Cherwell - 3rd week Hilary 2021 by Cherwell

Friday, 5th February 2021 | Vol.293 No.3 | 3rd week

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Clive Stafford Smith

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Friday, 5th February 2021

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100 YEARS

A century of independence since 1920

OXMATCH BREACHED DATA PROTECTION LAW

Issy Kenney-Herbert Trinity Term saw the creation of OxMatch, a matchmaking service with the tagline “remote Trinity doesn’t have to be lonely”. Cherwell has found that this service has violated several GDPR laws along with their own privacy policy (shared with those who sign up at the beginning of their matchmaking form). All data regarding these infringements was obtained in the public domain. Students who signed up received unexpected emails; OxMatch’s November Privacy Policy (used for Michaelmas matching) states: “We add you to our mailing list so that we can let

you know about your match” and that “we use your email and contact information to communicate with you regarding your match.” Furthermore, Chapter 2, Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulations notes that data must be “kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed” and declares that all data must be “collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes”. While the “purposes” outlined in OxMatch’s

TOP STORIES Tiny Oxford forests boost biodiversity | 3 Is Rhodes a barrier to Oriel outreach efforts? | 4 Oxford study: Covid caused 60k excess deaths | 4 Axe-ford: new axe-throwing bar to open | 6

Science & Tech: The science of Inside Out | 7 Comment: Glastonbury: Culture Cancelled | 9 Features: Ava Max’s ‘Crazy Ex’ | 12 Sport: In conversation with Jonathan Wilson | 14

privacy policy pertained to communicating regarding their match, students also received emails about signing up to MyTutor, a new version of Oxfess and new rounds of OxMatch. Students were also identified by name in some of these emails. One email, sent on the 1 January 2021, included the name of the student emailed in the subject line, asking if they wanted to join the OxMatch team and “become the next Cupid?” Another was sent urging students to like a variation of the Oxfess page - this was not described by OxMatch as a “sponsored post”. A third, which was described as a “sponsored

post” by OxMatch, sent on 13 December 2020, included the name of the student emailed in the subject and body of the email and continued: “We’re writing to let you know about MyTutor, where you can earn up to £20 an hour, all within reaching distance of the kettle”. The footer of the email read: “You are receiving this email because you signed up for OxMatch... S p o n sored posts l i k e this allow us to

run OxMatch and also go to supporting our access initiative”. OxMatch did not respond to Cherwell’s queries regarding why such emails would be sent, especially as they Continued Page 2.

UNIVERSITY DIDN’T PHONE ALL STUDENTS WITH CORONAVIRUS Daisy Aitchison Oxford University’s coronavirus Early Alert System (EAS) was unable to telephone all students who tested positive in Michaelmas term after a spike in demand, recently released meeting minutes reveal. Notes from the university’s Bronze planning group on the 19th October

show that the service experienced Oxford University’s coronavirus Early Alert System (EAS) was unable to telephone all students who tested positive in Michaelmas term after a spike in demand, recently released meeting minutes reveal. Notes from the University’s Bronze planning group on the

19th October show that the service experienced “an increase in positive cases”, which meant that “EAS Results Liaison Team (RLT) did not have capacity to make phone calls to the individual students testing positive”. However, students who tested positive were still contacted

Continued Page 3.

News | Friday, 5th February 2021

WHAT’S INSIDE LEADER GameStop or Start? NEWS Rhodes statue a ‘barrier’ to Oriel access Axe-throwing and cocktails? Oxford’s newest bar SCIENCE & TECH Memory in Pixar’s Inside Out COMMENT Glastonbury: Cancelled culture Why Trump’s Twitter ban should scare us In praise of the UK’s vaccine rollout FEATURES Ava Max’s ‘Crazy Ex’ SPORT In Conversation with Jonathan Wilson

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Continued from Page 1. appear to be “incompatible” with the purpose of communicating regarding a match and this use was not specified within the sign-up form. OxMatch told Cherwell: “In accordance with GDPR, we process and release data only in anonymous forms for statistical analysis. All data is kept anonymous and identifiable data is not shared with any third parties.” OxMatch refused to confirm how long data is kept or how data is stored. In December 2020, OxMatch collaborated with student paper The Flete to release an “OxMatch Campus Report”, running through the answers of those who signed up, including answers to a series of questions including which subjects signed up, political leanings, crushes and a diagram of kinkiness levels at each college. OxMatch’s Privacy Guidelines and Data Practices, effective from November 20th 2020, were shared

ike many others, course, that summary is a the conversation jarring I have found gross oversimplification. at first. But that was myself engrossed To explain the whole event nothing compared to how in the saga that properly, you need not difficult the mainstream is Gamestop and r/ only a decent grasp of how media seemed to find it. A wallstreetbets. I stumbled financial markets work but torrent of poorly written, across it whilst drowning also an understanding of poorly researched articles in work last Wednesday, the place r/wallstreetbets has poured forth from basically everywhere. I clicked onto the forum itself. and started to read. Then That understanding has They range from simply I laughed and I laughed apparently proved elusive missing the point, the and I laughed. Sometimes to almost every outlet category most of the an event catches you seeking to cover the story. BBC articles on the topic in just the right way I don’t blame them: how fall under, to blatantly at just the right time. do you explain to a mass false, like the Financial Apparently stressing audience that a group Times opinion piece about a macroeconomics of uncoordinated users which called some forum essay was my perfect had managed to make members part of the ‘altright’. All possible takes moment to read about on the saga have been a group of Reddit users attempting to crash “The GameStop debacle published. For some was David and the stock market. is case in point of how itGoliath: the every man For those not in the loop: Reddit the world is changing.” taking on Wall Street behemoths. For others users on the forum r/ it was a bunch of idiots wallstreetbets have been attempting to foil the several hedgehunds lose on the internet finding plans of a few hedge funds billions of dollars, all the creative new ways to lose by massively inflating the while calling each other money. For me, the Gamestop stock price of American deeply offensive insults in video game retailer posts covered with rocket debacle is a case and Gamestop. Hijinks ensue, emojis? As someone point of how the world is including perhaps massive quite clued up on niche changing, and has already Traditional illegal activity, the victor internet forums, even I changed. yet to be determined. Of found diving deep into forms of community

with each of the participants at the beginning of their form. It stated: “We also gather metadata... This is just for fun posts on our Facebook: it’s always anonymised, and we’ll only use data aggregated across at least 15 people.” While the data was anonymised and no individual student response was revealed, this “metadata” was released to an online student publication with an unclear transfer of data - not “fun posts on our Facebook”. Beyond this, OxMatch promised that “we’ll only use data aggregated across at least 15 people”. OxMatch told The Flete that they had “over 4500 signups since its inception in Trinity Term 2020”. The smallest groups in Michaelmas were “Physics and Philosophy as well as Classics with Modern Languages, accounting for just 0.2% and 0.3% of signups respectively”. Even rounding up the full signup figure to 5000 - and assuming that all of these were included

within the RAG and standard Michaelmas versions to which the statistics pertain, rather than any being made in Trinity Term 2020 - would still mean this is equivalent to 10 Physics and Philosophy students, below the 15 promised in OxMatch’s Privacy Policy. For Classics with Modern Languages, this sums to exactly 15 students. In OxMatch’s Privacy Policy, they also wrote that: “We will not publish any information that could lead to personal identification (such as the case of small colleges/subject groups)”. The Flete confirmed to Cherwell that they were not informed this data was in breach of OxMatch’s privacy regulations. OxMatch has now returned for another round of matchmaking with an updated privacy policy which explicitly includes that sponsored emails can be sent to those who sign up: “By signing up to OxMatch, you consent to us occasionally sending you sponsored emails.”

Leader GAMESTOP OR START? MILLIE WOOD from churches to neighbourhoods have been decried as dying for decades. At the same time, the internet is allowing people to establish new ones. Online communities can be both bigger and smaller than those in person, more meaningless and more meaningful. They reward nicheness, they reward caring more deeply rather than more broadly. For some that means posting funny cat pictures, for others it means sharing advice on how to cultivate a specific variety of bluebells to others who might be interested. For the members of r/ wallstreetbets, it was

buying shares in a company last successful in the heydays of Blockbuster in order to rattle Wall Street. Conventional press has struggled to adapt to the changing times. Their inability to grapple with Gamestop is just one more example. What they miss is that the internet isn’t just somewhere to be, it’s somewhere to be together. And it is undeniable that when any people decide to come together, there is power there. Power which the members of r/ wallstreetbets recognised and harnessed. Power for good or for bad: who knows? I’ve still got my Gamestop shares.

Friday, 5th February 2021 | News Continued from Page 1.

by email to inform them of their result. The minutes go on to note that “colleges were concerned that SPOCs (single points of contact), who are not medical professionals, were having to advise students”. At that time, “the Group noted that the issue was being reviewed.” In response to the allegations, the University’s Early Alert System told Cherwell “there were no unexpected staffing shortages in the EAS Results Liaison Team last term – the issue encountered was an

unexpectedly high level of positive test results for a short period at the peak of the infection curve. Students are always notified of test results by automated messages as soon as results come through. “Colleges provide the first line of support for students, and colleges are supported by the Results Liaison Team which is staffed by experienced health professionals. This system works well as it combines infection control support from the Results Liaison Team with the on the ground knowledge and support which

3 colleges can give. Students will be contacted and supported by a variety of staff depending on their particular circumstances”. Notes from a subsequent meeting of the Bronze group on the 28th October reveal that the service had “a reliance on external temporary agencies to supply nursing staff” to ensure demand for medical professionals was met. The group noted that “a range of options are being considered for the service and requirements for recruitment are being developed”.

The Service has since confirmed that “the University continues to use agency nurses to staff the EAS testing pods, which is a practical solution given the on-going variation in numbers of tests required depending on infection/ symptom levels”. The EAS did not specify who the services had been contracted to, saying that “a number of agencies” were used to increase staffing number and that this was “funded by the central university”. There is currently no information regarding the cost of

Biodiversity boosted with tiny Oxford forests Issy Kenney-Herbert As part of a national conservation initiative, two Tiny Forests have been planted at Meadow Lane Nature Reserve and Foxwell Drive will be planted shortly to help preserve and promote biodiversity in the heart of the city. These Tiny Forests involved 600 trees each, planted in tennis courts size plots maximising benefits per m 2 of land. Located in a city, Tiny Forests provide a refuge for plants, insects, birds as well as connecting people with nature in their local area and supporting their health and wellbeing. The methods of planting utilised encourage accelerated forest development and use no chemicals or fertilisers. Tiny Forests have low upkeep requirements after the first couple of years and promote rich biodiversity. The environment charity Earthwatch Europe has worked alongside the Oxford City Council to accomplish this. The planting was originally

planned for last year but had to be postponed due to lockdown. As the current lockdown will last until the end of the current tree planting season (which ends in February), E a r t h w a t c h ’s l a n d s c a p i n g contractors will shortly complete the work without community involvement, or risk losing the funding. Councillor Linda Smith, Cabinet Member for Leisure and Parks said: “I’m delighted we’ve been able to bring the Tiny Forest initiative to Oxford. Despite their small size, they deliver significant tangible benefits, including flood mitigation, havens for wildlife, spaces for people to connect with nature. It’s a shame that because of the Covid-19 safety restrictions local schoolchildren are not able to be involved in the planting as planned, nevertheless, I hope these tiny pockets of nature will bring pleasure to the local community for decades to come.” Once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted

and schools can reopen, educational experts from Earthwatch will provide training for teachers to educate children in these Tiny Forests. They will also provide immersive workshops at the forest for the children to allow them to learn first-hand about nature and the environment. A bench honouring the occasion, featuring a plaque to celebrate

the virtue of green spaces, will be installed at the same time. Louise Hartley, Tiny Forest Programme Manager, Earthwatch Europe said, “We are excited to be planting two Tiny Forests in partnership with Oxford City Council. At a time of great social and environmental challenges for i n d i v i d u a l s , communities, business,

this. Asked about the quality of service during Michaelmas term, the EAS say they believe the system was “excellent”: “Due to the fast changing and unpredictable environment of the Coronavirus pandemic there will inevitably be peaks and troughs in demand for EAS, but the service is prepared to deal with these fluctuations through having a highly committed team, strong university support and growing experience of managing covid cases across the collegiate University”.

CITY and governmnet, Tiny Forests present rich and varied opportunities to partner in tackling the environmental crisis, connect people with nature, and make a valuable conntribution to science. We hope Oxford’s Tiny Forests will inspire others ot support a Tiny Forest in their local area.” Image Credit: European Wilderness Society/CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

News | Friday, 5th February 2021

Rhodes statue acts as a ‘barrier’ in Oriel outreach efforts, Admissions Director suggests Sasha Mills CW: racism, discrimination. Dr. Samina Khan, Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach at the University, has suggested that the Rhodes statue may act as a barrier to Oriel’s participation in outreach programs in a recording of a public Commission of Inquiry session from December focused on Diversity & Inclusion Policies at Oxford. When questioned by a committee member about the impact of the Rhodes

statue on outreach efforts targeted towards prospective Black students, Dr. Khan said: “From my experience, we find it difficult to encourage students to go to Oriel.” “Oriel is one of the colleges they’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s where the statue is,’ and then when they’re asked which colleges they’d like to go and see, it’s rare that Oriel gets selected. We put it down to the fact that they do have those discussions.” “I don’t have any hard facts, but I believe it is a

barrier for certain outreach programs, then, to be delivered in Oriel as a result of that.” Dr. Rebecca Surender, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Advocate for Equality and Diversity at Oxford University, also spoke at the commission: “The various focus groups and surveys we run annually consistently indicate that many of our BME students feel marginalised, and that Oxford is not as inclusive as they’d like it to be.” Some of the challenges highlighted by Dr. Suren-

der include the collegiate system of the university and the low turnover of associate professors, which means that change can be slow to happen. Dr. Surender also suggested that the data that the University collects suggests that “we’re not recruiting from the local community for positions that we ought to be.” The outcome of the Rhodes commission, set up in July last year, has been delayed until early spring. A spokesperson for the college said: “The Commission has

COLLEGE

received a considerable volume of submissions, which together with the limitations imposed by operating during a pandemic, means the report will likely be published in early Spring 2021 in order to ensure that all input is given careful and due consideration.” “There are no further updates on the work of the Commission, although some of the public sessions were recorded and have been made available for members of the public to view.”

UNIVERSITY

Oxford study estimates over 60,000 excess deaths during pandemic Jill Cushen A recently published study by Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science has estimated that there were 62,750 excess deaths from all causes in 2020, resulting in a reduction in life expectancy for both men and women by over one year. The study, which looks at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on mortality trends, reported an increase of 15.1% in the number of deaths compared with the expected level for 2020 in England and Wales. Specifically, from the first death from Covid-19 last March to 20th November, there were more than 57,419 excess deaths. When the timeframe is extended to the end of December, the number of excess deaths in England and Wales grew by another 5,000 in the last five weeks of the year, reaching almost 63,000. The researchers described England and Wales as the “worst performers in terms of

excess deaths”. It also reveals that despite women making up a larger proportion of the older population, excess deaths were higher among men, accounting for 55.4% of the total. It is estimated that the 15-44-year-old age group accounted for only 6.2% of the excess deaths while the mortality rate among those under 15 years was not higher than expected. The demographic experts found that a number of fatalities in the first 47 weeks of the year may have been wrongly classified as deaths directly linking to Covid-19 and points to deaths indirectly linked to Covid-19 as a cause for the overall increase in the death rate when compared with data from the past ten years. The researchers claimed that the strain on the health system and the fear of contracting the virus deterred many people suffering from severe illnesses from seeking medical attention. Ridhi Kashyap, one

the study’s authors and Associate Professor of Social Demography at Nuffield College, said that “our research provides further understanding of the tragic impact of the pandemic in England and Wales,” adding that “the magnitude of these losses in life expectancy...is truly unprecedented.” Analysing data from March until November 20, the demographers claimed that life expectancy reduced by what the researchers described as a “staggering” rate. The reduction of life expectancy by 0.9 years for women and 1.2 years for men marks 2020 as the first year in over a decade in which life expectancy has not increased significantly, regressing to 2010 levels. Due to the surge in cases throughout late November and December, the researchers now estimate that life expectancy may have dropped by -1.0 years for women and -1.3 for men. José Manuel Aburto, a Newton International Fellow in Oxford’s

Department of Sociology and one of the researchers in the team, said, “In 2020, life expectancy for both men and women reduced by over a year, wiping out gains made on life expectancy in the past decade. Men experienced greater losses in life expectancy, and experienced higher death rates than women at all ages over the pandemic.” Furthermore, older adults accounted for most of the excess deaths. Among those aged 75-85 and 85 and older, there were 17.2% and 13.7% more deaths than expected. Additionally, the number of deaths among middle-aged adults, aged 45-64, was 17.6%

above the baseline. For younger retired people, between 64-74 years of age, there were 16.0% more deaths than expected. The research paper sheds further light on the burden of Covid-19 in England and Wales and the wider impact of the pandemic on mortality trends. The study concluded that “Whether mortality will return to—or even fall below—the baseline level remains to be seen as the pandemic continues to unfold and diverse interventions are put in place.” The research was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, BMJ Journals.

Friday, 5th February 2021 | News

5 UNIVERSITY

74% of Europeans think EU is not worth having without free movement according to Oxford survey Anneka Pink In a poll conducted in December 2020 as part of Oxford University’s Europe Stories research project, 74% of participants said the European Union would ‘not be worth having’ without freedom of movement. The poll, a collaboration with eupinions - which collects and analyses data on the European public’s views on current affairs - invited participants to respond to the following statement: “If it did not offer the freedom to travel, work, study and live in other EU member states, the European Union would not be worth having.” All 27 EU member states were polled, as well as the UK, with participants choosing

whether to strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree or strongly disagree with the statement. The researchers found that while responses to this question were similar across demographic groups, there was some difference between countries, with those in Poland most likely to disagree with the statement. The importance of freedom of movement to Europeans was further discovered when participants were asked, “What are the most important things the EU has done for you?”. The report found that freedom to travel was in the top three for 61%; opportunities to live, work and study

in Europe for 53%; and peace and external security for 38%. The results suggest continuity in public opinion since a 2018 Eurobarometer poll, which found four in five Europeans were supportive of free movement in the EU. Among other findings of the poll was a preference for outcomes rather than for political process. 59% agreed that “as long as the EU delivers effective action, the presence or absence of the European Parliament is of secondary importance”. Notably, three in five of those who previously agreed that it was important to have a European Parliament also agreed with the above statement.

This suggests that even for those who believe in the importance of a European Parliament, the effectiveness of its policymaking is still more important than just its existence. The results of the poll come amidst EU freedom of movement restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic and as a result of Brexit. The UK left the EU on the 1st January 2021 and also signed the Immigration Act on the 11th November 2020, ending freedom of movement for EU citizens within the UK from the 31st December 2020. The research project was led by Professor Timothy Garton Ash, who is Professor of European Studies at Oxford, and Isaiah Ber-

lin Professorial Fellow at St. Antony’s College. Professor Garton Ash said, “The irony is not lost on us, that this freedom is precisely what most British citizens have just lost following the UK’s departure from the EU.”

UNIVERSITY

Oxford research shows ancient bonds between dogs and humans Daisy Aitchison New research has revealed that dogs travelled alongside the first humans who journeyed to the Americas. A team of international geneticists and archaeologists, which includes Oxford University’s Professor Greger Larson, have discovered that dogs arrived with the first European settlers around 23,000 years ago. These dogs developed over generations to become genetically distinct from their European counterparts. The study concluded that “the first people to enter the Americas likely did so with their dogs. The subsequent geographic dispersal and genetic divergences within each population suggest that where

people went, dogs went too.” “The convergence of the early genetic histories of people and dogs in Siberia and Beringia suggests that this may be the region where humans and wolves first entered into a domestic relationship.” Researchers have also found that the bond between humans and dogs goes back much further than previously thought. The study concluded that the partnership began somewhere between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago – around 11,000 years earlier than previous archaeological evidence had suggested. Speaking to the Oxford Arts Blog, Professor Larson, the Oxford researcher involved in the project, said: “We

knew dogs were the oldest domesticated species, and these findings now suggest that the initial process of domestication began around 23,000 years ago in north-east Siberia. From there, people and dogs moved together east into the Americas, south towards east Asia, and west towards Europe and Africa.” He also pointed to the genetic and biological links between the ancient European and American dogs: “We found a very strong correlation between the pattern of ancient dogs’ genetic diversification and the genetic signatures of early Americans. The similarities between the two species is striking and suggests the shared pattern is not a

coincidence.” Today, few traces of the ancient American dogs remain. When later waves of Europeans arrived with their own canines, the indigenous dogs were almost completely wiped out. This means researchers are reliant on a variety of scientific techniques to reconstruct the biology of these ancient creatures. Professor Larson has been involved in previous projects investigating prehistoric pooches, including the existence of the ancient dire wolves, which featured in the popular TV series Game of Thrones. Asked about this preoccupation, he responded: “I grew up with dogs, and I always interact with them when they walk by.”

“Dogs were the first species to enter into a mutualistic relationship with us. It was a key shift in the evolution of our species...It is amazing how much everything began to change after that. “For the vast majority of our species’ history we travelled alone and made a tiny impression on the earth’s ecology. Now there are eight billion of us and we depend on a range of domestic plants and animals for the maintenance of our huge global population. Imagine what society would be like if we had not formed mutually interdependent relationships with so many other domestic plants and animals. And it all started with dogs.”

News | Friday, 5th February 2021

Charity choir performs for Oxford care home residents Flora Dyson Marston Court, an Oxford care home, has received a performance of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ from Sweet Charity Choir and a £250 donation from the organisation’s supporters. The performance, in a pre-recorded video which opens with members singing and communicating in signlanguage, was dedicated to Marston Care Home and Deaf-SELF, a London-based charity. Members of the Sweet Charity Choir choose causes to support every month, with a mission to boost community spirit through their music. This performance was nominated by singer Kym Mason, sister of the home’s Activities Coordinator, Penny Jenner. Jenner, writing on

the care home’s website, believes recordings such as this are “invaluable to keep spirits up in such difficult times” and said that the “donation will enable us to book some of our regular entertainers to perform via zoom for residents, keeping them in work and us entertained. It’s a win, win!” The performance had a profound emotional effect on residents of the care home, with manager Sharon Fenn reporting that “there wasn’t a dry eye in the house” following the video. The charity aimed to anticipate “bright and cheerful years to come” through the song, originally written in 1939 and sung by Judy Garland. The choir’s moving video provided entertainment to a care home

that would usually be attended by local performers. However, due to coronavirus restrictions such events are currently impossible. Care homes across the UK have been badly hit by the Covid-19 crisis, experiencing deadly outbreaks of the virus. The government has provided guidance for care homes to allow residents to receive visitors, which can benefit their wellbeing. T h e government has tried to tackle this by aiming to offer all older

residents a coronavirus vaccine by 15th February, in an attempt to restore future normality to care homes. Over 80% of residents and half of staff have received a Covid-19 vaccination, according to

Axe-throwing bar to open in Oxford Biba Jones

Axe-throwing will be on the menu at a bar granted license to open in Oxford, despite concerns from police. Oxford City Council unanimously granted Boom: Battle Bar’s application permission, despite concerns over safety. Thames Valley Police have also suggested the bar could increase alcohol-related crime and disorder to the area. Inspector James Sullivan asked for the council to turn down the licence application, or to approve firmer safety restrictions on the bar. Oxford City Councillor Michael Gotch said he had been “rather horrified” on reading police evidence that suggested customers might be searched when leaving to prevent people smuggling blades out of the premises. However, CEO and

founder of Boom: Battle Bar Elliot Shuttleworth said that customers would be escorted at all times, and that weapons would be locked away afterwards. The Boom: Battle Bar website also suggests that each 45 minute session will be led by a “specialised instructor”. Axe-throwing will be just one of many activities available at the 250-capacity bar. Crazy golf, electric darts and shuffle ball are among other activities offered at existing Boom: Battle Bar sites. Hammerschlaagen, a Bavarian game involving knocking nails into a tree stump with a hammer will also be served up. With axes, darts and hammers involved, some have raised concerns over alcohol consumption at this site. Despite the beer-pong

inspired activity the bar also offers, as well as the pints and cocktails it sells, representatives of the company emphasised that selling alcohol was a “secondary element” of the business, and that it was not a “drinks-led business”. For participation in axe-throwing, Boom: Battle Bar’s website also asks customers that “no alcohol… be consumed beforehand please”, and alcohol during the axe-throwing session is prohibited. Alan Cook, UK head of operations at Boom: Battle Bar has also said that the bar’s target audience spends most of their money on games instead of alcohol, and that the bar attracts “the under 35s” who “don’t drink anymore”. Boom: Battle Bar also runs activity bars in Cardiff and Norwich, with

another bar set to open in Liverpool. The venues are only open for over-18s after 7pm, and activities including axe-throwing and Hammerschlaagen are age-restricted. Activities such as electric darts, table tennis and crazier golf are open to all

CITY

Marston Court’s website. A video of the performance can be found on YouTube and the choir’s Facebook page. Sweet Charity Choir was approached for comment.

CITY

age groups. Oxford City Council will insist on highvisibility jackets and body-worn cameras for security staff. Boom: Battle Bar, Norfolk Police, and South Wales Police have been approached for comment.

Science and technology Friday, 5th February 2021 | Science & Tech

How memory is illustrated in Inside Out Jonathan Mallet describes how memory works and to what extent the film Inside Out got it right.

ave you ever wondered how your memory works? Where it is? How memories are made? All will be explained, with a little help from the film Inside Out. Inside Out is one of the most imaginative films in Pixar’s catalogue. The stage is set inside the brain of a girl called Riley and the characters are her emotions – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. The plot revolves around retrieving important ‘core memories’ that have been lost. Memories are represented as globes stacked on shelves in the brain, tinted by colours that match those of the accompanying emotions. How accurate is this depiction of memory? It turns out Inside Out is a lot more reliable than you might think. In the brain, memories are thought to be initially stored in the hippocampus – a small, curved region located deep within the brain, just above the level of the ear on each side. The surrounding regions also

contribute to memory. Over time, some of these ‘short-term’ memories become ‘long-term memories’, which are stored as connections with the cerebral cortex (the large, outer layer of the brain). When Riley goes to sleep, Joy watches as the memories rattle out of their initial storage in headquarters and are flung across the night sky like shooting stars. They streak down and land across a vast landscape of dense curves and folds. It’s a clever and stylish representation of the storage of the memories across the cerebral cortex. This moment in the film is an amalgamation of several different processes in the brain, so it’s worth unpicking these. The temporary storage of facts in working memory only lasts up to 30 seconds. The transfer to long-term memory happens almost immediately, not during sleep as the film shows.

COVID-19 immunity passports: a fair policy? Thomas Morris explores the possibility of introducing COVID-19 immunity passports.

recent study of healthcare workers by the University of Oxford has shown that a past coronavirus infection gives immunity against later reinfection to most people for at least six months. This has raised the question of whether ‘immunity passports’ should be introduced to give more lenient restrictions to those that have recently been infected, thereby reflecting the reduced transmission risk these individuals pose. Indeed, some countries have already taken this idea on board and have created looser restrictions for those with some developed immunity. Hungary allows people to enter the country if they can provide evidence of COVID-19 recovery. Iceland also plans to allow mask mandate exemptions for those with a doctor’s letter confirming their recovery status. To some, such a policy is unfair, as it gives different freedoms to

people based on whether they have been infected. It could also lead to people attempting to self-diagnose themselves as immune, or fraudulently producing passports. Potentially this problem could be overcome with a suitably secure passport system, and a requirement for a confirmed government PCR test. There is also the possibility that some might seek out coronavirus infection in order to have looser restrictions after their recovery. But this seems fairly unlikely due to the risks of having an infection and the currently ongoing rollout of the vaccine, which would give immunity in a safer way. Although for young people who tend to have asymptomatic infections, the risk may seem acceptable, so this could be a concern. The policy may also make it harder to enforce national level restrictions. The more people who have exemptions from restrictions, the more isolated those still locked down would

There is a role for sleep and dreams in memory, but this is actually in the consolidation of long-term memories. A better representation of this phenomenon in the film would be if the globes in long-term memory were to glow brighter and become organised, so that related memories are stored together. One of the other main features of the film is how the memories are entwined with the emotions. This is well-established in psychology - the emotions affect how we record memories, but also how we remember them. It is much easier to recall memories from your life that matches your current mood, and we tend to find positive memories easier to remember than negative ones as a rule. Onto the substance of the memories themselves. Unlike in the film, these are not stored as a single ‘video clip’ – the information from our senses is stored in different regions of the brain, so that we can recall what someone said or what they looked like when they were saying it, or both at the same time.

The fundamental unit of memory is called an engram – the group of connected neurons that encode a single ‘unit’ of information. The hypothesis of engrams has been around since the 1920s, but in the last two decades we have been able to directly observe these neurons and manipulate them. In one such experiment in 2012, researchers were able to directly induce recall of a memory. Using a technique called optogenetics, they activated a population of neurons in mice which had been active during learning of a fear response, causing the mice to ‘remember’ the fear response and freeze. Overall, the view of the human memory we get from Inside Out is not one from the inside out, but from the top down. A little more research is needed for the curious viewer to find out exactly what makes up a memory. This is no criticism of the film, though - Pixar can hardly be blamed for not animating an engram. It succeeds in capturing lots of important concepts about the human memory without ever feeling didactic, conveying them not with words but images. And, best of all, the science is being used to tell a story. What setting for a story could possibly be as interesting as the human brain?

feel, which may lead to reduced compliance. The most important and critical flaw with this proposition is the current stance of the World Health Organisation, who say there is insufficient evidence that a previous coronavirus infection significantly reduces risk of subsequent infection. Their stance may change in light of this new study from Oxford, but for the present it has not. Yet ultimately, the government restrictions upon people’s freedoms due to coronavirus must also be kept proportionate to the risk that people pose. It is a substantial infringement of people’s liberties to keep them at home, and an immunity passport could make a fair representation of the reduced risk level for certain individuals. The justification for strict lockdown restrictions is that they are necessary to prevent people who may be infected from spreading the virus. But if the risk of them doing this is significantly lower due to immunity, then it would be reasonable for these restrictions to reflect that. If we have sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis of developed immunity, then the policy of immunity passports should be seriously considered. Read the full article at www. cherwell.org.

SCIENCE SNIPPETS

Physicists at Goethe Frankfurt University broke the record of measuring the shortest time span to date, by measuring the propagation of light within a molecule.

According to a study conducted by Purdue University, turning off your camera on a video call can reduce the carbon, water and land footprint of the call by up to 96%.

A new species of baleen whale has been discovered in the Gulf of Mexico and has been named Balaenoptera ricei. Image: Morningdew.

Editorial | Friday, 5th February 2021

Amelia Horn | Editor-in-Chief TW: sexual violence

s part of my thesis reading crisis this week, I came across an article by Brandi Townsend: The Body and State Violence: Women’s Oral History Chile. Written just months before the Chilean ‘Revolution’ of 2019, the article dealt with three testimonies by women who had experienced violence under the Pinochet regime 19731990. Two of the women, Sylvia and Alicia, follow what Townsend describes as the typical resistance narrative of the “rebellious” or “irreverent” woman. As with any oral history, much is revealed in what kind of narrative the subject chooses to tell you, giving an insight into the way they remember their actions and observations. Sylvia described her time in prison continual rebellion against the state’s attempts to restrict her personal hygiene. For Alicia, her bodily autonomy found form in having an abortion and then subsequently choosing to have a child out of wedlock. These acts went against the image of women imposed by the military regime, which set up the traditional family structure as the nucleus of the nation. However, it was the third narrative which resulted in my

EDITORIAL

tears. Oriana had suffered brutal sexual torture at the hands of the regime’s armed police, and her oral testimony to Townsend was one of the first times she’d shared her story publicly. It wasn’t a typical ‘heroine’ narrative; it was laced with doubt, self-deprecation, internalised misogyny, and a confused understanding of rape. But this is what made it so moving. Feminist history is often narrated to us as a series of “special women”, but Oriana’s testimony reflected a confusion about women’s resistance that is far from alien. It felt much more, well, ordinary, despite the extraordinary circumstances of her abuse. She discussed her trauma hesitantly, and it was clear it was something she battled with every day. And sadly, it felt like a story experienced by many women living in the system of male violence and domination. Oriana’s resistance does not follow the typical ‘smash the patriarchy’ pattern, but as Townsend concludes, she resists by choosing to tell her story, to own a narrative that for decades she had been shamed into hiding. In combining the stories of these three Chilean women, Townsend provides a compelling account of the variety of female experience and the essentiality of a feminist plurality.

Editor-in-Chief | Lucy Tansley

herwell’s profiles section interviews a large number of interesting people, both famous and lesser-known, but there remains a strong temptation to email the most famous person you can think of, or in my case, all my favourite actors, in the vague hope that maybe one of them would happen to grant an interview to a student newspaper hundreds of miles away. It is hard to place why this temptation (quickly acted upon after searching the names of celebrity publicists) is so strong; to see Jennifer Aniston on a video call on my computer screen makes her physically no closer than watching Friends on Netflix. The half an hour conversation, asking them similar questions to ones they’ll probably have been asked hundreds of times before, would not bring me in much sense any closer to my idols, but perhaps, nowadays, this is all the satisfaction we can expect. Despite the unanimous rejection, or, more often, lack of reply from agents, it is this sense of possibility that has been suggested to me by coronavirus. Now video calls are our norm of communication,

we are in a time where no-one is more than a Zoom link away, and an actor in Hollywood is no more inaccessible than someone living two streets away. In my classes last term, people joined us from Australia; in Cherwell lay-ins this term, people call in from Singapore. At Christmas, my cousins who live in Mexico felt no farther away from us than those who live in Sussex when we were all reduced to little squares on a laptop. In some ways, it is depressing that this has become our replacement for ‘real’ human interaction, but although we can’t see people in the flesh during lockdown, perhaps this pandemic has made us accustomed to being able to reach people no matter their location. There are still huge inequalities in the way people have been affected by lockdown, but there is a sort of commonality to the way that no one can continue with life as normal while the pandemic is here. Leonardo DiCaprio may never agree to do an interview with me, but at least maybe I can feel like, both confined to our own homes, we have a little more in common than we did before.

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CUL CHER

Friday, 5th February 2021 | Vol.293 No.3 | 3rd Week

CulCher | Friday, 5th February 2021

INSIDE

CULCHER page 2 | GameStop beats Goliath page 3 | Rituals: A reminder that you’re not alone THE SOURCE page 4-5 | Adolescence BOOKS page 6 | Valentine’s special STAGE page 7 | In conversation with director Sally Cookson FASHION page 8-9 | All dressed up with nowhere to go MUSIC page 10 | “Here comes your” alt rock FILM page 11 | It’s a Sin: A Sublime and Sorrowful social history LIFE page 12-13 | Confessions of a productivity addict page 14 | Is love really blind? FOOD page 15 | Food predictions for 2021 PROFILES page 16 | In conversation with Clive Stafford Smith

COVER ARTIST SASHA LACÔMBE I did this sketch of my beautiful friend Katy probably a week into the first lockdown way back in March. It was late afternoon and we had decided to partake in the then novel concept of ‘zoom drinks’ to somehow attempt to replicate the Thursday Bridge pres. I asked her how she was spending her first week of lockdown and what fun hobbies and activities she had decided to partake in now that she finally ‘had the time’ to be creative. She told me that she and her sister decided to get dressed up at home and have a photoshoot in the dress that she was supposed to wear to the Christ Church Commem Ball. The dress is beautiful. I hope it will have some champagne spilled on it one day.

GAMESTOP BEATS GOLIATH BY EDUARD ANGHEL

ow did Hansel and Gretel become rich? They went through a terrible ordeal in the gingerbread house of a witch who locked Hansel up in a cage and attempted to fatten him up and eat him, before Gretel tricked the witch to her death. Hansel and Gretel pilfered the gold and jewellery stashed in the house and returned home to their impoverished family, who left them for dead in a dangerous forest not once, but twice. This chaotic tale is the way fictional characters in cartoonish fairy tales get rich, but when we examine how the real adult world works today, the economy functions with the precision of a Swiss watch. If you haven’t caught on to my sarcasm yet, this is my re-telling of the Gamestop shorting saga, which demonstrates how the stock market is a bizarre hall of mirrors whose purpose is to serve the interests of the very few, largely at the expense of everyone else. How does a hedge fund manager get rich? Well, stealing jewels from a witch is one way to do it. The GameStop fiasco is a happy accident, a glitch in the Matrix, an episode where, for once, our economy didn’t serve the interest of those it has been designed to reward. How does a hedge fund manager make money? If you are, say, an analyst at Citadel or Melvin Capital, you use a financial technique called short selling. Shorting can be applied to any asset (in the famous movie The Big Short, the protagonists shorted the housing market) but in our case, we will apply it to good old-fashioned stocks. If you short a stock, you borrow shares of a company from someone else at a set price, promise to return the shares at a set date, sell the shares now and bet that by the time you have to give back the shares that you borrowed (which you do not own and have already sold), that the value of the shares will decrease and you can buy them at a lower price, return them to whoever you borrowed them from in the first place, and then pocket the difference as profit. The way people now make money is not by actually creating any value, or contributing to society with a product or service, but by moving numbers on a computer and hoping to make $1.10 out of $1.00 times a gazillion. Cue r/wallstreetbets, a foulmouthed subreddit imageboard similar to 4chan’s /biz/ where people call each other

unprintable insults while sharing investment advice and screenshots of the money they lost dumping their grandmothers’ pensions into meme-stocks on trading apps like Robinhood. A user going by the name DeepF******Value saw that GameStop was shorted beyond belief and enjoined others to buy it in force. This was a masterstroke because if you short an asset and you are wrong (i.e. instead of the asset price going down, it goes up) then there is theoretically no limit to the amount of money you can lose. How? If Citadel borrowed a lot of shares in Gamestop and sold them at a price, they will still have to return those shares regardless of the shares’ future price. If the price blows up, then Citadel will have to attempt to buy back the shares at whatever the new price is as fast as possible in order to cover their position, which will, in turn, increase the demand for Gamestop shares even more. Due to r/wallstreetbets collective effort, GameStop increased from $5 a share on the 27th of January last year, to $340. The victory of the r/wallstreetbets is a David and Goliath retelling in our Covid nightmare world, and it is in many ways, quite romantic too. Though Gamestop still had some juice in them (they announced a new board of directors and a new CEO early this year, which was the match that lit this stupid fire), this story is in many ways about nostalgia. Other heavily shorted companies that redditors pour money into nowadays to own the hedgefunds include Nokia, AMC (the film company which produced the TV show Breaking Bad) and Blackberry. Growing up in provincial Romania, I still remember owning a Nokia 6233 phone, and it still works to this day. I believe what prompted the redditors to choose Gamestop was a desire to prevent a company that marked their childhood from being torn to pieces by the usual financial winners. As things stand, funds that engaged in shorting stand to lose a total of $70 billion dollars, and the above-mentioned Melvin Capital, which is partly owned by Citadel, is on the brink of insolvency. However, while this tale is a hilarious glitch in the Matrix, it is only that, a glitch. Read the full article online at cherwell.org Image credit: Nikhil Popuri via Pixahive.

Friday, 5th February 2021 | CulCher

RITUALS: A REMINDER THAT YOU’RE NOT ALONE

t’s 2012 and I’m crying to my mum as she drives me straight from school to yet another bat mitzvah lesson. I try all the usuals: “But Mum I don’t want to read from the Torah, that’s ancient stuff” or “It’s not fair, Miranda Hart’s new episode is literally on TV like right now.” Truth be told, despite my attempts at grinding my mum down, I finally took to the stage, also known as my synagogue, and belted out my Torah portion. It took a year of learning how to sing an ancient alphabet in tune before I performed the ritual which connected me to my ancestors and my hypothetical successors to me. When people hear the word ‘ritual’, their first thoughts are often prayer, spirits, antiquity, or maybe even bloody animal sacrifice. However, in my case the only figurative blood that was shed was about whether to wear a classic skater dress from Topshop or that sparkly puffy dress from Ruth’s. (My North London Jews will know what I mean). Retrospectively, however, I will never forget the feeling of looking up from the yellowish parchment paper of the biblical scroll and seeing everyone I love. It was at this moment that I realised what coming of age rituals are all about: the feeling of being part of something larger than yourself, which just happened, in my case, to manifest itself in a cringey purple and silver themed party. Fast-forward eight years and I’m in Oxford debating with my tute partner over whether brushing your teeth is a ritual. It could be, he argues, as it’s a sequenced activity which connects many people to our greater societal belief in cosmetics and health, but on the other hand, it’s just a private self-indulgent activity which merely helps us achieve that colgate smile. Despite agreeing to disagree on the toothbrush we came to define ritual through Victor Turner’s words of Communitas: something which acutely connects people to a greater community through a sacred common experience, such as a rite of passage. Coming of age rituals manifest themselves in different ways across the world. Instead of a bat mitzvah, 15-year-old

BY LILY SHELDON

Latina girls have a fiesta de quinceanera to mark their transition to maturity, or Amish teenagers experience a period of Rumspringa, where they break away from their community before deciding whether or not to re-enter the Amish church for life. All 20-years-olds in Japan are invited to celebrate Seijin no Hi, or ‘adults day’, on the second Monday in January, and when coming of age in Bali, which is at first period for girls and breaking of voices for boys, teens have a teeth-filing ceremony performed by a priest. All of these cultures have their own way of defining adulthood which additionally emulate their attitudes towards gender, age, and maturity. For many cultures, they may be liberating in their own right; me reading from the Torah would have made my great-grandfather quake in his boots but for my 12-year-old self I had never felt so powerful. It goes without saying that ongoing lockdowns have taken a toll on communal coming of age rituals. However, my community has found ways to evolve.For my cousins’ bar-mitzvah, Zoom was suddenly in operation; they had to practise singing powerfully enough to beat any sort of lag and we had to tune into our too-small screens. It may not have been the celebration they deserved – there was no uncle who took a bit too much license with the open bar, no throwing of sweets, no drunken screams of “Mazel Tov” to The Black Eyed Peas ‘I Gotta Feeling’, – but it did still mark their coming of age. With the growth of TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, teenagers have never been so connected, yet somehow have never felt so unspecial and alone. No matter how frustrating and nerve-wracking, coming of age rituals make the individual feel special because they are part of something beyond what they can see, our ‘communitas.’ To my own community, we must continue to virtually hold these kids up on a bat mitzvah chair as we, on Zoom, dance the hora, because at the end of the day, it’s a reminder that our community is here to break their fall when the obstacles of adulthood get in their way.

CULCHER EDITORIAL Borders have never made much sense to me. This year I’ve watched students be denied entry to the US because their online university course didn’t qualify them for a visa, and I’m doing my best to cheer up a friend who is going through the process of getting deported. Having access to a passport, and in particular, the right one, can seriously change your chances at life, and from what I’ve seen, fortune is cruel. Perhaps it was Priti Patel’s recent decision to ban UK citizens from leaving the UK’s borders on non-essential travel that is the cause of my current frustration, or the EU’s brief invocation of Article 16 last week that would have seen a hard border put between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in an attempt to stop the export of vaccines. Borders can feel rather arbitrary when they deny privileges to the ones you love. If nations are built on collective memory, then they are also built on collective forgetfulness. The Buried Giant, written by Nobel prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, is a fantasy tale set in England’s mythical post-Arthurial Dark Age where people have lost the ability to retain long term memories because of a literal mist of oblivion that covers the land. An elderly couple must undertake a quest to find a son they can’t remember and discover that the peaceful life they enjoy is only possible by an induced slumber that buries past feuds in mental fog. Are the couple happier in their ignorance, and is national peace by means of forgetfulness ever an acceptable aim to pursue? Recent social movements towards equity have been characterised by their call to remembrance. The knowledge of how much environmental destruction was suffered, how many lives were lost, and how many acres of land were stolen is painful to hear, and at times, disunifying. But we can never let a commitment to unity trump our commitment to remembrance. If the United Kingdom is dissolved, there will certainly be more border red-tape ahead, but no matter where you draw the line, borders are imperfect historical artifacts. Perhaps one day we will be ruled by a benevolent world government, but for now, this is the best we have. – Angela Eichhorst

WHAT’S ON Magdalen Immobility Exhibition: January Onwards

Space Travel Across the Decades and Beyond: Friday 26th 5-7pm

Photo Oxford Festival Into Motherhood: Throughout February

An online exhibition exploring ‘the multiple dimensions of mobility, from movement to stillness, from the physical to the imaginary.’ Accessed at immobility. magd.ox.ac.uk

Online discussion panel, including Dr. Mae Jameson, the first African American woman in space. Booking free through Oxford University website. Artwork by Gbenga Chesterman.

Three series of photographs by Alegra Ally, an anthropologist whose work explores the themes of childbirth and motherhood in indigenous cultures across several continents. Artwork by Gbenga Chesterman.

CulCher | Friday, 5th February 2021

This week, The Source delves into the world of adolescence and the powerful memories with which it leaves us.

E H SOU T Growin’ up with Emily

RC E

Anushka Shah We’re sat in Emily’s car, the three of us, all berry-mouthed our sunglasses tucked in beach-bleached hair and sand still stuck in the eyelets next to laces, sat on towels, sweltering. And on shuffle comes that Radiohead song that reminds me of something I can’t remember – it doesn’t matter, anyway – there is only today, this fast-slow day. Each time I dip my toes in the wake of the waves of the future, the wake ebbs over them, then shrinks away. We’re sat in Emily’s car, and Emily asks if we were fated to be friends, whether we would’ve found each other, had we not met how we did.

I say yes, I am sure of it. Just how some people are born with reading holes for eyes – they do not merely read books but devour them – we were surely born to find ourselves in this car as the sand dries and falls off our feet… How many grains of sand does it take to make a heap? And Abbie pipes up – you’re being too deep. And we’re laughing again like we do on the beach. Somewhere, the sun is setting, you can picture the scene: three girls sat dangling out the doors of a car, sea salt and suncream, we dream, we dream.

Friday, 5th February 2021 | CulCher

Rice-cakes Ursy Reynolds So I sat on my bed and ate a rice-cake. Then it was gone. I took another, thinking of last Tuesday: standing naked in front of a man I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t love, thinking sex was exciting. With the next, I remembered forgetting to wear a bra to school, the red-faced embarrassment of it, sure everybody could tell. Crunch, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m back falling in love again, lying by myself watching Peep Show. A few more down, a few more days of worrying about weddings, wondering why we seem to copy the lives of those we wish would love us, and then I forgot to take the pill and bled all over the jumper that had made a car beep at me. So I sat on my bed and ate a rice-cake. Then it was gone.

Image by: Rachel Jung. Submit your creative writing to The Source at: culturecherwell@gmail.com

CulCher | Friday, 5th February 2021

Valentine’s Special

SOFIE JONES TALKS ABOUT A LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE ROMANCE GENRE

or the first 17 years of my life, I felt like everything I knew about love I learned from books. Sure, as a self-conscious 13-year-old I discussed schoolyard crushes with my friends. But this never amounted to anything but a few minutes of gossip, a mere attempt to understand the un-understandable minefield of pre-teen flirtation. Like any good American high schooler, I’d spent my fair share of hours consoling friends after unforeseen break-ups or pepping them up to talk to a new potential suitor. None of this, however, seemed as compelling a conception of love as I encountered in novels. When I started encountering romantic relationships in novel form, the very idea of dating was abstract to me. In Jeffrey Eugenides’ book The Marriage Plot, he describes the appeal that books hold to a character, writing, “She wanted a book to take her places she couldn’t get to herself.” This gets at why many of us first dive into fictional love stories years

s Valentine’s Day looms, its not hard to find examples of romantic love. But literature celebrates the expanse of human emotion and so our books editors have picked out two moving illustrations of this. The Journals of Sylvia Plath Irene, Books Editor Sylvia Plath obsessions are a rite of passage for a certain subset of young women, but beyond stereotypical images of ‘mad’ genius and feminine depression lie a rich oeuvre treasured by diverse readers and a complex, surprising human being. Plath’s Journals take immediacy of emotion to the highest level as the author confides into an imaginary audience, all her ambition, joy, and suffering thus laid bare. Novels and poems are controlled artistic expressions, but life has neither thesis nor singular narrative; as the storyteller herself

before we are ready to actually enter a relationship. Fictional couples can serve as models in teaching us about love, just as fictional conundrums teach us about morals. In recent years, my understanding of love (and the many forms it takes) has moved past the purely abstract. I no longer think of ‘loving’ as a hypothetical act that must look, or feel, any specific, predestined way. Now, love is no longer something relegated to late-night reading or romantic comedies. The highs and lows are my own to experience, not the creation of an author that I can sit back and experience second-hand. As I try to navigate love’s unpredictable landscape, these books serve as points of reference, reminding me that I am not as adrift and lost as I think. At its most satisfying, love feels like the moment when Lizzy and Mr. Darcy finally profess their feelings for each other . At its most melancholy, love resembles the relationships shown in Jhumpa Lahiru’s Interpreter of Maladies, as ordinary people

BOOKS

who have fallen out of love find their way back together. At its lightest, it feels a John Green meet-cute read and at its most devastating, love feels like it does for Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights: desperate and disembodying. Last year when I went through my first break-up, I turned to these fictional romances with a new perspective. Endings that once seemed so cynical seemed fitting now. Heartbreak was not some tragedy, but simply a sometimes necessary part of life. I noticed this change most clearly in regard to one of my old favorites: Louisa M a y A l c o t t ’s Little Women. When I first read the novel at 10 or 11 years old, I remember being distraught that as Jo March

famously rejects the proposal of childhood best friend and kindred spirit. They seemed so alike, so destined to be together. It took me time (and yes, some heartache) to learn that even the things that appear to be perfect can be deeply flawed or just plain wrong. How could I, as a reader, fault Jo for that? Love, in both books and real-life, is as messy and complicated as life gets.The greatest books that deal with the subject celebrate the contradictions and surprises of romantic relationships, instead of f lattening them for the sake of consumable perfection.

Artwork credit: Lucy Tansley

Cherwell Recommends: Love of All Kinds THE BOOKS SECTION OFFER THEIR TOP PICKS OF PLATONIC LOVE STORIES confronted this, her relationship with literature continued to evolve right until the last moments of her life. The Journals illustrate passion, sensitivity, and imagination with unparalleled intensity, making for an absorbing read like no other. The Road by Cormac McCarthy Ella, Deputy Books Editor The Road is the story of a father and son trekking through post-apocalyptic America in search of the meagre food - and escaping those who are finding less humane ways to eat. While the father is not demonstrative in his affection,

his whole world and character centre around protecting his son. McCarthy himself, when asked by Oprah, said he would not be able to say ‘I love you’ to his own son, but that the story stood as a ‘love story’ to him, inspired by his fears as an older first-time father. Questions from the boy about morality and death which the father struggles to answer in the hopelessness of their circumstances are directly taken from McCarthy’s son. I found myself drawn into the world, reading the whole book over two days, and deeply invested in each new search or plan. The usually sparse writing also

style gives power to the flights of metaphorical language which appear a few times- especially the extraordinarily cryptic and beautiful final passage. Just so, the deceptively simple relationship between father and son, a stoically masculine affair of few words and physical protection, comes under question. To say more would give away a lot of the joy of discovery in the story, but if you want a startlingly unique tale of paternal love, including the failures and doubts of a parent in dire straits, it might happen to lie in a post-apocalyptic adventure. Full article available online.

Friday, 5th February 2021 | CulCher

STAGE

“WE’RE GOING INTO A NEW TERRITORY” Nia Brown talks to A Monster Calls and Jane Eyre director Sally Cookson.

hen did you decide that you wanted to pursue a career as a director? I never thought about being a theatre director, I was always passionate about wanting to be an actor. I went to LAMDA drama school and then was an actor for about 10 years. When I was about 30 I got a job at the Bristol Old Vic for 8 months with an ensemble company. I loved working as part of an ensemble and getting to know how the theatre worked and being part of the different departments. I decided to set up a small summer course of 25 people with a friend of mine. It was so incredibly enriching that I knew then it was something I wanted to pursue. What were the female roles like when you were acting? I played a few nice roles in my early twenties and then it all started to get boring. I was always playing the young, boring, passive ingenue who has no agency and is only there as a love interest. Every rehearsal experience was exactly the same. Run by all male directors, mostly all male writers and it just felt like I wasn’t being stimulated in any way. Sadly we just accepted it, but I wasn’t prepared to continue in that way. I didn’t want to remain in an industry that saw women like that. Do you think a lot of your experiences as an actor has informed the way that you direct? It has informed every aspect of how I am as a director, including the experience of having worked with a pretty sadistic male bully. I’ve worked with a lot of lovely male directors, but I did have one extremely difficult experience in my early career. It was so demoralising and humiliating that when I became a director I vowed that my rehearsal room would be the opposite of how he ran his rehearsal room. Do you think it’s difficult being a woman in the theatre industry?

As an actor I found it extremely challenging and didn’t like how it made me feel. As a director my experience has been very different. I was very lucky because when I became a freelance director I worked for a fantastic company for 10 years called Travelling Light which was run by women.The way they ran the company which was not ego-led. It was very much about the work and collaboration and connection with the audience, so I learnt a lot about how I like to work through that company. Do you see the gender disparity in theatre has changed in recent years? I think the National Theatre Artistic Director Rufus Norris is very aware of that and is working really hard to make sure that there is quality but it feels like right now people are letting it slip. Especially with covid, I’m wondering whether that’s affecting how people think and not wanting to take risks, and I think sometimes female playwrights and female directors are still considered risky. I do think there’s an underlying misogyny in the profession that we constantly need to challenge and not take our feet off the pedal. How do you feel about the way Covid has impacted the theatre industry? Although our profession has been hit mightily by Covid, we have had to have difficult conversations and reflect on our industry during this time. That has been a really positive thing, unpacking how the building blocks don’t make it a fair playing ground, not just for women but for BAME communities and people with disabilities. Some of the most interesting conversations I’ve had have been about why theatre is important. We’re going into a new territory where anything can happen, but it has to involve a fairer space and a more equal space which really thinks about the community we’re making theatre with and for.

REVIEWS/SHORTS Not quite the win the National were hoping for

hen the National announced that they’d be producing their first ever socially-distanced pantomime, I was intrigued. The script is an updated revival of the 2018 Lyric Hammersmith version of Dick Whittington. It gets rid of the genre’s clichés. It attempts to be the Hamilton of pantomimes: incorporating street dance, rap, pop ballads and frequent references to TikTok trends. It is a love letter to London, putting the city’s vibrancy centre stage. I did enjoy the elements of political satire that the production managed to include, such as the subtle jab at the Tory Government’s free school meals misfire. The Mayor of London in this production (who for some reason is a pigeon) even flies in on a zipwire, sporting shaggy mop of hair that looked suspiciously similar to that of the current Prime Minister… Yet I was left with the overwhelming impression that the script tries too hard to be upto-date. Apart from a few racy double entendres, the comedy

falls flat and the dialogue is at best mediocre. At times the use of pop songs felt overused to the extent that Dick Whittington began to feel more like a jukebox musical; a rendition of Dua Lipa’s ‘Don’t Start Now’ felt forced and didn’t provide any comic relief. However, I have rarely seen a cast with such energy that could execute a very flat script. If their run was not cut short by the placement of London into Tier Three, the actors could havgrown into their roles and the writers would have ironed out the weaknesses in the script. It is well known that pantomimes rely on the interaction between the stage and the audience—something that a filmed version at home, no matter how well-shot, could replicate. Therefore, while Dick Whittington wasn’t quite the hit perhaps that the NT were hoping for, I for one can’t wait to be back in the Olivier as soon as restrictions ease. --- James Newbery Image Credit: The Other Richard.

CulCher | Friday, 5th February 2021

FASHION

All dressed up with nowhere to go Nina Follows won’t let restrictions stagnate her style. style. From actually changing out of our pyjamas before getting back into bed again at night, to parading our best black-tie around the aisles of our local Tesco, the pandemic has cultivated an array of new approaches to what might be considered getting ‘dressed up’. A month into Lockdown #3, however, with arguably very little else on the horizon, a bit of time spent curating and frolicking in a fun ‘fit could foster some otherwiseneglected artistic flair; a small semblance of sophistication or put-together past normality; or even just some valuable moments of mindless distraction. I’m not suggesting that we need to don full-on party garb for Panopto, or head-totoe taffeta for Teams (though should you feel that way inclined, be my guest by all means!), but dabbling in some indulgent dressing might just be a unmatchable minimal-effort way to restore a pinch of glam and spice to our perhaps otherwise mildly lacklustre lives. So go on – cast those sorry sweatpants aside, turn on some trouble-free tunes, and delve into the dusty depths of your ‘drobe to discover what joys might there await… …even if it is just to get right back into bed again.

Friday, 5th February 2021 | CulCher

Check us out on Instagram: @Cherwellfashion

Model: Annabel Follows photographer: Nina Follows

CulCher | Friday, 5th February 2021

MUSIC

“HERE COMES YOUR” ALT-ROCK

Jimmy Brewer looks at five bands who shaped the genre.

lternative Rock, or Alt-Rock for short, emerged from the late 70s’ independent music scene and its DIY punk ethos. It is characterised by experimentation with texture, timbre and structure, especially drawing on the raw, distorted punk rock sounds and new wave’s energetic appeal. The genre saw its commercial peak in the 90s, spearheaded by Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction. Here are five artists who advanced alt-rock’s sound before its 90s boom. The Velvet Underground: Despite not fitting in chronologically with the emergence of alternative rock as a movement, stylistically, a lot began with The Velvet Underground. Holed away in Andy Warhol’s New York creative hub, ‘The Factory’, in the late 60s, the band released some of the most exciting rock music ever. Take their distorted, lewd and all-around-nasty second LP, White Light/White Heat: comprising just six songs, this is The Velvets at their harshest and noisiest. Or, listen to the latter half of “I Heard Her Call My Name”, with its pounding drums and ear-splitting guitar tone: it is at once unhinged and brilliant. This album distinctively laid the foundations for Alt-Rock’s louder and more extreme sounds. The Fall: We jump forward over a decade to Manchester’s more left-field, post-punk

flavour. Essentially a revolving cast centred around frontman/mastermind Mark E. Smith, the band were known for their repetitive, enraged and cryptic cuts. Try “Spoilt Victorian Child” from their 1985 album This Nation’s Saving Grace: exhilarating and exhausting, a jangly, infectious guitar lead counterbalances Mark E. Smith’s typically outré lyricism. Whilst still firmly within the realm of cult popularity, The Fall made a distinctive mark – especially on Sonic Youth, who covered them three times in a single session. Pixies: Formed in 1986 in Boston, one thing Pixies do incredibly well is to work pop-caliber hooks into their noisy, chaotic sound. This stands out in songs like “Debaser” and “Here Comes My Man”, both from 1989’s Doolittle. They perfected this formula so convincingly that they essentially wrote the rulebook for much of the 90s Alt-Rock craze. Listen to “Tame” from Doolittle; the quiet-verse explosive-chorus structure prefigures Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. In fact, Kurt Cobain admitted that he was “basically trying to rip off the Pixies”. Artist after artist cites Pixies as a major influence; they “changed [the] life” of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke; for David Bowie, they were “just about the most compelling music of the 80s”.

Sonic Youth: Bowie’s “just about” is significant; there was another equally compelling group, these New York alternative rock titans. Formed in 1981, Sonic Youth initially dabbled in the scuzzy, nihilistic world of No Wave, before really hitting their stride with their third LP release EVOL (1986). “Tom Violence” wails with tortured guitars, whilst in “Shadow of a Doubt” carefully plucked harmonics tiptoe around hushed vocals before the second half of the song roars to life. Each track reels you in in before emitting a thumping wall of noise. Hüsker Dü: As guitarist Bob Mould said, “Hüsker Dü wears many wigs.” Their 1983 debut, Everything Falls Apart, was a breakneck punk beginning, but by 1984’s Zen Arcade they incorporated significant melodic aspects. To a somewhat bleak coming-ofage narrative are set crackling guitars and muscular, percussion; lo-fi production gives the songs a gritty edge, yet moments of melody still shine through, such as the pulsating bassline and anthemic harmonies of “Something I Learned Today”. Whilst always remaining just south of true mainstream success, never compromised their at times strange, but always exciting, sound. Image Credit: Verve Records via Wikimedia & Creative Commons.

BODLEIAN BANGERS Dame Helen Ghosh, Balliol Master and former civil servant, picks a selection of her and her family’s favourite music. Find on Spotify @cherwellmusic and the full interview online.

Image Credits: Infernemland, Ernst Vikne & Glenn Francis

JESSYE NORMAN Richard Strauss “Ruhe, meine Seele!”

ELTON JOHN Crocodile Rock

TAYLOR SWIFT London Boy

Friday, 5th February 2021 | CulCher

FILM

IT’S A SIN: A SUBLIME & SORROWFUL SOCIAL HISTORY Jess Curry reviews Russell T Davies’ emotional five-part miniseries ‘It’s A Sin’, which sensitively tackles the tragic history of the AIDS epidemic.

cannot think of a show I have enjoyed less than this show. I can also not think of one that I would recommend more highly. This is gay epic, spanning nearly a decade across the 80s as a group of five young people start into their adult lives with different hopes and dreams, not aware that survival will soon become their primary ambition. 1981 is a liminal year for their own adulthood and self-actualisation, but also for the AIDS crisis which would go on to claim more fatalities than World War One. Davies told Esquire: “I was 19 in 1981, so I’ve been wanting to tell this story for that long really.” And indeed looking back at

his career, it almost seems like he’s been honing his skills to give a treatment to the crisis that is both sensitive and emotive and deeply political. This is a writer who knows how to depict culture - although it can hardly be taken as comprehensive, the program which catapulted him to fame, Queer as Folk, did so due to its groundbreaking and honest depiction of gay life in the noughties. He plots this show with a point to prove. Davies captures the fear from lack of information about the virus as only someone who lived through the crisis would be able to. But crucially, it’s very clear that the worst sin is the homophobia which meant that resources were withheld from tackling the crisis as a generation of young men was decimated. He captures the prejudice which exacerbated the pandemic and its insidiousness - from doctors to politicians, Article 48 to internalised homophobia. Some characters are

very very kind. ‘Jill’, based on a friend of the writer, shows a world of volunteers, hotline runners and campaigners. Others are not. In one of the cruellest of many causes of a sharp inhaled breath, the sweet mother to one main character falls in this category - when her son is doubly outed as suffering from AIDS and being a gay man, her macho husband breaks down in tears, while she shouts and swears and bans the dying boy’s friends from his bed side. It is this absolutely heart squeezing combination of tender and terrible which is both true to life and the foundation of landmark social television; Davies understands that tragedy is awfulness plus its antithetical counterpoint. We find and lose a culture - and we see five disparate individuals find a home and safe space together, only for it to be taken away. There’s loss of love as the ones you want to reach out to become the ones who might kill you with a kiss. And above all, there is seismic loss of life, an unrelenting slog as characters are born to us only to be snatched away again. Russel T Davies is the master of dialogue for characterisation and can sketch out love stories in a matter of minutes - here he has five one hour episodes to try to convey what this must have felt like to live through. It’s heartening to see so many cameos from older members of the LGBT community today - Stephen Fry and Neil Patrick Harris have very different roles - whilst Olly Alexander (lead singer of Years and Years) plays his history with maturity and sensitivity. There is so much more that could be said to credit the fantastic cast, or the arch and deeply witty writing or the sheer energy which the show vibrates with. This is a story about loss but also a loving commemoration of what was lost. It’s Davies’ finest work and everyone should watch it. Artwork by Rachel Jung

MUST SEE STREAMING: THE DIG

Self-taught archaeologist and widowed landowner team up in The Dig to discover a wooden ship from the Dark Ages buried under the grounds of her estate.

CLASSIC: ALL THAT JAZZ

Master choreographer and filmmaker, Bob Fosse conceptualises his own death with bittersweet humor and sophisticated pageantry.

STUDENT FILM: BURN THE WITCH

Watch Hugo Max’s horrifying portrait of student life during the Coronavirus pandemic at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=xt3izbUxbjc&t=137s

LIFE

Life | Friday, 5th February 2021

Confessions of a productivity addict...

Rochelle Moss ticks another thing off her to do list.

here’s one attitude that seems to unite all Oxford students, transcending colleges, from historians to scientists and no, it’s not a hatred for Christ Church. Perhaps it’s something even worse than Christ Church: toxic productivity. That sense of always needing to do something inhabits the streets of Oxford (and intercepts the endless teams calls), telling students that downtime just isn’t for us. This article is the perfect example. Whilst I enjoy writing and often find it relaxing, I’m not sure why ticking ‘Cherwell life article’ off my to do list is so much more satisfying than lying on the sofa and re-watching Bridgerton. After a chaotic second week filled with essays, I’ve been left with a weekend with not much to do. My third week work hasn’t been set, so alas I cannot spend my Saturday watching 4.5 hours of economics lectures – a real tragedy, I know. Instead I’ve been gifted a day with no looming deadlines and, because of lockdown, nowhere to go. I therefore found myself this morning at a bit of a loss. Fortunately for me the Cherwell editors had a solution to my woes – a Life article to write? Another thing for my to-do list?

Perfect. Perhaps a to-do list perfectly embodies what I’m trying to describe. Personally, I am a massive fan of lists, and would recommend them to anyone with paper and a pen. Not only do they ensure I remember what I actually need to do, but they also split it up, so that even on lazy days I can tick something off. They also make me feel productive. A day where I ‘ve completed three tasks is a success, even if they were only ‘pay my battels’ or ‘send that email’. I feel I’ve been productive, every single day, even if my productivity is really a wishful illusion. This guilt surrounding days where you haven’t really done much is definitely the ‘toxic’ in toxic productivity. Oxford terms can be so busy, with essays, events, and extracurriculars, that a day with nothing to do seems odd. Even worse, a day where you haven’t done anything seems like a massive error. I always feel a certain sense of guilt when I haven’t got much done in a day, considering it a day wasted. The absolute worst days however are when you haven’t even relaxed, you’ve just done nothing. When you’ve been writing your essay but

also not really writing your essay – spending more time reading Facebook than your actual reading. It gets to the end of the day and it’s just been pretty unsatisfying. The solution to this common conundrum however can be found in the best phenomena of them all: organised fun. Organised fun is a fundamental part to any productivity addict’s timetable. Organised fun has not quite made it to my to-do list yet, but I feel when you have a busy Oxford schedule, organised fun means that fun time is genuinely fun. Organised fun means actually enjoying my time not working, rather than wasting it on my phone. In Michaelmas it meant a walk round Christ Church Meadows with a friend, a quick dash to Pret, or a fake Christmas formal in my household. Hilary Rochelle’s organised fun has tragically had to take it down a notch. The woods behind my house now substitute for Christ Church Meadow, my kettle acts as a replacement Pret, and Christmas formals are a distant memory. Lockdown hasn’t just made organised fun harder, but it’s also made productivity more toxic. Before coronavirus, it was

the pressures of Oxford making productivity a nightmare, now it’s everywhere. It’s in articles detailing ways to stay busy in lockdown, on TV when people detail the incredible feats lockdown has finally given them the opportunity to do, and somehow, it’s also made its way to TikTok. Lockdown has given some people a unique chance to do something special, but for the rest of us it’s just been pretty hard. Having nothing to do puts pressure on us to do something, even when all we want to do is watch TV without feeling guilty. In Lockdown 3.0 I’ve learnt to expect less of myself. I no longer feel like I’m wasting my time not learning French or baking more banana bread and I’ve accepted the beauty of organised fun. So please, dear reader, ignore the recent Oxfess complaining that they only managed to do 10 hours of work today, and instead take a break. Watch some TV, go for a walk, do something creative, or maybe just don’t do anything at all. But most importantly: don’t feel guilty. I know I’m going to do absolutely nothing after finishing this article – once I’ve ticked it off my to-do list. Artwork by Emma Hewlett

Friday, 5th February 2021 | Life

Sam Harper Univ History

Cherpse

Darcy cy Dixon St Peter’s Theology and Philosophy

How were you feeling before the date? Had spent the day doing my collection and didn’t feel prepared for a date straight after blagging three essays about medieval Europe. First impressions? A little awkward at first, but once we found out we both sang and did drama she seemed friendly and really easy to chat to. Did it meet up to your expectations? It was a date on zoom during a pandemic - don’t think I had any. What was the highlight? Finding out we both did drama and watching her inner theatre nerd come out (impressive knowledge of Hamilton I must say). What was the most embarassing moment? There was a bit of a lag on zoom, so I suppose any time I accidentally cut her off mid-sentence - feel like conversation would have flowed more smoothly in person.

How were you feeling before the date? Nervous! I have never had a zoom date before. First impressions? Sam was very confident and cheerful. He took the lead which I liked. He also had a nice shirt on which is always solid. Did it meet up to your expectations? You can’t have too high expectations for a remote date! It was a good time and nice to meet someone new. What was the highlight? Singing Hamilton together. Classic MT nerds. What was the most embarassing moment? My zoom completely cutting out, and then having to come back and remember what I was talking about... Also the time lag meant for some awkward pauses eek...

Describe the date in 3 words: Refreshing, chilled-out, interesting.

Is a second date on the cards? Maybe a friendly socially distanced walk.

Is a second date on the cards? As friends, absolutely.

Horoscopes... AQUARIUS 20 Jan - 18 Feb You’re in need of some serious TLC, Aquarius. Sit back, relax, and surf seashanty TikTok.

PISCES 19 Feb - 20 March You’ve been mega-inspired recently, Pisces – you’re feeling like a literary God and your creative juices are FLOWING. Make sure that you put it to good use – the world needs to hear your world-shaking wisdom, so aim for the crème de la crème of the publishing world and pitch to Cherwell. (pls)

ARIES 21 March- 19 April There once was a charming Aries, who was always away with the fairies but come lightning or hail, they never would fail, to cherpse someone in the libraries ;)

TAURUS 20 April - 20 May It’s time you started putting the US in ‘Taurus’. Not with me, personally, that would be weird. The placement of Venus is currently looking very conducive for your love life.

Describe the date in 3 words: Wholesome, Musical, Virtual (lol)

GEMINI 21 May- 20 June

Stop listening to ‘Careless Whisper,’ Gemini. If anything, you need to take far more care over the contents of your whispers - you never know who might be listening.

CANCER 21 June - 22 July Your astrological symbol is the crab, Cancer. Stay safe this Valentine’s Day.

LEO

LIBRA 23 Sept - 23 Oct Heyy, Libra – Week 3 is the new Week 5, and HathiTrust digital library is TESTING you, but you’re pushing through. Treat yourself this week!

SCORPIO 24 Oct - 21 Nov Seriously, why haven’t you signed up for Cherpse? I know you want to really, and all signs point to a lovely Zoom call with a charming stranger…

23 July - 22 August Leo, instead of focusing on your romantic interests this season, it might be time to focus on self-love. Your stars are very keen for you to get (back) into baking. In other words, Leo, your rising sign is giving you a sign to get some bread rising. Got it?..

VIRGO 23 August - 22 Sept I know Taylor Swift has made it hard not to romanticise that Michaelmas mistake of a date, but your stars are telling me the flirt you deserve is right around the corner…

SAGITTARIUS 22 Nov - 21 Dec I know you think you’re too cool for horoscopes. But stop right there so I can tell you that, yes actually, you are. Go make your own fate Sagittarius. (So cool.)

CAPRICORN 22 Dec - 19 Jan It’s a good day to have a good day Capricorn! Seriously, how you’ve escaped ‘Maskne’ is beyond me but you’re glowing - go shine on that Lockdown walk and maybe even treat yourself to a coffee.

Life | Friday, 5th February 2021

IS LOVE REALLY BLIND? Trudy Ross - a Cherwellite with experience behind the matchmaking and the screen - gives an honest review of Cherwell Blind Dates.

h, the times, they are unprecedented, and so is that evermore-pressing desire for someone to hug, hold, and generally add a little bit of spice to our dull lives. Lockdown makes you do ridiculous things, things no self respecting person would ever dream of, surely, like texting your ex, like flirting with the guy on tills at Tesco, like matching with Oliver (21, 6’0, from West London) three times on three different dating apps. You might even, on a cold, lonely night from your childhood bedroom, sign up to a blind (zoom!) date. Lord. As someone who spent far too much of her Michaelmas organising Cherpse dates for the hopeless romantics of Oxford, I’m able to say I know a thing or two about the blind dating business. For those of you toying with the idea, I’m here to give you an honest account of what to expect from meeting a stranger over cocktails, coffee, or video conference. I won’t lie; it’s not always pretty. The chit-chat will always be a little awful at the start. I’ve had a few unfortunate experiences when I was unable to leave the Zoom I’d created for the lovebirds and was forced to sit there, audio and camera off, struggling to find a way to escape hearing their shy conversation without ending the whole thing. I did figure it out eventually though, so any prospective cherspers can rest assured that this won’t happen to them. You might, however, have to cope with a bit of nervous-/awkward-ness from your match. I have found that virtual dates tend to produce surprisingly few horror stories compared to the in-person affairs. A fair amount of the time they seem to get on pretty

well, even expressing some tentative interest in a second date, and the rest of the time they mostly have a lovely chat as friends. There is the occasional dater who can’t work their camera or what-not, but I think in general meeting someone over Zoom tends to make us a bit more open and non-judgemental; you know you’re only getting half of the experience of being with them, so perhaps you give them the benefit of the doubt. IRL blind dates are another beast entirely. I’ve sent some unfortunate mates of mine on a few shockers. I won’t go into too much detail - editor’s discretion and all that - but I will say that they’ve met some highly interesting characters. Not that they all go this way, of course; I know people who’ve been married for years after meeting on a blind date (though I can’t claim credit for organising any of those). I believe the time has now come for me to admit that I, yes I, have indeed experienced Cherwell’s matchmaking expertise. First lockdown, over Zwwoom, no less. I drank a whole bottle of wine and chatted for almost two hours. And then we had another one with another bottle of wine. And, would you believe it, we’ve actually ended up going out. This is not a story I give out lightly or without a tiny bit of embarrassment - but it’s one I give out to encourage any on-the-fencers to just bloody go for it. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all, and you’re probably sat at home in your childhood bedroom. The most you’ll get is true love - the least a funny story to tell and a unique experience of dating during the (hopefully) only global pandemic of your lifetime. It’s not like you’ve got anything else to do.

STUDENTS ABROAD Cherwell reaches out to students on their year abroad. This week, Emmaleigh Eaves discusses her travels in...

“T

i punch?”, two syllables accompanied by a raised eyebrow, marks the start of the most spontaneous yet greatest soirées and comes with the promise of a sizeable gueule de bois for the next day. The magic of the ti punch lies in the meticulous assembly of its three sole components. Rum: white, local and no less than 50, 59 or perhaps 62 percent. Pure cane sugar: more often than not from Marie Galante, one of several neighbouring islands. Lime: perfectly ripe, perfectly ecrasé-d. After a few sips of this holy trinity, I find myself yelling “ba moin en ti bo” as if Créole was my mother tongue, the song becoming the soundtrack to my time on this Caribbean island. But slamming straight rum on the daily is by no means the most unexpected part of my year abroad, not even slightly. Having a chorus of cockerels punctuate every voice message I send, whilst our resident hen, Henny G, is busy grinding away in a desperate attempt to hatch her eggs, not in a nest, but in our sink, scores highly on

the list. Or hearing at the beach an elderly man whisper “Vous avez de la compagnie”, only to look up and find that a fairly sturdy iguana had decided to come take up a towel next to us. I also hadn’t envisaged I’d be going for what I thought was going to be a peaceful visit to a waterfall, only to end up taking the wrong path, having to traverse a jungle, scale a barbed wire fence and escape through someone’s garden back into civilization. To name but a few. And as a way of avoiding my life here becoming an endless cycle of rum, bokits and sorbet coco, I have also tried my fair share of sporting endeavours. Armoured with thick white, blue or purple warpaint, the Guadeloupean soleil does not deter any surfer. And so, like them, I paddle, paddle,

John Evelyn

“L

et’s put it this way, I don’t like number

seven” This week, The Price is Right cut the number of elected members on Standing Committee from seven to five. John Evelyn wonders what, or who, prompted this contraction. The Work Shy Wise Guy? Queen Unkeen? John Evelyn surmises it was The Runner Up, who is pitifully struggling to rally one, let alone seven, candidates for the election. Anyhow, John Evelyn sees this as a win-win situation. Indeed, John Evelyn believes even The Runner Up underestimated how resoundingly similar his bid would be to Mr Johnson’s. His campaign manager has certainly been successfully emulating Mr Cummings, while recent events after yet another resignation have given John Evelyn déjà vu of Mr Gove’s betrayal. However, John Evelyn reminds The Runner Up that nothing good comes easy. The Runner Up should perhaps try making up with The Late Etonian, who John Evelyn is told is now the Lone Etonian. Being forced to refund last term’s committee for stash that failed to materialise and scheduling a meeting to form a strategy for the open period after it had already finished has left him short of allies. Does no good deed go unpunished? Pax Vobiscum, reader. John Evelyn x

and then paddle some more, in the hope of occasionally a catching wave. I admit, when I find myself stuck trying to escape the white water, waves constantly crashing in my face, being plunged underwater and shoved everywhere but the direction I want to go, the overriding feeling is of frustration. Yet in that moment of shared anticipation as the sky is turning a violet colour and the sun is casting its golden glow on everyone’s skin, and I finally manage to take that wave, the sensation is nothing far off euphoric. To be living moments like this is an extreme privilege, and I’m desperately trying to savour it like the last drop of a punch maracudja. I m a g e credits: Emmaleigh Eaves

Friday, 5th February 2021 | Life

FOOD

Food Trends for 2021 The Power of Food Elinor Davies predicts New Year trends: pea milk, anyone?

ny keen follower of the gastronomic world knows that the start of the New Year beckons micro-analysed predictions for eating trends. As we are still within the early stages of 2021, let us look ahead to which foods we might expect to see flourish over the next twelve months. As is almost always the case with such guesses, many will likely be wrong (bugs as a meat replacement is still not a thing no matter how much it has been predicted!) but that will not deter us from speculating! As boring as it may sound, I enjoy looking back at the food forecast from previous years to see which predictions came true. It makes me titter to read the tentative descriptions of what became enormous food trends, such as the brilliantly vague evocation of hummus as a Middle-Eastern chickpea dip often accompanied by bread or crudités. With this in mind, I hope this article is just about accurate enough that people look back on it in a year and chuckle at its speculative tone. Failing that, just laugh at its hideous inaccuracy. Low-sugar chocolate The health benefits of dark

FOODSPIRATION Podcast: Table Manners with Jessie Ware Show: Netflix’s Best Leftovers Ever! Fruit: Blood orange

chocolate have been widely proclaimed in recent years, leading to rising sales. The latest innovation in the branch of healthier chocolate has been ‘reduced sugar’ alternatives to existing products. Cadbury have released a 30% less sugar Dairy Milk as well as a DarkMilk bar to accommodate increasing demand for darker chocolate. Some say these new products are to slip around a sugar tax, but they could be part of the increasing trend for alternatives to traditional chocolate. First there was dairy-free chocolate; perhaps a sugar-free chocolate will hit the shelves one of these days.

“

Frozen food need not be something to be embarrassed about...

Shopping unpacked - Hats off to the Oxford Botley Road Waitrose store which was the first in the country to use a pick ‘n’ mix system. This new initiative allows customers to refill their own jars with many products including pasta and other dried foods, frozen vegetables, and beer. In fact, the sale of unpackaged products outsells their packet equivalents in this store (go Oxford!). Coviddepending, this trend is set to continue with an ever-increasing number of independent jar shops as well as Booths, the northern

supermarket chain, planning to introduce a similar strategy to Waitrose. Pea milk - The recent increased popularity of milk alternatives needs no explanation, with milk aisles looking increasingly like an Alpro advert. The new kid on the block is pea milk made from yellow split peas, providing as much protein as cow’s milk with a much lower environmental cost. The Handlebar café on St Michael’s Street has already jumped on this trend with their coconut pancakes. If you haven’t already tried this dreamy stack, I cannot recommend them enough.

/ recipe NOSTALGIC KOFTA CURRY These koftas are made with puréed garlic, ginger, and green chilis, added to a mixture of canned black beans, an egg, breadcrumbs, spring onions, chopped mint and coriander. Fetch that tin of beans hiding at the back of the cupboard, use a fork to mash the mixture together until almost smooth. Bake the koftas for 25 mins in the oven at 200°C.

Frozen food The convenience of frozen food is hard to beat. An increasing number of food manufacturers have cottoned on, given the expanding quantity of frozen ready-meals, vegetables, and desserts found in supermarket freezers. But frozen food need not be something to be embarrassed about: gone are the days when eating from the freezer was synonymous with artery-clotting ready meals and ice cream. There are now so many healthy frozen meal companies such as Linda McCartney or supermarket own brand meals. What’s more, there is increasing scientific evidence to suggest that eating frozen vegetables may even be healthier than fresh due to the lock in of vitamins that occurs when a product is frozen.

Meanwhile cook some rice and craft the curry; fry sliced onions in a vegetable oil for a few minutes before adding 4-5 cloves of minced garlic and half an inch of ginger. Once the garlic and ginger are fragrant, add a tsp of turmeric, ground cumin, ground coriander, chilli powder, and garam masala. Mix in a can of chopped tomatoes 2 tbsp of tomato puree, then season with salt and pepper. Spoon cooked rice onto the plate, followed by curry, then a few koftas, before finally topping with fresh mint and coriander.

Artwork by Rachel Jung

Image credit: Shreya Banerjee

Taken from ‘Cumin in from the Cold’ by Shreya Banerjee, accessible at www.cherwell.org

Life | Friday, 5th February 2021

In Contempt of Court

PROFILE

from death row to Guantanamo Jonathan Tevendale speaks to Clive Stafford Smith about the brutality of American justice and the corruption at the heart of our attitudes to crime.

CW: racism, police brutality

“W

hat is the most despicable thing you’ve ever done, that you’re most ashamed of?” “I’m not telling you,” I respond with a smirk. “But you’ve got it in your mind?” “Yes.” “Okay. Now, the interesting thing about Zoom, Jonathan, is that I can see into your heart, and I’m going to tell you what you’re thinking. What you’re thinking is not a criminal offence. It’s just a really nasty betrayal you did to someone you love that was really painful for them.” He’s right. “Now, I’d like you to answer this question: what’s the worst criminal offence that’s ever been done to you?” I tell him a story, laughing, about a time I was punched by a drunk teenager on a night out. “If you put in the balance the harm that you did by your noncriminal, nasty act that we don’t tell your readers about because they’ll all despise you, versus the harm that was done to you by the criminal act, which is worse?” I’d have liked to say the assault, but I really couldn’t justify it. I tell it as a funny story, after all. “Of course it’s yours. It’s far worse. The little punch you took is nothing. So, the question you have to ask yourself in the context of what we call criminal justice, is why you and I are not in prison?” I fudge an answer, stumbling through a sentence about ‘the law.’ “There is no reason,” I eventually come to say. “No rational reason,” he agrees, victorious. Clive Stafford Smith has dedicated his life to fighting for those subjected to the brutality of the law. Born and raised in Cambridgeshire, he trained as an attorney in the US during the eighties. By 2002, he had helped win all but six of the three hundred or so death sentence appeals he’d worked on. He has also represented eighty Guantanamo Bay detainees – all refused trial - and, after our interview, testified in Julian Assange’s extradition hearing. The judicial system, he believes, is broken at all levels. “It’s a frightening thing to deal with the US Supreme Court … they are just mean-spirited people. Even the liberals - they’re so out of touch with the real world.”

Later, he tells me that he’s been put on trial for contempt of court several times. “I’ve always been acquitted. But I sometimes think that perhaps I should just admit that I am pretty contemptuous of the way they deal with human beings, because I don’t think they live on the same planet as the people I represent.” His career started unconventionally, reflecting a deep suspicion of the establishment. “One of the highlights of my life was telling this tweed-jacketed twit at Clare College, Cambridge, that I didn’t want to go to Cambridge to study Natural Sciences. And he said: ‘Oh, that’s the worst decision you’ll ever make in your life my boy.’ And I said – ‘I bet it’s not.’” Then, he decided to go to the US to write a book about capital punishment. “It will never see the light of day because it’s such juvenile rubbish, but in doing it I met all these people on death row. And I discovered that in the richest country on Earth, they don’t have lawyers. And even I could see that it was potentially more useful to them to have a lawyer than to have me write some piece of shit about the death penalty. So, I went off to law school to get a law degree, so I could go and help.” One of his first cases is documented in the film Fourteen Days in May, which follows the final few days before the execution of Edward Earl Johnson, whose guilt has since been widely contested. “I was 27. I knew nothing. And I’m representing Edward, who’s 27, too. It’s one thing that I’ll take with me to my grave, but if I knew then what I know now he’d be alive. And he’d be free. I don’t beat myself up too much about that, because he actually didn’t have any alternative… It’s a horrible condemnation of a system that all of those brilliant people from Columbia were going off to represent corporate law firms, and the people whose lives were at stake had to put up with someone like me.” I ask about the roots of our attitudes to criminality. “It really is the elevation of us over the other. That, somehow, we feel that if there’s someone that we disparage as being so subhuman, that we should put them on an altar, and ritually sacrifice them to some god of deterrence - that somehow, that makes us better people.”

He also blames a corrupt political class. “They say we’ve got a problem with crime. And, you know, we’re not going to recognise that this thing we call crime is rooted in lack of educational opportunity, lack of funding, disparities in society, drugs, guns, all these things, that would actually be quite complicated to change. And instead, we say, well, it’s just a bunch of young black men who are terrorising our society, so let’s kill them.” He gives no more shocking an example of the corruption which has worked its way through the system than when discussing Crime Stoppers tips. The organisation gives people the opportunity to anonymously give information, and anonymously receive rewards, if their tip leads to an arrest. He refers to the case of the now-exonerated Shareef Cousin, a sixteen-year old on death row, whose arrest warrant suspiciously contained details taken from his only previous encounter with the police: as a ‘child in need of supervision.’ The tip, he realised, must have come from an officer. “When there’s a murder happened, they decide which young black guy they’re going to go and arrest, and they call the Crime Stopper tip in, then they go and arrest him, then they call back and collect the cash… And that’s what they were doing in every case.” When the discussion turns to his work in Guantanamo Bay, there are yet more disturbing revelations. “When I first went down, I thought - because I was told that these are the worst of the worst terrorists in the world – ‘I bet we’re going to have some explaining to do.’ And I get there, and I had a hell of a time coming up with an honest to goodness terrorist. And the reason, it turned out, was that the majority of prisoners in Guantanamo had been sold for bounties.” He goes on to refer to an inmate who informed, in one ninety-minute meeting, on ninetythree others. “This guy said that he was helping the Americans because he really wanted help with a little problem he had. And he needed to go to America

if he snitched for them. So the interrogator in this report I’m reading says “oh yeah, what’s that?” And the guy says, well – ‘I’ve got a really small penis. And I need to go to America to have penis enlargement surgery.’ And there’s a silence, and the informant says, ‘would you like to look?’ And to my great relief the interrogator says, ‘no thank you.’ And this guy was just making bullshit up about hundreds of prisoners because of that. And it becomes intelligence. And this same guy included one of the first mentions of Sadaam Hussein having WMDs that resulted in the Iraq War. And this is the stuff these people really believe. Cause it gets put into a form that says intelligence on it, and then it gets passed up the chain, and everyone forgets that the real issue at stake here is whether this guy can get a bigger penis. And, you know, I see this every day.” He notes that much of what he would like to share is classified; that he had to fight to be able to tell the public about this. It would be easy to dismiss Stafford Smith’s beliefs as fantastical: representative of his self-confessed privilege, or of a life untouched by crime and terrorism. But after our conversation, no part of me felt his beliefs existed in the abstract and were anything but born of conviction and, above all, experience. “I’ve got fascinating number of innocent clients. But I don’t really like representing innocent people.” He prefers, he tells me, to save the guilty from a system whose brutality vastly outweighs their own. “I’ve represented four hundred people on death row. And I count among them some of my very closest friends, because of course, all of us are better than our worst fifteen minutes… Even you, Jonathan… Even me, dare I say.”

Read the full article online.

Friday, 5th February 2021 | Comment

Wes Beckett On... ‘Historic uprising’ movies getting weirder

GLASTONBURY: CANCELLED CULTURE Daniel Morgan warns that the axing of Britain’s largest festival reflects the ongoing troubles faced by the arts industry.

ith a spiraling death toll, ambiguity over the duration of restrictions and the furlough scheme set to last until at least April, Glastonbury’s cancellation on Thursday seemed all but inevitable. Last year, the cancellation of one of Britain’s most iconic and popular music festivals was one of many decisions which seemed to augur months of hardship and disappointment for the world. The cancellation of Glastonbury 2021 indicates that even if the vaccine has turned an outlook of pessimism to one of cautious and restrained hope, there are still challenges ahead, particularly for live music, theatre and other creative industries, with months of restrictions levelling the cultural landscape. Although its attendance of around 200,000 makes it the largest music festival in the UK, Glastonbury’s size is not the only factor which makes it unique. Its eclectic range of top musicians, expansive stages and celebrity guests has turned it into a high-point of the British cultural calendar, a brief interlude in late June when the media’s glare shifts from Notting Hill to a small

village in Somerset. But what is especially poignant about the second cancellation of Glastonbury in a row is not the A-list performers and devoted fans who will need to wait until 2022 (at least), but the statement issued by Michael and Emily Eavis. The husband and daughter, whose family has organised the festival since its beginning in 1970, apologised to prospective ticket-holders, seeing they had tried to ‘move Heaven and Earth’ to make Glastonbury 2021 possible to no avail. The heartfelt statement was a reminder that behind the wealth and excesses which are often associated with British culture, performers and organisers who have focused years of energy and resources on creative pursuits are losing out. The publication of multiple open-letters to the government across the last few months are a reminder that beyond headline events such as Glastonbury, thousands of smaller cultural experiences, which are nevertheless significant, have been decimated. Although the cuts and disruptions suffered by more renowned institutions, such as West End theatres, A-list mu-

sic tours and the museums and art galleries which usually attract millions of tourists each year, are disheartening, the challenges faced by cultural workers who are lower down the pay-scale are equally serious. Along with the humble and honest statement issued by Michael and Emily Eavis, stories of musicians forced to seek unemployment relief and jobbing actors facing months of no work or pay remind us that the financial and logistical losses suffered by the cultural sector are as large and devastating as any other industry. For although we generally associate the creative arts with outrageously-priced artwork, ostentatious music videos and ludicrously wealthy actors, culture is kept afloat by two million unknown yet highly important workers, many of whom are on zero-hours contracts and minimum wage. Therefore, the cancellation of Glastonbury a second year in a row is about more than the adversity faced by the organisers of one festival. The cultural industry is kept afloat by a handful of renowned annual events which occupy cult status in the calendar, and thousands of more intimate perfor-

mances which, though more casual and impromptu, still require hundreds of man-hours. Covid restrictions will have a devastating impact on both of these kinds of events and like many industries, uncertainty over the length of these restrictions will be equally damaging. To ensure companies and workers can stay afloat during the crisis, the government needs to offer musicians, technicians, bit-part actors and the other employees who keep similar sectors afloat the same clarity, respect and handouts afforded to those in other industries. Furthermore, whilst people from every job would benefit from as much precision as possible regarding the duration of restriction, the government must acknowledge that though many employed in the arts sector are freelancers, they are facing the same challengers are full-time workers. Otherwise, by the time restrictions eventually lift, there is every chance that Glastonbury, theatre performances and live music will have no way of returning—a lack of support during the pandemic obliterating our cultural calendars for years to come. Read the full article online.

COMMENT

Comment | Friday, 5th February 2021

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA’S TRUMP BAN SHOULD SCARE US Joe Stonor warns of the power wielded by big tech.

haracterised by its youth, lish student in me for a moment, genius, and more than a the grammar of Trump’s tweet hint of arrogance, Silicon masks a reality as concerning Valley has long been seen as any of the former President’s as a regulation-free wild west, online outbursts. In a classic where companies set their own Trumpian move, he takes for rules and innovate faster than old, himself the active voice in the dusty governments can legislate sentence “I will be using”, when against them. Yet, as 2021 begins, in fact the inverse is just awareness of the central role that as true. Twitter and social media, and Big Tech more Facebook have been broadly, play in our politics and using Trump from daily lives has never been greater. the beginning, and in Facebook and Twitter’s nearan imperious display synchronised move to kick Donof power, as easy ald Trump from their platforms as flicking a switch, after he used his accounts to they have muzzled spread patent untruths about the the leader of the free US election, as well as Apple and world. Now that it is no Amazon’s blanket blackout on the longer economically services of the controversial app expedient to let Trump Parler, have brought increased ramble and rave on their attention. So much attention, platforms, they have disposed in fact, that actual, substantive of him. How can change might be right around the it be right that corner. But, before we get to all this decision is left up that, let me take you back, long to private companies with a ago, to 2016. whole raft of vested interests? The 6th of March 2016, to Of course, Trump shouldn’t be precise. Fresh from a big win be allowed to incite violence in the Republican primaries on or warp reality on the internet Super Tuesday, Trump without consequence. tweeted: He should “How do “Of course, Trump shouldn’t have been you fight be allowed to incite violence r e m o v e d millions of long before or warp reality. He should dollars of the fatal have been removed long be- assault on fraudulent c o m m e r - fore the fatal assualt on the the US Capicials pushing tol, when he US Capitol.” for crooked was guilty of politicians? I will be usspreading potentially ing Facebook & Twitter. Watch!” fatal lies about the dangers posed And watch we did. Over the next by coronavirus and propagating 4 years and 10 months, his inceswhite supremacy. But the decision sant Twitter activity may have enof what those consequences look tertained us- in an appropriately like must not be concentrated in Oxford ‘I can’t believe someone the hands of a handful of Silicon could be so stupid’ kind of wayValley moguls. but very quickly just scared us. Often, the power of mainIn time, the grim portent of this stream social media platforms tweet was realised: Facebook and feels absolute. They are unbound Twitter were Donald Trump’s by any international regulatory tools, at his disposal to spread lies, framework, and thus can brazenly fuel tensions, and moan about abandon any pretence of global CNN. For that reason, I am glad, consistency, mercurially shifting like most, that Donald Trump has from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. been booted from these platforms Equally, domestic loopholes, such (poor CNN!). as Section 230 in the US—a clause Yet, if you’ll indulge the Engthat relieves internet companies

of any responsibility for the content published on their sites— make it even harder to pin social media malpractice to specific legislation. These companies are ruled overwhelmingly by selfinterest. That might be alright when they decide it is in their interests to silence a figure as

dangerous as Trump. But, when revenues of close to $1bn are pitted against journalistic freedom and the ability to hold an autocratic regime to account, as in Vietnam last year where Facebook agreed to the government’s behest that they restrict the accounts of political dissidents and journalists, principals don’t seem quite so attractive. Big tech companies are intent on setting their own rules, which they do not mind breaking. Facebook’s newly revealed Oversight Board promises “to promote free expression by making principled, independent decisions regarding content’’. The problem is that, thanks to examples such as Facebook’s conduct in Vietnam, the impact of words such as “principled” has been diluted. If these matter so little to Facebook then they are no rubric to judge content by. In a world where users are commodities and their eyeballs are for sale, as Netflix’s The Social Dilemma so plainly describes, the pretence that social media companies place people over profit must be abandoned. It is widely

known that the content users see is manipulated and their data commodified. As the Cambridge Analytica scandal demonstrated, social media platforms have the power to shape our political views; in effect selling off our vote to the highest bidder. How free is that? So, would a social media that eschews engagement-driven algorithms and promises to protect freedom of speech at all costs be a better alternative? I want to avoid the “dude-bro” sentiment that rather pompously declares that this whole freedom of speech malarkey can be solved easily with a reference to Voltaire, who famously informed an adversary “I don’t agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (without realising that there is quite famously no such attributable quote to the Frenchman). Speech does not occur in a vacuum and, as Trump demonstrated in the lead up to events at the Capitol, it can have horrifying real-world effects. Instead, attention should now be focused on the development of truly independent and powerful bodies, backed up by legislation, to hold Big Tech to account. The growing clamourfor antitrust action, as well as the example set by Australia in standing up to Google’s threat of pulling its services from the country, show that the omnipotence of these companies can be threatened. Social media companies’ performative manoeuvres should not be allowed to disguise their flaws. We must wrest back control of the internet so that incidents such as the silencing of Donald Trump can be enjoyed, not mired in suspicion.

Friday, 5th February 2021 | Comment

FINALLY SOME GOOD NEWS: IN PRAISE OF THE UK’S VACCINATION ROLLOUT Dominic Enright argues that we should give credit where credit is due.

arly last month in an interview with the Times, Oxford’s own Regius professor of Medicine John Bell claimed that “The NHS has the theoretical capacity to immunise everybody in five days.” What was the doctor’s diagnosis for their inability to do this? Lack of motivation. Far be it for me, an undergraduate student (and a Classics BA, at that), to question the expert medical advice of a Professor - but five days seems a little bit ambitious. Leaving aside the fact the UK currently has neither the 48 million or so doses for the entire adult population, nor the certainty that everyone will decide to take the vaccine, it would be a logistical nightmare to vaccinate everyone in the UK in only five days; a feat that even a perfect healthcare system could never accomplish. Public health in the UK is a notoriously bureaucratic system. But this is not as bad as it sounds- it actually means that — counterintuitively — there is less red tape. The reason our healthcare system is classed as ‘bureaucratic’ is that there are more UK governmental health bodies than PPE students at Oxford. From the outside, healthcare in the UK is complicated and opaque, the system seemingly clogged up with superfluous middle-managers. This can lead to outrageous cases of wastefulness, such as the disastrous NHS Test and Trace programme which, despite costing £10 billion, saw no real success. Such superfluity was also at fault for the PPE

scandal earlier in the pandemic where £10.5 billion worth of personal protective equipment was bought without the correct competitive tender processes. With a reputation like this, surely we can assume that the UK health bureaucracy will be too slow to effectively roll-out the vaccine? I disagree, and in fact, I would go on to argue that the vaccine rollout has been one of the few British successes to quietly emerge from the pandemic, pri-

to the failure of NHS Test and Trace, the scheme headed by former McKinsey consultant Dido Harding who paid over £500,000 in consulting fees to her former company. In these cases, it is a lack of regulation that seems to be the problem, as opposed to over-regulation. In contrast to these missteps, our current vaccine programme has already delivered over four million first doses of the vaccine, and is fourth in the world for vaccines delivered per head. Whilst I will not echo the tone of Gavin Williamson and turn the issue of vaccinations into a national competition, it must be emphasised that the UK has vaccinated more people than any nation in Europe: our average daily output is around 390,000 jabs. Another strong point of the UK vaccination programme is that it is done by age cohort, meaning that over-80s, frontline workers, and elderly care home workers

“The problems of the UK’s health bureaucracy are under-regulation and political cronyism as opposed to stifling red tape.” marily as the government has taken a step back and left it to non-partisan public bodies to head the process. A distinction must be drawn between stifling over-regulation (or ‘red tape,’ as it is sometimes called) and bureaucracy. Some restrictions are imperative. Even though time is of the essence in the fight against the pandemic, to suggest that urgency means all regulation and employment checks should be waived would be lunacy. The problems of the UK’s health bureaucracy revolve around under-regulation and political cronyism as opposed to stifling red tape and bloated public organisations. The cause of the PPE scandal was the awarding of public contracts to Tory party donors rather than accredited providers. Indeed, a similar oversight led

Professor Bell’s claim that the UK roll-out has been hindered by red tape was centred around the revelation that GPs were being forced to fill out 7 unnecessary forms in order to join the taskforce. Whilst this was a legitimate grievance, there has been no evidence of vaccination centres being understaffed, the NHS showing that it has the ability to deliver more vaccinations than are currently available. Indeed, the minor red tape of the 7-form requirement has now been slashed, and I suspect this was an earnest mistake as opposed to lack of motivation. Another sign of the UK health bureaucracy’s success is the PR management of the vaccine rollout and the effort against misinformation. A recent YouGov poll on the issue indicated that 68% of Britons have confidence in the jabs, with only 9% saying they are not confident at all. In fact, this trust increases amongst the over-60s, with 81% of this age group expressing confidence in the effectiveness of the vaccine. The government is behind t h i s public trust, with effective steps including a specific inquiry into the cause of widespread misinformation. Of course, there is always room to improve, and events suggest that the roll-out will be slowed by pharmaceutical companies (what a surprise!), rather than NHS bureaucracy. However, I think in what has been a terrible year for all of us, we should give credit where credit is due. Read the full article online www.cherwell.org

“The vaccine rollout has been one of the few British successes to to quietly emerge from the pandemic.” have been prioritised, unlike the in the US, where senior politicians seem to be at the front of the queue. The NHS (trusts and main body) and the Vaccine task force created new vaccination centres, adapting hospital hubs and using pharmacies, they have ensured that everyone is within ten miles of a testing centre.

14million

81%

6,232,284

Target number of vaccinations by mid-February Source: Government statement

Over 60s with confidence in the vaccine. Source: YouGov poll

Total vaccinations distrubuted as of this week. Source: NHS website

Features | Friday, 5th February 2021

AVA MAX’S ‘CRAZY EX’:

smashing or bolstering heteronormative stereotypes surrounding women and mental illness?

Kiri Ley takes a deep dive into pop music, gender, and mental illness. CW: mental illness, mentions of gaslighting, and violence

he’s ‘sweet but psycho’, ‘torn’, ‘pushed […] to the edge’. Ava Max (born Amanda Ava Koci), the Albanian-American pop singer who shot to stardom following the 2018 release of her hit single, ‘Sweet but Psycho’, capitalises on a heavily lip-glossed and lycra-ed image of the crazy ex-girlfriend in this single, as well as in ‘Torn’ and ‘Who’s Laughing Now’ (2020). The persona that Max cultivates in these three videos is so overdone that it could be a cynical deconstruction of the ‘crazy’ stereotype, rather than a reinforcement of it. However, could the effect ultimately just be a reproduction of old misogynist tropes, changing nothing and possibly even fuelling the faithful old fire of patriarchy? As someone who identifies as a woman and who has at times been disabled by mental

illness, this question is personal and political to me, as all feminism should be. Leaving a ream of male critics and journalists to debate the intricacies of Max’s portrayals is short-sighted of the music criticism community; I hope to offer a more invested voice to the conversation. Max herself claims the prior of ‘Sweet but Psycho’; ‘[at first, people] think I’m actually calling them psycho, but then it’s a deeper meaning’. For ‘people’, read ‘women’, here – or, rather, a White, straight woman. The three videos star Max as a ‘crazy girlfriend/ex’ figure who wreaks stylised, violent revenge on the (exclusively male and White, notably) boyfriends/exes/bosses who have wronged her. Of the three archetypal Romantic madwomen identified by Elaine Showalter in The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980, Max chooses to employ ‘the violent Lucia […]

symbolising violence against men’. So a woman reclaims power, exclusively against men, through ownership of the very ‘psycho’ stereotypes which try to hold her down right? In ‘Sweet but Psycho’, Max’s revenge seems to be on men generally, perhaps a symbol for the patriarchy. Translating the specific paradigm of her rage to a female or non-binary sexual partner wouldn’t quite work, and I do wonder what different dynamics would emerge if the ethnicities of the male partners were more variable in the videos. The use of the word ‘psycho’ in the title situates this video as an explicit response to the heteronormative, misogynist ‘psycho girlfriend’ stereotype. The music video sees Max transform from the sexy submissive, serving dinner to her partner, to a Miss Havisham/ Bride of Frankenstein-style figure chasing him down the stairs in a wedding dress. She features in a straitjacket be-

F E A T U R E S fore threatening the man with a large knife, possibly an empowering reclamation of the phallus that has (allegedly) wronged her. The other male victims who topple over each other in Max’s wardrobe constitute a clear inversion of the Bluebeard myth, with dead boyfriends in the closet instead of wives. The song attracted criticism from UK mental health professionals, such as the Zero Suicide Alliance, on the grounds that it perpetuated negative and false stereotypes associating mental illness with violence. Poorly-judged ‘irreverent humour’ can indeed lead to further stigmatization, as Nicola Spelman, author of Popular Music and the Myths of Madness, indicates. David Metzer, in Alim Kheraj’s article ‘Why is popular music still obsessed with madness?’ offers an alternative viewpoint: that female artists such as Max are ‘protesting the expectations that have been placed upon them by flaunting that protest’. This dimension is supported more strongly through the imagery in ‘Torn’ and ‘Who’s Laughing Now’, Max’s more recent singles. ‘Torn’ dabbles more in duality than 'craziness' per se, invoking the nineteenth-century motif of the split hero, characteristic

Friday, 5th February 2021 | Features

of classics such as Mary Shel- ners. She may smash the wall, ley’s Frankenstein, or Robert perhaps a sister of the glass Louis Stevenson’s The Strange ceiling: however, he brands Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. her as a ‘Psycho’ nonetheless, This hero is usually male, and she still ends up in ye whereas Max’s female heroine olde asylum. The straitjacket lives as a downtrodden, nerdy remains. Ankhi Mukherjee, in Aesgirlfriend and badass supert h e t i c hero, respecHysteria: tively. Halfway If her portrayal is The Great through the edging closer to an N e u r o s i s song, the suactual mentally ill in Victoriperhero persona turns ‘nuts’, person, on the other an Melobrandishing a hand, the territory is d r a m a far dodgier and Constiletto heel tempoand belt as rary Ficweapons. Interestingly, the climax is the tion, charts the literary and unfaithful boyfriend push- dramatic representations of ing Max off the top of a high hysteria from the nineteenth building: attempted murder. century to the contemporary. An undefeated Max slaps him She points to ‘a lasting culacross the face in response. tural fascination with hysterThe message here is clear: ical performance and play’, despite the play with ideas of certainly applicable to Max’s 'dual personality' and schizo- aesthetic in these three muphrenia for the girlfriend fig- sic videos. Mukherjee’s quesure, it is the lying man who is tion of whether the ‘female hysteric’ is a ‘madwoman or dangerously violent. In ‘Who’s Laughing Now’, an actress?’ is demanding in Max grasps the crazy image by the context of Max’s visuthe throat. She is straitjacket- als. If Max aims only to be an ed in our first sighting of her actress, as the artist herself in the video. Max channels claims, deconstructively ownthe anti-psychiatry move- ing a glitzy aesthetic of madment of the 1960s here, which ness for her own commercial railed against the institution- success and the empoweralisation of mentally unwell ment of gaslit women, then people, and questioned the there is value in her employvalidity of mental illness as a ment of the madness motif. She certainly succeeds in social and cultural category, conceptualising its diagnosis aligning whatever her persoinstead as a means of exercis- na actually represents, with sexiness. This is subversive ing oppression. However, cross-editing in itself to some degree, when images of Max writhing in a framed through Joan Busstraitjacket and attacking her field’s explanation of ‘mental ex’s car with a large weapon illness’ in ‘The Female Malsomewhat undermines the ady? Men, Women and Madaccompanying lyric ‘Don’t ya ness in Nineteenth Century know that I’m stronger?’. A Britain’ [sic]. ‘Madness, like its twentieth glass wall separates her from the male psychiatrist later in century counterpart mental the video, the one BIPOC man illness […] is a concept which we see Max target across the categorises some aspect of three songs, but without the mental functioning – some same romantic context and thought, action, or behaviour determinedly violent intent as – as abnormal, defective or aimed at her White exes/part- disordered – that is, as unde-

“

sirable’. no ontological reality’. Max’s figures are definitely Max shows us who the realdesirable. Whether or not she ly violent people are in ‘Torn’, is 'mad', she taunts her male and ‘Who’s Laughing Now’ – lovers with the uncomfortable according to her, unfaithful truth that they want her, any- men and male psychiatrists way: – to highlight gaslighting in "You’re tellin’ me that I’m in- heterosexual romantic relasane tionships. This is still a necBut don’t tell me that you essary topic for contemporary don’t love the pain." intersectional feminism. If her portrayal is edging But suggesting that her percloser to that of an actual- sonas are not ‘really’ unwell ly mentally-ill person, on is perhaps an opportunity the other hand, the territory missed. Max seems a bit unis far dodgier. To step away sure about whether she is acfrom preoccupation with the tually ill or not in her videos. stylised madness images, Mentally unwell women, and there is another image in the yes, those undergoing psy‘Sweet but Psycho’ video that chiatric care, can be victims is far more telling. Before the of abuse and gaslighting, too: role play/murder/whatever in fact, they are possibly more festivities commence, Max’s likely to be so than mentally persona sits in a bedroom healthy women. strewn with her clothes. I’m not sure that suffocatBeing marooned hopelessly ing a couple of interesting in a disordered living space is boundary-blurs about gender, a classic symptom of clinical mental illness, stereotyping depression. Max is not exclu- and institutionalisation besively Showalter’s Lucia, then: neath the ‘crazy’ aesthetic is she is also, perhaps, the ‘sen- the way to go. Mental illnesstimental crazy Jane or crazy es, in spite of their confusing Kate’, or maybe even ‘suicid- mish-mash of cultural, situaal Ophelia’ – or something tional and somatogenic facelse, entirely. A contemporary tors, are, as Michael G. Kenny young woman with depres- notes, ‘real […] though they sion. are also a potent resource Despite this reference to for metaphorical elaboration ‘genuine’ mental illness, the and obsessive/compulsive mocking of the straitjacket behavior’ [sic]. And they are image disabling. They correare not glamorSuggesting that her ous, and frussponds to a personas are not "really tratingly cannot unwell" is perhaps an be changed like domiopportunity missed make-up can. nant late twentieth-century idea that Tossing symbols around and mental illnesses are more so- playing at being a superhecial than anything else, and ro are fun, maybe empowermight not even exist. I sup- ing if you look at them under port Busfield’s view of mental the right strobe lighting. We illness, that: could do with more explicit‘notwithstanding the socio- ly and proudly nuanced takes logical claim that madness on what it means to be female and mental illness are social and gaslit, or female and menconstructs, we do not have tally ill, or both – taking into to accept the view of 1960s account further intersections ethnomethodologists and of – to sit beside or even top Max 1980s postmodernists that on the chart pedestal. they [mental illnesses] have Artwork by Kiri Ley

“

Sport | Friday, 5th February 2021

SPORT

Mauricio Alencar

ootball is rarely taken very seriously. University courses exist for the study of music, visual arts, literature and other cultural mediums- but not football, strangely enough. What writer and football journalist Jonathan Wilson has in some sense set out to do in the world of football is to “to study it a bit more seriously”. Wilson founded The Blizzard 10 years ago, a magazine which provides more “obscure” and esoteric stories on football. Its founding came when he had been interested in doing a piece on Steve Mokone, the first black South African to play in Europe who had later been convicted of assault. “I was pitching that around to magazines and the story I kept getting back was that ‘no, our advertisers won’t like this’, which just struck me as being preposterous. Our job as journalists should not be to bow before advertisers.” Jonathan Wilson had had enough. He explains to me, “I had a couple of pints and I was sort of like “what we need,

2011

Year Wilson founded The Blizzard

what the writers need - we need to take control! We need to bypass all the middle men, all the managers and all the advertisers! We need to have a magazine that is of the writers, for the writers - and we share the profits, and even if there aren’t any profits - at least we’re doing what we want to do!” His revolutionary beer-talk led him to making arrangements with his boyhood friend, who was a designer and publisher, for the creation of the magazine. “The idea was essentially to give a forum for writers to write about topics that were either too obscure or too difficult to be done in the media that existed in the time.” Jonathan Wilson, an alumnus of Balliol College, began his trade as a sports journalist for The Oxford Student. He became football correspondent for The Financial Times in 2002, giving him access to watch the Premier League’s best games. After he found that “it became a real slog”, he turned to more hands-on research. Wilson aptly summarised for me what his

laborious research essentially involves: “Sifting for ages until you find the nugget. That feeling when you find the nugget is just a glorious moment.” If you’ve read any of the pieces from The Blizzard, or any of Wilson’s books, you might notice that a lot of research must have gone into the articles. Wilson shared with me an example of the lengths he goes in his quests for unfound information: “Imre Hirschl, who is a bloke I had been chasing for like 15 years, is hugely influential in Argentinian football, and in Uruguay’s World Cup win in 1950. But because he bulls**tted about his background, it was very hard to find any information. He appears in Hungarian papers only twiceonce when he got married in 1923 and once in 1928 when he showed journalists around his salami factory- that was his job, he was a salami salesman. He wasn’t a football coach, which is why he lied about it to the Argentinians to get a job. I didn’t know who his wife was. I knew he had married in 1923,

4-0

Sunderland vs Bolton 2009: Wilson’s inspiration for the magazine

so I had the name, Erzebet, but by searching through various records, eventually a mate of mine based in Budapest rang me one night. I had just come back to the hotel, around 10 o’clock, just about to go to bed, phone goes and my mate goes ‘I think I found her.’ For years I had on my laptop these passenger manifests from ships going from Cherbourg to Genoa to Santos. I thought, just before I go to bed, I’ll have a skim through these [manifests] and see if I can find Erzebet Bayer anywhere. So I looked through the passenger manifest, and she’s not there. And then literally the next one I opened: passenger 1 Bayer, Erzebet. For more than a decade, I’d carried this around with me. In 2 minutes, I’d gone from not knowing who she was to having the proof that in 1931 she had taken this boat with her son. Those are the moments you live for.” “Define football,” I commanded at the end of our discussion. He had really studied football on a global scale, gone through tiresome journeys to get the facts, really knew the ins and outs of the thing. All in all, he has uncovered football’s unmentioned histories and treated football seriously. All those years of experience as a leading football writer to finally face this gruelling question. After a couple of seconds’ silence, Jonathan Wilson answered: “Football is the most universal cultural mode. There’s pretty much nowhere in the world you can go to now where football hasn’t touched. There’s no reason other than snobbism not to study it in the way you would study theatre or music or literature.” Image courtesy of Jonathan Wilson.

10+

Years spent searching for the identity of Imre Hirschl’s wife

Friday, 5th February 2021 | Sport

Six Nations:

the greatest sports competition of all?

Bailey Kavanagh

think that the Six Nations is the best tournament in all of sport. The World Cup and Olympics are fun, don’t get me wrong, but the Six Nations has the unique perk of being in February, a month who’s only other redeeming feature is the fact that it ends early. There’s a unique joy to be had in filling cold, dark weekends with way too much rugby. My mum, who watches no other sport, describes the joy of it perfectly: “It’s peaceful to fall asleep to”. Every weekend brings three games, one you care about, and two others that you’ll watch, just because they’re there. It’s wonderful. There’s also an undeniable value to having some of the world’s top teams, and Italy, convene at the same time every year and have everyone play everyone else. For six weeks every year, the northern-hemisphere teams show up and compete for the right to pretend that they’re the best team in the world and

that South Africa and New Zealand don’t exist. It feels like there’s an accountability to it, in that to claim to be the best team, you actually have to go and beat just about everyone. There’s no lucky draws, no easy route to the final. In 2021, it feels like a Six Nations with a coherent beginning, middle and end, would be good enough. Last year’s tournament lasted 272 days, having kicked off in an era when we didn’t own facemasks and went outdoors (if you can remember such a thing), just a fortnight before the first lockdown, and ended on the eve of the second lockdown. We’ve learned a lot about how to run sports events in the time of coronavirus since then, so we should have an uninterrupted tournament to look forward to. I’m reluctant to make too many predictions, given the weirdness of last season, but it’s hard to look past England, who seem to have figured out that in a sport all about having large men run into each other at speed, having larger and faster men

SPORTS SHORTS

COLLEGE FOOTBALL TO RETURN IN TRINITY Fred Waine OUAFC are confident about the prospects of college football being able to return this Trinity term, pending the relaxation of government and university restrictions. The Club Officer has already been liaising with college captains about the possibility of both the traditional summer term Futsal tournament and some sort of 11-a-side mega-league for Men’s JCR sides going ahead, as well as confirming that JCR league standings have been frozen and will roll over to next year from the 19/20 season. Image credit: Steve Daniels.

than the other team might be a good idea. All the usual clichés about France being fun, but inconsistent and unreliable apply, they’ll be brilliant or they won’t, and there is honestly no way to tell. Ireland, led by a Johnny Sexton who has aged worse than that 8th week of Hilary trip to Park End, have been good if not spectacular recently. Strangely, their centralised system, which demands that their players play their club rugby on the island, appears hand-crafted for a global pandemic, in that Andy Farrell

should have access to reinforcements without having to worry about them travelling halfway around the world. This year’s tournament is basically exactly as open as it tends to be - four of the six could win it. Forgive me if I seem boring, but I like that. This year, the ideal Six Nations would be a Six Nations that my mum could fall asleep to, a festival of too much rugby, that arrives in the depths of winter, and leaves just as spring rolls in. Image credit: Stefan Lehner via Unsplash.

Find more sports coverage online at cherwell.org/category/sport

KEBLE FANTASY FOOTBALL: MID-SEASON REVIEW Fred Waine Keble’s 26-team league has been the site of much drama so far. Leading the way is Susan Perb, managed by James Curtis, who only entered after the first round of fixtures but picked up 70+ points in 8 out of the next 19 Gameweeks. Among the chasing pack are WelcomeToThePartey and Scharing is Caring, the teams of JCR president Japji and KCAFC captain Jon, while bottom of the table are the aptly-named Haven’t Jota Clue, whose manager Angus Lochrane has given a true disasterclass in FPL tactics. Image captured from FPL app.

PUZZLES Put your brain to work to solve this week’s crossword! Send completed crosswords to cherwelleditor@gmail.com for the chance to be featured in next week’s issue! Puzzle by Kian Moghaddas Across 1. Abundance (9) 2. Raise a child (7) 5. Love in the time of ______ (7) 6. Nobel (8) 7. Maritime (8) 9. Clear speech (9) 10. Best watched sped-up (7) 12. Three in an orchestra, usually (8) 13. Injure (4) 15. Californian island prison (8) 16. Court (8) 17. Lethargy (9) 20. Visitors of baby Jesus, according to Matthew (4) 21. Runs through Brazil, for instance (7) 23. Dark and satanic, but singular (4) Down 1. Make as small as possible (8) 3. System of government (15) 4. ________ History of the English people (14) 8. Legal (5) 9. Electric (3) 11. Theft from one’s employer (12) 13. Machine for movement (5) 14. Be in the power of (6) 18. Peaked in the ‘80s (6) 19. Strong and tough (6) 20. Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy (7) 22. Extreme wrongdoing (8) 24. Item of priestly clothing (3)

In current circumstances, when students are more separated than ever, Cherwell has reached out to student newspapers across the world to hear more about student experiences globally. This week we hear from Trinity College Dublin, in Ireland. Lauren Boland, Editor at Trinity News

ublin is a small city. Trinity is an even smaller campus. In a usual year, it’s difficult to go anywhere without seeing someone familiar. Now, students are studying at Trinity from around Ireland and overseas - including our writers at Trinity News. There is a kind of excitement in knowing that the words in our publication are being typed from all over the world, but one we would swap

instantly to meet safely in one room again. The oldest student publication in Ireland is a journal in Trinity College Dublin called TCD Miscellany, which was founded in 1895. In its first issue over 125 years ago, its editors promised to “embody as much as possible of College life from the Examination Hall to the Park”. Miscellany - now known as Misc - survived Ireland’s war of independence, two world

wars, multiple recessions, and is now raging through a pandemic, much like many other student publications around the world. For all of us in student publications, our boundaries have been pushed far beyond the distance between our campus’ examination hall and park. Our journalists and editors are studying and working hundreds of miles from campus, giving a new lens through which to consider what it means to be a local paper. Student publications have the power to record history, and it is more important now than ever to be resilient to the challenges we are facing so that we can capture and preserve our current, unimaginable moment for the future. Equally, they have the ability to shape the present by sparking discussions, unveiling truths, and holding power to account - a function that is imperative at a time when students’ rights are frayed.

Cherwell | Independent since 1920

Most importantly, student publications are an anchor that a college can hook itself on. They provide a space to reflect the shared experience of a community and foster that sense of community in itself. My own publication, Trinity News, is Ireland’s oldest student newspaper. Our first editorial back in 1953 promised to “present news of the Dublin University to as wide a circle as possible of those who have an interest in the University... if in the process, and in the news we present, there results some revival of the collegiate spirit which modern conditions tend to discourage, the newspaper will have justified itself.” In 2021, the power of a student publication is in its unique potential to - despite the most discouraging of modern conditions - revive a collegiate spirit and tie together a community that the pandemic would otherwise fling apart.