The
OXFORD STUDENT
Friday 27th October 2017
oxfordstudent.com
Vol. 81, No. 4
Oxford fights back against Daily Mail’s anti-Brexit attacks
MP accuses Oxford of “social apartheid”
Charlie Willis News Editor
• Daily Mail accuses unversities of spreading antiBrexit propaganda following MP’s letter in Open Britain, the remains of the Alex Oscroft Editor-in-Chief
Heads of Oxford colleges and students from across the university have this week made their feelings clear in response to a Daily Mail front page that accused the university of spreading “Remain propaganda.” The original Mail article, headline “Our remainer universities”, cited a long list of professors and heads of colleges who have supposedly been pushing anti-Brexit propaganda in the university system. It highlighted academics supporting remain heavily, and allegedly handing out pro-EU leaflets in lectures and encouraging students to get involved
Woodward suspected of abusing loophole Anisha Faruk
Deputy News Editor
Comment
Harvey Weinstein and why we must keep speaking up p.9
Flickr
• Encourages students to report stories of Remainsupporting students to university@dailymail.com
Remain campaign from last year. Will Hutton, Principal of Hertford College, was accused of being a “leftie” along with several other heads of colleges across both Oxford and Cambridge. In a statement to the OxStu, he said that “Academic freedom and the capacity to think for ourselves cannot be suspended by the result of one referendum.” “The freedom to research, to follow where evidence leads, to argue, to be challenged, to exchange ideas freely and to disseminate the results is at the heart of academic life. The life of the mind knows no borders. “Academics, and those in leadership roles within universities,
must continue to think - including and especially about an event as seismic as Brexit - however discomforting the reflections for some politicians or newspapers. “They support their arguments with the best evidence they can marshall: and expect challenge. But they can never and should never stop. That would betray our vocation and what we are - the road to ignorance and the serfdom of the mind.” Mark Damazer is Master of St. Peter’s College, and in a phone interview he struck a more conciliatory tone. He said that “the press can express any views they want and I’m totally in favour of that,” although was doubtful that freedom of speech was under
any serious threat at universities. “Looking at the reaction to Chris Heaton-Harris’s letter, and not just from universities but also from Downing Street, gives us some sense that this isn’t something that’s going to gain traction in the country,” he said. The UK university sector receives over £1 billion in research funding from the EU every year. In a totally fool-proof plan, they encouraged students to submit their own stories of anti-Brexit bias to university@dailymail.co.uk. The article comes hot on the heels of a letter from Chris Heaton-Harris, a staunch
Lavinia Woodward, who was spared jail earlier this year for assault, has been accused of taking advantage of a loophole in Oxford University’s disciplinary process to avoid expulsion. Woodward has voluntarily postponed her studies for the duration
of her 10-month jail sentence suspended for eighteen months. This means that a staff panel due to decide whether she should be expelled cannot formulate a ruling until she expresses that she wishes to return. The medical student and aspir-
ing heart surgeon has been accused of trying to ‘set the terms’ on whether she will be permitted to return to the university, a decision made by university proctors.
Continued on page 3
The origin of faith and the Ashmolean’s autumn exhibition p.16
Art & Lit
David Lammy MP has accused Oxford and Cambridge of “social apartheid” after data showed that ten of Oxford’s 32 colleges admitted no black British A-level students in 2015. Oriel College has admitted just one blackBritishAlevelstudentinsixyears. The data also showed that only 1.5 percent of all offers made by both universities to A level candidates were given to black British students. “Difficult questions have to be asked, including whether there is systematic bias inherent in the Oxbridge admissions process that is working against talented young people from ethnic minority backgrounds,” said Lammy. “There are almost 400 black students getting three As at A-level or better every year.” Eighty-one percent of offers in 2015 were made to members of the top two social classes, which constitute 31 percent of the national population. This had risen from 79 percent in 2010. On Wednesday, over 100 MPs signed an open letter to the vicechancellors of both Oxford and Cambridge universities demanding they do better work to increase access to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The letter accused the admissions system used in individual colleges of being “highly subjective,” and derided the fact that the “vast majority” of Oxbridge undergraduates continue to be drawn from “a small minority in terms of both Geography and socio-economic background.” “We call on you to set out exactly what steps you will be taking to address this situation and make good on this responsibility,” they said in the letter. Despite these statistics, both Oxford
Continued on page 4
Fashion
The ‘Kardashian cult’ and its contribution to fashion p.27
Continued on page 4
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
STAFF LIST
Editors-in-chief Alex Oscroft Rosie Shakerchi
Deputy Editors Daniel Mahoney James Evans Katrina Gaffney Madeleine Taylor Tara Snelling Verity Winn
News
Charlie Willis Liam Lucas Anisha Faruk (deputy)
Comment
Lizzie Deane Siddharth Jayaprakash Danielle Dean (deputy) Will Evans (deputy)
Alex Oscroft Mansfield
It’s been brought to my attention that a member of another student publication, on a radio show, has suggested that these editorials – the pearls of wisdom plucked from the minds of your very own editors-in-chief – lack the substance that they would like in such weighty proclamations. They have been described, to quote, as little more than “agony aunt columns.” Dear readers, let me tell you now – never has this aunt been so agonised as she is today. What I find surprising about such a comment – more surprising than the fact that anyone actually reads these editorials – is that our complainee seems to think we ought to take these 200 words seriously. There certainly are arguments to be made for having the editors of a newspaper weigh in on topical issues – each week’s issue is, after all, read
Aaron Robertson
Profile
Nicholas Linfoot Tobi Thomas
Features
Art & Lit
Abigail Eardley Sree Ayyar Isabella Cullen (deputy) Queeni Li (deputy)
Stage
Anya Gill Bethan Spencer
Screen
Music
Madeleine Taylor Seb Braddock Joe Small (deputy)
Fashion
Leonie Hutch Lucinda Kirk
Sport
Danny Cowan Vincent Richardson
Sub-editors
Sarah Conkerton (chief) Emma Woodcock Grant Dalton Hannah Johnson Lily-Anna Trimble Mayu Noda Taro Konishi-Dukes
Broadcasting
Henry Grub Tom Gould (deputy)
by probably dozens of people across the university and indeed the world, and while I would never say that our views need or deserve to be heard, it is undobtedly true that we have a unique position from which we can speak our minds. But that I choose to use mine for my own vapid ramblings is a deliberate choice – I think that the paper, and the huge pool of talented students we have writing for us, more than speak for themselves. The role of an editor is to facilitate the voices of others being heard, those who otherwise might not have had that opportunity. We pride ourselves on the diversity of opinion and of writers that we are lucky enough to have in this paper each week, and it is them that deserve your attention. So regular readers, fear not: from next week, this space will remain agonised and inane just as it has always has been.
8
Caitlin Law Penny Young Marina Hackett (deputy)
Eve Lytollis Richard Tudor Irina Boeru (deputy)
Editorial
COMMENT Reviewing the highs and lows of your freshers week
Investigations
Want to get involved in Oxford’s largest student newspaper?
We’re looking for an online editor to help us managing our social media output. If you’re interested, please send us your CV and a 300 word application to editor@oxfordstudent.com www.oxfordstudent.com The Oxford Student @TheOxStu @TheOxStu
Editorial 2
editor@ oxfordstudent.com We are always looking for new writers to join the OxStu. If you’re an Oxford student and you want to be involved in the OxStu or hear more, get in contact!
Rosie Shakerchi St Catherine’s
Freedom of Information Requests against Oxford university have been put to pretty good use recently, drawing out the newest round of worrying statistics in national news about Oxford’s skew towards the middle-class/southern/privatelyeducated. It’s strange to read about Oxford’s elitism from the undeniably priviledged position of being here. Stranger still as I’m here to tell you about how to use the Data Protection Act on the university for an entirely more trivial and Oxford-esque reason: getting feedback on your Prelims. A couple of years ago, OUSU and JCR presidents did their best to convince the uni to give more personal and constructive feedback on Prelims, rather than the joy that is the Examination Reports. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t manage
spot light PROFILE Chatting to Layla Moran
10
to get anywhere. So instead they recommend one of those uniquely Oxford ways of getting your tutors to tell you how you’re doing. With a £10 spend on the ‘Data Protection Act’ item on the Oxford Stores, and a quick message explaining which exams (Prelims or Finals), you get all the comments that were on your paper and find the individual marks for each essay. You might be torn between curiousity and the distinct feeling of ‘lol it’s over now why would I care?’. As our Greek philosophers remind us (p.29), Prelims only matter till you do them. But for all you 2nd years who are intrigued by what impressive Oxford dons actually thought when reading that exhaustion-crazed mess of an exam script, or who think it might help them going into Finals (god know we all need it), give it a go.
STAGE A Preview of new Pilch show 4.48 Psychosis
19
FASHION
Is mainstream fashion embracing the modest?
26
LETTER TO THE EDITORS Dear Alex and Rosie, Just when I thought D. Mahoney couldn’t be any more offensive, he neglects to show his face in the latest issue of your publication. Is the Oxford student in the habit of appointing yellow bellied lizards who fail to understand that actions have consequences? The Honourable Company of Wetherspoons brothers and sisters does not take affront lightly. Putting Disappointment Mahoney on probation is the least you could have done. D. Mahoney must pay the price of his filthy mouth himself. We appreciate you may not have heard of our organisation but suffice to say if appropriate action is not taken we cannot be held responsible for what will happen to your precious ‘newspaper’.
The Breakfast Cult
Dear ‘Breakfast Cult’, It was with great amusement that I read your paltry attempts to defame me and threaten this great institution. Unlike certain other Oxford-based publications, we at the Oxford Student are not in the business of publishing articles containing falsehoods, and I stand behind my article with the full support of the editorial team. Your attempts to harass us under the veil of anonymity and overenthusiastic attempts at mystery betrays your true cowardice, and you will ultimately fail in your attempt to silence the venerable section of Oxstuff and stop the important work it does every week. Yours indignantly,
D. Mahoney
News 3
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Plaque commemorating first black African student unveiled Ahmed Ahmed Staff Writer
University College has unveiled a plaque honouring Christian Cole, Oxford University’s first black student. The plaque was commissioned after Pamela Roberts, director of Black Oxford: Untold Stories, pitched the idea to the College. Cole, the grandson of slaves, and native of Waterloo, Sierra Leone, matriculated to Oxford as a noncollegiate student in 1873 to read for an honours degree in Classics. To fund his education, he would receive an allowance from his uncle but the money was insufficient. Cole, a talented musician, would supplement his income by teaching music lessons, and working as a tutor to prepare fellow students for University examinations. His courses were very popular, and well attended. Cole made it a point to be active in university life, even in the midst of being viewed by some as a pariah. He would speak at Oxford’s debating society, the Oxford Union, and even attend Encaenia, Oxford’s honorary degree ceremony. His presence was well chronicled,
but with clear elements of racism. Cartoonists would draw figures of Cole, some of which have been recreated. In her diary, Anna Florence Ward, a visitor to the University, noted: “Saw Cole (Coal?) also (n****r)”.’ “For a lot of people he would have been the first black African they had ever encountered,” said Dr. Robin Darwall-Smith, an archivist at University College. “There would have been these visitors saying, ‘gosh, who is that?’ ‘That is Christian Cole, he’s from Sierra Leone.’ ‘Wow, gosh, how exotic’.” Even behind the veils of racism, Cole was still popular among his peers. When his uncle passed away, his fellow students developed an appeal to raise money for him. George Bradley, the master of University College, supported the appeal and granted Cole membership to the College after he graduated in 1876. Cole would earn a fourth-class honours degree in Classics - an achievement obtained by few noncollegiate students, in what many dubbed the most rigorous subject. Cole would return home to Sierra Leone after earning his degree to deliver a series of lectures titled,
Chris Patten describes MP’s letter to unis as “idiotic Leninism” Continued from front page Leave-supporting Conservative MP, to the vice-chancellors of universities across the country asking to see what they taught about Brexit in their universities. Chris Patten, chancellor of Oxford and former Conservative cabinet minister, accused HeatonHarris of “idiotic Leninism,” while other university heads described the letter as “McCarthyist” and refused to comply with the request. Students were not impressed. Joe Inwood, Mansfield JCR President and former social secretary of Oxford Students for Europe, said the paper was “hysterical.” “It’s astonishing to see the Daily Mail accuse academics of groupthink while simultaneously printing front pages of hysterical anti-immigration propaganda on an almost daily basis. “If they truly value free speech, they should give a voice to some of the millions of EU citizens in the UK living in fear of the consequences of Brexit.” Marianne Melsen, Oxford SU VP for Graduates and International students, said in a statement: “Whilst we can debate what academics are or are not teaching students about Brexit, it is more important that universities and the government are working on shaping the outcomes of a deal that address students concerns, including student funding, immi-
gration rights, access to the year abroad scheme and how it will affect students with families. Supporting international students is part of my role and I’m going to undertake a small research project into Brexit and its impact on students later this year.” Also this week, the Daily Telegraph falsely accused a Cambridge University student and CUSU officer, Lola Olufemi, of pushing through a reform to a postcolonial literature seminar that would have excluded any white authors. The Telegraph issued a correction on Thursday, clarifying that what she had submitted were no more than recommendations, and “neither they nor the open letter called for the University to replace white authors with black ones and there are no plans to do so.” Both events have been perceived as part of a culture war against universities, spurred by their high percentages of young people and people with liberal views. In the 2016 EU referendum, Oxford voted over 70% in favour of remain. Universities have been accused of curtailing free speech on campuses for several years, with issues such as no-platforming speakers and protesting other guests coming to the fore. The universities minister, Jo Johnson, has recently unveiled proposals aimed at enforcing the protection of free speech in universities.
‘Education’, as well as publishing his thoughts on the Anglo-Zulu war under the name “A Negro, B.A., of University College”, and the Inner Temple. He eventually returned to England to train as a barrister, and became the first black African to practice in the English courts. “I have long been an admirer of Christian Cole,” said Dr. Darwall-Smith. “His ambition and determination were remarkable, and I hope that he will continue to inspire future generations of students. It is very exciting to have his place in the history of Oxford celebrated in this way.” University College
Bodleian Libraries
University College
Oxford professor accused of sexual harrassment by author Charlie Willis News Editor
Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies, Tariq Ramadan, has been accused of rape by feminist author Henda Ayari. In a statement through his lawyer, Ramadan has stated that he “categorically rejects all these false allegations” and will lodge a complaint for slander and defamation. An Oxford University spokesperson said: “We are aware of these reports and are taking them extremely seriously. We are not in a position to comment further at this time.” Ayari devoted a chapter of her book, I Chose to be Free, to the alleged assault. She claimed that Ramadan, to whom she gave the pseudonym Zoubeyr, asked her to meet him in his hotel during a Paris congress of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France in 2012. Being an admirer of him at the time, she agreed, and was surprised that he wished to meet her in his hotel room rather than the lobby. She said that when she went to the room, he put his arms around her and began kissing her. In her book she wrote: “When I resisted, when I told him to stop, he insulted and humiliated me. He slapped me and was outright violent. I saw someone who was
no longer in control of himself. I was scared he would kill me.” “I will not give precise details of the acts he did to me. It is enough to know that he benefited greatly from my weakness.” Ayari stated that he continued to attempt to contact her via text and tried to get her to meet with him. Ramadan’s reported attempts to see her in person were repeated according to Ayari and lasted for months. On 20th October Ayari posted on social media: “Today I confirm that the famous Zoubeyr is indeed, Tariq Ramadan.” Speaking to The Telegraph,
Ayari said that she had filed allegations against Ramadan for rape, sexual assault, violence, harassment and intimidation. She said that she “may not have the same financial means as him to pay for lawyers and experts” but “will go to the end of this fight whatever it costs”. Ayari’s lawyer Jonas Haddad said that her decision to publicly accuse Ramadan was in part prompted by the recent coverage of the allegations made against Harvey Weinstein. The prosecutor in Rouen, where Ayari lives, has not yet decided whether to charge Ramadan.
News 4
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Bitesize Pollution concerns from Green council Your weekly roundup of university, research and city news
Campaign presses for ball ticket charity contributions Several ball committees for this academic year have pledged to take part in the “What’s a Pound?” campaign, which seeks to raise ball ticket prices by one pound which would then be given to charity. The campaign is inspired by the homeless of Oxford, as “it is shocking that these glamorous and luxury events take place on the same streets where people with no home have to sleep”. Committees for the Corpus Christi College Commemoration Ball, Oxford Law Society Trinity Term Ball and the Sciences Ball have all pledged to get involved with the campaign, which has already seen success after the varsity ski trip added £3 to each ticket for the Oxford and Cambridge RAG charities, as well as £3 for Carbon Footprint Ltd., which runs carbon offsetting and UK community projects.
Charlie Willis Westgate Centre opens Westgate Oxford opened its doors to the public on Tuesday. If you haven’t made it there yet, some shops to look out for include the flagship John Lewis, covering an impressive 140,000 square feet, and various clothing brands such as Ted Baker, Victoria’s Secret and a larger Primark than the store on Queen’s Street. To celebrate the opening, the Westgate Centre is offering a number of deals, including 50% off at various restaurants. Up until 2nd November Westgate Oxford will also offer some free “curious and curiouser” experiences with the theme of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Tours are being offered with the “Westgate, Whichgate, Wheregate tour guides”, offering improvised excursions around the centre of town. Watch out for the “Eat Me. Drink Me.” tasting experience on the roof terrace. The roof terrace is filled with restaurants, some of which are the first ventures for these restaurants outside London, from the New York comfort food ‘Dirty Bones’ to the aptly named ‘Pizza Pilgrims’. Westgate also brings the newest cinema to Oxford, a five-screen theatre showing a mix of new releases and independent films.
Rosie Shakerchi
members after Westgate centre opens Liam Frahm News Editor
Oxford’s plans for a zero-emission zone is “in tatters”, according to Oxford’s Green Party, who have criticised the “poor handling” of the Westgate development as undermining the City Council’s programme to tackle Oxford’s illegal emission levels. The Greens have argued that the development has increased traffic and associated pollution because of increased parking capacity in the City Centre and that the City Council should instead be encouraging shoppers to use Park & Ride facilities. Councillor Dick Wolff, Green transport spokesperson, said, “It is difficult to take seriously talk of a zero emission zone when the City
Council are, at the same time, increasing parking capacity and cutting parking charges in the very same part of the City where a zero emission zone has been mooted.” A fortnight ago, the City Council announced plans to make Oxford the world’s first emission-free urban area. The programme involves a gradual ban on petrol and diesel cars and vans from roads in the city centre, starting with Cornmarket and Queen Street in 2020, and eventually encompassing the whole city centre by 2035. The City Council has welcomed the opening of the £440 million Westgate Centre, which is owned by the Westgate Oxford Alliance – a joint venture between Crown Estates and Landsec - and stands on land formerly owned by the City Council. Over the course of 25 years, various schemes for the redevelopment of Westgate have been put forward.
Permission for detailed design submissions was granted in November 2014 and work on-site commenced in early 2015, creating up to 1,000 construction jobs with a further 3,400 retail positions created upon the centre’s opening. Oxford City Council said: “All parties have worked to encourage the use of local bus and Park and Ride services and other sustainable travel options. Plans by the City Council to expand Seacourt Park and Ride to add 700 extra spaces will also boost parking provision for shoppers.” Councillor Bob Price, Leader of Oxford City Council, said: “I’m delighted to see the opening of the redeveloped Westgate shopping centre, especially after having seen so many proposed schemes come and go unrealised over the years. For the city, Westgate transforms the retail landscape. From regularly having to listen to res-
idents and visitors complaining that shopping in Oxford is disappointing, we now have a regionally competitive shopping, eating and entertainment destination. It creates thousands of new jobs and will support the exponential growth of tourism in Oxford. “Equally important for the city, and for me personally, as I leave the Council next May, is the transformation of a whole quarter of the city, with two major new public squares, a landscaped pedestrian route along the Castle Mill Stream that brings the city centre closer to the Thames, attractive pedestrian routes from east to west, linking the Castle and Prison quarter to the city centre, fabulous rooftop views of the dreaming spires and Boars Hill, not to mention 1000 cycle parking spaces – something that is dear to our hearts on the Council and the very large cycling community in the city.”
Continued from front page
reason why the taxpayer should continue to give them so much money.” “Whilst some individual colleges and tutors are taking steps to improve access, in reality many Oxbridge colleges are still fiefdoms of entrenched privilege, the last bastions of the old school tie.” “We’ve gone backwards on social class, we’ve made no progress on north/south divide and we’ve made little progress on race.” Lammy also criticised Oxford’s slow response, saying that the university was “defensive” and “evasive” when pressured to release a breakdown of admissions data based on ethnicity. Dr Samina Khan, director of undergraduate admissions and outreach at Oxford University, said: “We see a very different picture. If you look at the data correctly and properly, you’ll find poor students who get three As or more are more likely to get into Oxford than if you’re a more well off student. It’s a question of proportion more than looking at the raw numbers.”
Woodward could avoid 100 MPs sign letter demandexpulsion from university ing Oxbridge improve access
Continued from front page It was initially believed Woodward would voluntarily choose to leave the university. The 24 year old Christ Church student pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding earlier this year after stabbing her ex-boyfriend, Cambridge student Thomas Fairclough, in the lower leg with a breadknife last December. The incident had occurred after Woodward had become angry at her then-boyfriend after he had contacted her mother on Skype after realising she had been drinking. Woodward’s legal counsel James Sturman QC had previously said she was “reluctant” to return to the university for fear of being recognised. Dean of Christ Church, Martyn Percy, said he does not believe Woodward “is getting special treatment.” Woodward’s lawyers have
said: “The disciplinary process at Oxford is for the proctors ... In due course that process will no doubt be concluded.” The ruling earlier in the year by Judge Ian Pringle QC which saw Woodward spared jail angered many criminal justice campaigners who said the ruling would stop male victims of domestic violence from reporting their case. Pringle was also criticised for comments he made regarding Woodward being “too clever for jail” which brought the case to the attention of national media. At the end of September, three complaints were brought against Judge Pringle but were dismissed by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO). A spokesperson explained that the complaints were dismissed as “they related to an independent judicial decision and not conduct”.
and Cambridge Universities spend £5m annually on outreach and access. A spokesperson for Oxford University said: “We absolutely take on board Mr Lammy’s comments, and we realise there are big geographical disparities in the numbers and proportions of students coming to Oxford. “On the whole, the areas sending few students to Oxford tend also to be the areas with high levels of disadvantage and low levels of attainment in schools. “Rectifying this is going to be a long journey that requires huge, joinedup effort across society - including from leading universities like Oxford - to address serious inequalities.” Lammy said: “Oxbridge take over £800m a year from the taxpayer - paid for by people in every city, town and village. “Whole swathes of the country - especially our seaside towns and the ‘left behind’ former industrial heartlands across the North and the Midlands are basically invisible. If Oxbridge can’t improve, then there is no
Policy Exchange Facebook
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
St Hugh’s JCR removes Council marks £2.6m Suu Kyi’s name from title for homeless services Zoe Tidman Staff Writer
Students at St Hugh’s College have voted to eliminate Aung San Suu Kyi’s name from their JCR common room following criticism of her response to the Rohingya humanitarian crisis. This is not the first time that the college has distanced itself from its ex-student, who studied PPE there in the mid-1960s. In September, they removed the de facto leader of Myanmar’s portrait from its entrance, shortly before Oxford City Council voted to retract her Freedom of Oxford honour. These acts have been in response to Aung San Suu Kyi’s failure to denounce the military over violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority, or address UN accusations of a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, which has led to over 500,000 Rohingya fleeing the country to seek refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh.
The 72 year old received international praise as Myanmar’s opposition leader and became the country’s de facto leader in 2015. She won the Nobel peace prize in 1991 for her fight for democracy. However, St Hugh’s JCR decided to protest against her “silence and complicity” in the face of the persecution of Rohingya minority in her country. The motion read: “Aung San Suu Kyi’s inability to condemn the mass murder, gang rape and severe human rights abuses in Rakhine is inexcusable and unacceptable.” The University of Oxford has not retracted the Burmese leader’s honorary degree yet but has expressed “profound concern” over the developing Rohingya crisis. A statement released by the university says the institution “hopes the Myanmar administration, led by Oxford alumna Aung San Suu Kyi, can eliminate discrimination and oppression, and demonstrate to the world that Myanmar values the lives of all its citizens”.
Liam Frahm News Editor
This week, Oxford City Council has agreed up to £1.5 million in funding to support former rough sleepers over the next six years. With Simon House, a hostel for rough sleepers, due to close in March 2018 due to funding cuts, the City Council has announced £200,000 in transitional funding for 22 beds open for those with complex needs and a connection to Oxford. The transitional funding will last until April 2019 as A2Dominion, leaseholder and support provider at Simon House, aims to build accommodation near the John Allen Centre in Cowley. This new new facility will provide 22 units of complex-needs accommodation with staff onsite 24 hours a day and a further 15 units of move-on accommodation for people moving towards independent living with low support needs. Additionally, the Council has agreed a further £1.1 million for A2Dominion for support services at the new supported housing facility, for up to five years, while A2Dominion has submitted a
planning application for a new facility on Rymers Lane, with on-site work due to start in March 2018. Councillor Mike Rowley, Board Member for Housing, said: “Even though Oxford City Council already does more than most councils to tackle homelessness, the national homelessness crisis which engulfs our streets means we needed to do even more. Oxfordshire County Council funding cuts have left Oxford’s homelessness services facing an unprecedented challenge. The £1.5 million in additional funding we have agreed demonstrates our faith in those services and their ability to get people off the streets, and shows our commitment to helping Oxford’s rough sleepers, the most visible victims of the national homelessness crisis.” Pam Vasir, Group Director of Supported Housing at A2Dominion, said: “We are delighted that Oxford City Council has agreed funding to keep Simon House open while we build a replacement facility for Oxford’s homeless. The new facility will allow us to provide support services and move-on accommodation to help people back into the community. We expect to start work on building the new hostel in March 2018, and to open it in April 2019.”
News 5 New act used in fines for corrupt landlord An Oxford landlord has been convicted for the second time in 12 months for operating an unlicensed House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) and ordered to pay £6,146 in fines and costs. Mr Zahid Ali Rana, 58, was prosecuted after environmental health staff from Oxford City Council inspected his house in March 2017. As three lodgers were living with him, the house should have been licensed as an HMO. Additionally, conditions were unacceptable as central heating did not work and refuse was found in the garden. At the Oxford Magistrates’ Court in October, Mr Rana pleaded guilty to the offence of failing to licence the property. He was also fined for three HMO management offences. Rana had previously been convicted in 2016 for managing an unlicensed and unsafe HMO at Freelands Road. Councillor Alex Hollingsworth, Board Member for Planning and Regulatory Services, said: “The City Council is committed to protecting private tenants from rogue landlords who fail to license their properties or manage them to acceptable standards… Going forward, the Council will be regularly using financial penalties to deal with unlicensed HMOs.”
Tara Snelling
Duchess of Cornwall inaugurates new Worcester College building
St Hugh’s College
Nadia Carol
Investigation into Union committee change Charlie Willis News Editor
A Senior Disciplinary Committee (SDC) is to investigate allegations that Chris Zabilowicz, Oxford Union President, allowed two members to be appointed to the Union’s Standing Committee in breach of Union rules. Under the presidency of Michael Li, it was decided that the Standing Committee should be increased in size from five to seven members, to take effect following the Michaelmas 2017 elections. Zabilowicz, after being elected President last term, retroactively passed a ruling that the increase should have taken effect in Trinity 2017. In a notice at the time, he said: “Although the second schedule states that the first election affected will be
that in Michaelmas Term 2017, it also states that the Rules change shall ‘take effect immediately’ […] I have therefore decided to issue a binding Ruling that this Rules change is now in effect.” “There should now be seven Elected members of the Standing Committee.” A notice calling for applicants was displayed for four days in 9th week, after which an Emergency Committee Meeting was held in which Kaleem Hawa and Grace Joel were appointed to the committee by its existing members. The SDC, which will consist of former Union officials and at least one qualified lawyer, will determine dates within 28 days of the official summons to hear the case. The committee will examine the decision to bring forward the change and decide whether it remains in effect, and by ex-
tension whether Hawa and Joel will remain on the committee. Any accused party or member of the Standing Committee can offer evidence before the SDC. No person is required to give evidence which might incriminate themselves. After dealing with the matter at hand, the committee can then expand their inquiry to consider any other rule breach-
Oxford Union, Facebook
es which may have occurred. When the story broke through Cherwell, several inaccuracies were reported as fact, which Zabilowicz refuted for their amended piece. He said: “As their now amended article highlights, a Senior Disciplinary Committee will be convened simply to consider a ruling I made in Trinity 2017, and has no bearing on my position as President.”
Malaysian Sultan Nazrin Shah of Perak and the Duchess of Cornwall inaugurated a new centre in Worcester College. Also attending the opening were Baroness Lola Young and US writer George Saunders. The building, dedicated by HRH Sultan Nazrin Shah (PPE 1976), is a world-class venue for conferences and events that centres around the Tuanku Bainun Auditorium. It hosts 170 delegates, includes a Green Room, and is fully accessible to wheelchair users. In addition to the ampitheatrestyle auditorium, the contemporary building houses two seminar rooms with panoramic views and a 20 delegate boardroom each. An informal social area, known as The E-Hub, overlooks the sports field and lake, and will cater coffee breaks, finger buffets and drinks reception. All rooms have built-in technological amenities, including: LCD screens for A/V output, infrared hearing system, Wi-Fi, and video conferencing facilities.
Carla Fuenteslopez
News 6
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Xi Jinping first living Chinese leader enshrined in Party constitution since founding father Mao Zedong Liam Frahm News Editor
President Xi Jinping, General Secretary of China’s Communist Party, was written into his party’s constitution this week, elevating him to the same “exalted status” as Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China. The decision, approved at the party congress in Beijing, strengthens Xi’s political position and makes it significantly more difficult for his rivals to challenge him or his policies. The changes places the phrase “Xi Jinping Thought for the New Era of Socialism with Chinese Special Characteristics” alongside those commemorating Mao, as well as Deng Xiaoping, added following his death in 1997. At the end of the constitutional process, conference delegates were asked for objections, to which, according to journal-
ists at the scene, they responded with loud cries of “none”. The Chinese Communist Party’s constitution, separate from the country’s national constitution, outlines rules and principles for its members as well as the party’s history and how leaders of the past and present contribute its heritage. Constitutional changes can only be made at party congress, usually every five years, and, due to the strict selection process of choosing delegates, very few proposals are opposed by attendees. While previous leaders have had their ideologies enshrined in the Party’s constitution or thought, none - except Mao - have had their philosophy labelled as “thought”, the top of the ideological jargon tree. Adding Xi by name raises him above his two most recent predecessors, former presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, whose ideas are included in the list of doctrines, but not attributed to them. During the party congress, Xi’s
focus, according to the New York Times, on a ‘new era’ is “key”. Xi’s version of Chinese history since the revolution in 1949 that put the Communist Party into power is separated into two eras: the three decades following Mao’s establishment of a People’s Republic and the three decades after Deng took power in 1978 and focused on developing the Chinese economy. In Xi’s speech to the congress, it appears though he wants to push China into a new era. A central tenant of “Xi Jinping Thought” is strengthening China, shown in Xi’s policies of military investment, domestic controls and attempts to raise China’s profile globally. According to BBC China Editor Carrie Grace, “If the first [era] was Chairman Mao uniting a country devastated by civil war, and the second was getting rich under Deng Xiaoping, this new era is about even more unity and wealth at the same time as making China disciplined at home and strong abroad.”
Roberto Stuckert Filho PR
Maltese journalist death potentially Challenger astronaut linked to “fuel-smuggling network” dies at eighty-five Liam Frahm News Editor
An Italian chief prosecutor has said he “could not exclude” the possibility that Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed in a car bomb in Malta last week, was murdered by an alleged crime syndicate. Carmelo Zuccaro, a chief prosecutor in Sicily leading an inquiry into the fuel-smuggling network, told the Guardian he “could not exclude” the possibility that some of the men targeted in his investigation – spanning Italy, Malta and Libya and allegedly involving an organised crime network in Sicily – could
Lleonidas
be behind Galizia’s death. “[She] worked in the past on articles about the fuel trafficking between Libya and Malta,” Zuccaro said, adding that several of Galizia’s articles had mentioned some of those involved in his inquiry. While the fuel-smuggling investigation has been active for months, Italian authorities made several arrests in the days following Galizia’s death but none of those arrested have been formally accused regarding the bombing. Darren Debono, a Maltese, was arrested on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Friday and charged as part of the illegal Malta-based network, which allegedly holds ties to Libyan militia groups and has smug-
gled tens of millions of euro in fuel into Europe from Libya. Police in Malta said they were “investigating all possible avenues” regarding Galizia’s death and had made contact with their counterparts in Italy immediately after Debono’s arrest. The former Malta footballer was featured in Galizia’s blogs, with one published in February 2016 where she said Debono was a restaurant owner and fisherman who did “a lot of ‘business’ with Libya”. Galizia also claimed to have received a threat by email from one of Debono’s relatives, allegedly upset by her work on the family’s activities. She wrote in her blog that Debono was at risk of getting “blown up” after the murders of two other “fishermen” with business ties to Libya who had “been blown up in their cars”.
NASA
Charlie Willis News Editor
Paul Weitz, the US astronaut who was the first to command the space shuttle Challenger, has died in his Arizona retirement home aged 85. Born in 1932 in Pennsylvania, Weitz joined NASA in 1966, after serving as a naval aviator. His first mission was to carry out repairs on Skylab, the US space station which orbited Earth between 1973 and 1979. Skylab had been launched on 14th May without crew, but a sunshield designed to prevent impacts from small meteorites and to regulate temperature tore off during launch. The station quickly began to overheat. An Apollo command module carrying Weitz,
alongside fellow astronauts Pete Conrad and Joseph Kerwin, was scheduled to launch on 15th May, but was delayed until 25th May to allow for repair practice. When they reached the station, the team attempted to fix a jammed solar panel with a 3m long pole. Weitz tugged at the panel while Kerwin held his ankles. In Weitz’s words: “We thought maybe we’d just break it loose. So we got down near the end of the solar array and I got a hold of it with the shepherd’s crook. But what we really hadn’t thought about was, in heaving on it, trying to break the thing free, what I was doing, in effect, I was pulling the command module […] in toward [Skylab]. “Also, surprising in a totally weightless environment, I was moving [Skylab] some, too, because we could see its thrusters firing to maintain its attitude... So it made for some dicey times.” The team managed to replace the sunshield and reduce the temperature inside the space station. Weitz’s second mission was as commander of the space shuttle Challenger, on a five day mission in April 1983. The crew deployed a satellite and carried out a spacewalk. On Challenger’s second liftoff three years later, an accident caused the shuttle to be destroyed, killing all seven astronauts on board.
Take the pledge to go veggie or vegan in November. Pledging now open
e g d e l P e i g #Veg 2017
Whether it’s just veggie one day, a week or vegan for the entire month: reduce your animal intake, get discounts, win the prize! #VeggiePledge2017 VeggiePledge
COMMENT
Comment 8
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Freshers’ week: do a few years make a difference?
With 0th week a distant memory, we compare the experiences of graduates and undergraduates
Alice Spiers - Graduate Staff Writer
There is a particular breed of fresher roaming the streets of Oxford this October. One that often gets overlooked in the maelstrom of Freshers’ Week t-shirts, VKs, and third years trying to work out if it’s okay to go home with someone the same age as their younger sibling. The graduate fresher. We, like the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eighteen year olds, have been thrown in among the spires and libraries to fend for ourselves. We too are suddenly reliant on Google Maps, a little bit homesick, and worried that everyone else can tell that we’re not entirely sure how we ended up here. Having conquered undergrad, being completely new and untethered again is very disorientating. However, the lovely thing about being a grad fresher is discovering how far you have come since you were a ‘real’ fresher. The worst pyjamas and horrendous early morning hair is no longer an embarrassment among flatmates, it’s almost a competition. We’re older, wiser, and (most of us) have learned that leaving the dishes to ‘soak’ is a lie. The most wonderful discovery of all is that if you’ve applied to do a post-grad in something, everyone else on your course is as interested and invested as you are. No grad student will ever use ‘nerd’ as a real insult - we’re literally paying an extortionate amount to hang out with people who sign up for extra classes and read optional course material for fun. Being a grad fresher is getting to start again, but with the confidence in ourselves and our abilities that comes from having survived a degree already. But this doesn’t mean we won’t block our showers, sleep through lectures, or kiss the wrong people. As a pair of very drunk third year boys, merrily swinging their maccies, cried in disbelief when they met me on High Street at 1am: “you’re just like a fresher, but you’re so old!”
Oxford moulds and forms your friendships and your work - and it’s what you come to expect, quirks and all. Graduates arriving at Oxford from elsewhere, however, can struggle to acclimatise to the term structure, subfusc, and libraries scattered seemingly randomly across the city. Balancing new friends with old during Fresher’s Week is a particular challenge, keeping everyone updated whilst moving breathlessly between social events. Even returning to Oxford as a refresher is never the same whilst the buildings don’t change, it’s odd catching yourself thinking you recognise someone, only to remind yourself that they’re no longer at Oxford but in the ‘adult world’ now with a nine to five and a salary (which you’re avoiding, of course, for at least another year).
through this year and beyond. So whilst graduate freshers may be older than school leavers, for one week we all feel 18 again. Far from being an old hat, being a graduate fresher is a time of a discovery much like at undergraduate level - just in a whole new range of directions.
Matthew Proctor - Undergraduate
Staff Writer
Busy, busy, busy. Simply put, this best describes my experience of freshers’ week. Everything moved incredibly quickly and there was a myriad of new experiences available. I desperately attempted to remember names; for every one name
Whilst Tories and Trotskyists stood opposite eachother competing for custom, I felt rude if I didn’t accept everything on offer Wherever you’ve come from though, being a taught graduate is strangely closer to being a first year than a finalist, with classes, seminars and lectures leaving humanities students hyperventilating from the unexpected level of contact time. There’s also the compulsory fresher’s flu which refuses to discriminate between JCR and MCR members, leaving everyone snuffling through their endless fresher’s inductions. Yet, as much as we groan as we sit through them, this is when the friendships are forged which will carry us
I learnt, I forgot another two. The JCR and Welfare committees endeavoured to ensure every day was filled to the brim with introductions, social events and seemingly vast amounts of tea, complete with various prefixes (welfare tea, staircase tea, etc). As the protagonist of the otherwise utterly unrepresentative of Oxford film The Riot Club so adequately puts it: “being at Oxford is like being invited to a hundred parities at once”. Indeed, after a hard day’s socialising, nights out were available in abundance. For many freshers
(I unashamedly include myself in this category), Oxford social cornerstones including Bridge, Park End and Emporium had acquired a mystical status akin to UNESCO World Heritage sites. Enjoying these renowned institutions felt long overdue. As the somewhat overused idiom states, variety is indeed the spice of life. In addition to the new blend of backgrounds and stories I encountered from other freshers, the freshers’ fair had no shortfalls where variety was concerned. The crowning jewel of freshers’ week, I’d never had so many interesting societies bid for my membership at once. Whilst Tories and Trotskyists stood opposite each other competing for custom, I felt rude if I didn’t accept virtually everything on offer in the exam schools that afternoon (my sincere apologies to incredibly enthusiastic Oxford University Octopush Club in particular). Whilst freshers flu and essay deadlines eventually dragged me kicking and screaming back into the realms of reality, I’d definitely say that freshers’ week was an exhausting but thoroughly satisfying experience.
Joanna Lonergan - Undergraduate
Staff Writer
I’m calling it. Freshers’ week (sorry, ‘0th Week’) was horrendous. Maybe you disagree - you instantly found people you ‘click’ with, avoided freshers’ flu, and revelled in your new independence. I’m happy for you, but for many of us it wasn’t like this, and admitting that isn’t easy.
Before I arrived, I had big expectations. I thought, I just knew, it was going to be amazing. I don’t know why exactly, but during the unpacking of the copious amounts of rubbish I’d brought, it hit me. It hit me that I was alone to fend for myself in an unfamiliar place. The pressure to form a social ‘group’ meant I hid my feelings behind a smile. I was extroverted, and then spent my evenings overthinking everything - ‘they didn’t invite me because they think I’m weird’. I was trying to be friends with everyone, and ‘FOMO’ had a huge impact on me.
Freshers’ week... was horrendous. But my week wasn’t a complete bust. Not by any means. I met some lovely people and tried a variety of new things (pole dancing anyone?). All it took was five seconds of bravery, and I soon realised that I wasn’t the only one feeling low. Once I took some of the pressure off myself, it got a little easier. So what will I take away from fresher’s week, besides how to function on little or no sleep, ‘beer before liquor, never been sicker’, and that coughing in the library is a sin? I’ll take away that it’s okay to admit you’re not enjoying every minute. I’ll take away that, underneath it all, most people feel the same way. And I’ll take away that soon I’ll have settled into a routine, and all the stress of freshers’ will just be a funny memory.
Emma-Jane Hampshier-Gill - Graduate
Staff Writer
Never a truer word was said. Coming to Oxford as an undergraduate fresher is very different to the graduate fresher experience. As an undergraduate,
Pounded Thursdays/JT’s Cocktail Bar & Club
Comment 9
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Austrian election: the shift to the right and the future of the EU Norbert Rebow
Comment Editor
The Austrian elections on 15th October produced an undeniable shift to the right in the country’s politics. Due to a combination of arithmetic and political reasons it appears that the next government will be a coalition of the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Both have adopted a tough stance on migration. These developments are a dent in the optimistic narrative in Brussels where the defeat of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and the victory of Emmanuel Macron in France were taken as a sign that the tide of Eurosceptic populism was beginning to recede. Recent months have seen public vocalisations of plans for greater integration with both Macron and JeanClaude Junker presenting ideas for changes to the functioning of the European Commission and the Eurozone. Now, the result in Austria is expected to move the country closer to Eastern Europe, particularly Poland and Hungary, which are opposed to some of these potential reforms and especially the idea of a ‘multi-speed Europe’.
It would appear then, that this new right-wing coalition could help stifle much needed reform in the European Union. However, it is much too early to jump to this alarmist conclusion. We have been here before. The FPÖ and ÖVP formed a coalition after the former won an election in 1999. This sparked temporary diplomatic sanctions against the Vienna government by the EU. Yet in 2003 the Treaty of Nice was agreed to by all member states, including Austria still led by the ÖVP and FPÖ. In light of this, we can say that the new constellation in central-east-
ern Europe does not rule out major change in the EU. We could, however, ask whether the involvement of political groupings sometimes described as populist will mean a reform that undermines the institutions and values of the union. I would contend the opposite, that accepting some of the arguments flowing from these circles will strengthen Brussels’ hand in its perpetual and escalating conflict with Eurosceptics. The fundamental criticism levelled at the EU from these parties is that it is unresponsive to the wills of European citizens, that it continues to reaffirm its goal of ever
Robin Stott
Markus Bernet
closer union when the roots of a common European identity are still shallow compared to the strength of the foundations of nationhood. Solving the real problem of the democratic deficit would take the wind out of other, frequently exaggerated criticisms. Attacks on the European Commission in particular have frequently taken a dramatic form - it has been said to be doing the bidding of the ‘liberal elite’ in keeping curved cucumbers and bent bananas off the shelves of European supermarkets. Whilst this sort of commentary is sometimes ridiculous, the Commission does indeed have an incredible amount of power as an unelected body to enforce the regulations of an organisation of democracies. Its sole right to initiate European legislation is perhaps the biggest problem – it is difficult to contest the direction the EU should be headed on a regular basis if only one institution is allowed to draft the laws that EU citizens and national governments must observe. Signs of movement in this general direction are visible in Macron’s and Juncker’s ideas but it is important that this issue is tackled correctly. Right wing parties in Europe are legitimised in their appeals for a greater
emphasis on national sovereignty, the Eurobarometer surveys have shown that a plurality of EU citizens prioritise their national identity over their sense of ‘Europeanness’ and a sizeable minority report not feeling European at all. Allowing MEPs as well as national parliaments and governments to initiate European legislation would weaken the accusations that a European establishment is determining the development of the EU and could allow for a real debate about how the citizens of the EU envisage the future of the continent. There is little point in relentlessly pushing for ‘ever closer union’ if it is going to generate fierce opposition to real improvements of the existing system or spread the belief among European publics that continued EU membership will mean a definite surrender of national independence. The results of the Austrian election follow the pattern of the rise of the European right, a trend that is not receding as some leaders would like to believe. Europe is thus faced with a choice - it can dismiss these voices or it can tackle their concerns head on. The latter option is difficult but it is the only way to move the European project away from the abyss of failure.
Harvey Weinstein is the tip of the iceberg: we must keep speaking up Rene Verma Staff Writer
Oxford 2017. I’m waiting to get my microphone set up as we go in for the shoot. He requests my permission to mic me up, and affirms that “my cleavage will hold up the mic”. I say nothing. We’re ready for the cameras to roll. The cast and crew are set. He stops the shoot, comes up to me, and says: “pardon the expression, but I’m going to have to switch you on”. He switches my mic on. I say nothing. No one does. I just want to get my scene done, and do the best I can. There are fifteen other people in that room. I go back home; frozen, tired, guilty, angry, confused. Me, woke af. Angry, brown, radical feminist. Me, silent. I forget about the incident, as we tend to, pretend to. Then I read of Harvey Weinstein. Yet again, we wonder how Weinstein got away with his entitlement and abuse for so long. We shame women and femmes for their silence; after all, these are women with social and cultural capital. Do you want women to not be silent anymore? Then shake up the system that manufactures their silence. Femmes and women are not silent - they are silenced. Make sure that survivors of sexual abuse who speak up are not compromised in their health, safety, right to work and right to life. Ensure their words are valued and that they receive support. Understand that global capitalism demands of feminine-identifying people emotional labour, silence, tolerance, patience, and tears. Appreciate that the women who spoke up against Weinstein were threatened with losing their
jobs and replaced on projects. Realise that sexual abuse is about power. Hollywood cannot wish Weinstein away as anomalous, as a scapegoat to cleanse it of its own complicity. It is telling that stories of abuse against Weinstein have been buried by leading newspapers as late as two years ago, and that the only form of punitive action we take against perpetrators of sexual violence is through seizing social and economic capital - firing them and socially condemning them. We are not interested in addressing whether and how the entire board of directors of the Weinstein company knew about this. We are not interested in addressing Weinstein’s abuse and harassment as a (now badly kept) open secret. We are not interested in recognising that architects of oppression rely on many hands, many choices, and many collusions.
He affirms that “my cleavage will hold up the mic”. I say nothing. This is an industry that celebrated Woody Allen with a Cecil B. DeMille award the year Dylan Farrow spoke out against him. An industry that continues to celebrate Roman Polanski and his genius without a thought for his abuse; that awarded Casey Affleck an Academy Award the year multiple allegations of sexual harassment were raised against him. Let us not let Hollywood absolve itself, when it creates the machinery that allows people like Weinstein to get away
with their actions in the first place. Punishing an individual through the means we know best - temporarily seizing capital - will not be effective; we know how abusers of power and people with sexual harassment allegations continue to benefit in this system. Hollywood routinely demands that we draw distinctions between geniuses, their art, and their personal lives, and fails to draw those distinctions itself. It uses genius to obfuscate the violence these geniuses commit. This is an industry that feigns ignorance while breeding a culture of silence, yet it also determines the ways in which we view society, sexuality and gender. Dismantling cultures of sexual violence needs imagination (something which systems of oppression routinely deny). It needs us to ask multiple questions and be intersectional even in our indignation - to know that women like Donna Karan and Hilary Clinton will be targeted far more for their association with Weinstein than frequent male collaborators like Quentin Tarantino and Michael Moore. To realise that female actors, both allies and survivors, will have to justify their silence more than the male actors who have stayed silent. It requires recognition that the ability to speak out is impacted by roles on set, age, race, class, sexuality, wage laws, contracts. To know that trial processes and incarceration disproportionately affect men of colour and economic disadvantage. Hollywood is not alone. As occupants of elite spaces like Oxbridge, it is easy for us to be inured into thinking rape and rape culture exist in remote places, as problems for us to solve on a summer project, as a cita-
tion or footnote. But worlds where (cis white) men’s testimonies matter more than those of femmes and women are not far from us. Nor is the trauma of having to maintain professional relationships with people who misuse their power and privilege. Neither are experiences of self-doubt, the fear of not being believed, of trivialising the ways in which femmes and women are demeaned and harassed, of not wanting to rock the boat, of being told to fight larger fights, to not speak out against people who position themselves as allies, people who are sensitive to our concerns. None of these experiences are truly far from us. The demand for a world where the violence committed in the name of gender and sexuality is systematically addressed is not a zero-sum game. Weinstein is not the first liberal in Hollywood to abuse his power, and unfortunately, he might
David Shankbone
not be the last. We need to understand the networks of privilege that underpin allyship. For instance, recent reports mentions how a male actor threatened Weinstein after his then-partner was harassed, which is when Weinstein got the message. Another actress called out an actor for feigning ignorance and expressing disgust, when the actress had told that same actor about how Weinstein had harassed her years ago. It is crucial to question the ways in which allies intervene, and question a system that makes it possible for a cisman’s indignation to be responded to more seriously than a survivor’s fear and concerns. This, after all, is a system in which “I have a partner” is a clearer marker of denial than “no”. What we need is real feminist allyship. This means calling out misogyny in boardrooms and pubs; in WhatsApp conversations, jokes and memes; in intimate spaces and in our personal relationships; when the cameras are turned away and no one is heartreacting. This means acknowledging the ways cis-ness, white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism work, recognising our complicities, and amplifying the voices of those who are silenced. This means sharing the discomfort that usually escapes us, even if it means impediments in professional and personal environments. This means showing up when no one’s watching, showing up when you stand to lose, knowing when to stand up, and knowing when to sit down. This means demonstrating strength of character outside a world of 140 characters. This means reimagining the worlds we live in and live for.
PROFILE
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Profile 10
Layla Moran MP
On Brexit, Education, and the future of the Liberal Democrats Tobi Thomas Profile Editor
The last time we spoke to Layla Moran, she was a parliamentary candidate, busily fighting for a marginal seat in the 2015 general election. Despite an inspiring campaign backed by strong community support, it is fair to say that the legacy of the coalition government proved to be an obstacle in her path to representing Oxford West for the Liberal Democrats, who went on to lose forty-nine seats. But just two years later, Moran emerged victorious in Oxford West and Abingdon, unseating Conservative Nicola Blackwood with a swing of nearly 15%. Her victory was symbolic in several ways, one being that she became the first UK Member of Parliament of Palestinian origin, as well as the first female Liberal Democrat MP from a minority background. While chatting to her recently, her upbeat and positive demeanour radiated through the telephone, and our conversation was dominated by tumultuous state that British politics is currently in. Moran, having been born to a British father and a Palestinian mother, spoke of some of complications connected to coming from a multicultural background. “We had to move around a lot when I was younger so when all my peers would say “I grew up in this village, I could never really say that I had”. But it is exactly this, combined with Moran’s career as a Maths and Physics teacher, that has added extra layers of nuance to her perspective on both global, and domestic politics and policy. “Getting into teaching was helpful because you start to see that how we act and what we do with young people within a country really matters. I think that because of my global perspective, it has gotten me incredibly angry about England, and the United Kingdom in general as a G7 country. I have lived in places such as Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Jordan, where they have a real excuse as to why a relatively high number of young people don’t get through education”. This leads us on to discussing social inequal-
Our discussion of socially inequality relates directly back to the local community, and the specific problems that Moran’s constituents are facing. When asked what she feels are the biggest challenges her constituents are facing, she doesn’t hesitate in naming infrastructure as a whole, not limited to the housing crisis. “In Oxfordshire we’re building at a rate that hasn’t been replicated since the 1930s and 1940s. Houses are being built, but the surrounding infrastructure isn’t appearing. This is partly because there isn’t enough joined up thinking between the local council and the government. There isn’t enough money being released fast enough to keep up with the demand, so I see my role as the MP to help to manage that and Layla Moran MP to make sure that the housing does happen because it. It’s such One thing that Moran is clear of is an important issue.” the importance of Britain’s memDiscussions regarding the hous- bership of the single market and ing crisis do appear to be London- the Customs Union, as well as centric, but the fact that Oxford is her disappointment in both the the most unaffordable within the Conservative and Labour Party’s UK, with the average house price failure to have a clear position on being 16 times the average wage, both. “There are real jobs, and real people’s lives at stake when you talk about coming out of the “It’s my fire that helps me get up every single market. Theresa May, at least publicly, has her head in the day. It’s what I’m passionate about.” sand. My personal opinion is that we will never get a deal as good as but that isn’t an adequate excuse. which is slightly above London’s the deal we currently have. AnyWe have the capacity to borrow percentage (15.7%). Despite this, one, and Labour are the same, at low rates and if we wanted to there is no policy for employers who say we’re going to are deludinvest our future we could, so I to have weighted wages for Ox- ing themselves. At the very least, don’t understand why we don’t ford, as some do in London. This staying in the single market and is an issue that Moran is keen the Customs Union is a comprodo more of it.” Although the Liberal Democrats to address. “One of the things I mised position between leave and today are keen to distance them- want to look at is not just sup- remain. If not, everyone will be selves from the coalition govern- porting the living wage, but also unhappy, and so that’s probably ment, Moran asserts that pro- to encourage employers more a sign that it is the right thing”. gressive Liberal Democrat policy generally to think about having Such issues relate directly back of that era was often overshad- an Oxford weighting. We need to to concerns which arose durowed by the criticism both parties tackle this issue that wages in Ox- ing the party conference season. faced at that time. One such criti- ford as not high enough to cope The Labour party were met with cism being the Pupil Premium, with living in Oxford”. backlash from their decision to But what about Britain’s post- not hold a debate on whether the a Liberal Democrat policy which proposed to give additional fund- Brexit future? The economic UK should stay in the single maring for state schools in England, model that Britain will adhere to ket permanently. Moran tells me with the aim to close the attain- following our exit from the EU how the Liberal Democrats will ment gap between disadvantaged is something that no major po- never have this problem due to pupils and their peers. She as- litical party seems to be clear of. the fact that their entire position serts that this was one of their Whether our economy will adopt on policy is constructed throughbest policies, and that her dedi- the model of the WTO (World out their conferences. “We’re cation to tackling social inequali- Trade Organisation), the EEA the only party, aside from the ty at schools is one of her upmost (European Economic Area), or Greens, that have that process. priorities. “It’s my fire that helps even the EU’s trade relationship We’ve always made policy from me get up every day. It’s what I’m with Canada is still unclear more the bottom up. My response to than a year after the referendum. questions such as ‘Why is Liberal passionate about.” ity, and its implications in defining how well a person will do at school. “The best predictor of how a young person is going to do at school has always been how much money their parents make, and this is still very much the case”. Such conversations involving examining, reviewing, and tackling deeply entrenched social inequality has gained traction, especially in today’s Brexit climate. Theresa May’s first statement as Prime Minister vowed to fight against the “burning injustices” brought about by such inequalities. Earlier this month, the Race Disparity Audit was released, and just this week, Labour MP and former Higher Education minister David Lammy labelled Oxbridge colleges as ‘fiefdoms of entrenched privilege’, and as perpetuating ‘social apartheid’. Moran makes it clear that the current government fiscal austerity programme cannot be reconciled with claims to attempt to tackle such social injustices, especially in relation to the education sector. “We talk about austerity and that there isn’t enough money,
Democrat policy so hard to understand’ is that the world is hard to understand. Things are complex, and so although our policy might reflect this, it means that when we introduce them they will work. It’s a fair criticism, but not one I particularly mind because I think it’s a reflection of good policy making”. Our conversation branches away from discussions of the Single Market in particular to the efficiencies of markets in general. The Liberal Democrat position on this is unique as it’s directly contained within their name – a merge between the Liberals, who advocated classical free market capitalism, with the Social Democrats, who believed in the state’s intervention when necessary. “Where we stand now is both of those things – by and large we don’t think markets are inherently bad. But there are certain features of markets that aren’t appropriate to be applied to public services. To have a market within education, for example, brings about an array of problems. For markets to work, we need to have two things: equal access of information for everyone competing within it, and allowance for certain aspects of that market to fail. Failing is not an option when it comes to education because it is someone’s entire education that you are messing up. In my view, marketisation in education shouldn’t be happening.”
Features
Features 12
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Walking without expectations: how to listen to your body after injury Melissa Godin Staff Writer
Standing on a crowded metro in Paris with my book in hand, I have journeyed alongside three stubborn camels through the dry and burning orange desert of Western Australia. Sitting in the middle seat on a nine-hour flight back to my home city of Vancouver, Canada, I have traversed through the towering Douglas firs and the rocky rivers of the pacific Northwest with Cheryl Strayed. There are countless narratives— by men and women alike—of individuals departing on a journey by foot. Since early times, the act of walking has been recognized as therapeutic, for some even spiritual. Both religious and secular pilgrimages have long been associated with conquering or being liberated from mental and physical obstacles. And stories about these journeys have existed for centuries, serving as inspiration for others. Fifty days of this summer, I walked. Not consecutively or intentionally but if anything, accidentally. My summer— book-ended by two different degrees—afforded me time to myself. With a modest sum in my bank account, I decided to spend the summer journeying through places both familiar and foreign; through mountains that I’ve always known as well as those that I’ve wanted to get to know. I didn’t set out to hike this summer. Though back in the winter I briefly contemplated embarking on a month long trek somewhere obscure, I quickly decided against it. I have a brain injury. In 2012 while practicing my regular skating routine, I missed the edge of my blade, slipped out, and smashed my skull on the ice. In the months following, I struggled to read and suffered from intense chronic pain. And ever since, I have been prone to set impossible goals that physically my body cannot endure. At the one-year anniversary of my injury, I set out to perform a full length ice-skating routine at my end of year show. I had completed my medications and treatments; my cognitive abilities had returned which I took as a sign that I had recovered. But within one mere lap around the ice, I had a sharp pain stabbing through my head, I was dizzy and eventually forced to take refuge on the bench. I performed a forty second routine at the show that year—a fraction of the program I had envisioned. This moment— which was supposed to be a sym-
bol to myself and to others that I had recovered and reconquered the same ice that had defeated me—became a mark of how far I still had to go. On the secondyear anniversary of my injury, I was fainting from over-exerting myself hiking through the Grand Canyon. By the time I reached the top, I had blood in my mouth. And the trend has continued every year since. Anyone who has a permanent injury knows how anti-climactic recovery can be. It’s a turbulent journey littered with false hopes, setbacks, and moments of deep desperation. It’s as much a physical injury as an emotional and mental one. I remember moments of depression; I’d be sitting in a wet towel, anxiously counting the hairs wrapped around the drain, convinced that my hair, teeth, and life were falling apart.
Recovery is unpredictable. And setting challenging goals is often not productive, but devastating when unattainable One day I’d be happily out with friends, and the next bed ridden, on the verge of screaming with a strap for pressure wrapped around my head, only to be back at school the next day writing exams as if nothing was wrong. Recovery is unpredictable. And setting challenging goals is often not productive, but devastating when unattainable. And for this reason, I didn’t set out on a summer long trek. Instead, I chose to be patient with my body and mind, taking each day one step at a time. I grew up on the mountains right outside of Vancouver. And while as a young child, I went on camping trips with school and leisurely strolls through the forest on the weekends, I’ve spent the past four summers truly exploring British Columbia’s many mountain ranges. By any mountaineering standards, the hikes I have embarked on have been mild. I have not scaled the face of massive rock surfaces but I have hiked the trails behind them. The overnight trips I have done have been easy; most of the time, I am not in the outback long enough to worry about purifying my water or find-
Max Pixel
ing a stream to wash my clothes in. But hiking, in many ways, is my perfect sport for recovery. I move slowly from bottom to top, leaving behind only footprints and banana peels. My summer of walking began with the visit of four friends to my home in British Columbia. Anxious to have them see the glacier lakes and the winding rivers, I took them on daily regional hikes. On some days, I woke up feeling strong, passing even the most avid hikers on the trails and yet on others, I sluggishly dragged myself up the mountain. When they left, I took to solo hiking. With no one else to keep up with, I tapped into the rhythm of my own body learning what pace would help bring oxygen to my brain and which would bring pain. In the mornings, I would eat all the energy I could find— nuts, yogurt, whole wheat bread, fruits—while choosing the trail I would embark on that day. Before I knew it, I had spent 40 days on various local trails.
If my forty days hiking in British Columbia taught me anything, it was that I could hike any mountain if I listened to my body My hiking continued this summer when I travelled to the Indian region of Ladakh in the Himalayas. I decided to embark on a five-day trail along the Markha Valley. The trek, rated moderate-
difficult, seemed to be a good compromise between the hike I envisioned myself doing and one I was actually capable of completing without pain. Upon landing in the city of Leh, 3400 meters above the sea, my head pain came on strong, the altitude worsening my usual daily ache. On our first evening, I woke in the middle of the night in excruciating pain. At five in the morning, I sat on the floor of my shower crying, hoping the hot water would relax my tensing muscles until my medicine kicked in. Needless to say, I worried about my capacity to reach the trek summit at 5200 meters. But if my forty days hiking in British Columbia taught me anything, it was that I could hike any mountain if I listened to my body. The first day of the trek was fairly mild. We walked below apricot trees on flat surfaces, taking regular water breaks. But I wanted to move faster. I wanted to walk without encountering other trekkers, without being reminded of our bodies’ need to rest. I wanted to jaunt alongside the hikers with bulging leg muscles just to prove to myself that I could. But instead I stopped when my guide took off her backpack and sat cross-legged below shaded trees. Falling asleep that night, I could feel an ache growing from the top of my spine into my head, engulfing along its way the parts of my brain that were previously at ease. And suddenly I was thankful for the many apricot stops and river-side pauses we had had that day. The urge to push beyond my limits was not silenced that first day. But that impulse to work against my body—to push in spite of its pain—has been present since the
day I hit my head. I’ve measured my recovery by the grades I’ve gotten at school, by my capacity— when squished between friends in a crowded bar— to put on a smile when in pain. But this time, I decided my recovery would not be measured by the speed at which I ascended a mountain. In fact, my recovery would not be measured at all. I would simply put one foot in front of another until such time my body told me it was time to rest.
Hiking this summer did not heal me. It did not eliminate my pain nor did it prove I have recovered. But it was never supposed to Hiking this summer did not heal me. It did not eliminate my pain nor did it prove I have recovered. But it was never supposed to. Initially, I thought my journey this summer would be of no interest to anyone else. Unlike Robyn Davidson or Cheryl Strayed, my story is not dramatic or climactic. It does not have an arc or a place in history books; it is unlikely it would make for an interesting film. But not all journeys must be remarkable testaments of physical strength. The journey can simply be the process of learning to listen to your own body, knowing when it needs to be pushed and when it needs rest. So alas, here I am, sharing my journey that will perhaps be valuable to someone sitting in pain on a crowded metro or a stuffy plane—a journey of learning to walk without expectation.
Features 13
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
The Way of the World: the journey from Serbia to Afghanistan
Why Nicolas Bouvier’s travel writing masterpiece deserves to become a classic Caitlin Law Features Editor
There are countless depictions on screen and in print of road trips, many of which have been hailed as masterpieces. Take Jack Kerouac’s Beat Generation On the Road, or Bill Bryson’s irreverent exploration of small-town America, The Lost Continent. Swiss travel writer Nicolas Bouvier’s The Way of the World is yet to truly claim its status among these classics, and yet it remains of the most exhilarating evocations of travelling along the open road ever written. Written in 1963, Bouvier charts his journey all the way from Serbia to Afghanistan in a Fiat Toplino, accompanied by his artist friend Thierry Vernet. The pair hope to use their trip as inspiration for their work, although what comes across most strongly is simply their desire to see something new. There’s a pure freedom to be had from jumping in a car and driving across endless expanses of road. Bouvier values not speed but slowness, savouring the novelty of each landscape they pass in a deliciously leisurely manner. The two travellers even stay for extended periods of time in different locales, adding to the unhurried nature of their journey. This also means the book does not feel like a superficial series of snapshots from foreign lands, but rather a
proper appreciation of each place discovered. Owing to the bad condition of the roads, for instance, the pair live in the Northern Iranian city of Tabriz for the whole winter, teaching French to supplement their meagre savings.
To make the trip Bouvier did today would be almost unimaginable, and it is poignant to see that such a thing was once possible Bouvier engages which each community he comes across, and often offers an incisive analysis of the social, political and economic factors at play. In Turkey, for instance, Bouvier points out how important teachers are to isolated rural communities, and how drastically overlooked their work is. The charity work funded by the US government in Iran, meanwhile, comes under perceptive criticism. It is all very well and good funding schools in the area, but students are unlikely to learn if their stomachs are empty. The route detailed in the book is striking for a contemporary reader considering it crosses countries
such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, now inexorably associated with the sustained conflict in the region since the early 2000s. To make the trip Bouvier did today would be almost unimaginable, and it is poignant to see that such a thing was once possible. Kandahar, for instance, is not for Bouvier a name heard on the news, but simply a town where he finds some much-needed rest after a long stint on the road. The two friends even stay some months in Quetta, in the North of Pakistan, waiting tables in a bar run by a former Guards Officer.
The Way of the World is not only about the joy of discovering new places, but also the practical reality of perpetual travel Interlaced with the idea of being on the road is also the process of becoming someone new, of being fundamentally changed via exposure to different places and people. This may sound rather clichéd, but Bouvier manages to keep it fresh and unpretentious. In one memorable passage, he claims that ‘Travelling outgrows its motives. It soon
proves sufficient in itself. You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you – or unmaking you’. The Way of the World is not only about the joy of discovering new places, but also the practical reality of perpetual travel. Being on the road can be hard at times. Bouvier and Vernet are frequently subject to the inevitable stomach complaints of months of travelling and unfamiliar food (probably enough said on that subject), whilst their little car is not always reliable. Scenes of the pair pushing the Fiat through sweltering deserts and up agonisingly steep hills is certainly enough
Ninara
to purge the book of any romantic notion of travel. With this physical exertion also comes sheer exhaustion, and more than anything else Bouvier often just wants to rest. Nicolas Bouvier may not have properly made his made his mark on the anglophone travel writing world just yet, but The Way of the World is sure to make its mark on you. Although refreshingly unromanticised, it is difficult to resist being swept along by Bouvier’s meander across Eastern Europe and Asia in a time when hopping between countries not yet marked by war was still possible.
The importance of being relatable in science Charlie Arrowsmith Staff Writer
Googling ‘mysteries that science can’t explain’ returns a pile of results all pedalling the same narrative; that “scientists think they have all the answers but they don’t really know any better than you do”. For example, the Daily Forest article ‘Amazing Mysteries That Science Just Can’t Explain’ brags all manner of ‘conundrums’ from magnetism even to the act of yawning. A lot of these cases do have credible scientific explanations that are ignored or spun in a completely anti-scientific way. How have webpages planting doubt and mistrust in scientists found a place in our society? It seems clear to me that the problem lies in a disengagement between scientists and non-scientists. It’s not hard to see glaring contrasts between scientific literature and what is told to the public. This is by design. The precise and clinical language scientists use is a product of their workplace culture. It’s written for a very different purpose than your
standard tabloid ‘Love Island’ gossip. So it’s no wonder that we feel so alienated from experts - the importance of being relatable when communicating science is just not stressed enough.
Our ability to adapt to the world is key to our survival As well as what is effectively a language barrier between the lay reader and the scientist, it’s my opinion that a disengagement between scientists and non-scientists comes from how we develop different fundamental ways of thinking, purely as a result of our own personal priorities and cultures. Our ability to adapt to the world is key to our survival, and our brains are super flexible in building instincts based on our environments. Young children show this most obviously. In 2004 Robert Siegler and Julie Booth of Carnegie Mellon University
tested the numerical estimation of children in their first years of school. They put numbers of dots on a computer screen and asked them to position a slider where they thought the quantity fit on a number line. Adults tend to easily space numbers at equal intervals like on a tape measures, but young children make the intervals between numbers gradually smaller. Only as students got older and had more experience of counting do they gain a linear intuition of numbers. Many people assume the view that numbers evenly lay out the number line is more correct. But placing larger numbers closer together at the far end of the number (a ‘logarithmic’ intuition of numbers) is used all the time in everyday life. For example, loudness of sound is measured in decibels; an increase of ten decibels represents a doubling of perceived loudness. This makes it useful for thinking of numbers in terms of ratios and lends itself to making quick estimates and approximations. For survival, this is clearly going to be a far more useful instinct for deciding whether
you can overpower a pack of tigers (rather than deciding whether there are exactly nine or ten of them licking their lips at you…). But we use it for everything from perceiving how bright something looks to how much pain we feel. Cultures such as those of Amazonian indigenous tribes survive without a linear perception of numbers, which shows how we all build instincts that are important to us, based on our individual environments. In the case of scientists, they are especially trained to be critical. This makes them very effective at spotting fake news and they can get frustrated by Michael Gove telling them that people have had enough of them. For example, in the Huffington Post, Professor Brian Cox called this dangerous stance the “road back to the cave” - but it’s inflammatory statements such as these that are why, in Michael Gove’s words, “people in this country have had enough of experts”. Gove’s statement doesn’t mean that people are fed up of the truth. Nor does it render irrelevance in the discoveries made
by people who’ve spent their lives studying something. It merely points to a frustration with the lack of engagement between the experts and the people they should be educating. But this is not to disrespect experts like Brian Cox - his good public engagement is one of the reasons I chose to study science. However, it doesn’t take a genius to see that alienating those who are less educated than you is bad practice when you’re scientist in the public eye - because making someone feel like they’re going to be shot down makes them less curious. It’s the job of a scientist to be relatable; to welcome and nurse all varieties of inquisitiveness, and to gently correct errors without patronising or insulting those who made them. If we really want to bury the idea that “scientists only think they know the answers”, we’ve got to get out of the comfort of the scientific community, and actively reach out and engage with nonscientists. Only by showing that the scientific method is relatable to everyone can we make the public trust experts again.
Features 14
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Perspectives: “gay”versus “queer”
Alex Jacobs Staff Writer
John is a second year English student at Wadham. He is involved with the Oxford drama scene; this term, he is directing Random by Debbie Tucker Green. “I think the drama scene at Oxford is quite queer. It feels like a comfortable space. I think the relevance of the arts to the queer community is really interesting, particularly drama, because so much queer theory is based around ideas of performativity. I wonder whether that’s part of the reason for the stereotype, which does sometimes seem to ring true, about queer people being attracted to drama. Drama for me was really important to develop confidence and self-assurance.” “I think for a lot of gay men there’s comfort and solace in identifying with the label ‘gay’. Equally, I think it’s really interesting to consider the varying levels of comfort I have with different words for ‘gay’. ‘Gay’ isn’t the one I use most often. ‘Queer’ is something I identify much more with, although I understand that word is not necessarily best placed to describe an identity that’s as consistent as my own. I think, for me, it’s more to do with what the white, cis gay male community represents, and for me sometimes that representation can be quite oppressive and patriarchal, and historically has had quite a stran-
glehold over the rest of LGBTQ+ representation. That’s something I don’t really like. That’s what my slight wobble is when I refer to myself as gay.” “I wouldn’t change my identity for the world. I think it’s an important part of who I am. It’s so much more of an enabler than a restrictor on my life. And obviously I’ve had a really privileged experience of homophobia if I can say that. But I think anyone who identifies as anything other than straight still experiences microaggressions, and those can be really tough. They’re constant, and so normalised, that they become almost mundane. That’s why it’s such an important idea to articulate. For example, when I go to a club, usually a predominantly straight space, and all my friends are getting off, and I’m not – that makes me lonely, and that makes me look undesirable, but it’s because I’m gay. Well, maybe I’m making assumptions about how desirable I am [laughs], but I’m going to say it’s a micro-aggression! But this follows through in common experiences. You have an experience that’s sad, and, even if it’s not the reason it’s happening, you link it to your identity. It’s a double wave, the first being human experience and the second being an awareness of how much of that experi-
ence is specific to your identity. When you live as a queer person, your identity constantly follows you, heteronormative society constructs that shadow around you. That’s something that’s hard to articulate, and it’s difficult for people who’ve not had queer experiences to understand.” “Some aspects of Pride I think are positive, like when you see queer people enjoying Pride and coming together; it’s such a beautiful thing. My main issue with Pride is the commercialisation. I don’t want to be the piggyback for companies selling products. That makes me really angry. If you start endorsing capitalism in such a blatant way you stop being intersectional immediately, because – to take a Marxist reading
The Cherwell Boathouse: riverside dining Amy Smith Staff Writer
On the banks of the river Cherwell - before it reaches the Isis - sits the Cherwell Boathouse. The restaurant began in a real Victorian working boathouse next to the punt station. It still remains, amazingly, a family-run business that is open all year round with special menus for each season. Reasonably priced considering the high quality of the food (especially in comparison to places closer to the centre of town), this hidden gem is an option to consider if you’ve got family coming to visit and want to impress, or if you’re looking for a special place to have your Oxmas dinner. They have their own (albeit quite small) parking area which is more than can be said for most places in Oxford, and inside the restaurant itself, fairy lights and bare brick walls create a contemporary rustic aesthetic, which works well with the soft jazz they play in the background to create a laid-back yet classy feel. The boathouse is best visited in sunshine - the best feature of the restaurant is certainly the view of the river and the outside seating is
undoubtedly lovely in summer, which is why they get so many bookings for weddings and other formal events. The punting station that the windows of the restaurant look out onto looks perfect for a summer activity, and costs sixteen pounds per hour for a boat which fits six.
The menu is accommodating to all diners, with vegan and vegetarian options available for all three courses. The dishes are all based on fresh, locally sourced, seasonal ingredients where possible which should comfort the environmentally-conscious. Each meal begins with some bread and butter, which is noticeably better quality than what’s on offer in most colleges’ formal hall, and the portions are more generously sized than those from
college but aren’t at all unmanageable. Also, with its favourable acoustics, the room feels quiet enough to think, but you still have a feeling of privacy at your table. I visited the boathouse with a guest, and for starter we had the Crispy pork terrine and Butter poached potted prawns which were both imaginatively presented and yet comfortingly familiar. The wine that was recommended to us complemented our navigation through the interesting combination of flavours. For main course I had the Slow braised Ox cheek, and my guest the Seared loin of red deer venison, which were similarly originally presented. The dessert looked even better, the Bitter chocolate mousse having real flowers in decoration, and combining chocolate with passionfruit in an unconventional way. My guest had the crème brulee, which simple but delicious. One particular item on the menu that stood out was ‘Slack ma girdle’, which is a washed-rind cheese named after an apple cider. The light-hearted spirit of the name sums up our overall impression of the boathouse as a place that serves high-quality food in a comfortable and elegant setting, but doesn’t take itself too seriously.
of it – capitalism is such a part of why oppression happens. It leaves women, people of colour, disabled people, people with mental health problems and queer people worse off. Another of the issues that comes up, especially at Pride after events, is how highly sexualised they are. Although I really enjoy that part of queer culture, and I think it’s really important, radical and historically significant, I think it’s about judging the boundaries of that space, and understanding that it doesn’t fit everyone. It can be stigmatising to asexuality, trans people and people who don’t feel as confident with their sexuality. That can really ruin the Pride vibe. I think one of the reasons that hypersexuality is associated with the gay community is because it’s the part of queer culture that straight people enjoy the most, but also the part that’s most easy to demonise us for. Like squeezing the juice from a lemon and then chucking it in the bin. One of the first attacks that the heterosexual society is going to make on our community is for the way we express ourselves sexually, because that’s what they want to make this about, but actually being LGBTQ+ is much more complex than sex.”
“Being in a safe space like Wadham, being queer was one of the first things that people knew about me, and was so normalised. I’m very lucky because I also have an accepting home life and group of friends. For me, the difference between home and uni life comes down to living in a family home. I think intellectualism is partly to do with it. People at uni have the language of modern political consciousness. In these liberated spaces, you develop the language and the skills to deal with difficulties, but the toolkit is actually for when you go home. I think that going back to a household which is run by two people of another generation, who are liberal and accepting but who have slightly different ideas, is always going to be tricky. It’s not bad enough for me to feel a burning desire to change it or to leave, but you get this resignation to an imperfect situation. Sometimes you don’t even know why it’s tough, but it just isn’t exactly how you feel in other places. So often we talk about our different environments as if they are really distinct, but actually we operate in all of them at the same time, which makes it so complex. You’re experiencing everything relatively, and you can’t help but make comparisons and contrasts, and it changes the way I experience everything and everywhere else. But it’s also exciting, and can be a way to explore yourself and what these different places mean to you.”
Tales from the Bakery: two recipies Andrew Wood Staff Writer
Tuesday of this week is World Food Day. In commemoration of this, and the first true week of term, BakeSoc had its first meeting on Sunday with full aplomb. Lemon Drizzle and Sticky Toffee were the cakes on the menu and a strong turnout was expected, with 14 RSVPs and plenty of enthusiasm afoot. The afternoon got off to a bad start, with 20 minutes having passed with zero turnout. It seems problem sheets and essay crises, a staple of any university weekend, had reached their climax and people simply couldn’t find their way out of the library. All seemed lost and the thought of cake a distant hope, far beyond our presidents’ imaginations. However, the promise of cake proved too much, and but a minute or two later our first members arrived. Soon we were up to 8 and baking was in full swing. Lemon drizzle and sticky toffee pudding, a recipe for a great afternoon! Both recipes were two stages long, with a cake and a topping. The lemon was a straightforward recipe,
but not so much the sticky toffee pudding. The recipe was complex with teaspoons, grams and millilitres but plenty of mixing in the new, larger, mixing bowls and following the trusted guide of a Mary Berry recipe meant that eventually it all came together into a nice batter. A minor calamity with the quantity of cream delayed the production of the toffee sauce, but a quick trip to the Co-Op (other supermarkets are available) remedied all missing ingredients. What resulted was a gorgeous, delicious hot cake with sumptuous toffee sauce. Oh, and the lemon one was pretty good too! BakeSoc is off to a good start, roll on week 2!
The Period Project
Are you still paying for your periods? Period poverty is a real issue in the UK, with many people form low-income backgrounds struggling to afford sanitary protection. Yet sanitary products in the UK continue to be taxed as non-essential, luxury items. The continued high cost of sanitary products in the UK is reflective of a society which deems menstrual health to be unimportant, primarily because it is considered a ‘women’s issue’. Oxford SU believes that sanitary products should be freely available and accessible to all who require them: If you would like to see your college start providing free sanitary products for its students, get in touch with vpwomen@oxfordsu.ox.ac.uk to find out how Oxford SU can help make this happen.
ART & LIT
Art & Lit
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
16
The origin of faith: how art shaped world religions The visual cultures of five major religions are explored in the Ashmolean’s autumn exhibition Lucienne Pullen Staff Writer
‘Imagining the Divine’ begins with a six-panel screen. As soon as you enter the exhibition, you feel enclosed in this intimate, hushed, reverential bubble – aptly resembling a place of worship. One of the panels displays an introduction to the aims and themes of the exhibition, but you could just as easily anticipate and begin to interact with its message by ignoring the writing and focusing on the other panels, each displaying one key piece of art from the religions featured. A four-foot long certificate of a pilgrimage to the Hajj; a line-up of the ten avatars of Vishnu, gold detailing glinting behind the glass; an exquisitely embroidered parochet; a glowing Byzantine icon of Christ; and a tempera-on-silk depiction of the seated Buddha: when immediatly confronted with these pieces, it is easy to see their similarities lying only in craftsmanship and beauty. But after taking some time to look deeper, repeating motifs and ideas begin to dance out of the objects. Therein is the first sign of the ground-breaking research behind, and phenomenal power in, the Ashmolean’s autumn exhibition.
“This intimate, hushed, reverential bubble of an exhibition aptly resembles a place of worship” Drawn primarily from the collections of the Ashmolean and the British Museum, this is the first major exhibition to explore the visual cultures of the five major religions as they spread across the world. Autumn feels indeed an appropriate time for this collection to open to the public, with all the featured faiths celebrating major festivals in the timespan of the exhibition (also handily facilitating tie-in events including the ‘One World Festival’). It’s also welcoming and warm – the placing of the initial screen and subsequent exhibits create a winding, twisty, maze-like layout that draws you in and encourages repeated circles of viewing. Affording the viewer the ability to walk around some of the artefacts and view them from every angle is highly successful; pieces such as the Franks Casket- a 1st century AD
whale bone box with delicate carvings of scenes from Roman, Christian, and Germanic tradition- are displayed isolated in the middle of the space, so you can fully appreciate their story. How religious myths and doctrines spread and are assimilated, lost, or celebrated is a prevalent theme throughout – particularly the way the major world religions took material from each other or used common regional iconography and legend to gain the following of the populace.
for the next presented item, a reproduction of a floor mosaic in a synagogue in Israel, bearing an identical woven pattern. The striking similarity between the contemporary Greco-Roman-Christian and Middle-Eastern Jewish pieces are fundamental to understanding how the early world religions functioned, exhibition curator Jaś Elsner told me; the way media and ideas were freely exchanged between the distinct early groups hints at shared spirituality, and the concordance
“The exhibition approaches many big questions and themes - too many to mention in a simple review.” The pieces that highlight the links between and interactions of the religions during their volatile, dynamic beginnings are the greatest strength of the exhibition, and certainly were the focus of the curators’ orations at the press viewing that The Oxford Student attended. Robert Bracey, a contributor from the British Museum, showed us a twosided carved basalt slab that is undoubtedly one of the standout pieces. On one side there is a detailed carving of an eight-armed Tantric goddess, dating from around 9001000 AD. Yet the slab had been repurposed around 1500 to make a decorative stone for the wall of the Choto Sona mosque in Guar, West Bengal, with the reverse displaying a similarly delicate but flat, repeating floral motif. The intriguing thing about this object, though, is the defacement of the goddess’ image to remove all identifying features and script. The selective mangling of the Buddha’s religious hand gesture and mutilation of the Goddess’ attributes are a deliberate erasure of the spiritual meaning and original iconography of the Buddhist sculpture; only the elements which imbued the work with significance have been destroyed. The atmosphere of competing dogmas and forging of concrete religious identities is tangible. Another highly successful and engaging element is found at the end of the first room. The Hinton St Mary floor mosaic is partially displayed and fully reproduced – the focus is the potential (beardless) Christ figure in the centre of the roundel, identified by a Chi-Rho in the background. However the peripheral detail is just as fascinating. A distinctive woven braid-style pattern outlines the central field, potentially unremarkable, were it not
between some creation myths and images (and, as highlighted in the exhibition, the way the popularised Christ icon can be seen as an extension of the depictions of Dionysius) demonstrates how unfounded some modern prejudices are. The exhibition approaches many big questions and themes – too many to mention in a simple review. The way media is transported to share ideas across vast continents, the changes in representation to form the instantly recognisable religious icons we recognise today (from the bearded Christ to the seated Buddha, the exhibition plays with our preconceptions from the outset), the assimilation of different cultures and competition between religions as their empires expanded, the wider relevance of visual language to historical populations; all are addressed by the panoply of objects on display. As the successes are in the objects exploring connections, the shortcomings are in divisions. The opening screen uses a distinct bright block-colour background for each of the religions, and these are also used on the walls of the exhibition to separate each faith’s collection. As good as the intentions for this are – to “simplify complex ideas into a universally accessible experience”, allowing visitors to ground themselves when confronted with unfamiliarity – it creates a slightly irritating visual barrier. To the untrained observer, links are harder to explore, as a stark colour change differentiates each section. The physical separation of objects from the different religions is puzzling too – it would perhaps have been more successful to display some contemporary objects together, to better highlight how the faiths interplay.
“Dissimulate and disguise and lie. Use experience the way children in the sand pit use sand”
Ashmolean Press Release/ Private Collection (on loan to the British Museum)
However, this slight niggle does not really detract from the overwhelming positivity this exhibition instils in you; an antidote to the toxicity in much of the modern discourse about religion, ‘Imagining the Divine’ challenges prejudices about faiths, and highlights the best of our shared human experi-
ence and history. The curators argue that the separation of objects, texts and doctrines leads to undue religious tension and division, and that it is through visual media that we find common ground. After spending some time in the verdant anthropological landscape they have created, it’s hard to disagree.
POETRY CORNER Still
by Jack Sagar I am still a duck blue scarf clinging in the wind, the soft hum of bees within those walking woods. I still am personhood swathed in curvy fact, the laughter lines deep yet light across the chessboard face. Still I am the worker’s son waiting for his train, the boy who loved you still when you only brought him pain.
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Art & Lit
17
The Walled-Off Hotel: Is Banksy’s latest work a symbol of resistance or just an example of conflict tourism? Tanya Brown Staff Writer
In 2005, Banksy left his first mark in Bethlehem, leaving politically motivated art which spoke of the strife of the Palestinians affected by the Israeli occupation. However, in March 2017, he made his presence more permanent and opened The Walled Off Hotel, which last week won the ‘Art Hotel of the Year Award’. He claims that this hotel has “the worst view in the world”, and admittedly it is directly opposite the wall the Israel government built to separate the ‘state of Israel’ and Palestinians who might want to enter it. Moreover, the occupation has displaced over 80% of the Palestinian population, making many of them refugees. It is worth noting that the UN has ruled the wall illegal and requested its immediate removal. However, despite this, the wall has grown since the request for removal, from 300km to 802km. The press releases that I had read before I stayed at The Walled Off Hotel were mixed. And having spoken to a local Palestinian tour guide I was informed that the Palestinians said that hotel had stirred some discontent amongst the Palestinians; they were concerned that money was being made from their plight. Some also believed that the hotel was owned by someone who was using Banksy’s name and not the street artist himself. However, having spoken to the staff, tour guides and taxi drivers, the hotel is well received in the community. The hotel employs only Palestinian locals. All the staff that I spoke to have degrees, some in hotel management, others in subjects as broad as electrical engineering and accountancy. This level of education is reflected in the Palestinian
community at large, only 1% of Palestinians are illiterate, which is less than the UK who have 15% of the population unable to read or write.
The Walled Off Hotel, which won the ‘Art Hotel of the Year Award’ , has “the worst view in the world” according to Banksy! Interestingly, the hotel offers guests the opportunity to spray the wall. For me, I found this problematic, as I was concerned that this reflected conflict tourism. During a tour offered by the hotel around Aida Camp (anyone staying at the hotel should attend this) graffiti littered the walls. The Palestinian community uses the graffiti as a means of resistance, they use it to tell their story. Interestingly they also imitate some of Banksy’s work. Having seen this, I felt, even more so, that paying to graffiti the wall was detracting from the power the Palestinians gained from using the wall in this manner. I asked the tour guide what his thoughts were and if he could talk more about the feelings of the residents of the camp. His response was simple. The wall is meant to be disgusting, so pictures of flowers or attractive things aren’t welcome. However images of resistance and support are invited. I still haven’t decided what my opinions on this are. I can’t shake the feeling that the people who attend the hotel are in a privileged position and their graffiti stands in contrast to the plight of the Palestinians. Finally, the recent addition of the gift shop has brought more attention to the venture. Banksy hasn’t sold his own work since
2014, and his work continues to afford international fame and subsequently rocket high prices. Alluringly however, Banksy prints, sculptures (made by Palestinian locals) and original pieces can be purchased through the gift shop. This has attracted the attention of art dealers and collectors from around the world. The gift shop is small and modest, and most of the time holds t-shirts, mugs and books about the conflict. But there are daily ‘drops’ of Banksy pieces. These drops are irregular, and small in quantity, making them highly competitive to get hold of. As a result, those that have travelled in order to buy the art, either for themselves or to sell on for a profit, gather around in the hotel, waiting for the goods to arrive; I count myself among these people, but I was fortunate enough to be in the front of the queue to buy a sculpture for not much money. The effect of this
is not one I think Banksy would have wanted. The value of the art sold through the shop, and the competitive nature of obtaining it, deters people from leaving the hotel and interacting with the conflict. Instead, everyone sits around creating an atmosphere characterized by false friendliness and pseudo-relaxation. One of the funniest moments was when the pieces dropped in the gift shop, as a lady thought she was in a queue to pay for entry to the museum, but found herself surrounded by 10 people trying to get in front of one another.
“The art that is on the wall is brilliant, eerily enticing, and unnoticeable until you look at the meaning behind it”
What are my final thoughts then? Firstly, I think that the hotel as an entity is superb. The art that is on the walls is brilliant, eerily enticing, and unnoticeable until you look at the meaning behind it- everything you would expect from Banksy. The ethics surrounding the hotel have been allayed in my mind; the employment of only Palestinian staff to work in the hotel and help with the art appeases my social justice heart. The opportunity to pay to spray the occupation wall still doesn’t sit well with me, our position of privilege doesn’t deserve space on the wall. But most importantly, I think the addition of the gift shop, which I imagine was designed to attract more people and raise more awareness, has not achieved its goals. Instead you find people who want to make a quick buck and do not engage with an otherwise commendable social project.
The Walled-Off Hotel
What are some of the best places to read and relax in Oxford? Abigail Eardley Art & Lit Editor
Whatever your reason for needing a new spot to relax and read, Oxford, luckily, is perfectly tailored exactly for this purpose. Packed with libraries, cafes, gardens, and even literary pubs, sometimes it’s nice to be able to leave college and find your own reading spot away from it all. The Albion Beatnik The Albion is a wonderful, if offbeat, cafe and bookshop. With every wall lined with bookshelves, a piano weighed down with novels, and piles of paperbacks leaning against the walls, you will undoubtedly leave The Albion Beatnik with more books
than you came in with. Serving 60 different types of tea (and one type of coffee), The Albion Beatnik has a friendly and comforting feel. It’s off the beaten track, quiet (and conveniently situated next to a cocktail bar), perfect for diving into a new novel. Regularly hosting poetry evenings, reading groups, and writing workshops, this cafe is a place to go to not only for rushing through a book during an essay crisis, but to indulge in something new. Here I’d recommend reading: something postmodern and confusing The Botanical Gardens On a sunny day, the Botanical Gardens hardly feel as though they are in the centre of a city at all. With a
Bod card, you have free entry, so it’s lovely to be able to feel as though you’ve left the tourist trap for an afternoon and wander around the gardens. It can be difficult to feel immersed in any book if the setting is based in nature while you’re stuck in your room - and, more superficially, you’re more likely to get a tan (though perhaps not in October…). Here I’d recommend reading: anything pastoral The Missing Bean Right in the city centre is The Missing Bean. A coffee shop serving the best hot chocolate available in Oxford, The Missing Bean has the perfect working environment to get through whatever textbook you’ve been avoiding. Prone to get busy at
peak times, it’s best to nab a seat as soon as possible and set up camp for the day. With a brilliant background playlist and motivating hustle and bustle, The Missing Bean is far less stressful than the average library to get some reading done. Here I’d recommend reading: whatever you’ve been avoiding reading since first week. The Natural History Museum Cafe For a more interesting place to read, check out this cafe with views over the whole Natural History museum. Surrounded by centuries of reading and learning you will be inspired to crack into your next book. You can also pick up a pot of tea and some cake if you’re feeling peckish.
Sometimes. it’s nice to be able to leave college and find your own reading spot, away from it all!
Robert Judges Photography
STAGE
Stage 18
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Kindertransport: An emotional story of mothers and daughters
Grace Tomlinson Staff Writer
Kindertransport is a play about mothers and daughters, and their mothers and daughters, and it is indeed the mothers that carry this production. The final scene between Eva and Helga, played by Hannah Wilmhurst and Ida Berglöw Kenneway, respectively, is as moving and nuanced as the script demands, with Kenneway’s performance of special note. Lil Miller, played by Polly Mountain, seems to embody every nice elderly woman you have ever met, determined to feed you up and make sure you have enough change for the bus. The occasional stumbling over lines only seems to add to her charm as a motherly figure. Evelyn, played by Susanne Hodgson, is at times so typically a middle-aged mother it’s almost uncanny, especially when fretting over her daughter Faith’s move from home. The two intertwined timelines are also dealt with masterfully, with the past bleeding into the present as the ghosts of Evelyn’s childhood coming back to haunt her. Scenes of Evelyn’s home sprawl around the memory of her kneeling mother; the stories of her youth are shared between her mother, daughter, and younger
self. The play discusses heritage, and the way memories and histories are passed down from mother to daughter. One way in which this production stands out is through its ability simultaneously to explore the way the past surrounds and invades the present, and the disconnection between personal and collective history.
This production is a humane, respectful look at the effects of the Holocaust from a much-forgotten angle This production of Kindertransport, it must be said, starts off slowly. The character of Eva is, at the beginning of the play, only nine years old, and one can see the difficulty involved in an adult actress playing a child. Wilmhurst fills the character of teenage Eva more easily than her child counterpart, when she is not required to be quite as wideeyed and anxious, and has more room to explore the nuances of Eva’s character. Her transformation from a child to a young adolescent is gradual and au-
thentic, with the surly expression of Eva’s anger at her biological mother a true representation of most fifteen-year-old girls who are struggling with something much bigger than they are. Many of the minor characters, including the Rat-catcher, a Nazi official on the train, and a man who shouts abuse at Eva on a train station platform, are played by the same actor, Thomas Perry, presumably because of a limited cast. However, instead of detracting from the play, this only casts an extra layer of dread over it, with Perry first appearing as the Rat-catcher in Eva’s childhood story. As he appears as a number of different characters, most of whom are distinctly unsavoury, the audience is reminded of his initial appearance as the nightmare of Eva’s childhood. Perhaps grown-up Evelyn is not quite as paranoid as she seems. Her whole childhood has been haunted by people out to get her, from the fictional figure of the Ratcatcher to the very real Nazi officials. And Hodgson, playing Evelyn, consistently has an air of the hunted, colouring the air around her with a nervous apprehension. Both the Rat-catcher, with his scraping, sand-paper voice, and the Nazi official on the train, are delightfully creepy. The scene
where the Nazi official strokes the Holocaust can be wrapped Eva’s hair is uncomfortable to up in two acts. The events of the watch, only slightly assuaged play will stay with the characters, by Eva’s exuberant celebrations just as they will stay with the upon leaving Nazi Germany. audience. We leave Evelyn still Despite its slow start, Kinder- estranged from her Jewish herittransport gradually gains mo- age, her history destroyed in the mentum, right up until its closing attic upstairs, and her biological act: an incredibly moving look at mother dead in New York withEvelyn’s struggle with her Jewish out reconciliation. It is all utterly identity, her history of persecu- and achingly human and sad, and tion, and her relationship with one of the most potent aspects of her mother and daughter. This this production is the way the cast production is a humane, respect- bring this complexity to life. ful look at the effects of the Holocaust from a much-forgotten anKindertransport shows at gle. The ending of the play defies the Old Fire Station from attempts at wrapping up human Wednesday 25th October to experience in a neat bow, and instead feels almost unresolved. If there are any meaningful apologies between the main characters, we don’t get to see them, although they have reconciled by the closing scene. Instead of giving the audience the empty satisfaction of a tidy ending, Kindertransport leaves plenty unsaid and uncertain. This is a play that makes no attempt to pretend that something as horrific as Old Fire Station
periment, and devise together, Bradfield could solidify their work into one cohesive play.
early June 2017. Alongside material like this, which felt so genuinely human that I would have happily spent an hour just listening to the actors chat to him, I was also shown a scene devised only recently: the play’s ingenious (and delicious) method of forming contact between alien and human (or, more accurately, audience) life. In this production – which has the intimacy of a scratch show and the polish of a professional
Lights Over Tesco Carpark: A play about looking up Beatrice Udale-Smith Staff Writer
Walking into a rehearsal of Poltergeist Theatre’s latest production, Lights Over Tesco Carpark, is a bit like walking into a room of sunshine, but somehow more surreal. Director Jack Bradfield and his cast of four endlessly funny actors have had three weeks to devise an hour-long show, starting from scratch… well, scratch, and aliens. The play they’ve come up with centres on the question of whether there’s extra-terrestrial life, but in the way that modern Christmas centres on the birth of Christ; if you’re into aliens or not, you’re still going to have an incredibly, oncein-a-year-worthy, good time. But when Lights Over Tesco Carpark labels itself as a devised comedy, that doesn’t quite do it justice. Devised comedies
can end up feeling like a series of gags; the sections I saw were the complete opposite. The play is honestly, unpretentiously funny, with the actors seeming to specialise in never actually trying to make you laugh – you just can’t help it. Hilarious, surreal, and heartwarming, the play focuses on human connection, asking us why we believe, and why we count as true what we do, and why – for pretty much ever – we’ve never been able to escape the idea that there’s someone else out there. According to the cast, the devising process was both fun, and incredibly fair; everyone’s ideas were tried out, and there isn’t a single section of the play which they don’t all – unanimously – like. Having someone there who wasn’t performing, however, was apparently crucial; while the cast, Bradfield, and producer (Charles Pidgeon) would discuss, ex-
The play is honestly, unpretentiously funny... Hilarious, surreal and heartwarming
Has the intimacy of a scratch show and the polish of a professional play Working off the actors’ material and their request, Jack – a writer, and member of the esteemed Royal Court young writers’ programme – also wrote four monologues from real-life accounts of alien-interaction to make sure the piece still included the genuine human contact that the play is all about. One piece of material that came to the play pre-prepared, however, is a phone-call interview recorded at the start of the devising process with Robert, Oxford resident and frequenter of Magdalen Road Tesco carpark, and reporter of a suspected UFO sighting in
North Wall
play – audience interaction is key. The sections I saw were so well-delivered that I wasn’t sure whether I was about to be fed my favourite food, abducted, or head off home with an incredibly supportive husband (Rosa Garland). If you’re not planning on going to see Lights, I thoroughly advise you change your mind; if you are – and don’t mind getting on stage – I recommend sitting near the front…
Stage 19
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
4.48 Psychosis: An unnerving new interpretation
Alexander Murdoch Staff Writer
I had never seen Sarah Kane’s final play 4.48 Psychosis realised on the stage before I was invited to see a preview of 4D Productions’ latest adaptation. As I am sure anyone who has read the play would understand, I was uncertain as to the kind of visual spectacle I was about to encounter. Described by Michael Billington upon the play’s initial release as ‘a 75-minute suicide note’, 4.48 Psychosis is an honest, brutal and despairing account of Kane’s struggle against depression, seemingly misunderstanding doctors and the inevitable acquiescence to an irrepressible desire to commit suicide. Although the voice which pervades the at times scattered text seems to belong to Kane, with the voices of medical professionals appearing now and again to insist that ‘it’s not your fault’, ultimately the dialogue could be spoken between the protagonist and any number of other characters or simply internalised in the mind of a fitful, deranged individual. However, as the cast excitedly informed me after I had watched
amble around, their movements as detached and disinterested as their dialogue. Despite the fact the actors appear to be addressing one another, it becomes abundantly clear that these are not separate characters but a flurry of thoughts, spoken aloud but seemingly to no one. The actors regroup in the corner of the stage, reaching out together like a thorn protruding from the stage, then scuttle away upon the mention of ‘cockroaches’ while maintaining their formation. Afterwards, they disperse again and sit facing inwards and chatter almost jovially about various insecurities they each or collectively possess before then descending into a choking, tearful monologue. These shifts in emotionality and physicality are constant throughout the play, breaking from quiet and tender admissions of powerlessness to violent eruptions of anguish, interchangeably punctuated by incredible stillness or scattered, disoriented movement. It is evident that the performance has been rigorously choreographed, the activity and intensity changing frequently enough to keep the audience engaged without totally overwhelming them.
There is something to congratulate in the performance of every individual their rehearsal, 4D Productions are introducing a totally new interpretation of the text by dividing the lines equally between the six actors to collectively present the various stages of Kane’s depression. Moreover, this totally new dynamic works spectacularly. The performance commences with the cast lounging around a bed in the centre of the stage. As the actors begin to speak, they gradually drift away and begin to
That is not to say that the audience is particularly comfortable while watching 4.48 Psychosis. When the play opens at the Michael Pilch on 25th October, it will be performed in the round and there will be raised seating akin to the style of a Roman amphitheatre, such as to place the actors under the inspection of the audience. Furthermore, following the scene in which the actors share their insecurities, whenever an actor is inactive they return to their
Michael Pilch Studio
What: A Familiar Friend When: Wednesday - Saturday (25th -28th) Where: Keble O’Reilly Tickets: £8/ £6 conc.
places around the stage’s edge and effectively watch the performance alongside the audience. At first this feels rather alienating, confronted with the backs of two actors at any given time, but eventually the audience unconsciously slips into the space besides the dormant actors and is subsequently startled when they again begin to move. There is something to congratulate in the performance of every individual involved in this adaptation. When I questioned how the script had been divided, the cast gave me the rather candid response that they had communally agreed on lines they favoured or felt most resonated with them personally, as well as establishing which of the actors played best opposite one another. Of the various groupings and couplings, the chemistry between Hannah Rose Kessler and Jessie See is the most worthy of credit, their expressions of hopeless, defeatist bitterness delicately tugging at the audience’s sympathy. Remarkably, this pair does not submit the most sorrowful performance; that accolade is reserved for Jeevan Ravindran, whose soft-spoken delivery would be beautiful were it not so utterly desperate. The subtle defiance that springs intermittently from Eimer McAuley is also noteworthy, cutting through the thick shroud of self-loathing if only to make Kane’s inevitable self-destruction more distressing. Emma Howlett, whereas perhaps not as effusively distraught as the rest of the cast, has perfected a voice of disillusionment which never fails to somehow displace the audience. I have elected to save my comment on Sophie Louise Morris until last, as she is undoubtedly the most dexterous performer in the ensemble. The manner in which she allows her expression of grief to mount gradually until she can only bark to mask her sobs, only to then switch into the indifferent, near patronising temperament of one of
Oxford Playhouse
What: Driving Miss Daisy When: Monday - Saturday (30th-4th) Where: Oxford Playhouse, Main Stage Tickets £10-37.50
Michael Pilch Studio
Kane’s doctors, is truly impressive. Unfortunately I cannot attest to the complete sensory experience which 4D Productions hope to provide in next week’s performances. Whereas for my viewing the actors were largely accompanied by silence, an original soundtrack has been composed by Elspeth Manders, which will run throughout the entire performance, a snippet of which can be heard on the production’s trailer. Additionally, there will be instances of strobe lighting provided by Ben Darwent and, bizarrely, arrangements have been made for a diffuser to emit the smell of TCP to underpin the medicinal theme. The cast were very explicit that, contrary to previous performances, they believed 4.48 Psychosis is a play about depression, not madness. Admittedly, I had wished in the more aggressively physical scenes
BT Studio
What: random When: Tuesday - Saturday (31st-4th) Where: Oxford Playhouse, BT Studio Tickets: £6
that the actors had done more to convey Kane’s suffering, but in light of their sincere approach to mental disorder I can appreciate their reserved decision. 4.48 Psychosis is not an easy play to recommend. It is explicit, unnerving, desolate and oftentimes confusing, to say the very least. The play is inescapably subjective and self-serving, and the dilemmas with which it confronts its audience are left unresolved as the protagonist submits to their misery. Nevertheless, at its heart this play is humane and 4D Productions have absolutely brought that humanity into the foreground. To echo my initial assertion, the performance is brutal and despairing, but above all it is honest. 4.48 Psychosis will be showing at the Michael Pilch Studio 25th– 28th October.
BT Studio
What: An Englishman Abroad When: Tuesday - Saturday (31st4th) Where: Oxford Playhouse, BT Studio Tickets: Student tickets: £6
Screen 20
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
SCREEN
The social resonance of The Handmaid’s Tale
Priya Vempali Staff Writer
Hulu’s adaptation of the bestselling Margaret Atwood novel is remarkable for a number of reasons. Besides the incredible production and phenomenal casting (particular praise goes to the lead actress, Elisabeth Moss), the premise of the show is strikingly resonant with modern audiences. The protagonist ‘Offred’ provides us with a privileged insight into the psychology of an utterly subjugated woman, which is in equal parts absorbing and terrifying. As a subject of the dystopian state of Gilead, she is forced to fulfil the role of ‘handmaid’, which sees her being ritualistically raped by high-standing government officials in the presence of their wives. The precedent for this custom is drawn from the Old Testament, specifically from the story of Rachel and Bilhah in which Rachel, unable to bear children of her own, directs her husband Jacob to impregnate the handmaid Bilhah, so that she ‘may also have children by her’. This is a central tenet of the show’s fictional society; plagued by an infertility epidemic, the rise of religious extremism enables the new government to claim complete control of
all fertile women and force them to carry out their ‘biological destiny’, threatening them with death or torture if they refuse to comply. Citizens are forced to engage in public stonings/executions, and are spied on constantly to inhibit any signs of resistance. As a modern woman living in the West, it might be hard to see just how this kind of society can provide a reflection of the social issues that we currently face. However once you look past the surface, the similarities are disturbing.
The beauty of this show is not simply in its depiction of a dystopian society Atwood, whose novel is the basis for the TV show, famously stated that she had based all of the events from her novel on real historical events – the Nazi’s ‘Lebensborn’ programme and Gestapo are just some of the inspirations for the totalitarian society. Yet the parallels between her dystopian society and the world we live in suggests
that the show’s social concerns are still relevant to us now. The show’s horrifying image of a brutal theocracy clearly reflects the dangers of too literal a religious exegesis, and yet how is this different to, say, the atrocities which are currently being faced by women in the Middle East in the name of extremist ideology? It’s hard to make a distinction. Moreover, Gilead’s reductionist view of the female body – at the expense of individual autonomy – is disconcertingly similar to the anti-abortion propaganda still propounded by religious, conservative politicians all over the world. The restrictions of female rights such as reading, writing, and driving are, again, all too familiar. We need not back to the archaic laws of medieval societies – the terrorist activities of Boko Haram in Nigeria over the past decade provide a troubling insight into what this kind of society might look like. As for the public executions? They are still being carried out in countries such as North Korea and Saudi Arabia to this day. Yet, these horrors are perhaps even less striking than those which appear to be frighteningly realisable within our own lives. Indeed, the most compelling aspect of the show is its presentation
MGM Television
of the descent into female subjugation. We can overlook the struggles of characters such as Offred because they are too distant from our own realities, but once we are shown her backstory, it becomes harder and harder to distance ourselves. Preceding the establishment of Gilead is the gradual normalisation of patriarchal ideals, presented through snippets of conversations which are interspersed amongst Offred’s daily life. This is in many ways more troubling than the extreme aspects of the show, because we are forced to watch the disintegration of civil liberties in the same way that the characters are. At first it starts slowly, as women are objectified for wearing clothes that are
‘too revealing’. Then comes the workplace discrimination, where the boss of a company fires all of the women in the office, because they are no longer allowed to earn income. Bank accounts are cancelled, people are barred from flying out of the country – it truly gives the audience an insight into the insidious nature of discrimination. The beauty of this show is not simply its depiction of a dystopian society – it is the way in which it makes those horrors realisable within our own lives, and forces us to confront issues which we might ordinarily turn a blind eye to. We may not live in the world of Gilead, but we have a long way to go before we achieve equality.
Foreign cinema has more to offer than frustrating subtitles Anastassia Gliadkovskaya Staff Writer
I remember not long ago, I was having trouble in my relationship. I tried to withstand it. Amidst the struggle to grasp onto whatever loose strands I could, I completely lost sight of myself . My closest and most trusted friend, my mother, recommended me a French-Polish movie in response to my complaints. A bit disappointed knowing I’d have to pay more attention to the subtitles rather than just enjoying the story, I finally sat down to watch it. The movie was riveting. I couldn’t believe a 90s foreign romance thriller could be so relevant to me today. The Double Life of Veronique tells the story of two doppelgangers who lead parallel lives without being aware of the other’s existence. It’s a story about love gone wrong, human intuition, and struggles with identity, about tapping into the deepest parts of yourself and feeling what is there, and the release that can follow. I marveled at the fact that my mother was able to speak to me through the movie without having to
say much. The film did all the talking. It explained so many things, and at the same time, left so many unanswered. I felt like I had just regained a piece of my humanity, just by being reminded of it. Seeing and feeling each character’s pain, the familiar life quest for answers, desperation for love, was bittersweet and familiar. There is a comfort in sharing in the tragedy of the human condition. It’s like taking care of a friend who’s had too much to drink: your heart is filled with empathy, knowing what it’s like to be there on the ground, shaking, lost and head spinning, but there is nothing you can do but wake up in the morning, and live again.
A different language is not enough of an excuse not to watch All films have the power to do this-to invite you to get lost in their world, and then help you find yourself again. But there is something more
in submitting yourself to a foreign culture, in getting so far out of your comfort zone that you feel like you’re watching a horror movie, with something unfamiliar to jump out at you at any moment. Sometimes movies affirm stereotypes, and sometimes, completely dispel them. In the latter cases, when you’re forced to abandon every perception you have of some world, you are left with a blank slate, and that may feel unfamiliar and like you’re relinquishing control. But sometimes it takes just that to get a hold of yourself again. Perhaps you see something that reminds you of who you are. Or, it beckons you to be somebody else. And, it could be the case that both things occur. What better way to be introspective than to be your own observer? How delightful is it to understand something, when it is coming from an entirely different person, language, culture? One of the most comforting feelings in the world is knowing you’re not alone. Films share stories of human struggles or achievements. Every time you watch a movie, you agree to see its story. A different language is not excuse enough not to watch. Coming from a different back-
ground, foreign films may seem bizarre. The humor may be hard to follow, or maybe the acting stands out from standard Hollywood-style. The setting may seem gauche, and there will, inevitably, linger the feeling of some cultural pieces missing. That isn’t the point. The point is, every time you watch a film, you expect to learn something. There will always be things you can pick out as different. But it’s much more satisfying to look beyond those and find the similarities. In doing so,
OpenClipart-Vectors
you may learn that notions of right and wrong are universal; that nothing is perfect, that everyone shares the same fears that you do. You may come to understand what humans really expect of each other, the frailty or the importance of friendship, the limits of human reason, and the importance of acknowledging them. You may be reminded of all the tragedies of being human, and in that, you find bits of yourself, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you are given even more: a glimmer of hope.
Screen 21
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Star Trek: Discovery - a worthy addition to the franchise? Jonathan Sands Staff Writer
Star Trek: Discovery represents a decisive break with previous incarnations of the franchise in almost every way, and this is its greatest strength and its greatest flaw. If you are a fan of previous series of Star Trek, you will probably find a lot to complain about here; if not, you will probably find a lot to like, especially if you enjoyed the recent Star Trek films (though they are unconnected). Either way, if you are at all the kind of person who would be interested in this series you are likely to hate spoilers, so we’ll keep it as vague as possible. Discovery is the first Star Trek series to adopt a single continuous narrative across every episode. It follows the journey of Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green, ‘Sasha Williams’ in The Walking Dead), a human raised by the emotionally-restrained, pointyeared Vulcans, who begins the series as First Officer on the starship U.S.S Shenzhou, captained by Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh). It is set at the beginning of the war
between the peaceful, human-led Federation and the warlike Klingon Empire, but focuses squarely on Burnham as she survives escalating violence, endures tragedy, and questions her core principles and beliefs. Such a personal approach is new for this usually ensembleoriented franchise, and it works primarily because Martin-Green is a compelling lead. The tension between her character’s Vulcan restraint and innate human emotionality is sensitively portrayed, while her occasional turns as a quasi-action heroine are convincing; in fact, Sonequa Martin-Green’s performance might be the most convincing element of the entire show. Not that this is the first thing you notice. The most striking feature of Discovery is how great it looks: I cannot think of another science-fiction series in recent years that can rival its production values, whether in the detailed rendering of small, futuristic technologies aboard a starship or in the extended, dramatic battle scenes that previous series of Star Trek simply did not have the budget to execute. The money is on the screen almost constantly, but the direction is astute
Vilnisr
enough to avoid visual clutter and allow you to enjoy it as a spectacle, if nothing else. As an exercise in pure style Discovery – particularly in the first two prologue-esque episodes – is undoubtedly a success.
Questions over whether it is ‘really’ Star Trek will certainly be raised Where Discovery falls down, hard, is in the writing. An early scene in which we are introduced to Burnham and Georgiou in conversation is so wooden it could be used to build a cabinet, and the first two episodes sometimes feel like a sheer, arduous climb up Mount Exposition. As we approach the expected climactic action sequences the dialogue becomes less cumbersome, but it’s still a humourless slog whenever two characters, for purposes of plot, must talk to one another. Sure, Star Trek has never been a bastion of subtle and nuanced dialogue, but surely we can do better than “As a xenoanthropologist I would…”? This is blockbuster filmmaking applied to the small screen, struggling to find narrative energy beyondthat provided by explosions in space, as awesome as they are. However, I would recommend pushing through these open-
ing episodes to the third, as here the narrative takes a right-turn that introduces mystery and moral ambiguity, injecting real life into both the plot and the characters within. It may not find those funny, charming beats that made previous series so enjoyable, but it does seriously flirt with Alien-esque horror, so at least it isn’t boring. So, what is Discovery? Questions over whether it is “really” Star Trek will certainly be raised by some, perhaps justifiably; however, for better or worse, it is ultimately just a Star Trek for today. It is significant, for example, that our protagonists at the beginning are two women of colour who must face off against a patriarchal warrior race; that the show is set in a time of war in which violence is always on the horizon; that the fundamentally optimistic, humanistic outlook of the original series is exposed as naïve and futile. All versions of Star Trek have been, to various degrees, products of their time, but this is the first in which a dark tone reigns, in which the viewer is denied light-hearted escapism. At the same time, its emphasis on visual flair and action over nuance and and depth is simply the logical continuation of what it took to bring Captain Kirk back to the big screen in the modern age. As such, Star Trek: Discovery is not necessarily the Star Trek we want, but certainly the Star Trek we deserve. New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery are released on Netflix every Monday.
Top Five: Foreign Language Netflix Shows Elle Styler Staff Writer
Rita (2012) A Danish dramedy about a school teacher who could learn a lesson or two, with a dysfunctional family and a heart of gold, no matter how tough she may seem. Hello, My Twenties (2016) This South Korean drama follows five bubbly university students during their first stages of adulthood, and all the feuds that come with living in a shared house. Ku’damm 56 (2016) A German mini series about the rebellion of dance in the period after WWII and a daughter who defies her mother through rock ‘n’ roll dancing. Call My Agent (2015) The world of a French talent agency is shaken as the company’s founder dies suddenly, leaving the agents to fend for the business themselves in the midst of celebrity chaos. Club de Cuervos (2015) A Spanish-language Netflix Original about a brother-sister duo who inherit their father’s football team but must put aside their differences in order to be successful.
England is Mine deserves to be commended for its own merits Molly Stock-Duerdoth Staff Writer
Morrissey has, unfortunately, proven himself to be just as unlikeable as everyone suspected. In the wake of this, biopic England is Mine has been chastised as an irrelevant portrayal of the dull early years of a fallen hero. Although the man himself may be more boorish than charming, the story, as I believe the film demonstrates, of his journey from miserable bedroom poet to world-famous pope of mope is relevant, poignant, and even entertaining. The least liked aspect of the film seems to have been the character of Morrissey himself and, while he is a little inert and a lot superior, Jack Lowden’s performance is sensitive enough to show that this priggishness comes from a place of deep insecurity and uncertainty. We are presented with the Morrissey his audience would most recognise – isolated and anxious almost to the point of paralysis, and reliant on mordant wit as a defence mechanism.
Although such a character could be difficult to sympathise with, the pomposity is more than offset with bleakness and surprisingly warm humour. One particularly hilarious moment comes when Steven’s (as he is called in the film, another cementation of the distance between the character and the public persona) friend Anji (Katherine Pearce) exclaims; “the world won’t just come to you, you know”, to which he replies sardonically: “it might.” The irony, of course, being that it does; and the delight of this film lies in its ability to show just how easily it could not have done, a homage to the myriad of unfulfilled artists who remain just that.
from a particularly well-chosen cover of the New York Doll’s version of ‘Great Big Kiss’, which bears a mysterious resemblance to ‘Rusholme Ruffians’). Admittedly, this does make for a less gratifying watch, but the absence of Morrissey’s own and indeed nearly anyone else’s music neatly creates a sense of disconnection and emptiness. Fittingly, the film is set before Morrissey meets Marr (in cheesy but pleasing style, one of the closing scenes dramatizes the celebrated arrival of the guitarist on the singer’s doorstep) and creates a tantalising gap between what is present and what is to come.
not go down in biopic history with the likes of Control and Coal Miner’s Daughter. It is, however, a neat and likeable account of a story so often told it is almost already fiction, and, although lacking his endorsement or his lyrics, is full of the scathing humour and self-indulgence Morrissey fans have long adored. It is en-
We are presented with the Morrissey his audience would most recognise – isolated and anxious and reliant on mordant wit as a defence mechanism. As an unauthorised biography, the Smiths’ music is missing from the film (aside, that is,
Due to its conventional storytelling and controversial protagonist, England is Mine will likely
Charlie Llewellin
joyable even without care for or knowledge of the Smiths, and the real nature of the protagonist or, indeed, the highly debated accuracy of the telling, is near to irrelevant. To paraphrase Lowden’s Morrissey, life’s too short for the cliché of Morrissey-hating and this is a film which deserves to be commended for its own merits.
MUSIC
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Music 22
Review: Lotta Sea Lice, Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile
Seb Braddock finds himself identifying with Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile’s freewheeling debut collaboration Seb Braddock Music Editor
The only bad thing about Lotta Sea Lice is in its prompting of a revival of that god awful “Kurtney” Cobain and Love portmanteau. Mercifully for the listener, the record recalls the Travelling Willburys more than Nirvana or Hole, both in its sound and in its casual, hootenanny knees-up aura. In Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett, we have two of the brightest (and most ironically detached) songwriters today collaborating as if they were always meant to
play together, and as if they had the time of their lives doing so. Of course, no one would have imagined it happening this way. When Courtney and Kurt first announced that they were working on an album together, and would even subsequently tour it, the general reaction was one of surprise. No rumours preceded the announcement, nothing through the grapevine even suggested they had even met each other too often, if at all. Yet in the aftermath of its announcement, the partnership began to make sense in retrospect. Both artists have an exceptional air of stoned allure; both
Courtney’s melodiously antipodean singing voice contrasts with Kurt’s gritty, lazy drawl, harmonising with each other as they twist each others’ lines and toss them back at each other like kids on a playground.
Rberr11
write songs as if they are having a conversation with the listener; and both mine a rich vein of rock music replete with jangly, twangy guitars and distorted freak-outs alike, not to mention a shared passion for the Grateful Dead, whom both covered as part of the 2015 Day of the Dead triple vinyl box set. If Courtney tends to the more upbeat and steamrollering side of the rock and roll spectrum, and cuts the introspection with witty dissections of the minutiae of the quotidian, Kurt’s stoned navelgazing and languorous air make him a perfect musical kindred spirit for her. On paper, therefore, they looked like an unexpectedly apt fit. The impression is no less apt on wax. The noodling and intertwining riffs are a thing of joy to behold; it’d take an exceptionally obsessed listener to guess as to whom each part belongs, though that hardly diminishes the fun of giving it a good go. As their guitars intertwine, so do their voices: Courtney’s melodiously antipodean singing voice contrasts with Kurt’s gritty, lazy drawl, harmonising with each other as they twist each others’ lines and toss them back at each other like kids on a playground. “I’m walking home like a bruised ego” brings the rejoinder of “I’m feeling inferior on the interior”; sung in unison, “or maybe it’s just me” feels like a wholehearted affirmation of the joys of friendship and kinship rather than the face-value yearning and alienation. The last track’s title, ‘Untogether’, feels both like
a sly nod to their obvious musical compatibility and a rebuke to those who automatically assumed some romantic component to their partnership when Lotta Sea Lice was first announced (Kurt is married with two kids and Courtney is openly lesbian, running Milk Records together with her partner and fellow singer-songwriter Jen Cloher). On it, reverb-drenched slide guitar brings the best of Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac to the table, whilst Kurt and Courtney harmonise their successive neologisms: “you can’t save the unsaveably untogether”. A live performance broadcast through Pitchfork, with Kurt and Courtney and a full band running through the album at the beach, even recasts some of their best-known solo songs in the light of Lotta Sea Lice: juxtaposed, the likes of Barnett’s ‘Depreston’ and Vile’s ‘Life’ like this seem like two pieces of the same jigsaw, fitting together perfectly, as if they could have fitted on Lotta Sea Lice just as easily as they do on Sometimes I Sit and Think or b’lieve i’m going down… Lotta Sea Lice is, above all, an intimate record. Studio chatter and studio laughter rings out in between cuts, and at times it feels like we’re being treated to a sneak peak of Vile and Barnett fucking about; despite containing the most sincere exhortation on the album, it’s hard to take ‘Blue Cheese’’s affable silliness seriously, where Kurt jokes about “calling the cops on you” and Courtney brings out a nice
Bill Ebbeson
ironic “whoo,” before a ‘Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay’-tier pisstake of a whistling solo, all before a remarkably wheezy harmonica interlude pops in; the track ends with a stock Macintosh beep. On ‘Peeping Tom’, you even get the impression that Courtney is pulling off a highly commendable impersonation of Kurt, who doesn’t even appear on the wholly acoustic track. The usual pitfalls of intimacy, to wit, the inability of the listeners to relate to the artists’ navel-gazing, are nonetheless sidestepped: Courtney and Kurt’s mutual ruminations rub off as an affirmation of the potential to find pleasure amongst the boredom of daily life. For that, and for a record that holds its own with each artist’s individual discography, we should be thankful. Here’s to more.
What’s on this week?
Noelani Malley
What: Ulrich Schnauss When: 28th October Where: Modern Art Oxford Mining the rich intersection between shoegaze and the various electronic dance genres contentiously grouped under the IDM heading, German producer and former member of seminal krautrock band Tangerine Dream comes to Modern Art Oxford for what can be reasonably assumed to be one of these integegrated multigenre installations. We recommend you go for the music rather than the art. £12
Paul Hudson
What: Jane Weaver When: 29th October Where: The Bullingdon Synthesiser songstress Jane Weaver promises much in the way of the marriage of the avantgarde with pop. Taking cues from Stereolab, the Soft Cell and Neu! and featuring former members of seminal krautrock band Can, the Widnes-based multi-instrumentalist’s latest album, Modern Kosmology, earned Weaver an influx of new devotees to add to her already substantial cult appeal. £7
Max Pixel
What: Slowcoaches When: 31st October 7pm Where: The Cellar A tumblr blog whoses posts include Spotify playlists titled “Nazi punks f*ck off” and “Music to punch Nazis to” bodes well for a band’s moshability. Famously so headbang-inducing that one punter promptly projectile vomited onto the stage, Slowcoaches might just be the gig for you if you’re in the mood for a good mosh and flailing cans of Red Stripe. £5.50 for students
endless autumn
What: Ghostpoet When: 3rd November 7pm Where: O2 Academy London-based MC with origins as part of a grime collective comes to Oxford touring his latest trip-hoppy album Dark Days + Canapes, given 5/5 by The Independent. Ghostpoet’s mission statement to Fader reads: “I wrote this one for the struggling minds, trying to make sense of an ever-increasingly technologically connected, but lonesome world.” £16.90
Music 23
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
The return of Sparks: a review of Hippopotamus Connor Thirlwell Staff Writer
“If this were the Seine, we’d be very suave / But it’s just the rain washing down the boulevard”. Why can’t my life be like it is in the movies? Why can’t this nondescript street in my non-descript town carry all that romantic flow of the Seine? Why must my sadness be so overbearingly ugly? Why can’t I sulk with all effortless, monumental swagger of a Heston, Lancaster or Bogart? It seems that I, as long as I’m alive, cannot forego those times when I wish I was someone else, in another place, from a different time, and ashamed that I, cripplingly, cannot be anything more than what I’ll only ever be. These lyrics, from ‘Thank God it’s not Christmas’, were released over four decades ago on Sparks’ breakthrough album Kimono My House. (In that song, note the jabbing, skating guitar motif and its premonition of a thousand noughties’ guitar riffs.) Hippopotamus, their 24th album, and the first conventional pop record by Sparks in nearly a decade, entered high in the UK album charts – an unknown feat for the group since their initial mid-70s blossoming. Indeed, the veteran Californian duo of Sparks, AKA brothers Ron
and Russell Mael, are undergoing a bit of a rivalry – performing on TV life on The One Show and Front Row has helped. Their fruitful 2015 collaboration with Franz Ferdinand too played no small part in re-energising Sparks and opening them up to a new, younger audience. On the album’s opener proper, “Missionary Position”, Sparks suggest nothing of the loss of a youthful exuberance, plying a theme on which all their most successful songs are based: sex. It’s a testament to Sparks’ art that a song ostensibly about nothing more than a page from the Kama Sutra can so honestly and jubilantly celebrate ordinariness, express a defiant, “neoclassicist” contentment with what we have rather than frustration at what we haven’t – “the tried and true is good enough for me and you.” Elsewhere, the protagonists aren’t so lucky, recalling that Larkinesque archetype by the would-be Seine. The bitter voice of ‘Edith Piath (Said it Better than Me)’ cannot escape his regret – “Live fast and die young? Too late for that”. In ‘I Wish You Were Fun’, the heart-breaking lyric confesses – “I find you amazing in every way except one: I wish you were fun.” Hippopotamus is at its most successful when the songs suspend on a quintessentially Sparks tension
Staff Writer
There’s a group of shots in the video for ‘Los Ageless’, the second single from MASSEDUCTION, that I find hypnotic. In amongst the shots of boldly-coloured props and surreal botox procedures, St Vincent stands with her guitar, not playing it, but getting ready to: she looks at the fretboard, or moves her hands into position. We can hear the guitar line, but it’s a long time before we see it. The music you’re hearing is not the music you’re seeing. It’s just another fake. With St Vincent, you have to look a little deeper. If this seems high-concept, let me first say that MASSEDUCTION is a true pop album, possibly St Vincent’s first. Most of the songs were co-written and produced with Jack Antonoff, who you’ll have heard on recent singles by Taylor Swift, Lorde, and Fifth Harmony; it has handclaps, vocoders and whirling synths on the same songs as Kamasi Washington saxophones, Jenny Lewis guest vocals and guitar virtuoso turns. Far from the unin-
spired generality of most writingroom pop, though, it’s also a personal album. In one press release, Annie Clark (the woman behind the ‘St Vincent’ name) announced that ‘if you want to know about my life, listen to this record’, which is a surprising statement to make about an album whose iconography has been so steeped in irony and aesthetic distance, in disembodied buttocks and painful neons. A lot of what’s personal, I think, comes from Clark’s own closeness to the subjects she sings about. On the lean and biting ‘Los Ageless’, she satirises a dog-eat-dog and style-over-substance Hollywood culture with nightmarish precision, but also asks ‘How could anyone have you and lose you and not lose your mind?’ – whether she’s addressing the city or a lover wrapped up in it is hard to tell. ‘Happy Birthday, Johnny’ is a heartfelt letter to a friend who’s been chewed up by the world, and in ‘New York’ she pivots heartbreakingly from a speaker who is living the dream (‘the only mother****er in the city who can handle me’) to one whose friends
‘Pearly Dewdrops’ Drops’ (1984) Cocteau Twins
Jason Hickey
Jake
between sophistication and silliness, where attractive, surface-level gimmicky subject matter – Ikea Furniture (‘Scandinavian Design’) or God being overworked by too many prayers (‘What the Hell Is It this Time’) – clothe a vulnerable body fleshed in sincere emotion which, on Hippopotamus, more so than on any other Sparks album to date, tugs at the deeper strings of sadness. Perhaps this is a sign of the Mael brothers’ growing age – Ron, who writes the songs, is 72, while Russell, who sings them, has just turned 69. While the album shows no atrophy in Ron’s mischievous imagination and wit or exquisite skills in song-
writing arrangement, Hippopotamus can veer uncomfortably close to a shallow, quick-fix novelty. The title track, for example, is thrilling on the first listen – wondering what is going to appear next in Ron’s pool recalls all the exciting anticipation of what The Very Hungry Caterpillar is going to eat on Thursday (four strawberries, it turns out) – but a lack of depth is uncovered after only a few listens. Even with this in mind, to hear men with such a wealth of experience and success behind them continuing to challenge and innovate keeps the future looking bright, confirming (almost) that old adage that, in the end, “what will survive of us is love.”
‘Compelling, cleverer than you, and singable as hell’: St. Vincent, Masseduction Tori Mangan
OLDIE OF THE WEEK
have turned on her because of her fame (‘you’re the only mother****er in the city who’d forgive me’). Cities like LA and New York become characters in the stories Clark tells, and personal/public boundaries start to blur; Johnny, Los Ageless, the young lover, the villains, the killers, the wasted, the wretched and the scorned are all addressed on equal terms, as if the album is a diary entry disguised as a set of love letters. Wide as the album’s focus is, though, it never becomes polemic. ‘Pills’, for example, with its jingly refrain of ‘Pills to wake / Pills to wake / Pills, pills, pills, every day of the week’ (actually a guest vocal from Clark’s ex-girlfriend, Cara Delevigne), doesn’t rail against the pharmaceutical industry but instead records Clark’s feelings during a year ‘suspended in air’: the difficulties of touring life are framed as a difficulty sleeping, compressing an issue into a perfectly-formed, radio-friendly diamond. ‘I am a lot like you (boys) / I am alone like you (girls)’, sings Clark on ‘Sugarboy’, turning from boys to girls repeatedly in her search for companionship,
Popular music often leads us to believe that lyrics are the beating heart of a song. That the singer’s words can be mined for emotional gold, and therein lies a song’s power to move an audience. I’m not about to shun lyrics altogether, but rather point out that they’re a wonderful but not essential shortcut to emotion and empathy. The Cocteau Twins’ 1984 stroke of genius, ‘Pearly Dewdrops’ Drops’ is all the proof anyone needs. Opening in classic post-punk style with a jangly descending guitar line, Elizabeth Fraser’s reverb-heavy soprano steals the show from the off. Fraser’s voice quivers with expressive force, dramatically melismatic such that at points it reminds you of religious ritual. It doesn’t matter for one moment that her lyrics are as nonsensical as they are indistinguishable (in some recordings Fraser even used foreign words without knowing their meaning). A sample of her words, gloriously abstract as they are: ‘We’ll be sold when Roddy comes, Comes for pearly dewdrop’s drops Tis the lucky lucky penny penny penny
Justin Higuchi
Clark’s a genius of many kinds, and her lyrics are whipsmart, especially when set against a pure pop background slyly encapsulating a familiarly queer internal dialogue as we dance to the Talking Heads synth breaks. The genius of the album, for me, is that it matches thematic den-
sity with catchiness. In the days since I first heard it I’ve been putting it on again and again, needing to hear a hook as much as I want to understand it. Clark’s a genius of many kinds, and her lyrics are whip-smart, especially when set against a pure pop background that shows without telling. St Vincent’s been at the top of her game for a while now, and MASSEDUCTION is a record that knows it: slick, compelling, cleverer than you, and singable as hell.
Algorithms
Numerical analysis
Probability Number theory
Algebra
FRESH THINKING. WITH THE FINEST MATHEMATICAL MINDS. A summer well spent.
Maths and Cryptography Students Cheltenham £19,861 pro rata
If you’re a motivated mathematics undergraduate, this paid summer scheme offers you the chance to apply your skills in a unique environment. Alongside other students, you’ll be working on one of a wide range of real projects with real impact. You could find yourself researching and assessing a cryptographic algorithm, analysing complex systems or developing a new statistical tool for novel data sets. You’ll have the chance to collaborate with some of the finest mathematical minds in the country, working to solve what others consider unsolvable. In just nine weeks, you’ll learn new mathematics, develop new skills and discover that you can achieve more than you ever imagined.
Make a complex world yours
To find out more and apply, visit www.gchq-careers.co.uk
Combinatorics
Integer factorisation
edit
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Fashion 26
This week we consider how the fashion and beauty industry presents and represents society.
the
Is the fashion industry becoming more representative? Leonie Hutch Fashion Editor
The fashion industry has a problem with women. Or at least the idea that there might be more than one type of woman in the world. And it matters hugely. To create and promote an image of idealized womanhood whilst omitting non-white, plus size and trans women is to create a warped, unpleasant, and frankly ugly version of our world. Statistically, s/s 2018 was the most diverse season ever: there was a move away from exclusion and tokenism towards diversity and equal representation and celebration. However, although these improvements are a step in the right direction, the road is a long one. Change is underway, but frankly, diversity in the fashion industry is long overdue. Having representation of people of colour, nongender conforming plus size and older people within the fashion is not a courtesy, it should be expected. The Fashion Spot released a ‘Diversity Report’ last week analyzing 266 fashion shows from Milan, London, Paris and New York. Let’s break it down and see how the industry is shaping up. 35
Over the past two years there has been roughly a 100% increase in the number of non-white models walking the runways. This year in London models of colour made up 31%, in New York 36.9%, in Paris 27% and in Milan 24.7%. There were two or more models of colour for every runway in New York and London. However, in Milan models of colour constitute less than a quarter of all bookings. Although there are no collated statistics on the number of disabled models on the runway, Teatum Jones’s show was dedicated to Natasha Baker, an 11-time British Paralympic dressage gold medalist, and featured a number of disabled models. 50 40 30 20
25
100
0 a/w ‘16
s/s ‘17
a/w ‘17
s/s ‘18
number of trans/non-binary models booked
20 15 10 5 0 s/s ‘15 a/w ‘15 s/s ‘16 a/w ‘16 s/s ‘17 a/w ‘17 s/s ‘18
% of models of colour booked
There were 93 plus size model appearances during the s/s 2018 runway- more than 3 times the 30 from last season, and 6 times s/s 2017. However, they were not equally represented across all shows. Firstly, 90 of the 93 bookings were in New York, and secondly, and 77 of these were for only 4 different shows: Elle, Torrid, Chromat and Christian Siriano. In total, plus size models accounted for just 1.13% of bookings across the whole season. There were only two plus size models in Paris, one in London and none in Milan. Kering and LVMH (who own Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent and Christian Dior) have also banned models below a US size 2 (UK 6) as an attempt to improve health standards amongst models in the industry.
10
s/s ‘16
30
Age diversity also showed some small improvement, but only 0.33% of the bookings for this season were for models over 50. In total this was 27 models (it is worth noting that The Fashion Spot does not include exclusively over 50s shows). New York had 10 over-50 model castings, Milan and Paris both had 7, and London just 3 in 2 shows, despite having the largest number, 7, during their a/w 2017 season.
There were 45 transgender and 4 non-binary model appearances, who walked at 47 shows. This is almost 4 times as many as the 12 models for the a/w 2017 season, and those models only walked in 5 different shows all in New York. In comparison, this year, of the 45 castings, 26 were booked in New York 10 in Paris, 7 in Milan and 1 in London. Teddy Quinlivin accounted for 27 of these 45 appearances. In both the London and Paris shows there was only 1 other transgender model at each season. In total, trans and nonbinary models accounted for only 0.58% of all bookings.
80 60 40 20 0 s/s ‘16
a/w ‘16
s/s ‘17
a/w ‘17
s/s ‘18
number of plus size models booked
‘Modest’ fashion choices move towards the mainstream Leonie Hutch Fashion Editor
Over the past couple of years there has been a slow change in what is available for women and a growing mainstream presence of Muslim-orientated modest clothing on both the catwalk and the high street. It seems indicative of the growing awareness within the fashion industry that fashion can, and should, be inclusive. Women who, for religious, cultural or personal, reasons wish to dress modestly should not be excluded from the narrative. In 2017, Dolce & Gabbana released a range of hijabs and abayas, and in the same year DNKY, Tom-
my Hilfiger, Monique Lhuiller and Oscar de la Renta also created special collections for Eid and Ramadan. High street brands such as Mango, H&M, Debenhams and Uniqlo (in collaboration with Mipster and Hana Tajima) also created modest collections, featuring long flowing trousers and dresses, as well as hijabs for the first time. Nike and House of Fraser have also both released a sports hijab. For her s/s 2017 show in New York, the Muslim designer Anniesa Hasibuan made history by sending all of the models walking in her collection down the runway in hijabs. Her show featured loose trousers and skirts made out of silk, chiffon and lace in pale pastel colours.
This has occurred alongside a rise in the profile of Muslim fashion bloggers, vloggers and models. One such vlogger, Dina Torkin started writing about how to be both fashionable and modest over five years ago and has since collaborated with Liberty on a range of scarves and begun designing independently. In 2015, Mariah Idrissi- who posts pictures on Instagram of her turban style hijabs- became the first ever model wearing a hijab to appear in a mainstream fashion campaign in the UK. In the advert, for H&M, she wore a chequered Palestinian shemagh hijab and sunglasses. And Halima Aden, a SomaliAmerican model, made headlines
last year for being the first hijabwearing woman to be signed to IMG models. She debuted at Kanye West’s Yeezy show in New York in 2017 and has since become the first high-fashion model to wear a hijab. She also became the first model to wear a hijab on the cover of Vogue Arabia. Considering that there are almost 2 billion followers of Islam these advancements are small and hopefully just the start of a movement towards more diversity within the fashion industry. There is clearly cause to embrace different voices and needs within fashion and to celebrate that diversity. Although there is obviously no single way that Muslim women dress- whether they wear
a hijab, choose to dress ‘modestly’, or not- people should have the choice to engage with fashion, and feel represented, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Afaqs
FASHION
Fashion 27
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
The ‘Kardashian cult’ and its contribution to fashion Lucinda Kirk Fashion Editor
The Kardashian name is ubiquitous in modern society. Forging an empire and universally recognised brand, it is indisputable that the Kardashians have a considerable influence on fashion, beauty and even body image amongst their willing (and reluctant) followers. Some critics have even gone as far as making reference to a “Kardashan cult”. Brands have been known to pay 6 figure sums for one Instagram feature. Kim was the 6th person in the world to reach 100 million Instagram followers. Time magazine also featured her as amongst the world’s 100 most influential people. In my mind this all comes with a great amount of social responsibility. It is easy to forget that Kim was once the invisible fashion assistant and wardrobe cleaner of Paris Hilton. One major criticism has revolved around their use of plastic surgery, especially amongst the youngest members of the family, and the subsequent global impact on numbers of those resorting to cosmetic enhancements. Dr Leah Totton of Dr Leah Clinics claimed
that in 2015, after Kylie Jenner’s lip filler revelation, the clinic saw a 70% rise in enquiries for the procedure literally overnight. This was accompanied by the disturbing social media trend “the Kylie Jenner lip challenge”, which saw fans utilising suction cups to inflate their lips. Jenner’s surgically enhanced lips allowed her to market and launch a now multimilliondollar makeup line based around lip kits. It is predicted that 20-year old Jenner will be the first billionaire in the family on the back of this cosmetics company. The global fascination with Jenner’s lips and constant speculation and discussion as to what other procedures the Kardashians have undertaken only serves to keep them relevant and fresh topics of conversation in daily life.
their signature curvacious figures actually have a net positive effect on perceptions of body image
plastic, surgically-enhanced faces and bodies are disseminated to millions upon millions of people. Their emphasis on appearance as a commodity has in my view led to a culture of over-dissection and hyper-criticism of our own appearance, propagated by prolific photoshopping. O’Byrne pushes this too far in stating that fashion and beauty industries actively foster “parasitic insecurities” in order to push products to remedy them, but it is definitely valid to suggest that they are capitalising off the back of this. It does seem that the Kardashian culture is damagingly superficial.
Eva Rinaldi
Simultaneously, however, this has a potentially extremely dangerous effect on women’s sense of self and conceptions of beauty. There are undoubtedly extremely negative connotations attached to the word ‘Kardashian’. Jenner’s ever-growing lips feed into a larger picture on how far the ‘Kardashian Klan’ are influencing young women’s perceptions of themselves. The Kardashians’ social media domination means that their perfectly manicured,
unapologetically promote pride in one’s own skin Nude, pouting, or photoshopped photos do not necessarily translate into beauty and yet it seems girls in particular are brought up conditioned by this culture that reinforces the inverse. On the other hand, some claim that the Kardashians’ signature curvaceous figures actually have a net positive effect on perceptions
of body image. Kim in particular has been extremely vocal on the importance of women loving their curves; she embraces her voluptuousness and sexuality and has, ultimately, turned this into a successful business. Her seminude photos on Instagram, which have sparked fervent debates and feuds amongst fellow celebrities (including Chloe Moretz), nonetheless unapologetically promote pride in sensuality and one’s own skin. According to Karl Lagerfeld, “Kim’s contribution to beauty and fashion…is the fact that you don’t have to be super slim and very tall to be beautiful” [Kim stands at a relatively tiny 5’2”]. It is true to an extent that with every Instagram post, Kim is pushing the fashion and beauty industry away from a strictly confined image of featuring solely skinny, tall, blonde models. Her aesthetic and style is according to Time “not rigidly confined”, and has radically evolved from her velour tracksuits of the noughties. Kim has credited her fashion-designer husband Kanye with cultivating her recent look, moving away from skimpy, tight-fit bodycon dresses to a much more low-key glam, less revealing style.
The beauty industry is failing dark-skinned women Lucinda Kirk Fashion Editor
The most recent launch of Rihanna’s beauty line, Fenty Beauty, has reinvigorated discussions on racial diversity in the cosmetics industry, especially with regards to representation for women of colour. With an array of 40 foundation shades at initial launch and a view to extend, it is widely considered that Fenty has now set the standard for other brands to follow. But why is it so revolutionary that in 2017 a makeup brand’s shade range accommodates every skin colour?
limited shades for dark skinned women feed into a broader racism within the industry The scourge of racism has plagued the cosmetics business for decades, if not centuries. Flippant comments from large beauty influencers and limited shades for dark skinned women feed into a broader entrenched, systematic racism in the industry. Jeffree Star is a notable example of the former,
with nearly 6 million Youtube subscribers and a multi-million pound cosmetics brand. Recordings recently emerged featuring the successful male beauty influencer using shockingly graphic racial hate speech, including stating that he would throw bleach onto a woman of colour to lighten her skin. However, sadly, this is not an isolated occurrence. The owner of Limecrime wearing a Nazi SS uniform to a Halloween costume event. Tarte cosmetics posting a meme on Instagram involving the words ‘ching chong’, and being forced to issue a public apology. Kathleen Lights, a beauty guru with nearly 4 million subscribers, being recorded saying ni**** on camera last month. The misguided and much ridiculed Dove advert featuring a black woman taking off a t shirt and revealing a white woman underneath. Evidently the extensive number of incidences prove that this is a deeply-rooted issue not simply confined to the parameters of specific brands, people or companies. What is more disquieting is the fact that such scandals do not significantly tarnish the success of the corporation in question. Not only is racial prejudice and cultural insensitivity explicitly exposed in such ugly affairs such as
those listed above, but also the startling lack of colours that cater to dark skinned people mean that they are often excluded from the narrative in the first place. The African-American Youtuber Jackie Aina was recently extremely vocal in her criticism towards the CEO of It Cosmetics for promoting an ideal of inclusiveness but not delivering in terms of shade range and accommodating dark skin tones. A brand which particularly caught my attention for lack of diversity in shade range is Physician’s Formula, popular in the US drugstore. Their BB cream, for example, comes in just one colour, “light/medium”; similarly, their concealer only comes in 3 col-
Liam Mendes
ours: “fair”, “light” and “medium”. How is it acceptable for a brand to have “medium” as its deepest shade? Last year, Maybelline’s foundation range ‘Dream Velvet’ launched in the UK with only one shade for black women – homogenising every dark skin tone into one. Almay, another drugstore brand, marketed their foundation line (described by Aina as a shade range that constituted “50 shades of alabaster”) with the slogan “the American look” featuring Caucasian, extremely slender models. Shade ranges all too often do not adequately meet the needs of people of colour, but also the advertising does not effectively cater to that sector of the market in any way. There is now a growing demand for brands that solely cater to dark skinned women to plug the gap, in the same way that Korean brands, for instance, often feature colours only for fair skinned people. It is not sufficient to simply use a dark skinned model as the face of a cosmetics product but not see the execution of the product through when it comes to nuances and beauty needs within the black community. Accountability to a great extent rests on the shoulders of retailers and distributors, such as Boots and Sephora. The need to be making a
certain amount of profit per inch of shelf space in a large-scale beauty store means that darker shades are often excluded; the ‘middle majority’ is kept whilst deep tones (and also extremely pale tones) are omitted to preserve profit margins. This is due to stores having limited space and black women being in the minority of the population, occupying a smaller section of the market. Despite this, as previously mentioned, if advertising and marketing does not target darker skinned women in a culturally-sensitive and inclusive manner, how it is expected that sales in darker tones would have parity with the mid-tones? There is now not only a moral but also an economic imperative to diversify business policies and investments.
there is a moral and economic imperative to diversify Overall it is evident that the beauty industry, despite its name, has an extremely ugly underbelly, and its transgressions are clearly far more profound than ‘skindeep’. Let Fenty Beauty serve as the example it so desperately needs.
OxStuff 28
The Oxford Student | Friday 20th October 2017
OXSTUFF This week in broadcasting: Imagining the Divine at the Ashmolean Tom Gould Deputy Broadcasting Editor
This week our broadcasting team got an exclusive preview of the Ashmolean’s latest exhibition, Imagining the Divine, featuring a range of exhibits on Islam,
Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. The exhibition examines how the interaction and exchange between different religious traditions and cultures influenced the formation of imagery of the divine between 1 and 1000 AD. Through a fascinating range of icons, paintings,
statues and other cultural artefacts , the Ashmolean demonstrates that religion was more than just scriptural but visual and experiential. The Oxford Student was able to interview a number of curators, including Professor Jas Eslner about how the ideas behind the
exhibition. We also spoke to Robert Bracy from the British Museum to explain the history behind some of the exhibits. The exhibition is available to all students of Oxford University until February 18th of next year. Watch our film on our Facebook page and Youtube account.
OVERHEARD IN OXFORD “We’re going to do tops-off shows from now on” “I can put it anywhere you like” “All skinny white guys look the same to me” “It’s the postmodern ultimate - breakfast alone at spoons”
OxQuiz
Which Jeremy Corbyn are you? What is your most important aim? a) To build a country for the many and not the few b) Power and wealth c) To bring joy d) To stop the Blairites
Do you give clear answers? a) Of course b) Only when it serves me better than deception
Statesman Jeremy
c) The story is more important than the answer d) I’ve already given a very clear answer on this
Was Tony Blair a good prime minister? a) No. He did too little for those left behind in our society b) Yes. He is my secret hero c) No - he was like the big bad wolf d) Lock him up
Storytime Jeremy
Describe Theresa May in as few words as possible a) Weak and wobbly b) Not as good as Tony Blair c) And she huffed, puffed, and blew the house down d) Probably a lizard
If you were Jeremy, would you resign the Labour leadership of Labour?
a) Never
I’ve already given a clear answer on this Jeremy
b) Yes - and then make loads of money advising dictators c) Let me finish my story first d) You seem obsessed with this question Answers: Mostly ‘a’ - Statesman Jeremy. Mostly ‘b’ - Storytime Jeremy Mostly ‘c’ - I’ve already given a clear andwer on this Jeremy Mostly ‘d’ - Secret Blairite Jeremy
Secret Blairite Jeremy
“If we don’t get any more good sconces I’m just gonna start shouting people’s names” “Everyone from the Daily Mail can suck their mum’s as well from the CEO to the receptionist” - Stormzy
OxFURd
Introducing Bertie and Prue, resting after another long day of scampering around fields, being adored. Life’s hard.
OxStuff 29
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Peaking in First: Our agony aunts share their advice Socrates & Ion Ancient Greek agony aunts
S: Such is the sweetness of the scholar’s gown - it allows you to cling on to the pretense of being top of the class for one more year. Once first year’s over and Finals set in, all Oxford students realise there is one truth in this life: we’re all dumb at heart. Forget all the
tedious memes about needing an above-average IQ to understand your subject, college or favourite cartoon. Though we’ve proven ourselves smart enough to get in, we’re all essentially in the same basket once we’re here, and that’s the well-woven basket of general mediocrity. Every scholar peaks in first year, because first year’s the last time when you can generally feel upbeat about your intelligence and the trajectory of your life. Embrace it, kiddo, and let that scholar’s gown represent the naivete you once held so dear. I: If you have been honoured with a gown, do not fail to abuse the privileges that (at most colleges) come with the fact that you have, most likely down to chance, tripped over the grade boundary into the region of a first. You have been singled out: it is time to shamelessly self-promote and hack your way through the Oxford BNOC community. Goodbye mediocrity, hello stardom - and sleeves! You’ve totally earned that respect,
so you’d better work that gown at every single possible opportunity. S: Exactly - make the most of those big, obnoxious, elitist sleeves while you still can. That gown will only be relevant for a few more years anyway - after that, you’ll have to prove yourself in the Real World again and again, jumping over endless hurdles until you can jump no more. Sure, it’s depressing and disheartening and it feels utterly pointless, but you should get used to that feeling as soon as possible. It’s the way most people react to getting their 2:1 in Prelims and realising their Oxford experience will now be slightly different slightly colder - by virtue of a largely arbitrary differentiation between the Good and the Better.
I: Yes, the glory might be transient, but surely that gives us all the more reason to make the most of it? You’ll only be an Oxford student once, and unless you go on to become a relatable content meme or the next Beyoncé (both highly unlikely) your life really isn’t going to get any better than this. So make the most of it: attend the scholars dinners, vote against the Oxford SU polls that are trying to minimise inequality and preferential treatment in a heavily biased system, and make jokes about people at Durham. You might not arbitrarily fall into the most privileged category of people throughout the rest of your life, so make sure to make the most of being able to crush other people while
its still (somewhat) acceptable. S: But while you’re basking in the sunshine of academic triumph, don’t forget to spare a thought for those of us still in the shade. Like fruits hidden from the light, we are bitter and wrinkled, but we might just come in handy one day. Who knows - maybe our fall at the first gate has motivated us to push further, work harder, and gain ourselves scholar’s gowns from the School of Hard Knocks. You’ll need us when your inflated ego pops in the professional world, so don’t dismiss us just yet. Yes, you’ve peaked, and maybe your less illustrious peers have yet to live their finest hour. Keep them on your side. Build a bridge of friendship from your peak to theirs.
Sport 30
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Continued: the NFL needs a random mutation Continued from page 32 Whilst this might sound reasonably complicated it is in fact an extremely limited number of exact outcomes. Because of this, the performance of a player can be precisely charted as a result of exact, tangible events. If one looks at a sport such as soccer (or proper football) then it is evidently clear that such a mathematical logging of results isn’t possible. Every time a player gets the ball, the potential outcomes are near-infinite. This is especially true in lowscoring, short-seasoned games where probabilistic variation leads to a greater range of potential outcomes There are over two-thousand-fourhundred games in the MLB season, and historical data suggests that a little over ten percent of them are decided by one run. Whereas, by contrast, around half of all games in the NFL last year were decided by six points or less, the most that can be scored in one play. With that in mind, it would be hard to make any evaluations based purely on imperfect analytics as the error margin is simply too high. Instead, for the time being, the NFL must look to evolve through rationalisation as quantification remains elusive. Rationalisation fundamentally lies in a fuzzy area; it aims to be precise yet by definition is imprecise. Trying to separate causation from mere correlation is a constant issue; what is due to coaching and what is due to players is just the start. There are few if any independent variables and data sets are all typically very small. All these seem very coherent, sensible reasons to disregard rationalisation in sports but there is one very good reason why many sports teams are thinking in this way: it seems to work. Of course, it doesn’t work in
Keith Allison
every case, and there is a lengthy argument to be had about when to use rationalisations in sport and which ones to use. There is, however, enough incentive for teams to continue to explore the potential applications. In baseball, the use of shifts to counter certain hitters in some situations has become commonplace. Whilst heavily data-driven, it still requires the (admittedly simple) logical progression to shift defenders from one side of the field to another based on where a given hitter most often hits the ball. This might seem like an obvious extrapolation of the data, and frankly it really should be, but sports teams are often slow to accept change and arguably none are worse than those in the NFL.
It might not be now, but the tide of analytics does look to be coming in A prime example of this is what action teams choose to take on fourth downs. For those unfamiliar with the NFL, fourth down is the last chance a team has to pick up the ten yards required to get a new set of downs; a fresh start as it were. Historically, teams have looked to either kick a field goal or punt the ball away in order to pin the opposition back inside their own territory. However, in recent years, data-driven research has indicated that in many cases the fourth down should be seen as simply another opportunity to pick up that new set of downs. There are exceptions to this: times when the field goal makes more sense due to the distance required or when a punt is advisable due to the risk of turning the ball over close to your own endzone. There
is undeniable value in such data when used correctly. However, when the Carolina Panthers’ Head Coach Ron Rivera started acting according to this data (albeit highly cautiously) he was considered a risktaker and dubbed “Riverboat Ron” after the Riverboat gamblers of the Mississippi River. Since Rivera made this change to his philosophy in 2013, and had huge success doing so, many other teams around the NFL have slowly adopted it. Despite this, there remains a distinct distrust of such rationalisations. When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played the Denver Broncos last season the Buccaneers were down 27-7 with six minutes to go and they were faced with a 4th down and 7 around midfield. They punted. This is not the decision of a team that wants to win the game. But Dirk Koetter, the Buccaneers Head Coach, insisted that he believed his decision gave his team the best chance to win, despite all the evidence against such a notion. While it would be easy to brand Koetter an idiot and simply move on, his decision is indicative of a wider distrust in analytics, regardless of evidence. This is not to say that NFL ‘thinkers’ are immune to any evidence, but that the interest in nuance or subtle differences is largely minimal. What this means is that while a team that goes for it on shorter fourth downs will win more games, given the small sample sizes and limited impact on the game, it is highly unlikely to be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful team, and as such it is easy to ignore. For the rest of the NFL to take notice, it would require a piece of inescapable evidence; something that seems to be on the verge of happening. Having revolutionised college offenses whilst the Head Coach at the University of Oregon, Chip
Kelly’s transition to the NFL was the first piece of undeniable evidence that such an approach could be successful. Unfortunately, after two successful seasons with the Eagles, Kelly made the bold transition to taking over as manager as well as coach, a job he proved to be largely incompetent at. After a year highlighted by trading away fan-favourites LeShaun McCoy and Nick Foles, Kelly was fired and the experiment with analytics largely decried as a failure. Although Kelly did coach for one season in San Francisco, he failed to prevent that ship from sinking and is currently out of a job. Yet while Kelly’s charge to be the, albeitflawed, champion for analytics fell short, others have started to follow in his place. The Cleveland Browns’ management have made no attempt to hide their acceptance of analytics from a management point of view and Kyle Shanahan, the former Falcons’ offensive co-ordinator, is currently in his first season as the Head Coach of the 49ers. It is probably not surprising that the two teams who have done the most to embrace analytics are the two with the least to lose and the most to gain. The Browns and the 49ers are arguably the worst two teams in football. Both teams lack talent at a number of key positions and are in the midst of long-term rebuilds. This probably means that it will be the best part of half a decade before analytics will be given a fair shot at proving itself at an NFL level. If ownership are willing to show such patience, then there should be real hope that Kyle Shanahan’s blend of traditional offensive logic and analytical touches can have real success at the NFL level. What must be avoided, however, is what has happened to the New England Patriots under Bill Belichick. Belichick and his staff have
embraced many analytic suggestions, such as the use of running backs in the passing game, yet the Patriots’ fifteen year dominance of the NFL has gone without significant recognition of this. The same is true with the transformation of Alex Smith in Kansas City’s analytically-favoured offense. In a league dominated by star players, it is much easier to ascribe change to a player such as Brady or Smith than it is to scheme; something that fans largely don’t pay much attention to. Shanahan is different though, not for what he does on the field but for what he does in the press room; he talks about scheme. Belichick and Reid have remained largely content to stay in the background whilst their players answer the questions, but Shanahan is younger, cockier, and wants to rub it in opponents’ faces just how smart he is. This means that it is hard to ignore what is scheme and what is not. Just as strong evidence is what happened to Matt Ryan, the Falcons’ quarterback, during Shanahan’s tenure. For the first decade of his career, Ryan looked to be a slightly above-average player then suddenly looked to be among the NFL’s best; winning an MVP in the process. Now, without Shanahan, he suddenly looks like good old Matt Ryan again. By moving on, Shanahan has allowed Ryan to demonstrate just how important scheme is. It might not be now, but the tide of analytics does look to be coming in. However, given the NFL’s penchant for recycling mediocre coaches, it is important that when more thoughtful coaches do get a chance that they make the most of it. This movement is a lot bigger than Shanahan but right now, he is the bright guiding light; and boy is he needed.
Sport 31
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Rugby: Australia stuns New Zealand in Brisbane
The Wallabies end their seven-game losing streak against New Zealand’s All Blacks Danny Cowan Sport Editor
This was not the piece I had planned to write for this week. Like most, I was expecting a classic New Zealand victory on Saturday morning, and there’s no news there. But that is not what happened. Australia finished the southernhemisphere season on a high, after beating the All Blacks 23-18 in Bledisloe III. A soaked pitch in Brisbane was an appropriate place for the Wallabies to end their seven-game drought against the New Zealanders. The All Blacks were a depleted outfit, with six first choice players out of action, including talismanic fly-half Beauden Barrett, and the Australians got off to a fast start after strong pressure from Will Genia allowed Reece Hodge to intercept a loose pass from Lima Sopoaga, and run away for
a 75-metre score. After this, the All Blacks came back strong, dominating both territory and possession, but they were not able to really make their dominance count, only dotting over once after Aaron Smith shifted the ball out to Naholo on the touchline. Two penalties, added to the conversion, saw New Zealand take a 13-7 lead just before half time.
fullback, has caused controversy off the pitch recently with his outspoken attitude to gay marriage, but on the pitch he has now scored twelve tries in international rugby this calendar year, the most ever by an Australian player. As Australia continue their international tests in Japan and here in the UK, he will have one eye on the all-time calendar year record of seventeen tries, held jointly by New
Australia finished the seouthern-hemisphere season on a high, after beating the All Blacks 23-18 in Bledisloe III However, just before the break, Israel Folau, who has been in scintillating form of late, showed individual brilliance to break out of two tackles and get over for a try that reduced the Australian deficit to just one point at half time. Folau, a massive but skilful
Zealand’s Joe Rokocoko and Japan’s Daisuke Ohata. Ten minutes into the second half, after a lengthy stoppage due to a neck injury to Rob Simmons (which is not thought to be too serious), the Wallabies turned down a shot at goal
to kick for touch, and the decision paid dividends, with Folau feeding Marika Koroibete five metres out to put Australia into a 17-13 lead. One stain on the night was Bernard Foley’s poor kicking, with only one from four adding to the Australian total, and his missed conversion kept the lead to only four points. In the 64th minute, the kicking duties were given to Reece Hodge, and he added three more points to take the lead out to 20-13. Yet in the 70th minute, the All Blacks struck back. Rieko Ioane was too powerful and too fast for number-eight Sean McMahon, who had just made a massive break of his own, and the New Zealand sensation was able to score in the corner to reduce the gap to just two points. Ioane’s opportunity came after an outstanding offload from Sonny Bill Williams, who even when supposedly out of form can come out with those moments of magic that have the
potential to change a game. With the game at 20-18, and with around ten minutes to play, most expected the Wallabies to have to weather an All Black storm. This New Zealand team have built a reputation for coming back strong in the last minutes, and Australian victory was by no means assured going in to the final stretch. Then up stepped Reece Hodge. In the 78th minute, with the Aussies having held on to their lead, they were awarded a penalty 55 metres out, which Hodge elected to kick. Hodge’s monster boot saw the ball fly over with metres to spare, drawing the lead out to 23-18, and giving New Zealand two minutes to score a converted try if they were going to keep their winning streak against the Australians going. With the buzzer gone, and New Zealand on the offensive, a knock on gave the game to Australia, and sparked jubilant scenes around Suncorp Stadium.
World Series preview: the fall classic is upon us Vincent Richardson Sport Editor
The 2017 World Series started this week, and whilst many will have seen this pass without so much as noticing, the World Series should be on every sports fan’s calendar. The purpose of this article is not to try to convert the masses about the virtues of what is essentially rounders, but rather in the interest in the World Series itself; or the ‘fall classic’ as it is sometimes known. While not quite as historied as the FA Cup, the World Series dates back all the way to 1903, making it not only one of the world’s oldest trophies but by far the oldest in mainstream American sports. Baseball has also that most cricketlike of habits of maintaining aspects of the game for the sake of tradition and history, despite any infringements on practicality. Such aspects might well be part of the reason why baseball is struggling to maintain support in the US, similar to how cricket was seen almost exclusively as a game for the old and wealthy before the popularisation of the limited overs versions. It is a game where players can have a beer after a game (or quite often during), celebrating is seen as crude and rotund balding men in their early forties are able to describe themselves as “athletes”. In other words, it is a ludicrous, self-indulgent game; and yet at its best, it can be really rather fun. This year’s World Series sees the Houston Astros face off against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Whereas last
year’s version saw two of the teams with the longest title droughts in baseball (the Cubs and the Indians) face off, this year’s features one of the game’s giants, the Dodgers, against a team that has never won a World Series title, the Astros. The Dodgers’ path to the World Series seemed to be relatively straightforward. They finished with the best record in baseball and, after defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks in straight games, dispatched with holders the Chicago Cubs with just one loss in a seven-game series. They have done this, in the model of the Cubs last year, by dominating opponents in all facets of the game. As a pitching staff, the Dodgers are headlined by Clayton Kershaw; widely regarded as the best pitcher of his generation. Kershaw lead the National League in Earned Runs Allowed (ERA) in 2017 for the fifth time in his nine-year career. While the Dodgers lost Zack Grienke to the Diamondbacks after last season, the addition of Yu Darvish gives them a powerful second punch on the mound. While the Dodgers pitching rotation does get a lot thinner from there, Rich Hill has been at least competent this season; though a prolonged series would likely test the Dodgers pitching depth. What gives the Dodgers every chance of keeping the series short is their batting line-up. Six Dodgers hitters reached the twenty home-run mark this season, with twenty-two year old Cody Bellinger leading the group with thirty-nine. Bellinger’s emergence, combined with veteran Justin Turner’s career year has allowed the Dodgers to support Kershaw and the other pitchers in a way that has been lacking in the
past. Given all this, the Dodgers are likely to be favourites at this point. The Astros managed to salvage a 3-2 deficit in the ALCS to overcome the Yankees in a seven-game thriller. While this more laboured route to the World Series has led to some viewing them as heavy underdogs, there are lot of reasons to be optimistic if you’re an Astros fan. Leading the league in runs scored is a pretty good place to start. While the Astros only had four hitters score over twenty home-runs, what they lacked in raw power they made up for in consistent contact. Of the eighteen players to hit over .300 last season (minimum onehundred at-bats), four of them were Astros, including Jose Altuve
Muboshgu
who lead the league with a .346 batting average; the third time he has done so in the past four years. While the Dodgers might be more spectacular offensively, the Astros are just incomparably consistent. Where the Astros have fallen short this season has been in their pitching. While Dallas Kuechel was excellent once again, the lack of depth of quality starters has led to them allowing far more runs than the Dodgers over the course of the season. However, like the Dodgers, the midseason acquisition of a second elite pitcher, namely Justin Verlander, has shifted that dynamic somewhat. Verlander only played five times for the Astros after being traded from the Tigers, but the future Hall-of-
Famers won all five games, posting a team-leading 1.06 ERA in the process. With Verlander as the second piece in the rotation, the Astros have a one-two punch to rival the Dodgers, even if that isn’t immediately clear from the season numbers. Given all this, while the Dodgers will likely attract much of the hype having swept through the National League play-offs, the Astros’ ability to emerge triumphant from a much stronger American League should be seen as arguably more impressive. The Dodgers are the prohibitive favourites with the bookmakers; 3:5 with PaddyPower; the Astros late-season acquisition of Verlander and depth of quality hitting makes them intriguing underdogs.
SPORT Sport 32
The Oxford Student | Friday 27th October 2017
Australia Shock New Zealand
World Series Preview
Joshua vs. Takam: the preview
The NFL needs a random mutation Vincent Richardson Sport Editor
Karl-Ludwig Poggemann
Danny Cowan Sport Editor
Next weekend, Anthony Joshua will take on Carlos Takam at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. Anyone who follows boxing in the U.K. will know who Anthony Joshua is. Despite having won silver at the 2011 amateur world championships, Joshua was still relatively unknown at this point, but the 6ft 6in heavyweight sensation really burst onto the scene when he won gold at the 2012 London Olympics. Since turning professional in 2013, Joshua has a perfect record. Nineteen fights. Nineteen wins. Nineteen knock-outs. His most recent win came in April against Wladimir Klitschko, who had dominated the heavyweight division for over a decade before his loss to Tyson Fury
in 2016, and was undoubtedly Joshua’s biggest test to date. An inch taller than Joshua, and with a similarly impressive physique, Klitschko was a rare opponent that Joshua would not dominate physically. But AJ showed tactical awareness and intense determination after being knocked down in the 6th round to come away with an 11th round knockout, and move Klitschko into retirement. After a big name like Klitschko, you might expect Joshua’s next opponent to be someone similarly famous, or at least to hold a title. Deontay Wilder, Tyson Fury and Joseph Parker are the names that spring to mind. The boxing system, though, means that AJ, as long as he holds the IBF and WBA titles, will have mandatory challengers that he will have to overcome before he can fight the big names. The mandatory challenger for the IBF was set to be Kubrat
Pulev, a 36-year old Bulgarian with a record of 25-1 (13 knockouts). The only blemish on his record was a knock-out defeat to Wladimir Klitschko in 2014. Yet Pulev has since pulled out of the fight through injury, and AJ will now face Carlos Takam. Takam and Pulev are very different fighters. Eddie Hearn, of Matchroom Boxing, said “I’m more worried about the style change, more than anything”, commenting that Joshua has “been preparing for a six-foot five Kubrat Pulev, and now he’s got a sixfoot two Takam” (Sky Sports). As Hearn goes on to say, Takam poses completely different problems for Joshua. He does not stop coming forward, can throw a punch, and has a great chin. The Cameroonian went the full twelve rounds with Joseph Parker in New Zealand last year, and he backs himself to upset the odds. Those odds are not in his favour.
Joshua sits as high as 1/100 with some bookmakers. Takam, at 36 and with a 35-3-1 record (27 knock outs) will likely end this in the same place as Joshua’s other opponents – on the mat. Yet odds are there to be overcome, and the one thing we can say about this fight is that it will be exciting to watch, with both men big punchers who like to get involved. There are some big fights on the undercard as well. Joshua’s rival Dillian Whyte, who he knocked out earlier on in his career, will fight Robert Helenius for the WBC silver heavyweight title. Lenroy Thomas fights Dave Allen for the Commonwealth heavyweight title, and Frank Buglioni defends his British light-heavyweight title, aiming to add the Commonwealth belt to his collection, as he takes on Callum Johnson. Lawrence Okolie, Joe Cordina and Joshua Buatsi will also be fighting.
Evolution is a complicated process: even though I am far from a biologist I can comprehend that much at least. At a basic level, it is a combination of a gradual refinement of existing characteristics as well as the occasional step-change brought about by a random genetic mutation. Conveniently enough, a similar principle of gradual development combined with leaps forward is applicable to not only biological evolution, but also to that of technology, academic theory and even sport. As a general rule, evolution of sports comes in the form of increased quantification and rationalisation. Quantification occurs at some level in almost all sports; batting averages in baseball, shooting percentages in basketball and metres made per attempt (or versions thereof) in rugby and American football. The area where some sports have separated themselves is in the derivation of statistics that go beyond the simple observables of X and Y. Baseball was the first to fully grasp such statistics, likely because it is by far the sport most suited to them. What Bill James and baseball analytics achieved was the ability to convey a player’s complete value-added in terms of one single number, to a very high degree of accuracy. This number is called WAR, or wins above replacement, and it is in effect the number of extra wins that a player’s team achieves beyond that which they would have achieved should that player be replaced by a merely average one. The advantage of a statistic phrased in this way is that it accounts for position variability. This means that the abilities that allow an athlete to play a certain position effectively might inhibit their batting ability. But what makes baseball so suited to such a calculation? Simply put, it’s that baseball is a very simple game. Every pitch has three basic outcomes: ball, strike or hit ball. If the ball is hit then it can either be a foul ball, a fly-out, a ground-out, a fielding error or a hit. A hit or error can lead to a single, double, triple or home run with there being further variability in terms of what happens to any potential baserunners.
Continued on page 30