The Oxford Student - Week 3 Michaelmas 2022

Sport

The Sport section give the definitve preview for Men’s Football College cuppers

Comment

Rose Henderson is glad you didn’t get a spring week: Oxford’s infestation of corporate greed

The

Entertainment

Mayhem at midnight, Charlie Bowden reviews Taylor Swift’s new album

Michaelmas Term, Week 3 | Friday 28 October 2022

OXFORD STUDENT The University of Oxford’s Student Newspaper, Est. 1991

Read more on page 3

Matt Holland Deputy editor

R

esidents of Exeter College’s Cohen Quadrangle have been left “disgusted” and “let down” following revelations of a Cockroach infestation in two

communal kitchens and at least five different student rooms. This is according to internal emails seen by the Oxford Student which revealed the sequence of events as they played out.

Residents had originally been told by Exeter College that the

communal kitchens on the first and second floor would be closed for the few days of Freshers Week owing to an “ongoing maintenance issue”. This meant students were forced to share the third floor kitchen amongst as many as 90 students.

Following this, students were informed that the “unforeseen maintenance issue” would be disrupting the kitchens until the 17th October at the earliest. Students were then offered a 60% discount at both the Dakota Cafe in Cohen Quadrangle and Exeter’s main

Anti-semitic comments made at Oxford Labour and Femsoc joint event Kesaia Toganivalu The Oxford University Labour Club has issued a public statement, in the wake of anti-Semitic comments made at one of its events.

Comparisons were made between the Royal Family and Hitler, as well as an attendee stating that all Jewish people are white.

The university club has also suspended social events until mandatory antisemitism training is carried out, and an internal inves-

News Correspondent

tigation is concluded.

The event which took place on Tuesday 18th of October was a collaborative event with the Oxford Feminist Society, held at Balliol College, University of Oxford.

The main motion for discussion was ‘Should the Queen be held responsible for her colonial rule?’.

Chairing the debate was the Social Read more on page 5

“

They stated that the 60% discount was not adequate compensation consindering that the infestation had spread to student bedrooms.

“

Exeter College’s Cohen Quadrangle Affected by Cockroach Infestation

dining hall in their Turl Street site.

However, once residents reported seeing cockroaches in student rooms, the College informed residents on the 11th October that the “maintenance issue” was in fact a cockroach infestation in the air vents within the first and second floor kitchens. This statement also called on students to ensure “bins are emptied frequently” and that “no food items are left uncovered overnight”.

As a result of this revelation and the discovery of cockroaches in as many as 5 student rooms, residents began to contact the College directly. They stated that the 60% discount was not adequate compensation considering that the infestation had spread to student bedrooms, whilst demanding a reduction in their battels payments. Battels payments at Exeter had already risen by as much as £200 this year.

Exeter College responded to students, offering replacement rooms to residents who had discovered pests in their rooms. In addition, their statement also suggested that pest control was called in immediately, stating that they treated “this as a priority”.

It remains unclear just how the infestation will be dealt with owing to its scale, while some students have refused to pay their battels until further clarity is granted on the situation or a reduction in fees is granted.

- Matt Holland, Deputy Editor on Exeter College Infestation

2 | Editorial

Friday 14 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

MICHAELMAS TERM 2022 EDITORIAL TEAM EDITORS IN CHIEF Jason Chau and Dominic Enright ASSOCIATE EDITOR Anna Davidson and Blane Aitchison CREATIVE DIRECTORS Yii-Jen Deng, Andrew Wang and Elias Formaggia

DEPUTY EDITORS Ayomilekan Adegunwa Adi Kesaia Toganivalu, Chris Collins, Anmol Kejriwal, Ciaron Tobin, Dani Kovacs, Emily Hudson, Joe Sharp, Jonah Poulard, Matt Holland, Milo Dennison, Susie Barrows, Anvee Bhutani NEWS Ayomilekan Adegunwa Adi Kesaia Toganivalu, Chris Collins, Adi Kesaia Toganivalu, Anna Lee, Anvee Bhutani, Blaise Mcnestry, Charlie Aslet, Ciaron Tobin, Matt Holland, Rose Henderson, Sam Kenny, Samuel King, Sarah Raza, Tim Green, Abigail kneely COMMENT Anna Lee, Ali Khosravi, Ciaron Tobin, Harrison Gates, Samuel Kenny, Matt Holland, Rose Henderson PROFILE Anmol Kejriwal, Ayomilekan Adegunwa, Charlie Aslet, Lay Mohan, Samuel King.

FEATURES Anna Lee, Anvee Bhutani, Charlie Aslet, Ciaron Tobin, Dani Kovacs IDENTITY Anmol Kejriwal, Ebrahim Osman, Emily Hudson, Siddiq Islam ENTERTAINMENT Carla Messinger, Coral Kim, Duoya Li, Jonah Poulard, Susie Barrows FOOD & DRINK Duoya Li, Jonah Poulard, Nina Holguin GREEN Katie Hulett, Milo Dennison, Siddiq Islam SCITECH Emily Hudson, Nicole Hasler SPORT Dani Kovacs, Joe Sharp, Matt Holland OXYOU Milo Dennison, Susie Barrows, Alex Foster COLUMNISTS Joe Wald, Blane Aitchison, Dania Kamal Aryf, Coral Kim Joe Sharp, Lay Mohan, Nina Holguin

@theoxfordstudent

issuu.com/theoxfordstudent

Y

es, I’m back. Back with this column. Back with this paper. Back with the Wednesday lay-in crunches and Friday prints. Back with the repetitive Oxford gossips and politics. In many ways, this university feels very static and perpetually familiar. Old traditions persist, old habits die hard. Yet, there is excitement in the air.

This term, Dom and I are lucky to be joined by an amazing group of editors and writers, old and new faces alike, ready to deliver the best news stories, commentaries, features, satire, and of course, investigations

I write my second editorial for the Oxford student having created one of the more weird front page photos to appear in the paper. I hope you enjoy this week’s edition as much as I enjoyed editing it, as there is some really good work in here. I particularly enjoyed the Entertainment pieces, although the columns go from strength to strength. The team has been working well together and we hopefully will have some events planned in the near future like Journalist panels. Please do come along as it’ll be fascinating insight into journalism.

In other news, I got thrashed 10-0 in my football game, so I didn’t read this week’s men’s football cuppers preview. While, I am sure that the

to our readers. OxStu is going through some big changes, from our structure to our events and outreach, and we can’t wait to share the many things we have been cooking up soon. We will go wherever the story takes us – that is the ethos of our paper, and that is what will guide us this term.and Elias in particular who have been the backbone of the paper and make sure it runs. You will undoubtely hear me sing their praises more as term goes on.

With that said, I want to thank the heroes of OxStu this week - Milo and Susie for putting us on a good start for MT. Huge thanks to Yii-Jen, Anna, Blane, Ayomi and Ciaron and the rest of the team for the hard work.

And last but least, Dom, my partner-in-crime on this wild and eventful ride.

Editor’s Picks

Comment Oxford’s Disability Service compared to US Schools

Sport

Mayhem at Midnight: a History of Taylor Swift’s Album Rollouts

Men’s Football Cuppers Preview

23

St Antony’s College.

Gen Z What Does Your Halloween Costume Say About You?

From the Editors

I once again want to thank the whole editorial team: Jason, Anna, Yii Jen, Chris, Milo, Susie, Ayomi, Ciaron, Emily, Anmol, Joe, Jonah, Anvee and Dani. The list goes on and on. However, the paper would genuinely not work without you and you deserve to be praised to the rafters. I want to say a particular thank you to Blane this week who has stuck it out with me, and renewed the Gen Z section. An OxStu Stalwart, I hope you remain in the paper for a long time.

Dominic Enright

St. John’s College

8

Entertainment

Jason Chau,

St. John’s football team will only go from strength to strength, this was not our finest performance. Being my Fourth college football team, I have been a mercenary in times past but hopefully, in my new college team things I will settle down.

It seems that despite being many times richer, St. Benet’s- Regents would give them a run for their money.

@theoxstu

I

was walking down the High Street the other day and thought to myself “I can’t believe it’s already third week!” I’m not entirely sure how almost half of the term has gone so quickly, but I suppose it must be true when they say that time does fly when you’re an amazingly talented editor and columnist for the best student newspaper ever. A few articles that I really enjoyed reading this week included Matt Holland’s article about Exeter College’s cockroach problem, Anna Lee’s assessment of the quality of Oxford’s disability service compared to those available in the US, and rather predictably, Blane’s Style Files (my long-running column), which is back on page 29 with an abhorrently judgemental piece about Halloween costumes – enjoy!

Yours, stylistically early but fashionably late,

31 29

A

Blane Aitchison,

h week three, my eighth favourite week. As the days get darker, and you pick up your fortnightly copy of the OxStu to tear up and start fires with, I hope this issue can provide you with some interest and excitement to push through the coming weeks. Everyone on the team has worked extremely hard, from commissions and lay-ins to trekking all the way to the Head of the River for a gossip and pint. I’m hugely grateful to everyone on the editorial team for their imagination, talent, dedication and ability to stay on Facebook messenger for all hours of the day, and very proud of the work they do. Do enjoy this week’s issue - Taylor Swift is on page 24, for those of you not looking to waste your time - and let us know what you think!

The Queen’s College

Wadham College

Anna Davidson,

The Oxford Student | Friday 14 October 2022

editor@oxfordstudent.

Contents

Comment - p. 7

Profile - p. 14

Entertainment - p. 23 Scitech- p. 26

Gen Z - p. 29 Sport - p. 31

Write for us!

Illustration: Jonas Muschalski

Join our Facebook Contributors page, QR Code above

News | 3

NEWS

@TheOxStu

News - p. 3

Features - p. 12

The Oxford Student

oxfordstudent.com

Union Secretary apologises over handling of Access Social

Samuel Kenny Union Correspondent

Columns- p. 16

Food & Drink - p. 25 OxYou - p. 28

Identity - p. 30

U

nion secretary, Matthew Dick, apologises for his role in hosting their “Socioeconomic Social”, an event in collaboration with the 93% club on Saturday 22nd October, on the same day that members of the Apollo University Lodge, a fraternal group colloquially known as the Freemasons, were scheduled to meet at the Randolph hotel. This is the second time a “Socioeconomic Social” clashed with an Apollo Lodge meeting. This comes after a Hilary access event in which a large number of Freemasons were at the bar after one of their meetings.

On the day of the event, there were four men in white tie visible at the bar, where the Social had moved, although it can not be verified that they were Freemasons.

The Freemasons of the Apollo Lodge are fully matriculated male students of Oxford who promote freedom of religion and speech, but also believe in a Supreme being, and “show demonstrably good characters”. Several Union committee members are known members of the Freemasons, including Senior Librarian Dr. Tim Myatt and several

of the past and present returning officer team.

The club dinners, which cost £45, are held at the Randolph hotel twice a term and are often followed by drinks at the Union Bar, where the members attend in black tie, white tie or lodge uniform. The Lodge has in the past warned the Union on when thier events may be, and their website publishes these dates. This resulted in discontent expressed over the sight of men in white tie appearing at the “Socio-Economic Social” which was advertised as a way to “pay tribute to people from non-traditional socioeconomic backgrounds”, as per the Social’s Facebook page.

In response to the controversy, one governing body member of the Union told the Oxford Student: I’m disappointed it happened again (organisation of access social on day of Apollo lodge meeting) when we vowed it wouldn’t in Hilary [Term].

93% Club put trust in us which we let down, and the Society seriously needs to reflect how important a priority Access should be, and how members would understandably

react when we only host one socioeconomic social a term.”

He also added that, “Members have understandable frustrations, but I’m keen to focus on the Society making improvements and dealing with challenges appropriately”.

The 93% club also responded, telling the Oxford Student that: “We are disappointed in the Union for not doing due diligence in organising the collaborative access social. This clash previously created an unwelcoming environment for our 93% club members; it’s a shame that this has happened for the second time in the past year.”

During the Union’s standing committee meeting on Monday, there were several debates between Union officials over who is to be held responsible for the incident.

The President of the Union stated he was “unaware” of an external event being held, while the Senior Librarian, Dr. Tim Myatt, said the Union Bar had in fact “prepared” for the Freemason’s arrival. Myatt is a known member of the Freemasons.

The Socioeconomic Officer Connor Egan reported that “four white tie

men were seen loitering in the bar for ten minutes” after the socioeconomic social had been moved there from the Goodman room on the joint approval of the Socioeconomic Officer and Secretary. The officer went on to say that “no one complained” about the men at the time of the event but that there were people unhappy afterwards.

Prior to the meeting, the Oxford Student obtained excerpts of internal private messages of Union members while organising the event, in which the Union Secretary wrote “I am a Freemason” and “I will crash the social this year.” Given this information, the Oxford Student asked the Secretary of the Union Mat-

thew Dick to clarify these comments, asking whether someone can address the accusation that the secretary ‘joked’ about ‘crashing a social for working class students in white tie’.

In response to this, the Secretary said, “Over the vacation myself, the Director of Communications, and the Chair of the Consultative committee had a group chat where we would talk about scheduling events.

4 | News

Anti-semitic comments made at Oxford Labour and Femsoc joint event

Kesaia Toganivalu

Friday 28 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

Cont. from page 1

News editor

(Cont) for the Oxford University Labour Club and the President of the Oxford Feminist Society. Multiple students who were in attendance have spoken to The Times describing the discussion. One student stated “During the debate, several very clumsy and in some cases deeply insensitive comparisons to the Holocaust were made, this culminated in a speaker claiming that all Jewish people are white.

When questioned on this the speaker denied that they had said this and suggested that what they had meant to say was that white people find it easier to relate to Jewish people than to people of colour. This denial of Jewish heritage was disturbing to witness, and went unquestioned by the event’s chair.”

Another attendee reported that “One of the chairs made a speech endorsing the platform Jeremy Corbyn ran on, a speech was made in response praising Corbyn’s economic and social platform, though acknowledged a failure to deal with the antisemitism within the party.” This at-

tendee stated that the Oxford University Labour Club Social Secretary proceeded to continue to praise Corbyn, in spite of the accusations of antisemitism being brought up against the former party leader.

Former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, had the whip removed in 2020 after asserting that claims of antisemitism within the party had been overstated.

In a statement issued by the leadership of the club, condemning the anti-Semitic comments, the Co-Chairs said: “[…] As co-chairs we are committed to ensuring that OULC is a safe, welcoming space for all. On behalf of the Oxford University Labour Club we recognize and are deeply sorry for the pain that was caused in 2016. Alongside the current leadership of the Labour Party we are dedicated to eradicating the evil that is antisemitism and will not rest until we do so.

Under no circumstances will antisemitism be tolerated.”

In 2016, the club was hit by allegations of institutional antisemitism with the na-

tional Labour Party triggering an enquiry. The report of this enquiry was not released in full but was later leaked to the media.

An insider within the Oxford University Labour Club, and former committee member, told The Times “OULC has faced anti-Semitic incidents in the past, so for the club it is all the more important that we acknowledge that and ensure that it never happens again. What happened [on Tuesday] went against everything the club should stand for. The ignorant remarks reduced the evil realities of antisemitism to something trivial. This should have been called out as soon as the remarks were made.”

Commenting on the fact antisemitism training had not happened yet this term, they said: “OULC committee goes through antisemitism training every term delivered by Campaign Against Antisemitism. Members of the club who are not on committee are also encouraged to attend. This term, the training didn’t take place as it normally did at the beginning

for week 3, due to logistical issues. I am pleased that OULC has since paused all social events until this takes place. OULC should never again become a place where antisemitism is allowed to go unchecked. Anti-Semites are not welcome in the club, and I am glad that the cochairs have taken immediate action.”

Multiple members of the Oxford University Labour Committee were present during the event, including one of the co-chairs. The event finished, and no condemnation of the remarks were issued at the time.

In a statement given to The Times, the Union of Jewish Students said “We are disappointed to learn that offensive remarks about Jews and the Holocaust were made at this event and that the event’s chairs did not challenge those remarks. We appreciate the swift action OULC has taken and hope that they continue to take steps to ensure that their spaces are safe for Jewish students. UJS will continue educating students at Oxford and across the country about the dangers of antisemitism.”

The Oxford University Labour Club were contacted for

Jessica Kaye

Under section 4.2 of the license agreement – the only legally binding agreement between the college and students – the college is legally obligated to provide heating. Students did not feel as though this was being honoured.

Students were reminded of the cost of living crisis, the rapidly increasing energy prices and the college’s plans to conserve energy in order to have the option of selling it back to the grid. Members of the college were also told to limit their use of microwaves and remove personal storage heaters.

This news came after students faced a 9.5% increase in rent compared to the previous year, with no additional financial support.

In comparison, students at Christ Church who have a household income from £27,500-£42,875 are eligible for a 25% subsidy on accommodation and food. Students whose household income is less than £27,500 are eligible for up to a

50% subsidy on accommodation and food. Christ Church has also not turned off the heating available to students.

After the email was sent, the college held a town hall style meeting on Tuesday, 18th October. During the meeting students were invited to put questions to the domestic bursar, senior academic tutors and the head of the works department. Students questioned the legality of the actions taken by the college and were told that the license agreement they had signed did not entitle them to heating despite the wording of the contract saying that ‘during the Licence Period [the College] undertakes with the student … to provide electricity, heating, lighting, hot and cold running water to the Accommodation and the Common Facilities.’

When students asked about provisions for those with illness or long term conditions the domestic bursar replied that students could get in contact if they had special requirements.

When students then told her that they had repeatedly got in contact with multiple people multiple times, the domestic bursar said she had not seen the email and could not reply to all her emails all the time.

Students also questioned why it had taken two weeks since the start of term for the college to inform them of its plans, the domestic bursar told students that “we are communicating”, adding that the college was following university recommendations despite the absence of such heating restrictions in other colleges. After consider-

able debate and pushback from the attending students, the College backtracked, saying that the heating would be turned on at decided times throughout the day from ‘next Monday’. Students then asked if the college could be trusted to keep their word, to which the domestic bursar replied with ‘well we’ll see on Monday’.

In an email sent to students on Wednesday 19th October, the Master of College reiterated the promise, confirming that heating will be turned on.ideas and breakthroughs needed to solve some of the world’s biggest

Chaos in Town Hall Meeting at University

U

niversity College has been forced to U-turn over an initial decision to turn off heating throughout the college accommodation after initially telling students they will not turn on the heating until at least Monday 24th October.

As temperatures drop students have been questioning why the radiators in their rooms are not working. Subsequently, in an email sent to students on Monday the 17th of October, the domestic bursar of University College told students that the college has ‘elected not to put on the heating’ while the October weather ‘remains mild’.

There was no clear indication of when the heating would be turned on in the email. According to https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/oxford/ historic?month=10&year=2022 temperatures in Oxford reached as low as -1 on the 11th of October 2022.

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

Union Secretary apologises over handling of Access

News | 5

Oxford University holds public event to promote road safety Dominic Enright Editor in Chief

Cont. from page 3

Oxstu News team

(cont) been aware in the past that Freemasons have crashed an access event at the Union”.

The Secretary also stated that earlier in the group chat he had mentioned encountering a Freemason event in London and as a joke, said “Now I have inside knowledge of how it works.”

The secretary went on to say “In hindsight, I can understand the upset this [has] caused and I am very sorry this happened, and in no way did I intend to crash an event I had organised.”

In a separate response to the Cherwell, one Committee member said, “[Matthew] is in no way a Freemason, which made this joke particularly funny. It was understood at the time and in the context by everyone in the group chat to be a joke and is still very much seen as [a] joke.”

Responding to this controversy, Jenni Lynam, Co-Chair of the Class Act Campaign stated,

“Spaces in which people like those that both the 93% Club and Class Act represent are so important to foster a sense of inclusion and comfort. To undermine this is extremely

harmful and demonstrates a total lack of attention and care to a community whose place in Oxford has always been contested”.

When asked to comment by the Oxford Student, the Oxford Union replied:

“The Oxford Union held an Access Social on the afternoon of Saturday 22nd October 2022.

The event was held in the Gladstone Room between 2-4pm.

The event was well received and a great way to share more about how to get involved in the Union. Our Socioeconomic Officer received no complaints about how the event was run.

There was no ‘Freemasons meeting’ taking place at the Union. Some members opted to wear black tie for a debate that took place that evening, with some choosing to enjoy the rest of their evening in the Members’ Bar. The Union welcomes all members from all backgrounds to take part in the many events that the committee has worked tirelessly to put together.”

T

According to a report by Cherwell, the Union is planning to issue a formal apology that has pledged that an incident of this nature will not happen a third

he University of Oxford held a public event to promote road safety which took place in Radcliffe Square on Wednesday 19 October between 11am and 3pm. Organised by the University of Oxford, the event was open to all – members of the public as well as staff and students.

The road safety event demonstrated Oxford University’s support for the Oxfordshire County Council’s Vision Zero programme and its aim of cutting deaths and serious injuries on our roads to zero by the middle of the century. It provided guidance and information to help keep more people safe on their journeys, however they choose to travel.

There will be an HGV that people can climb into, to help them experience how hard it can be for lorry drivers to see cyclists around their vehicle. Thames Valley Police and

University Security Services were present with stalls offering advice on road safety and cycle security, and visitors were also able to get their bikes marked as part of the Bike Register anti-theft scheme.

Local cycling groups Broken Spoke Bike Coop and Cyclox were also be present, providing tips on cycle maintenance, carry out minor repairs, give information on the best cycling routes and promote opportunities for safety training. They will be joined by e-scooter operator Voi and other organisations from around Oxford’s travel community.

Along the way to the Vision Zero target, the Council targets a 25% reduction in deaths and serious injuries on the roads by 2026, and 50% by 2030. The Vision Zero commitment was first tried in Sweden in the 1990s; since then it has proved successful in many European cities

and it is now being introduced by numerous UK local authorities as well as Oxfordshire.

In recent years, road deaths in the county have remained steady at around 25 a year, and the Council aims to make inroads into that number with a combination of policy changes, better speed management, new cycle infrastructure and wider changes such as the introduction of 20mph speed limits on many roads.

The event came as a response to the deaths of Ellen Moilanen, who died near Oxford Parkway Station on 8 February, and Dr Ling Felce, who died on The Plain on 1 March which made national news. As part of the policy, the Council has developed a number of targets to achieve no deaths by 2050 including greater road safety education and training.

tion was 84.9% and the turnout was 60.2%. Staff also voted yes overwhelmingly for action short of strike in both ballots. Strike dates remain to be determined.

However, Universities are very unhappy by this decision and fear the disruption it could have on higher education.

A spokesperson for the higher education regulatory body in England, the Office for Students, said: “We are very concerned about the potential impact of these strikes on students. It cannot be right that students face further disruption to their studies, and we would urge the employers and trade unions to work quickly so that any industrial dispute does not materially affect students.”

This dispute - between Univer-

sities and their staff - goes back many years.

Universities UK (UUK), an organisation representing 140 institutions, said universities would try to reduce the impact of any strikes on students and other staff members.

The Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), which represents university employers across the UK, proposed a 3% pay increase for staff this academic year, with 9% for those on the lowest pay grades.

But UCU members want a pay rise to take the rising cost of living into account - much like unions in other sectors which have pushed for strike action in recent months. Inflation - the rate at which prices rise - is close to 10%, the highest level for 40

years. That means workers’ living costs are rising faster than their wages, leaving them worse off.

In the pay-and-working-conditions dispute, the UCU wants staff to receive a 12% pay rise, or Retail Price Index plus 2%. It also wants to address “dangerously high workloads” and scrap zero-hours contracts.

The pensions dispute is about a valuation of a pension scheme called the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), used by academic staff. The UCU says the valuation is flawed and could lower members’ guaranteed retirement income by 35%.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “The vice chancellors who run universities have repeatedly and in a coordinated fashion

come after our members. Well, now it’s 150 bosses against 70,000 university workers who are ready and willing to bring the entire sector to a standstill, if serious negotiations don’t start very soon.”

At Oxford, UCU strikes have not taken place since Hilary 2021 A spokesperson from Oxford University commented ““The University notes the outcome of the national UCU ballots in favour of industrial action over the national pay settlement and USS. We understand the concerns many staff have on pay, as well as on pensions. We also have a duty to ensure our education and research activities continue as far as possible and will therefore have contingency plans in place to minimise the

UCU votes for strike action in historic ballot Anvee Bhutani

A

total of 70,000 UCU members at 150 universities voted in two separate ballots - one on pay and working conditions, and another on pensions.

The results in both ballots saw historic results from staff across 147 universities. This is the first time a ballot by any education union has passed the legal threshold of 50% turnout across the country - enabling it to call a national strike - rather than in individual universities, which would have allowed only staff in those institutions to strike.

In the pay and working condition ballot, the yes vote for strike action was 81.1% and the turnout was 57.8%. In the pension ballot, the yes vote for strike ac-

6 | News

Research shows strong support for Oxford traffic filters

Anna Lee

News Correspondent

A

ccording to YouGov’s Citybus new survey, Oxford residents support the installation of traffic filters in the city by a margin of almost two to one. Out of 249 respondents, 60 percent supported traffic filter installation measures and 31 percent opposed the proposition. 10 percent of respondents did not express an opinion.

Respondents answered the following question on the survey: “Six new ‘traffic filters’ are being considered which are designed to reduce traffic levels across Oxford, making bus journeys quicker and walking and cycling safer. When they are operating, most private cars will not be allowed through without a permit.

All other vehicles including buses and emergency services will be allowed at all times. Having read the above, would you support or oppose such a measure?”

Traffic filters aim to cut traffic flow along busy routes by preventing motorists from using them without a permit. The proposed Oxford filters would be enforced by automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) cameras, with £70 fines imposed on those breaking the restrictions. Permits will be given to blue badge holders and health and care workers. Some groups of Oxford residents will also be able to apply for a permit for up to 100 days a year.

Some of the goals of traffic fil-

ters include, but are not limited to: making transportation more efficient, creating safer travel conditions for residents without cars, and reducing emissions.

Oxford City Council gathered data in 2019 showing that the transport sector was responsible for 68 percent of nitrous oxide emissions. Diesel cars contribute 33 percent of emissions, whereas buses contribute 32 percent. Although the City Council projected a decrease in emissions from Oxford’s buses, there was no data on diesel car emissions.

Traffic filters also aim to reduce air pollution. According to

the Oxford City Council’s latest Air Quality Annual Status Report, traffic levels increased by 14 percent on main routes in and out of the city. There was also a 14 percent average increase in nitrous oxide emissions compared to 2020. While current pollution levels are lower than pre-pandemic levels, the rise in pollution “highlights the need to take urgent action to prevent a return to previous levels.” A 2016 study released by the Royal College of Physicians connected exposure to air pollution to cancer, asthma, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other health problems. These health problems can cost more than £20 billion each year.

As Oxford’s population continues to grow, so does the number of diesel cars. Oxfordshire Liveable Streets predicted that up to 42,472 cars could be on Oxfordshire roads by 2031, along with higher projections

Friday 28 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

for housing development projects. Community groups in Oxfordshire and The Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel (CoHSAT) called for new measures, including traffic filters.

Traffic congestion has caused buses to slow down, which can impact how and when Oxford residents get to work. In 2019, buses were 1mph slower than that of 2012, due to an increase in private cars on major roads.

Since many Oxford residents rely on quick bus travel, there has been a push for prioritizing bus travel over private cars.

With these new 2031 projections, traffic filters aim to reduce the number of residents who use private transportation by encouraging bus transit.

The other question in the survey, which asked whether respondents supported “plans to expand the Zero Emissions Zone. . . where higher pollut-

ing vehicles pay more,” received even more support. Out of the respondents, 69% supported the plan, and 23% opposed them.

The County Council originally outlined the proposition for the Zero Emissions Zone in the Central Oxfordshire Travel Plan. The zero-emission zone encourages residents to switch to low or zero-emission vehicles, make changes to residents’ travel habits, and to generate funding to support the transition to zeroemission vehicles.

YouGov Citybus carried out this survey on behalf of Oxfordshire Liveable Streets: an advocacy organization that uses innovative design, city planning, and transportation to improve the lives of Oxfordshire residents. The City Council Cabinet is expected to decide on the six proposed traffic filters by November.

Irish PM Martin to give Oxford lecture Sarah Raza

This year’s Romanes Lecture will be delivered by Taoiseach Micheál Martin T.D., the current Prime Minister of Ireland.

The lecture will be held in the Sheldonian Theatre on November 2 at 5:30 p.m. The title of the lecture is “The Centre Will Hold: Liberal Democracy and the Populist Threat.”

Micheál Martin was appointed Taoiseach in June 2020, and

has been leader of the political party Fianna Fáil since January 2011. Born in Cork, he attended University College Cork and earned a Bachelor’s degree as well as a Master’s degree in Political History.

The Romanes Lecture is the annual public lecture of the university since 1892. It is given by a distinguished public figure who must be invited by the

Vice-Chancellor.

Previous lecturers include Dame Catherine Elizabeth Bingham DBE, Baroness Hale of Richmond, and Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller.

The Oxford Student | Friday 28th October 2022 Editors: Ciaron Tobin, Matt Holland, Anna Lee (Deputy), Rose Henderson (Deputy) comment@oxfordstudent.com

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Comment

Despite Brutal Crackdowns, the Iranian Protesters Give Me Hope

Ali Khosravi

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hen the English philosopher John Gray went on BBC Radio Four’s Desert Island Discs to talk about his life and his ideas he was confronted with the criticism sometimes made of him, that he is overly pessimistic and overly dismissive of other views.

To this he replied that he does in fact have “a clear, strong and its own terms ‘hopeful’ view of the world, not optimistic”. Because “there is a difference” he insisted. He explained that “an optimist is someone who thinks they can find strong reasons for a positive view of the human predicament. I think that the human predicament is hopeful because the very absence of such reasons evokes the best in human beings, which are: stoicism, self-assertion against fate and resistance to aspects of one’s environment”.

Those words have made me think ever since I have heard them. He poses a paradox that despite the world being in serious trouble, politically, economically, and ecologically, one could argue that that essentially ‘we will be fine’ because all these challenges bring out the best in us.

And recently I have been made to see what this argument may mean in practice by the current wave of anti-regime protests in Iran by the brave Iranian women, men, university students and even school children. These

protests have risen in reaction to ies of Qom and Mashhad (which the death of 22-year-old women, host famous Shia shrines) places Mahsa Amini, in custody of the where one could safely assume to Iranian dictatorship’s ‘moral- have been safe constituencies for ity police’. An example of ‘self- the Iranian regime in the last four assertion against fate’? A form decades. Unlike previous ones in of ‘resistance to aspects of one’s 1999 or in 2009 they no longer call environment’? You could say for reform of the system. Since that John Gray’s formula of 2017 the chants have included hope (but not optimism) can ‘Reformist or Conservative the be found in the streets of Iran. game is over’ which has coincided Thousands of Iranian women with the political purge of the rehave taken formists, effecto the streets He poses a paradox that tively creating since the despite the world being a single faction middle of in serious trouble... one one party state.

September to could argue that essenprotest police tially ‘we will be fine’ At the time brutality, the of writing mandatory (22nd Octohijab laws which have been in ber) the protests have entered place since Iran’s 1979 revolu- its fifth consecutive week. tion that gave birth to the present Despite showing remarkable theocratic dictatorship. Chanting bravery, the odds are stacked ‘Death to the Dictator’ as well against the protesters. The Iranias ‘Zan Zendegi Azadi’ (mean- an state has an estimated 360,000 ing Women, Life, Freedom) strong security apparatus which they call for nothing short of is not afraid to arrest and torestablishment change; the over- ture dissidents or shoot protestthrow of the regime which has ers. The notorious Evin prison, so systematically discriminated where political prisoners are held, against them for so long. One is reported to have been busier could call this the beginning of than ever, before parts of it were a feminist revolution, in which caught up in fire on 15th October. women and men protest together.

Yet the despite the continuing These protests are more geo- crackdown, the protesters should graphically and socially diverse give us all hope. Their current prethan before. They include protests dicament is far from optimistic as in the notoriously religious cit- the Islamic Republic is unlikely

to be overthrown any time soon. in the summer of 2021) was But the future simply belongs to once seen as the groomed sucthem. The Islamic Republic faces cessor. Yet he has proved hima serious demographic challenge. self uniquely incompetent and Even with rough estimates, we inarticulate, at times seeming can see that roughly around to struggle to string up a coher73% of the country’s popula- ent sentence in his native Farsi. tion is younger than 44 years It isn’t clear how much further old meaning that they know no the Islamic republic can sustain other political system than the its regime of control and coercion. current theocratic dictatorship. Faced with a younger, more radical And yet they are no longer as and defiant population, it would compliant and def- erent as have to test the loyalty of its forces their parents’ genera- tion who and demand them more and more lived through the 1979 revolution brutal crackdowns. Yet the harder or the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. they may try the more radical the The current protesters comprise population gets and the more they of women and the so-called Gen- recruit for a currently leaderless eration Z. You opposition. For Despite showing could say that some time, milIran’s TikTok remarkable bravery, lions of Iranians generation show- the odds are stacked have reached the ing the world same conclusion that they will against the protest- reached by those ers. no longer tolerwho lived under ate being told the Soviet Unwhat to do by the clerical ion before its eventual fall, telling gerontocracy that rules Iran. themselves “We cannot go on livAnother serious challenge fac- ing like this”. ing the Islamic Republic is the And for those reasons and more, health of its 83-year-old ‘supreme the predicament of the brave proleader’ Ayatollah Khamenei. testers in Iran may not be immediWith reported ill health, there ately optimistic but is increasingly are questions of a crisis of succes- hopeful! sion where no ‘suitable’ successor is in sight when the moment comes. The current President, Ebrahim Raisi (who came to power in a stitched-up election

8 | Comment

The Oxford Student | Friday 28th October 2022

HyperConnective Oxford?

Ciaron Tobin Looks at the Facebook Dominance of Oxford

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A medieval village where all are 22 mutuals on Facebook well connected, but they aren’t seen everyday strolling the small with Daniel Dipper. How is the root cause. stroll. A mutual I somehow have that possible, neigh how is it A common cause new freshers on Facebook, buys a lettuce in allowed? He is our JCR President, (like myself in younger years) the Tesco’s, the BNOC I snigger and I the Secretary, so if we are thought the issue lay in, was at Posh Nosh, or you the reader lenient and say 300 Magdalen- classism. The well-connected I don’t know walking past me as I ers are friends on the Zuck site Etonian, a write this article in with each of us. Add the com- many mutuals Oxford causes a rush the Rad Cam. We mon friends we have through I St Paul’s Cher- of blood, a fight or are always around guess the Student Union, and a well Journalist, flight to do the best each other; Facecouple University society circles or the Winbook merely conwork or socialiswe both travel in, we should say chester rower. firms this. maybe 500ish people should be Maybe it is cer- ing we can do in the Is this an issue for mere 8 weeks we the maximum of our common tain educational Oxford? Well, it have connections. But 800? It is a dis- backgrounds causes a blockage tinct feature of Oxford that we that cause the of your Facebook somehow not only use Facebook hyper-connectivity from day page from time to time, a couple on the daily, but also that we one? But again no, they may of comments along the lines of know or vaguely know so many insufferably scurry around col- ‘oh I think I have you on Facepeople together. leges, like a normal student chas- book,’ like a Pokémon has been One may say the hyper-con- ing a pot noodle, but they have caught, and a decent amount of nectivity of Oxford lays in these not made the Oxford of the day using messenger over your pre‘circles’ I and a key breeding place pubescent Instagram DMs. To others travel It is a distinct fea- for this plague. me it seems another harmless in. Hacks, ture of Oxford that The chronic feature addition of Oxford life. a term for we somehow not only of Oxford comes A positive is clear, Oxford those who use Facebook on the from small man’s makes us social. The most comare intensely syndrome. Even the mon experience I continually connected to daily, but also that humblest of Wad- hear from friends entering 2nd certain so- we know or vaguely ham students must year, is that their experience in cieties, such know so many people admit Oxford is ‘Ox- the Vac causes a return to silence as a journalford’. You and I un- most days; continual siestas, and together. ist Hack, a knowingly perceive a hibernation to equal a bear. OxUnion Hack, this place as a sprawl- ford causes a rush of blood, a fight and a Rowing Hack. Hack, hack, ing chasm of books, history, and or flight to do the best work or hack. These lot will be common the root of many inventions. The socialising we can do in the mere to your college or your time- place of Wilde, to Thatcher, must 8 weeks we have. Thus, having a line. You’ll see the results of the be seen as an originator of im- Facebook dominated by mutuals Summer VIII’s, the latest pierc- pact. So, once we strip away the makes Oxford a new home. A ing article, or the latest salacious gold of All Soul’s, the disgrace of place where we recognise faces treachery from these students. Oriel, the spires of Magdalen, we down the high street, a city that Fun fact, at a given moment a see Oxford for what it is. A small when we unmask it from its beauWadham 2nd year, a SU apparat- village. From my accommoda- ty is what we can call a friendly chik, and a friend of a debater, is tion in Magdalen, to the Greggs village community. We are the calling someone simultaneously on Cornmarket, a mere 10 min- village people. a hack in the 6th week of Oxford. utes is needed on a brisk Trinity So, is the hyper-connectivity due morn. So, when we see Oxford in to these miners of Oxford? No, Sartrian terms, then we return to they may be an easy target for the the primitive nature of Oxford.

POV: Oxford’s

Disability Assistance Compared to U.S. Schools Anna Lee

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tudent accessibility in higher but perhaps it feels much more education is a basic need. accommodating because of my Each student ought to have experience in the U.S. the resources they need to sucI can’t speak for all university ceed at the same level of their students in America, but accespeers, whether that be through sibility issues are clearly a naphysical assistance, technology tionwide problem. A 2019 report aids, or extra time on exams. from the National Center on ColThough universities across the lege Students with Disabilities world and stufound that barriers 70% of students dent groups are to campus access working hard with mental health and participation for disability disabilities did not included a general reform, there is receive accommoda- lack of awareness still a long way from accessibility to go. In the in- tions, only 20% of offices, services, terim, univer- whom said it was and campus comsities ought to because they didn’t munity members. learn from each want accommoda- It usually falls other to speed upon the student tions. up the process to inform faculty and make uniabout their disabilversity life as equitable and ac- ity, and to use a trial-and-error cessible as possible. method to find the right services As an international exchange on campus. student with a disability from the Student awareness is also a maUnited States, I was interested in jor issue. Mental Health Ameridiscovering the differences be- ca’s 2020 survey found that 70% tween disability treatment in the of students with mental health U.S. versus the U.K. While I’ve disabilities did not receive aconly been studying at Oxford for commodations, only 20% of a month, my experience as a disa- whom said it was because they bled student has been remarkably didn’t want accommodations. In better than I expected. There are the same study, many students certainly areas for improvement with disabilities expressed that in the Oxford disability system, they did not know they quali-

The Oxford Student | Friday 28th October 2022

fied for accommodations, or even what accommodations meant.

Oxford certainly shares many defects with the U.S. university disability system, such as the rigorous progress to find a suitable plan and with not all disabled students having the accommodations they need. However, I do think that some of their accommodations would be helpful for many students in the U.S. For example, the resources offered by the library - such as reservable booths in certain areas, access to more material than usual, and even just informing librarians - was rather shocking. I actually never considered that there should be accommodations in the library, though it’s a focal point in any student’s life. Needless to say, I feel much more

Much of Oxford’s property lacks space for wheelchair users... or even doors large enough to accommodate people with assistive equipment comfortable in the library and asking for help from librarians. By implementing a similar system in U.S. universities without those plans, I believe many more students could reach their full potential.

Furthermore, the wealth of support I received from not just the accessibility office, but disability officers, tutors, staff, and students has been a welcome surprise.

The prospect of being a new student or a fresher is nerve-wracking enough, compounded by the uncertainty of how disabilities are treated at a new school.

Oxford’s supportive approach to students with disabilities can make the transition less abrupt, encouraging students to reach out in the case of questions or emergencies.

Though I’ve had a lot of expressed support in the U.S. from community members, no one has ever initiated a conversation or introduced themselves. I mostly interact with the accessibility office through an online portal.

While I do prefer Oxford’s disability system to the U.S.’s in terms of psychological and mental assistance, I cannot say the same for physical accessibility.

Though I understand the importance of preserving history, it should not be at the expense of student navigation and isolation. Much of Oxford’s property lacks space for wheelchair users, elevator access to different floors, or even doors large enough to accommodate people with assistive equipment. In accord with the Equality Act 2010, there must be changes or adjustments made so that people with disabilities can physically access spaces that everyone else can.

Regardless of the flaws of the U.S. higher education disability system, I am extremely grateful that I have the opportunity for accommodations. My position as a university student is in itself a privilege, and in the U.S. and U.K. where pushes for reform are embraced, I feel safe providing some constructive criticism to these systems.

Hopefully, more awareness around this discourse across the world will be welcome soon.

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Sam Kenny Reports on Union’s first debate: Braverman pulls out

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corrupt, and unaccountable”. There was being the most diverse in history. Kwasi a controversial moment when a speaker Kwarteng was supposedly proof of social from the floor argued the “British state run mobility (a man who is also now out of the railways well in India” and India as a a job). whole was run “well” by the British state Richard Burgon (MP for Leeds East) to the gasps of everyone in the audience. spoke in favour of the motion. He outlined The opposition raised points such as the that the UK, as the 6th biggest economy government always run services “less ef- in the world, should not be allowing the ficiently” than private companies and that levels of poverty that are currently present. since the 1950s, 55% of rail lines have been Burgon alleged that 300,000 excess deaths closed down by national governments so caused by austerity are on Tory hands. clearly the government “isn’t reliable”. A More food banks than McDonalds, antiverbal vote was taken and while many in trade union laws, voter suppression and However, before the event, it was an- the room believed those in favour of the Gas and Oil companies making £2000 a nounced that Suella motion were louder, the second in profit.

Braverman KC was chair decided to rule in Tim Green (Senior Access Officer of unable to attend. The the UK, as the 6th big- favour of those against. the Oxford Union and PPE student of current chaos over The headline de- Regents Park College) spoke against the gest economy in the the mini budget an- world, should not be al- bate took place with a motion and argued that Suella Braverman nouncement suggest packed-out audience and Kwasi Kwarteng were both inspirathe government didn’t lowing the levels of pov- and speakers on both tions as politicians. Liz Truss represents want one of its main erty that are currently sides were acclaimed the third female Tory leader, to Labours present players, away from the to have spoken well and zero. Starmer is a liar after abandoning his action and needed her provided a very digni- ten pledges and the Tories have delivered to return to London. The Union’s Presi- fied debate. for the British people the past 12 years on dent Ahmad Nawaz stated the reasonJenny Grehan Bradley (History student immigration, the economy and Brexit. ing provided for Suella not being able to from Hertford) opened the Union’s first The proposition ended with a speech by attend was a vote in Parliament due to debate for the proposition (This house has Gina Miller on who the Conservative party take place at 4pm, many hours before the no confidence in His Majesty’s govern- truly listens to (rich donors like Crispin debate started. This evidently created a ment). Jenny made the argument that Liz Odey). She ended with impassioned plea spiralling effect with both Lord Adonis Truss has been catathat as the mother of and Andrew Bowie also pulling out of the strophic for the country ...he laboured on a quote children, she doesn’t debate. What was clearly a chaotic couple in only 5 weeks, she has by Piglet in A.A Milne’s want this government of hours for the Union members organis- abandoned the big state Winnie the Pooh that looking after them. ing the debate resulted in three students conservatism that Boris “no is a very big word” The opposition ended and Sir Desmond Swayne, the prominent Johnsons espoused, the with a speech, light in anti-lockdown Tory MP, replacing the financial market has no and that if the audiece tone, by Sir Desmond original speakers. confidence in her and had any ounce of confi- Swayne MP in which The emergency debate, prior to the head- her premiership has dence they should vote he laboured on a quote line debate on confidence in the govern- been defined by U-turn

by Piglet in A.A Milne’s in opposition ment, was whether “this house believes after U-turn.

Winnie the Pooh that we should nationalise the railways”. The Conrad Moe (His“no is a very big word” proposition side raised points such as tory student from Teddy Hall) opened and that if the audience had any ounce of the “railways already being de facto na- the debate for the opposition. Acknowl- confidence, they should vote in opposition. tionalised” and the current format of a edged things are clearly not going great, Clearly, they did not, as the vote, which state-enforced monopoly is simply “not citing Labour’s 30-point lead in the polls. was taken two hours after the start of the efficient”, “the railways should be brought Conrad’s main argument was the Tories debate, resulted in the house overwhelminto full public ownership”. The propo- have faced external events outside their ingly in favour of “This house has no consition also raised the point that most of control, these include the pandemic, a fidence in His Majesties government” the issues people accuse the government war in Ukraine and the crisis of inflation of could easily be applied to the private and energy costs. Conrad also drew attenfirms that run the railways: “Inefficient, tion to the current conservative cabinet t 8pm, Thursday 14th of October, the Union’s first debate took place that allows non-Union members to experience the Union for free. The motion for the debate, as it is annually, was whether “This house has no confidence in her Majesty’s Government”, which given the current political climate, was sure to be a contentious one. It had been announced that the renowned speakers in the debate for the proposition would be : Lord Adonis, Gina Miller and Richard Burgon and the renowned speakers in opposition would be Suella Bravermann and Andrew Bowie.

10 | Comment

The Oxford Student | Friday 28th October 2022

I’m Glad You Didn’t Get Your Spring Week.

Rose Henderson

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ow easy is it to sell your soul? creasingly obvious that in return for a through school, generally culminating in but they should value well-rounded indiWhether you’re a fresher or a re- high salary, firms demand your entire life. only three A-levels or equivalent, forces viduals who care about things other than turning university veteran, I’m This clearly benefits those who arrive at young people into choices they may not a fat salary and a 100-hour working week. sure you’re aware of the gilded highway university with set career goals. Applica- want to make. The vast majority of Eng- That’s who I want to be, and who I want of spring week to summer internship to tions for spring week programmes usually lish students stop studying key subjects to spend time with as well. It’s one thing graduate scheme. Careers service emails close in Michaelmas, and given how busy like maths and lanto have a friend that implore you to think of your future, buff your first term at university is, it makes guages at 16. Stuonly talks about rowIt’s one thing to have a your CV, and apply, apply, apply. Pros- sense that the majority of people who ap- dents are funnelled ing - another to have pects for the 18 year olds that genuinely ply had it in their minds before leaving into making their friend that only talks about one that only talks enjoy browsing LinkedIn have never home. But what room does this leave for learning more and rowing - another to have one about their summer looked so good. a first year spent explor- more narrow - and that only talks about their at Goldman Sachs.

Recruiters and firm ing other opportunities? it doesn’t stop when It can be hard to ...it is becoming inrepresentatives are Acting in student plays, you get to univer- summer at Goldman Sachs. avoid the corporate open about the way the creasingly obvious that joining the niche sport sity. trap. Career anxisystem works. Get on in return for a high sal- you never got to do at We have a generaety has plagued me, the spring week, get on school - even writing for tion of students who have been forced to concerned that my first year, where the the summer internship, ary, firms demand your a university newspaper narrow their academic interests, and now closest I got to networking was having entire life. get a very competitive - are all wonderful ways have to decide their corporate career path a class with some people that did E&M, and desirable job with to learn new skills and immediately. The results of this system are just hasn’t cut it. But a careers system that their business. At a remeet new people, but not desirable. It rewards students who are cuts you from the running if you make cent careers fair, for example, recruiters they don’t leave much time for applying fixed on a sole outcome and punishes those the mistake of being 18 years old and not from Bank of America were clear that to every law firm on lawcareers.net. who take the time to pursue the vast op- knowing you want to be an investment if you do not get a place on their Easter Many students come to university to portunities available to them. Days can be analyst is one that should be changed. programme, you are at a disadvantage in explore their opfilled with talks from Firms are prohibiting themselves from their internship application round. As for tions in life. I know world-renowned ex- hiring people with interests that extend The rapid narrowing of perts, a huge variety beyond making money and getting power. the actual job, they only recruit from their part of the reason I interns. Many other financial and legal chose to study PPE subject choice as you pro- of sports, all kinds The drive of some ruthlessly corporate firms operate in the same way. was because I wantof societies, a whole baby-faced freshers shouldn’t exclude gress through school...

If you are able to get onto this path, it ed to study a whole forces young people into range of musical op- the rest of us. Admittedly, internships gives you a clear route to the corporate variety of things that portunities, chances and spring weeks provide invaluable exworld - something that realistically many interested me - not choices they may not want to get involved in stu- perience. But in times of economic unto make Oxford students both want and will ulti- because I wanted to dent drama - and this certainty, this system creates even more mately end up doing. But this mechanism be Prime Minister. doesn’t even include panic. It’s an unreasonable arms race that for career ambition is flawed. It rewards Many students who come to study history, the academic life we are all privy to. places unnecessary pressure on students those with tunnel vision, and punishes or maths, or English, don’t necessarily Yet firms seem unable to see that their before they’ve even had their first collecstudents with a broad range of interests dream of going into academia. system chooses the people who start uni- tion. There is nothing wrong with the rest and goals. The exclusionary nature of apThis speaks to a wider problem with versity and immediately start acting as if of your life being unwritten. plications boosts demand for these kinds the UK education system. The rapid nar- their life’s ambition is corporate servitude. of jobs - even though it is becoming in- rowing of subject choice as you progress Maybe they enjoy hiring corporate robots,

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

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Features

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

12 | Features Editors: Ciaron Tobin, Dani Kovacs Deputy Editor: Anna Lee features@oxfordstudent.com

e h t s r e d n a G s e e r v u o t r u G F y m o Glo

: A V R NA

p o r u E

t s o m s e’

Patrick Groves

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hen Vladimir Putin’s ‘special military operation’ began, and the long amassed forces on the Ukrainian border were finally mobilised, studying Russian suddenly became strangely relevant, especially after how accustomed I had grown to it being considered a ‘niche’ subject. Amid the constant questions of ‘what does this mean for you next year?’ and ‘what about your year abroad?’, there were a few glimmers of if not hope, at least solidarity.

My tutorials swiftly evolved into hour long sombre discussions, nervous questions and most memorably, a toast to the future of Ukraine, washed down by Grey Goose’s finest.

This question of my now completely uncertain future, selfishly I know, nonetheless preoccupied me. My long held and overly romanticised visions of wandering the St Petersburg streets in which the writers I adored had lived and written, were extinguished upon the first tanks’ advance towards

Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kyiv. Unsurprisingly, travel to either what was rapidly becoming an active warzone, or to the country now waging the largest war in Europe in 80 years, was swiftly advised against. Nonetheless I did, and to an extent, still do, mourn the experience I never had.

After several months of idle procrastination and naively convincing myself that ‘this is a future me problem’, time inevitably triumphed, and I was left with just weeks to arrange plans somewhere with even just a few Russian speakers. And so, after hours of desperate internet scrolling and endless email chains, I settled on

Narva - Estonia’s easternmost city, notable for the historic Kreenholm textile factory, beautiful Baltic landscape and its wire-clad concrete investigation into Soviet Brutalism. The Russian border.

Reaching Narva requires dedication, a full twenty hours from doorstep to doorstep and demands the use of the majority of mankind’s solutions to long distance travel.

Weary, unwashed and somewhat disgruntled by the overly severe barks from the not-so-friendly train conductress (a delightful welcome to Estonia), I traipsed out of the vokzal, beautiful amid

Features | 13

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

? y t i c s u o i r a c e r p the communist-era plaza that followed, to meet Alexei, my future colleage at the Narva Art Residency and local ‘fixer’. To my surprise, Aleksei reliably informed me that the ‘Bolt’ app was the best way to get around Narva. And indeed, ranks of turquoise scooters line

every other street corner, frequented by the majority of Narva’s under 25s, united in their flagrant disregard for traffic laws and languid pensioners.

My cursory exploration of Narva bore comforting symbols of familiarity in the form of the infamous ‘Golden Arches’, a KFC and bizarrely, countless Sushi restaurants. When I later questioned Johanna, director of the residency and Narva local, on this peculiarity she provided me with the incon-

testable answer of “Because it’s good!”. Nevertheless, Narva is far more nuanced than any other European city I’ve visited, despite its surface level resemblance.

Road signs are in Estonian, yet advertising is in Russian. The architecture, for the most part, is discernibly eastern European yet its people speak Russian.

This impression of a dichotomous Narva was made all the more apparent when exploring the border itself.

love of ribalka, a hobby seemingly indigenous to all middle aged men in this corner of the world. They stand waist deep in the ice-cold current, puffing away on cheap cigarettes whilst the Russian border patrol boat lies deceivingly dormant in the middle of the river - a deterrent to overly keen fishermen. The Ivangorod fortress and Narva Castle oppose one another on their respective banks, the Estonian and Russian flags at full

“The brutal images of destruction with which we have grown used to seeing as a ‘Russian border’ are nowhere to be found.”

The concrete behemoth, arguably one of the most geopolitically important borders in Europe today, facilitating one of St Petersburg’s main European trade routes, is again contradictory. The brutal images of destruction with which we have grown used to seeing as a ‘Russian border’ are nowhere to be found. Instead, HGVs sit at a standstill over the serene Narva river. Narva and Ivangorod natives share their mutual

mast. Traffic is slow, but every few minutes another lorry trundles through.

Clearly, the naive belief in the efficacy of Western trade sanctions has only delayed this particular stream of traffic. A public cyclepath flanks the river while

typical depiction of Lenin, his arm outstretched towards Ivangorod, peeks its head over the parapet of Narva castle, a Soviet relic and poignant reminder of Russia’s proximity. A far cry from the BBC’s illustration of a Russian border…

Despite the almost arcadian beauty of landscape surrounding the border crossing, Narva is not however naive to the atrocities taking place elsewhere.

Though the war in Ukraine is a particularly delicate subject here, many of the interac- tions I have had with both old and young, conservative and liberal, have, on the whole, expressed condemnation of Putin’s ‘operation’. Pavel, a 29 year old microbiologist and Narva native, relayed his condemnation of the war to me one evening over a few beers, but in-

“Despite the almost arcadian beauty of landscape surrounding the border crossing, Narva is not however naive to the atrocities taking place elsewhere.”

Russian waterfront dachas, many proudly bearing their own Russian flags lie opposite. A

terestingly, was firm in his belief that though Putin had, as he put it ‘soshyel s ooma’ (lost his mind), he would ultimately never press ‘the big red button’.

Other members of the Narva community have even come together in heroic displays of solidarity with the Ukrainian refugees now crossing the border, with Johanna having housed over 300 refugees since the war began. A particularly tongue-incheek and somewhat abrasive Russian native, Sergei, commuted daily from Russia to provide aid and transport to the women and children arriving in Narva – a selfless act despite his poor-taste in humour.

Though the vaguely threatening Putinist rhetoric in June this year echoes this sentiment of Narva belonging to the same nationalistic sovereign ideal under which Ukraine has suffered for the last 8 months, Europe was equally quick to politicise Narva, with Ursula von de Leyen having publicly visited the residency only last week. The impression elicited from my time in Narva is however, of a city that is neither European or Russian. Instead, it lies somewhere in between, inimitable in this sense, and by the looks of it, destined to a future of vague affirmations of it being both Russian and European. That is, for as least as long as Putin remains in the Kremlin. As the Russian idiom appropriately states: рыба гинет с головы – ‘the fish rots from the head down’…

Photo image credits: Patrick Groves Illustration credits: Yii-Jen Deng

Friday 28 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

14 |Profile

Deputy Editors: Ayomilekan Adegunwa, Anmol Kejriwal Section Editors: Charlie Aslet, Lay Mohan, Samuel King oxstu.profile@gmail.com

How has no one done a feature film here in forty years

‘BREAKWATER’

‘Breakwater’ writer/director Max Morgan and producer Jemima Chen talk to the Oxford Student about what it’s like making a fulllength feature film at Oxford.

On a rainy Friday afternoon last week, I sat down with Jemima and Max to discuss their upcoming feature film, the first of its kind to be made by students here since 1982, when OUFF released ‘Privileged’, starring a young Hugh Grant making his screen debut.

Away from the pounding rain, we sat, all slightly damp, in the downstairs seating area of Society café.

Lay Mohan: “So, I’ve seen the Indiegogo page and the Instagram, but for those who aren’t familiar, could you summarise what ‘Breakwater’ is about?”

Max Morgan: The film is about this relationship between a young Oxford student called Otto and an older man who lives on the coast called John, and the film tracks that relationship from first encounter to friendship, to romance, to something darker. It’s about excavating the past we carry around as human beings, and how we contain it within ourselves, [as well as] self-denial and not letting yourself get quite what you want.

Jemima Chen: what I think was quite interesting is that Max has taken what starts of as perhaps a typical Oxford – themed story based on a young person struggling with identity at Oxford, kind of ‘Brideshead’-esque, which then gets completely flipped, and made a lot darker and removed from Oxford, which I think is establishing how our film is not your normal student film based in Oxford L: Guys, I can’t wait to see it.

Have you both always wanted to make movies, has that been something on your mind to do for a while?

J: Yeah it’s always been on my mind. Well, Max and I started working together to do drama which definitely had our whole attention last year - the film wasn’t on our minds at all. Obviously we had ‘Mojo’ which was our first project - like our child,

and then we had the confidence after ‘Mojo’, [so] we kind of started thinking about the longterm. As secretary of OUFF, I just realised the opportunities for film are huge. The thing with drama is that you’re quite limited to Oxford physically, but with film your reach is just unyielding and endless. Especially because we’ve had some incredible film-making alumni who went to the university, it would be such a shame to not tap into that. But also we were just like, ‘how has no one done a feature film in like forty years’, so that was kind of why we were thinking about film.

M: I mean I always thought that I was kind of the theatre purist, but doing a film and watching lots more films and speaking to people making films, it’s like Jemima said - the reach is just so much further. Theatre is something that Peter Brooks (wait, I’m not going to do a Peter Brooks analogy) but, you know, you walk into a physical space and it’s the theatre, whereas with a film it’s more of a project, something entirely new, I think.

J: We’ve mentioned this already before but Max and I have both worked in the industry a bit at a very low-ranking level and I think it’s really nice doing that kind of work to see how things work on a really large scale - that gives you the confidence to be like “Ok, I can do that on a much smaller scale” and also just the ambition to be like “I can do this, I don’t want to start from the bottom I can do my own thing and be in charge of my own project” and that’s so nice, and something the both of us really appreciate.

L: But in terms of process so far, how has it been - have there been any surprises, anything you didn’t anticipate?

M: Well, it’s been going pretty smoothly since and we’re back on

track, but there was a situation where our primary location burnt down.

J: Yeah, and it’s his friend’s gran’s house.

M: Yeah I mean it’s this kind of antiquated seaside home. I mean the whole thing is just so ridiculous.

J: No, I mean it was so bad because it was the prime location and accommodation so yeah, it was THE house.

M: It’s quite an old-fashioned house, I mean it was perfect, so we wrote the film around it.

BY LAY MOHAN

will it be ok by March’. We were really lucky we found another place and they’re super excited to let us film there.

L: How do you hope to look back on this film?

J: I hope I’m like Andy Paterson, saying ‘Oh, that was a [rubbish] film’ because I’ve made amazing films since then, but actually I don’t think I will because I think you will never forget your first ever feature film and I’m genuinely so sure this will springboard so many things in the future. It changed the lives of the people who did ‘Privileged’, even if they might look back on it and think “Oh we were young and that wasn’t our best film”, and I know ‘Breakwater’ will do the same thing.

M: I mean we have plans to distribute it via streaming platforms potentially.

L: Oh god.

J; I know, it was a good thing it didn’t burn down when we were filming to be fair.

L: Well yeah, definitely could have been worse. There was no one in there?

J: No, no one in there. There are these photos of the floors, completely burnt down.

M: So that was a big setback- we were trying to sleep eight people on that floor as well as using downstairs as the film location.

J: And it’s also like the delicate thing of being like ‘I’m so sorry your house burnt down, but also

J: Hopefully it gets picked up our main hope is at festivals , because the people at Netflix will go watch it at festivals if we get chosen for a festival - if we get picked up - but obviously that’s the hope. And if not, there’s another feature film called ‘Sticky Toffee Pudding’, who were telling us how the film had a weird resurgence in America - people bought it at Target and it went viral on TikTok- that’s the point of making it now, in 2022, it’s just so much more accessible- it can be on YouTube and it can get traction. But yeah with ‘Privileged’, it’s a record of all of these actors’ first moments on screen and who knows, even in 10 years time, even if it’s still not big, I’m sure the people on this crew will go on to do amazing things and when they’re big it’ll be an amazing testament.

M: There’s a Variety article about ‘Privileged’ and it’s like “it’s Hugh Grant’s best film, like it’s rubbish but it’s still Hugh Grant’s first film”. But also just making it worth watching is definitely our principal goal.

L: So it’s clear you’ve got a vision for what this film will do for the people involved, but what are you hoping the viewer will take away from the movie?

M; The film is about the struggle to forgive yourself and let the past dominate you, and I think the need for us all to revel in the present a bit more, to relish connection. We’re trying to portray Oxford in this wonderful light just as it is but also the slightly darker undertones of the Oxford student experience.

J: I don’t want it to be comfortable watching, because I think Max has written a script that requires a lot of attention to detail and anyone who watches it by the end should be affected. One of Andy’s biggest pieces of advice was that in the last fifteen minutes you should have no clue what is going on but you should really want to know what is going to happen.

Max: You’re watching two people who kind of love each other hurt each other in a way that is unsettling and should hopefully prompt people to think about how you relate to another person - how much of yourself you open up to that person and what happens when you close off so much that the floodgates are forced open.

J: It’s a bit scary as well. I like that.

Breakwater has just started casting. We look forward to seeing the film in cinemas in due course and wish Jemima, Max and the whole crew the best of luck on this momentous project.

Breakwater’s indiegogo page can be found at: https://www.indiegogo.com/ projects/breakwater#/

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

Profile

Profile | 15

of the week

Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith, poet talks with Samuel King about her poetry collection Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith is living the dream. Well, maybe not the dream but certainly a dream. She is a published author before even graduating with a degree from Oxford.

More specifically, her poetry anthology, Look How Alive, was published earlier this year to great acclaim.

pair in France. Look How Alive is preceded by her 2020 anthology entitled She Will Soar and her debut pamphlet Ugly Bird which won the New Poets Prize, judged by Luke Kennard whose own collection, Notes on the Sonnets, was awarded the Forward Prize last year.

Percy Bysshe Shelley managed to have Zastrozzi, his first novel, published during his last term at Eton and prior to his enrolment at Univ.

Before he came up, the Romantic hero also squeezed in Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire . To reach for a slightly more recent example, the right-wing pundit, Douglas Murray wrote and released Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas while in his second year at Magdalen – a book which Christopher Hitchens described as ‘masterly’. Hitchens’ autobiography, Hitch-22, records that his university compadre, James Fenton, was reviewing for the Sunday newspapers even before his 1970 graduation.

‘Seagull’ appears roughly three-quarters into the collection. Lauren said to me that this poem, which declares ‘you do not know grace, stumbling through the air / like a drunkard’, described the experience of a ‘northern working-class person in somewhere like Oxford’.

I asked Lauren to expand on her experience of classism in the city. Confined to a small accommodation block, Covid worsened her circumstances, as she explained to me that she was ‘lumped with people who were a lot different to me in terms of wealth and behaviour and would spend loads of money on fancy food’. Particularly difficult were Lauren’s French classes: ‘our French tutor just expected to understand all these allegories and Greek myths and talked to us in Latin’ - countering many claims of the liberalisation and inclusivity of the university.

Following this long precedent, I asked Lauren to describe the experience of having her poetry collection published and she said to me, ‘surreal and still surreal’.

I inquired into the mechanics of the anthology coming into being. ‘The whole thing came about in a very strange way’, she told me. ‘The publisher contacted me on Twitter after having read a small pamphlet I had published in 2020, messaged me saying “we really like your work” and asking if I would be interested in publishing a collection’.

Obviously, she said yes.

Most of the poems were written after Lauren rusticated from Lady Margaret Hall, taking a year out to work as a cleaner and au-

‘I felt out of place.’

Her poem ‘Emails’ appears on the page like a set of emails being sent between parties, complete with addressee names and subject headings. The situation slides from ‘the fact that you have missed classes and failed to submit work’ to ‘more work is required to make progress’ and ultimately, ‘you were removed from college in May’.

Lauren told me that the choice of form is designed ‘to convey a sense of powerlessness and being voiceless’. As some broader context to the poem, she talked about having to go see the crisis team

at an Oxford hospital. She commented to me that she has serious objections about how LMH handled the situation. ‘Without my consent, my parents were called, told to pick me up and I was told to leave, leave now’. Lauren

“I asked Lauren to describe the experience of having her poetry collection published and she said to me, ‘surreal and still surreal’” did not necessarily want to go home because of ‘tensions with family’ and it not being ‘a very good environment’.

Some comments which stuck in her mind as especially cutting were: ‘you are a

threat to our other students’ and ‘you’re going to be a distraction for people with exams’.

Lauren critiqued welfare provisions like alpacas or manicures as ‘very performative’. Her poem ‘A Touch of the Blues’, which has certain lines redacted, makes the same case. Things spiral from ‘failed to complete an assignment’ to ‘touch of the blues’ and ‘took his life’.

Lauren took inspiration from Raymond Antrobus, who published ‘Deaf School’

by Ted Hughes with the text redacted. ‘It translates the horror of reading that poem and blackout feels like a good method to convey something ineffable’.

There is one organisation without which Lauren would not have enjoyed the literary success she has so far achieved. Aged fifteen, after seeing a poster in her local library, she started attending a writing group called Hive.

‘I can’t sing their praises enough.’ Consequently, since going to that initial meeting, she has been working with the same writing mentor, Vicky Morris, also a poet, whose first pamphlet had just been published. Guidance about style or form often bleeds into life advice.

‘She knows my inner most thoughts’, Lauren said.

Lauren HollingsworthSmith’s poetry anthology, Look How Alive, is out now.

“choice of form is designed ‘to convey a sense of powerlessness and being voiceless’.”

TW: anti-Semitism, assault

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16 | Columns

Friday 28 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

This column is not intended to offer legitimate medical advice or psychological assistance. This column is meant to highlight the author’s opinions and personal experiences of navigating the complexities of our modern-day mental health systems, and to share what the author has found to be beneficial. For more information on professional mental health and psychological services in the UK, visit www.mind.org.uk. Likewise, the author has also compiled a list of accessible resources and reading material on her blog, via: daniakamalaryf.wordpress.com/mental-health-resources/

Dear readers, I hope this column finds you well – and I mean this genuinely.

I

t is safe to assume that we all have, at one point, received emails and messages with similar opening lines at a time when we were Most Definitely Not Well. Nevertheless, I hope you will eventually find my long-winded ramblings to be somewhat beneficial.

For those of you who don’t know: I’m Dania, former Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford Student (no, I will not shut up about this) back in Trinity Term Twenty-Two. I have now retired into the shadows of an “irrelevant finalist”, and embraced the peaceful lifestyle of a middle-aged lady going through her spiritual awakening. I like to think of this as an upgrade – from EIC, to Insufferable Columnist™ who finally gets to have a healthy work-life balance and an average of nine hours of sleep each night… what more could I ask for?! I honestly don’t even remember the last time I cried – and it’s actually incredible, MashaAllah!

I have often been told that I have a very cynical sense of humour, and a chronic tendency to overshare.

Although this has been a lifelong habit, I came to terms with a significant revelation in my early 20s that this behaviour is mainly because I am Autistic and ADHD! As I am sure, many at Oxford and across the globe, have also gone through similar experiences of being diagnosed in adulthood. The grief, confusion, relief, and anger – of witnessing your entire reality being shattered before your very own eyes, and then having to now re-construct this entire reality from scratch - can be overwhelming.

With a whimsical, weirdly-wired brain, and a mind as chaotic as my day-to-day life, I spent more than two decades not knowing a very crucial piece of information about

myself that I do now. I also now know a lot of important things about the world around me, and how I understand and interact with this world. Yet, most importantly, I have FINALLY been taught such essential, life-enhancing skills that I initially was not equipped with when I was younger.

What I also understand is: not everyone has the privilege to be taught these skills, or the opportunity to have these important conversations with their friends, families, or with a professional. So this is exactly why I am writing this column.

I think an important part about learning anything in general, is to ensure that your knowledge is accessible to everyone. Although I am still learning, and will always still have a lot more to learn, I have also realised how this knowledge has been incredibly helpful to a significant number of people in my life. I can only hope that by having a wider audience via this column, that it would also be beneficial to those beyond my own circle.

Our generation places a widespread emphasis on, “don’t be afraid to reach out for help if you’re struggling!” and that, “it’s okay to not be okay.” But not enough is talked about what happens once you actually do reach out, and when it heartbreakingly, does not live up to your expectations. If anything, there are multiple instances in which “reaching out” and being upfront about one’s struggles has the potential to only make things worse.

There are many feel-good stories about how, “I took a mindfulness course for 2 months, and it completely cured my anxiety!” or, “I paid a visit to the university counseling service and it changed my life!”, yet, not enough about the reality of how EFFECTIVE, ACCESSIBLE, AND LONGTERM SUPPORT, can be genuinely difficult to obtain. Or that misdiagnoses and misunderstandings by medical and mental health profes-

sionals themselves also happen very frequently. That waiting lists to see a competent therapist can take forever, and generally, how this whole industry is critically misunderstood (even amongst those who work within it), and critically underfunded.

Despite having significantly benefitted from therapy, I still think our modern-mental health systems are incredibly flawed and highly inaccessible. More frustratingly, a lot of our understanding surrounding ‘mental health’ and ‘therapy’, also places a significant emphasis on the individual responsibility to ‘cure ourselves’ and ‘become better’. When in fact, a lot of our collective suffering can be attributed to systemic failures, and structural inefficiencies. Especially as governments and corporations continue to chant out hollow encouragements of ‘self-care’ and attempt to ‘reduce the stigma surrounding mental health’, it is easy to fall into an unhelpful pattern of encouraging everyone to simply, ‘go to therapy,’ as short-term individual solutions, to long-term structural problems.

I would, however, still like to share all the meaningful lessons I have learnt, especially after more than a decade of navigating this very complex system that has somehow managed to pass me around from one professional to another, since the age of ten. I have been taught everything from breathing techniques which I then found to be completely useless, to “writing in a diary will help you process your thoughts and feelings!” as if I was not yet doing that already, and being constantly reminded how, “you need to fix your sleeping schedule, stick to a balanced diet, and socialise with people if you actually want to feel better!”

And yet, how was I supposed to ‘fix my sleeping schedule’ on days when I genuinely could not bring myself to get out of bed, or ‘stick to a balanced diet’, when I did not have the capacity to even stomach my food?

How was I to ‘socialise’, when I had unknowingly isolated myself from my loved ones by consistently ignoring them, simply because I did not have the energy to respond to their calls and texts, and that I have ruined some of my relationships because of my behaviour?

These were questions which often remained unanswered - at least partly; because none of the answers I received ever felt like they were providing me with an understanding of The Bigger Picture™. The string of professionals I have seen over the years, each offered me different solutions to very specific problems, which were helpful given the circumstances. But prior to my Autism and ADHD diagnoses, I often still felt just as lost and helpless as I consistently struggled to understand my existence in this strange and confusing world.

I learnt a lot of important concepts like, “I should be kinder to myself”, and how, “accepting myself does not mean accepting my bad behaviours.”

Although I agree with both statements and still think they are true, I spent many years groping in the dark and struggling to define what my ‘bad behaviour’ actually entailed.

Was I being ‘kind to myself’ even when I did not deserve it? Was I being ‘kind to myself’ by choosing to sleep-in instead of meeting my deadlines? Was I being too selfcritical when I over-apologised after making a simple mistake, or was I merely holding myself accountable?

These were always questions that both myself and previous therapists have found difficult to answer, especially because I was told that, “it all depends on context,” and that I would, eventually, have to figure it out on my own. What I have only recently learnt, is that being Autistic often makes it much easier to misunderstand such important ‘context’, especially when it comes to applying these principles on a day-to-day basis. It also makes it much easier to fall

into a habit of rigid, definitive, blackand-white thinking. This is a common trait shared not only by those on the Autism spectrum, but also by many who struggle with other types of neuro-developmental and mental health conditions, such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

In 2021, I was introduced to Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) after my Autism diagnosis, and for once, everything finally started to make so much sense. While DBT was initially developed by Marsha Linehan for those who struggled with BPD, these skills have been proven to be incredibly beneficial even for those who do not struggle with mental health conditions, and also for those who, like me, are Autistic/ADHD. In my case, at least, I have found DBT to be the most thorough, effective, and allencompassing type of therapy I have had the opportunity to sit through.

Of course, I am fully aware that I can only speak from personal experience, and that everyone’s experiences will ultimately differ!

Though, in general, what compels me the most to keep sharing what I’ve learnt is that I think DBT teaches such important life skills that I wish we ALL had learnt in school. The core tenets of DBT encourage being more mindful and validating, practicing ‘radical acceptance’, and learning how to be non-judgemental. DBT also places an important emphasis on effective communication, while improving one’s ability to problem solve, self-soothe, and to handle conflict and crises more appropriately.

Through DBT, I have also finally learnt how to no longer think in extremes. It made me understand that self-awareness (especially of my own flaws and shortcomings) is not antithetical self-compassion; In fact, it is integral to self-compassion, especially in learning how to genuinely respect myself and the people around me.

Go online for full article

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Columns | 17

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

The Art of Staying Over I

have always coveted my boyfriend’s hairbrush. It was the only thing that could salvage my ridiculously long, split-ended hair after sharing a cramped single bed with another human being and using shampoo that wasn’t mine. With this hairbrush, I didn’t need to tug even a little bit, let alone rip off worrying amounts of tangled hair - it brushed through effortlessly, sweeping away not only tangled clusters, but also that snug-yet-groggy feeling that arrived after having stayed over in a room that wasn’t mine.

My boyfriend, a fellow Oxford student from a different college, inhabited a room in a modern college accommodation building. En-suite, spacious and with huge windows letting in a generous amount of sun, it was a great single room.

Not everything about it was for one person, though. Take his set of shot and liqueur glasses, for example, from which we sipped port after I’d asked him if he wanted to be my boyfriend, and he’d an-

swered in the affirmative. Or his impressive projector and audio setup, which we used in evenings chilling out to k.d. lang and Tom Waits songs or watching episodes of Twin Peaks. And, not least, his even more impressive stock of oatcakes, of which I’ve consumed quite a few.

But chilling out in someone’s room for an evening and staying over are very different things, of which the latter involves a whole new set of challenges. Or so I’ve come to realise. Here are a couple: Squeezing into a tiny, college-provided single bed Struggling to remember to bring extra clothes and my toothbrush Standing on tiptoe to look into his mirror, which only answered to tall people Using the en-suite loo when the other person was in the room Deciding who got the desk and who sat in bed when we were revising for finals

By Coral Kim

As students, most of us are used to basically living alone, in various types of student rooms, unless you live in a shared house and cherish a very close, familial connection to your housemates (lucky you!). This is especially the case for myself, used to being so far away, for such long periods, from my family residence in Korea – a house that, at that time when I was visiting my boyfriend in that room, I’d never even been to yet. So you may imagine how the experience of sharing with another person living space, let alone a single student room, was new and frequently awkward for me. Different, too, but in a way more delicate and too elusive to explain just now. So I give you a brisk vignette instead, of the mornings in my boyfriend’s room.

I wake up. I try to see if he is awake, then hastily mould my bed head into a more reasonable shape. Given my hair takes longer to dry, I use the shower first while he ventures out to the shared kitchen to make us coffee. I struggle on tiptoes to use the mirror while

taking advantage of aforementioned hairbrush, I wonder why he uses such immense towels (apparently the towels I’ve been using all my life after showers are hand towels), I sip coffee and consume oatcakes while he’s taking his turn in the shower. It all takes a great deal of coordination and teamwork.

Declaring I have an essay to write and asking to meet at a library in the afternoon, I leave – he lets me out of the block, still in his dressing gown. I walk down the pastel tones of Holywell Street, slightly self-conscious in yesterday’s clothes yet not minding the breeze brushing them. I experience a peculiar, tingling sense of zest. It is a feeling I never experienced from staying in my own room, no matter how conveniently immune it is from the humdrum problems listed above. It is a warming blend of budding attachment, premature excitement at returning and the understanding that, in this city and country, I may have found a room where I am welcomed, (patiently) tolerated and even cared for.

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18 | Columns

Friday 28 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

The German Fresher I

t is a fact of life that some freshers are sillier than others. So it is in the United Kingdom and it is no different in Germany. There are subtle, superficial differences: in Germany, a first-year student is not a ‘fresher’ but an ‘Ersti’, making ‘freshers’ week’ ‘Erstiwoche’, ‘freshers’ flu’ ‘Erstischnupfen’, and a ‘silly fresher’ a ‘Verkackverrückterungeschickterersti’, or ‘Absurdi’*.

The broad concept, however, remains the same. Little bit too much, little bit too soon, a little too loud and a lot too silly.

My rebirth as a German Fresher was smooth and natural, like yoghurt, or Marvin from JLS. Since my first year at Oxford was COVIDcoloured, I was unofficially a fresher in my second year as well, and it remains the role in which I feel most comfortable. Never in that time have I considered myself, or indeed been considered, particularly silly, but my abnormally long period as a fresher has made me feral, which, combined with my German language inadequacies, have given rise to extreme and unprecedented levels of silliness.

The manifestations of my silliness are many and varied. I have made remarkable discoveries about what speaking a foreign language does to the content of one’s speech, namely that I catch myself saying the most phenomenally boring things. Of course, it doesn’t help that every German, upon hearing that I am British, asks me my opinions on either the late Queen or the new, late Prime Minister, neither of which I have an awful lot to say about in English,

let alone in German. But when my focus is not on what I’m saying but on the ‘Look, I’m doing it!’ of German conversation, I’m very happy to share with my flat the story of the time when I bought a pen three weeks ago, and the entire room (including myself ) is blown away by how lethally uninteresting I am.

It tends to take me about 60 seconds to get into a rhythm when speaking German, making short exchanges with staff in shops or bars quite difficult. Scouring the streets of Munich for somewhere that would develop camera film, I found a shop that was simply and aptly named ‘FOTO’ (photo). Indeed, these four letters were huge and freestanding on a ledge above the door, positively unmissable. Hopeful, I walked in, looked the stern lady behind the counter in the eye and just at the critical moment, right when it mattered, I completely forgot the word for ‘develop’.

It was exactly the word I needed and could not be substituted. This would not have been so big a problem had I not already been halfway through the sentence.

“Do you… do… photo?”

Pause.

“Yes, we do.”

I felt my entire being fold in on itself and push downwards towards the earth. ‘FOTO’ was now the last place in the world that I wanted to be, and I concluded the least successful interaction of my life with a nod

and a grunt and left the same way I came in.

Similar humiliation in the dry cleaners’ later that day; over the course of a short interaction, the owner justifiably lost almost all faith not just in my grasp of German but also in the possibility that I was capable of simple thought. Midway through a sentence, she gave up on informing me about what she was going to do to my coat and instead wrote the words ‘TWO DAYS’, large and capitalised, on a piece of paper and showed it to me while simultaneously shouting said words at me, slow and loud, in the manner that one might speak to a stubborn dog.

Another nod, another grunt; I picked up my receipt and my trauma, left my coat and my self-respect at the till, and left.

Further silliness has given me, and you, faithful readers, much to look forward to. I have enrolled in two university courses which I will begin next week: the first is a Plato translation class taught in German, and the other is an A2 Italian course.

Translating Greek philosophy into German, passing an Italian test that proves that I am not A1 (total beginner) but A2 (slightly less shit), having never read, spoken, or studied a word of the language before. This, in the country that is making me more socially awkward, irrational, and generally inept than I’ve been since infancy.

But there is, of course, a flip to every flop, and this coin has, as so many do, two distinct and converse sides. When I’m feeling chipper, then

By Joe Wald the German language lends me more boldness and resolve than I would ever be able to achieve in England.

The penny dropped only after a few weeks: I am not trying to convince every German person that I am German. In fact, in most cases, it works strongly in my favour if I make it clear that I am not. Because just as a fresher is forgiven their silliness, so an Englishman his extreme stupidity, simply by virtue of the fact that he is giving it a go with the odds stacked against him. Germany on a sunny day is a soft-play area for conversation, the language barrier a crash mat for all potential cock-ups and confusion, for arid anecdotes and lumbering awkwardness. With character flaws indistinguishable from linguistic ineptitude, I float on their breakfast blend of veneration and pity, and I am invincible. And so it becomes clear: as the towering waves of foreignness crash around me, my own self-image is my own worst enemy.

My German is improving at a crawl but my tolerance for humiliation is coming on in leaps and bounds; somehow, this feels like the more valuable attribute.

In the interests of avoiding a lawsuit, I should clarify that most of these words are not real or used by anyone (yet). (note to editor: is there any issue with using fake German words without explicitly stating they’re fake? Is it misinformation or does it not matter? The first two words are real, the following three are not real / not used)

Columns Columns

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

Columns | 19

Applications remain open for editorial and creative team for The Oxford Student MT22!

Vegetable/Chicken Spicy Coconut Curry (VG, GF, DF) Serves 3 This curry is perfect for the coming winter months. It’s quick to make and feeds and warms the soul after a long day of work. The recipe can be adjusted to suit a wide range of diets: spice level can be controlled with the number of chillies added to the curry paste, chicken can be added, and you can use a number of your favourite stir fry-able vegetables.

Some of the spices may not be a regular purchase for many students, but all of the ingredients can be found in Magdalen Street Tesco (little Tesco).

By Nina Holguin 5 kaffir lime leaves Rice for 3 people A lime

Method: 1) Put the curry paste ingredients in a blender and blend till smooth-ish. Set to one side.

Equipment:

2) If using chicken: in a pan with both oils, fry the chicken so it gets some nice colour, but not cooked on the inside. Take the chicken out of the pan leaving all the nice chicken-y oil.

Ingredients:

3) Add the 5 kaffir lime leaves and the two dried lemon grass sticks to the hot water.

Food processor/smoothie maker Big wok/pan A hob

For curry paste: Two baby red onions/one medium red onion 4 red chillis with seeds (the basic ones you get from the supermarket) 4 medium sized cloves of garlic A small glug of sesame oil A small glug of olive/vegetable oil A big teaspoon of ground turmeric A big teaspoon of ground ginger 6 pods worth of cardamom seeds

Other things:

3 chicken breasts (optional) A couple of handfuls of vegetables (my favourites are peppers, mushrooms and peas, but others could be baby corn, courgette, carrots or mangetout) 400ml boiling water A GF chicken/Veg stock cube 200ml coconut cream Three sticks of dried lemon grass A stick of cinnamon broken in half 1 star anise

4) In the pan with the oil, heat it up to a medium-high heat. Once the oil starts to smoke, spoon the curry paste into the pan and fry until the paste changes texture and becomes a bit oily looking.

5) Add veg (and chicken if using) into the pan and fry for a second. Stir the stock cube into the hot water, then add all of it to the pan.

6) Stir and add the coconut cream into the pan. Add the two halves of the cinnamon sticks and star anise. This will be quite wet now.

7) Leave simmering till it is a cream-like consistency (this takes about 20-30mins).

While the curry simmers, cook the rice, following the packet’s instructions. Once all cooked, serve with rice and a wedge of lime.

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Just scan the QR code below and follow the links to our application form.

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The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

Editors: Susie Barrows (deputy), Jonah Poulard (deputy), Coral Kim, Duoya Li, Charlie Bowden oxstu.culture@gmail.com

Worth a Second Look:

McDonagh’s In Bruges

Jonah Poulard

Enter tainment

M

artin McDonagh’s 2008 flick In Bruges is sure to entertain almost any viewer, unless for some reason it doesn’t.

Outstanding performances and chemistry from Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson ensure the film remains engaging in the midst of a deliberately slowmoving plot. While the great acting, very black humour and top-notch score certainly make a first watch time well spent, there’s a lot more there to be uncovered, and therefore it’s… worth a second look. See what I did there?

In order to really get into the good stuff of McDonagh’s masterpiece, let’s first turn our heads towards its setting: Bruges/Brugge depending on who you ask. Even Gleeson’s character Ken questions this, deeming their location “a bit fucking overelaborate”. Bruges is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Europe, as the film will tell you, and many of its central landmarks are in a distinct Gothic style, with gargoyles and spiky things (buttresses?) all over the shop.

This creates an imposing, almost hostile atmosphere for the plot to occur, and the immensity of the surrounding Gothic buildings provides a sense of ambivalence between them and the people around. A perverse feeling of powerlessness emanating from the stunning structures cloaks many of the film’s shots. This ties in to the central point of deeper meaning in the film, that of purgatory.

In Bruges begins in medias res, with the two Irish hitmen arriving, guess what, in Bruges, but it is soon revealed through flashback the reason they’re there. The pair had just

done a job in London, Ray’s first ever (Colin Farrell) but another one of many for Ken, where they were bid to assassinate a priest. In the act, Ray mistakenly shoots a young boy through the priest before being whisked away by Ken. Their boss, Harry, sends them to hide out, and again, in Bruges!

Due to the added casualty of the innocent child, they have been sent there to await further instructions. They don’t know the duration of their stay, just to be in the

hotel when Harry calls.

For them, especially Ray, Bruges is a liminal place, a foreboding entity waiting to cast its judgement upon them, sending them in one of two directions.

Besides the architectural aspect of the film’s aesthetics, the colour palette is also altered.

There are no bright, striking colours, simply the contrast be-

tween the two hitmen’s black overcoats, the dark grey and brick of the buildings around and the occasional yellowish hues of an old lamp. Watching the film feels muted in some respect, devoid of eye-catching flourishes. Exactly how purgatory is meant to be.

Every purgatorial allegory does of course also need its judge, jury and executioner.

This is Harry, the foul-mouthed cockney crime boss who’s played by Volde-

mort.

He is introduced gradually, first simply through his voice over a message, then his voice and mouth, then his voice and mouth and body. A classic dramatic buildup. Yet the expectations of some fearsome mafioso are subverted to an extent, Harry coming across as both dangerous but also a touch ridiculous in his constant f-bombs, erratic

gestures and “c*nt kids”.

It is then both the city and Harry, travelling over from the UK, who claim the responsibility of the characters’ moral judgement and deliverance. As Bruges is filmed under some sort of dulling filter, as is Harry.

The first time he’s on screen is one of the most remarkably and oppressively grey, muted shots I’ve ever seen. I’d grab a still of it if I wouldn’t get sued for copyright.

Imagery along these lines from medieval art is littered throughout the film, from gargoyles to portraiture. In the flashback of the boy’s murder he seen to be holding out a list of his sins, and the very next scene begins with the pair of hitmen looking at the diptych Death and the Miser, which depicts the exact same situation.

Elsewhere in the Groeningemuseum the audience are shown the Bosch triptych The Last Judgement as well as The Judgement of Cambyses, both clearly conforming to the themes of purgatory and judgement running through the film and pretty cool pictures too.

The genius of McDonagh lies in the gradual release of the characters’ backstories and the subtle significance of things like the architecture, colour tone and paintings that represent the topoi that provide the deeper level of meaning and intrigue to the film. On a first watch, it’s the Irish accents, “the Vietnamese” and “the alcoves” that may stand out, but when you take a second look the complexity and brilliance of the film really shine through.

24 | Entertainment

Friday 28 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

Mayhem at Midnight

A history of Taylor Swift’s album rollouts Charlie Bowden

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round the world on Friday 21st October, Taylor Swift fans mired themselves in the singer’s latest album Midnights, having been tantalised by short snippets of information about the record ever since Swift announced it at the MTV VMAs in August.

Promotionally-speaking, Taylor’s latest release was both a breath of fresh air and a return to form. In an era of surprise drops on streaming services, lead singles being given barely a week to breathe before the

whole record comes crashing down onto the market and album cycles lasting half a year at most, Midnights was traditional and subversive in equal measure.

Having helped to perpetuate many of these industry trends with the surprise releases of Folklore and Evermore in 2020,

both of which did not even have a pre-release single, and the short-lived focus given to her re-recordings of Fearless and Red in 2021, Taylor seems to have developed a pattern of promotion all her own. While fans scramble to analyse any nugget of information and cross-reference it with an absurd quantity of past statements, performances and events, she sits back and revels in her ability to spread the word about her music without lifting so much as a finger.

The alien approach of Midnights borrows from her own past eras and those of fellow stars. Swift announcing her new album after winning the VMA for Video of the Year is a move perfected by Lady Gaga over a decade ago when she, standing next to Cher in a meat dress with tears rolling down her cheeks, announced that her second album was named Born This Way. The gradual reveal of the tracklist via her TikTok series, Midnights Mayhem with Me, borrows from the late2010s trend of having fans ‘unlock’ song titles by streaming tracks or music videos a certain number of times; she has augmented this method for her own album cycle, removing the laborious work of the fans because, after all, there was no content for them to stream in order to unlock anything. Back in August all they had was a placeholder album cover and the number of tracks – thirteen.

Following in the footsteps of three of the four albums Taylor released over a twoyear span, Midnights had no lead-in single. For most artists this would be a risky move at best but given that Swift still managed to score a number-one hit on the US singles chart for two of these three single-less LPs it’s unlikely to be a major concern for her.

For Folklore and Evermore Swift would’ve been unable to promote them to a major extent anyway given the constraints of the pandemic, but the lack of insight into this introspective album’s sound prior to re-

lease feels more tied to theme and aesthetic than practicality in this case. To be fair, the last time Taylor extensively promoted an album prior to release, with extensive interviews, advertising deals, live streams, music videos and more, was for 2019’s Lover which did not pay dividends comparative to some of her other eras.

For the past few years Swift has made herself into something of a hermit, only rarely coming out to promote her works. Part of that is because she doesn’t need to do the legwork that characterised her early career anymore – people will listen to her music regardless of how much they hear from her before it comes out – and another part may be that, seeing the success that her lockdown albums achieved with little promotional force behind them, it doesn’t feel worth it to her at this point. It’s unlikely we’ll see another set of her Secret Sessions, where she invited her biggest fans to her house to hear 1989, Reputation and Lover before their respective release dates. She values her privacy over publicity – and rightfully so.

It’s notable that Taylor now seems to prefer one jampacked explosion of promotional material when she releases an album instead of a sustained cycle of announcements over a lengthy pre-release period. On social media recently she laid out a week of media appearances, music video premieres and social media partnerships to promote Midnights, and though she is also expected to tour the album next year it is likely that these few clustered days of publicity will be the most comprehensive advertisements for the record.

It is a common joke among Swifties that Taylor barely promoted Evermore after it came out, but this one-anddone strategy is commonplace in the world of music today.

It is very rare for any artist to have an album attain much commercial success beyond its debut week – you have one chance for the LP to peak as high as it can on the charts before it enters freefall, the same going for singles – and though Swift is obviously a massive commercial force in the industry the nature of streaming and easy access to new music means that Midnights and its songs will likely not peak higher than they will next week. Granted, it’s difficult to attain a spot higher on the charts than number one but for songs which debut lower on the charts it is unlikely they will have a postrelease resurgence. Not every song can be Sia’s ‘Unstoppable’ or Beyoncé’s ‘Cuff It’.

Taking a look at Taylor’s rabid fanbase, one peculiar element of promotional cycles seemingly exclusive to Swiftiedom is fans realising Taylor was hinting at a future release after the fact. She is wellknown for dropping easter eggs throughout her media appearances to keep fans on their toes and often these hints are unremarkable until the actual album comes out and the lines can be drawn.

A viral tweet posted on 20th October showed how Swift included some lyrics from Midnights in her acceptance speech when she received an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from New York University back in May, months before anybody even knew about Midnights. “I CAN’T STAND HER”, the tweet reads; Swift’s advertising antics seem to bring fans both delight and disbelief.

Taylor Swift has come a long way in the sixteen years since her self-titled debut when it comes to self-promotion.

Whether it’s a series of snake videos posted after a social media blackout or an album being dropped with only hours’ notice, the singer has

evolved into the ultimate promotional machine, varying her tactics just enough to keep fans guessing with each rollout.

The fact that she can still come up with innovative ways to broadcast her music to the world is a testament to the adaptability and credibility of Swift as a commercial product. She’s here

to sell and her fans will always be there to buy up whatever’s on offer, even if it’s a two-word Instagram caption. She can relax safe in the knowledge that success is assured for Midnights no matter what she does, yet she delights fans by still showing up for a few more interviews, a few more brand deals with Spotify and Amazon. She could become a Beyoncé – in fact she’s halfway there already with her recent rollouts – but she doesn’t ever want to truly let go of the fans who put her in this position.

With that being said, if Swifties somehow haven’t already been screaming this into your ear for the past month or so, stream Midnights.

Image credits: Yii-Jen Deng

Food and Drink | 25

FOOD&DRINK

Food od & Drink Food & Drink Food & Drink Food & Drink Food & Drink Food & Drink Food & Drink Food & Drink Food & Drink Food & Drink Food & Drink

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

Editors: Jonah Poulard, Nina Holguin, Duoya Li oxstu.food@gmail.com

Why Food TV Works

Our love for food goes past just eating

Nina Holguin

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’ve always loved watching food programs. MasterChef and Bake Off were, and still are, some of my favourite TV programs to watch. After each Oxford term, once I had arrived home after the four-and-a-half-hour drive, I would roll myself into a cocoon of blankets, and watch the latest MasterChef from beginning to end. It doesn’t stop at university either, as I write this I am watching a Korean Englishman YouTube video featuring Seollongtang, a traditional Korean bone broth.

I am not unusual in loving food programs as well. From TV competitions like Bake Off and food travel shows like the numerous Rick Stein ones, to the simple original video recipe cooking shows like Mary Berry’s, we seem to be a nation obsessed with watching food.

In many ways this doesn’t make sense. Food is something eaten and smelled. Of course, we use the other senses as well, most impor-

tantly sight, but I think I would know the answer if I asked someone whether they would rather watch their favourite food or eat it. Cooking guides aside, on paper it doesn’t make much sense.

However, other than the educational or travel aspect, I believe these programs tap into something rather unique about food. Context and culture are seemingly exceedingly important. We have made cooking and eating into something more than the acts themselves. It’s ritualistic almost, and it naturally

invites a communal aspect, and to partake in the watching of food preparation and consumption is part of that.

As jobs, society and convenience push us into a home environment where food culture and preparation are less emphasised, these programs potentially offer us an opportunity to participate in these food traditions.

We may not be able to watch our grandparents prepare a roast, but we can watch Mary Berry do it. We may not always have friends to eat with around a dinner table, but we can watch

mukbangs while we eat. There’s a catharsis, I think, to these programs, something deep rooted in us that links food with connecting with others, whether it’s familiar or foreign.

So, next time you watch a TV program, maybe you’re not only satisfying your craving for food, but equally feeding the soul, with all the comfort and nourishment this can bring. These programs are a consumerist answer to the destabilising food traditions and routines we have had in British society for generations. Maybe I’m thinking too much into this, maybe they are just fun to watch and that is it, but this is just some food for thought.

Image credits: Yii-Jen Deng

Cocktail Time: Caribbean Origins Jonah Poulard

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oday we’re talking about rum. Everyone loves rum, and the most classic drink utilising it is undoubtedly the Daiquiri. In mixology lore, the drink you’ll be asked when trialling for a swanky cocktail bar will always be the Daiquiri. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea. It’s an incredibly simple drink, containing rum, lime and sugar. They even have competitions to this day about who can make the best classic Daiquiri; I imagine there’s little variation there.

Many of you may be familiar with the Daiquiri’s bastardised cousins,

the strawberry and the banana or whatever. These are made in lacklustre fashion, often just rum added to a slushee mix. They may be quite tasty, but I consider myself above that rubbish. Here we are talking about the classic origin that inspired such beach bar staples.

The Daiquiri is likely named after an iron mine of the same name in south-eastern Cuba, where it was served to American mining engineers and military personnel who later took it to the US. Both Ernest Hemingway and JFK were well known to love the Daiquiri, although I wouldn’t draw any conclusion from that...

Somewhat ironically, Daiquiri is also a stone’s throw from Guantanamo Bay. Is it all adding up?

Probably not.

The Dak (as known amongst aficionados) is a crisp, refreshing and punchy drink perfect as a sundowner after a long day at the beach, or a protracted interrogation of an innocent Iraqi. Anyway, CIA war crimes behind us, let’s get into the recipe.

Whack into a shaker 2oz (60ml) white rum, 1oz (30ml) freshly squeezed lime juice and 0.5oz (15ml) simple syrup (1:1 mix sugar and water). Chuck plenty of ice in and give it a solid shake for around 10-15 seconds. Strain into a nice cocktail glass and enjoy.

Here’s one I made earlier (fig. 1).

Because the recipe for the Daiquiri is so simple, it’s a very difficult drink to balance. So let’s talk about limes. Limes, if you didn’t know, are smaller, cuter, greener lemons. In the UK, you might get Key limes from Mexico and the Caribbean, Persian limes and Kaffir limes from the Indian subcontinent. Key limes are the ones you want, they’re not too sour and have a strong juice yield. You can sort of tell the difference between your limes by the nobbliness of the skin. Smoother is better. Always feel your limes before you buy.

If you’re looking for literary inspiration, try Hemingway’s own preferred version. Same method and amount of rum, but with 1oz (30ml) grapefruit juice, only 0.5oz

fig. 1 ~ A delicious Hemingway Daiquiri made by the author

(15ml) lime juice and the same amount of Maraschino (an Italian cherry flavoured liqueur). It’s a bit more tart and definitely more complex on the palate, but just as enjoyable.

So, there you have it, the Daiquiri.

Happy drinking.

Cheers!

Image credits: Jonah Poulard

SciTech

26 | SciTech

Friday 28 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

Editors: Emily Hudson, Nicole Hasler oxstu.science@gmail.com

Introducing the James Webb Space Telescope

T

he James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has conquered headlines in the past year or so, capturing the public’s imagination with its hotly-anticipated launch, high-stakes aims and the technical innovations required to send humanity’s largest-ever space telescope into the cosmos.

Why do we care, as a society, so much about astrophysics? Space holds meaning for humanity. For many, it is their one link to physics, barring anything else, because all one needs to do to access the wonder is wander out on a clear night and look up. The sky today looks much the same as it did to the Romans, or even farther back, to the very first humans. Over the course of millenia, we have looked to the sky for inspiration, for explanation - many of us know our “star sign”, regardless of our opinions on astrology.

In this way, one gets a profound sense of time, upon staring into the stars, of how close we are to our own history, and how far away everything else in the universe seems to be.

And yet, we reach out. The edge of our own solar system is a lifetime away. The nearest galaxy, over a million generations (and that’s travelling at the speed of light).

In spite of this distance, we offer a grasping hand, an olive branch.

This is an essentially, exquisitely human quality. The JWST is yet another brush at the galactic dust, collecting the oldest light we’ll ever know and sending its secrets back down to earth to be unlocked.

Tales of space flight are, by nature, poetic. They are terrifyingly risky. They involve immense effort, collaboration and courage from a huge host of people. They transcend national borders and concerns because the whole is truly

more than the sum of its parts. The launch of the JWST is the culmination of a project first conceived in the 1990s, but beyond that, it is representative of humanity’s curiosity and determination to probe for the most fundamental truths in our universe. Before the Hubble had even launched, scientists at NASA knew that it would not be long before a Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) would be needed. As technology evolves, things that were once considered distant hopes, like walking on the moon, very quickly fall into focus.

However, there would be no Webb Telescope without Hubble. It is only through Hubble’s success that the idea of another, larger space telescope could be entertained; only through Hubble’s flaws that scientists recognised the requirement for a successor.

One of the most important parts of a telescope is its mirror. The same is true for telescopes in space.

These collect light from a wide area and reflect it towards the detector and in this way, swathes of space are surveyed. Another thing: anything we send into space must fit on top of a rocket ship. This limits size, and it limits weight. Evidently, the main challenge to overcome, if we wanted a telescope that could see deeper and more clearly than the Hubble, was mirror size, and hand in hand, the mirror’s weight.

It seems like an impossible question: how do we make something wide enough, light enough, and somehow small enough to be aerodynamic atop what is, essentially, a huge stack of dynamite?

Thinking about this is what eventually bore the hexagonal, segmented beryllium structure of the Webb Telescope’s primary mirror.

The trick was this: the mirror need not be in one piece, if you are will-

ing to have moving parts. This is quite the caveat, but it works, with the assistance of unfathomably precise motors. If the alignment is off by even a hundredth of a millimetre, the light will interfere and the mirror would no longer function as one, but multiple. It is apt that engineers, being artists here, chose the honeycomb.

The mirror is golden, because it needs to reflect light of long wavelengths (in the “red” area). There is a gap in the centre for the light to be detected: the queen, with her corona in perfect alignment with the sun’s own.

“...yet another brush at the galactic dust, collecting the oldest light we’ll ever know and sending its secrets back down to earth...”

Initially, the telescope was going to launch in 2007. In 2002, its name was updated to honour NASA administrator James Webb, who oversaw NASA’s first manned space missions through the Mercury and Gemini programmes during the presidencies of James F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Webb was a controversial choice for the renaming of the NGST given his leadership position during the lavender scare (in which the US government dismissed homosexual employees on a mass scale) from 1950 to 1952. Controversy resurfaced particularly in 2021, and remains to this day, though the decision was made by NASA in late 2021 to keep the Webb name, citing that there was insufficient evidence to warrant changing it.

In 2011, the project was very nearly axed altogether. Already, it was years behind schedule

and pathologically over budget: a financial shake-up at NASA left the JWST fighting for its place in future plans. Evidently, the project survived, and after years of refinement and re-checking, of pandemics and postponements, the telescope was ready to launch.

In 2007, the partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) was confirmed, the ESA’s primary contribution being the use of an Ariane V rocket.

The Ariane rocket took off on Christmas day, after almost two decades of delay, carrying precious cargo. But it all may never have happened: the JWST’s journey prior to launch was not without obstacles. It takes huge, unseen labour to make something flawless.

The smoothness of the primary mirror segments themselves, in a way, make a perfect metaphor for the project as a whole. I cannot state it better than Pulitzer prize winner Natalie Wolchover, in her article for Quanta magazine: “Its surface must be so smooth that, if the mirror were the scale of a continent, it would feature no hill or valley greater than ankle height.”

Such is the painstaking perfectionism that has gone into the manufacture of the Webb telescope–and that is just one component. Like many things in physics, it is difficult to fully imagine, but one can certainly appreciate its vastness.

What is mindblowing is that this mirror was actually made, and is now hanging someplace in the sky.

The Webb Telescope is designed to overcome the main challenges we face at observatories on earth in order to see the very oldest stars in our universe. We know that our universe is expanding, and these ancient stars are accelerating away from us. Over time, the light they sent out gets “stretched”-- a phe-

nomenon physicists know as redshift. In astronomical terms, the age of light is considered in terms of its redshift, with redshifts close to zero being closer and younger, and larger values, ranging from 0.1 to over 1000 being older and farther. The largest value is 1089, that of the Cosmic Microwave Background – faint ripples from the Big Bang. The redshift range the JWST targets is between 20 and 100. This falls into the infrared (IR) category of wavelengths, and it is this infrared radiation that we experience as heat. On earth, our own heat renders us blind to these frequencies: how are we supposed to distinguish old, redshifted signals from similar wavelengths we emit ourselves? It is like throwing salt and sugar in the same jar and trying to tell them apart using only our own, unaugmented eyesight.

To escape earth’s own body heat, Webb hangs in orbit in such a way that both the earth and sun are aligned behind it, as it looks out into deep space. Here, with a tennis-court sized heat shield behind it, it cooled to the incredibly low temperature it needs to be to detect the faintest radiation from distant, long-dead stars. Webb’s journey is a tale of extremes: extreme cool, extreme age, extreme precision, extreme patience from an extremely large and dedicated team of people. It is beyond harsh, much like the vacuum of space itself, hosting arid vast wastes and violent nuclear reactions; stars spinning at incalculable speed, throwing out incredible heat.

No wonder, then, that it has captured the imagination of the wider public. It doesn’t take much to connect with these things. All you ever need to do is go outside on a clear night, take a breath, and look up.

Emily HUDSON

Improvement over innovation: are Apple’s latest products a letdown?

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pple products have long been marketed as tools for creativity, productivity, and a healthy lifestyle. But at this year’s Apple launch event, the message was a different one: Apple products are here to keep you safe.

The launch started with a video depicting how Apple Watches have saved lives by recognising when people were in

trouble and calling for help. The testimonies cover a range of situations people hope to never find themselves in, such as the watch detecting heart problems and directing people to the emergency room or helping a student avoid a bear attack. “From now on, I’ll never leave the house without it,” one testimony states.

The Apple Watch’s ability to make phone calls is a well-established feature, but Apple has now introduced new features to make customers feel safer in today’s shaky

world. Car-crash detection technology on the Apple Watch Series 8 and the iPhone 14 will automatically call emergency services if a severe crash is detected using the device’s barometer, GPS, and microphone. This feature aims to get people the help they need if they crash in a rural area where there are no witnesses to call emergency services. This is a worthy goal — about half of car crashes are estimated to occur in sparsely populated areas, and many involve single drivers, who may be

unable to call for help if injured.

In reality, there are some caveats to the car-crash detection feature.

For example, the iPhone and Apple Watch first need to receive signals that suggest you’re driving, such as being connected to your car’s Bluetooth, and you need to have travelled some distance before the crash. The GPS also needs to indicate that the car is on a road, which is why Apple claims some reviewer’s tests of this feature, performed on junkyards with old cars, were unsuccessful. These stipulations do

SciTech | 27

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

Proteins, pathogens, and plasmodia: the challenges in making a Malaria vaccine

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f producing a vaccine against SARs-CoV-19 was summitting Mount Everest, developing a Malaria vaccine was the race to the Moon. A complex lifecycle, multiple pathogens and the advantage of evolution has produced a disease that is tremendously difficult to treat and prevent. The severity and infectivity of Malaria has earnt it household recognition around the globe, and many ambitious researchers have attempted to relegate it to history along with smallpox, measles and

tested and an identical booster vaccination is given 12 months after the first vaccine is administered. The trial recruited 496 children aged 17 months to 5 years of age, 450 of which were screened to be eligible for the vaccination.

150 children were vaccinated with R21/25 micrograms MatrixM, 150 with R21/50 micrograms MatrixM, and 150 with a rabies vaccine as a control. By recording the number of cases of malaria in each group, the efficacy of the vaccine in each condition can be determined and

polio. Progress has been slow in this area owing to the intricacy and dynamics of the disease that this article aims to explain. Recently, a research group at the University of Oxford and the Jenner Institute published the phase IIb clinical trial results of their vaccine R21/ MatrixM, with hopes that it could provide worldwide relief for those in affected communities, as well as reach the WHO’s target of producing a Malaria vaccine with at least 70% efficacy by 2030.

R21/MatrixM is proving to be a potential candidate for large scale rollout within Malaria affected areas, having shown efficacies of 71% and 80% when 25 micrograms and 50 micrograms of MatrixM were

its effectivity can be measured.

Unlike many diseases, the pathogens that cause Malaria are not bacteria nor are they viruses, they are single eukaryotic cells called Plasmodia. The most common pathogenic strains of Plasmodium include P. vivax, P. malariae and P. falciparum to name a few. These single-celled organisms have complexity far beyond bacteria, and their reproductive cycle and cell structure are examples of this.

Infection mechanism Infection begins with the salivary glands of a mosquito, where fresh Sporozoites (the form the Plasmodium takes following release from an oocyte within a mosquito)

linger. Once the insect chooses a target and draws a blood meal, infective anticoagulant saliva is injected along with active Sporozoites. From here, the parasites infect hepatocytes (a liver cell) where they undergo asexual reproduction and develop into Merozoites, and are continually released. This usually takes place between 5-7 days as the parasite enters the exoerythrocytic stage. Some strains persist within hepatocytes, causing relapses in infection months or years later. The released Merozoites infect red-blood cells (RBCs), using cellular resources to replicate. Eventually these cells either proceed into gametocytes (the sexually reproductive form) or continue the cycle of RBC infection as Merozoites. At this stage, the full reproductive cycle is completed when a new mosquito ingests gametocyte Plasmodia.

Plasmodia evolve into different stages during the course of infection, assuming multiple forms with activities, capabilities and compositions that differ from one another. Successive conversions between stages of the parasite creates difficulty for the immune system: by the time an effective immune response can be mounted against one specific stage, the infection has been given time to progress and change.

Additionally, during the exoerythrocytic stage, Merozoites express a protein called Pf92 which can capture a protein found in circulation called complement factor H. This factor is involved in the recognition of the host’s own cells by the complement system – a collection of proteins which activate further immune responses and ‘kill’ pathogens. By stealing complement factor H, Merozoites disguise themselves as host cells, greatly reducing the human host’s ability to defend itself against the stage of development associated with clinical presentation.

raise some questions. What about users that don’t have Bluetooth in their car? Will the feature still work for them? And what if the remote road someone is driving on isn’t detected by GPS as a road?

Another caveat is that although this technology is being hailed as novel by Apple, it is not actually new — Google’s Pixel phones introduced a similar feature in 2019.

This seems to be a pattern in the “innovations” Apple has made in this year’s products.

Many of these allegedly new

features have been offered by competitors’ products for years.

Sleep stage tracking and heart rate zone estimation, touted by Apple as great improvements to the Apple watch, have been available on sport smartwatches from other manufacturers for a long time— often at a lower price point. The same goes for the option of multisport workouts, enhanced tracking of swimming activities, measuring stride length when running, and the option to customise workouts.

These are not new features, but

represent Apple catching up to competitors.

Some functions are indeed relatively new. The new iPhones have an Emergency SOS tool that can connect to satellites to enable calls for help if you’re lost in the wilderness without cell service, and the Apple Watch can measure an ECG right there on your wrist. But even these features seem somewhat out of touch with reality. How many users will feel a sudden wish to take an ECG on their watch, or get stranded on some distant moun-

Employment of a vast list of immune evasion tactics have been reported in the Malaria parasites.

Merozoites not only express Pf92 but produce proteins that are structurally similar to some human proteins. The immune system relies on cells being able to present protein fragments from pathogens that are different to any of our own proteins to prevent autoimmune responses. Protein mimicry makes this increasingly difficult as fragments originating from the parasite will have a lower chance of being structurally different enough to trigger a full inflammatory response. In addition, the ability to infect RBCs reduces the likelihood of having its proteins exposed to the immune system, as RBCs don’t express the key protein that would allow it to do so (MHC-1), and the infected RBCs are unlikely to be cleared by the spleen because of yet another collection of proteins expressed by the parasite: PfEMP-1, RIFIN, and STEVOR are examples of these.

tain that has no cell service but conveniently does have emergency rescue services to alert? Apple’s tools of the Steve Jobs era, such as GarageBand, seemed designed to empower people to create. In contrast, their newest selling points seem more like obscure features that most people will (hopefully) never use. Apple’s claims of innovation in the health-and-safety related features mask the relatively minor updates in other aspects of their products. The new iPhone will have a slightly better camera,

Vaccine development The combination of immune evasive tactics and progressive metamorphosis of the parasite forces vaccinologists to target specific stages of its lifecycle. Thus, they find ways of presenting proteins to the immune system that gives the best chance of preventing the accumulation of infective Merozoites in circulation. R21/MatrixM targets the parasite in the Sporozoite form, immediately after injection of infective mosquito saliva.

During this stage, a protein called Circumsporozoite Protein (PfCSP) is expressed that helps the parasite cross the host dermis and enter a hepatocyte. A large section the end of PfCSP is fused to the front section of the Hepatitis B protein HBsAg which is presented in the viral coat, making an entirely new protein that in theory allows the immune system to react imme-

diately to Sporozoite infection, eradicating the infection before it can replicate in the liver.

The second component of the vaccine MatrixM is not directly involved in the generation of Malaria immunity. MatrixM is an adjuvant, an ingredient that exaggerates the immune response from the active component of the vaccine by exposing the immune system to chemicals it has evolved to react to. Certain chemicals are essential to bacteria or viruses but not to humans; our immune system has evolved to recognise these molecules and treat them like infection markers, so defences can be mobilised before a pathogen-specific response is initiated.

Testing of this vaccine remains incomplete as of writing, and further research into its effectivity and potential side-effects will need to be conducted in larger future studies. However, this vaccine has made it further than many other vaccines developed previously, and if the efficacies reported during phase 2 trails prove to be truly representative of the vaccine’s effectivity, it can be considered a vast breakthrough in the prevention of Malaria.

The future looks bright for this vaccine, and while it might not be feasible to launch a full-scale distribution operation within affected areas for another few years while we await phase 3 trial results and investigate production and delivery logistics, this research group has proven that developing an effective vaccine is possible. Malaria continues to ravage the lives and communities of millions of people, but we must remain optimistic that there exists a future in which preventative measures stave off the catastrophic infant mortality rates we see today.

Harry WALTON Image credits: Veenusha Kirapakaran

an interactive lock screen, and for those willing to pay more for Pro models, improved performance. All in all, these are small changes, and the iPhone 14 isn’t much different from the iPhone 13. Apple’s ability to get customers to pay threeto four-digit sums for a product very similar to the one they already have seems to be relying increasingly on marketing rather than actual innovations. This year’s products are undoubtedly good, but they’re no longer great.

Nicole HASLER

28 | OxYou

Editors: Milo Dennison, Susie Barrows

The Third Year: Finalistus fatiguedus Elsie CLARK

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he quest for the Third Year (finalistus fatiguedus) is not always an easy one, especially for those fresh to the dark and dingy habitat of Oxford. This paper will attempt to outline some of their typical characteristics so that the inexperienced but intrepid might better appreciate this mysterious species.

Expert methods of camouflage make the third year difficult to tell apart from the recently matriculated explorer. These include lurking in hidden corners of the college library and sporting grotty clothes, often in inconspicuous shades of black, grey, or beige.

Third Years are also known to frequent environments hitherto unexplored by the fresher, in distant lands such as ‘Cowley’ or ‘Grandpoint’. This migration beyond Oxford’s epicentre experts have called ‘living out’.

Approach these residences with caution, for they are also inhabited by dangerous creatures known as ‘locals’.

OXYOU Third Year may not always wish to participate in the raucous and salubrious activities of their peers. However, this varies according to individuals. Some Third Years may still be found frequenting Bridge with regularity each Thursday. If you discover one in a smoking area, approach with caution and be prepared for them to reminisce at length on how their first Michaelmas was spent in Covid-induced isolation, only being allowed to escape for a pint as long as it was accompanied by a ‘substantial meal’.

Do not under any circumstances mention your age to the Third Year. Their instinctual reaction is to gasp in disbelief that university students can now be born in 2004 and complain about being old. Third Years are vicious predators. Each year, the job hunt drives finalists into a feeding frenzy as they compete against each other to win places on graduate programmes. Be prepared to be subjected to long and boring tirades on careers if you encounter a Third Year who is especially committed to ‘the grind’. Those who do not wish to participate in the bloodthirsty race to get underpaid at JP Morgan must be addressed with care. Do not, under any circumstances, ask them what they are going to do next year, as it may compel them to bolt.

For all their cynicism, at heart the Third Year is a fragile creature who can usually be won over with some friendly chat and the offer of a biscuit. Have no fear: next time you are in the college bar watch out for the traits mentioned above and listen with kindness. They may be a curious species, but are not as different as has been believed. After all, they were in your place once, and in the not too distant future you will be in theirs.

Friday 28 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

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INALISTS CELEBRATE TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF BEING A FRESHER Soon MINH

“It’s not every day you get to dress up and pretend you just matriculated into the world’s best university,” said physics finalist Dick Feynman, saying that he had gotten so drunk that he couldn’t remember his original matriculation so he might as well redo it.

Meanwhile, third year PPEist Yoo Neon Hak indicated that he was keen to relive his “halcyon days” by reenacting iconic first year moments, such as getting freshers flu, collecting freebies at networking events, and spending a whole two hours on his degree each week.

Yoo appeared to have found new reserves of energy and ambition, adding that he would “dust off his hopes” and submit his seventh bid for Union President.

Some, however, had a more academic interest in the anniversary celebrations. One researcher was reportedly amazed that undergraduates were still in the “honeymoon phase” of their Oxford degree well after Michaelmas term of first year.

SHELDONIAN THEATRE – Several finalists were seen outside the Sheldonian theatre on Matriculation Day, allegedly celebrating their two-year anniversary of admittance to the University of Oxford.

Dressed in full subfusc with mortarboards carried, but not worn, the finalists snapped BeReal photos of themselves posing outside the RadCam, eyes brimming with uncharacteristic optimism.

Unlike others of the Oxford student genus, the

“Frankly, it’s incredible that people are still processing the passage of time, instead of the days blending into an incomprehensible blur of getting shitfaced and pretending to have done work in tutorials,” said psychology DPhil student Nim Chimpsky. “Nevertheless, happy anniversary to all those who celebrate.”

At press time, the various faculties indicated that they would also be celebrating this momentous occasion by administering final exams.

Image credit: Matthias Rosenkranz via Wikimedia Commons

BEST OF THE ROAST Rordon Gamsay

BREAKING: CHERWELL PUBLISHES WELL-WRITTEN SATIRE

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or as long as Rordon can remember, Cherwell has tried and failed to introduce a satire section to its readers. Having seen the success of these Sunday roasts and OxYou’s role as Oxford’s most important newspaper section, successive editors in chief of Cherwell have tried to get in on the act.

Regular readers will remember that only last term Cherwell decided to say Oh Well to satire with their new aptly named section.

Yet now, against all the odds, they’ve done it. Last week Cherwell published what was arguably the perfect satirical article about the William Morris Spoons in Cowley. It perfectly took the piss out of Oxford classism and gently ribbed those Oxford locals who live in the depths of Cowley. OxYou extends a warm congratulations to Cherwell for discovering satire and can’t wait to see more of the same.

WOW: THIRD YEARS SHUT UP ABOUT MATRICULATING ONLINE As this year’s wave of freshers don their silly gowns and head off to the Sheldonian to be spoken at in Latin for fifteen minutes, reports are ripping through the university that third years have finally, finally, stopped talking about the fact they had to matriculate online. Back in the murky depths of October 2020, our present third years were not allowed to matriculate in person, but were instead treated to an equally exciting and significant ceremony: a YouTube livestream.

‘When I matriculated last year, the only thing I heard all day was second years telling me over and over how I was ‘so lucky’ to get to do this in person,’ one now second year told Rordon. ‘But this year the third years haven’t even let out so much as a peep about their collegebranded face masks.’ Rordon wonders if this has anything to do with the fact they are now suffering from Third Year Irrelevancy Syndrome, and have lost their ability to speak entirely. He wishes them all a speedy recovery.

CHAOS: COCKROACHES And no, we’re not talking about the leadership of the university! With the deepest sympathy for those affected, Rordon can’t help but laugh at the discovery of cockroaches in their accommodation. It brings back fond memories to Rordon of his second year accommodation living out in Cowley, when the pest control man (who turned up five weeks after the first sighting of insects) visibly exclaimed “it’s so big” (not something Rordon normally hears…).

Speaking to affected students one commented to Rordon, “Well at least it’s a source of protein – with prices the way they are at the moment I’ll take any free food I can get” while another simply said, “Yuck”. Rordon can’t wait to write more about this in four to five weeks when inevitably nothing is done about it.

OH NO: A HAIRY SITUATION Rordon’s been facing a bit of a headscratcher recently – no, not his week-

overdue essay (although that’s not helping), but he recently made a visit to Wadham College and hasn’t stopped itching ever since! He just can’t stop nitpicking over what happened – but he doesn’t want to let it ruin the lovely têteà-tête he had with a girl he met there.

Anyway, in separate news Rordon has heard that nits have been going around the university. Rordon extends his deepest sympathy to those affected, but is very grateful he hasn’t got them yet.

He’d love to report more, but he’d better go now – this itch is driving him absolutely nits… sorry, nuts.

SHOCK: TWO GIRLS, ONE LIBRARY Oxfesses have been flying around this week about people watching p*rn in the libraries. Rordon wants to make clear in the strictest possible terms that his recent visits to the Wadham and Christ Church libraries were completely unrelated. On a separate note, if anyone knows how to get Eduroam back after being blocked, please get in touch.

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

Gen Z | 29

Blane’s Style Files

GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE Blane AITCHISON EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z ummer is well and truly over GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN now, and we find ourselves Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE slap-bang in the middle of the EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z spooky season once again. One of N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z my favourite things about HallowGEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN een costumes is that they always Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE seem to reveal something about wearer, whether that’s delibEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z the erate or subconscious, so here’s N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z a quick assessment of your perGEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN sonality based on whatever your Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE Halloween costume is going to be EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z this year.

N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Classic Spooky Costumes Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z Examples: Vampires, Witches, N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z and Werewolves – you know, clasGEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN sic ‘monster movie’ type creatures Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE You’re a force to be reckoned EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z with who’s decisive, bold and not N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z to be messed with. Although your GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN costume may be on the plainer or Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE even clichéed side, you know your EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z presence and personality more N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z than make up for this.

GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN You might not have spent a lot of Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE time thinking about what to dress EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z up as, but at least you still dressed N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z up. And besides, you’ve hit exactly GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN the right balance between easy to Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE do and suitably spooky, so no one EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z can complain about that!

N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z Pop Culture GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Costumes Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z Examples: Celebrities, TV & Movcharacters, Singers, Politicians, GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN ie Historical figures, etc.

Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z BLANEGEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEAITCHISONGEN Z EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z N Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GE EN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z GEN Z

What Your Halloween Costume Says About You

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You’re a big time procrastinator who would much rather watch tv, have a chat or scroll through Depop than do whatever you’re currently supposed to be doing.

Instead, your priorities are closer to home, and you’re always there to help your friends when they need you.

mind boggles.

This could go one of two ways. Either you’re dressed as a universally known character, and everyone understands exactly who you’re supposed to be, or your costume is slightly too obscure, and nobody gets it. If it’s the first – great! If it’s the latter, then have fun spending the night explaining who you’re dressed as.

Ok, so which one of you came up with the idea and put 110% effort into their costume, and which of you are just going along with the plan for the sake of it?

Sexy Costumes Examples: Sexy doctor/nurse, Sexy nun, Sexy fireman, etc.

You’re confident and you love attention! You’re a natural leader who always knows exactly what to do when things go wrong, and you’re never one to shy away from a challenge.

Often joked about, these costumes are never taken seriously, but they do seem to have taken on a certain element of comedy in recent times. More traditional sexy costumes are being overlooked in favour of parodies like ‘sexy fish’, ‘sexy fruit’, ‘sexy lamp post’ and innumerable other incontestably ‘unsexy’ things made sexy. The

Group Costumes Examples: The Spice Girls, The main characters from Scooby Doo, The Plastics from Mean Girls

Group costumes can be really fun if done well, especially if you have a close group of friends. Where it might fall apart, however, is when you’re deciding who’s going to be who. One of the most vicious arguments I have ever seen was two friends arguing over who was going to be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, while the rest of the friend group looked on bewildered. Also, bear in mind that the overall effect of the costume is much stronger if you stay together throughout the night – a costume is for the whole Halloween party, not just an Instagram post!

Special Effects Makeup Examples: Things including bald caps, liquid latex, gallons of fake blood, or approximately 74 different shades of eyeshadow that can only be done by following a youtube tutorial video made by

a very smug-sounding American You’re a perfectionist, and you hold yourself to ridiculously high standards. You have loads of free time, because you start all of your essays the minute you get them, and when you do something, you make sure to do it right the first time!

SFX makeup is great if you manage to pull it off and at least you’ll probably get some good pictures for social media out of it, but is it really worth all the time and money you spent making yourself look like something that just crawled out of a grave? I know some people that look like that for free!

The Person Who Didn’t Dress Up No offence, but you’re kind of boring.

Whether you ‘forgot’ to get a costume, or you simply think you’re too cool to dress up (spoiler alert – you’re definitely not!), you’re almost definitely going to spend part of the night feeling out of place. Alternatively, maybe you did it to be meta, joking that you dressed up as yourself (or yourself from the future or yourself from the past). In which case, you are absolutely not funny, and I would be asking you to leave my house immediately.

Image Credit - Michael Morse via Pexels

Deputy Editor: Anmol Kejriwal Deputy Editor: Siddiq Islam identity@oxfordstudent.com

Identity

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

30 | Identity

Chloe Glynn reflects on coming out and the her relationship with herself

Lavender Languages

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or many students arriving in Oxford, it can cause a shift in one’s identity. University in general is a time to detach yourself from the identity you were given through your family and background. The idea of rocking up at your college plodge in freshers and being handed a key to a new flat, that you will have to share with strangers from a variety of backgrounds is an accepted catalyst for change. By now we have all seen the freshers guides to dealing with homesickness, living with people, and generally settling into a university. But what happens if you experience a shift in identity years after arriving in Oxford?

Upon arriving in Oxford, I was glad to settle in quickly, I got along well with my flatmates and never questioned who I was. It felt right to have moved out and that I was just going through a natural progression of life rather than experiencing an overwhelming change. My flatmates were all white, and as a mixed South Asian student, I had hoped to have met more people that represented that side of my identity.

However, Covid made it hard to break the household or even col-

lege bubble and I accepted my topilot until this summer. ‘girls house’. The girls’ house Once this past summer hit, I had was not always perfect, but I felt time to process months of student comfortable with them. On occa- politics and drama of Oxford life sion when questions of sexuality and my place in it. I enjoyed sumwould come up, a few people said mer away from the chaos of stuthey didn’t know or didn’t want a dent life and went back to being label. I stood adamant that I was able to be an imperfect student straight. I had to be- I had only rather than someone who felt ever been with men and the idea they had to put on a professional of viewing a woman in a romantic front. Without a front to keep up, way struck a sickening sense of I reflected on people who I had what I now know to be fear into met in previous terms that I had me. I enjoyed the Oxford dating genuinely enjoyed being around. scene, coming away with enough The people consisted of an interawkward stories to start my own national student who made me column and folfeel connected lowing a messy I am not sure where I to my family situation with an stand with connecting and oddly whole. objectively good and developing these She caused me looking Blue I two identities, but it to question my was convinced to might be time to just identity, as I chill out and busy accept myself. I also wondered if I myself with other must find a way to not was too white student societies. feel guilty. to claim to be For months, I mixed, yet not delved into Oxford life away from claiming to be mixed felt like I was my college, meeting some of the missing something. I reflected on most remarkable people. Work- the time I had spent with a lesing incredibly hard, I turned off bian couple and the way watching the idea of having a relationship them be together was far more and had no time for guys. I en- wholesome than anything I had joyed a couple terms with friends ever seen before. It wasn’t until and functioned emotionally in au- later in summer that I realised I

loved being around them because I admired, their openness and particularly one of the girls’ abilities to be entirely herself despite her quirkiness. One long summer, a gay crisis, more emotions than I have felt in my life, and a group chat purely devoted to the stress of just speaking to a girl I have finally come to terms with the fact that I am not straight. The intersectionality of being South Asian and gay has only made this process harder. I now battle with not only telling friends who have known me for two years that I was just entirely unaware of my sexuality and thought thinking someone is objectively attractive meant I found them attractive.

After being ‘mentored’ by the most iconic lesbian couple in Oxford I have come to terms with this new identity, and whilst I am absolutely terrified, there is an element of excitement to it. Having told two other close friends, I agonised over telling my other friend. A couple days later, I finally told her. This entire saga has been somewhat of a film script, as purely by chance I sat with her in Wadham, of all colleges, and talked her through my experi-

ences over the summer. I realised that all my agonising was over nothing as she just smiled and hugged me. And in that moment, that was enough. Our friendship has not changed one bit since (something that I was terrified might happen), and this morning I sit next to her typing out this piece. As she stresses over her essay crisis and Ox Stu editor deadlines to meet, I’m struck by the idea of how this might be the best way to come out: an Ox Stu identity article needed to be written, and I had something I wanted to say- so I thought why would I not fulfil the Derry Girls in real life?

I am not sure where I stand with connecting and developing these two identities, but it might be time to accept myself. I also must find a way to not feel guilty or feel like I have let down my family. I know now, however, that I should stop feeling stupid for realising I’m not straight ‘so late’ and figure out how to navigate the new world I’m slowly being introduced to. Who knows maybe by eighth week I’ll have the guts to go to Tues-gays? For now, this is enough.

31 | Sport

Sport

The Flying Dutchman:

Super Max Verstappen dominates the Dani Kovacs field in 2022 Sports editor Double world champion Max Verstappen.

It was here that Verstappen showed just Was it ever really in doubt? 2022 was the how much of a different beast he was in culmination of a long road for ‘Super Max’, 2022. On a track where both Mercedes and but one that seemed inevitable from the Ferrari also looked strong, he came from day arrived in F1.

10th to take the win, even overcoming a The Dutch prodigy always seemed des- rare error in the form of a 360 spin on his tined for the world championship. Started way to victory. No one could stop him that full time at only the age of 17 (!), famously day, just like no one could stop him all year. winning his first GP with Red Bull at 18, If someone doubted that championship last becoming the youngest race winner ever. year, this year’s performance has certainly Hamilton dominance left him unable to seri- silenced all the critics. ously challenge for a world title however, until 2021, when he finally took the crown In 2022 it was Verstappen 2.0. No more of after a season-long titanic battle with the the rash, hotheaded, and overly aggressive Brit… only to have the legitimacy of his title Max. Last season, once he finally had a shot questioned immediately. It was all luck, at Hamilton’s crown, his impatience and FIA cheating, rigged frustration when championship, and What- ever anyone thought things didn’t go his on and on it went. way almost cost After the contro- about the circumstances of his first him the title. That versy in Abu Dhabi, was all gone this many questioned world title, absolutely no one can year. Verstappen how deserved that has been ice-cool first drivers’ cham- question this one. It has been one the whole season, pionship was for eased by having Verstappen. of the most dominant displays over that all-important drivers’ title alWell, this year, a season in my memory. ready under his was no debate. belt. He has made There could be no almost no mistakes, debate. Verstappen simply left no option for knew exactly when to make an overtake, not a debate. Whatever anyone thought about afraid to bide his time. No more avoidable the circumstances of his first world title, crashes like his ones with Hamilton last absolutely no one can question this one. It year. Max had a newfound composure to his has been one of the most driving in 2022. Combindominant displays over a In 2022 it was Verstappen ing it with the skill and season in my memory. It pure pace he has always compares only to Sebas- 2.0. No more of the rash, possessed made him a tian Vettel’s 2011 or 2013 complete driver. Add to campaign, also achieved hotheaded, and overly ag- this the absolute rocket in a Red Bull. The stats of a car Red Bull made speak for themselves: gressive Max. this year, the Dutchman Max wrapped up the tibecame an unbeatable tle fight with 4 races to go. He has taken 13 opponent for 2022. victories this season so far, equaling Vettel and Schumacher’s record of most wins in a Last year a bit of luck in Abu Dhabi saved season; and there are still 3 to go… his campaign and made him champion. This year, absolutely no luck was needed. The What is even more impressive is that he new and improved Verstappen simply left did so only claiming 5 pole positions this no chance for his rivals. season. The Ferraris could challenge on Saturday, but on Sundays Verstappen left them in the dust. He has had some phenomMax Max Max, super Max indeed. enal comebacks too this year: he won from 10th in Hungary, 14th in Belgium and 7th in Monza. In a season where there aren’t enough superlatives to describe his performances, that race in Hungary still stands out.

Friday 28 October 2022 | The Oxford Student

Beers, Pubs, and Parks:

Joe Sharp takes you through what a night out with each Premier League manager looks like It’s Dinner in Naples. Conte orders for everyone, doling out 2g meatballs. ‘We must learn to suffer’ he repeats. Food untouched and 6 packs of cigarettes deep Toni finishes his musings and you head out into the night.

Meanwhile round at Steve Coopers it’s a catch up sesh. He’s bought it all beforehand from the local Aldi. 11 sleepless days of Xbox, Carlsberg, 100 bowls of cheetos and Nottinghams finest nightclubs until he has a psychotic break. Yelling bitter stories about this time at Swansea your best bet is to yawn and tell him ‘best go to bed Coops’.

Up in Leeds, Marsch buys a couple of kegs, hops into the Jeep and this the open road.

‘PONG PONG PONG’ he screams to a group of confused players. ‘It’s gonna be iconic y’all’. What follows is a dreary weekend in the rain. ‘DUDES, that was frickin’ awesome!’.

Elsewhere Gerrard’s got a black-tie do full of Phil Collins flashbacks and middle-aged angst. ‘Let’s get out of here’ he shouts. Stevie’s Range Rover tunes and Peronis lead the team to the local park, where they’re approached by a few young scallywags.

Hardened stories of ‘the old days’ and ‘Istanbul’ follow, to no avail. ’What would Jurgen do?’ he thinks.

Out in one of MBS’ palaces, cider and Shisha are on hand through an ever more savage game of spin-the-bottle forfeits. Joelinton snogs ASM, MBS beheads a nephew, Eddie draws the line at writing a blog advocating mild social reform. “That’s proper dark, lads!”

In Manchester Eric has got the boys out. He refuses to go to Cristiano’s bar of choice, instead opting for the local Spoons. Shots and beers flow as the team become enamoured with their new Dutch maestro. ‘Ronnie’ he shouts looking across the table, ‘I’m the one who scores’ he says winking.

Meanwhile a ping goes off in the Merry Thomas Franksters WhatsApp followed by an impromptu dash down the M4. Bar then a rave in a decommissioned warehouse. 19 hours of dancing. ‘Totally f***ing dominated it’ he yells as he walks back through Kingston train-station.

Marco Silva has got wine on the river. A melancholy occasion he keeps on sipping till he’s yammering about ‘the infinite tragedy of existence’. He tries to run but you stop him. Then heal him.

Elsewhere Pep’s got his boys on a mountain poetry retreat. Wine and Wordsworth.

20 minutes in he’s in your personal space asking, “How is it?! It’s good? What you see?” You start explaining and melting at the same time. He dances around you. You go into the woods, and start running. Forever.

Out in an Air Bib in Kreuzberg Ralph Hasenhuttl is ready. Uber to Berghain for a 10-hour techno set from Marco Carola.

Ralph’s buying everyone shots, ‘pay me later!’ as he ad for the dance-floor. You next see him at 7am, explaining counter-pressing to baffled Koreans.

Meanwhile, it’s German beers and intravenous-injected bratwurst chez Kloppo.

Things get wobbly. He guffaws, teeth like a piano. ‘F***ing mentality giants!’. Cabs to Anfield. Giggling at grass for 6 hours. Hugs.

The best day of your life.

In Leicester Brendan Rodgers has got the boys out for beers and pizza at the bowling alley. He bumps into an old pal and next thing you know you’re chatting to some media studies student at a hardcore rave in Peterborough, Brendan’s flushed, face covered in fluorescent glitter.

Down in Chelsea Graham Potter texts ‘meet at mine’. He has no intention of going out. When you finally do arrive he piles you with booze and controls the stereo religiously: Weller, Oasis. Everyone pretends they’re hammered.

In a park across town David Moyes is necking Dragon Soop. You walk around town accompanied with his ‘big dream’ chat. It’s’ quickly tempered with the realisation that this is all there is. Bit of shoplifting and head to a motorway to finish the drinks.

ELO on full blast. Existential horror.

Down in Bournemouth, you go over to Scott Parker’s for fußball, pinball and ping-pong in the games room, selection of cheeses and wines for nibbles. Game of Triv. Ragingly bored. Scotty passes out, you draw on his face, then leave.

Back up in Liverpool it’s executive box and champers at the races. Lampard’s got it all covered. Iced Grey Goose at VIP tables. Frank looks immaculate. Buys everyone shots, but breaks the cardinal rule and sneakily paps you, banging it on Insta for bantz. You leave. With a bottle of Moët.

On him.

Finally in North London Mikel issues strict instructions to avoid booze. He then ferries you to a medieval palace where, over 15 hours, he carefully administers pure opium in a 12th century ornamental pipe, taking you to ever higher plateaus of cosmic insight and tactical epiphanies. Exhausting.

The Oxford Student | Friday 28 October 2022

Sport | 32

Football Cuppers Preview

In their own words, the Captains of the Men’s 1s Football Teams for each college discuss their chances in this years Cuppers. Matt Holland, Sports editor Ryan(KebleCaptain): WithintheredbrickedwallsofKebleCollege,astormoffootballingtalentisbrewing.Afterarelativelysuccessfulcuppers campaignlastyear,whichwasonlyhalted bysooncrownedchampionsJesusinthe quarterfinals,KCFChasgonefromstrong tostrongeroverthesummer.Asanew broodoftalentedfreshersfillanygaps andweaknessesinthefirsteleven,Keble Footballcertainlyhasthepotentialtorise tothetopofthecollegefootballworld.

Philip(HertfordCaptain): HertfordCollegeAssociationFootball ClubisarguablyOxford’sfinestfootballing institution.Facingthemightymaroonat theMarstonRoadgroundisakintolining upagainstaRealMadridsidewithnoodle hairRonaldo.LikethosegloriousChampionsleaguenights,HCAFCcomeintothis year’sCupper’scampaignwithequally determinedintentions.UndercaptainPhil EvansAlcantara’sleadershipaninjection ofSpanishflairwillseeanadoptionofLa Selecciónfootballingphilosophy.

Neal(OrielCaptain): Orielfootballhadanunprecedentedrun lastyear,beingpromotedfromDivision 3toDivision2.Despitelosinghalfofour firstteamfromlastyear,onthebrightside, wedidretainhalfofthemtoo.Moreimportantly,wehavehadagreatadditionof fresherswhoareeagertocontribute,and itiswiththiseagernessthatwebelievein ourchancesintheCuppers.FloreatOriel.

Samuel(StHilda’s Captain): WhatisSt.Hilda’s football,ifnotpoetry inmotion?Theliquidpasses,flowing liketheCherwell, acrossfromHall; footballplayedon theedgesofpossibility.ForgetWarand Peace,Hilda’sfootballisamasterpiece.

Withan11-1leaguevictorytokickoffthe season,andanextremelystrongcohortof fresherstofightforplaces,Hilda’sremain aseriousprospectinthefightforcuppers success.Weentercupperswithoutaquad, butwithadream.Thecupperstrophy, afterall,belongsinOX4.

Jamie(TrinityCaptain): WeareTrinityCollegeFootballClub.After aseasonofquietdeteriorationwebring ateampackedwithhungryfreshers, newcomersandveteransalike.We’re determinedtogiveeveryteamwefacein Cuppersafighttheywillremember-the onlywaywe’regoingoutiskickingand screaming.

Maximilian(PembrokeCaptain): Afterlosinganumberofplayersoverthe Summer,thisyear’sPembroketeamis currentlyinarebuildingstagewithanumberoffreshersandfreshrecruitsfromthe olderyearshavingtoquicklyadapttotheir newroles. Logicandrationalitywouldnot giveusmuchhopeinCuppersthisyear butwe’vealwaysreliedongutsandgumptionovertalentorskillsothatdoesn’tfaze usintheslightest.

Samuel(LincolnCaptain): LincolnCollegeislookingtomakeabigimpactinthisyear’sCuppers.Inwhatproved tobeadisappointingseasonlastyear,the teamfailedtoprogresspastthefirstround afteranail-biting3-4losstoWadham College.Hopingtobounceback,Lincoln’s XInowboastsexcitingtalentamongstits cohortoffreshers.Watchoutforstriker andformerNottinghamForestacademy player,PeterBraybrook,whohasalready baggedhimselfahattrickthisseason.

Oliver(JesusCaptain): JesusCollegeFootballclub.TheCuppers holders.WithGonzoTwoslinkingupAlfie Bluesonceagainthereisnochancethat wedonotretainthetitle.Withthesquad onlybecomingmoreconfidentgame aftergame,everyteamisquakingatthe thoughtofcomingupagainstus.Teams willcomplainthatBartsistoofaraway andit’sonsuchaslopebutreallyitisjusta fortresshometothemightystags.Andyes, therumoursaretrue...BenPutlandisold.

Sebastian(NewCollegeCaptain): CoachedbytheonlyGermanwhodoesn’t knowwhatgegenpressingis,ourstyleof playmaybeindiscerniblebutarecordof 2winsfrom2speaksforitself.Appointing amusicstudentasvice-captainhasour squadsingingfromthesamehymnsheet whilststartingtheBluesgoalkeeperat centreforwardembodiesateamdefendingfromthefront.Despiteonlyhaving onestaronourshirt,thisseasonwehave aconstellationoftalentreadytodeliver Cuppersglorytoourloyalfollowing.

James(CorpusChristiCaptain): We’reCorpusChristi,we’reverysmalland veryfriendly,andwehaveabsolutelyno chanceofwinning.We’reinthiscompetitionforagoodtime,notalongtime.

Michael(MagdalenCaptain): TheMagdalen1sthisyeararefullof promise,offeringsilkyteaminterplayand skillsfittingBarça’s08/09season,playing intheblackandwhitestripesofJuventus’ goldenera.Amidfieldtrio,pivotedbyour veryowncaptainOkondoandlongservingfourthyearsHodgkissandFisher, boastsexperiencebeyondeventhatof RealMadrid’sveteranmidfield.Magdalen sufferedheartachelastyearlosingtoa controversial‘HandofGod’momentfrom acorner,andthisyearhavealltheability andhearttogoallthewayandchallenge inacuprun.

William(ChristChurchCaptain): Behindeverygreatsideisanevengreater setofminds.Oursquadisfullofhardworkingandskillfulindividualswhohave theabilitytoexecutetheflawlesstactics thatemergefromhoursofscrutinyand analysis.Wemodelourstyleofplayfrom asfarbackasthe1989SacchiACMilan team,andthisiswhatwillcarryusto Cuppersglory.

Albie(WorcesterCaptain): WorcesterCollegeexemplifiesfootball heritage.Withfiveteamscompetingat thepeakoftheirrespectivelevels,itwould benothingshortofdisasterifourseason finishedwithoutaCupperstrophyortwo.

Thefirstsplayadynamicstyleoffootball, builtondisciplineanddesire,andwill certainlybelookingtogoallthewaythis season.

Harry(StAnne’s Captain): Afterlastyear’sagonisingCuppersexit,the muchmalignedMGA returntothe2022-23 tournamentwitha vengeance.Thesquad, nowstrongerthan Ethiopiancoffee,is brimmingwithfresh talent,champingat thebittopullonthe famousmintgreen.Impeccablehairlines, Bluesathletes,aboveaveragechatand someseriousballhandlingskillsamount toaprettyformidableside.SoOxonians getreadytobespoiledlikeanonlychildcuppersisswitchingshadesofgreen.

Cuppersisahighlightofthe Oxfordfootballingcalendarandtheexcitementis palpableforyetanother installmentofthelongrunningcompetition.

Sport

Editor’s Premier League Picks

Teamoftheseason,sofar: Matt:Newcastle-They’vehadastrong starttotheseasonwithanimpressivewin againstLiverpoolandsomedominant performancesagainstBrentfordand Fulhamwhichhaveseenthembecome genuineEuropeanspotchallengersthis season.KieranTrippierhasbeenkeyto theirsuccess,showcasinghisoffensiveand defensiveabilities

Dani:Arsenal-MikelArtetaseemstohave finallymadeamarkontheNorthLondon outfitandtheGunnersareflyingthis seasonwith8winsoutof9games.Forthe firsttimeinoveradecadetheylooktobe seriouschampionshipcontenders.

Joe:Arsenal- WhileCitymightbeplaying themoreexcitingfootball,orNewcastle themoreimproved,Arsenal’sstarttothe seasonalongsidetheterrificallylikeablesquadthey’veassembled make Arsenalsupreme.Thequestionremains whethertheycancontinuetheirform intothesecondhalftheseason-especially giventheirlightsquaddepth.However, fornow,Arsenalfanscancontinueto celebrateArteta’smightyGunners.

Disappointmentoftheseason,sofar: Matt: Liverpool-EventhoughI’ma Unitedfan,itfeelswrongtoseeLiverpool strugglingsobadlyforformearlyonthis season,failingtoovercomethelossof somekeyplayersoverthesummer.As anEnglandfanaswell,Ifinditespecially difficultseeingAlexander-Arnold’sstruggleforforminwhatshouldbetheperfect opportunitytoestablishhisnameasa definiteonGarethSouthgate’steam

Dani:Liverpool-TheRedshavestruggled thisseason;performancesarewellbelow thelevelfanshavebeenaccustomedtounderJurgenKlopp.Ifresultsdonotimprove quickly,itmayspelladisappointingend totheotherwisegloriouseraunderthe Germanmanager.

Joe:NottinghamForest- WhilearemarkableLeicester-likerisetothetopwasnever expectedofForest,theirmodeststartin lightoftheirsummerspendingmakes theirseasonsofardisappointingtosaythe least.Withover140millionpoundsspent onavarietyofplayersofsurprisinglyhigh qualitySteveCoopersside’sstarthasfallen shortofexpectations.However,having recentlyrenewedCooper’scontract,itis cleartoseetheownersareinitforthelong run.Let’shopeForest’spremierleague statusisthesame.

UnexpectedDarkHorse: Matt:ManchesterUnited-Itwouldbe wrongformenottoconstantlysayeach seasonthatManUnitedlookimpressiveandhaveanoutsidechance,but performanceshaveimprovedimmensely aftertheembarrassingdefeatagainst Brentford.WinsagainstArsenalathome andEvertonandLiverpoolawayhave highlightedthatUnitedhavetheabilityto battleagainstthetopteamsandindifficult matches Dani:Fulham- Afteracoupleofseasons yo-yoingbetweenthePremandthe Championship,thisseasonFulham seemtomeanbusiness.WithsuperstrikerMitrovicatthehelm,theymay evendreambigandtargettheEuropean competitionplaces!

Joe:Newcastle-Newcastlearemynew favoriteteamtowatch.Theirenergyand talentonthefieldcombinedwiththeroar oftheStJame’sParkcrowdmakethem primeviewing.Moreover,givenLeicester’sdismalstartandtheincreasingly unpredictablenatureofbothManchester United,Chelsea&WestHam,Newcastle haveafantasticchanceatachievingfar beyondtheirpre-seasonexpectations.

Playeroftheseason: Matt:ErlingHaaland-Nomatterhow muchIwantedhimtobeaflop,anyone whodoesn’trealisethatthismanisthe bestintheLeagueatthemomentisn’tfit totalkaboutfootball.AllIhadtodowas watchthewayhetoreapartUnitedwith ahattrickinaperformanceincombinationwithPhilFodenwhichlookssetto dominatetheLeague

Dani:Haaland- Theeasiestpickofthe week.TheNorwegianhasbeenphenomenalforManCity,exceedingeventhemajorexpectationsthatwereplacedonhim uponarrivaltotheEnglishtop-flight.He hasbeenbossinggames,withgoalsand assistsgalore.Ifthisformcontinuesup,he mayjustwrapupthePlayeroftheSeason competitionbeforethewinterbreak.

Joe:OkYesitisobviouslyErlingHaaland, butforthesakeofvariety…GabrielJesus -Haalandisundoubtedlyplayerofthe season.Myfelloweditorshavealready sungenoughofhispraises,andhonestly assomeonewhoisnotafanofManchesterCity,I’mboredofhimmakingthis leaguelooksodamneasy!Instead,inan alternativeuniversewheretheNorwegian doesn’texist,GabrielJesusismyplayer oftheseason,sofar.Hisimpactonthe Arsenalfrontlinehasbeenmarked.The fluidit anddynamismoftheirattackisa starkcontrasttothestagnantandoften predictablenatureoftheiroffenceinpreviousyears.