique project will be presented at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre on Thursday 28 April 2022.

Katie Melua’s Visiting Fellowship is part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, an innovative public programme of research-led events powered by TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities).

The work of the Humanities Cultural Programme is wide-ranging, supporting everything from the production of Queer Rural Connections – a documentary on experiences of queer rural life that will screen at the BFI Flare festival later this month – to the creation of Madame Bovary’s Wedding Cake – a real-life version of Flaubert’s absurd confection, complete with miniature lake and serenely-swinging cupid. These projects are the result of our termly open calls for work that further the reach of Oxford Humanities research through cultural engagement; the scheme has also supported two recent student theatre projects with research elements, Intimacies and Smart Casual.

Looking beyond the Humanities Cultural Programme, TORCH is also home to interdisciplinary networks and programmes that cover broad research areas (such as the Reimagining Performance Network, exploring new questions in theatre and other creative fields) – as well as taking deep dives into specifics (like the Writing Technologies workshop that discussed writing materials in the early modern world). Recently, we’ve developed two new schemes of Critical Thinking Communities and Interdisciplinary Futures projects: research communities led by doctoral and undergraduate/masters students.

The visions of interdisciplinarity produced by these projects have been incredibly inspiring; Archival Post, for example, mounted a postal exhibition of art-poem posters as a way of exploring how creatives could use archival holdings. The posters brought together fragments of writing about archives and were displayed in locations from Seoul to the Scottish Highlands.

The Silk Roads project is an exciting exemplification of our interdisciplinary approach to research, threading history and music together, and drawing on the expertise of students, academics, and creatives from a multitude of backgrounds. We are excited to see what new possibilities this fusion of research and creativity opens up.

To find out more about the Humanities Cultural programme, visit torch.ox.ac.uk/hcp.

MUSIC

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PLAYLIST ROCK FAVORITES In the theme of this week’s review, our team has selected their rock favorites.

‘Stirred to breathless heights’: Wolf Alice Concert Review priately roused the crowd in anticipation for a night where the band’s – and the Anya Biletsky reviews Wolf fans’ – energy levels would not waver.

Alice’s return to live music at Following ‘Smile’ came ‘You’re A Germ’ from their 2016 album My Love is Cool, the Eventim Apollo in London. matching the opener’s dynamic chord progressions and thumping beat. olf Alice have had a As a lead singer, Ellie Rowsell’s comwhopper of a year. The fort onstage was unquestionable, her London-based alternative presence fierce. Clad in an oversized rock band released their blazer and elegant bootcut trousers, she third studio album, Blue Weekend, in delivered consistently powerful vocals June 2021, to rave critical reviews, and and guitar solos aplenty. Her impressive in last month they won the Brit Award vocal range was showcased as she transifor Best Group. They are now touring tioned effortlessly from the thunderous with Blue Weekend, glittering on stages pace and half-screams of the hard rock across the UK. song ‘Play the Greatest Hits’ to the softer The disruption Covid created for live tones of ‘Feeling Myself’. The entertainment has been gutting for stage lighting mirrored music lovers, many of whom have the cooldown between not been able to experience a the numbers by live concert since 2019. Storm turning a deep Eunice’s disturbance in “Although forced to get violet from a fifth week also led to the flashing neon added stress of transport a train several hours green. cancellations and delays.

I n d e e d , As I tried to prepare earlier than initially Wolf Alice are alternative travel arrana band who gements for the journey extended...

Wolf Alice serve up phefrom Oxford to London, nomenal ara feeling of uncertainty, delivered a night that tistic variety. so painfully familiar The mélange to us by now, began to was completely worth the of genres to cloud over the experience. be found in Although forced to get a extra faff.” their music is train several hours earlier evidence enough than initially intended of this: indie, which led to an extremely chaotic rock, grunge, shoegaze… morning - Wolf Alice delivered a night Witnessing them in concert that was completely worth the extra faff. only confirms their chameleon knack This was the second of three successive for transformation. We were stirred up sold-out nights for the four-piece at the to breathless heights in one song, the London venue, and it proved one for us bassline pounding through our bones, and the remaining five thousand people and lulled back down to soothing, in attendance to remember. Wolf Alice melancholy introspection in the next. performed a number of songs from Blue And the fans responded accordingly.

Weekend, as well as a handful of staples They became an undulating, frenzied from their older records. The show began mass during the roaring ‘Visions Of A with the explosive ‘Smile’, kicking off Life’ – mosh pits and all – and in the with an exhilarating number that appro- same song they stood gently swaying

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WIERD FISHES/ARPEGGI Radiohead

SMILE Wolf Alice

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? Tina Turner Image Credit (top to bottom): Maksym Sirman, Aditya Chinchure, Giancarlo Duarte

as Rowsell held them enchanted on a stage lit up with red and blue. The nostalgia-inducing song ‘Silk’ moved some fans to tears.

To perform an intimate, mellow rendition of folk song ‘No Hard Feelings’, Rowsell came down to sit on the edge of the stage, where she was given a bouquet of tulips by a fan in the front row. She accepted the bouquet with delighted surprise – and later flung it back into the crowd, returning the fans the love they show the band in a gesture of her personal appreciation. That, or maybe she just doesn’t like tulips.

Bassist Theo Ellis kept firing up the crowd with his volcanic energy, leaning at the edge of the stage into the audience to ecstatic shrieks. ‘This song’s for you, London!’ he yelled before the band played ‘Bros’, another classic from My Love is Cool.

A mention must be given to the band who opened for Wolf Alice on their first and second London dates, Lucia and the Best Boys. An electrifying four-piece from Glasgow, they established the mood of the night with a selection of characterful indie-pop songs from their 2020 EP The State of Things. Vocalist Lucia Fairfull stomped vigorously on the stage in a black leather jacket, making the auditorium quake with fervour.

At the end of the night, Wolf Alice returned to the stage for an encore, playing fan-favourites ‘The Last Man on Earth’ from Blue Weekend, and, of course, ‘Don’t Delete the Kisses’ from their 2017 album Visions of a Life. The euphoria in the room was palpable. ‘Me and you were meant to be in love!’ the fans screamed, almost drowning out Rowsell herself. It’s unsurprising that Wolf Alice have long been hailed the best band in Britain.

Not a bad way to celebrate the return of live music.

Image Credit: Eric de Redelijkheid//Flickr CC BY SA 2.0

FILM

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‘The fairest of them all?’: Hollywood’s problem with visually represented villainy

VACATION VIEWING: EDITOR PICKS

Hannah Williams explores Hollywood’s problems with representing physical difference.

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CW: ableism, discrimination he latest instalment of Hollywood’s never-ending quest to retell and resell every classic film has been a contentious one.

Yet another reimagining of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is in production, with breakout star Rachel Zegler in the leading role. In a desperate attempt to diversify its cinematic output, Disney has – instead of green-lighting more exciting material written by POC writers – decided to invest in a live-action adaptation of the 1937 animation, starring a Latina actress. Actor Peter Dinklage has pointed out the insensitivity of retelling a story that caricatures and ridicules people with dwarfism. Dinklage, who himself has achondroplasia, said of the film, ‘You’re progressive in one way but you’re still making that fucking backward story of seven dwarves living in the cave. What the fuck are you doing, man?’, explaining that had a ‘cool, progressive spin’ been put on the original tale he would have been ‘all in’.

Disney’s vague response (saying that they are ‘taking a different approach with these seven characters’ and are ‘consulting with members of the dwarfism community’) does not distance themselves, and the rest of the film industry, from its dark history of representation of people with physical differences. People who look different to the majority have almost always been portrayed in a negative light throughout the history of literature – think Richard III, Dracula, and Captain Hook – but in no medium does this become as glaringly insulting as film. Physical difference is too often exploited either to present characters as outsiders, like with the seven dwarves, or villains. James Bond films have recently come under fire for their consistent depictions of antagonists with burns or scars, but the sheer amount of films that use this visual trope is shocking. From Scar in The Lion King to Darth Vader in Star Wars, filmmakers have constantly been exploiting conditions that manifest themselves physically as a visual indicator of a character’s inherent wickedness.

This narrative infiltrates daily life. Cast your mind back to the 2020 American

presidential election, when, during a press conference, Donald Trump’s legal aid and former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani suffered a severe hair malfunction. A single streak of brown hair dye rolled down the side of his face, and – with his villainy seemingly branded onto him in a perfect twist of fate – Twitter went up in flames.

Emma Beddington wrote an article for the Guardian at the time, illustrating how this phenomenon, as satisfying as it may have been for those politically-opposed to Giuliani, was a result of ‘years of cultural conditioning’ that have conflated 'ugliness and moral failing’. Beddington, who has alopecia, continued to talk about the effect of this cultural perception of villainy on her own life, as she explained her children’s confusion when she read them Roald Dahl’s ‘The Witches’. ‘They adored the story and Quentin Blake’s enchanting illustrations,’ she said, ‘but the diagram and explanation of an unmasked witch confused them – because it looked like me’.

The physical demonisation of Giuliani struck an equally conflicting chord in me.

As much as I detested him as a person, the image of a dark droplet trickling down his face reminded me of my own experience, like Beddington, with alopecia. I would have to use tar-like spray-on hair dye intended for old men like Giuliani in order to cover up my own large, patchy bald spots every day before school. In fact, on a hot summer’s day it is likely that I would have recreated this ridiculed image of Giuliani. Reading Beddington’s article, I remembered the disgust I’d feel towards myself when, as my hair loss worsened, I’d unclip my hairpieces at night and transform, like Roald Dahl’s Grand High Witch, into my exposed, visibly antagonistic self.

We need to reject this lazy idea that physical conditions, or, more broadly, visible difference, equate to villainy or societal rejection. Hollywood, at very least, is trying to deliver this message and produce films that depict people with conditions affecting their physical image in a positive light – but, my god, is it failing. Steven Chbosky’s 2017 adaptation of R.J. Palacio’s novel Wonder, which follows the life of a young boy named Augustus with Treacher Collins syndrome, was met with significant criticism due to the director’s decision to cast a child actor without this syndrome in the starring role, and make extensive use of prosthetics to ‘transform’ him into Augustus. Despite its good intentions and sensitive storytelling, Wonder achieved something not too far from what Disney was trying to achieve in its 1937 depiction of the ‘seven dwarves’: singling out those who do not fit in to Hollywood’s complex cookie cutter of

MINI-SERIES Inventing Anna A look into the crimes, glamour and questionable accent of Anna Delvey, scammer-heiress extraordinaire.

Caitlin Wilson

what is physically ‘desirable’ and ‘normal’ and thus furthering society’s uninformed perception of physical difference.

Filmmakers should, at very least, have the sensitivity to see that using prosthetics to depict a condition is degrading, and exposes a shallow attempt to explore the life of someone susceptible to cinema’s visually antagonising and outcasting agenda. But more broadly, they must push themselves to construct characters that are psychologically complex enough to not be dependent upon a physical indicator of their identity.

Film is, of course, an inherently visual form – aesthetics and style are naturally a key aspect of a character’s construction.

But the characters that we see in film deserve a complexity of character that goes beyond skin-deep appearance.

Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017) succeeds in this task, as its charismatic protagonist is depicted with acne. This doesn’t form any kind of basis for her identity, but it provides a refreshing change from the unrealistically acne-free teenagers that dominate coming-of-age films and brings a visibility that validates the experience of young people suffering from acne. Pixar’s recent animated film Luca (2021) also succeeds in sensitively presenting a character born with one arm – Guilia’s father, Massimo – without using this to construct his identity.

The film illustrates on many levels the importance of a character’s internal identity over their external appearance.

Disney’s depiction of Massimo’s visible difference subverts stereotypes: he is big, strong and as a result is initially intimidating to Luca and Alberto, thus avoiding the trope that limb difference equates to weakness. As the film progresses, however, Massimo’s soft and caring persona is revealed and combats the assumptions made from his macho physical appearance. He encapsulates the film’s message, a message that Hollywood needs to hear loud and clear: personality prevails over physicality.

These examples of positive depictions of three-dimensional characters with physical difference are far too rare. It goes without saying that our society has progressed to the point where we, on the whole, do not single out those who look different from the rest with the sole purpose of excluding them. We know that

FILM Castaway Feel like being at home is like being stranded? Look no further. Tom Hanks’ (slightly hilarious) Castaway might well resonate with you.

Flora Dyson

FILM Ran Akira Kurosawa’s epic adaptation of King Lear is a grand, devastating spectacle.

Wang Sum Luk

we ought to validate and cherish visible difference. Why is cinema struggling so much to catch on? Is it because Hollywood is constantly retreating to and capitalising on old stories without considering the outdated ideas they depict? Perhaps.

This endless cycle of cinematic deja-vu certainly makes it clear that cinema is being restricted by the retelling of stories, such as Snow White, that are incompatible with our modern society’s values. But film as a genre is also haunted by this archaic idea that a character’s internal identity must be visually, often stereotypically, represented. Hollywood is the world’s magic mirror, and it should begin reflecting the real range of human experiences, instead of obsessing over who is the fairest of them all.

Image credit: Wang Sum Luk

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S E O H U T

RCE

Prophecy

By Aaron Low

On our final morning, we’ll wrestle with the stress of a grand unfixing, unmixing what’s torn from initial inertias, reborn into fresher lives spent traversing mountains back to the mouths that first found them speaking beyond galaxies gathering with the force of action left to fall and fester on course, retracting their sprawl in systems patterned within the other as a smattering of atoms coming apart in a matter of syllables split by the threads of you and I before we exhaust all lines that span the physical by keeping watch over the apocalypse and its curious uncollapse, unfurling to remains of refrains of early songs alighting in the throes of their unbecoming, winnowing months to widowed days wandering with the sudden sun in their eyes, the blood of all machinery that starts to die, and I know, returning to the infant verse before it took form Hello - then a little less, a tempting of ages about to begin, that on the morning of my undoing we will start with an I, standing awash in a lonesome light.

THE SOURCE

THE SOURCE

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The World As We Know It

By Shiraz Vapiwala

Not the world And nothing like it Familiarity clouds the periphery Like an abandoned supermarket The shelves are stocked, the goods are gone.

How it must have been in life The air was light All was all right It had to be It was all it could be.

Not the world we knew And not the world we know now We sift through mists of perceptions But we never breach the void.

Our motions, our seasons Our memory’s theatre Our mirrors part Played more earnest than ever.

I wouldn’t get the part.

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

BOOKS

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Recommended Reads DIVERSE CLASSICS In response to this week’s article, the Books team think back on the ‘classic’ texts they’ve read with more diverse themes and from more diverse authors. Some food for thought: what makes a classic anyway? The literary canon doesn’t have to be set in stone...

Passing

By Nella Larsen A classic of the Harlem Renaissance, Passing is also an iconic work of Black modernism. Recently adapted into a movie, Passing tells the story of the tension between two female friends in 1920s Harlem who choose to ‘pass’ as white- one occasionally, and one permanently. This rare glimpse into a common but often unspoken aspect of African American life in early twentieth century New York raises enduring questions of gender, race, friendship, community and identity.

- Eliza Browning, Books Editor

Selling Manhattan

By Carol Ann Duffy While Selling Manhattan itself isn’t a classic as such, there’s no denying Duffy’s body of work more broadly is a classic of contemporary poetry. Her poem ‘Valentine’ is studied by so many children at GCSE, and while teachers often steer away from or touch very lightly on Duffy’s lesbian identity, it remains there in her work, especially for those who seek out more of it. Selling Manhattan is my favourite of her collections, ranging in theme from first love to illness to nostalgia.

Rubbish representation in schools, syllabuses, and beyond Hope Philpott dives into the lack of representation for women and people of colour in school literature curriculums.

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n A-level English Literature, we didn’t

school age children identified as Black, Asian than getting 15 year olds to read a somewhat study any texts by women. There were and minority ethnic, and around half of the UK problematic look at race in the segregated Deep South by a white woman, every older plenty of texts about women – from population identified as women.

Thomas Hardy’s excruciating late VictoLiterature is a beautifully powerful combi- friend and sibling I know who studied the novel back before the new GCSEs noted rian fetishization of rural female poverty in nation of self-expression, identification, its profound effect on them, and Tess of the d’Urbervilles to Henrik Ibsen’s proband coming of age. Despite often lematic portrayal of middle-class women’s being badly taught, dismissed, it’s definitely worth reading and agency in A Doll’s House, by a self-proclaimed or, as this government is keen discussing, rather than axing.

“Literature is non-feminist. But, of course, actually getting on, underfunded, the conseMore disturbingly, Govean a beautifully women’s own perspectives on womanhood, quence of English Literature reforms (which were even especially deep into *the past* (before the being taught to pretty much influenced by Dominic powerful 20th century), would be a step too far. Canonieveryone until the age of Cummings, for a time) combination of cal men have clearly said it better. It was the 16 is that we all spend a lot also removed all ‘seminal same depressing story with regards to race. of time with the writers on world literature’ from GCself-expression, We studied one novel by a writer of colour, the curriculum. Although SEs, just so Gove’s personal identification, and Khaled Hosseini’s brilliant and heartbreaking Shakespeare’s plays are vendetta against American The Kite Runner. Yet the text we studied which wonderful, teaching them as a writers wasn’t the only nacoming of age.” was lauded for its ‘breakthrough’ and ‘bold’ discussion of race is often a cop tional literature that students discussions of race was Shakespeare’s Othello. out to get teenagers thinking about were missing out on. Anyone who Shakespeare, who was not a person of colour. the incredibly important and personal has also studied History at school since Ibsen and Hardy, who were relatively issues of race and gender, when they are the Coalition can equally enjoy upped compulprivileged men. raised at all, through the stale works sory British History, an approach which will If this is the representation of the same white male southern set you up well for Oxford, which is swarming we’re getting at A-level, faces. Why should and why will with British History and not much else. I’ve among students who’ve “The texts we study students be enthused by Dickens heard some awful stories from my friends who chosen to keep studying and Byron, when their perspec- study English here about the scarcity of set at school and beyond tives are often so different and encouraged texts by women and people literature, what hope is there for the often even from their own? Must we list of colour, although experiences seem to differ should be chosen more constrained curricu‘greats’ from various genres from tutor to tutor. and shaped by the lum at GCSE? Not much, it - Renaissance, Romantic, But it’s not good enough to leave it to often turns out. A recent survey diverse populations Gothic, modern – that students privileged tutors, canon-compilers and Educacommissioned by Penguin simply must study before we tion Secretaries to dictate which texts we reading them. ” Books found that a shockeven begin to examine where study. Time and time again, they have failed to ing 0.7% of English Literature the exclusionary category of ‘great’ achieve even the remotest degree of represenGCSE students in England study a even came from? tation, a damning outcome in a subject which book by a writer of colour, and only 7% Among the many depressing tenets of is so linked to identity and the self. The texts study a book by a woman. In 2021, only 0.1% this tale is where it’s being dictated from. we study at school and beyond should be choof students answered a GCSE question on the Michael Gove, UK Education Secretary from sen and shaped by the diverse populations only novel by a woman of colour on the AQA 2010 to 2014, reportedly disliked American reading them. exam syllabus, Meera Syal’s Anita and Me. literature– so there went To Kill a Mockingbird This is despite the fact that in 2021, 34.4% of from the syllabus. Although we can do better

FACT CHECK

-Katie Kirkpatrick, Deputy Editor

The Portait of Dorian Gray

By Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde has long been a gay icon for his treatment of homosexual desire in his writing – as a result, The Picture of Doran Gray, Wilde’s only novel, was greeted with outrage by British reviewers on its publication, some of whom suggested that he should be prosecuted on moral grounds.

Wilde’s novel which follows artist Basil Hallward as he endeavours to paint a portrait of Dorian Gray, explores themes including hedonism and sensuality, all the more striking in light of the 19th century context. The novel is enigmatic, layered and dramatic – a must-read.

-Elena Buccisano, Books Editor

•

Out of the 114 Nobel Prizes for Literature that have been awarded since 1901, only 14 of them went to women. (Source: Bustle)

•

In 2017 only 4% of all the children’s books published in the UK featured a black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) character, according to figures from a study initiated by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) into ethnic representation in children’s literature.

•

The number of authors and illustrators of colour published in the UK in the last three years has grown to over 8%, an increase of 3%, rising from less than 6% in 2017.

•

The most recent 2015 study by Lee & Low, the largest multicultural children’s book publisher in the US, determined that 79% of the overall publishing industry (including executives, sales, marketing and publicity, and reviewers) was white.

•

The 2017 CCBC study of literature for children and teens, found that, out of 3700 books surveyed, just 3.68%, or 136 books, contained significant LGBTQ+ content. Of those, only 41% (56 books) were written by an author who identifies as LGBTQ+.

STAGE

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‘They might just murder each other first’: The Dumb Waiter Neily Raymond reviews The Dumb Waiter, the first show at the Pilch since its reopening.

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t’s hard to be a hitman. The hours are unpredictable, the people are seedy, and sometimes you can’t even get a decent cup of tea.

In Harold Pinter’s 1960 play The Dumb Waiter, which opened at the Michael Pilch Studio in Week 6, we see just how poorly our criminal brethren are treated on the job. Disgusting basement? Check. No gas for the kettle? Check. Cryptic instructions from a mysteriously absent boss? Double

check. The lack of workplace protection laws is appalling.

The new production, directed by Alex Foster and Alex Hopkins-McQuillan, runs for a tense 50 minutes. Two hitmen, Ben (Noah Radcliffe-Adams) and Gus (Henry Calcutt) lounge on beds in a basement in Birmingham, waiting for their victim to arrive. Each has a revolver under his pillow. They are restless.

Ben tries to ignore Gus’s steady stream of jabber, which ranges through everything from football to dishware. But the two men aren’t alone for long. They begin to receive strange messages through the basement dumbwaiter – scapes of paper demanding, oddly enough, Greek food. And steak and chips, and tea, and scampi, which, of course, Ben and Gus haven’t got. As the two men try to make sense of their situation, and claustrophobia sets in, it seems less and less likely that Ben and Gus will ever slay their victim. They might just murder each other first.

This is a black-box production, with audience members seated on three sides.

The set is sparse, with only a couple of beds, a chair, and the omnipresent dumbwaiter, looming at the back of the basement like a vulture. Meanwhile, as the show proceeds, Ben and Gus litter the set with all sorts of detritus. It’s fun to watch (in the way that chaos is always fun to watch): food wrappers and cigarette boxes, newspaper pages, and Eccles-cake crumbs are scattered like confetti. It’s an effective stage image. The set gets messy as Ben and Gus get antsy.

This is my first time witnessing the directorial duo of Foster and HopkinsMcQuillan, having missed out on Quartet last term. Their style in The Dumb Waiter is by turns understated and overwhelming. If

you’ve ever seen one cat grooming another, then inexplicably baring his teeth and trying to rip his buddy’s ear off, you have a good idea of how quickly the emotional stakes change in this play. Sometimes Ben and Gus glare at each other wordlessly for minutes. Moments later, they’re shouting, and nearby audience members seem in danger of catching a fist to the face. The rapid back-and-forth between these extremes is exhausting; yet it’s also magnetic, tracing Pinter’s script in all its weirdness.

And this is a difficult script to work with. Pinter is a master of dialect, drawing attention to the linguistic quirks of each character – Ben and Gus have a heated debate about whether one “lights the kettle” or “puts on the kettle” – but it’s never easy for an actor to adopt a language he’s unfamiliar with. It’s all the more impressive, then, that these actors never skip a beat. RadcliffeAdams as Ben is vaguely cockney, hunching over his newspaper and exclaiming “cor!” at intervals. He’s a master of body language; even as he quietly lurches around the stage, the tension in his shoulders speaks to Ben’s muted anxieties. Meanwhile, Calcutt as Gus is all fluttery hands and nervous laughs, a very unlikely hitman. Calcutt doesn’t make him a caricature; instead, we witness the very real moral qualms of a brutal killer who doesn’t see himself as, well, a brutal killer.

The Dumb Waiter is a wild ride. From a script that is basically Waiting for Godot meets The Odd Couple, this team has sculpted a tight production that will leave you thinking, even as you flee the small theatre with something like relief. You get to leave the cramped basement room, but Ben and Gus? They don’t have the option. It

makes you wonder if – were you held in a musty basement, fed impossible instructions, and forced to wait, and wait, and wait – you’d start acting dumb too. And dumb, as we learn, can be dangerous.

Image Credits: Jemima Chen

‘Heartbreaking and beautiful’: Brain Freeze Eva Bailey reviews Brain Freeze, a new play by Debora Krut at the BT Studio.

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ike I was filled with excited anticipation when I braved Storm Eunice to visit the BT Studio last week. I was aware that Debora Krut’s original play Brain Freeze was a semi-autobiographical piece about sex and cancer but, from this description, I didn’t quite know what to expect. However, from the play’s beginning, this immensely talented cast of Oxford students captured my imagination, and I was swept up by the story they had to tell.

Brain Freeze follows a young woman – simply referred to as ‘Patient’ to preserve her anonymity – who is diagnosed with cancer, exploring her subsequent struggle to sexually reconnect with a body that has failed her. The narrative is framed by an oncologist lecturing a group of medical students (the audience), using Patient’s case to teach them about the importance of empathy and the difficulties in delivering heart breaking news day after day.

The opening of the show was ingenious, with Oncologist’s introductory lecture seamlessly weaving in the content warnings and setting the scene for Patient’s story. Michael Freeman was perfect for this role. He was an incredibly believable lecturer – to the point where I was often tempted to raise my hand when he asked for student participation – but he also explored a tender vulnerability to

this medical professional, particularly in his conversation scenes with Patient. To switch so rapidly between narrating the story and acting within it can’t have been easy, but Freeman handled this complex character expertly.

Grace de Souza equally shone as Patient.

Her range was impressive; I often found myself alternating between tears and laughter within the space of a few lines of dialogue whenever she was on stage.

My favourite moment was Patient’s vulnerability before her routine scan, just after she has experienced a mental block when trying to have sex with her boyfriend again for the first time. Her fear was tangible, and de Souza’s portrayal of this intense anxiety was heart-breaking and beautiful in equal measures.

Peter Todd as Boyfriend and Emma Pollock as Best Friend also deserve the highest praise for their performances.

Todd’s portrayal of Boyfriend captured the guilt and panic of watching someone you love suffer, and his tender moments with Patient were achingly stunning. The macaroon metaphor used throughout the play served as a symbol of hope and new beginnings, and Boyfriend presenting this to Patient at the end of the play – after Todd’s anguished, silent pacing just moments before – gave me a lump in my throat. As well as this tenderness,

Boyfriend had a convincing (and amusing) relationship with Best Friend.

Pollock’s performance, as I keep praising in this cast, had incredible range, and her scene with the sex toys was one of the funniest moments of the play. A mention must also be given here to the lighting inside her bag, a very clever way of drawing attention to the intimidating ‘something’ that lay within. Pollock’s frank portrayal was perfect to capture Best Friend’s fierce loyalty, but it worked equally well in her tender moments with Patient, such as agreeing to stay up all night to comfort her friend.

One of the play’s highlights was the scene featuring the three ‘Nosy Bitches’, busybodies who couldn’t help but ask probing and invasive questions when they spotted Patient in a pub. Macy Stasiak, Luke Nixon and Alec Watson were laugh-out-loud funny without becoming caricatures: like the rest of this fantastic play, this scene was perfectly pitched, and didn’t feel exaggerated or slapstick.

Stasiak’s interaction with Best Friend was a stand-out moment, and Pollock’s range shone once more in this scene, deftly moving between drunk anger and concerned kindness within minutes.

The BT was the perfect venue for this production, and a mention must also be given to the technical aspects. The

simple set was ideal, with actors often manipulating set pieces to create different spaces.

The lighting was immaculate, particularly when Patient and Boyfriend were trying to have sex again, switching between warm, intimate tones to cool, stark ones to represent Patient pushing Boyfriend away. Additionally, the repeated MRI sound used throughout seemed to simulate Patient’s building panic, cutting across conversations to represent that Patient was unable to escape her anxiety.

My only minor criticism was that the pauses while Patient and Boyfriend were texting one another felt a touch too long, but that was immediately forgotten due to the perfect comedic timing of this stellar cast.

When I opened my notes app once Brain Freeze had finished, I simply typed ‘Debora Krut is a very clever lady’. That couldn’t be more true: alongside a stunning cast and an evidently dedicated production team, Krut has created a show that wouldn’t be out of place in a professional setting like the Edinburgh Fringe. I have no doubt that this won’t be the last we see from Last Minute Productions, and I cannot wait to see what this company does next.

FASHION

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Wearing your name on your sleeve: In defence of the college puffer Iustina Roman stands strong for stash! Never fear, Christ Church students, she has your back.

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his year I have noticed vehement discourse surrounding one of the university’s most iconic and yet controversial items of clothing.

No, I’m not talking about scholar’s gowns, although they’re up there on the list. I’m talking about college puffer jackets. I don’t know whether College Puffer Discourse is an age-old thing, because quite frankly I don’t even know when and how they first came about – shockingly enough, there is no Wikipedia page on college stash.

However, lately my Facebook feed has been inundated with Oxfesses criticising students who choose to sport college puffer jackets (amongst other things, namely those annoying ‘XYZ as colleges’ lists, please don’t even get me started on them).

The author of #oxfess11746, for example, claims that anybody who wears a college puffer is a so-called ‘NPC’ to them. For those unfamiliar with the term NPC, it comes from ‘non-player character’ in video games and describes a computercontrolled background character. In the context of the real world, it means that you are a spineless person who lacks critical thinking – basically, the opposite of the Main Character. Just thinking of being called an NPC makes me shudder. I could not think of a worse insult. Shortly after the publication of said Oxfess, some countered back: the author of #oxfess11796 edited the original post by claiming that if you don’t wear a college puffer, you’re an NPC. Clearly, opinions are very divided.

Another person sought to settle the debate via a somewhat inconclusive vote based on Facebook reactions, but personally I think this issue should be fought out in a good old Union debate.

Here’s where I throw in my own two cents. Actually, I mean a lot more than just two cents because as one of Cherwell’s fashion editors, I’m obviously the definitive authority on Oxford student fashion. Even if one of our other editors is very much opposed to college puffers.

Sorry Madi, your views don’t count right now - everyone has to agree with me. Am I only writing all of this because I want to feel better about myself for owning one?

Probably.

First and foremost, I would argue that puffer jackets in general are really some of the most versatile and practical forms of outerwear, but college puffers are even more so. Mine has practically saved my life on every night out. The very large side pockets are brilliant for holding your phone/keys/lip balm/wallet/ID/a snack/ basically everything you need. For some extra security, there is a handy inner pocket where you can keep some of the more valuable stuff. Weirdly enough there’s even a large zip across the back, which I haven’t been brave enough to use yet but I have been told that it’s quite useful for carrying alcohol, so do with that what you will. My college puffer is also probably the warmest item of clothing I own, so it’s even better for going out because I can trek across Oxford to Parkend without freezing

whilst carrying all the essentials, ditch it in the cloakroom for a mere £2, pick it up at the end of the night and go home. I can honestly say that my puffer has kept me alive through storm Eunice; I haven’t worn any of my other coats these past two weeks.

Now you might be thinking: is that all she has to say? College puffers are only good for going out? Well of course, there’s a lot more than that, which is where I come on to the most important and controversial aspect of these pieces – why would you walk around with a coat embroidered with your college and initials? It’s sooo tacky and cringe. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is obnoxious to walk around being labelled with your name and college crest. But it’s also exciting. Most people, myself included, purchase a puffer in Michaelmas of their first year. I personally remember seeing all the students walking around with theirs during interviews and thinking ‘this is so cool’. I might have been 17 at the time, but that same excitement got to me when I first saw the stash order form being posted on my JCR group a year later. Personalising my order, I began to daydream of all the Oxloves I would be receiving once random people in the city could pick me out: “IRR @StA - I was absolutely enamoured as I walked past you outside Pret on Cornmarket Street. Would love to get coffee with you sometime and then offer you all my devotion and firstborn child because you’re literally the coolest person I’ve ever seen.” The possibilities were endless. Needless to say, I am still yet to receive an Oxlove, which is a huge disappointment and kind of defeats most of the point of wearing a puffer. So, if you’re reading this, you know what to do.

Whilst I don’t condone profiling and judging people based on their college, I will add that being able to know which college someone goes to is kind of useful, in a non-stalker way. Now I can steer clear

of some Christchurch College students just by seeing that ridiculous coat of arms emblazoned on their chest (seriously, why is it so extravagant? And no offence to Christchurch students because some of you are decent people this is just jokes). I guess it’s just fun for my nosy self to know where people go. Having a personalised puffer unique to you does also make it very steal-proof, because walking around wearing one with a different person’s name and college is pretty bait. So even if you do happen to lose it in a random cloakroom or at a bop, chances are that you will be eventually reunited – co-editor Ciara can tell you all about her experience with losing a puffer.

Did I just write an entire article based off anonymous submissions on a Facebook page? I have spent so long on Oxfess that if I see Timothée Chalamet’s name one more time I might just scream. Seriously though, ultimately it just really isn’t that deep. Let people do what they want! I won’t accept being judged by someone who owns a North Face puffer jacket.

The only difference between you and me is that you paid about £200 more to look just as basic, so get off your high horse.

Is this issue then just another product of the individuality complexes afflicting far too many of our Oxford students today? I would say so. Realistically, I don’t think we’ll be seeing the downfall of college puffers any time soon, as it appears that each year freshers are equally excited to get their hands on one. Since we buy them, we might as well get good use out of them!

They are practical and versatile, whether you refuse to wear yours outside of Oxford or proudly take it with you wherever you go. Embrace your puffer jacket complete with the embroidered initials and college – but maybe not if you’re at Christchurch or have four letters on your chest.

It was acceptable in the 70s: Cherwell’s 70s ‘how to’ guide Our expert fashion editors have put forward their favorite aspects of 70s style to channel your inner Beatle, Bowie and Barbara Beach.

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eventies STYLE – HOW TO So you want to get the look shown on our gorgeous cast of in-and-outhouse models. Here are some top tips to getting that groovy seventies style:

Charity Shops

First of all, you have to know where to get what you need. As anyone who reads this page consistently may have guessed, we are all big advocates for charity shops.

The majority of what our lovely models are wearing is sourced from them – actual vintage is super expensive, but you can find a lot of good stuff – all manner of funky shirts and jackets in particular – in the local BHF. Word to the wise – the further out of central you go, the better the things you’ll find.

Colours

This is crucial to a 70s look, and you have two choices. You can whack on the

brightest assortment of clear, bright colours possible, and a good way to stop it being too overwhelming is to pick items with different textures, which you’d think would send it over the top but somehow is actually a very good way to keep an outfit cohesive. Or you go for the palette modelled here on Jon Starkey – fifty shades of brown. People tend to forget, but this was actually a very popular shade in the mid-70s, and it can be a good way to edge into the decade if flamboyancy isn’t quite your thing.

Fur

Now, this one is a little controversial – fur is, after all, the victim of PETAs only successful campaign. But nothing says 70s louder – and you can always go faux (can you tell whose is fake and whose is real in the photos ?). I also think that if you can get it (and a lot of places do sell it for super cheap - because of how unpopular it

became right after its 70s heyday) vintage fur is Not That Bad, because as it’s already been made, it’s pretty eco-friendly to give it a second life – and faux fur doesn’t biodegrade. You can chuck one over pretty much anything, and it’ll give you an instant 70s feel.

Now for a run through of the looks:Luke Moore is styled in a charity shop rose printed shirt, styled with a seventies style green snakeskin belt, pink graphic liner and a diamanté choker, alongside Ciara’s Monki leopard print coat. Ciara Beale wears an ABBA-esque vintage flared denim jumpsuit from Depop with an embroidered dog print waistcoat (which proves controversial amongst her most fashionable friends) and chunky snakeskin belt, with her mum’s vintage silver boots.

Rachie Ing rocks velvet paisley flares, an orange dip-dyed and embellished vest top from a charity shop (originally Karen

Millen), and Jon’s charity shop brown cord coat. She is styled with Ciara’s homemade yellow scrunchie, oversized hoops and neon graphic liner. Alfred Dry wears a navy satin shirt with silver wide leg trousers and is accessorized with his own silver rhinestone-encrusted necklace and face rhinestones. Madi Hopper’s trousers were her friend’s stepmum’s in the seventies (!) and her tops are charity shop purchases – Madi’s look is full of colour and proof that colour clashing is a myth. Jon Starkey’s look owes itself exclusively to Weymouth ‘s finest charity shops (apparently the best charity shops in the country – can anyone else confirm?), and his look is a masterclass in layering, with various knitted pieces, a whole lot of jewellery and a stunning brown leather bomber. Iustina Roman went for the preppy side of seventies style, with a head to toe purple look (literally).

FASHION

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FOOD

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Setting the bar high: On running the college bar Jill Cushen speaks to the bar managers of Regent’s Park and Balliol bars about the job, the drinks and the joy of running a student bar.

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estled behind the dreaming spires, cobbled streets and well-kept quads are some of the most beloved, and most frequented, spots in Oxford college bars.

Serving as a venue for members to socialise and drink at Spoons rivalling prices, almost all colleges have a cherished bar, but few remain student run. Solely in the name of a journalistic endeavour, I took it upon myself to visit two such bars, spend another evening surrounded by alcohol under the pretence of it being my Cherwell duty, and find out exactly what it means to run a student bar.

Regent’s Bar, or what was more recently named ‘Manny’s Shell’, is one of the cheapest bars in Oxford, sitting snug behind the College’s JCR. Bar Manager Amelia Sellors runs a tight ship, and tells me that it’s her job to keep the bar running ‘no matter what

it takes’.

‘We pride ourselves on having the cheapest drinks in Oxford. £1 a shot, mixer is free, £1.90 a pint. The prices are unbeatable - it’s because each year we aren’t trying to make a profit. It’s just a pub for the students to enjoy however they wish.’

The bar’s motto is ‘cheap and cheerful’ but there’s more to it than low prices and chipper bartenders. From ordering stock and dealing with suppliers, to the maintenance, cleaning and training of the staff of twelve, running the college bar is no mean feat. ‘It’s for the students by the students’, Amelia says, ‘And to make sure the bar stays fun, you have to be pretty rigorous about the behind the scenes stuff’.

I wonder what kind of bar manager she is.

Feared, she says, and given that one of her many nicknames in the bar is ‘Mussomimi’, I’m inclined to agree: ‘It would also be a bit egotistical to say I’m beloved. I’d say as long as the bar is beloved then I’m happy.’

Even on a quiet Monday evening, Regent’s Bar is cosy and lively. The small, woodpanelled room is decorated with old photos of the college, a collage of many flattering photos of its patrons and an array of other random objects. It’s proximity to the JCR means that if you’re not vibing with the staff’s eclectic mix of tunes in the bar, you can have a game of ping-pong, table football or darts. I’m also informed that the Wii is the greatest thing to come to Regents since Manny the tortoise.

Allowing the powers of Regent’s most popular drink, ‘The Dizzi’, to kick in, I head over to Balliol to see if the incumbent Lady Lindsay, Hannah O’Connor, is running the bar into the ground or just running it beneath the ground. ‘The Lindsay’ has long been a famously good watering hole, and after being

shut for over two years due to water damage and a refurbishment, it is back and better than ever.

A world away from the intimacy of Regent’s, Balliol’s bar is a spacious underground haunt.

Serving up a spectacular line up of drinks from the legendary ‘Balliol Blues’ to Lady Lindsay’s experimental peach margaritas, the bar has a sophisticated air but is equally welcoming and spirited.

While the cocktails are shaken, I ask around among the many unbiased customers what makes Balliol bar so special. ‘I just love it here’ a non-Balliol reveller tells me, ‘it’s the vibe, I don’t ever want to leave when I come in’. The best thing about Balliol bar? After the drinks, it’s Lady Lindsay herself, I’m told.

‘I’ve managed to make the bar profitable without losing any of its essence’, Hannah says. ‘There are no frills, it’s just a great space and should be a place that students want to go to. I do put a lot of

work in but it gives me such joy when I see it bustling with people all drinking and having a good time’.

I listen to the pair complain about the weight of their duties, dealing with irritable suppliers and the recklessness of certain bar users. So why do it? Why have a student run bar if it’s just another headache?

Spending the evening in the bars, I get the sense that both bar bosses manage to blend the fun and chaos of the job with the gravity of the responsibility.

‘You don’t rant about something you don’t care about’, Amelia tells me, ‘It really doesn’t make sense to have a college bar run by students, it’s not rational but there’s something irreplaceable about it. Because we’re student run, we’ve got something that no other bar has - a lot of love and pride for it and that’s what makes it so special.’

Recipe Chicken, ham, and leek pie Ingredients for the filling 400ml of chicken stock 3 chicken breasts, diced 150g ham, roughly diced into 2cm pieces (Danish Ham works particularly well in terms of texture and chunkiness) 75g of butter 2 trimmed leeks, cut into 1cm slices 2 garlic cloves, crushed 60g of plain flour 200ml semi-skimmed milk 150ml of double cream Salt and pepper, to taste Ingredients for the pastry 350g plain four, with extra for dusting 200g of butter 2 eggs - one should be whisked, and set aside for glazing the pastry later, and the other should be beaten together with a tablespoon of cold water Or, if you’re hungry and want dinner to get to the table quickly like me… enough Jus-Rol premade pastry to cover your pie dish.

For the filling: 1. Preheat the oven to 200°C, 170°C for fan ovens.

2. Add the diced chicken breast to your pan and cook gently,before adding the chicken stock and bringing to a low simmer. You want to cook this for about 10-15 minutes, before removing the contents and setting to one side - the cooking juices will come in handy for later!

3. In a large saucepan, melt 25g of the butter. Once it’s melted, add in the chopped leek before sweating them gently for two minutes.

4. Add the garlic and cook for a few more minutes. Next add the remaining butter, and once melted add the flour gradually in order to begin thickening the sauce to make a roux. This is where it gets handson; make sure to keep stirring from this point onwards to avoid any lumps in your sauce.

5. Now keep stirring whilst adding the milk into the pan a little at a time, mixing well to bind everything together. Simmer for three minutes, stirring occasionally. To taste, add some salt and black pepper to the sauce, which now should be thickening nicely. Once thickened, take it off the heat and stir in the double cream. Set this mix-

ture to the side, and make sure to cover it with clingfilm in order to prevent a skin from forming on the top.

6. If you’re making your pastry from scratch, add the flour and butter into a food processor and blend together. You’re aiming to get close to a breadcrumb texture, so blitz until the mixture looks quite fine. One you reach this stage, add the beaten egg and water into the blender and blitz again until it starts to come together and becomes ball-shaped.

7. When baking this recipe with my Nana in the past, we normally found that 250g of dough would be enough to cover the top of a 10 inch round pie dish. This depends on what you’ve got in the cupboard for baking this, so it might take a little time to play around and find out what works best for the dish you’ve got.

8. With the remaining pastry, roll it out onto a lightly floured surface, making sure to turn the pastry frequently until around 5mm thick and 4cm larger than the pie dish. Now time for the tricky part - you need to lift the pastry over the rolling pin, and try your best to lower it

gently into the pie dish. Once it’s gently tucked into the bowl, make sure to push firmly down on all sides to make the pastry base for the bottom of your pie.

Ideally, you want to make sure there are no air bubbles left over, but one or two little ones won’t hurt. Any leftover pastry that hangs over the side of the dish can be left if you’d like the pie to have more of a rustic look to it, but any major overhang can be trimmed off. From here, add your pre-cooked chicken into the dish, then the sauce on top. Coat the rim of the pastry with beaten egg.

9. The final touch is to cover the pie with the pastry lid and firmly press the edges together. Using fingers for this is fine, but if you’d like a more decorative effect then you can also use a fork. Before coating the pastry with the beaten egg mentioned earlier, it might be a nice little addition to your pie to add some decorative features from the leftover pastry; 10. Pop your finished pie into the oven for another 35-40 minutes.

Recipe by Charlotte Perry.

LIFE

23

On groping bouncers and ticked boxes: Hypocrisy in Oxford’s nightclubs Hannah Lund tells a story of misogyny and violence at one of Oxford’s biggest nightclubs.

W

CW: sexual assault omen want to be able to look and feel good when going on a night out and not be sexually assaulted. What if I told you the two actually are not mutually exclusive?

From a woman’s perspective, the efforts of clubs like Bridge to prevent sexual violence feel more like an effort to tick boxes, rather than actually supporting and helping their female customers. How are we meant to feel safe when those who are meant to protect us turn out to be the worst offenders?

After a long night bopping in Bridge, I headed for the exit thinking only about whether I should get cheese or garlic mayo on my chips from McCoys. I asked the bouncers at the exit to open the metal gates so I could be let out, but not before one managed to get a firm feel of my firm behind, while I struggled to push this lump of a man off me. The issue wasn’t helped by the (at least four) other bouncers watching him who did not stop smiling or laughing for a second to

get him off me. It is easier to be satirical, and I know it helps me to talk about it, but on a serious note I cannot see any way in which his action could be justified, and believe me I have thought it through a lot. He was in the position of power, and abused that power by feeling up a drunk, alone girl.

Fast forward a few weeks and I had finally regrown my lady balls enough to return to Bridge for another Bop. While bad bitch behaviour provides many super powers, drunk bladder control is sadly not one, so I recruited my male friend to come to the toilets with me. Now I could have gone to the bathroom alone, however being alone in a club I was recently assaulted in didn’t really appeal to me. Pee complete, we returned to Spirit together to regain our status of ‘not-boring third years’, only to be immediately kicked out of the club by a male bouncer. Were my friend and I a threat to the people in Bridge – as I could have

been sexually assaulted by him? As you may know, there is no gender-neutral bathroom in bridge, so my options to feel safe and to go to the bathroom were limited. I justified our joint toilet trip using ‘grope-gate’, only for the bouncer to reply, ‘well I’ve not heard about this so that doesn’t matter here’. Their resolution to the incident was to kick me out the club, with nobody else there or to walk home with none other than the man they said could have

hypothetically abused me in the bathroom. I was told that my sexual assault, which occurred in their venue, ‘didn’t matter’, and what makes me the angriest is that they acted like the biggest threat to me was myself and my friends, rather than their own staff.

I work hard both physically and mentally to have a body that I feel confident in. So not only

Horoscopes...

SCORPIO

23 Oct - 21 Nov I have also heard some funny stories concerning Prosecco for you too. Now I don’t know if the rumors are true, but they are bringing me so much joy. Sort out the Prosecco and all shall align in your life.

CAPRICORN

22 Dec - 19 Jan The vac is so close, please hold on darling. Think of sunny skies, cute butterflies, and Eunicefree breezes. Take this upcoming time off to relax and come back stronger than ever for Trinity. She’s going to be a doozey.

do I love feeling and looking drastically better than my mid-lecture, half-asleep state, but I also bloody love seeing my girlfriends out in the club looking confident too. Sequin covered tops. Short cut skirts. Low cut tops to get the ‘ladies’ out. High slit skirts which would make my Nanna say, ‘oh love do you need to borrow a needle and thread?’. EXQUISITE. Nights out should be about being able to dress up however you want to and feel confident and safe enough to go out with friends, get a bit too tiddled and have fun. Half of the student body is excluded from this privilege, simply because they have so many more aspects of a night out to consider and worry about compared to most males.

Clubs like Bridge advertise ‘protective’ strategies as a way to gain women›s trust, hence continuing to buy tickets and keep their revenue flowing. My truth is that they could not give two hoots about the welfare and security of their female guests. I do wonder if they have ever bothered to survey female students to see what would actually make them feel safe and supported in a club.

I can guarantee that even I will be back in Bridge sooner or later, albeit glaring at the bouncers a little bit harsher and holding in a wee so I don’t get kicked out or left alone feeling unsafe. So, if you see me bopping in my favourite low-cut top and trousers that fit *just right*, just know it is a very strong act of feminism.

CANCER

AQUARIUS

21 June - 22 July

20 Jan - 18 Feb

After Eunice, the planets are trying to realign themselves, so as you can imagine, things are a bit whack right now. Unlike the other signs, you just can’t help but worry about this so continue as you were. It will end soon.

You may feel as if someone has played a cruel trick on you this week. It’s just the stars darling. No tricks, just treats for you my dear.

And remember, f*** the world and don’t forget to eat.

LEO 23 July - 22 August

GEMINI 21 May- 20 June

TAURUS

I have heard that you will have some wild encounters with some Prosecco (don’t worry, all positive). This will become a funny story down the line, but as of now both me and the cosmos are utterly confused.

20 April - 20 May It is officially time for Hot Girl Hilary!

It has been a long-time coming for you, but you are finally ready to let your hair down and let the Saturday night Fever commence. And just like that, you have found your groove again!

LIBRA SAGITTARIUS

23 Sept - 22 Oct

22 Nov - 21 Dec As a wise woman (Katy Perry of course) has said, ‘Baby you are a firework’. Let the world see that. Sometimes you need to calm it with the dance mum enthusiasm, and other times you need to dial it way up: ‘Come on let your colours burst’.

I have heard you giggling alone in your room: some people would call that sad but I’m here to pick you up sweetie. Don’t listen to the haters, laugh by yourself in your room and make your flatmate concerned. That’s life.

VIRGO 23 August - 22 Sept

I honestly have heard from the cosmos that your flatmate has a bigger butt than you. Now, we can’t all be winners sweetie. Just take the L and move on. Instead, focus all your energy on showing your amazing personality.

Worrying doesn’t help sweetie.

Find power in routine and get out of that slump you have been in lately. I find that a good power walk down High Street always does the trick for me.

PISCES 19 Feb - 20 March Please light a vibey candle and dance in your underwear tonight (in your room and by yourself of course). This sacred little ‘casual magic’ ritual will brighten up your day, especially if you have ‘Bad Day’ by Alvin and the Chipmunks playing.

ARIES 21 March- 19 April You have been out of balance for the past few weeks and there is nothing you can say to yourself that will change that. It is okay.

Take a death breath, find your inner peace and take up the next essay crisis with a smile.

Artwork by Ben Beechener

LIFE

24

The Life Editors’ guide to living your best life over the vac Michaela Esau and Katerina Lygaki create a bucket-list for best post-term ever.

A

s Hilary term is coming to a ceiling or drinking my sorrows away, and close, the staff at Cherwell will so, I personally cannot wait for the time soon be experiencing some when I can finally read for fun again. rather big changes. And so, we Nothing beats the feeling of opening will have to give up the Life Editor’s baton up a new book and giving it a nice long to someone new, meaning that this is our sniff before getting comfortable in your last opportunity to revel in our power and favourite reading nook. I’m so excited! create this superWhether you’re dooper official staying in Oxford, “We all need some time doing a bit of traveling, guide to living it up to decompress and start or returning home, during the vac. We know that you are afresh in six weeks time intentionally exploring all ready for a break places is a great way because burn out is not a new from the hectiness to combat the vacation good look on anyone.” of Oxford, let’s not slump. The contrast kid ourselves, and between high-energy so who is better Oxford during term qualified than and my life at home can Cherwell’s Life Section Editors to dish out be a shock to the system, so I’ve decided some advice on how to enjoy your vac the to make an effort to visit new restaurants, proper way. Before diving into the article, parks, and coffee shops during my break.

I’d like to preface this by saying that there Okay so, with time comes great is indeed a proper way to enjoy your time, responsibility. What I mean by that is that and that yes, we are the oracles to this way when you are given the luxury of time, as of living. I will not hear any slander. We we are during the vac, you cannot waste are all ready to leave Hilary behind (girl, it binge-watching ‘Gilmore Girls’ for one we’ve had a good time but it is time to say more time, because as much as we all need goodbye), and with this air of optimism that, it is time for a change. Spending your and looking forwards, let’s get started. time exploring new hobbies sounds like a Forget catching up on work – a nice, seriously fun and funky way of spending recuperative rest is what vacation should the vac. I for one will be getting into be all about. This does not crochet, as I have recently graduated mean sleeping for from the super real school for fifteen hours a day expert knitters, and I am in glorious 9th in dire need for a new week, only to project. Be that have your quirky person circadian in the corner rhythm trying tapmore offdancing for beat than the first time. ever in Ever notice the weeks a dark cloud to come. lingering over Instead, I your head? am excited It isn’t Storm to use my Eunice, but a freedom from collection of all the essay crises to find silly little administrative a consistent bedtime and tasks that you told yourself wake-up time. My goal is to get a you’d take care of once you finally had the full eight or nine hours every night, plus time. I, the bearer of bad news, am here to indulge in a few high-quality afternoon tell you that the time has come. Just think naps. Consistent nighttime and morning about how nice it will feel to start Trinity off routines are the best ways to establish a with an empty to do list. Start off the break sleep schedule, so I’m already fantasizing by spending a little time each day working about the extensive skin care regimen I’ll on those applications and running dreaded be doing before bed that I never have time errands – your future self will thank you. for during term. I’m going home to the Oxford’s climate is not suited for United States for the vac, also known as humans, I am sorry to announce. I have not the land of massive drip coffee machines, seen the sun in what feels like years, and so I cannot wait for slow mornings in it is really starting to show. My bones are my parents’ kitchen, leisurely sipping brittle, my eye-bags could carry my weekly on cups of caffeine instead of chugging shop from Tesco, and my energy tank coffee to try to stay awake reading. always has to be running on at least one One thing that I am definitely excited nap per hour. Things need to change. With for is finding joy in reading again. Who the promise of time, we are also given the would’ve guessed that doing an English promise of spring during the vac. Go out degree at university would mean this there, smell the flowers, and get that much much reading? Not me apparently. But needed Vitamin D please. I know I will be… yes, in all seriousness, having to read There is no such thing as a good life primary and secondary texts for multiple without good food. My favorite way to essays a week does drain you a little bit. celebrate the end of term is with a dinner My spare time consists of staring at the party. My friends and I pick an appetizer,

main dish, sides, and dessert to cook, go grocery shopping together, and then put on a fun playlist while we prepare the food together. We like to make the table look fancy and plate up our feast so that it’s aesthetically pleasing before enjoying. Spending time together with people over good food that you prepared together will heal you of any ailments caused by the horrendous workload of term, I’m sure of it.

Everyone says that beauty is pain but I am sorry to announce that beauty is time.

I have been putting off getting a haircut for the past 2 months, and my cuticles have never looked worse. I think we all need to spend some more time taking care of our external selves because I’m sure that our souls will thank us for it.

Time to give your hair that wash you’ve been postponing for the past week and lather yourself in every toiletry you’ve ever owned. You are welcome in advance.

Relationships are one of the first things to suffer when life gets busy. The blessing of the vac is that you have the time to reinvest in those relationships. Spend time with family. Get coffee with that childhood friend you haven’t seen in a while. Even if you will be spending the break away from family and friends, you still can use the

time to give the people you care about a call or make plans for a little trip with a friend. Relationships take work, and the break is a great time to do that work.

So our final piece of advice comes with a dose of tough love. Along with all the fun and games that the doctors, aka us, have prescribed for you, it is time for some reflection. Before going into Trinity term, you will have to empty your mind of all the clutter that comes with Hilary, and what better way than to sit down with a cup of tea, looking out of the window as the rain pours in front of you. We all need some time to decompress and start afresh in six weeks time because burn-out is not a good look on anyone. Please take care of yourselves!

John Evelyn

An inside look at the Oxford Union Run. Hide. Lock the door. The hacks are upon us.

With the LMH enforcer and the AntiPolitician each loved up with their own newspaper, the Univ Queen and the Blue were left awkwardly glancing at each other across the dance floor. Alas, no romance flourished. John Evelyn is not sure if this was because of a fundamental incompatibility or just because the Blue is yet to strum up the courage to start a conversation.

Meanwhile, Daddy Oxlove has gathered 4 of his finest sugar babies and slid into the fray. Come to think of it, John Evelyn hasn’t seen many critical Oxfess posts about his campaign. Strange, that.

The swarms of tourists around Oxford have excitedly noticed that Harry Potter is running in the Union elections this term. However, in this version, Lord Voldemort is played by the Atik cheese floor. Shaken by this new wave of attention, Hermione scurried off to buy a new scarf because “the only other one I have is Gucci and I can’t really wear that in election week haha”. John Evelyn hopes these two magical candidates won’t be joined by their friend Ron on Friday.

Speaking of optics, there was a horrible mix-up last Saturday, as the Union thought they had secured some pro bono stonework on the front entrance, but were surprised to see a gaggle of white-tietoting elderly gents flood the bar. Turns out there is a difference between a free mason and a Freemason. Apparently one difference is that free masons don’t enjoy tucking into the free snacks left out for the 93% Club in the Goodman.

Friday’s election is not the only one on people’s minds, as the Union’s approaching bicentenary had Lieutenant “Initiative” and Mr Put-Me-On-Bicentenary-Committee jockeying for an early advantage in the race to still be here for the celebrations. But that’s another story for another Jevelyn.

After hours of gruelling scrutiny, interrupted only by the odd rat or Freemason, our candidates are ready. By Union standards, this campaign has run without too much drama. But Nullius in verba my friends; predictions of electoral civility can age almost as fast as a Union career.

To your marks my little hacklings, the polls await.

No more to come. John Evelyn x

LIFE

25

Cherpse!

Beth and Sarita Beth First Year First impressions?

Love the outfit and they seemed really nice – thought I vaguely recognised them and it turns out we had been for drinks before in Michaelmas term with a few people!

Did it meet your expectations?

It was so much more relaxed than I expected and definitely was a lot better than I had imagined!

“We had ended up at the same party the night before.”

What was the highlight?

It was all really nice, I’m just so glad that they were easy to talk to!

What was the most embarrassing moment?

Realising we had been to drinks together before but not recognising them to begin with.

Describe the date in 3 words: Sweet, lovely evening, cute Is there a second date on the cards?

It would be nice :)

Sarita Second Year First impressions?

Really cool hair! Quiet at first in a nice way and I think as it went on the conversation got more fluid which was nice:) Did it meet your expectations?

It did meet my expectations! Had a drink with a lovely person and I enjoyed it a lot. At one point realised we had somehow ended up at the exact same house party the night before.

What was the highlight?

Eventually realising about halfway through the date that we’d also literally been to the pub together by pure coincidence last term when a friendly group of people pretty much found me on the street and took me to JFs.

Looking for love?

Email cherwelleditor@gmail.

What was the most embarrassing moment?

Most definitely when I suggested going to Turf Tavern and somehow got us lost even though I have definitely been there many times before.

Describe the date in 3 words: Lovely, calm, funny

com or message one of our Life

Is there a second date on the cards?

She’s really cool and I’d definitely be down for a second date as friends:))

Words of Wisdom from...

RUSTY KATE

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

Where did you sleep last night? Was she worth it? Has your baby shot you down? Do you believe in life after love? Can Rusty find more Cher lyrics to turn into rhetorical questions? You bet your prized LoveHoney possessions she can!

Rusty Kate is Oxford’s premier cum-filled crossdresser, known for turning looks, tricks, and straight men seven nights a week.

She’s decided to take a short break out of her busy schedule mummifying the Queen’s corgis ready for her pharaonic burial to help sort out your shit-storms, one slur-ridden poorly written column at a time.

Remember to submit your questions through the link on the Cherwell Facebook page or linktr.ee/rustykatedrag – you’re guaranteed complete anonymity. As long as you come to her shows. Please, she has [illegitimate] children. They need to be fed.

The standard Oxford diet supplies of Huel and cocaine are running worryingly low.

I have been seeing this girl and enjoy spending time with her but don’t know if there is any spark. Do I break it off? Are sparkles and chemistry even real or am I living in a fairytale world?

What do you mean by “seeing”? What do you mean by “spark”? Get a grip, darling. If you want to see chemistry, let her peg you – I’m sure she’d enjoy taking charge for once. If not, at least you’ll have enough pain and anger in you to give her a proper railing once she’s done. Trust me, us bottoms occasionally top for a reason – it leaves our tops in a state of Neanderthalic rage which can only be compared to a police battering ram taking down a Quality Save child gate. THAT will show you what chemistry looks like.

Hey there Rusty, I need some clarity as I’m love with a friend and don’t know what to do. There have been a couple of ‘moments’ recently and it’s making me more confused.

What do I do? Tell them? Suck it up and get over it?

Take a bit of advice from an age-old classic – Love Actually. Make a borderline obsessive film about them at their wedding, post it to them, and let them open it with their spouse. Turn up at their house with signs and fake carol singers. I’m sure it’ll go well – after all, that film has aged like a raw steak in a darkroom. Full of flavour.

Sexual dry spell over here and my fingers can’t handle any more swiping. Advice please and thanks.

Right, there’s an enormous lack of context, so I’m going to treat it like a Choose Your Own Adventure game. And no, I’ve not included bisexuals or non-binary people. If you lot are using this column for genuine advice, then I’m sincerely concerned for you.

Straight women: The world wants you. Get on tinder, go for a drink with a local rower, and get that pussy ate.

Gay men: Grindr exists for a reason. That, or go cruising with your tutor in that layby off the M40.

Gay women: Sorry ladies, my all-female version of Grindr (Growler, patent pending) hasn’t caught on yet, so you may have to give it some time.

Straight men: Have a wank, you useless oaf.

FEATURES

26

Voices from Ukraine

Oliver Hall speaks to those affected by the conflict in Ukraine, both there and in Oxford.

S

CW: Violence, trauma, death. eeing everything going on in Ukraine at the moment, I was struck by the fact that one thing stayed constant, the suffering of normal people, both in Ukraine and people connected to them abroad. So I wanted to speak to them, I wanted to hear their stories, and here they are…

Eleonora Suhoviy – Founder of the Oxford Ukrainian Society Q: How do you feel about the response from people in the West, this country, and Oxford in particular?

“The word that I hear a lot at the moment is surreal. Nobody seems to have expected this war to actually start. People were either in denial or they were deluding themselves, thinking that this is not what will occur… So even in Oxford, but also in Ukraine, I hear the word surreal and unbelievable a lot.”

Q: And how about the response of governments?

“So the sanctions are happening after the fact, not before the fact. The individual sanctions, also the group sanctions, they are coming quite late… when Ukraine is already [on fire], when there are some buildings on fire, when there are civilian casualties… So really, I think their response is now more of a catching up with the events as opposed to preventing them or trying to do as much as possible to arm Ukraine to its teeth before the invasion had begun.”

Q: Why do you think that is?

“I think partly it’s a desire not to believe that such a depth of wickedness and evil is coming out of a European country and from the Kremlin. So, Putin and his regime was seen as yes, quite ruthless, but it hasn’t been seen as irrational… So I don’t think the West expected him to inflict such phenomenal wounds on his own people because they said he is doing this to protect Russia. Well, now he’s not protecting Russia. He’s not only damaging Ukrainians, but

he is going to have his own population impoverished and isolated on the world stage.”

Q: How important are the shows of support and solidarity from people here?

“I talked to my childhood friends who are in Ukraine. They welcome every shred of news that shows support. They look at videos. They look at protests, they look at sentiments that say ‘we are with you’, they share videos of protesters condemning the Russian ambassador in Ireland, for instance, they are looking at protestors in London… They really do appreciate it. The news stations in Ukraine also pick up on these themes and they show them on news channels. [The protests] show Ukrainian people that they’re not alone and psychologically when you know you’re not alone… it is very, very important… And I think that does a lot for the morale, not just of the Ukrainian army, but also ordinary citizens who are staying, who are fighting and who are resisting… It just brings it home to them that whilst they’re sheltering in an underground station they can look at social media and say, look, the world is watching, these people are with us. And that’s what they do. They sit in those underground stations, they sit in those cellars and they look at their phones. The elderly are being shown these pictures by the teenagers.”

Q: How are your friends and family in Ukraine?

“They are in Lviv, which is in western Ukraine. They are keeping calm. So today my father was walking around the city, obviously inspecting it to see what is happening… So he was there and he chanced upon them, the local authorities giving out weapons to people, to civilians. So now you can pick up your weapon in order to defend yourself. So yes, they hand weapons to people who say that they will join the territorial defence force. … Also my school friends, from early childhood, they’re armed as well and their teenage children have been attending shooting lessons. So they also know

how to handle weapons, Ukrainians. You see, they are very patriotic, and they will see that it is a question of their honour, a question of their motherland, a question of their unity. …

In eastern Ukraine, I have friends who have relatives there. [They have a Grandma who says] ‘Well, I’m not moving anyway. … Enemies come and enemies go, life goes on’.”

Q: And what about Ukrainian people in general?

“One of the biggest tragedies of this war is that Russian and Ukrainian people are very close. They have relatives, they have friends between two countries. … People are close and that’s why this kind of division is horrific. It’s like brother against brother. It’s like mother against son.”

Q: What has the Ukrainian Society in Oxford been able to do?

“So what we’re doing is we’re putting together organisations and charities that accept funds… I’ve had many friends coming to me saying, ‘Please, where do we donate? Who do we donate to?’. So we are going to share that list on our Facebook group.

“We’ve had the Oxford University societies come to us and say, ‘Look, we want to show solidarity’. … We are preparing a document to show them how they can show their support during the events.

“We have templates for MPs, how you can write to your MP, what you should ask for.

“Anybody who wants to support Ukraine, we are also organising protests on Sunday at one o’clock outside the Radcliffe Camera, everyone’s invited.”

Q: If you could tell non-Ukrainians to do one thing they can do to help, what would it be?

“Make your voice heard in any way. So either attend a demonstration with us or do a Facebook post or write to your MP - do something.

Don’t stay silent… Don’t do nothing, that’s the most important thing, do something.”

Roman Tokaryk – Ukrainian student in Oxford Q: How are you doing?

“I think I will share the feeling of many Ukrainians who are in Oxford and in the UK right now [in that] we feel quite helpless, useless. We just maintain contact with the families

there, but we cannot provide any direct help.

“We’re just trying to get them money, raise awareness, do whatever we can just because we feel really helpless.”

Q: How are your family?

“They are okay. They live in an incredibly western part of Ukraine, close to Romania, like a 20- minute drive, so they are safe for now.

“But my friends who are from Kyiv and other big cities, like more central or eastern, they hear bombings, sounds of guns, of military operations, of war, at every every hour.”

Q: What have you been doing to try and help?

“It was a very impulsive and initial reaction to organise a rally. It was two days ago in Oxford and we just called around Ukrainians and asked, ‘“Do we have to?’”. Everyone’s like, ‘“Yes, we have to’”. And we organised and like a lot of people actually attended the rally. There were people from Lithuania, Georgia, Poland, Denmark, and many other countries … we were lucky to get there a lot of people to show us such devotion but it was just a start and we want to push it further.”

Q: How are you dealing with it, it must be so hard?

“Yeah, it’s incredibly hard… The only way we can deal with it is just to do something. And that’s how we express our solidarity with our relatives, our families who are not okay and not safe at the moment… Otherwise, we’ll be just sitting and crying in our homes.”

Q: How hard has it been to contact people in Kyiv?

“As for now, it’s quite okay, it’s quite straightforward. Nothing has changed, but the worrying [thing] is that a lot of people are buying power banks and other battery stations.

If the situation goes bad, and it’s highly likely that it will become worse, there will be electricity cut-offs for some time and people will just have nothing to charge their phones with. So, now we are communicating regularly, but if the situation gets worse, we’ll just set up one two-minute call every six hours, just not to use up all [of the] batteries. That way people can communicate between themselves in Ukraine, which is much more important rather than just for getting information from abroad.”

Q: Do people there see the showing of support from abroad?

“The first level is the support of ordinary people, ordinary citizens of the EU, UK, and other countries. And this is incredible, to be honest, it’s incredible. I can’t tell you how many friends wrote to me, not just with words of solidarity or support, but with concrete, specific actions. Like, “We have a house in Spain, we have a house in Switzerland, in Italy. If you know someone who needs that, let us know, we are able to put up one, two, three families, it doesn’t matter.” I was really shocked that people do such stuff, they are ready to accept random Ukrainian people just because they understand how bad it is.

“On the level of politicians, Ukraine feels that it’s alone. I’ll be brave enough to speak on behalf of many Ukrainians if not all. I will say that there was no robust response to the war that [is happening] in 2022 in Europe. Some sanctions, but not all of them even targeted…

The political response was quite weak. We still really need equipment, we still need military support. We still need financial support, more sanctions in every possible way … because right now we really feel we are alone.

“There is such a great unity among the Ukrainian people, which I have never seen in 23 years of my life. Usually, people, you know, are just debating between themselves, they disagree on political topics or, I don’t know, everyday routine things, but at this point, nobody cares [about that].

“If people can hold a gun and help the Ukrainian army, they go and do that… I know a lot of IT guys who are providing IT support to the government to defend the servers… they [ordinary Ukrainians] can donate blood and they go to the local hospitals and I even heard of disabled people in wheelchairs who cannot even walk or help physically, but they sew military [uniforms]… The Ukrainian nation has

FEATURES never been more united.”

Q: What is one thing people can do to help?

“If you can donate any acceptable amount for you, even one pound, two pounds will make a difference because Ukraine compared with

27 “Finally, we are calling on all people to remember one thing, and frankly for me, this is the most important. This is a war between politicians, between states, between armies, and [led by] frankly a very narcissistic, barbaric,

“[They have a Grandma who says] ‘I might have to make sure the pharmacy is open… enemies come and enemies go, life goes on’.”

Russia is so under-resourced as a country…

Even if you’re not happy to donate to military things, feel free to donate to hospitals… So it’s the one thing British people can do, they’ve already done a lot… Being here, I feel their support of my colleagues at work, as a student, a member of the community. But if you want one thing to do, please maybe just refuse for one coffee in the morning and send [those] three pounds… and they will be so, so, so much, so much appreciated.”

Then came an extraordinary moment of kindness that summed up everything Roman had been talking to me about. A man got up from the table next to us and as he left, he put £30 down on the table. “People here don’t realise how much they have”, he said, and that was that. It was a small but powerful act of kindness that will stay with me for a long time.

Julius Lajtha – President of the Young European Movement Julius Lajtha is the leader of the Young European Movement, an organisation with groups across the continent that seek to foster European unity. By the nature of his role, he has friends across Ukraine and Russia.

Q: Given your role, are you pleased with the response, with the showing of solidarity across Europe?

“Yes and no. I’m pleased because I can see that civil society, especially because of the Internet, [has produced] a mobilisation of citizens that are very concerned, that are very much in solidarity with Ukraine… At the same time, I’m concerned. I know that at our branch in Manchester… a large majority of the support comes from Eastern European expats that are active around civil rights… They are small manifestations at this stage and that is concerning, that civil society is maybe not very holistically represented.

“At the same time, moving on to the more political stage, I am again in a twist. I can see that there is an enormous amount of willingness to react to this. But at the same time, I can see that there are gaps.”

Q: What is your organisation doing?

“So as an organisation we are committed to ensuring a very strong link between young people in the UK and young people across the continental part of Europe. … We have a section in Russia, we also have a section in Belarus, we also have a section in Ukraine. What this organisation tries to foster are European and global citizenship and identity. It’s about the promotion of peace, the values of human rights, the support and the creation of a political nar-

and authoritarian leader… I wish, and I insist on believing that the majority, the vast majority of people in Russia don’t actually care about this war… Ukraine is just something that Putin and his circles wish to gain back for their sphere of influence, scared of Ukraine choosing the European way. In the end, I believe that Putin and his circles would simply love to re-establish the Soviet Union.

“This is something that I’m really concerned about, that this is not where Putin will stop. I think that what needs to be made very clear is that we need to remember that it is not the Russian people fighting us. This is the Russian President attacking us collectively as Europeans and Ukrainians.”

Anastassia Devos – in Kyiv This was the interview that humbled me the most. Julius put me in contact with one of his friends on the ground in Kyiv, Anastassia, and she rang me within a matter of minutes, desperate to talk, desperate to tell everyone possible about the tragedy in her city. She is an ambassador for the Young European Movement and works for the Council of Europe. Her defiance in the face of such danger was extraordinary, her stories powerful beyond belief.

Q: What are things like there on the ground?

“In the beginning, no one could believe what had happened. … Of course, we [hear] about all this data from the Pentagon: ‘They will attack Kyiv, they have a huge amount of Russian militaries at the border’… But people in Kyiv, we couldn’t believe that it would really happen.”

Q: When did you realise what was happening?

“Yesterday morning, I woke up from explosions… First it started at the military depot…

But also they killed many civilians. What they do, it’s inhuman. They fire rockets into residential areas, there are houses destroyed [and there are] women and children who are victims of this cruelty.”

Q: How are things now?

“At this moment in time things are calm, but yesterday there were massive attacks on the military airport close to Kyiv… I have a colleague who lives there and she saw fire from her windows and both those houses nearby were destroyed.”

Q: What’s your plan now, are you staying put or thinking of leaving?

“I don’t think I will leave Kyiv for the moment because it is also quite dangerous. Like this morning, they put a bomb under the bridge that connects Kyiv and other cities and there were five cars that were exploded and one child [left] dead by this cruelty… And also maybe for

“People are close and that’s why this kind of division is horrific. It’s like brother against brother.” rative. But going forward, focusing on building a federal Europe that doesn’t allow, by the very nature of its construction, … for people to enter into conflict against each other.

“We managed to publish a statement and do something that is very rare in the UK because it encompasses pro-European organisations, pro-democracy, pro-civil society organisations, as well as, critically, the youth party wings of the Liberals, the young Greens, in Wales and England, which is a huge step forward in the sense that we achieve unity on a topic.

my personal and moral reasons. I don’t want to leave my parents and my grandma here.”

Q: How easy is it for you to know what is going on around the city?

“So we are reading news all the time and then I have relatives, friends, colleagues in all different parts of the city and they share pictures with me. So for example, my relatives who live in a different district, yesterday they sent me a picture of tanks and then pictures of people who attack our army.

“Russia, they don’t attack directly. They

have spies… they put on Ukrainian uniforms and they say they are Ukrainian. So, this morning this situation happened at an entry point to Kyiv. They stole a police car and they approached the entry point which was guarded by our soldiers and immediately they killed them.

And [from behind] they also approached with a lorry. Our soldiers could fight them back, but we have very big problems.”

Q: Do you feel safe to leave your house?

“A lot of Kyiv citizens slept in shelters tonight. They say that three children were born last night in shelters. So, for example, in my house, there is a basement we will use. We will be prepared and go there. But on the other hand [we have] to take into account the COVID situation… it is not safe either because these shelters and basements are quite small.”

Q: Are you seeing the response from people in the West?

“Yes, sure, I saw it and we really appreciated it, but we really need more [concrete sanctions].

Spirit is very important but a lot of people are dying here today.

“I’m very sorry for the Russian people, because I understand their president is insane…

My mum has a friend who lives in Russia and this morning she said, ‘“Our military is trying to save you from neo-Nazis who captured power in Kyiv’.”

Q: If you had one message for ordinary people here, what is it?

here there is no real fighting. Many Russians believe that Putin has sent forces to save us. I have a friend from there who wrote such awful words to us.”

Q: What are your plans going forward?

“My plans for the near future are to support the Ukrainian army, pray for peace in Ukraine and the health of my relatives, and to return to my beloved students at university to give them knowledge.

“Some people are asking whether we want to go to Poland or Austria or Germany as refugees.

For people in my city, it’s almost impossible.

Roads, railways are blocked. But I do hope so much that the war stops and I don’t have to go anywhere.”

Q: What would you say to the people showing support in England?

“I am very thankful to people who support us in England, in Europe, in the whole world. It’s so valuable, it makes us stronger. We feel that we are not alone. We are people of this planet, we mustn’t destroy it. We should support each other!”

Q: If you could say one thing to Vladimir Putin, what would it be?

“Stop the war and go away so that people of this world never see you again.”

It’s hard to know what to think after hearing so many different people talk about their experiences. The crisis seems so close and yet, like Roman, I can’t help but feel pretty helpless.

“These days were the most terrifying in my life.

Every day it was bombing around the city.

The worst thing was the rockets… Russia says that they didn’t touch civilians. But it’s not true, they bombed our buildings, buses, cars as well.”

“So, yesterday we started the petition and we launched the social media campaign, which says ban Russia from SWIFT and help us to shelter our sky. Because they attacked us from [the] air, we need support to shelter our sky.”

Anastasiia Mazurova - in Kharkiv I was put in contact with Anastasiia by Julius on the night of the day that photos emerged of tanks rolling through the streets of her city, Kharkiv. She wasn’t able to speak to me but wrote back through WhatsApp. Q: Tell me about yourself: “I live in Kharkiv, in the south of the city, near the airport. I am a lecturer at Kharkiv National Aerospace University. Kharkiv borders Russia, so we were the first who heard the bombing on 24th February at 5am.”

Q: What was it like when the violence started?

“These days were the most terrifying in my life. Every day it was bombing around the city.

The worst thing was the rockets… Russia says that they didn’t touch civilians. But it’s not true, they bombed our buildings, buses, cars as well.”

Q: What about after the battle today, how are things now?

“Today [27th February] in my city, in the afternoon Ukrainian soldiers managed to fight back Russian occupants. Nevertheless, we are afraid that Russian soldiers will reach the airport near my district. Also today Russia blackmailed about nuclear weapons, Putin mentioned that it’s his answer to sanctions from NATO. “We still can buy food and medicine. Fortunately, in my city, we have electricity, heating, and water. Shelters were organised for us, the biggest is in the metro, people spent nights there… Our volunteers are working very hard and actively. They help the Ukrainian army, forces of territorial defence, hospitals, orphans’ houses, old people.

“We all care, we send money to support our army, we speak on social media so that people abroad know what is happening. One outrageous fact is that some Russian people say that

More than anything I’ve come away with a renewed belief in the good of ordinary people, and a new understanding of the importance of showing solidarity in any way possible.

Note: The text of the interviewees’ responses has been lightly edited for clarity.

Artwork by Ben Beechener.

Image Credit: Kyivcity.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0

FEATURES

28

A letter from Lviv, Ukraine Rostyslav Averchuk is an ex-Oxford student, finishing his PPE degree in 2014. He wrote to Cherwell to ask us to share this letter, written from the streets of Lviv on February 26th.

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CW: Mentions of violence, trauma, death. s I am writing this, millions of people in Kyiv are bracing themselves for an imminent heavy air raid and rocket strikes by the Russian army. Underground stations and basements of high-rise buildings are filled with people. Some women are clutching their new-born babies.

This is the fourth night of the unprovoked, illogical invasion ordered by President Putin.

Angered by the failure to capture even a single major Ukrainian city and by the heavy losses that his troops have suffered at the hands of Ukrainians, he is about to unleash all his hatred towards Ukraine and the ‘West’ on Ukraine’s capital.

So far, each moment of gloom and despair has always been followed by reports of unmatched courage and generosity by Ukrainians civilians and soldiers alike. Each and every night was

supposed to be the decisive one, with Russian forces trying to encircle the city, topple our democratically elected government, and crush the opposition. Yet every morning has brought the news, ‘Kyiv is standing’. And so are Kharkiv, Kherson, Chernihiv.

I still have the relative luxury of staying in my home, with my family, in the western city of Lviv, about 300 miles away from Kyiv. Lviv has so far been spared from shelling and gunfights, yet air raid sirens blare a few times a day.

We knew the threat from Putin was serious, especially after his rambling speech finally revealed he was not a shrewd pragmatist but a dangerous, murderous lunatic. His troops fought in Ukraine, overtly and sometimes not so overtly, for eight years in Donbas. His propaganda has been dehumanizing Ukrainians. Yet a full-scale invasion, which began at 5am, still was a shock to many.

Soon, while the sense of disbelief was still there, it gave way to anger and resolute action.

On the first day of the invasion, there were long, yet orderly, lines at ATMs, shops and pharmacies. Then, other lines, even longer ones, appeared at military conscription centres and blood donation facilities. Thousands have turned up to form territorial defense units.

As usually happens in the times of danger, Ukrainians have managed to self-organise with lightning speed.

State logistics is under strain, so tens of Telegram channels sprung up with volunteers sharing their requests.

Some call for food, warm clothes, and mattresses for those, mainly children and women, who are escaping from the fighting in the east either to stay in Lviv or try to find shelter in neighboring countries. The very people that Russia claims to want to protect are fleeing from its army, as it is bringing only death and destruction under the guise of the ‘liberation’ promised by Putin.

Others call for help in supplying newly conscripted soldiers with necessary equipment.

Still others offer their cars to help volunteers get to the front line. “Pravda” brewery is now producing Molotov cocktails.

Most requests are swiftly followed by updates informing that help is no longer needed. In just one hour, private enterprises in Lviv reportedly managed to provide the army with 120 trucks to transport the newly arrived weapons.

While volunteers keep working, another frenetic day is drawing to a close. It is past midnight, with curfew in place from 10pm to 6am.

Police are patrolling empty cobblestone streets of a once multiethnic city. It witnessed generations of Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, Germans, and Armenians coexist (albeit not always in total harmony) under the rule of successive kingdoms, empires, and republics. Now the patrols are on the lookout for Russian saboteurs.

I am re-reading messages of support from friends all around the world. One of them writes that when he was in a similar situation, one of the things that kept him going was knowing that the rest of the world truly cares.

I agree with him.

I am overwhelmed with pride in my brave compatriots. I know that when I wake up tomorrow, if I am able to sleep at all, I will find out yet again that ‘Kyiv is standing’.

I also hope to read that more help is coming.

Every day that Ukraine keeps fighting against its huge neighbor shows that Ukraine deserves to be supported in every possible way.

Ukrainians share the same values with all those who want to live in a peaceful, free, democratic world as opposed to under violent, oppressive dictatorships. And they are being punished for this desire by a self-confident cynical murderer who believes that he foresaw every possible reaction by other countries that he views as meek and narrowly self-interested.

Democracies and autocracies all around the globe are watching closely at what happens next while Ukrainians are spilling their blood.

Even unarmed Ukrainians are stopping Russian tanks and vehicles with bare hands because they know they are right.

We know that we will not be left alone.

Help is coming. Isn’t it?

Image Credit: Yan Boechat, VOA

Impacts of the Russo-Ukrainian crisis in Romania Jack Twyman interviews Florin Misiuc, a member of the Romanian diaspora, on the effects of the conflict in Ukraine as felt in Romania.

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CW: War, displacement. he effect of the conflict in Ukraine on its surrounding countries has been unprecedented. A refugee crisis has unfolded on an enormous scale. In this article I will focus on Romania, a country with historic ties to Ukraine, and one whose response to the unfolding crisis has outdone expectations with an astonishing display of generosity. It has proven to be a lifeline in ensuring those on the frontline of the crisis have the funds to continue their work.

For this article, I interviewed Florin Misiuc, a Romanian engineer, who now lives and works in Hertfordshire. His hometown of GuraHumorului is located in a northern Romanian county called Suceava, which borders Ukraine.

The neighbouring town, Siret, is a crossing point with Ukraine, and many stories have been shared with him of the events there.

I begin by asking him what the initial reactions were to the outbreak of the invasion and ensuing refugee crisis. He says that people were “surprised” but not shocked; that “none of us have been through this situation and we just don’t know how to behave. You’re trying to stay sane and rational, but you can’t stop asking yourself questions of where this is going to end or how it is going to unfold”. He adds that “I think people were expecting the refugees, but it was a surprise to see how sympathetic locals were there,” particularly given that “we don’t see many foreigners here. There might be some Ukrainian traders but not big waves of immigrants”.

Romanians came together to meet the crisis

head-on. Florin has never seen such a massive mobilisation to a migrant cause in Romania, and indeed there has never been a comparable event. “It was just amazing to see people from all sorts of backgrounds and various trades come together,” he says. “Churches of all factions put differences aside to help organise the response and to buy and supply toiletries and nappies”. Since the Ukrainian government declared martial law, the refugees coming from Ukraine are now mainly women and children; men aged 18-60 have been prevented from leaving the country and instead conscripted to join the resistance movement.

Florin tells me that Romanians collected Ukrainians from the border and provided accommodation and food “no questions asked”.

Even at the onset of the crisis, “they did not ask for money even though a lot of Ukrainians wanted to pay and had money”. Since limits on cash withdrawals have been imposed on Ukrainians, Romanian generosity has been vital in avoiding a humanitarian crisis. The daily withdrawal limit “is nearly nothing in Romanian currency” and so worth even less in Europe, meaning that “people are stuck there and can’t move on”.

He tells me about a woman with five children, aged two months to 14 years old, who fled Ukraine to Romania. The rest of her family headed to Warsaw in Poland. The limit on cash withdrawals was not enough for her to pay for transport or food or communication. “It’s just heart-breaking thinking that they [her family] don’t know about each other”, Florin says; “all they know is that some of them took the path to Warsaw and some took the path south to Romania”. She is now trying to find other people wanting to go to Warsaw so that they can hire a coach or bus together. Without Romanian generosity, her situation would be substantially more desperate.

Local businesses have given their services and “helped however they could”. Many transport companies offered to take Ukrainians to airports. Florin has heard of people driving

from Bucharest, 300 miles to the north, to collect Ukrainians and drop them off at airports in Bucharest. “These extraordinary levels of solidarity are not what you see day by day”, Florin comments. So far, it is mainly people who are in a better financial position – “the ones with cars who could travel quickly” – who have made it to Romania. Most of this first wave are hoping to travel westwards and seek refuge in other countries where they have relatives or friends.

There are likely to be further waves of refugees, depending on how the situation unfolds.

Romanian communities abroad have played a key role in funding the relief effort. I ask Florin to tell me a bit more about how he personally has been involved. He tells me about a friend whose extended family owns tourist chalets in their hometown, Gura-Humorului. Since the crisis began, they have swapped tourists for 60 Ukrainian refugees. The family’s resources are limited, and so they sought help from those abroad. Florin’s friend works in London and “explained the situation to his mainly British colleagues in the office, who all felt sympathetic and put in whatever they could”. Florin, too, provided money and asked his colleagues and friends for help. Florin’s generosity is humbling: “You might think it’s cheap to buy food, but it’s not, and it’s not only food; there are young children there, so you need nappies, toiletries and more.” He tells me that “we’ve managed to raise about a thousand pounds in 48 hours, which will feed those women and children for a few days”.

I ask if the power of social media has been important. “Absolutely” is his response. This is the first major European conflict which has been fought in the social media age. The management of the crisis has been made more effective as a result. Romanian communities across Europe can coordinate the donation and transport logistics of essential goods through online platforms like Facebook groups, where requests from those in need can also be made.

Florin reports that after one request, “a lot of people brought water and sandwiches to help

the refugees – at one point there was just too much food there.”.

Social media has also brought the conflict much closer to all Romanians – regardless of geographical location – and made it feel more real. “Individual stories aren’t that touching, but when you open social media, you are instantly flooded with countless stories - it hits different,” Florin says. Florin is also a part-time DJ, and is in contact with numerous Ukrainian musicians who are constantly giving updates on their situation: “They treat each message as if it’s their last one.” There is a lot of hate towards Putin. They just don’t understand why this is happening.

I ask Florin if he thinks the Romanian generosity being expressed stems from a sense of shared history, or mainly from pure sympathy.

He agrees that there is an element of common culture; the southern side of Ukraine was part of Romania until it was lost during the Second World War to the Russians, and many ethnic Romanians still live on the Ukrainian side of the border. However, with the Ukrainians from Kyiv now reaching the border, the cultural tie is far weaker. Despite this, Florin thinks hard times generally bring people together, especially given geographical proximity: “The wars in the Middle East and elsewhere never felt that threatening, but now it’s just around the corner.”

The stoicism of the Ukrainian defence has been admirable and has drawn respect from Romanians. “I think no-one expected Ukraine to resist that much,” Florin admits. Ukrainians are conscious that on their own they don’t have the military capabilities to defeat an army like Russia’s, but morale is still high and is being boosted by crucial external support. A story spung to Florin’s mind about two of the first families that arrived at the chalets in the first days of conflict, when men were still allowed to leave Ukraine.

Read the full article at Cherwell.org.

Profiles

29

In conversation with Adam Fleming Thomas Coyle speaks to BBC Chief Political Correspondent Adam Fleming about power-naps, career opportunities, and podcasting.

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dam Fleming joins me just before his daily nap. A critical part of his daily routine, enabling those 4AM starts and late-night Newscast sessions, he describes himself as an “Olympic powernapper”. I joke that his time as a student in Oxford – late night essay-crises galore – must have prepared him well for working at the BBC. Adam is personable and conversational. It is a stereotype that journalists can be closedoff and insular; but from first listening to Brexitcast over four years ago, I knew that Adam would be the opposite. A self-confessed lover of detail, his recollections of his time here in Oxford – nearly 20 years ago – are illuminating and warm. Known for his use of ‘Brexit binders’, I should hardly be surprised.

Throughout our interview, I’m struck by how open and honest Adam is. Whilst he is consistently friendly on TV and the BBC’s podcasts, those conversations are political (and, crucially, professional) in nature, with his colleagues and friends. In comparison, our brief chat about Hertford (the Oxford College we share, some 20 years apart) are like conversations with any of my friends studying here now.

Despite British politics being so tumultuous, we avoid any discussion of current events – Adam’s calm, reassuring voice instead discussing his career and opportunities.

Having risen up the BBC ranks from an internship and presenting Newsround to being Chief Political Correspondent, I ask how he was ever able to prepare for that style of career.

Studying Geography at Hertford College, Adam was a keen student journalist (for a rival rag publication to Cherwell). He originally wanted to be a film director, but was introduced to both the Oxford Student and Oxygen radio (now Oxide radio), where he felt he’d “found [his] calling early on”. He tells me that he knew his interests lay in broadcast journalism, rather than print; finding it “a bit more satisfying than the long process of writing a newspaper article”.

It wasn’t just the satisfaction, though; Adam explained that he was (and still is) “extremely envious of people who can just go and churn out a beautiful piece of copy”, but that, for him, it was more “natural” to work in broadcasting. Having developed a taste for radio broadcasting after

“The ‘essay-tutorial system is probably the most important lesson’ he’d ever had as a journalist.” having been introduced to the station by those in the years above, he found the experience was good training for a future broadcasting career.

He explains that “the way you have to talk and broadcast and troubleshoot and fill” whenever anything goes awry is the best way to learn the tricks of the broadcast trade.

He traces his journalistic abilities to his time at Oxford, explaining that the “essay-tutorial system is probably the most important lesson” he’d ever had as a journalist; that taking in lots of information and synthesising it is something he does when presenting, every single day. He confirms that Hertford’s culture – a “meltingpot of people from different backgrounds” – was just the same then as it is now, and that the Hertford spirit of “not taking yourself too seriously” was fundamental to getting involved with student journalism. He clarifies that this was a “subtle” influence, but one that enabled him to experiment with things like student radio.

From there, Adam remembers heading to the Oxford Careers Service on Banbury Road, seeking out the Broadcasting folder. He found an advert for the BBC work experience scheme, being accepted for a three-week placement after “hassling them about the application”.

From there, he was told to take a postgraduate diploma in journalism, funded by the BBC. Midway through that course, he was invited to take part in some BBC filming, as they needed “guinea pig reporters”, helping some camera operators out in their training. The subsequent VHS – “that dates it for you!” – ended up on the desk of the editor of Newsround. They were looking for a young, male presenter, and Adam jokes that he was also “quite cheap to hire”.

Adam makes clear that his “way in” to the BBC was based on “a combination of lots of strategy and lots of luck, and lots of work experience”.

But the factor that truly helped secure his place was following the advice of those already in the BBC, as they were the source of advice that “really made it” happen for him.

Adam’s next steps were into presenting Newsround; an “amazing, amazing experience”.

He beams when describing this section of his career, emphasising both the freedom of working on the show and its unpredictability: “interviewing Toby Maguire, or Will Smith”, then heading back to present “from the other end of the Newsround cupboard”. There was “no typical day”, but every day was united by the same “thrill, being sandwiched between Blue Peter and Neighbours”. The audience of Newsround was bigger than now; the majority of children heading home after school and immediately switching on the TV. It’s certainly how I first came across Adam!

A report by the Children’s Media Foundation describes the ideal Newsround presenter as “warm and engaging”, but possessing an “air of authority”. Adam fits the bill perfectly, describing the responsibilities of a Newsround presenter as having to decide “what the audience of 6 – 12 year olds need to hear today, and how to best tell them”. This is a part of the “Newsround DNA”, the “balance between giving young people the information and not scaring them”.

Adam made clear that Newsround would always “say it’s alright to be scared about something”; never patronising or rude. Part of Newsround’s appeal was that the exact same events being relayed to adults were presented to children, too; Adam describes “foreign jaunts to America for Obama’s inauguration”.

The Newsround newsroom (“cupboard”) had a policy of “never censoring ourselves”, never discounting a story because it would be “too hard to explain”. Newsround’s successes were in reporting directly for the young audience, not the adults. He describes the “classic tricks” of both himself and a camera operator “crouching down” when interviewing a child. Being at the child’s eye level was better for their interview subject – reducing any fear and establishing an immediate rapport. It also avoided alienating the young audience.

I asked Adam if he felt he’d left any mark on Newsround during his 2002-09 tenure.

He described it as a process of “inheriting it and looking after it and passing it on to the next person”, with no fixed format beyond communicating the news to children. “The audience is continually moving on”, with younger viewers watching for the first time whilst older viewers gradually watched Newsround less. He expressed pride that those older viewers “still watch and listen to me now”, as he had “moved on” along with them onto BBC News.

After Newsround, he moved briefly into the BBC Newsroom as a “junior baby political correspondent” for three months, before working on the BBC’s Daily Politics until 2017.

At that time, in the midst of disputes over Britain’s future in the European Union, he developed his interest in the EU – an “untapped market” for the BBC’s news output that evolved into a role as a political correspondent in Brussels.

It was then that Adam collaborated with Dino Sofos and fellow political correspondent Chris Mason to create a podcast, first titled Electioncast and later Brexitcast and Newscast.

Their thinking was to experiment, with no set format or plan before they sat to record the first edition. It became clear that they had a hit on their hands – a well-informed conversation

between good friends with a collective “zany energy”. Laura Kuennsberg (Political Editor) and Katya Adler (Europe Editor) quickly signed up, finding that their passions for news and presenting enabled them to have detailed discussions and – crucially – “bring the audience along with them”.

Adam explaines that whilst there was no central vision or “magic formula” for their podcast, the experience of Newsround had been

“Adam makes clear that his ‘way in’ to the BBC was based on “a combination of lots of strategy and lots of luck, and lots of work experience.” the formative element on the podcast’s success.

Newsround taught him “the importance of understanding the subject so you can convey it properly to the audience, without making stuff up”. This nuance developed into an additional understanding; that no matter how complicated something is, “people will still be interested in it”.

The podcast’s unconventional “zany energy” – that won over so many listeners – originated as a “total natural product” of what the presenters’ jobs were like. The podcast was consciously “natural”, with no conventions of “classic news”. The presenters agreed they wanted it to be “just them”. Such a recipe was aided by the podcast’s reactionary role; always convening no matter where they were – a “skiing holiday”, “espresso bar”, or “the bus from the airport” being Adam’s examples.

The central philosophy of their podcast was therefore to always preserve their “natural” conversations; informed journalists “talking about their subject in an enthusiastic way, in a lot of detail”. I asked whether that honesty was ever called into question, either in the shift into a daily production, or the shift to having one episode a week televised. Adam remarks that the “key components” of their podcast were preserved throughout: the same presenters, in the same room, with the same energy. They made the active decision to not use a TV studio, but to “adapt one of the Westminster radio studios, and stick loads of cameras in there”.

The team had established a framework that preserved the podcast format, but with cameras – building the “technical and editing processes around the same raw material”; just “people talking about the stories they’re working on in a really enthusiastic way, and enjoying themselves as they do it”.

Aware that the time we set aside for the interview is rapidly running out, I suggest that Adam might want to wrap things up soon.

“Take as long as you like”, he replies. “I can talk about myself for ages!”

That interaction sums up the other success of Newscast; the impression that the presenting team are selfless, working to inform their listeners in a way that exceeds ‘traditional’ public service broadcasting.

Adam is the perfect example of this selflessness; referring to listeners as “Newscasters”, and inviting them onto the podcast to share a particularly relevant story.

Our conversation then shifts to podcasting as a format, with Adam expressing near-glee at the absence of any BBC podcasting “legacy”, with every day “feeling like a blank sheet of paper”.

“We could try things”, he explained. “If the audience didn’t like it,

they’d let us know”. This increased interactivity – a helpful journalistic parasocial interaction – is a constructive marker for the podcast. It enabled the team to “become a bit like a curator of the news”, guided by helpful feedback on how audiences “trust Newscast to tell them the most important things they need to know”, with some feeling disillusioned by traditional television news.

Such an answer led me to ask whether that meant podcasts were the future of news. Adam suggested that the future wasn’t a single format, but rather the ability to “choose how they will get their news, when they’ll get it and what they can ingest”. He looked to the BBC’s implementation of ‘live update’ news pages as an example of a new, popular format; describing how they “never knew necessarily that they’d be popular”, and that the choice they can now offer is “brilliant”, removing the possibility of feeling overwhelmed by current events by allowing each audience member to define their news intake.

Adam consistently emphasises the need to both “experiment” and to be yourself in news and journalism. The promise of individuality is what brought Laura Kuenssberg and Katya Adler on-board; the podcast offered new advantages for them to talk about the “1000 things in their notebooks” that couldn’t be squeezed into a traditional bulletin. He acknowledged that the episodes can be “long and chaotic”, but that both the public and Adam’s “really well regarded, well-paid senior colleagues” had realised that, through their experimentation, they’d hit upon a winning format.

Aware that I have to get back to my insurmountable essay crisis (and that Adam has to get back to his nap), I ask my final question; about Adam’s recent appearance on Christmas University Challenge. Adam explained that he tried some revision, but “you can’t revise the entire history of humanity and all of human knowledge – so there’s not really much point“.

He hadn’t anticipated “quite how psychological the format is”, that you have to “just take the risk” when answering a ‘starter for 10’. I ask if the atmosphere is any different as a competitor on the ‘alumni’ show, but Paxman apparently “isn’t nicer”, and it’s “just as stressful”.

Above all, my conversation with Adam seemed to consistently come back to the ideas of experimenting, having confidence in your ideas, and being yourself. As Adam admitted, his entry into journalism was a healthy combination of “strategy” and “luck”; but it was ultimately his “calling”. He has learnt from every single experience, using his time at Oxford, time at Newsround, and time as a correspondent to continually develop. It’s this passion that led to the success of Newscast; a passion evidently shared by the whole Newscast team. I suspect the mid-afternoon naps are essential to maintaining that passion!

Image Credit: Adam Fleming

SPORT

30

Nigel Lambert: 12 Years refereeing Oxford Joe Hyland Deeson interviews a legendary university referee who so many of us know well.

T

he integrity of the matches played in all four leagues of the JCR college football structure is maintained by a small but well-known group of qualified referees that range from current University of Oxford students to long serving local officials. Come rain or shine, the men in black are an ever-present in college football, and their absence in JCR reserves fixtures often highlights their contributions to first-team games.

One of the most experienced is Nigel Lambert, a retired policeman and government security officer who has refereed matches for nearly four decades. Always keen to debrief teams on their performance following matches, and enjoying friendships with longer-serving players and the groundsmen of Oxford, he is not someone whose humility or warmth players need reminding of. In February 2020, he was praised in a national Referees’ Association article for helping to save the life of a Women’s Blues defender who had swallowed her tongue in a match against Southampton Ladies. From his refereeing style to recollections of drunken pitch invasions in Cuppers matches, these are his memories: How long have you been refereeing?

When did you start refereeing college football matches?

I qualified as a referee 38 years ago.

I started refereeing college football 12 years ago.

Has anything changed since you have started?

Little has changed in college football in that time – it is more likely that it is me

that has changed! In the prime of my refereeing career I was very strict. As a senior police officer I expected people to comply with my decisions, consequently bookings and sending-offs featured prominently!

What are your favourite sorts of matches to referee?

“I have run about a hundred marathons, including fifteen in London and ten in New York.”

My favourite matches are the league games, which are usually conducted in a very civil manner. Women’s Blues were great as the ladies were so kind to me!

What would you say is your refereeing style?

My refereeing style is non-confrontational (unless this style fails). I will always try to show respect for the players and I value the many friendships I have made over the years.

Do any games stick out in your memory as being particularly notable?

Whilst I have officiated at many cup finals and representative games the most vivid memories are when things have gone wrong. Cuppers at Pembroke over the years has been a nightmare! The worst was a pitch invasion by drunken supporters

Viva la Varsity Mauricio Alencar pays tribute to the greatest rivalry in the world.

Varsity fixtures and results: All reserve men and women’s hockey teams shoed the Tabs Men’s and women’s Blues shoed the Tabs in swimming Varsity.

Women’s lacrosse Blues lost to Cambridge while the men’s Blues won.

Oxford’s rugby league club play Cambridge on Saturday at Iffley Road.

D

ark Blue vs Green. Green?

Shouldn’t it be Light Blue? A Cantabridgian colour does not exist.

It’s always slightly different.

Cambridge University Ladies’ netball Club comes closest to wearing the closest acceptable shade of light blue. The pigment on the Lax club is somewhere closer to the mixed green-blue-turquoise.

And live from the River Thames, the rowers from the eastern side of the OxCam arc just dress up in full green, no shame.

Snotgreen, à-la-Joyce. Don’t even talk to me about the colours of CUAFC. The rugby team goes about completely avoiding Oxonian mockery, adding in white stripes to avoid full-scale artistic scrutiny.

And a fun fact for you, to add to the pure humiliation: Cambridge used to play in pink!

Taking offence to the rival’s colours exemplifies the haughty spirit of tribal elitism. What does ‘shoe the tabs’ even mean? Varsity is a fixture founded upon a snobbish, Victorian chivalric, public schoolish, stop-masturbating-in-yourbedroom-young-boys clash of virility and masculine physicality. Those great chaps who went to Oxford and Cambridge in the 19th century had to do something to get themselves outside: kicking a round football for the first time in 1874, kicking a strange oval ball for the first time in 1872,

intent on abusing me, aggravated by an obnoxious young man running the line for Pembroke who loudly disputed my decisions. He was a qualified referee, which made his behaviour even more distasteful.

The Sabbatical Officer, who was present at the game, instructed Pembroke that he must never run the line for them again.

Since then, Pembroke and I have been on the best of terms. The good memories are of outstanding sportsmanship when opponents were struggling through bad times, highlighting the strong values we all try to achieve in college football.

What are your favourite pitches and grounds to referee at in Oxford?

My favourite pitch must be St John’s, the Wembley of Oxford. I look forward to going to a number of other grounds through establishing friendships with groundsmen

“As a senior police officer I expected people to comply with my decisions consequently bookings and sending-offs featured prominently!” over the years. It means a lot to receive a warm welcome.

What do you enjoy doing outside of refereeing?

challenging each other to race boats down the river for the first time in 1829. Varsity, why do you exist? Why do you think you are relevant?

The feelings among the rest of the British population are of this kind. Broadcasters’ interest in Varsity has significantly declined. Rugby league varsity only had a one-year cameo broadcast on Sky Sports.

The rugby Union Varsity Matches used to be shown live on BBC One or ITV, but today no longer attract their interest.

Long gone are the days when football Varsity was played at Wembley, let alone at Premier League stadiums such as Craven Cottage. Rumours are floating around that this year may be the last cricket Varsity at Lord’s Cricket Ground. Varsity is no longer regarded as the cornerstone event that represents the glory of esteemed British academia. The very institutions of the University of Oxford or Cambridge themselves may not be so greatly revered today as they once were, despite the enormous successes of scientific research.

Like gowns at formals, speeches in Latin, trumpets at matriculation, Varsity is one of those old outdated traditions that could probably be done away with. Varsity is, by definition today, amateur sport played by “I-am-at-Oxbridge!” students who probably care way too much about their erg or beep test times.

Varsity is harmless fun. The friendly animosity of the rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge is an energetic distraction to the soul-burning and hand-hurting activities of academic life. This forged conflict between the two historic universities is no real inconvenience of any kind

My other sport is running, with success as County Champion in my age group over decades. I have run about a hundred marathons, including fifteen in London and ten in New York. I am involved in the church, being Churchwarden of my parish church.

I participate in pilgrimages, both in the UK and in Europe. I have walked five different routes on the Camino de Santiago, some in excess of 500 miles.

Image Credit: via Max Pixel

to anyone today.

Varsity sport fixtures are the Oxbridge student’ chance to actively escape the hard work-life, to emotionally invest oneself into a banter world of game, and to play competitive sport. It’s a pretty tradition.

If the prestige of Varsity has declined over the last years, it has had little impact on the impassioned spirit of respective sports clubs. As much as Varsity may be for the patriotic man who is proud of the country’s success in academia and research, Varsity is for the 19-year-old student who cycles 20 minutes out of the city to train with his teammates at 9pm on a Monday night despite being in a serious essay-crisis. Varsity is for the proud parents taking a trip to Oxford to watch their wonder daughter play hockey for the 3s in the middle of Storm Eunice. Varsity is for the supportive friends who take their megaphones to sing silly and amiably provocative chants like “Have you ever seen Cambridge make a vaccine?”. Varsity is for committed coaches who could have once-upon-a-time “gone pro” if they hadn’t injured themselves. Varsity is for the postgraduates recruited from Oceania to win one game. Varsity is for the strict referees who are shouted at by annoyed students on the sidelines.

Varsity is for the glee of shoeing the tabs.

Varsity is for Park End and VK. Varsity’s for sanity though it’s weird, for tradition though it’s shady, for health though it’s stressful, for camaraderie though it’s absurd.

Most crucially: Varsity is for Oxford to win and C*mbridge to lose.

SPORT

31

USWNT have won Oli Hall’s this equal pay battle, Oxford United Updates now comes the war Cherwell’s Sport Editors review this term’s upcoming Varsity fixtures.

T

uesday 22nd February will undoubtedly be remembered as a monumental day for women’s sport both in the United States and around the world. It was the day that the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) and their governing body US Soccer settled in court for $24m and pledged equal pay across all competitions. However, as consequential as this might seem on the surface, the deal is full of holes and the real fight for women’s sport is only just beginning.

It might have come more than two thousand days after their original complaint to the Equal Employment Commission and it over a thousand days since entering into a court battle but last week the USWNT did finally get their deal. Captain and two-time World Cup winner Alex Morgan called it a “monumental step forward” and “an incredible day”. She went even further when speaking to Good Morning America, stating: “It‘s great to take that step forward. I not only see this as a win for our team or women in sport but for women in general.” Teammate and campaigner Megan Rapinoe agreed when she said: “I think we‘re going to look back on this day and say this is the moment that US Soccer changed for the better.”

USWNT are the most successful side in women’s football. Four-time World Cup winners and five-time Olympic champions, their achievements dwarf those of any other nation and are on a completely different planet to those of their male compatriots. And yet, on average US Soccer formerly paid the women’s side just 89 cents for every dollar that the men earn. That is leaving out the bonuses that the men take home from major tournaments, double that of their female counterparts. As a result, in May 2020 the full women’s squad sought $66 million in damages in court and so began the trial that ended last week.

Plenty of arguments arise time and again on this issue across different sports and countries. We hear that the prize money offered by governing bodies is miles apart (a true and sad fact: FIFA pays out $440m for the men’s world cup compared to $60m for the women’s event) and that the TV revenue from women’s sport doesn’t even compare (often correct). The fact of the matter is though that none of those or the other standard arguments stands up in the case of the USWNT, such is their success and popularity.

They win world cups, the men struggle and sometimes fail to even qualify, they get the nation tuning in whenever games come around whilst the men’s side are desperately trying to use social media to attract new audiences.

In this case and bearing in mind the concept of performance-based pay, it was nearly imposible to see why US Soccer wasn’t splitting pay at least evenly.

So, on the surface, this deal seems like a huge win for everyone.

Two million of those dollars have been set aside for “USWNT players in their post-career goals and charitable efforts related to women’s and girls’ soccer”, the team have their money, and the governing body appears to have made substantial commitments regarding the future of women’s sport. Unfortunately, after the initial excitement, it has emerged that that isn’t exactly the full story.

For starters, the $24 million that was settled on pales in comparison to the $66 million that was being sought by the women after a group of economists outlined that as a fair sum. The legal fees on top of that mean that it is hard to say how much of that money will actually end up in players’ pockets.

Even more problematic are the conditions attached. All of this is contingent on the signing of a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between US Soccer and the national teams – this will be no small hurdle.

Goalkeeper Hope Solo was quick to point out this fault with her tone a stark contrast with teammates Morgan and Rapinoe. Referring to the CBA she tweeted, “It doesn’t exist yet and is not guaranteed. … If the players had ever been successful in negotiating an equal CBA, there would’ve been no reason to sue the federation in the first place.”.

The current agreement expired at the end of last year before being temporarily extended until the 31st March, meanwhile the men have been playing on the same expired deal since 2018. Reaching a new deal that includes the terms of equal pay will be far from straightforward given the fact that US Soccer are already in trouble financially and few believe that it is coming any time soon.

Beyond the American border, the pace of change appears even slower. Vastly different television incomes mean that the top division in this country, the WSL, offers just £500 000 total to all its teams. By comparison, the male Premier League offers total payments of £2.5 billion. The FA cup pays out £25 000 to its female winners, just 1.4% of the £1.8 million the men receive.

The examples of pay gaps are endless and bridge both borders and sports. Some such as tennis and cricket might be doing better but the truth is that no sport is anywhere near where it should be. So, whilst it was a win for the USWNT last week, we must be cautious not to overestimate how much is still left to be done.

Image: appaloosa/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr

Club Update Oxford United’s return to form continued in earnest this week. Wins across the board for the men’s and the women’s sides saw the club pay tribute to Joey Beauchamp in stunning style.

Tuesday night saw the men travel to bottom of the table Crewe Alexandra in a game that had been seen by some as an easy three points. Those people couldn’t have been more wrong and Crewe put up a great fight. The side in relegation trouble even managed to dominate possession but the Us did more with it, created more chances, and finished one on 64 minutes. Ciaron Brown capitalised on the home side’s failure to clear and condemned them to a seventh consecutive defeat.

And so to Saturday and another performance to remember at the Kassam.

United played up to the crowd again in a crazy game against a visiting Cambridge side that looked better than their midtable form suggests. Oxford had to equalise twice in a feisty affair through Taylor and Brannagan as Sam Smith scored a brace for the visitors. The Yel-

lows were the dominant side though and a goal from Sam Baldock with 18 minutes to play set them on course for all three points before Brannagan made sure with his second in injury time. The win sees them secure their spot in fourth for now at least with a three-point buffer over Sunderland in fifth.

The women weren’t to be left out this week. After what has seemed like a torturous run of postponements, they hosted the Crawley Wasps and wrapped up a remarkable eighth consecutive league win. Carly Johns opened the scoring inside 25 minutes before Beth Lumsden doubled the advantage. The Wasps made it interesting by getting a goal before half-time but Daisy MacLachlan made sure that Oxford’s title charge would go on with the third on 73 minutes. Next up is hosting QPR under the lights on Tuesday night.

The men travel to Portsmouth on Tuesday night and welcome Burton Albion to the Kassam on Saturday in a week that could see them up into second in the table if results go their way.

Oxford United 4-2 Cambridge United There were a series of truly spectacular tributes to the Oxford legend Joey Beauchamp before kick-off and the players on the pitch followed up with a spectacular 4-2 win at the Kassam.

Players, staff, and the entire youth set-up took to the pitch to pay tribute before kick-off and the stadium was in fine voice as everyone showed their appreciation for the legendary player.

That spectacular atmosphere was punctured though when former Oxford striker Sam Smith continued his ridiculous scoring run, poking home after a defensive mix-up to give Cambridge the lead.

The Us had dominated up to that point and didn’t panic after going behind. A fine team move on the counter saw the familiar ending of Ryan Williams sweeping a ball into the box for captain Matty Taylor to sweep home.

So, 1-1 at half-time and coming out of the break the Yellows continued to dominate. Cambridge hit them on the counter again though and Sam Smith finished calmly again for his seventeenth league

goal of the season.

United refused to sit down though.

Cheered on by another home crowd that numbered more than ten thousand this time it was Sam Baldock who found Cameron Brannagan in the box. His finish was emphatic and gave Oxford the all-important equaliser with 25 minutes still to play.

From then it seemed like a matter of when not if Oxford would find a winner.

The breakthrough would come on the 72-minute mark. Matty Taylor turned provider this time, playing a low cross into the box for Sam Baldock to slam home brilliantly.

From then on Cambridge tried to come forward more but failed to create any real chances. Cameron Brannagan made sure of the three points in injury time after a beautifully timed run and a finish into the corner to match.

So, Oxford United are secure in fourth before two big games next week. If results go their way, they could even move ahead of MK Dons and Wigan above them into the automatic promotion places.

CHERWELL

32

Medium Sudoku

Hard Sudoku

Micro Cryptic Crossword

Numbers along an arrow must add up to the number in their circle. Numbers may repeat on an arrow.

Across: 1. Flu worsens after outbreak at plants (10) 6. Shark have it at the end? (3) 7. Tutor confused about fish? (5) 8. Tea in the sink causes a big smell (4) 9. Argue what to do in Torpids? (3)

Pencil Puzzle - Yajilin

Down: 2. United Nations sit uncomfortably on measurements (5) 3. Old language found in Atlantis ruins after insect leaves (5) 4. Natural material traced back in dodo, owl and sparrow (4) 5. A riot is blown out of proportion (5)

Cherdle

Nurimeizu is another popular puzzle from Japan’s Nikoli puzzle magazine.

The grid has been subdivided into rooms and the goal is to construct a maze by shading in certain rooms to create walls. The white cells must connect horizontally or vertically to create a path from S to G which goes through every circle but avoids every triangle.

All cells in a room can either be shaded in or left blank, but rooms with letters or symbols cannot be shaded in. White cells cannot be cut off entirely by black cells, and white cells cannot form any loops. Black and white cells must not cover any 2x2 squares.

Find the 5 letter word which satisfies all of the clues. A grey tile indicates the wrong letter, a yellow tile indicates a correct letter in the wrong position, and green indicates a correct letter and position.

Send your solutions to puzzlescherwell@

Overheard at Cherwell I REPORTED YOU TO A SCAM HOTLINE!!!!!!! (Editor’s note: Thanks for that Charlie)

I can’t help read the Sunday Seven caption in Jermey Paxman’s voice when he introduces University Challenge teams.

mean she can override our editorial policy!

I sent the FOI to Corpus Cambridge by mistake. #oxbridgeproblems, am I right?

Honestly scary how much Regent’s loves Cherwell.

There’s nothing wrong with a good crusade.

We are close to having emotional breakdowns in the office right now.

Jill, this was back when you were a foetus.

It’s always the final full stop which screams passive aggression.

Speaker, spanker, what’s the difference?

You’re genuinely a genius at coming up with absolute shite so writing for Cherwell should be a breeze for you.

Damn, milf existential crises tend to be rare at your age.

I may be passive aggressive sometimes but always with a nice coating of sugar so they never know.

I don’t want to be a bitch, but… (*proceeds to be a bitch) Would sconcing anyone who has/hasn’t filled out the sex survey be a breach of GDPR? Just because she’s Cate Blanchett does not

My little cry break really helped.

We can’t go around calling people fascists.

They get litigious.

All Soul’s, top shaggers.

Everyone will have to be prompt, lest the cheese go hard. *Smiles hopelessly* Let’s make a google doc and annotate the shit out of it.

Wow, almost seems like he has a soul and yet we know he does not.

We could get them to sit in and have a journalist fight to the death.

Something about old Oxford men calling Cherwell a ‘magazine’ is just awful. Happened to me once. I was so angry.

My god, you’re torturing him!

Yikes, this week we are slaying the journalism game all round.

All hail our dear leaders Charlie and Jill.

I don’t mean to cause alarm [*causes alarm] but I think my ed has gone off the grid.

It isn’t even midday yet. I have a bottle of wine in my line of sight and it is looking very appealing right now.