The Oxford Student - Week 3 Hilary 2024 by The Oxford Student

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Hilary Term, Week 3 | Friday 2 February 2024

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Activists protest Barclays “banking on Israel’s apartheid”

Gaspard Rouffin

protest that took place in front of the Barclays branch on Cornmarket Street last week led to the arrest of a counterprotester, following an alter-

cation with a demonstrator. The demonstration was organised by the Oxford Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which calls for an end of “banking on Israel’s apartheid”. The

organisation has arranged previous protests in solidarity of Palestine in Cowley and London, and had already previously blocked the entrance of the same Barclays branch in Oxford.

Oxford Union debates Cambridge over money and happiness Valida Pau

O Image Credit: NATO

n 27th January, the Oxford Union hosted a varsity debate with the Cambridge Union, with a motion titled “Money Can Buy You Happiness.” Oxford spoke for the proposition, while Cambridge spoke for the opposition. Louis Wilson, the current Librarian-Elect, opened the debate for the proposition with a series of snarky comments towards the Cambridge

Union. He began with a poke at the hefty price of the Cambridge Union membership, arguing that “unless you have the money to afford it, you cannot indulge in the happiness they provide” (n.b. the Cambridge life student membership is £230, while the equivalent at Oxford costs £314.95). Wilson then joked that money can buy you friendships and connections and that without cash, love can fade, Read more on page 5

trying to intimidate her, before going back to argue with them. The woman then physically attacked a protester, who hit her in return. Both were escorted to police cars soon after. Another protester commented “I’ve been protesting 15 years and I’ve never seen anyone assault one of ours before”. While two police officers were initially present at the scene of the protest, this incident brought their numbers to over ten. Police officers had earlier confronted a 15 year old protester who was putting proPalestine stickers on the windows of the Barclays branch. Protesters were holding signs in English and Arabic, reading the names, occupation, and age (ranging from <1 to 91) of civilians killed in Gaza. Other signs stated “Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu] Bombs Babies, Boycott Israel” as well as “Ceasefire as in dismantling the settler colonial project, not Ceasefire as in returning to the same old violence”. The protest was carried out with the sounds of drums and chants in Arabic.

Read more on page 4

“

[I have] recently written to all test centres to communicate our decision to end our relationship with Tata Consultancy Services

“

Image Credit: Cameron Samuel Keys

The protest started at roughly 10:30am with around a dozen supporters, and lasted until 12:30pm, when the number of people on site was more than 35. This was significantly less than the previous demonstration, which gathered close to one hundred participants. Protesters were chanting phrases such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “occupation no more, Israel is a terror state”. This was alongside specific criticisms of the bank, including “Barclays Barclays you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide”, “Barclays blood on your hands”, and “Barclays Barclays, shame shame, all the crimes in your name.” Chants that have previously attracted criticism could also be heard, including “Gaza broke the prison door” in relation to the October 7th attacks and “there is only one solution, intifada revolution”. Around 11:30, a pro-Israel passerby called out the demonstrators, which quickly evolved into a heated argument. The woman initially complained to police officers present on the scenes that demonstrators were

- Professor Martin Williams, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education

2 | Editorial

Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

THE EDITORIAL TEAM EDITORS IN CHIEF Tara Earley and Daisy Outram ASSOCIATE EDITORS Sami Jalil and Haochen Wang STRATEGY Rose Henderson and Milo Dennison (Directors), Charlie Bowden, Martin Alfonsin Larsen, Emily Hudson CREATIVE Elliot Francolla (Director), Blane Aitchison, Seraph Lee, Cameron Samuel Keys NEWS Gaspard Rouffin, Audrey Davidson-Houston, Ruby Hurst, Tasneem Jodiyawalla, Gabriella Kchozyan, Valida Pau, Rebecca Whalley COMMENT Jack Arrowsmith, Thomas Cowan, Leah Gelber, Amelia Gibbins, Johannes Riese PROFILE Haochen Wang, Cora Alina Blau, Audrey DavidsonHouston, Tallulah Hawley IDENTITY Sami Jalil, Georgia Ferris, Nina Naidu PINK Etienne Baker, Elsie Haldane, Jacob Newby COLUMNISTS Blane Aitchison, Sharon Chau, Amanda Li, Nina Naidu, Jonah Poulard, Matthew Taylor FEATURES Martin Alfonsin Larsen, Nayana Juliette Syed, Purav Menon CULTURE Keng Yu Lai, Amelia Gibbins, Tallulah Hawley, Isra Khan GREEN Bridget Harrington, Ava Chan, Sabine Zednik-Hammonds SCITECH Samkeet Shah, Ava Chan, Gabriella Kchozyan OXYOU Olly DeHerrera, Zaid Magdub, Florence Purcell FOOD & DRINK Johannah Mathew, Rebecca Whalley SPORT Thomas Thornton, Purav Menon, Johannes Riese PODCAST Haochen Wang, Treya Agarwal, Matthew Holland, Kitty Vesey, Cindy Yu

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From the Editors

t’s been another successful few weeks at OxStu! From Hilary freshers’ fair to the second lay-in of term, our entire editorial team has been hard at work pursuing the stories and news that matter. The vibes have been rather delightful, partly thanks to Daisy and I’s banging new playlist but mainly due to the people who show up to suffer through it. Moreover, Daisy and I have begun to merge into one person already… and we’re only in week three. I finally made the trek out to St Hugh’s, where I was shocked by how nice the lawns are (sorry, Hertford)

and how different the water tastes in OX2. A serious thank you goes to her for shouldering such an immense workload alongside a degree arguably more challenging than mine, and for her continuous kindness and positivity. Thanks also to Haochen and Sami, who have taken over the running of the podcast and the newsletter respectively this term and are doing a fantastic job. If you haven’t already, tune into the podcast for a nice summary of what’s going on in the paper and in Oxford – and to hear me deeming Claudia Winkleman ‘mother’. All in all, things are going well – even my degree has been enjoyable recently, so shout out to all the historians! It may even be enough to stave off the fifth week blues...

Tara Earley

Hertford College

eek three is a great time for reflection. How has Hilary started and how will the rest go? What actually is jurisprudence? Why have I already spent over 20 hours in the SU this term? With no clear answers, maybe the better question is who makes these things worthwhile. A huge thank you must go to my long-suffering college wife Halima, who from day one at this university has been a source of kindness and stability. She, alongside the lovely Misty, Madeline, and Emma, is forced to hear far too much about this paper, but I appreci-

ate the reluctant support more than they know. Reflecting on this print edition, the quality and range of articles really do make The Oxford Student worth driving your friends crazy over. Thanks to our Head of News Gaspard for covering every protest and policy Oxford can offer. Thanks to Keng Yu for setting up our OxArt collab “Ink and Drink”. Thanks to Jack for facing his mortal enemy InDesign to create such a compelling Comment section this week. Many thanks to our associates Sami and Haochen, who excel at their sections, the podcast, and our newsletter. A final thank you to my endlessly kind and dedicated co-editor-in-chief Tara, who with our new lay-in playlist is definitely en route to swiftie conversion!

Daisy Outram

St Hugh's College

Editors’ Picks

Columns

or the first few weeks of term, I’ve really enjoyed contributing to our weekly newsletter (which you should absolutely subscribe to if you haven’t already!), and it’s great to see the team working hard for another strong print edition. I’m proud to be a part of the lovely little community we have at the OxStu, and I’m more than happy to chat to anyone interested in joining us! I encourage our readers to reach out and get involved with a section you love. Your voice is valuable and unique, and we'd love to hear what you have to say and support your journey however we can.

t appears to be a trend now for me to come down with some illness in week 3, and while essays and readings aren’t forgiving of the fact that I’m currently unable to stare at a screen for extended periods of time, the fantastic OxStu team has made my extracurricular life quite a bit easier. As we look to another print edition, my thanks must go to (among others) Daisy, Tara, and Sami for bearing with my recent inconsistencies on Messenger as well as the Podcast and Profile teams for being so proactive and enthusiastic. All that being said, enjoy the fantastic content this week!

Sami Jalil

Haochen Wang

St Catherine's College

Pembroke College

Womansplaining: Was it Ken-ough? On Barbie’s Oscars snub

OxYou

Which masterpiece with which soup?

Culture

The literary subtleties of Saltburn

Sport

Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Rocket keeps outclassing the world of snooker

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

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New student accommodation to be built on Magdalen Street

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News | 3

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GUEST: conversation with Dr Tom Crawford on the start of his interest in maths, the experience of completing his PhD at Cambridge, and role of the Public Engagement Lead at the Department of Continuing Education

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EiCs' corner: Daisy and Tara provide a behindthe-scenes view of the paper's work this week

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Article spotlight: "Class encounters of the third kind" by Matt Holland

Rebecca Whalley News Editor

he Oxford City Council has approved a planning application to build new 55 new private en-suite rooms for students above Five Guys in Magdalen Street. The decision was made public on Tuesday the 23rd of January by the department of Planning and Regulatory Services, after a planning application was put forward in July 2023. The student accommodation is set to be built on 13-15 Magdalen Street, currently mostly unoccupied. The site was previously home to the Fever nightclub, which permanently closed in 2021 as a result of the first Covid lockdown. An Odeon cinema, located right next to it, had suffered the same fate. Alongside converting the first to the fourth floors of 13-15 Oxenford House into accommodation, the plan requested transforming part of the basement for a plant area and bin storage. The plan also detailed a roof extension above the front of the fourth floor, and a two-storey roof extension above the rear of the third floor. The accommodation will also be furnished with a reception, break out area and cycle storage. The plan was put forward by planning consultants Bidwells, on behalf of Croudace Properties last year. The first floor above Five

Image Credit: Gazamp Guys is currently occupied by the Hindu Study Centre, but the rest of the building has been empty since 2021. The centre is now “seeking a new premises within the city.” However, Carfax and Jericho Ward Councillor Alex Hollingsworth expressed his concerns about the site’s bin collections at the planning committee on the 23rd January. Hollingsworth said at the planning committee earlier this month: “I do have really strong concerns about the bin collection service.” “You end up with a great sea of bins stuck outside in the open air perpetually contaminated and it is frankly a disgraceful mess which I hope will get resolved. One day before I die quite frankly.” Hollingsworth also said that although there was a “whole load of stuff” he thought was positive about the plans for the “attractive building”, proper rubbish collection should be a “robust condition.” Concerns were also related over the storage of bins in the basement due to the “constraints of the site,” and it was said that there were “six bins for the entire thing.” The plans were met with similar concerns from Councillor Anna Railton, cabinet member for Zero Carbon Oxford and Climate Justice, who said “where will the bins go when they’re waiting to be picked up because there’s an awful lot of doors everywhere.”

Cabinet Member for Citizen Focused Services and Council Companies, Nigel Chapman, also said “the tightness of the situation means you get a whole lot of waste being produced.” It was also noted that on-site management would wheel the bins down to Magdalen Street. However, an officer said that “this is not out of character to what is happening in the city centre. The idea that waste bins are going to be wheeled out onto Magdalen Street and left there is not something I can see myself. This would be managed in the same way.” Last year a private citizen objected to the plans based on needs for local residents over students. He said in his letter to planners “my objection is that the city council – that does so much good work in housing and so many other services to the citizens in this city – are unable, or unwilling, to specify that this conversion be tailored to the needs of local people, as opposed to students.” “We have many units, old and new developments for our visiting students. At the same time, we have a shortage of affordable flats and quality single person accommodation for our young Oxford-born people.” “Please partner with a housing association, or purchase this for the city, and provide for the local long-term populace, to relieve the crisis that we the residents and our families are experiencing.” The accommodation is likely to be appreciated by nearby Oxford colleges as the space will provide local housing in a central location for their students. In November this year, students from central Oxford colleges queued and slept outside of estate agents to secure student accommodation, a symptom of Oxford’s housing crisis.

4 | News

Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

Activists protest Barclays “banking on Israel’s apartheid” Gaspard Rouffin Head of News

Cont. from page 1

One of the leaders of the protest justified this decision by saying that they were “proudly manifesting the culture that Israel was trying to destroy”. The speaker also stated that Israel was “attacking healthcare, education, and journalism”, and that the “British military are openly involved in surveillance and targeting”. A protester commented that they were here to “keep

[Barclays] on their toes”, and that this was “part of a national day of action.” They believed that after the International Court of Justice ruling, “Britain should stop all arms trade with Israel” and they “count on Barclays to cease all investment”. Another demonstrator said that “Barclays [has] long been an accessory to apartheid [and] ethnic cleansing”, but that it was now “genocide”, drawing parallels with Barclay’s previous support of Apartheid in South Africa in the 1960s-1980s. While the Barclays branch

was open last week, with customers coming in and out for the first half of the protest, it was closed this week. A notice on the glass door of the agency stated that the branch was “unable to open” due to “circumstances beyond [their] control”. A demonstrator said they “suspect[ed] they [Barclays] were afraid of us”, while the PSC social media page congratulated on “successfully shutting Barclays down”. Information leaflets handed out at the protest stated “Barclays Bank is invest-

ing in Israel’s violent repression of the Palestinian people”, citing Israeli arms companies such as Elbit Systems and Raytheon. It also encouraged customers and witnesses to email the bank, demanding it end business relationships with

companies helping Israel “use violence against Palestinians.” The PSC’s protest at Barclays was part of a broader campaign of solidarity for Palestine pushing to boycott Barclays, which has been ongoing since January 2024.

Image Credit: Cameron Samuel Keys

E. coli found in Oxford waters Oxford TCS contract after flooding from Storm Henk ended following admissions test issues Audrey Davidson-Houston News Editor

Image Credit: Astacopsis Gouldi Gabriella Kchozyan News Editor

ecent flooding in Oxford has led to increased water contamination, including the presence of Escherichia coli (E coli). In the aftermath of Storm Henk, flooding and runoff continue to impact Oxfordshire. This has been accompanied by adverse ecological and sanitary consequences. With water management still in the works, water quality remains poor and individuals are discouraged from participating in recreational outdoor water activities. Last week, the Oxford City Council announced that it “strongly advise[s] against wild swimming at this time”, due to “increased contamination […] and levels of E. coli”.

E. coli infections are characterised by symptoms such as nausea, abdominal cramps, and bloody diarrhoea. While most adults recover quickly, infection can be deadly for vulnerable or immunocompromised individuals. According to the Oxford City Council, water testing at Hinksey Lake in Iffley indicated higher levels of water contamination and the E coli bacteria. There is currently a high risk of being exposed to water pollution and contracting an infection. The City Council also stated that it was “likely there will be similarly increased levels of contamination in many areas of the river and other open water bodies”. Oxford currently has one designated bathing water site at Port Meadow’s Wolvercote Mill Stream, which fails to meet the Environ-

ment Agency’s River Bathing standards. Although some flood protection measures have been put into place, further rainfall risks exacerbating river conditions. Port Meadow’s water quality has recently been qualified as “poor” by government reports for the second year in a row, threatening its bathing site status. This is due to a sewage plant upstream that regularly releases open sewage into the waters. Pollution is especially concerning when water levels are high and following flood events. Swimmers are advised to take caution and avoid swimming in the River Thames and other open-water bodies. Relevant authorities are closely monitoring the situation for further updates and action.

xford University has recently announced that it has ended their contract with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) after the wide-spread criticism resulting from their attempt to work with them to digitise many of the admissions tests in 2023. The University’s website reads that this decision has come “following the technical problems experienced by some candidates” and that the Pro-ViceChancellor for Education, Professor Martin Williams has written to all test-centres to inform them of the “end of our relationship with Tata Consultancy Services ”. In the most recent admissions test cycle, many candidates, test-centres, and schools reported serious issues with the new attempt at modernisation resulting in delays, crashes, and incorrect questions being displayed. All but two of the admissions tests, the Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA) required for courses such

as PPE and the Biomedical Admissions Test (BMAT) were held online for the first time last year. Despite attempts to progress through online admissions testing, it instead caused significant hindrance to the admissions system with Maths students being offered a chance to take an additional test if they desired, and both the English (ELAT) and Geography (GAT) tests being entirely disregarded. The University stated in response that “no candidate will be deselected on the basis of their ELAT score”. The contract with TCS was introduced with the University’s attempt to move away from its previous relationship with Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing from which it withdrew last year. However, according to the Admissions page on the Oxford website, the University “now working on alternative options for 2024 and beyond” about which it will communicate “no later than the start of the new admissions cycle in early Spring”.

Image Credit: Audrey Davidson-Houston

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

Image Credit: Barker Evans Valida Pau News Editor

Cont. from page 1

as illustrated by how Union hacks’ relationships are built over money spent on coffee. Opening the opposition, Felix Esche, Debates Officer Elect at the Cambridge Union, argued “money only allows us to avoid pain,” citing an Oxford study that after earning an income of around £50,000, happiness levels flattened. He then pointed out the diminishing return lies fundamentally in our capitalist system, which overemphasizes profit over happiness, ending with: “Money is at the expense of happiness.” In a point of information, Hannah Edwards, Oxford Union President, joked: “If I have enough money, I would buy the Cambridge Union and burn it down – that would make me very happy.” Esche responded that he would first solve “the problem of her own Union falling down” if he had the money. Yassin Hachi, Secretary’s Committee, spoke next for the proposition. He began with citing an eight percent increase in rent at King’s College, one of the wealthiest Cambridge colleges, which caused relentless anxiety among students and unhappiness. He also mocked the need for the Oxford Union chamber roof repair, a case in point that money can guarantee a sense of security, especially “a roof over your head.” Jessica Spearman, Equalities Officer Elect at the Cambridge Union, redefined “happiness” in utili-

tarian terms. She opened her speech with a personal anecdote: she sought temporary happiness and validation from online purchases to relieve stress from writing her essay, but the falsified sense of happiness lasted only ten minutes. She stated that true, long-term happiness is not found in materialism or transactions but comes instead from a deeper sense of purpose, pride, and fulfilment. Closing the proposition, Sarp Ozdemir, Chair of the Consultative Committee, listed a typical daily routine of an Oxford student while ringing the lectern bell every time a task required money, from sleeping on a comfortable bed to drinking coffee and browsing the internet. Citing a Cambridge research that money can indeed buy happiness, he said that it was “unrealistic at worst and foolish at best” to believe happiness can be achieved without money. Closing the debate, Nick Davis, President of the Cambridge Union, used Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister and Oxford Union President, who chose a political career over a “highflying world” as a business executive, as an example to show that while money can provide worldly pleasures and status, it cannot satisfy non-material needs and self-interests. “Even [if ] you’re egocentric, narcissistic politicians, love and charisma are two of something money cannot touch,” Davis concluded. The motion passed, with 130 members voting in favour and 81 members voting against.

Health surcharge for international students to increase Gabriella Kchozyan

News Editor

nternational students applying for a Student visa can expect an increase in the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) from £470 to £776 per year.

The IHS provides students with access to NHS treatment. Regardless of whether the applicant has private medical insurance or does not intend to use the NHS, the fee must be paid when applying for a Student visa. The price increase is expected to take effect on or after 6 February 2024. This change comes after the increase in visa fees that came into force in October 2023. The price of the Student visa application increased by £127, now costing £490. Students interested in applying for the visa should also take heed of the time added before and after their specified course date by the Home Office (HO). The added period impacts the health services fee. The HO is a ministerial department of the UK government that deals with immigration and security. For courses that are a year or longer, four months are added to the course end date. For a Master’s program lasting less than a year, two months are added to the end date. The additional charge for periods less than six months used to be £235. It will now be bumped to £388. For example, a 12-month Master’s course with an additional four months added by the HO used to have an IHS of £705. With the changing rates, it will now cost £1,164. The IHS is paid using

Image Credit: Shaun Iwasawa an applicant’s local currency, meaning the exchange rate may further hike up the price. International students are also required to pay the IHS for the full duration of their course, even if it includes an extended period outside the UK, such as a year abroad for Modern Languages or a mandatory work placement during which they cannot access NHS services. Oxford’s international student community faces far higher student fees than their UK resident counterparts. A Cherwell investigation noted international student fees have doubled between 2018 and 2023. While home fees have remained relatively the same, international fees have substantially grown. Inflation has led to higher living costs and tuition fees, disproportionately affecting international students. Fluctuating currency rates have similarly impacted international student costs. According to the University, as of December 2022, 46% of the total student body

comprised international students, with most of them being graduate students. Oxford students come from all over the world with more than 160 countries and territories identified so far. The University works with select government agencies, committees, and joint bodies when making decisions regarding the level of fees charged for programmes of study. Affording to deal with the hike in prices nonetheless entails a degree of economic privilege that can deter otherwise qualified international students from applying. International students interested in applying to study in the UK should continue closely monitoring changes in tuition and visa fees. For those thinking of applying for the Graduate visa route after completing their studies, the health surcharge will also be raised from £624 to £1,035 per year. Potential international applicants can find out more information on the Oxford visa and immigration page.

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Oxford Union debates Cambridge over money and happiness

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6 | News

Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

Oxford American Society to be reconstituted St Charlie Bowden News Editor

he Oxford American Society is set to be reconstituted after American members of the University met to redraft the society’s constitution. The meeting took place on Friday 19 January at Jesus College. According to a press release from the society, the previous iteration of the American Society had gone dormant “slightly over a year” ago. The society was last active on social media in Michaelmas 2022, when it indefinitely postponed its Thanksgiving social. The University is host to 1,900 students from the United States according to their own statistics, making the US the second most represented nationality at Oxford, after the United Kingdom. Because of this, the society recognises the “need for representation on

a society level” that many American students feel and “aims to be a shared cultural space for these students”. Oxford is an especially popular destination for exchange students, having partnerships with over 20 universities across the United States, and with many colleges having their own exchange programs with American universities. The society is currently in the process of officially being recognised by the Oxford SU, which involves the submission of a new constitution and an updated list of members. The members list is currently being collated via an online form, which can be accessed on the society’s new Instagram page: @oxfordamericansoc. The society’s first social media post includes a series of images related to AngloAmerican relations, including a conversation between Franklin Delano Roosevelt

and Winston Churchill and a promotional image for the Major League Baseball London Series, accompanied by a caption calling students to sign up to the society. The online form states that the society’s new constitution mostly follows the template provided by the SU. It is also noted that there will be three officer positions (President, Vice President and Secretary) which will be elected termly. Amanda Li is the current provisional

Secretary, having set up the society’s Instagram account. Events are already in the works for the society’s Hilary termcard, with a crew date with Welsh Society currently planned for Week 5. The online form additionally suggests that a Super Bowl party will be organised. The society encourages “all Americans as well as friends of America who are at the university” to sign up as members.

Image Credit: Public domain

Radcliffe Camera fitted with new chairs following alumni donation Gaspard Rouffin Head of News

ew “comfortable” chairs were installed in the upper reading room of the Radcliffe Camera last Wednesday. The social media announcement highlighted the positive change and expressed gratitude for a generous philanthropic donation that made this upgrade possible. The decision to introduce new seating was made in response to the feedback from the recent Bodleian Libraries Reader Survey, which had indicated a strong desire for more comfortable chairs in the Radcliffe Camera, which is the History faculty library.

Reader surveys are undertaken by the Bodleian Libraries every three years, as a way to “understand the breadth of readers’ views and to feed into [their] strategic planning”. The most recent survey in 2022 received more than 5,000 responses, with mostly positive ratings. The main improvement points were wifi coverage, comfort of study spaces, opening hours, and borrowing policies. A webpage on the Bodleian Library website details all the changes put in place following the survey. The refurbishment was made possible through a donation from a couple of anonymous university

Image Credit: Bodleian Libraries

alumni. A spokesperson for the Bodleian Libraries expressed that “The Radcliffe Camera refurbishment was generously funded by a couple who are both alumni and who loved to study and read in the library during their time at the University”. The couple “were keen to support current and future Oxford University students to have the best possible experience when pursuing their studies in our most popular and iconic reading room”. In an email to students, the History faculty stated that the aim of the project was to “replace selected chairs in the Upper Camera with heritage-style chairs in keeping with the neoclassical style of the location, whilst significantly improving the comfort of our readers”. It also stated that the Bodleian Libraries will “continue to look for more appropriate solutions than we currently have” and that “there are also plans to refurbish study desks”. The chairs were installed on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, with the help of Bodleian staff and student helpers, specially recruited for the occasion. The Bodleian Libraries stated

“[students] were actively involved in the selection of the new chairs, and this upgrade has already been very well received by our readers”. To preserve the heritage of the site, the historic chairs alongside the majority of the existing seating have been either retained in situ or re-homed in the Bodleian Library. History students were informed of the refurbishment in an email only hours before the exceptional closure which was planned to be from Tuesday 5pm to Wednesday 12pm, with the Radcliffe Camera usually closing at 9pm on weekdays. However, the work was completed ahead of schedule, and the library reopened as usual on Wednesday morning. A History student commented that the new chairs were “very comfy”, and that they were “pleasantly surprised” by how quickly the refurbishment was made. The iconic Radcliffe Camera was constructed between 1737-48 to a design by James Gibbs. It holds Grade I listed status, and was briefly closed last term after being sprayed by environmental activist group Just Stop Oil with their signature orange paint.

Catherine’s Master retires

Gaspard Rouffin Head of News

n an announcement on 23rd January, St Catherine’s College Master, Professor Kersti Börjars, revealed her decision to retire at the end of Trinity Term 2024. Börjars first assumed this role in January 2020.

Professor Börjars made history as the first female Master of St Catherine’s College, coinciding with the celebration of “50 years of women at Catz” in the same year she will step down. Coeducation was introduced at St Catherine’s in 1974. Among the notable achievements during her four-year tenure, Börjars steered St Catherine’s College through challenging times, including the unprecedented disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the discovery of RAAC throughout the College site. In September, The Oxford Student revealed an email from Börjars stating “risk assessments” were to take place due to RAAC concerns. Access was restricted to certain parts of college and second years were rehoused amid the crisis. In addition to crisis management, she oversaw significant initiatives such as a comprehensive review of the College’s Statutes and By-Laws, reaffirming the institution’s “commitment to the traditional Oxford model of academic self-governance”. The College administration expressed its gratitude for Professor Börjars’ contributions and announced that arrangements are underway to appropriately commemorate her service. Meanwhile, it was confirmed that she will continue in her role until 23 July 2024, facilitating a “smooth transition”. The College will soon initiate the search for her successor, who will be tasked with leading a significant fundraising campaign for the institution over the next decade. Reflecting on her time as Master, Professor Börjars stated, “Being Master of St Catherine’s College has been the greatest privilege, and I very much look forward to remaining part of the Catz community and serving the College in any way I can”.

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

News | 7

Holocaust Memorial Day events held throughout Oxford

Image Credit: Remi Mathis Tasneem Jodiyawalla News Editor

arious events took place around Oxford over the past few days to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day (Saturday 27th January). On Friday 26th January, Oxford Town Hall hosted an in-person service, taking place at 11am in the Assembly Room. It was open to people of all faiths or none, and is being held

to “remember and learn about the Holocaust, Nazi persecution and the genocides that followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur”. Barnabas Balint, historian and doctoral researcher, member of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s Youth Forum, and alumnus of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Regional Ambassador programme, reflected on this year’s theme, ‘Fragility of Free-

dom’. Balint has produced video testimonies from survivors of the Rwandan Genocide (this year marks its 30th anniversary) and the Holocaust, which were shown at the ceremony. The ceremony also consisted of prayers and reflections from Oxford’s religious leaders, as well as a poetry reading from Anneliese Dodds, MP for Oxford East. Councillor Lubna Arshad, Lord Mayor of Oxford,

said: “Holocaust Memorial Day is an occasion to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and the genocides that have taken place across the world and, in doing so, be reminded that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, not only in defending human rights but collectively standing against injustice.” “We must be guided by the lessons of the past and build a future founded on respect, understanding, and the steadfast commitment to preserving and protecting our freedom to live, worship, work and love freely. Love for all, hatred for none.” Magdalen College held a discussion event on Thursday 25th January, led by the College President, Dinah Rose KC. She was in conversation about the contemporary relevance and history of the Holocaust with Laura Marks CBE, Chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, activist, and founder of Mitzvah Day, a charity bringing people of different faiths together through social action. She is also the founder of Nisa-Nashim, a national network for Muslim and Jewish women. Marking the day itself (Saturday 27th), Christ Church College hosted a singing workshop in line with this year’s theme, where participants studied and sang two songs by Ilse Weber (1903-1944). She was a musician who wrote these songs during her internment in the concentration camp Ther-

esienstadt. There was also be a candle lighting ceremony at Lady Margaret Hall on the 27th, at 6:30pm in the chapel. Keble College hosted an event on Sunday 28th January at 5:30pm, in the chapel, in collaboration with the Oxford branch of the Council for Christians and Jews. The ceremony featured music from Keble College Choir and OxfordShir, a local Jewish choir. Michael Newman OBE, chief executive at The Association of Jewish Refugees, an organisation that provides support to Holocaust survivors and their families, delivered a speech at this event. The university emphasised that “all are most welcome to attend”. Attendees were invited to socialise over drinks after the event. Oxford Brookes University held a student-led commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday 29th January. This event takes place every year, organised by the Multifaith Chaplaincy. On Wednesday 31st January, from 5:45pm to 6:30pm, Harris Manchester’s midweek chapel service was a Holocaust Memorial Service. The service was led by the College Chaplain, the Reverend Dr Claire MacDonald, alongside Wendy Fidler CBE. The event consisted of “words, music, and silence” and included “prayers, blessing and reflections across and beyond faith traditions.”

Queen’s College Provost steps down Gaspard Rouffin Head of News

n a statement released on the 25th of January, Queen’s College Provost, Dr Claire Craig, announced her decision to step down from her position during the next academic year due to personal and family reasons. Craig, who has served in the role for five years, expressed regret in making this decision and assured her commitment to ensuring a smooth transition for her successor. The Governing Body of Queen’s College has already initiated the search for the next Provost, and additional details, including the timeline for the selection pro-

cess, will be disclosed in the near future. Craig reflected on her tenure, expressing pride in the College’s response to the challenges posed by the pandemic: “I am proud to have served the College during the pandemic and I remain full of respect for the way Fellows, College staff and students responded to one of the most difficult periods the College has experienced in its long history.” During her time as Provost, Craig worked to uphold Queen’s “long-standing tradition of excellence in education and research.” She emphasised her commitment to “steward[ing] this tradition for the future” and pledged to support a seamless trans-

fer of “knowledge and relationships” to her successor. Senior Fellow Professor Peter Robbins, speaking on behalf of the College’s Governing Body, praised Provost Craig for “her unstinting service to the College”. The Governing Body also thanked her for steering the community through the challenges of the pandemic with “commitment, intelligence, and generosity.” “A fuller tribute will be paid to her many successes in post when the times comes but, for now, we look forward to working with her over the coming months. The Governing Body will start the process to select her successor and arrange an orderly transition.”

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Does Keir Starmer actually have a vision for Britain? Laurence Cooke

s we enter 2024 with one Prime Minister, it looks increasingly like we will leave it with another. Official discussions with civil servants in full swing, Labour upstaging the Tories at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a new intimate ITV documentary about the man himself: Keir Starmer seems ready for power. Labour’s dominant polls leads across all the nations and regions suggest that a landslide of Blair’s 1997 proportions (or greater) may well be on the cards. While complacency is not the order of the day – this is the Labour Party we’re talking about – it is legitimate to begin probing the depths of Starmer’s plans and wondering what Labour will do when in power. One need only look at Rishi Sunak’s desperate, and probably illegal, Rwanda plan to see that the current government is running out of ideas. Labour might have five ‘national missions’, broadly corresponding to construction, energy, health, policy, and equality of opportunity. Yet, it remains an open question whether Starmer and Labour have a unique vision for Britain, an ideology that can be distinguished from others like that of Tony Blair, Clement Attlee, or Harold Wilson. What does Keir Starmer want Britain to look like? MP Jon Cruddas’s new book A Century of Labour takes a bird’s eye view of these differing Labour ideologies and argues that Starmer needs ‘a story of national renewal; one equipped with moral purpose’. Tracing Labour’s pursuit of justice as triply distributional, liberal, and moral, Cruddas cites examples of the party’s achievements in each of these, from the equality of the NHS and the liberty of the Human Rights Act to the decriminalisation of homosexuality. As

Clause IV of the party’s constitution asserts that it is a democratic socialist party, Starmer must find his own blend of socialism if he wants his own achievements from government to be celebrated decades after the event. Starmer must be wary that ‘economic stability, national security, and secure borders’ – Labour’s current ‘three foundations’ – are not a clear enough departure from current Conservative priorities to themselves articulate a project for national renewal. The ‘national missions’ sound ambitious (and admittedly some of them are) – but they rarely promise the kind of systemslevel change the country desperately needs. Case in point: the mission to ‘take back our streets’ with more police is pretty tone deaf to calls for more meaningful, systemic police reform.

“He has already U-turned on (more or less) everthing he stood for when elected as leader.” The foundations and missions say nothing, or little, about where money will and will not be spent, and what will Britain look like in 2029. Is the state small or large? Are the rich richer… are the poor poorer? Do we have one of the greenest economies? Is our economy still dominated by London? Do we have more or less immigration? What is our relationship with Europe like? Will my train still inevitably be cancelled? Talk of stability and security, while perhaps reassuring in these worrying times, is neutral on many of these big questions. One key priority for any incoming government is combatting the climate crisis. Starmer’s vision here is epitomised by one headline figure: £28

billion. This money, funded by borrowing, will be directed towards a green industrial strategy that includes a stateowned renewable energy supplier. Here there is a sense of the ‘national security’ ethos – developing wind and solar technology here in the UK has been framed by Starmer as a matter of weaning ourselves off Russian oil and gas. This neutralises Sunak’s accusation that Labour have no concern for the UK’s energy security in refusing to grant more drilling licences in the North Sea. Further evidence that North Sea drilling brings little benefit for consumer bills or energy security leaves Starmer with the upper hand here. The £28 billion figure certainly provides comfort to me. It shows that Starmer’s team understands that the mitigation cost will be far lower than the cost of future damage if we don’t massively invest in limiting global heating. Right now. But the clear sense of vision here is under threat, with reports suggesting Starmer may opt to ditch his green spending commitment if he sees it as detrimental to Labour’s election chances. He may reframe it as a spending ‘ambition’ rather than a commitment. This would be a mistake for several reasons. For one, it undermines commitments to energy security and leaves the party without a sustainable industrial strategy that will alleviate inequality between the regions of the UK. Secondly, it leaves Starmer seeming unprincipled – and flippant about the climate emergency - in the desperate dash for ever more votes. Labour does not need every single vote to win: 40% and a majority is all but guaranteed. Thirdly, it means yet further disappointment for young people who want to see action on the climate crisis – a betrayal of this historic responsibility only exacerbates the sense that Starmer is not the man to avert Britain (and

the world’s) dangerous course to climate breakdown. Starmer needs to be careful. He has already U-turned on (more or less) everything he stood for when elected as leader of the party. Policies including the nationalisation of utilities, ending the 2-child benefit cap, support for trade unions, free movement with the EU, and more recently the abolition of the House of Lords and ending NHS outsourcing have all been modified or abolished. Many of these commitments are from so long ago that the public have forgotten. But closer to election time however, Starmer may find that the constant watering down of policy will make him seem spineless and an election victory increasingly pyrrhic. There is no point winning an election to then do absolutely nothing different from before. Another key area is public services. Labour’s stated aim is to ‘build an NHS fit for the future’ but without committing to tax reform (aside from scrapping Non-Dom status and removing VAT from private schools), it is unclear where the money will come from to turn the ailing ship of the NHS around and eliminate the waiting list backlog. Starmer has refused to countenance a wealth tax or a rise in income tax on the highest earners.

“Vision requires...seeing what kind of Britain and what kinds of values we want. ” This is despite some millionaires quite literally asking to be taxed more! Avoiding spending money significantly limits Labour’s opportunities for radical reform. Increasing taxes on the wealthiest in society could fund more investment in transport, health, and social care, all while remaining

within fiscal rules. And while Starmer is correct that spending alone will not solve the NHS crisis, the NHS faces a huge multi-billion pound deficit that cannot just be ignored. In education, free breakfast clubs and Ofsted reform are a step in the right direction, but an appropriate level of ambition would demand a review of the Tories’ wasteful academisation policy and explore alternatives to tuition fees for university funding. In transport, Labour’s plan for a ‘radical overhaul’ of the railway system, including renationalisation of operators, promises a discernible change from the status quo. Parts of Labour policy on public services show real vision, but Starmer should articulate these as part of a belief in putting high quality public services back in the hands of the British people. No tiptoeing around the fact that this is about public ownership over private profit. Critics could say that the British public does not want the rhetoric of people vs. profit. But this does not mean Starmer has to fall back onto bland platitudes about national borders. Vision is not just about projecting a sense of purpose to the electorate, but about actually seeing what kind of Britain and what kinds of values we want. In a likely election year and with polls so positive, Starmer needs to marry a unique socialist vision for Britain with the electoral pragmatism that has carried him this far. Any less, and there is little chance he will be able to seize the day and start tackling the roots of many of the issues this country is facing. Until we know the ‘how’ and in particular the ‘why’ of Starmer’s leadership, it is difficult to know if he will enter the annals of Labour Prime Ministers who have truly left their mark on Britain. Let’s hope a ‘story of national renewal’ is waiting to be written.

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

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Class encounters of the third kind Matt Holland

s an ageing third-year, I want to recount for you two of my earliest memories from Oxford. The first was from the night of my Fresher’s Ball, and as we all waited in a tuxedo huddle, looking as if we had escaped a Jazz Band from the ‘50s, I overheard two of my peers talking in conventionally-Oxford accents. One explained to the other about their disgust for Lynx products, saying that they smelt “cheap” and “common”, whilst the other agreed enthusiastically. The second recollection was from my matriculation day where similarly I was part of a mass of waiting black and white, suited figures in my college’s Front Quad. Once again, I overheard someone recounting in a conventionally-Oxford accent how they had called up their father to ask for more money because they had spent so much on going out in their first week that they barely had enough left to survive the term. I somehow doubt any of these people remember these experiences and I hardly expect them to. But you can imagine how jarring these experiences were for someone who had been raised on Tesco-own brand products and had worked in a McDonald’s during Sixth Form just to afford the necessities when coming to Oxford. I reflect on these experiences having recently seen that last year, just 30% of pupils at my alma mater, Springfield Secondary School, achieved a grade 5 in both English and Maths. This compares to a national average of 45%, whilst in the local authority the average is just 31%. No doubt the reasons for these statistics are incredibly complex, but they portray just how deep educational inequalities run, and in turn how firmly established class barriers are at such a young age. Before I came to Oxford, I would have called myself fairly privileged in my up-

bringing. I had a lot of stability and comfort at home, and may only have remarked on how I didn’t always get all the toys and Christmas presents that I wanted. But my parents gave me so much and I was and still am immensely grateful to them. I recognised that there were many, not just in Portsmouth, who didn’t have the luxury of only ever living in one home with a mortgage and a car parked outside. Oxford made me reassess many things about my own class identity, which has taken a while to come to terms with. Indeed, I have been meaning to write this article, or something similar to it, for most of my time here. Since coming to Oxford, I have been consistently made aware of my own class background and the relative lack of privilege which I experienced before coming here. I have found so many aspects of Oxford life jarring and difficult to be comfortable with, and not just the experiences I detailed above.

“Oxford made me reassess many things about my own class identity” Truly, I have never been entirely comfortable with formals and the experience of being waited upon by someone from probably a remarkably similar background to me. In fact, I often tell myself that if I had grown up in this city I would probably be in their position serving Oxford students instead of punters at my local McDonald’s. Practically anything involving formalwear has always been awkward for me, as evidenced by constantly having to explain to people at home that I have to wear a tuxedo and gown for exams. This isn’t just from the fact of inexperience wearing suits, but also stems from the fact that, unlike some of my contemporaries, my formalwear was not tailored or bought

as a full piece, but is a Frankenstein-like creation of parts from either Tesco or various charity shops. The privilege which I have felt here has often been sharply contrasted by the humbling experience of returning home every vac break. I transition from my desk and swivel chair here to doing my vac work on a laptop sitting on my bed at home. From the sandstone dreaming spires here, to the high-rise Brutalism of innercity Portsmouth. Oxford accents here to the local Pompey dialect there. Etc, etc… Benjamin Disraeli spoke of the two-nations which sharply divided those living in Victorian society. People were so heavily divided by their class background or their religious backgrounds that one group could never claim to understand the experience of the other. Whilst we can add many more identities to those criteria, including gender and race, it is fascinating to think that 143 years on from his time, the experiences of different groups in this country still remain so alien as to make one assume that they live in a completely different world to their “others”. I feel that I live in two completely opposing worlds which reflect opposing sides of the class divide in modern Britain. I experience the gross privilege and consumption of one side, and the harsh destitution and despair of the other. And in both there is a complete separation and ignorance of how the other side lives. Over the Christmas break, I was in a pub in Southsea, Portsmouth and bumped into someone I used to go to school with. He has been in my drama class and I had always thought he was a really cheerful person. One of the first things he asked me was if I had seen Saltburn and if I thought it was realistic or not. And then he asked me how it is that I got into Oxford, before saying to himself he really didn’t know how I could’ve got in. I told him I didn’t know either.

A scandal too far - what the Post Office debacle reveals about UK

Image Credit: Albert Bridge Amelia Gibbins

panning over two decades, the Post Office scandal is without a doubt one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in British history. However, how has it taken an ITV drama to bring it to the forefront of UK politics, and why is it still important now that action is being undertaken? The fiasco began in 1999, when the Post Office introduced Fujitsu’s Horizon software system to modernise accounts and streamline services. Subpostmasters were accused of falsifying accounts to steal from their Post Office branches, with many being told that they were the only one reporting problems with the Horizon system despite more than 900 being prosecuted. This led to subpostmasters having their branches taken away and forced to repay the money that they were accused of stealing from the Post Office – this has still not been returned to all. The wrongful convictions brought shame and humiliation on the victims of the faulty system, with 700 people being prosecuted between 1999 and 2015. However, no Post Office officials have faced prosecution for their role in the cover-up and the damage caused for the victims and their families – Paula Vennells, Post Office boss during the Horizon scandal, has agreed to give back her CBE due to mounting media pressure following the release of the ITV drama

Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which exposed the scandal to the UK public. As of January 2024, 93 of the convictions have been overturned, and £32.4 million has been paid in compensation to victims. However, Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake has pledged £1bn for future compensation payments, demonstrating the scope of the task ahead in ensuring justice is administered to all victims. According to the BBC, forensic accountants who discovered flaws in the Horizon system in April 2014 were sacked by Post Office bosses in a cover-up that the government was aware of under the codename of ‘Project Sparrow’. On 10th January, the government confirmed the blanket exoneration of hundreds to quash pre-existing convictions, entitling victims to £600,000 in reparation payments in an attempt to rebuild lives. In addition, those who were not convicted but were forced to pay out to the Post Office due to Horizon failures will receive at least £75,000 upfront. Although the release of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office has prompted positive action and brought the injustice to the forefront of the political agenda, questions must be raised surrounding the UKs approach to scandal in general. If every injustice will require a TV drama to force the public to care, how will we move forward with respect to the victims of every other scandal that remains unresolved, of

Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

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which there are many? It took twenty-seven years for the jury to rule that the victims of the Hillsborough tragedy were unlawfully killed, and were blameless victims of police negligence. Even in 2024, the Hillsborough Law, introduced by Andy Burnham, has not been passed – the law would require officials to be truthful during inquiries in the aftermath of a disaster, which now holds no penalty. It appears that there is no urgency when dealing with these tragedies and scandals that have destroyed lives and still carry consequences. One scandal that has been overlooked is the Contaminated Blood Scandal, where in the 1970s and 80s, thousands of NHS patients received contaminated blood transfusions, meaning that they became infected with HIV and Hepatitis C, both being potentially fatal. It took until 2015 for the government to agree to open a public inquiry, which began in September 2018 – it took until 2022 for victims to be able to claim £100,000 in compensation. However, nobody has ever faced prosecution despite civil servants, senior doctors and government knowing of the problem long before any action was taken – the lack of accountability is astounding in a tragedy that was so easily preventable.

“Questions must be raised surrounding the UK’s approach to scandal in general.” This also raises questions over the approach to ‘scandal’ in the UK in general – in theory, laws such as the recent one for a blanket exoneration should be easy due to the flexibility of the UKs constitution, but in reality, this does not appear to manifest. The role of the media in the treatment of scandal and tragedy may be seen as too prominent, as our legal system does not appear to push injustice to the front of the political agenda quickly enough. Unless every scandal is treated with the same urgency as the Post Office scandal was after over two decades, the future of fair justice for individuals seems bleak. One may argue that if Sunak is heading for defeat in the upcoming general election, now should be the time to deal with unresolved scandals that cast a shadow over the UK justice system – taking a step back from hugely controversial political statements such as the Rwanda Policy and educational reforms to contribute something positive to people’s lives that would make a real difference.

The opening of Ram Mandir is a grand victory for India’s reinvigorated Hindu nationalism Danish Malik

alf a millennium ago, at some time in the 16th century, a Mughal commander named Mir Baqi oversaw the building of a new mosque in Ayodhya. Babri Masjid, as it was named, was built on a site believed by many Hindus to be the birthplace of the deity Rama. It’s disputed if there was a temple already present at this location and, if so, whether Mir Baqi had it demolished. This sparked centuries of debate, in the courts and on the streets, on which religion had claim to the site. Claims were made to the Mughal, British, and the independent Indian administrations, and the matter reached a stalemate in 1948, when the gates to the site were locked and the area was declared disputed. Of course, such an uneasy deadlock was never going to last forever. As the influence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) grew in India, so did the desire of many Hindus to build a temple on the site. In 1992, almost five hundred years after it was first built, a crowd of almost 200,000 people demolished Babri Masjid. The entirety of South Asia was thrown into turmoil. Devastating communal violence followed, with over 2000 people, mainly Muslims but also some from Hindu communities, being killed in India alone. Tensions boiled over to neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh, where the Muslim majorities destroyed a large number of Hindu temples in retaliation. Par for the course in times of political strife in South Asia, cricket was involved, and a match between India and Bangladesh in Dhaka was disrupted as a large mob attempted to storm the stadium. For many Muslims, the demolition of Babri Masjid was a grand insult to Islam and an unforgivable act. For many Hindus, it was an opportunity to write a new future for their nation, in which their religion was at the forefront of the cultural fabric. It was a chance

Image Credit: Government of India to impose their beliefs in a manner that resembled their past colonisers. Islam’s roots have been in South Asia since the religion’s infancy in the 7th century, yet many Hindus see it as a foreign religion: the faith of the invaders that destroyed India’s once great Hindu civilisation. A temple at the site of this mosque would revive the great traditions of Sanatana Dharma. However, those who followed in the footsteps of Gandhi and Nehru, and believed in a secular India, would’ve looked on in horror and dismay as the mosque was destroyed. Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, has overseen a period of enormous growth and development in the nation. India is a country where the wounds and humiliation of colonisation still run deep and recent advances in the economy and space have allowed many Indians to feel a deep sense of national pride.

“For many Muslims, the demolition of Babri Masjid was a grand insult to Islam and an unforgiveable act.” In 2019, the Supreme Court of India ruled to allow a temple to be constructed on the site of the demolished mosque. Savvy as ever, Modi capital-

ised on this, placing the foundational stone in 2020, when construction of the new temple officially began. On 22nd January 2024, surrounded by Hindu devotees clad in saffron robes and chanting Jai Shree Ram, Modi and other high-profile BJP ministers inaugurated the new temple, Ram Mandir, on the site in Ayodhya. He had successfully enacted a major campaign promise and delighted his Hindu nationalist base. The mosque was no more and there was a temple in its place. The BJP was showing us once again the importance of Hinduism in its vision for a new India. For many of us who observe these events from the West, such religious politicking makes us feel rather uncomfortable. It’s evident that Modi and the BJP have no problem stoking the fires of Hindu nationalism and many in his party have ignited these flames in some of the darkest chapters of India’s history. We mustn’t forget that question marks still remain over Modi’s own role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, where over 1000 were left dead. But the BJP was smart to remain above board in their establishment of Ram Mandir. While the demolition of Babri Masjid was the action of a lawless mob, a temple was only built on the site after a comprehensive archaeological survey and Supreme Court deliberation. However,

the establishment of this temple will only lead to continued discontent for India’s Muslim minority, many of whom feel increasingly sidelined and targeted in Modi’s India. The ideals of Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb, a harmonious culture where Hindus and Muslims live in a vibrant peace, interwoven like the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, seem like a more and more distant dream.

“It’s evident that Modi and the BJP have no problem stoking the fires of Hindu nationalism.” India is an incredibly diverse country. The many languages, ethnicities, philosophies, and religions add to the rich tapestry of the nation, making it one of the most beautiful and fascinating places in the world. Popular belief holds that the Sikh Guru Arjan invited the Muslim Sufi saint Mian Mir to place the foundation stone of the Golden Temple. Whether this story is true or not, it represents a harmonious India, where the faiths intermingle and act in each other’s benefit. Today, the leader of India placing the foundation stone for a Hindu temple on the site of a destroyed mosque is not in keeping with this tradition, and dims the light of a secular, pluralist India just a little bit more.

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of the week

In conversation with Dr Tom Crawford

OxStu Profiles

or many of us, maths is a scary and difficult-toapproach topic that gets left in our formative years as quickly as possible. But it is unquestionably interesting, after all, who wouldn’t occasionally be drawn into questions of optimal Pokémon catch rate to looking the science behind removing hair from your head? Indeed, if these topics at all interest you, you’ve likely come across Professor Tom Crawford, whose work on his own YouTube channel, Tom Rocks Maths as well as others such as Numberphile, have undoubtedly drawn maths fans and curious YouTube binge-watchers alike to his videos. Beyond this, Dr Crawford works as the Public Engagement Lead at the Department of Continuing Education and a Fellow by Special Election and St Edmund’s Hall. We sat down with Dr Crawford to chat about his journey into academia and mathematics, the role of social media content in teaching maths, and making maths accessible. Can you share more about your journey into mathematics? What sparked your interest in the field? And how did you decide to pursue academically? I’ve said this several times before when I’ve been asked this question, which is that I don’t think I actually chose to study maths. In the sense of, perhaps when you’re doing A levels at school, or even deciding what A levels to do, you will feel a sense of confusion about what subjects you are going to do? Whereas for me, it was very obvious that I was going to do double maths - I’m doing as much maths as I can, and then, what other two things am I going to do to fill the time? So I think even then, I knew that I was going to do maths at university, it wasn’t that I had to pick between maths or physics or chemistry or engineering. It was clear that I’m doing maths, but the question was where am I going to study? That was kind of more the fo-

Image Credit: St Edmund Hall cus of the questions. Do you think that you knew you were going to do maths because you always enjoyed it more, or do you think it was just like a natural, like a talent you had? Was it because you were good at it or because you enjoyed it? Both, but fortunately both. I think my brain just works in a way that means math makes sense to me. It’s not about speed, it’s about how I see the world through patterns. So, I think one example which I like is that if I’m at the top of a mountain, for example, there’s always like a high point of the resort that you go up to and have a look at the views. Obviously I’m very appreciative of how amazing the views are. And I definitely process that this is beautiful. But my brain also perceives that there’s another mountain over there in the distance that’s a bit higher at approximately a 12 degree angle. And I will literally think about if I can estimate how high that mountain is, which to me is just as beautiful and fascinating. So that’s just what my brain does. So does that mean that you like a bit more of the applied side of mathematics? Do you like seeing the maths “come alive”, or do you equally enjoy discrete maths and more

Image that credit: Tom Crawford there are lots of my stu-

invisible topics? I enjoy almost all areas of maths, and I actually teach all areas of maths. At this point, I’ve taught every course you can take in first year and second year to the undergrads. If someone doesn’t want to teach a course, I’ll do it, which is now really good, because now I can just teach basically everything and help people out in that sense. But I also think when I’m faced with a maths problem, I try to visualize it in some context. So, obviously, the things that have those links to the real world are much easier for me to visualize. My PhD research was in fluid mechanics and looking at pollution in the ocean and just trying to understand and model how pollution spreads in the ocean so we can clean it up and stop it. And that’s very visual because as soon as I explain it to someone, they’re picturing floating plastic bottles in the ocean. So you have a feel for what the problem is straight away. But if I tell you I’m studying a 14 dimensional donut. Like, what the hell is that? But that’s not to say that those problems aren’t interesting, or that I don’t find them interesting, I just find them, I think, harder to get a grasp. You know, you just don’t have that intuition on those problems. At least I don’t. But I know

dents and lots of my colleagues who, who have that intuition in those weird, abstract senses. But I think it’s, for me, like, if I can visualize it then I can go about tackling the problem.

“The best way I’ve heard it described is that it’s a university within the university.” Could you tell us a little bit about your experience completing your PhD in fluid dynamics at Cambridge? When I was applying as an undergrad, I chose Oxford because it just felt more at home. And when I was coming to the end of my undergrad degree, I didn’t want to leave Oxford, but at the same time I felt that a change of scenery would just be like a good thing for me as a person. Not that I needed it, but just in general, you know, I’ve spent four years in one place. There’s an opportunity to go somewhere else for four years that’s also an amazing place to study. So it just felt like that’s just gonna help me grow as a person more to just meet new people, live in a different city, have those different experiences. But I’m laughing now as

Cambridge is basically identical to Oxford with its academic setting, traditions, and formals, and stuff, it’s all just the same. But the one thing I did notice that was different is Cambridge is that it’s almost like got a village feel to it, whereas Oxford is more like a big town and a University. What are your primary responsibilities as the Public Engagement Lead at the Department of Continuing Education? The best way I’ve heard it described is that it’s a university within the university. So the Deparment offers 200+, I think, courses all in a very short 10 weeks. You have an hour lecture, an hour tutorial online every week for 10 weeks, where you can study literally anything you can think of taught by your Oxford tutor. And it’s open to anybody. So you don’t need to be a student at the University. Just anybody, anywhere in the world can say that “Today, I want to learn about ancient Greek playwrights,” and you take a 10 week course taught by a professor of ancient Greek playwrights at the University of Oxford, something that you can’t really beat. So that still all exists, but I think pre-COVID in particular, the audience for the Department were people who live locally who could come in to the Department of Continuing Education, which is in Wellington Square, to have those classes and lessons in person, but then obviously they were forced to put them online in 2020 to continue to run them as everything was. Full interview available at oxfordstudent.com

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Profile | 13

In conversation with Professor Philippa Webb Image Credit: Philippa Webb Christine Savino

hilippa Webb understands global justice. For over 20 years, she has practiced public international law at the highest levels. Heralded as “an extraordinary legal mind” and “leading light on public international law”, her work has been extensively cited by international courts and tribunals. From victims of genocides to freedom of speech prosecutions, Webb’s human rights law work has advanced justice for some of the most oppressed around the globe. She is also well published with the Oxford University Press (OUP). Examples include The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law (2020, with Amal Clooney) with the accompanying travaux préparatoires to Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (2021), Oppenheim’s International Law: United Nations (2017, with Rosalyn Higgins GBE KC, Dapo Akande, Sandy Sivakumaran, and James Sloan), The Law of State Immunity (2015, with Hazel Fox QC), and International Judicial Integration and Fragmentation (2015). I sat down with Webb to discuss her meritorious career and fight for international human rights. Christine Savino: As an eminent international human rights lawyer and scholar, you are well-renowned for advancing global justice. What drives you to do this, and what has your career been like? Philippa Webb: I am fortunate to have had people in my life who have inspired me to have a career that contributes to global justice. First, my parents, who came from the Philippines and New Zealand but then made their lives in

“The five people you spend the most time with shape who you are.

Australia, gave me an international outlook and encouraged me to pursue opportunities, even if that meant leaving my home country. Second, I had teachers at high school and university who instilled in me a commitment to social justice, whether in a local legal clinic or an international organization. And finally, I am very lucky to have a circle of friends who are leaders in their respective fields and are litigating some of the most impactful cases in international law – the first genocide conviction against an ISIS member for the treatment of the Yazidi people, the first case in in an international court on climate justice for Small Island States, and cases on behalf of Ukraine for violations arising out of Russia’s invasion. According to Rohn’s theory, the five people you spend the most time with shape who you are. It just so happens that for me those five people are dynamic international human rights lawyers and scholars!

“Heralded as “an extraordinary legal mind” and “leading light on public international law”, her work has been extensively cited by international courts and tribunals.” My career – like many public international lawyers – has been a winding path. I started in the Sydney and Tokyo offices of a global law firm working on international environmental law before pursuing an internship, and then gaining a post, at United Nations Headquarters in New York. After postgraduate study in the US, I moved to The Hague to work at the International Court of

Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). From there, I moved to London to develop a career as an academic-practitioner, or Professor of Public International Law at King’s College London and barrister at Twenty Essex. CS: You are a published author in international human rights jurisprudence with our very own Oxford University Press. Can you tell us more about this? PW: My publications reflect my research interests and work experience. My monograph, International Judicial Integration and Fragmentation, is based on my doctoral thesis at Yale, which was inspired by my experience working at the ICJ and ICC. I saw that the same legal dispute or issue was arising in multiple courts and was interested in exploring whether there was convergence or divergence (spoiler alert: much more convergence) and what factors played a role in that process. Oppenheim’s International Law: United Nations was an epic undertaking – an eight-year project led by the former President of the ICJ, Dame Rosalyn Higgins GBE KC, in collaboration with friends who are leading scholars in international law, and bearing in mind the status of Oppenheim as the leading treatise in international law. For The Law of State Immunity, I had the pleasure of working with Lady Hazel Fox on a fascinating area of law – I am currently writing the next edition. Finally, The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law arose out of a realization that there was no general book on the mostlitigated human right. So, Amal Clooney and I decided to write one, not perhaps appreciating that it would take four years and occupy 1,000 pages! I have contributed to a

new book, edited by Amal and Lord Neuberger KC, on Freedom of Speech in International Law, which is being published by the OUP in January 2024.

“My publications reflect my research interests and work experience.” CS: My understanding is that you are active within the intersection of international human rights law and education. Can you elaborate on this? PW: One of the most rewarding parts of my job is involving students in pro bono projects. I can give you two recent examples. First, I led the drafting and submission of an amicus brief to the US District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals on a case concerning a detainee in Guantanamo Bay. I worked with students to contest the legality of a ruling by a US military judge that statements purportedly obtained through torture could be considered in pre-trial proceedings. Their research skills, enthusiasm, and language skills allowed us to pull together international law sources from around the world. Shortly after the submission, the Biden Administration issued a restatement of US law that mirrored the argument we made in the amicus, confirming that torturetainted evidence is prohibited in any phase of proceedings. Second, I worked with students on an English case that sought to hold a diplomat accountable for alleged involvement in modern slavery. The legal argument was that the ‘commercial activity’ exception to diplomatic immunity (Article 31(1)(c) of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations) should be interpreted

”

to include modern slavery. Our recommendation was tested and followed by the UK Supreme Court in its judgment in Basfar v Wong ([2022] UKSC 20). We hope that the judgment – the first by a leading court anywhere in the world - will encourage other victims to initiate proceedings, and judges in other jurisdictions will follow the example of the UK Supreme Court.

“One of the most rewarding parts of my job is involving students in pro bono projects... Their research skills, enthusiasm, and language skills allowed us to pull together international law sources from around the world.” CS: What is next for Philippa Webb? PW: More of the same I hope – a challenging and interesting mix of international law issues in research and practice. I am currently representing the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law in their request for an advisory from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLO. I am counsel for the Maldives, which is seeking to intervene in the ICJ proceedings concerning genocide against the Rohingya people. I also have an interdisciplinary research project on how we might use artificial intelligence to enhance the voices of overlooked groups in cases that involve collective rights. Full interview available at oxfordstudent.com

14 | Identity

Identity

Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

Deputy Editor: Sami Jalil Section Editors: Georgia Ferris, Nina Naidu identity@oxfordstudent.com

Re-evaluating the immigrant identity Nina Naidu

oming from the multicultural mosaic of London, I’ve always existed within a bubble. Whether navigating the corridors of my school or strolling through the bustling streets, I found myself immersed in a kaleidoscope of individuals representing every corner of the globe. The symphony of diverse languages, the aroma of delectable cultural dishes, and the sight of countless inspiring faces formed the jigsaw of my daily life. While London may be the capital city of England, identifying as ‘British’ transcended mere English roots; it encapsulated a profound comprehension of the melting pot of cultures in one’s familial heritage and the present day. Embracing this cultural richness is a truly beautiful experience – savouring dishes that evoke memories of my grandma or exploring vibrant market stalls adorned with cultural intricacies in every piece of jewellery. Being a Londoner, particularly as an Asian woman, is a journey that I wouldn’t exchange for anything. In a city where countless faces mirror your own, it’s easy to forget that such diversity isn’t universal.

“Embracing this cultural richness is a truly beautiful experience” Perhaps my perspective was somewhat naive. Born in Japan, my mother’s homeland, I relocated to London at the age of five and have called it home ever since. Growing up, I attended a bilingual nursery, visited Hindu temples to deepen my religious understanding, and spent Saturdays in Japanese school to maintain the language. Amidst these cultural milestones, I also went to a Church of England school, where diversity in religious beliefs and cultures

surrounded me seamlessly, never prompting a second thought. In the diverse tapestry of London’s cultures, my identity effortlessly blended, escaping the traditional ‘immigrant’ label. Throughout my school years, I never truly grasped the experience of being an outcast due to my cultural identity. This started falling apart when I first stepped into Oxford. It marked my departure from London, and the realisation dawned that London, despite its cultural diversity, doesn’t encapsulate the entirety of the UK as I once assumed. Suddenly, I found myself forced to elucidate aspects of my upbringing, where I’m ‘really’ from, and navigate through stereotypical perceptions of Asian people. It felt as though I needed to justify my Britishness, convincing others that I am a Londoner; I live here, unequivocally belong here. My home is here despite what my appearance may suggest. I find myself stuck in a weird limbo. While my family’s roots in the UK only extend to my parents’ generation, and we’re geographically isolated from my extended family, I often fly across the world to visit my grandparents. Raised to speak multiple languages and adhering to traditional values that have become outdated in the west, my behaviour is deemed too ‘modern’ by my parents, who, paradoxically feel I betray our heritage by embracing my British identity. My dad, having lived in London more than in his home country of Malaysia, is perhaps more British than he acknowledges. Yet, he insists that I’m not really British, unwilling to accept the complexity of dual identities. The dichotomy exists, and I am left grappling with a sense of not fully belonging anywhere. I find my dad’s logic somewhat ironic, considering he himself identifies as being MalaysianIndian as not to forget his ethnic background. Maybe it becomes too complex to identify as British-JapaneseMalaysian-Indian, but I don’t

Image Credit: Charles Postiaux and Damiano Baschiera

see how it’s any different. In this pursuit of understanding my complicated immigrant identity, I find myself in a unique position. I don’t entirely resonate with international students who have spent their lives abroad, yet I struggle to connect with UK students whose cultures aren’t rooted elsewhere. Where do I fit in? I am not definitively anything, and the process of reassessing my cultural identity as an adult feels unnatural, as if I’m moulding myself based on others’ perceptions. I soon realised that I had very few Asian friends at university. While this wasn’t inherently problematic, I felt a sense of isolation when attempting to share personal struggles, such as family dynamics, with those who didn’t inherently understand the strict cultural norms I was referring to. Though it’s essential to note that not all Asian families adhere to strict norms, the relief of not having to preface deep conversations with a rundown of traditional cultural expectations was palpable.

truly a minority only struck me in my second year. In the quest to join cultural societies, two friends and I were astonished to find no society specifically for women of colour. I had attended events at various cultural societies, such as the Asia Pacific Society, Japan Society, and even HUMSOC (Hindu Society) for Diwali. Still, there was no singular space for the intersection of our identities. Femsoc or the Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality (CRAE) at the SU were the closest, but the prospect of engaging debates and talks initially seemed daunting. We longed for a society where we could simply exist, chat over coffee, and share our experiences as students and women of colour. And so, WOCSOC was born. With just the three of us, running the society proved tumultuous, and I was somewhat clueless about where to begin. It required more effort than I had anticipated, but the idea of a safe space coming to fruition filled me with exhilaration and pride. Throughout the year, we organised events, fostering a warm and inviting community through activities like boba socials and book clubs. In conversations with these women, a common thread emerged; shock at the lack of diversity within colleges, frustration at the lack The revelation that I was of understanding, and shared

“Where do I fit in? I am not definitively anything...”

experiences of racism and microaggressions. Transitioning from a community mirroring my own to an institution still rooted in elitist ideals was a jarring shift. While WOCSOC may not be a one-size-fits-all solution, it was undeniably needed. Initially serving as a space for me to exist and breathe, I am now excited to witness its potential growth under the new committee.

“In the diverse tapestry of London’s cultures, my identity effortlessly blended...” I understand that I’ll always be in this grey area surrounding my cultural identity, but slowly, I am coming to terms with the multifaceted parts of myself. Although unlearning the habit of feeling like I’ve betrayed one part of my cultural identity by embracing another is challenging, I’ve come to understand that it only strengthens my connection to various aspects of myself. Looking in the mirror and accepting all these pieces as part of me is a journey of self-acceptance that continues to unfold.

Pink

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

Pink | 15

Deputy Editor: Etienne Baker Section Editors: Elsie Haldane, Jacob Newby pink@oxfordstudent.com

Power, family and class: The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes review Elsie Haldane

ith LGBT+ History month just around the corner, it is the perfect time to pick up a copy of Zoë Playdon’s ‘The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes’, the incredible story of a trans man who fought to have his true gender and identity recognised in the face of extreme challenges. Born into an aristocratic Scottish family, Ewan Forbes was assigned female at birth but presented as a boy from a young age. His mother, realising that Ewan was unhappy, took him on several trips to Prague, Vienna, Dresden, and Budapest, to discreetly access gender-affirming treatments from ‘sexologists’ of the time, doctors who were providing groundbreaking gender and sexuality-based care. Ewan may have been one of the first trans men to access early and experimental testosterone treatment.

“...may have been one of the first trans men to access early testosterone treatment” As Ewan grew his life remained unaffected by his identity and was accepted by his community in Aberdeenshire. While working as the doctor, he met and fell in love with his future wife, Patty. With same-sex marriage outlawed at the time, Ewan requested that his birth certificate be changed so that they could marry. Without the obstacles in place that trans people face today when obtaining a gender recognition certificate, Ewan’s request was approved. The couple lived in blissful happiness at their rural home in Aberdeenshire, before Ewan’s world was turned upside down. After the death of Ewan’s brother in 1965, Ewan was set to inherit his aristocratic title (the Forbes baronetcy). However, at this time Ewan’s cousin

John began threatening Ewan, claiming that Ewan was ineligible for the inheritance having been assigned female at birth. This was motivated by the fact that, in John’s words, ‘Daddy promised me a title’. Ewan, desperate to live peacefully with Patty and for his identity to be safe from attack, sought to pacify John by handing over the Forbes’ vast estate, including the famous Craigievar Castle (as pictured below) , thought to have inspired Walt Disney. Ewan knew that if the court decided he was ‘female’, it would not only result in his personal devastation but also the annulment of his marriage and arrest of his wife for committing supposed perjury. These submissions only held off John’s attacks temporarily, however, who then came back in full force for the baronetcy. The case between Ewan and John was hard-fought, bitter, and extremely violating for Ewan and Patty, upsetting the peaceful life together they both desperately wanted. Intrusive questions about their sexual relationship and a medical examination of Ewan made the experience particularly traumatising. Ewan

finally won the case after managing to persuade the courts that his sex was wrongly assigned at birth. Ewan was able to keep his title, his way of life, and his marriage, despite the huge emotional and financial toll his cousin’s attacks had taken on him. Ewan died in 1991, when John finally inherited Ewan’s title.

“Playdon expertly portrays his courage in the face of attacks on his identity” The result of years of research, Playdon writes Ewan’s story with incredible sensitivity and thoughtfulness. The reader gains an intimate understanding of the huge challenge that the case presented to Ewan. She expertly portrays his courage in the face of attacks on his identity. Playdon’s book is a chronological record of Ewan’s life, with particular focus on the case itself. From the beginning, the reader feels part of Ewan’s jour-

ney from his happy moments in rural Aberdeenshire to his mother’s determination to provide the correct medical care for him. The story is also a gripping read, interwoven with tales of power, family, and class, against the backdrop of a fairytale castle. The chapters that cover the case against Ewan’s gender are rigorously thorough, and can sometimes be a difficult read because of the way in which Playdon so sensitively portrays Ewan’s suffering. However, the facts of the case are fascinating, and the ways in which Ewan emerges victorious are both enthralling and satisfying. The book particularly shines in the last chapter, ‘Ewan’s legacy’, in which Playdon outlines the ways in which Ewan’s case has affected trans rights in the UK: how these rights were subsequently rolled back since his victory, and the state of trans rights as a result today. Ewan’s story details the painful way in which life was made significantly harder for trans people under British law, because of the perceived threat Ewan’s case made to male primogeniture the structural framework upon

which both the British aristocracy and monarchy rely. During its time, the case was extremely hushed, and the successful outcome for Ewan covered up and hidden away. Playdon has truly opened up his case and brought his story to light as an important part of LGBTQ+ history.

“...enthralling and satisfying...” Zoë Playdon is a celebrated LGBTQ+ activist and researcher, and Emeritus Professor of Medical Humanities at the University of London. She is a Visiting Professor at the University of Cumbria, and an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College. Professor Playdon is former co-Chair of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Doctors and Dentists [GLADD], and cofounded the Parliamentary Forum on Gender Identity with Dr Lynne Jones MP in 1994. She has worked pro-bono defending LGBTQ+ rights for over thirty years, and has acted as an advisor for the NHS, Home Office, and Department of Education and Employment.

Image Credit: B. A. Watson

16 | Columns

snmuloC Friday 2 February 2024| The Oxford Student

Womansplaining

Was it Ken-ough? On Barbie’s Oscars snub Sharon Chau scar nominations have finally arrived to much buzzing anticipation — but many are not happy. The online furore at the perceived snub for Barbie’s Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie has been intense. Leading the charge is Ryan Gosling: though nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as ‘Ken’, he has made clear his disappointment that the key women involved in the smash hit were not similarly recognised. He wrote in a statement, ‘There is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globallycelebrated film.’ Further outcries have been made across the industry. Many celebrities noted how life imitated art, with the female filmmaker and actress being snubbed, but the male star celebrated. Incredibly, former U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has also chimed in, calling Greta and Margot

‘more than Kenough’ and pioneering the hashtag #HillaryBarbie. However, was this really a ‘snub’? Yes, Barbie was a massive hit, bringing in an astounding $1.4 billion worldwide as the highest-grossing movie of 2023; its feminist message should also certainly be celebrated. But let’s note that Barbie didn’t leave empty-handed, receiving an impressive eight nominations including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor. In addition, the Oscars always nominates five people for best director and ten movies for best picture, which means that just statistically, there would be some great movies excluded from the list. It’s also important to note that Gosling’s Best Supporting Actor nomination is not equivalent to a nomination for Robbie, which would place her in the Best Lead Actress category, a far more competitive field — all the Best Actresses this year (Emma Stone, Lily Gladstone, Sandra Hüller, Annette Ben-

ing and Carey Mulligan) were excellent in their respective films. And if we’re talking about ‘snubs’, what of other incredible women of colour who should have been recognised too? Past Lives, was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay; however, its director and writer, Celine Song, and its star, Greta Lee, were notably absent from Best Director and Best Actress respectively. Moreover, all this talk of Barbie has overshadowed some tremendous achievements. We should definitely be celebrating Lily Gladstone as the first-ever Native American nominated for Best Actress, and the fact that a historic three of the Best Picture films were directed by women. Focusing instead on a film made by and starring white women which has earned immense commercial success completely diminishes these other historical firsts. Worse, some of the discourse surrounding the Barbie ‘snub’ has been quite un-feminist. In Mary McNamara’s column in the LA Times, she muses, ‘If only

Barbie had done a little time as a sex worker. Or barely survived becoming the next victim in a mass murder plot. Or stood accused of shoving Ken out of the Dream House’s top window.’ Although the sentiment is directed at the Academy for purportedly disregarding Barbie because the eponymous character didn’t undergo enough hardship, McNamara’s comments seem to diminish the roles of other Best Actress nominees. Calling Killers of the Flower Moon a ‘mass murder plot’ severely downplays the critical themes of racism and genocide masterfully tackled by the film. And in one final, cruel twist of irony, America Ferrera, nominated for Supporting Actress for Barbie, too expressed her disappointment over the Gerwig and Robbie snubs. But to no one’s surprise, everyone decided to focus on Gosling’s comments instead. Did someone say something about women being ignored? It is fascinating that a film that is essentially a feature-length toy advertisement has been able

to market itself as synonymous with feminism. Whilst the obvious response to right-wing backlash to Barbie à la Ben Shapiro is to celebrate the film’s progressive aspects, it is still important to remember that the gender politics of Barbie are not groundbreaking. A cynical reading of the film would argue that it toes the line between popcorn-munching bombast and Oscar-worthy acting, but fundamentally boils down to a wish to sell merchandise and grow the bottom line of greedy corporates. Personally, I think Barbie has sparked a great deal of much-needed conversations and really changed how some women are viewed and view themselves. But let’s not give it too much credit. In a year with some incredible movies and acting, it is difficult to argue that Gerwig and Robbie should have replaced anyone who was nominated, particularly the other incredible women who certainly deserve their accolades. Perhaps we’ve got to accept that Barbie was good, but it just wasn’t Ken-ough.

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

What a career in the creative really feels like Matt Taylor his week is Oxford University’s Creative Career Festival 2024, with professionals from the creative industries sharing information on how to build a career in them. I am fortunate to already work in the creative industries. In his memoir Yes Man, Danny Wallace said, “The only time you have no opportunities is when you decide to stop taking them”. It profoundly impacted me when I first read it as a teenager. From it, I developed a spidey sense with the ability to sniff out an opportunity in a force nine gale. It’s a valuable tool when building a career in something you’re passionate about. However, after years of following this, I now find myself deeply, deeply tired and always on the precipice of collapse. So, as I oscillate between burnout and exhaustion, is this the cost of

following your passion? In my day job, I’m a recording engineer. I’m the person who sits behind the mixing desk and hits the record button in the recording studio before the band starts playing. Although, the job is way more complicated than that and actually incredibly consuming. I’ve been fortunate to have some significant success in my career. I have worked on number 1 records, worked with Grammy-winning producers, and was also named Break-through Engineer of the Year in 2022. Every success was me making sure I was in the room and grabbing each opportunity with both hands. But rather than feeling more secure in my position in the industry, I’m left in a precarious state that if I take my foot off the pedal, my whole career will disintegrate. Unfortunately, I’m not alone in this.

Help Musicians and The Musicians’ Union published the Musicians’ Census late last year. The report aimed to figure out the state of the music industry. Not surprising to anyone who works in recording, it found that producers and engineers suffered the worst from poor mental health. Studio sessions are run for 10-18 hours daily, sometimes for days. I’ve been on sessions of 18 hours a day for a whole month with no day off just to get a project completed. There is nothing more enticing than the feeling of working on something special. The fight within us ignites, and the jeopardy is exhilarating, but it is not healthy. Most of the time, the payoff isn’t there. Burnout is a death spiral of poor mental health because no matter how hard you work, it will never be your best work.

Whenever people discover what I do for work, they always say it must be nice doing a job you love because it doesn’t feel like work. I always resent this notion. When your work is also your passion, you’ll graft unreasonably hard. However, the merger of a vocation and avocation also creates a shift in commitment. It’s a subtle shift, but this expectation is the cause of burnout. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, and I’m prepared to sacrifice everything other people call life just so whatever I’m working on can reach this standard. But because I’m prepared to do it doesn’t mean it should be expected. There is a turning point from working too hard that, in fact, you’re hardly working at all. You’re present but not really involved. In a daze, trying to get to the end. This is not fun. It’s not fulfilling.

It’s not right. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it is that to create your best work, you need to be rested. We’ve all heard the mantra of working smarter, not harder. This shifts the blame, making it a ‘you problem’ rather than a systemic one. Is it worth it? Well, there is no better feeling than being in a studio when the magic happens. That a-ha moment when everything clicks into place, and shivers run down your neck. It’s the most exciting feeling in the world. But it comes at a price. I’ve missed key life events, key family events, key everything. All because I’ve allowed a passion to get out of control. Maybe avocations are not meant to be the same as vocations. I suppose it’s too late for me to know otherwise, but think about this before you embark on a career in the creative industries.

Columns Chaos in Kyrgyzstan

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

Columns | 17

An earth-shaking welcome

Jonah Poulard

ewly arrived in the titular country, I can actually write about it this week! Said arrival, though, was far from an easy one. After a quick mini-break in Istanbul, which was enormously pleasant, I was on a plane headed to Bishkek. I indulged in a couple of beers on the flight, before dozing off to Bruckner in the extralegroom seat I had snagged. I awoke to a good deal of kerfuffle in the cabin, as the announcement that we were actually to land in Almaty due to inclement weather was given. Almaty is not Bishkek, it’s not even in the right Stan. Thankfully, we didn’t stay in Kazakhstan long, although the three hours spent motionless on the tarmac weren’t exactly a joy. I conked out properly in that period, and was only roused by the gentle thud of touchdown in Bish. Got there in the end. Kyrgyzstan was a bit of a paradise at first. The misty, snowy view over the runway gave me that feeling of pristine desolation that I’d always imagined Central Asia to have. The drive into town from the airport took me down a long, deadly straight road lined on either side by

precisely-spaced birches, glittering in the morning sun with a dusting of hoarfrost and snow. Way out on the horizon stood the hazy Ala-Too mountains. My taxi driver’s grandson was peering over my shoulder from the back seat, admiring the same beauty as I.

“One day I’m feasting upon buttery, five-star loin, the next, I’m fighting my way through some hoof. All part of the fun, I say.” The city of Bishkek itself is perhaps not quite as glamourous as Kyrgyzstan’s famous nature. A classic, spacious Soviet grid system, all the buildings fall neatly into place between wide boulevards and prospekts. In certain conditions, and with a certain state of mind, one could see the place as fairly bleak – taken straight out of those ‘Eastern Europe core’ TikToks set to Molchat Doma. And when the nightly fog sets in, thickened by smoke from thousands of coal-fired stoves; when you’re

walking along a wide, empty street with behemothic, lifeless buildings staring down at you, guided only by the yellow flickering of a lonely streetlamp, yes, it can indeed feel rather like that. But I’m one to love what is novel, and the atmosphere of this city certainly is that. I’ve enjoyed brisk walks on snow-filled nights in the tranquillity of nearby parks and morning rides to my language school through the grey alike. The spaciousness of the city lends itself to a feeling of quiet, of peace, one which I find extremely soothing. Perhaps, you can never overestimate the oppressiveness of feeling cramped. And when the sun does come out, everything takes on a special nuance in its appearance, making even the mundane seem spectacular. I’m not sure where this eternally appreciative perception of mine comes from, but be it a result of some mental gymnastics or of the genuine beauty of the place, I’m glad to have it. So far, I’ve settled in nicely here in Bishkek. A nice routine has emerged from daily language classes: I wake up just in time to get to the school five minutes late, attend my classes and then make straight for my local

plov-house. Plov is a Central Asian staple, and consists of rice and lamb at its most basic. My local joint throw yellow carrots in with the rice for some extra excitement, and the occasional raisin too! The staff at Golden Kazan are most friendly to their new zavsyegdátai, although the quality of their lamb does vary wildly. One day, I’m feasting upon buttery, five-star loin, the next, I’m fighting my way through some hoof. All part of the fun, I say. After luncheon I take a nap, since my inability to go to bed at a reasonable hour has rendered me biphasic. Newly fresh, I pootle around doing homework and the other things one needs to, these days to the splendid accompaniment of Spotify’s ‘Turkish Psych Mix’ playlist, before heading down to my local restaurant for some dinner. The staff there, unlike at Golden Kazan, seem to take no interest in me at all and frankly, as it seems, resent my presence. I don’t mind the appalling service though, as their lagman, a spicy noodle dish with beef, is delicious and competitively priced. More work, reading or watching follow, and finally either a tea or a petite dram of Kyrgyz cognac, so terrible that I have to keep it in the freezer, summon me to sleep. Pretty good set-up, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, it’s time to actually give some attention to what was promised in the title: namely chaos and ‘an earth-shaking welcome’. I’ll set the scene. It was a typical cold, misty night in Bishkek, a little after midnight. I was knocking some work out on my laptop in the kitchen

while watching Suits. All of a sudden, my phone started buzzing like an extremely agitated and extremely large bumblebee (sorry, I really couldn’t find a better simile than that). A notification had come through: ‘EARTHQUAKE ALERT! EXPECT LIGHT SHAKING’. And sure enough, right on cue, the shaking commenced thirty seconds later. Being an earthquake virgin as most Brits are, I had little idea of what to expect, or indeed do. As I began to oscillate gently in my chair, china clinking in the sink, water rippling in my glass, I found the sensation with which I was confronted uniquely unnerving, terrifying almost. The unfamiliarity of the situation certainly contributed, but I reckon the sense of helplessness, implicit in such a bold assertion of nature’s power over petulant mankind, played a larger role. We go to great lengths to tame the natural world, restrain it and use it to our advantage. But in the end Mother Earth is always frighteningly stronger. That was the gist of my crazed philosophising at the time, at least.

“A notification had come through: ‘EARTHQUAKE ALERT! EXPECT LIGHT SHAKING’.” In hindsight, it was a pretty cool experience, as one’s first time experiencing anything tends to be. I wouldn’t be disappointed, though, were it not to happen again. Over and out.

18 | Columns

snmuloC Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

Dolce Diaries

No cappuccinos after breakfast Nina Naidu

n the past four months of me being in Italy, I have undoubtedly come across many culture shocks. I wasn’t at all expecting to be surprised by the differences in the Italian dolce vita lifestyle, and despite its geographical proximity to the UK, Italians certainly live life differently to the Brits. Here are a few moments that have truly shocked me throughout my many ventures through Italy. Starting off strong with something that I wish I saw more in the UK: dogs, everywhere! Not only do Italians love their dogs, with cute puffer coats and all, but they are allowed in a lot more places than in the UK. I’ve seen adorable labradors in pizzerias and fluffy poodles waltzing around supermarkets like it’s nobody’s business. I love seeing their adorable furry faces on my many walks and grocery trips and they tend to be incredibly well-behaved as I often don’t notice their presence until they start sniffing with their tiny snouts! It makes me miss my sweet little pup at home, but it’s comforting to know that Italians are just as enamoured with the charms of their own canines. While supermarkets on the

whole are quite similar to those in the UK, I have had a few hiccups trying to leave certain places. Unbeknownst to the fact that you may have to keep your receipt to scan yourself out of the supermarket, I’ve faced a few embarrassing moments having to ask someone to let me out because I’d naively left my receipt at the cash register. They also separate pharmacies from supermarkets, meaning that if you want to grab some over-the-counter medicine like paracetamol or ibuprofen, you’re very unlikely to find them laying around in the supermarket. Though this makes sense to some extent, pharmacies also tend to be the go-to place for finding beauty products (even things more basic like moisturiser), meaning that I make more frequent trips to the pharmacy in Italy than I do back home. What’s handy is that they offer a lot more medication over-the-counter, so (fingers crossed) I will not have to make any trips to the GP during my time here! Italians also take their siestas pretty seriously. Although this is not the case for all shops, many of them close after lunch and reopen before dinner, including my favourite place, the cat cafe. Having strange opening times of 9:45-13:45

In the Bar Jesus Amanda Li

esus College confuses me often. With it being on Turl, I often pass it by on my way to and from tutorials, and every glimpse I get of the inside reminds me of the fact that we’re all in Oxford. Plodge is very scary: one time I had a quiz bowl tournament at Jesus and had to be constantly let in and out by a Jesus student as I brought teams to and from the gate. Yet in that day, I was made very familiar with the trek from the bar to plodge.

It’s certainly easy to get lost in Jesus: you pass by so much on your way to the bar. Its proximity to hall leads to a lot of post formal visitors as well as the usual crowd, and the drink options are plentiful. Yet Ray, the bartender, is always a ray of sunshine (how funny I am!) welcoming everyone into the bar. He certainly makes the bar’s personality shine, which is something other bars can lack. Jesus’ bar is nothing if not big and beautiful. I went to a Tuesgays in there last year and

and then 17:45-21:00 makes it difficult to get a spontaneous cappuccino in, although that leads me to my next point… No cappuccinos after breakfast! This was a real shocker for me, considering I was completely oblivious to this cultural rule when I first arrived. As it turns out, Italians have very specific customs when it comes to their coffee, with one unspoken – yet important – rule that you should not have cappuccinos (or any other milk-based coffee drink) after breakfast. This definition in itself is ambiguous, as I’ve heard several interpretations of “after breakfast” meaning anything from 10am to 2pm. The idea is that milk is considered a “breakfast beverage”, and to consume it after a certain point in the day means that you don’t digest the milk properly and should therefore be avoided. I have to say that this is one rule that I fundamentally disagree with for many reasons. One is that I’m lactose intolerant, so the time of day truly doesn’t matter when it comes to digesting dairy (as I can never digest it anyways); my personal workaround to evading this rule results in ordering soy cappuccinos, so surely there should be no concerns

surrounding digestion? I used to feel bad for breaking this rule but the coffee is just too good to resist.

was absolutely shocked by how nice the environment was. It’s downstairs, like Brasenose, but with multiple rooms, a big bar section, and plenty of room for sitting and standing, conversation is so easy to flow. We came last week right at opening and it quickly filled up. (Shoutout to American soc!!) My ADHD brain couldn’t help but to ignore the person I was talking to and read the chalk messages for about three minutes… many a crew date has stopped by for sure. I’ve made friends there, played games there, and just sat and talked there— Jesus has room for whatever amount of social interaction you’re down for. I’ve gotten the normal pint or cocktail, but the college drink really makes the Jesus experience shine. The Bleed Green’s

two shots of vodka and one shot of midori (and a bit of grenadine to top off!) doesn’t feel like too much for me and doesn’t break the bank. My Jesus friend has told me that the college drink used to be sheeprelated, which, though I understand the reasons behind losing it for this lovely drink, seems a lot more cute to me.

“Italians also take their siestas pretty seriously...” The second reason is that it’s just plain silly. Italian cuisine rests almost solely on using dairy products, whether that’s parmesan on your pasta or the mozzarella on your margherita. Wouldn’t this cappuccino rule make eating these dishes redundant? I try not to think about it too much. Instead of milk-based drinks, Italians traditionally opt for a simple shot of espresso (called a caffè in Italian) after a meal, and in the afternoons you often see people perched against the bars of cafes, slowly sipping their coffee. In general, Italians are very meticulous with their coffee, as you can get one for as cheap as €1 (roughly 85p) with the best flavours imaginable. I’d never really been a fan of coffee until coming to Italy as the prices and the taste simply weren’t worth it for me, but I have been transported into a brand new world. Unlike the UK, almost all coffee stores are independent, and all

deliver high-quality coffee for such reasonable prices that it’s hard to return to a country littered with big corporate chains. Through frequenting cafes in Italy, I’ve managed to make some unexpected but heartwarming encounters with people, who are often very chatty. Last but not least, I’ve been greatly amused by the sheer amount of condom vending machines scattered throughout Italy. I first noticed it on my first ever trip to Milan in the summer of 2022, where I saw a Durex vending machine, fittingly placed next to a dodgylooking weed vending machine. I was surprised to discover that this indeed isn’t just a Milan thing, but exists everywhere throughout Italy. They often appear near pharmacies, stocked with every type of condom imaginable for all of your needs. Though I’m not sure if they ever get used, – as they look quite overpriced and must be slightly embarrassing to buy from – I still let out an immature giggle every time I pass by those banana-flavoured condoms. Italy is truly a strange place, but I have enjoyed the many quirks that come with the country and the culture. I’m sure that throughout the next six months, I’ll uncover even more Italian idiosyncracies. Overall, though I always feel overwhelmed coming and going (and waiting for someone to let me out of the ship st entrance), Jesus is such a nice time. Thank god for the immense anxiety I have just coming into the college without someone I know, or I’d probably be in there every day.

Image Credit: simononly

Columns Blane’s Style Files

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

Columns | 19

How to get the perfect manicure test part of the nail, making your nail seem blotchy and uneven.

Blane Aitchison

s someone who loves nail polish, I often get asked how to make a manicure last longer, or how to prevent chipping. Here’s my step by step guide to the perfect manicure with all of those frequently asked questions answered.

The Top Coat

The Nails Before painting your nails, a lways ma ke sure your nails are clean and dr y. This means making sure that there’s no old polish still on your nails, and that you’ve waited long enough after washing your hands or showering, as nail polish can have difficult y adhering to wet nails. Using pure acetone, or a nail polish remover that contains a high percentage of acetone, can also help to dehydrate your nails and remove any oils that are naturally produced by your hands, allowing the nail polish to form a tighter bond with the surface of the nail. Some people like to buff the surface of their nails, but I believe that this is unnecessary, and can actually weaken your nails, leading to them breaking more easily. You can also push back your cuticles at this stage. Some people use a cuticle removing or dissolving product, but you can also use a metal or wooden cuticle pusher or your own nails to push them back. Whatever you do, do not cut your cuticles off – this can lead to a bacterial or fungal infection. The Base Coat One step that most people miss out when painting their nails is applying a base coat. Of course, using a base coat does mean that the nail-painting process t akes longer, but it does mean your manicure will last longer, so it’s wor th the extra few minutes, in

Image Credit: RDNE Stock my opinion. Ty pical base coats have three main benefits. The first is that base coats are made up of chemicals called plasticisers that make your manicure more f lexible, preventing chipping. They also contain cellulose, which secures the nail polish more tightly to the nail. Finally, base coats prevent the staining of your nails. This is especially important if you like to wear dark coloured nail polishes like greens and blues, or if you like neon nail polishes, as the f luorescent pigments stain easily. It’s also worth noting that base coats can prevent the orange or yellowish staining associated with frequent wearing of nail polish, or the frequent changing of nail polish. As well as standard base coat s, t here are a lso a number of specialt y base coats that have more specific uses. These include: condit ioning base coat s to streng then your nails, ridge-filling base coats to smooth out the surface of your nails, tinted base coats to neutralise the appearance of stained nails, sticky or grabbing base coats to help glitter polishes stick to the nail more easily, and peel-off base coats that allow for easy polish removal without the need for nail polish remover.

The Nail Polish Now you jus t need to choose the polish you want and apply it. Most nail polishes are opaque in two or three coats, but lighter colours like white may need more coats, whereas darker colours may only need one coat. When applying the nail polish, the first coat should always be the thinnest to help the polish adhere to the base coat. Af ter this,

the thickness of the coats mat ters less, but thicker coats will take longer to dry than thinner coats. By the time you’ve finished painting your last nail, the first nail you’ve painted may well be dry enough for the next coat, but I like to wait three to five minutes to be absolutely certain that the previous coat is dry. Painting a new coat on top of polish that isn’t fully dry may have the effect of removing some of the polish from the wet-

The final part of any manicure is a layer of top coat to protect your manicure and to make your nails look shiny and glossy. After making sure your last coat of nail polish is dr y, simply apply a thick layer of top coat to each nail. You can also buy special effect top coats that contain things like larger particles of glitter, a holographic effect, or even glow in the dark pigments, all suspended in a clear base. Despite these often being called top coats, they are usually formulated dif ferent ly f rom reg ular top coats that aim to protect your nails, so I would recommend applying these before a normal top coat rather than as an alternative. You can even apply another layer of top coat to your nails a few days after you painted them to maintain the glossy finish and keep your manicure protected.

Image Credit: ZUN

20 | Features Deputy Editor: Martin Alfonsin Larsen Section Editors: Nayana Juliette Syed, Purav Menon features@oxfordstudent.com

Rave to save Dominic de Vivenot

n February 6th 2024, a new event called ‘RAVE TO SAVE’ will take place at the Bullingdon. The event aims to raise money for a charity called the Saved By Music Foundation in Uganda, which provides children with a musical education while also giving a platform to genres of underground dance music which I feel are underrepresented in the University’s music scene. The night will feature live sets from student DJs as well as some of the most exciting young Drum & Bass, Jungle, and UK Garage artists. Putting together this event has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and it certainly promises to be a night to remember. It will hopefully reach an audience who wouldn’t normally attend an event of this kind, while also raising money for a great cause.

“Putting this even together has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life...” Last summer, I spent a month volunteering at the Saved By Music Foundation in the city of Mbale, which is in the east of Uganda, near its border with Kenya. The Foundation primarily functions as an orphanage for children whose parents have either passed away or are unable to take care of them, often on account of diseases such as AIDS and Malaria, or drug addiction. Both are at epidemic levels in Uganda. Without a suitable guardian, such children are often forced to live on the streets of the city centre and take extreme risks in order to survive, and are referred to as ‘street chil-

Features

Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

dren’. In order to get money to survive when they are too young to get a job, boys in this situation typically rely on begging and petty crime, while girls are often tragically forced into prostitution. Thanks to SBMF, there are now 25 boys aged between nine and nineteen who have been spared from the perils of this lifestyle, and call the Foundation their home as residents. Many street children have substance abuse problems from a very young age, addicted to smoking cannabis, chewing khat (a plant containing naturally occurring stimulants), and even inhaling solvents and the fumes from fuel tanks. They seek the temporary highs that such activities provide to numb the constant pain caused by the reality of life on the streets. Unfortunately, those who are the worst affected by such addictions find it hard to get clean and prove that they are dedicated to working hard and pursuing a future off the streets. Kyewalyanga Fredrick, who founded this organisation, was a ‘street child’ himself and knows the dayto-day struggle that such a lifestyle consists of. During the seven hour car journey to Mbale from Entebbe airport, he told us the fascinating story of how he was given the opportunity to leave behind his life on the streets by a local teacher who taught him the trumpet and allowed him to play in a school brass band, giving him access to an education that would have otherwise been out of his reach. In this way he was literally saved by music, and felt compelled to dedicate his life to changing the lives of as many other street children as possible. SBMF’s main musical component is an ensemble called the Elgon Youth Brass Band, which is made up of the male residents and attendees of the Foundation. The brass band receives

Image Credit: Dominic de Vivenot bookings to play at various types of functions, such as weddings and opening ceremonies, which raise funds that contribute to the Foundation’s expenses, adding to its self-sufficiency. There is fierce competition among the boys to be selected as a regular player in the travelling brass band, since there are a limited number of working instruments owned by the Foundation. In addition to this, the boys are given the same meals to eat as the guests at the function, which tend to be high in quality and proportion compared to the small plate of beans and posho (a thick paste of cornmeal mixed with water), which is what they are given every day when living at the orphanage.

“These functions allowed me to gain a unique perspective on Ugandan culture...” Throughout the duration of my stay, I was lucky enough to be invited to join the band at two of their functions. One of these was a wedding ceremony, and the other an ‘introduction’ - a traditional Ugandan ceremony for engaged couples at which the family of the

groom present the family of the bride with gifts, in the hope that they will provide the couple with their blessing for the wedding to take place at a later date. I can confirm that the food did not disappoint! These functions were probably the highlight of the trip, and allowed me to gain a unique perspective on Ugandan culture which typical visitors to the country wouldn’t experience. There is a similar collective for the girls who attend the Saved By Music Foundation in the form of a dance group called the Koona Cultural Troupe. They too are booked for functions which contribute to funding the Foundation’s day-to-day expenses. Overall, I was taken aback by the politeness and manners exhibited by children who, in most cases, had experienced extremely challenging upbringings. As well as this, the work ethic they displayed and the willingness from within themselves to progress at their musical endeavours was something I had never seen before. For example, the resourcefulness in teaching themselves to play instruments that were in many ways worn, broken, or defective, and the dedication to practise for hours on end to improve their skills. It wasn’t uncommon that I would walk into the Foundation at nine

in the morning and hear a difficult phrase of a song being played very slowly by a group of players, and to hear the same phrase being played constantly until I left at five in the afternoon, at which point it would be perfect and up to speed. It is important to note that due to the very limited funding the Saved By Music Foundation has, there are no full time staff and such rehearsals are typically run by older residents who take it upon themselves to cultivate an environment of musical excellence among the younger, less experienced members of the organisation. The Director of SBMF has an existing network of skilled teachers, administrators, and social workers which he is unable to employ due to a lack of funding.

“I had always contemplated the possibility of doing some kind of underground dance music event in Oxford.”

It was during my time in Uganda that I came up with the ambitious idea of putting on a fundraiser concert when I got back to England. In Oxford, these typically come in the form of an in-

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

-strumental concert playing something from the Classic FM hall of fame, so I thought I’d switch it up a little. That being said, I had always contemplated the possibility of doing some kind of Underground Dance Music event in Oxford. It was my desire to contribute to the SBMF’s work that made

me decide to take the risk and give it a go. In terms of our aims following the fundraiser, finding a way to give the children at the Saved By Music Foundation access to computer software that can allow them to explore creating music in any genre or style is imperative. Instead of

Features | 21

giving them a violin so they can learn how to play centuries-old pieces by European composers, giving them access to a Digital Audio Workstation which is used by almost all artists producing songs on today’s global charts, and allows them to utilise an infinite range of sounds, is a more expansive way of al-

lowing them to discover their passion for music. I urge you to check out the details of Rave to Save and join us on the 6th February, and also to have a look at the Saved By Music Foundation’s website and social media pages to learn more about their amazing work.

Tickets for the event are available on the Youni app and all profits will go towards the Saved By Music Foundation (SBMF). Please visit our Link Tree to find the RAVE TO SAVE social media pages and tickets, as well as the SBMF website and a link to donate to them directly.

The weird and wonderful world of audiobooks Martin Alfonsin Larsen n a walk alongside the London riverside in August, the iPad kid in me demanded yet another source of background noise: audiobooks. I downloaded Audible, connected my headphones, and opened up the Spanishlanguage narration of the first Harry Potter book. Carlos Ponce’s narration flooded my ears, and I was swept away to a literary world I hadn’t visited in a long time in an entirely new language. I would listen to that audiobook, and others, on walks, runs, and in idle moments - so much so that walking past specific street corners, or trees, or crossings, are suffused with little epiphanies I got from them.

“Walking past specific street corners, or trees, or crossings, are suffused with little epiphanies I got from them...”

This has continued for months. Kathe Mazur has waxed lyrical about the latest advancements in biotechnology, the future of human genetic makeup, and the complex interpersonal relationships that govern scientific research, in Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker. Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain guided me through the joys and trials of working in restaurant kitchens in Kitchen Confidential. Matthew Perry tracked his life from childhood in Canada to celebrity and LA, and his role in perhaps the 90s’ most prominent cultural export, Friends. Understanding why audiobooks (and their cousin, podcasts) are popular and liked

was not difficult. For me, they moved reading from that thing you have to do - pick up a book, sit down on a chair, carve out time in your day - to something that co-existed with the menial parts of my life. Washing dishes, cleaning up my room; it all became more tolerable if someone, ideally the author of the book themself, read in my ear while I was doing it. But unlike their emergent cousin in podcasts, audiobooks have a different function. They render audible objects that have already been created, teasing out (or not) narratives and themes with remarkable power. Writing for the New Yorker, John Colapinto observed that “audiobook narration is an art form all of its own”. Discussing Frank Muller’s narration of The Great Gatsby, Colapinto observed how Muller had inhabited the desires and mannerisms of the cast of The Great Gatsby all in the space of his own voice. Prominent actors, too, have taken to reading classics, perhaps in an admission that audiobooks pose significant dramatic challenges of their own. Maggie Gyllenhaal has narrated Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; Colin Farrell has narrated James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man; Florence Pugh has narrated Jane Austen. There was a moment, though, when audiobook narration be-

gan to move from just being entertaining and intimate narration. It was when Matthew Perry spoke these words in his book, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing; “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead”.

“The iPad kid in me demanded yet another source of background noise: audiobooks.” I began listening to Perry’s memoir in late November, and it tracks a troubled life from childhood to 2022, when Perry finished writing. Many aspects of the book made it difficult and troubling to consume: his warped attitudes toward the women he dated, and women more generally; a host of frequent and jarring interjections; distasteful and uncomfortable jokes that were the subject of significant media attention. But it wasn’t as if those criticisms could fully land, or that they even mattered. Perry had laid out a brutal struggle with addiction; a long stay at the manor of pain, such that criticising aspects of writing, of chronology, seemed pointless. Who was I, a 20-yearold university student, to tell Perry he might have benefited from subjecting his book to another round of edits?

And, what’s more, when this book shone, it really shone. Perry’s writing was often gorgeous and vivid, and by the end, you could have been convinced that Perry would go on to live the rest of his life in some version of peace and happiness. But listening to Perry’s narration, I felt the book begin to creep into parts of my life I hadn’t expected it to. As a lifelong Friends fan, someone who has watched the show so many times that I’ve actually lost count, the boyish and excitable tone of Perry’s voice in the show, compared to the slurred, aged, and broken voice that I heard on my phone, haunted me slightly. It was an audible reminder, even in moments of levity, or joy at struggles overcome in the book, of everything that he had experienced in his time on the show Friends, and beyond. Passing the roundabout next to the petrol station a few hundred metres from home, I heard echoes of Perry’s first taping of Friends, of meeting his co-stars for the first time. Pacing down a side-street on an evening run, I heard Perry begin a descent into a decades-long struggle with addiction that ultimately claimed his life. And walking past the main road towards work, I heard echoes of an ending where Perry had seemingly found happiness, and some version of closure. Imagine my shock, then, when reporting emerged

just days later that what Perry had spoken into a microphone and poured over on a keyboard wasn’t true. Perry allegedly wasn’t clean by the time he had written the book, and had allegedly written it as an approximation of where he wanted to be. Maybe that’s less an indictment of Perry’s audiobook, and more of what he wrote, and the people he may have written for. But it was still strange to live so thoroughly with something for a week and a half - to have someone’s life story spelled out in elaborate, and often painful, details - only to realise it could have been a deception.

“There was a moment when audiobook narration began to move from just being entertaining and intimate narration.”

It was like having someone close to you, except that person is close to everyone. That person, that story, is a product. That person, that story, is a performance.

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Culture

Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

22 | Culture Deputy Editor: Keng Yu Lai Section Editors: Amelia Gibbins, Tallulah Hawley, Isra Khan culture@oxfordstudent.com

New Music Releases: 26th January 2024 Tallulah Hawley

or digital music listeners, Friday is the most important day of the week. Many musicians and bands have begun releasing projects in sync with the update schedule used by most streaming services. This Friday, I was rewarded with two albums, the second LP from The Smile and Courting’s (one of my favorite English rock bands) second studio album. New Last Name by Courting Liverpool-based four-piece post-punk revival band Courting is known for their songs on pub culture, David Byrne, and carpark oblivion. In New Last Name, Courting seems to have dropped their signature combination of post-punk and Blur-like talksinging—trading their Belle Delphine and Kanye West references and art-rock drum schemes for The Killers disses and electronic-tinged vocals. The initial track, ‘Throw’, enters as a poppy tune featuring a chorus filled with gnarly (in a good way!) autotune twangs.

‘Throw’ and ‘Emily G’, released as singles in November and December 2023 respectively, feature glitchy vocals tinged with their signature dancey bass riffs. ‘We Look Good Together (Big Words)’, the second track on NLN, channels A. G. Cook and even Charli XCX in its club-like backbeat, utilizing both handclaps and drum machines. Thankfully, they maintain their prominent pop culture references: ‘Flex’, track four, includes the lyrics “I’ve been wearing Ricks and he said that it’s fine / So if you need a bad b****, I can try.” However, upon reaching track five of the nine-track LP, their newly concocted method begins to feel monotonous. Some songs add a unique twist, such as the saxophone backing and muted yet soulful lyrics on ‘Babys’, but their newfound hyperpop additions cling onto every track without fail. In this album, Courting begins to shed their Britpop roots and arguable comparison to fellow British indie rockers like shame or Sports Team, opting for a new multi-genre sound, showing

they’re unafraid to experiment. Rather than a new last name, Courting is moving towards a new transformational sound. As they note in ‘Flex’, “I just wanna ball out with my friends!” Wall of Eyes by The Smile Comprised of Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke and lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood with Tom Skinner on drums, The Smile was formed out of boredom during the COVID-19 lockdowns, taking their name from a Ted Hughes poem (apologies to any Sylvia Plath stans). The Smile’s second album is a dreamy and drum-filled project, with Yorke’s fussy, pining vocals acting as the cherry on top of strobing instrumentals. The titular track ‘Wall of Eyes’ is first on the album. It opens with a light Joaõ Gilberto-esque bossa nova underlying Yorke’s lyrics, then with delicately warped bomb-like blasts, blossoms into the deep, earthy tones of a characteristic The Smile song. In the background, Yorke counts to five in time with glockenspiel keystrokes. It is a truly beautiful first track.

As track one fades to track two, the band takes a similar soothing and noise-filled backdrop in ‘Teleharmonic’. This song, complete with flute accompaniment, features more rambunctious and unpolished vocals, with Yorke begging “Bury me / In the way out / In the past / Oh Lord, how should I forget? / Hung up, pinned up / By hammer and nails”. Track three, ‘Read the Room’, is a standout for Skinner. His cymbal crushes align with Yorke’s whining delivery. My apologies for comparing one Thom Yorke band to another, but this song echoes Radiohead’s ‘Nude’ from their 2007 In Rainbows. ‘Bending Hectic’, track seven, is a slow ballad of an Italian road trip gone wrong. Here, Yorke’s lyricism holds centre stage (during a Rolling Stone interview, Yorke reveals that he only finalized the words 30 minutes before they performed the track for the first time). “The ground is coming for me now / We’ve gone over the edge / If you’ve got something to say, say it now”, he croons. The lov-

ing grain shifts towards a more painful yet powerful downturn as Greenwood’s guitar shrieks, escalating as Yorke’s “car” crashes, and his repetitive request to “Turn / Turn / Turn” fades into silence. For their second LP, The Smile has perfected their straying guitar and eased falsetto. With orchestral backing and fidgety bass riffs, this album easily outshines their debut A Light for Attracting Attention due to its dynamic depth and unrestrained melodic score. While Courting’s new release was not the dance-punk direction that I expected them to take, I quite enjoyed New Last Name. Their lyricism and storytelling capability have evolved, and I’m honestly eager to see how their sound develops further in the future. Wall of Eyes, however, is probably my standout album so far in January. The composition exudes talent on all sides: instrumentals, production, lyricism, and vocal play. Dare I say that this album competes with Kid A and The Bends…?

The literary subtleties of Saltburn Isra Khan

fter my first encounter with Saltburn, I found myself feeling unfulfilled and entirely disillusioned; the film appeared as a vacuous, inherently superficial romp. After my second encounter with Saltburn, however, I felt a strong appreciation for the film’s magnificent use of intertextuality that shrouds a plethora of literary, cinematic, and historical parallels within the folds of its foreshadowing. Picking up on the reflections of Brideshead Revisited and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I grew to adore Emerald Fennell’s meticulous attention to detail. One scene that particularly struck me was the sinister Doppelganger scene (if you can’t remember which one this is, think back to the painfully awkward egg scene), in which Venetia tells the story of the sighting of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s doppelganger before his death. As she explains how Shelley’s dop-

pelganger was known to have walked past a top-floor window, a figure closely resembling Felix passes by the window behind her, foreshadowing his tragic fate later in the film. Whilst some might label this observation as a stretch, its flawless subtlety seems a little perfect to be coincidental. By playing on the Gothic literary fascination with the doppelganger motif as a harbinger of death, though in a practically unnoticeable detail, Fennell nails the sensitivity demanded when using intertextuality as a vehicle for foreshadowing. The Gothic notes of Saltburn do not end here, as the arguably most unsettling scene of the film seems to be a reference to Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. Echoing the scene of the tormented Heathcliff digging up Catherine’s grave to achieve ‘ease’ for his mind, Oliver’s relations with Felix’s grave mirror the desperate attempt to feign a sense of intimacy with someone now physically unattainable. With both scenes testament to

the authenticity of the characters’ depraved depths of obsession and desire, the grave scene is just one of the many parallels the film draws between Oliver and Heathcliff. Saltburn’s foreshadowing begins to loom larger and larger, almost inescapable and present at every turn as the first murder of the film grows imminent: the birthday party as a visual reference to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the visual parallels drawn between the hedge mazes of Saltburn and Kubrick’s The Shining and, most overtly, the Minotaur’s presence in Oliver’s costume and the maze’s statue. I’m not a Classics student, but any reference to Greek mythology never fails to capture my attention, and I found Fennell’s incorporation of the Minotaur figure fascinating. In Greek mythology, the Minotaur is a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man (an inverted centaur, almost?), compelled to live in an underground labyrinth and fed with human sacrifices. He is

known to have been slaughtered by the young Theseus, though not an entirely heroic character as he manipulates the royal family and gains the crown. With Oliver simultaneously posited as the monstrous Minotaur and the manipulative Theseus, a more complex reference to the myth emerges. What could be drawn from this ambiguity might be a refutation of the interpretation of Oliver as Saltburn’s Minotaur, despite the Minotaur-esque antlers of Oliver’s costume. What if it is Felix who is the Minotaur, and Oliver the hero who must slay him? As it happens, Oliver does not seem to be properly suitably criticised nor punished, and any character who does seem to pick up on Oliver’s subterfuge is soon dead, leaving him ultimately victorious. The final scene, soundtracked by ‘Murder on the Dance Floor’, also features poses and angles that mirror images of Greek God sculptures, further solidifying his image as a winning champion. In an interview with Dakota War-

ren, Fennell emphasises the importance of the uncanny, a process which involves the inversion of the familiar to the unfamiliar. Considering this, alongside the convoluted nature of the Minotaur reference, perhaps reveals the importance of subtle details and parallels, leading the film in an entirely different direction. I feel compelled to retract most of the criticism I voiced towards the film upon my first, surfacelevel encounter with it. Whether or not the film gains a degree of merit through its subtle depth is entirely up to your film preferences, but I loved rewatching the film and being able to truly dissect its finer details. This is one of those films which must be viewed in a cinema due to the sheer level of concentration it demands, something which is put at stake with the distracted spectatorship we adopt when streaming at home. Ultimately, if you found yourself feeling dissatisfied or unimpressed with Saltburn after your first viewing, try giving it a second, more attentive glance.

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

Culture | 23

Hilary calls for comfort shows on repeat

Horror Game Ambience

ersonally, I’ve never been a massive film fan. Despite this, they were a staple of my childhood, as a way of filling the endless, dull gap between waking up and it being a socially acceptable time to leave the house. We had all the classics on VHS – The Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty were firm favourites – and later graduated to DVDs of Shrek, Cars and Madagascar. My Dad was an early adopter of LoveFilm, and the thrill of receiving and sending back films in the post whenever we wanted was addictive. We no longer had to wait until we found Freaky Friday in a charity shop, or rely upon Dad’s talent for mysteriously sourcing bumper CDs of Futurama. Whilst these are all fond memories - soundtracked by the boom of “YOU WOULDN’T STEAL A CAR!” - by the age of ten I’d moved away from films. The odd banger still had me hooked – Mum buying Frozen from the supermarket when it first came out, as a treat for finishing Year 6 SATS, was thrilling. But largely, I’d moved on to TV series, many of which I still I watch today as I’m faced with long, cold evenings and limited contact hours. One of the first TV series I recall choosing myself, after a lengthy, soon-to-become ritualistic dig through BBC iPlayer, was a show called Witless. It stars Kerry Howard, actress and sister of comedian Russell Howard, alongside Zoe Boyle, as flatmates who are moved to Swindon after they witness a murder. Leanne, Howard’s character, adjusts to witness protection spectacularly, becoming ‘Mystique’ and adopting all the personality traits you might associate with that name. I still attribute Leanne’s strong West Country accent to my strange ability to lapse into the dialect when angry, despite being raised in Norwich. The pair are hilarious and, I would argue, Witless is one of BBC Three’s unsung heroes (and I’m not just saying that because of my torrid record with the TV license people). After I’d dived into the BBC sitcom back catalogue, there was no stopping me from consuming content that was neither age appropriate, nor relevant to my cushty rural village life. Putting aside the ‘Stacey Dooley investigates Russian escorts’-

Edward McLaren

Eleanor Luxton

type documentaries, comedy was my drug of choice and boy was I hooked. Josh – comedian Josh Widdicombe’s three-series sitcom – had cameos from the likes of Jack Dee, Elis James, and Jennifer Saunders. It traces the lives of three very different flatmates and uni pals who live together in London. Looking back, there’s nothing terrifically funny or clever about it, but it certainly feels safe, comfy, and extremely British. Josh made me feel excited for a young adulthood filled with frequent dates, funny friends, and an inevitable move into the performing arts. So far, I’ve only achieved one of those three (thanks guys). On the topic of university relationships, nothing can beat Fresh Meat. Created by the faces behind Peep Show, Fresh Meat was the all-boozing, all-sex, high drama version of life at a fictional Mancunian university, thrusting Jack Whitehall, Charlotte Ritchie, and Zawe Ashton onto our screens in the preNetflix/Ghosts/Tom Hiddleston days. It would do a lot of good for Oxford students to watch Whitehall’s portrayal of JP: the upper-class, work-shy, emotionally needy “baron of banter”. JP often makes me physically wince, and do that thing where you try to shrink your neck because the cringe is too much to handle. Put it on your list if anyone’s ever asked you what school you go to. There are several series to sink your teeth into, and they’re a great comfort if you ever feel guilty about your work-life balance. Whitehall later featured in and wrote Bad Education, another show that comes under the banner of ‘you couldn’t make that now’, but which is definitely nostalgic. Whitehall’s Alfie Wickers is simultaneously the teacher you wish you had and the one you hoped you never would have, and Mathew Horne embodies the cringey-but-trying-to-be-cool headteacher. Personally, my favourite was Nikki Runeckles’ Chantelle, Class K’s most flirtatious, glamourous and outrageous member – undoubtedly an odd choice for a Christian child from Norfolk. It was perhaps even stranger that I would be drawn to Jake, Karen, and Ben and their chaotic lives in Chiswick. But the Outnumbered children said things that I always wished I

could say, whilst Pete and Sue – the show’s parents, who have been together in real life since 2017 – were the sweary antithesis to my own parents. Most hilarious though were Karen’s scenes, especially when she held a funeral for a dead mouse: “Brethrens, we are gathered here in the bosom of Jesus to say goodbye to this mouse, killed before its time. We have given it cheese and bread for its journey to heaven, or at least if it goes to hell, it’ll have cheese on toast. Next up is the Pope - dust to dust, for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health, may the force be with you, because you’re worth it, amen and out”. Another show known for its animal stars – namely the miniature horse Li’l Sebastian - is Parks and Recreation, which I discovered in Year 10 when it was added to Amazon Prime. If you haven’t seen it then I advise watching from the beginning – although season one is slow, by the time Ben and Leslie get married you’ll genuinely be rooting for them more than your family. Every single character is interesting and odd in their own way. And it birthed the greatest day of the year – ‘treat yo’ self’. More recent candidates for a rewatch binge include Kiwi comic Rose Matafeo’s Starstruck. Despite most of us having never slept with a movie star (apart from you, Zawe), Matafeo’s twenty-something Jessie is incredibly relatable. Her disdain for a murder mystery party, her increasingly engaged/married/pregnant mates and their well-meaning but nosey comments. If you feel left behind, or not sure what you really want to do with your life, this will soothe you. I’m keenly aware that I’ve left out Gavin and Stacey here, despite it being one of the British public’s all-time favourites, and I enjoy the odd episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine too. Modern Family has remained a stalwart of our household, as one of the few shows everyone can enjoy, since lockdown. So, if you too enjoy watching shows about lives that are so different to your own – but just as mundane and complicated – then find the telly remote and dive in. After you’ve paid for the relevant subscriptions, of course.

IImage Credit: Lalesh Aldarwish

Sometimes I muck around a bit, sad tosser I am, with 1990s graphics from Silent Hill, using the theme for a fix. I had a dream once that between five hours of sleep and wake, I was by the side of an immense pool. It was misty, sick in a way already dead that was comfortable. For example, I went to the pub (Irish, naval) and encountered fifty to sixty half-ghouls who were fully undead by the time I left. It was that easy. Flee at the right time and you will enter a delirious lordly room with an inappropriately large bed in the middle: the demon lord of the manor’s, or an archon’s pre-fallen crèche delivered to it by YHWH. I couldn’t tell. I just made my way through the five hundred metre corridor of chess floor into a corpse haunted sky about a castle. Not much is left that remains in memory. I saw heads and lightning bolts, green bright teeth, a man and a cassowary. But, at the end of the thing, it was obvious that something was amiss. I dearly wanted, when I arose, I guess, to be a horror game protagonist –fog, grief, and all, even Pyramid Head – because that would give, that would let, some foreign part of living into the world, a world of death.

Want to share your creative writing? Have a student play for our team to review? Want to write about the latest cultural trends? Get in touch by emailing culture@oxfordstudent.com

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Green

Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

Deputy Editor: Bridget Harrington Section Editors: Ava Chan, Sabine Zednik-Hammonds green@oxfordstudent.com

Is second-hand shopping truly sustainable? Sabine Zednik-Hammonds

s a generation, Gen Z loves a good dose of aestheticised nostalgia, and thrifted clothing is the perfect means for embodying an idealised past–be it 80s punk or Y2K tacky-chic. But in the age of an accelerating climate crisis, one can no longer simply be fashionable; one’s fashion choices must also be environmentally conscious. So, what are the pros and cons of thrifting? Buying second-hand encourages recycling by giving new life to clothes that would otherwise have been discarded or dumped into a landfill. As a result, it is increasingly marketed as a sustainable alternative to fast-fashion. However, as enthusiasm for second-hand clothing grows, it seems that the market is beginning to encourage the very same behaviour as fast-fashion: overconsumption. Just like any other kind of shopping, thrifting is addictive. The thrill of stumbling

upon a cheap gem at the bottom of a heap of preloved garments truly is one-of-a-kind. This addiction is encouraged by popular social media content such as thrift hauls. The #vintageclotheshaul hashtag alone has 3.5 billion views on TikTok. As demand increases, so does the global secondhand market. In its most recent report, the online resale platform ThredUp expects the market to nearly double by 2027, reaching $350 billion, numbers which are driven mostly by online resale. The fashion industry has long been one to prioritise increased profit and consumption at the expense of the environment. Between 2000 and 2014, clothing production doubled and the number of garments purchased per capita increased by 60%. It is estimated that in the EU, 11kg per person of textiles are discarded every year. Many environmentally conscious consumers donate

their unwanted garments to charity shops in the hopes of finding them a second home. While this is better than discarding them altogether, with the amount of clothing being donated to these shops being larger than ever, it is estimated that charity shops only sell about 20% of the clothes donated to them. The remainder is sold to for-profit aggregators who repackage them and export them to far-away countries, including Ghana and Ethiopia, contributing to further greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental harm. Kantamanto is the world’s largest second-hand market and it is located in Accra, Ghana. Ghana imports about 15 million items of second-hand clothing, known locally as obroni wawu or “dead white man’s clothes”, each week. A browse through the clothing sold there would unearth labels from brands like H&M and Tesco, as well as price

tags from charity shops like Marie Curie. The vast majority of what does not get sold at Kantamanto becomes textile waste and finds its way into Ghana’s rivers, lagoons, and the sea, clogging waterways and causing devastating environmental damage. So how can one be fashionable and sustainable? The key to fashion sustainability can be summed up by iconic fashion designer Vivienne Westwood’s phrase “Buy Less, Choose Well, Make it Last”.

According to Fashion Revolution, doubling the lifespan of a garment such as a pair of jeans, even by wearing it 60 times instead of just 30, reduces its greenhouse gas emissions footprint by almost half. And once those jeans become tatty and worn beyond repair, instead of heading to the nearest High-Street boutique, the most sustainable option (and often the cheapest!) for finding a fresh new pair will always be your favourite local charity shop.

Image Credit: Studio Grand Web

From the linear to circular economy Ava Chan

ince the industrial revolution, we have been relying on the linear economy model for economic growth, in which raw materials are extracted from nature and turned into products, and disposed of after use. Whilst our standard of living has improved, this is at the cost of the environment. The EU generates over 2 billion tonnes of wastes every year, and only 7.2% of materials are cycled back to the global economy. This “take, make and dispose” model is far from sustainable and the EU is shifting towards a more sustainable model known as “circular economy”. So, what is the circular economy? It is more than the commonly known 3Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. The circular economy is a production and

consumption model in which waste is kept at minimum, and produce is continuously transferred and used somewhere in the system, creating further value. So, how does it work? The circular economy is based on three main principles. Firstly, it minimises waste and pollution. Waste is first stopped by using new and recycled materials with low impact, and reducing construction impacts and economic activities that negatively impact human health and the environment. Release of greenhouse gases are kept to a minimum. Secondly, products and materials are kept in use. Products are designed to last longer, and materials from the end-of-life products are reused to keep them circulating in the closed system. Thirdly, natural capital is

built and restored and natural systems are regenerated. Renewable resources are used, and fossil fuels and non-renewable resources are avoided. Practices are employed to rebuild soil and increase biodiversity. But what are the benefits of a circular economy? One of the most obvious benefits of switching to a circular economy is the reduction of natural resource consumption and waste production, which in turn reduce the disruption to landscapes and loss of habitat and biodiversity. Moreover, the circular economy is less dependent on raw materials, thus mitigating the risk associated with the supply of raw materials such as price and availability. Finally, shifting towards a circular economy stimulates innovation, boosts economic growth and creates jobs. There will be a new de-

mand for services such as logistics, remanufacturing, refurbishing and remarketing, as well as demands for talents in long-term customer engagement and loyalty. So, where can we see the circular economy? A food company from the UnitedStates produces alternative meat using food by-products. The company uses fungi to convert carbohydrates from vegetable oil, brewing and distilling industries to proteins, without the involvement of animals. This method has higher cost-effectiveness compared to meat production in traditional farming and production of alternative plant-based proteins such as concentrate of soy, as well as lower emission of greenhouse gases. In response to resource scarcity and climate change, there is an increasing interest

in shifting towards a circular economy. The shift towards a circular economy is progressing. The European Commission presented their action plan for the circular economy in March 2020 with a focus on resource intensive sectors such as construction and electronics, and new measures to speed up the transition to circular economy were released in March 2022. To implement a circular economy, there are challenges that have to be addressed, which include setting up an effective circular supply chain and waste infrastructure, meeting customers expectations for convenience and redesigning of products. The partnership between the public and private sectors, and the support and financial incentive from the government, are key to implementing a circular economy.

SciTech Google invests in its first UK data centre The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

SciTech | 27

Deputy Editor: Samkeet Shah Section Editors: Ava Chan, Gabriella Kchozyan scitech@oxfordstudent.com

Gabriella Kchozyan

oogle’s first UK data centre is currently being built in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire. The billion-dollar investment seeks to support the needs of British and European customers and help power digital services such as Google Cloud and artificial intelligence (AI). The 33-acre site, located north of London, was purchased in 2020. It will be constructed with the aim of running on 24/7 carbonfree energy by 2030. The tech giant plans to operate the data centre at nearly 90% carbon-free energy in 2025, which is when construction is anticipated to be completed, before ultimately meeting the company’s net zero goals. In 2022, Google announced its long-term power purchase agreement with ENGIE, which will provide

100 MW of clean, renewable energy for Google’s UK operations. This, coupled with the facility’s planned off-site heat recovery and air-based cooling system aims to reduce the carbon impact of Google’s digital infrastructure. This investment follows other key efforts from the company to expand its presence in the UK. Google previously made a $1 billion purchase of a Central Saint

Giles office in 2022 and a one million square ft. development in King’s Cross. Similarly, an Accessibility Discovery Centre opened two years ago to encourage technological innovation that is more accessible and user-friendly. Google’s latest expansion in the UK market also comes after fellow US tech firm Microsoft announced its commitment to invest £2.5 billion over the next

three years to bolster and grow its AI data centre infrastructure. Competition between the two tech firms is bolstering the UK’s tech sector, driving economic growth and technological innovation. The new Hertfordshire facility alone will create new construction and technical jobs. Google already has more than 7,000 employees in Britain and plans to hire engineers, project managers, security personnel, and other professionals. As the AI arms race gains traction, the UK’s AI infrastructure and development will continue to grow. Tech giants seeking a greater foothold in Europe are fueling Britain’s tech economy and expediting the transition to the use of AI in different sectors. The UK’s National AI Strategy involves investing in AI infrastructure to maintain Image Credit: Paul Hanaoka the UK’s status as a global

superpower in AI, supporting the use of AI in multiple sectors, and ensuring the proper use of AI for innovation while protecting the safety and security of the public. The UK government has welcomed these recent investments into the digital economy and tech sector. Google’s new data centre, alongside other investments, will scale up the capacity for AI and cloud services, as well as the computing capacity for businesses. The series of investments set forth by Google demonstrate a dedication to meet growing technological demand. This overlaps with the UK’s goals to become a global leader in technology. The new data centre has the ability to further propel the UK forward in reaping the benefits of the new digital age and its transformative technology.

Are we alone in the universe? Ava Chan

ave you ever wondered about the origin of life on Earth, and whether there is life elsewhere in the universe? There are countless planets in the galaxy, many of which are similar to Earth. However, no evidence of life has been found beyond Earth to date. Scientists, specifically astrobiologists and astrochemists, are trying to answer some of these exciting questions. The three main topics in astrobiology are understanding the origin of life, habitability and limits of life, and signs of life. The origin of life on Earth As evidence for life beyond Earth is yet to be found, one of the ways to guide our search is through understanding the origin of life on Earth. Understanding abiogenesis, which is the transition from chemicals (e.g. phosphorus) to the prebi-

otic phase with molecular building blocks and finally to living systems that are capable of replication is the key. Researchers explored the environmental conditions of early planetary surfaces, and how they interact with prebiotic chemistry, particularly in the formation of essential building blocks of life such as nucleic acids and amino acids from elements and chemicals. Habitability and limits of life The other method of searching for extraterrestrial life is through identifying environments that are habitable and understanding how organisms cope with extreme environments. For example, scientists studied the life strategies of the microbial community on stone pebbles in the Atacama Desert, one of the most extreme environments on Earth with steep wet-dry cycles, huge temperature differences

and high irradiation to provide perspective for the search for life beyond Earth and broaden the scope of “habitable”. One of the consensuses in the astrobiology community is that liquid water is required for life formation, either through exogenous sources such as comets or endogenous sources such as atmospheric synthesis. Efforts have been made to study the existence of water in ancient Mars, and the possibility of life in the subsur-

face of rocky planets. A recent research study showed that metal-rich stars are less likely to evolve complex forms of life on land compared to metalpoor stars due to the higher ultraviolet radiation on the planet’s surface. Signs of life Lastly, evidence of life beyond Earth could be harnessed by studying biosignatures of cells and their remnants derived from extraterrestrial

Image Credit: Omar Sahel

samples. Various missions have tried to detect organic matter on Mars and search for signs of extinct life in biomineralized or fossilized forms. Conclusion and future prospect Space experiments are commonly conducted in astrobiology research as the space environment allows longterm measurements and a specific space radiation environment that is difficult to replicate on Earth. With the commercialization of space and the advancement of space technologies, the costs of launching rockets have significantly lowered. This offers new opportunities to conduct long-term and more complex experiments in space, which would help to understand the origin and limits of life, as well as aid the search for biosignatures on other planets.

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BIKE DOCTOR

Upcoming Dates: February 2nd March 1st Make sure your bike is safe to ride! Find out more at oxfordsu.org/whats-on The University is offering a £10 subsidy on bike helmets at the following locations; please show your University ID card at the time of purchase: The Oxford Bicycle Company Ltd, 251b Cowley Road, OX4 1XG Walton Street Cycles, 78 Walton Street, OX2 6EA

The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

OXYOU

OxYou | 29

Deputy Editor: Olly DeHerrera Section Editors: Florence Purcell & Zaid Magdub oxyou@oxfordstudent.com

Which masterpiece with which soup? Olly DeHerrera

ust Stop Oil had the culinary world clamouring this with after making the remarkable choice to lather the Mona Lisa with a extra chunky looking Country Vegetable soup. This display is just the latest development in an emerging art of pairing liquid condiments with masterpieces of art. Our experts have prepared a thought-out list of art masterpieces and what soup a truly cultured individual would throw at them: for the refined gastro artistico reader. The Scream by Edvard Munch: Indian Mulligatawny Picture it: your new Oxford international friends invite you round for dinner and you’re becoming the promotional poster multi-ethnic friendship group you’ve always dreamed of. You only must leap the hurdle of politely pretending their food doesn’t feel like eating raw lava. Edvard Munch captured the essence of the pale faced local realising that the ‘British’ in ‘British-Indian cuisine’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The walls fall away and suddenly you’re on the serene precipice of the afterlife. Oh, the theatrics of it all.

The Elgin Marbles: Thick Pea and Ham True soup-toss connoisseurs shouldn’t shy away from controversy in the pursuit of glory. Pea and ham soup is a truly British classic born out of the smog of London with notes of 10-year-old chimney sweeps with lung cancer. This is an obvious choice pairing for a very British, always British, and rightly British art piece. The Greeks won’t be so keen in asking for it back once they smell this monstrosity.

you realise your boyfriend has carved a 17ft statue of you completely naked for the largest cathedral in the country? An Italian Pasta Fagioli may have been the obvious choicebut maximum stickage requires minimum quality, and for that, Alido Tomato is the only way. Bonus points if you can launch it all the way to his privates for some minimum wage employee to scrub the marble crevasses of.

Michaelangelo’s David: Aldi Tomato and Basil What is the perfect condiment to capture the moment

Anish Kapoor’s Chicago Bean: Corn Chowder A slick soup and 100 tons of polished steel is a chal-

BEST OF THE ROAST Rordon Gamsay

his week put the Broke in Pembroke with a Ball ticketing system delivering tasty schadenfreude to those of us who cannot afford £400 for a night out. It seems that choosing whether to pay rent or party it up is harder for the average Oxford student than choosing between Morocco and Geneva for their winter Vac. As Trinity Term draws closer, Rordons beginning to regret that this university is far too small to effectively ghost someone for the purposes of finding someone you can bear to think about introducing to your parents. Call us the British Library records depository because we are DOWN BAD.

DOES SIZE MATTER? As a wise man once said: it’s not the size of the paper, but the quality of the unfunny chicken cartoon within. Rordon says never judge a book by its cover, but newspapers are fair game. Austerity is dastardly and seems to be cutting at the very soul of student journalism; but Rordon must concede that dressing up bankruptcy as an ecological endeavour is a feat COP28 would be proud of. The ever trailblazer of journalistic practice, a sure way to ensure a 100% recycle rate of your publication is making it so unnoticeable that the porters have to dump the untouched stacks in the bin at the end of the week. Rordon feels vindicated. After all those sad high

school locker room years, he can finally say: Mine is bigger. UNION REPORTER By now you’ll all know of Rordon’s reputation as a feared Union reporter, a kingmaker, a Hack-breaker, if you will. Rordon could tell many tales of skullduggery he witnessed under the terrible lighting of that accursed building. Once, a Hack froze in fear and immediately broke down sobbing on Rordon’s approach. He tried pathetically to illicit sympathy by bawling that his mum had recently died, but Rordon kicked him to the side and wrote a mean-spirited article about his tartan suit. Another time, a notorious Hack sprinted towards Rordon on the ATIK dancefloor and

lenging pair. A good match is something which won’t just slide sadly down the side like drunk frat boy’s piss, so something equally projectile and sticky is in order. Corn Chowder, much like Kapoor, is something seemingly only the Americans can appreciate. Also, good luck getting that off your shiny bean. Christ by Heinrich Hoffmann: Matzo Ball soup As the story goes, Christ foresaw every sin mankind would ever commit and still chose to die for those sins. Its nice to know that even

shouted “No comment”, but Rordon employed interrogation tactics acquired during his time working for MI5 and effortlessly extracted a comment from him. It’s a Hack or be Hacked world. Make sure you flaunt your cocaine addiction to gain the maximum respect from your peers, and remember it is especially important you walk into the chamber 20 minutes late so everyone gets an eyeful of the Barbour jacket you stole from your tutor’s office. It’s not easy work, but Rordon’s not an easy man. WOLFSON COLLEGE WIZARD TOWER In a quest for relevancy Wolfson College General Meeting has voted in fa-

if my parents didn’t foresee me entering a three-way gay college marriage in front of a Kebab van at 3am, our saviour did. We think this 1st Century Judean would be proud the enduring Jewish urge to eat like they’re still refugees in the desert, so we’d pair this masterpiece with a classic Yiddish chicken soup. Lillies by Claude Monet: Filipino Sinigang An impressionist masterpiece can only be paired with Filipino Sinigang soup fits the impressionist masterpiece well. We’re not really sure what we’re looking at, but the colour do make me want to lick it. It might take a while for the staff to notice that it’s been coated anyway. Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol: Blackberry Jam You think this would be an easy choice, however, Modern Art is about subverting expectations (allegedly). Just as Warhol intended to flip around what is considered ‘art’, we hope this pairing will transform what is considered ‘soup’. In the year of our Lord 2024, why can’t a jam be a soup? Why can’t a soup be a jam? Asking the important questions as always.

vour of commissioning the construction of a Wizard Tower. The Wizard Tower will be the first of its kind since the Keble Wizard Tower was destroyed by St John’s scholars after the Keble Wizard was alleged to have cast trousers deletus on students using the Parks Road gate. In a statement to OxYou, Wolfson College’s President said he hoped the creation of a Wizard Tower would “bring added Hijinx and trickery which a contemporary forward-thinking College needs.” The College is now moving to elect its first Wizard, preferably one who is also confident driving a 16-steater Mercedes electric minibus.

30 | Food & Drink

Deputy Editor: Johannah Mathew Section Editor: Rebecca Whalley food@oxfordstudent.com

Food & Drink

Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

A conversation with TV chef Theo Michaels Johannah Mathew

heo Michaels is a chef, award-winning author, with 8 published cookbooks (and one more on the way) and TV presenter, appearing in Big Zuu’s Big Eats, The Food Network and as the resident chef on Steph’s Packed Lunch, after beginning as a contestant on MasterChef 2014. After appearing on This Morning earlier in the day, Theo and I had a chat about his career and tips for student cooking.

Johannah Mathew: How did you get started as a chef? Theo Michaels: I used to run an IT and engineering recruiting business for 7 years, then I sold it and sat on the board for another 7 years. On a whim, I applied to MasterChef, found myself on the show and realised I had all this passion again, which I had lost, so I decided to follow that. My background is Greek Cypriot and our whole culture is centred around the kitchen and dining table, so food has always been a massive part of my life. JM: How would you describe your cooking philosophy? TM: For me, it’s all about simplicity, using beautiful in-

gredients and letting them shine. JM: Do you have tips for cooking beginners? TM: Good food doesn’t have to be overly expensive and start looking at different ingredients. For instance, chicken thighs and drumsticks are cheaper than chicken breast and they’ve got more flavour. Also, planning your meals is super important, because you end up prebuying and not wasting ingredients – something like a beautiful pasta dish can be really cost effective, simple, and delicious. Making the journey of cooking as big as the destination (eating the dish) is great as well. You know, pouring a couple glasses of wine with friends, whipping something up and making that a pleasurable experience rather than a function to get the result? JM: Do you have tips for people who have the basics but want to expand their skills? TM: Yeah – don’t be scared to fail! I’m a self-taught chef, so there’s been tonnes of trial and error. For instance, in the process of writing cookbooks, there’s been loads of recipes I’ve wanted to make that just didn’t work, but through those failures I’ve

been inspired by things I hadn’t thought of, ending up with me creating something beautiful. Also, try ingredients you haven’t cooked with before: go to different shops, like Turkish, Greek, Indian and Asian supermarkets, be-

ing. A great meal is pasta, with a bit of olive oil, garlic and tomatoes, cooked down and then you can throw in a packet of frozen mixed seafood and it’s absolutely delicious. JM: What are some cooking

cause you open up a tonne of different ingredients you’ve not used before, it’s a great way to be experimental. TM: There were loads of pasta and rice dishes, they’re cost effective and really fill-

essentials? TM: I would invest in spices, they’re cheap, last for ages and can change a base to something completely different. For example, with a tomato sauce, you add smoked

paprika, Chipotle flakes and coriander, and suddenly you’ve got this slightly Mexican vibe going on. Or you add curry powder, turmeric and garam masala and you’ve got the base of a curry happening. So, you might have a Bolognese left over that you had with spaghetti, which you can now have with rice to make a chilli con carne. Canned ingredients are also great. JM: Do you have any advice for people who want to go into the culinary industry? TM: Get a job and work in the kitchen, even if it’s a pot washing job, start surrounding yourself with that experience and environment. Getting trained and going to culinary school is great, but actually getting hands on experience is really important, because it can be a very fast paced, regimented and pressurised environment. JM: What have been the most exciting aspects of your career so far? TM: The variety of adventures this career has given me. I love doing live TV, it gives me a massive buzz. We’ve also done some incredible events – we were on a private island with like 400 guests for 3 days, and we were cooking all this incredible food with interesting setups. I just love serving food and people enjoying it, that’s the basis of it.

surprised a friend, who had not tried escargots before. The menu offers plenty of vegetarian and vegan options, with my vegetarian friends trying the pumpkin risotto and cheese souffle starters, both of which looked fantastic, with the risotto almost appearing as a meal due to its ambitious portion size. The mains came at a higher price, averaging about £20 each. Although the prices aren’t very student-friendly, the food was delicious. I had the herb-crusted lamb roulade, accompanied by a Jerusalem artichoke purée, Dauphinoise potato, confit garlic and a lamb jus. The purée was fantastic and

really enhanced the lamb’s flavour, and the Dauphinoise was the best I’ve ever had. However, I was a bit miffed at the lack of delicious confit garlic, as I was only given a single clove. The jus was a little thin, but the flavour made up for it, and perfectly complemented both the herb crust and the beautifully tender lamb. My vegetarian friends had the gorgeous looking gnocchi: tender wild mushrooms and artichoke crisps nestled amongst bright orange, fresh pasta – I’ll have to go back to try this one. Finally, I treated myself to a dessert (I was there for a birthday after all, albeit admittedly not my own).

After seeing somebody else’s pistachio soufflé, I decided to have one too, even before I’d had my starter. For £8.65, it was wonderfully cooked, perfectly light, retained a beautiful mint-green colour and was paired with an incredibly indulgent, rich chocolate ice cream – all you could ask for! Although a friend said it tasted slightly artificial, it was incredibly tasty, and I would certainly try it again. Due to the price, the food at Brasserie Blanc is more of a graduation meal than a weekend treat, but it’s certainly not to be missed – Blanc’s restaurant has something for everyone’s taste.

Image Credit: Mowie Kay

Brasserie Blanc: Restaurant Review Rebecca Whalley

entred in the heart of Jericho, Raymond Blanc’s Brasserie Blanc is one of Oxford’s most loved, ranking at 20 out of nearly 400 Oxford restaurants on TripAdvisor. Its reputation is well earned.

Brasserie Blanc has fourteen locations across the UK, and prides itself on its warm and welcoming atmosphere. In Jericho, the restaurant celebrates this by radiating warm, orange light from a leaf-green canopy, with about thirty tables, which doesn’t feel overcrowded. Currently Brasserie Blanc is serving its ‘Winter Warmer

Menu’, abundant with root vegetables, rich meats and incredibly indulgent desserts. There is a variety of well-loved options, such as the pumpkin risotto and prawn and crayfish cocktail, but I went for one of my favourites – escargots. This was one of the cheaper starters – sitting at £7.50 – which surprised me, as escargots can be rather hard to find. Nonetheless, the snails were truly meltin-the-mouth, baked in a garlic and herb butter and served with baguette slices. Other restaurants sometimes overdo the garlic, but Brasserie Blanc’s kept its brilliant natural, earthy flavours. This also pleasantly

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The Oxford Student | Friday 2 February 2024

Deputy Editor: Thomas Thornton Section Editors: Purav Menon, Johannes Riese sport@oxfordstudent.com

Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Rocket keeps outclassing the world of snooker Maxi Grindley

wo weeks after Luke Littler stormed to public attention as the youngest ever finalist in the PDC World Darts Championship, Ronnie O’Sullivan became the oldest ever winner of the Masters. There was much less fanfare for O’Sullivan’s feat – it was, after all, his 23rd Triple Crown title. For as long as anyone can remember he has been the favourite, or close to it, for every competition he enters. As such, it is easy to forget that over thirty years ago he too stormed to public attention as the youngest ever winner of a Triple Crown title when he won the UK Championship as a freshfaced 17-year-old. His hair was blacker, his unibrow stronger, his face puffier, his cheeks redder and his facial hair non-existent, but there’s no doubt it’s the same person.

“...it is easy to forget that over thirty years ago he too stormed to public attention” Comparing the images of O’Sullivan then and now, perhaps the most shocking aspect is just how similar he looks, despite a career almost unparalleled across sports. Tom Brady – widely considered the American Football GOAT partly due to his unparalleled longevity – played 23 seasons; Lebron James – whose durability has been unprecedented and helped him challenge Michael Jordan as the GOAT of basketball – is currently playing his 21st season; Ronnie O’Sullivan is playing his 32nd. Admittedly, these are perhaps unfair comparisons

due to the reduced physical demands expected of a snooker player compared to other sports. Consider then the careers of coaches and managers, whose less physically exerting roles are perhaps a better (if slightly dismissive to O’Sullivan) comparison: Alex Ferguson managed Manchester United for 26 years; Bill Belichick led the New England Patriots for 24 seasons; Gregg Popovich has coached the San Antonio Spurs for 27 years. Quite simply, there is no other person on the field or in the dressing room who has displayed such consistent and lengthy domination. But perhaps that is a simplification: physically he is certainly the same person, but mentally maybe not. In order to sustain such remarkable heights in performance, O’Sullivan has continually adapted and reinvented himself. As a youngster, he played with reckless yet calculated abandon, epitomised by his 147 break in the first round of the 1997 World Championship, still the fastest ever in a time of only 5 minutes and eight seconds. To watch videos of it is to see a disturbingly flawless rendition of snooker brilliance, reducing an exacting and complex sport to basic and thoughtless mechanics. Yet these were also turbulent times for O’Sullivan personally. In 1992, his father was imprisoned for murder before his mother was incarcerated for a year in 1996 for tax evasion. This left O’Sullivan to balance caring for his eightyear-old sister with his snooker career. As well as this, his relationship with snooker became complicated, leaving him to ‘finding solace in drink, wacky back, food’ by his own later admission. This complex relationship with snooker continued, encompassing the good, the bad, and the ugly. How else can one describe asking the

referee the prize for a maximum break on the first black and then actually producing one; deliberately potting the pink to achieve a 146 rather than a 147 in protest at the prize money; and conceding a best-of-17 UK Championship quarter-final clash at only 4:1 down, respectively? In recent years, the instinct towards self-destruction and provocation have perhaps been toned down, if never actually eliminated. Since 2011, Steve Peters, his sports psychologist, has been a close confidant and helped O’Sullivan’s mentality, while running and cooking have also been acknowledged as positive influences on his mental state. Whether thanks to these factors or others, O’Sullivan’s game has certainly developed so that the whirlwind breaks of yesteryear are forgotten in favour of more defensive, tactical play. But none of these factors, however narratively significant or interesting, change the obvious: O’Sullivan is simply the greatest snooker player to pick up a cue. It is hard to find another explanation for his ability to win the World Grand Prix days after admitting ‘I’m not enjoying

my snooker … I find these tournaments and playing a bit of a struggle’.

“O’Sullivan is simply the greatest snooker player to pick up a cue” As much as we would like to find a rational or scientific explanation for his dominance, something that would give us all hope that we too could become great in our respective fields, O’Sullivan makes these efforts a fool’s endeavour. On the baize, his worst day is better than anybody else’s best day and it is not any more complicated than that. If sport is reliant on its intrigue and unpredictability, can whatever O’Sullivan plays really be labelled a sport when he seems to contrive wins and records whenever he is in the mood? Fascinating as the search for an explanation may be, perhaps our time would be better spent marvelling at his talents, rather than questioning them. After all, none of the greats are around forever.

Varsity Matches: VOLLEYBALL Feb 17 Men’s and Women’s Blues SQUASH Feb 17 Men’s and Women’s Blues LACROSSE Feb 24 Men’s and Women’s BASKETBALL March 2 Men’s and Women’s Blues SWIMMING March 2 Swimming Blues RUGBY March 2 Women’s KO: 12pm Men’s KO: 3pm FOOTBALL March 15 Men’s and Women’s Blues

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Friday 2 February 2024 | The Oxford Student

Is the European Super League as dead as we thought? Tim Green ou may remember that in December, for a few days at least, the European Super League was back on the agenda. A ruling from the European Court of Justice stated that FIFA and UEFA had “abused a dominant position” by threatening the Super League clubs with sanctions and exclusion from major competitions. A22, the company behind the European Super League, instantly released a statement, saying that “football is free”. Real Madrid president Florentino Perez also declared it a “great day for the history of football”. Soon after, A22 released a slick video outlining their vision for a new competition. This new and improved proposal, they claimed, would bring “openness, competitive tension and success based on sporting merit”. Additionally, they planned for every match to

be available for fans to watch “live and for free”. This rapid series of developments and bold claims brought back echoes of April 2021, when the news broke that, following top-secret negotiations, 12 teams had all signed up to the breakaway competition. All of the English ‘big six’ had, without fan consultation. The surprise news shocked the football world, with huge fan protests, player discontent, and a social media clamour the likes of which the sporting world rarely sees. FIFA and UEFA had thwarted them before, but now the ECJ was ruling their efforts illegal. Without these bodies in the way, were we about to see a revival of the European Super League? Many a fan had their heart back in their mouths: was European football about to be torn apart once more? It quickly became apparent that, for now, this was not going

to happen. All the Premier League clubs that had previously signed up quickly released statements saying they were not interested, all the major European Leagues reiterated their opposition, and the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, said that “nothing has changed”. Status quo restored; crisis averted. However, the situation is not as complete as you might first think. A22 still exists. Backed by private equity. Two footballing giants in Barcelona and Real Madrid are both still actively campaigning for the Super League. While clubs have seen the way the wind was blowing and pulled out, the facts on the ground remain that a Super League would make involved clubs significantly more profitable, with large clubs unrestrained by UEFA being able to play each other more frequently, and with their global viewing figures surely skyrocketing. And examining football’s history re-

veals a consistent trend: in the end, money always wins. All the way back in the 19th century, for example, when football first became a professional sport, religious groups opposed the idea of it being a legitimate job. But the money won: we now have over 14,000 professional footballers in the UK alone. In 1992, the top 20 English clubs broke away from the Football League to form the FA Premier League so as not to be forced to pay money to smaller clubs; the Football League opposed the idea because it would have left the remaining clubs behind. Once again, money won: the Premier League is now by far the richest league in the world. In the 1960s and 1970s, people opposed having foreign players in Britain as they would deprive home-grown players of opportunities. Now, two-thirds of Premier League players are foreign. In the 1950s, salaries were capped at £20 per week (£280 in

The perils of mid-table mediocrity Purav Menon

“W

asted potential on and off the pitch. Weak decisions taking us backwards.” Legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was 71 when he retired from coaching football in 2013. On 20th January, 76-year-old Roy Hodgson, the oldest manager in Premier League history, was pictured looking on helplessly towards a damning banner unfurled by Crystal Palace’s frustrated away fans in the 90th minute of their 5–0 trouncing by Arsenal. With a geriatric manager, a miserly chairman and an ever-present gravitational pull towards the lower half of the league table, it is becoming difficult to see being a Crystal Palace fan for anything other than it quite frankly is – a complete bore. “Football fandom is meant to be a rollercoaster of emotions,” The Athletic’s Michael Cox said. “Supporting Palace is more like an entirely functional monorail.” Those not familiar with the

club’s status will struggle to see the problem. ‘You’re enjoying your longest-ever spell in the top-flight and are a consistent Premier League side!’ This is fair. As a Palace fan, supporting my club is not the hardest thing one can do. You only need to compare our position with clubs like Everton, third-division Reading, or Bury. Last year, Hodgson faced severe backlash after calling Palace supporters “spoilt” following a drab 2–0 defeat to Bournemouth. To him, this makes sense; growing up in the 1960s, his perception of the club was as a third-division side who had never tasted promotion. All I’ve known since getting into football is my club being in the Premier League. So maybe expecting more from Palace is unreasonable. But what stings the most is Palace’s biggest rivals, Brighton & Hove Albion, who were only promoted in 2017, qualifyed for Europe for the first time. Brighton has seen the quality of their players increase substantially over the years. Stars like Bissouma, Tros-

sard, Mac Allister, and Caicedo all emerged from the Brighton talent factory, and have since been sold for extortionate fees. In a world of football dominated by big clubs, Brighton’s organic methods of success are refreshing – but it is difficult watch as a Palace fan. Palace are not without talent, so why can they not push? The comparison is a little unfair; Bloom notably took on £400 million in debt to finance Brighton’s recruitment strategy, something he is still paying off. Given Palace’s ownership structure, wherein chairman, Steve Parish, owns 10% of the club, it is hard to see where that kind of investment comes from. But everything in recent years points to stagnation. In 2021, Palace appointed Patrick Vieira, accompanied by a wealth of signings and a promise of expanding Palace’s stadium. That season the team made the FA Cup semi-finals, and, most importantly, played an attacking style of football. All the ingredients were there for the club to push on and go one step further

the following season. However, with Vieira not given as much freedom in the transfer market, the start of the calendar year saw the team go on a 12-match winless streak. We were back in a relegation fight, Vieira was sacked, and the man who replaced him was none other than Hodgson, who remains in the dugout to this day. It’s difficult to blame Hodgson entirely for the club’s current predicament (one win in 12 games); our talisman and greatest ever player, Wilfried Zaha, left in July 2023. Moreover, the team has been decimated by injuries, with Eze and Olise, the main creative stars of the team both out without adequate replacements. However, calling Palace fans “spoilt”, and generally uninspiring tactics and team selections indicate that Hodgson, though a legend for his years of service to Crystal Palace, is emblematic of the problem with the club. Again, I cannot pretend that I have it bad as a Palace fan. We could be in the lower divisions or

today’s money). Today, Kevin De Bruyne’s £400,000 weekly pay is 140,000% higher. In football, money always wins. When the tide seemed to be turning in the other direction just a couple of years ago, clubs who now appear to view the project with such disgust were very happily signing up. Consider their position now: there are still several more legal loopholes for the Super League to navigate before it truly is a viable option for clubs and, so far, the other clubs have all held firm and not signed up. Why risk upsetting fans and short-term revenue on joining that project at this stage? But if the League was ready to go, and other clubs all seemed to be signing up for a project that would give more control, stability, and a huge boost to their revenue, would they really want to risk being left behind? They didn’t in 2021, and they won’t if it becomes a realistic option again.

financial crises. Some highlights this season include a win against Manchester United and drawing against reigning champions Manchester City. But while it’s difficult to imagine Palace being anything less than a Premier League side, it’s equally difficult to imagine us pushing up the table. The reality of it is I generally come away from watching Palace matches feeling unhappy. Let me put it this way. Palace have spent ten seasons in the Premier League. Each year, they have finished between 10th and 15th. In that period, Leicester City have gotten promoted, avoided relegation, won the Premier League, reached the quarterfinals of the Champions League, won the FA Cup, got relegated, and are now taking the second division by storm. Quite the “rollercoaster” in comparison. Is relegation a price to pay to see your team win games again? Maybe not. Though, Leicester fans are certainly a happier bunch than Palace fans have been in the last decade or so.