Issue 5 – Week 4 Michaelmas Term 2014

Volume 71 Issue 5

Thursday 6rd November 4th Week

oxfordstudent.com

Sex tape offer for Somerville MakeLoveNotPorn founder propositions students ELLIOTT THORNLEY DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR

PHOTO/ cheviots.blogspot.co.uk & MakeLoveNotPorn

Union plans reforms to electoral process

Major changes have been proposed by the President and Standing Committee

NICK MUTCH NEWS EDITOR

The Union’s standing committee has recommended a private business motion proposed by President Mayank Banerjee to fundamentally overhaul elections. The motion allows open campaigning, the formation of slates and the introduction of Re-Open Nominations as an option on the ballot papers, in a series of wide ranging reforms to it’s termly elections, the OxStu can report.

Before the motion can become part of the Union’s rules it must be brought before the chamber, which

Banerjee plans to do next Thursday at 5pm. It will be ratified by acclamation unless 15 or more members object to the result. In this case the house will be divided and the chamber will “vote with their feet” in the same manner as for the Union’s weekly debates. If the proposals pass, the new rules will be in effect for this term’s elections in 7th week.

The proposed changes would allow candidates openly to canvass for election both physically and online, although there will be several exceptions to this. These exceptions include the spending of money on promotional materials, paid-for

advertising and the production of videos to be used in campaigning.

These rules would allow candidates to form slates, or teams of candidates, although they will not be allowed to claim the endorsement of any University society or political, national, racial or religious group.

While Rule 33 of the Union’s constitution currently prohibits running on slates, or the discussion of one’s candidacy and the solicitation of votes beyond “close personal friends”, it is considered an open secret in the Union that these rules are frequently disregarded by candidates. A senior union official admit-

Profile, p.10

Stage, OXII p.3

Elf Lyons talks comedy, feminism and nudity

On theatre in prisons and prisons in theatre - reviewing British detention and The Pillowman

ted that the rules as they currently stand “are considered something of a farce”.

The Union also intends to introduce a ballot system for high-profile speaker events after the long queues that formed last night in anticipation of the visit of Sir Ian McKellen.

Some members were queuing from 3.30pm for an 8pm talk. On the facebook event for Stephen Fry, it has been announced that “this should ensure that members who cannot afford to queue for hours have a fair shot of getting into the event, whilst Continued on page 4 »

Comment p.9

The media’s misunderstanding of Russell Brand’s revolution

A Somerville College alumna has been posting on the JCR Facebook page asking students to “#makelovenotporn’.

Cindy Gallop, who studied English Literature at the college, posted a message on Saturday 1st November, pledging to donate £1000 to any Somerville students willing to submit an anonymous sex video to makelovenotporn.com.

The message read: “I’m delighted Somerville’s #movember drive is off to a rousing start, but concerned that the gentlemen’s team seems to be lagging behind the ladies’ on the donations front - possibly because the same calibre of motivating rewards are not being offered?

I’m keen to support, so - I’ll donate 1,000 pounds to the first team who submits an anonymous #realworldsex video to MakeLoveNotPorn (can be solo) featuring moustaches (anonymity means they can be drawn on elsewhere). I’ll double that donation for the team that submits a #realworldsex video filmed/taking place in a clearly recognizable Somerville location. #makemovemberlovenotporn.”

Somerville student Michael Davies commented that anonymity might be difficult to preserve given that ‘Movember’ donations are made public, to which Gallop responded: “It would be obvious which team had been sufficiently enterprising, but the video could feature any team members, supporters or friends, operating on their behalf and in their support #makemovemberlovenotporn”.

The post has attracted 22 likes but has failed to attract any entries thus far. In an attempt to remedy that fact, Will Truefitt commented: “Come on guys, Movember shouldn’t be confined to your top lips.”

Gallop also tweeted @somervillejcr three times with the same request for ‘real-world sex’ submissions, and was retweeted each time by the Somerville page.

Continued on page 5 »

Sport p.18

Is Luis Suarez’s ostracism by the football community getting long in the tooth?

2 Editorial

6th November 2014

Editorial Doing things for others

I

t is the time of year when law firms, banks and management consultants descend on Oxford, offering us drinks, dinner and more free sushi than a tiny conveyor belt can handle. From PwC at Pierre Victoire to sashimi sponsored

by Simmons & Simmons, the career fever that takes hold in mid-Michaelmas encourages us to do something for our futures. We can all tell ourselves that that presentation on EY only took fifteen minutes, but there is no such thing as a free lunch (or cocktails, or chocolates).

That steak-frites is only one business card away from a serious talk about starting salaries.

All this focus on graduate prospects and well-paid professions can sit uncomfortably with the other focus of November: giving. This year, OUSU’s News Comment Features Music Screen Stage Arts Fashion Sport

veggie pledge has joined a range of initiatives that use November as an opportunity for a month-long series of charitable acts. The current proliferation of facial hair in Oxford – even more than is normal – attests to the success of these campaigns.

In this spirit of doing things for (and simply doing) other people, one Somerville alumnus has made a rather different offer from those that we expect come November. This week, Cindy Gallop has offered students a chance unlikely to be found amidst the stalls at the internship fair at the Town Hall.

Gallop, CEO of Make Love Not Porn, has promised Somerville students £1000 towards their Movember endeavor if they uploaded a sex video to her website.

In terms of fundraising enterprise, this is perhaps a little more exciting than another bungee-jump in Gloucester Green. While not everyone has supported

work with us

Gallop’s Movember pledge, the broader culture of charitable work that takes hold in November provides a welcome balance to the internship frenzy.

Clubbing/Clubbed

S

tudents get a bum rap when it comes to alcohol and antisocial behaviour. Often found hugging a toilet bowl, catatonic in a corner, or spitting abuse and kebab chunklets at Mr Money, to some extent this reputation is well-deserved.

However, none of this mitigates the egregious behaviour seen in many Oxford clubs these past few weeks. With Bridge hosting a ‘Midget Night’, allegations abounding of bouncer violence at Park End and a brawl erupting in Camera this week alone, it is worrying to see not only how prevalent violence towards students is at these venues, but also how

incongruous the club scene is with the sensibilities of the University as a whole.

Hearing of ‘Midget Night’, harking back to the horrendous days of ‘human marvels’ and ‘sideshow freaks’, it is surprising that the sheer crassness of such an event was pointed out by so few.

We are all to blame for a culture of gin-infused violence: students do get rowdy, boisterous and blotto, and maybe symptomatically, the bouncers paid to be buffers end up as bullies. But the problems with the clubbing scene seem to go much deeper than an unhinged British drinking culture.

Our student haunts are either unresponsive or oblivious to values we hold dear:

we are asked to abandon them on the doorstep. Absolving our clubs of any responsibility to their patrons for the sake of fun would only serve to normalise these cheap crowd-pulling tricks.

Are you a photographer, cartoonist, film-maker or just a plain old journo?

With the largest readership and the most national stories of any student publication in Oxford, The OxStu is the ideal training ground for budding student jounalists. In fact, in last year’s Guardian Media Awards we were not only shortlisted for Student Publication of the Year, but, of the five people on the shortlist for Student Reporter of the Year, three wrote for us.

To get involved email

editor@oxfordstudent.com

Get involved with student social action www.oxfordhub.org

6th November 2014

News 3

St John’s students off their trollies Oxford boys flood A&E

Stern warnings issued over “sickening” abandoned trolley epidemic

Survey shows up accident-prone Oxford men

LUKE MINTZ DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR

Students at St John’s College have received a warning after a number of abandoned shopping trolleys have been found around the college grounds.

In an email sent to all undergraduates and postgraduates on Friday by the college’s Joint Domestic Secretaries, students were informed: “Five shopping trolleys from different supermarkets around Oxford have been brought to College and dumped”. The email continued: “Any student who cannot manage to carry their shopping themselves MUST return their trolley to the supermarket.”

Students reacted to Friday’s news with a mixture of amusement and disapproval.

JCR Domestic Officer Sonia Morland linked the abandonment of trolleys to the “recent financial woes” reported by Tesco, stating: “There’s clearly a link between the loss of valuable Tesco trolleys and Tesco’s plummeting share price”. English student Morland continued: “As a Tesco lover, I’m personally sickened by the selfish and criminal actions of my fellow students”.

Not all students showed such disapproval, however. A second year student who wished not to be named commented: “It is difficult to feel particularly sorry for Tesco or Sainsbury’s. Big supermarket chains are killing the economy and damaging the British community. There are worse things that could happen than these capitalist overlords losing a few trolleys.”

PHOTO/James Sleeman MARTHA GLASER AND NICK MUTCH

PHOTO/Jes

A spokesperson for Sainsbury’s, which has a branch on Magdalen Street near St John’s College, told the OxStu that the supermarket wanted to “reduce the cases of abandoned trolleys”, referring to the their partnership with Trolleywise, a service designed to locate abandoned trolleys. Customers are usually expected to hand in a form of ID to insure that they return their trolley back to the shop. It is unclear whether this policy is consistently applied.

The abandonment of trolleys in St John’s follows a number of instances of tension

between Oxford students and Oxford supermarkets. In May 2014, a Cowley branch of Sainsbury’s was forced to remove a ‘slave mannequin’ used to advertise the film 12 Years of Slave, with several students criticising the supermarket’s actions. Last year students launched a petition urging Tesco to remove a greeting card accused of belittling workplace sexual harassment, and in 2011 former Oxford academic Frances Kennett launched opposition to the construction of Sainsbury’s fifth store in Oxford, located on Banbury Road.

A report by Healthwatch Oxfordshire has found that more than 20 per cent of male Oxford students have used A&E during their time at University, compared with as little as nine per cent of the general public.

Healthwatch Oxfordshire’s report also stated that some students had serious concerns with mental health provisioning in Oxford.

A first-year medic described a college bop in which a student had to visit the John Radcliffe hospital after he “sliced his finger open on a door”.

The report makes recommendations such as improving the effectiveness of the 111 phone service, which helps students assess whether they need to visit A&E, and is used to deal with more minor complaints. It encourages students to explore the range of alternative services that are available to students, including college nurses and doctors, and GP services.

It also found widespread concerns that mental health issues among Oxford students are not effectively dealt with. There were concerns that students anticipated stigma surrounding these issues, and that 25 per cent of students feared the “judgement of healthcare professionals”.

Radhika Seth, University-wide coordinator for the ‘Mind Your Head’ campaign, commented on these finding, saying: “I’d say the perception of mental health issues is still a big problem at Oxford, because especially in a really academically rigorous environment seeking help can sometimes be seen as caving under pressure.

“It’s a problem which most people are reluctant to talk about anyway, and coupled with pressure from tutors/pressure to perform as well as your peers, it’s often just seen as weakness. Most counsellors are sympathetic, but particularly in Oxford I think the issue is addressed primarily in relation to academic performance/mental health affecting this, and that needs to change.”

Rowdy night at Camera Oxford most expensive city in UK

Unrest at nightclub prompts police involvement Report finds housing shortage drives down income relative to prices NICK MUTCH NEWS EDITOR

Police were called to popular nightclub Camera last week after a ‘brawl’ broke out among several students.

At least four police officers spent approximately half an hour questioning students in relation to the event, but it is understood that no arrests were made and no charges are to be pressed.

One student, who was questioned by police and has a visible facial injury described the start of the brawl as follows; “I was walking along and slipped slightly and ended up spilling my drink on some guy. I turned around to apologize, and next thing I know he whacks me hard in the face. My friends stepped up for me and it turned into a bit of a brawl.

The police were called to break it up.”

One student at Christ Church commented; “it is very disappoint-

PHOTO/Camera

ing that this kind of violence can still occur during student nights, even in Oxford. After the reports of violence from bouncers at Park End that occurred last week, it seems that it is not just bouncers who are contributing to a culture of aggression; students have to look themselves in the mirror as well.”

The incident follows a fight outside Magdalen fresher accommodation where one student was left with a head wound that required medical attention at the John Radcliffe’s A&E room. A witness told the OxStu: “There was an altercation with some townies. I’m not sure who started it but it turned unpleasant very quickly. I’m just glad that everyone was fine in the end. We like to think of Oxford as a safe environment but late at night, when people have had something to drink, reality can puncture this bubble quite violently.”

MATTHEW DAVIES NEWS EDITOR

Oxford is the ‘least affordable UK city’ to live in, according to the results of a recent study, which found the city to be more expensive than London, Brighton and Cambridge.

The Centre for Cities, the independent think tank that conducted the study, highlighted housing shortages as the major cause of the city’s slump in the affordability rankings, recommending building on green-belt land around the city in order to close the gap between supply and demand for housing stock.

The methodology employed by the study focussed on what the Centre for Cities refers to as an “affordability ra-

tio” – the relationship between average earnings and the average cost of living in an area.

A spokesperson for the Centre for Cities explained that: “The shortage of housing in Oxford has pushed up house prices, forcing residents and workers to spend more of their earnings on housing, or pricing them out of the city altogether.”

A spokesperson for the University of Oxford corroborated the report’s findings, remarking: “The high costs of buying or renting in Oxford make it difficult for the University and its fellow employers to recruit the best possible staff from a range of backgrounds, at a range of salary levels.”

Sian Allen, Local Action Coordinator

for the Oxford Hub, commented: “To be honest, I’m not entirely surprised at the findings. It’s clear to anyone who looks closely that whilst we as students live in a ‘bubble’ maintained by our student loans and wealthy colleges, the situation for others living in Oxford is often not so pleasant.

“Something seriously needs to be done to change this status quo. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that in a city where thousands are unable to afford little more than a place to live, even more problems begin to unfold – drug abuse, homelessness and child poverty are all huge issues for our city.”

When contacted by the OxStu, OUSU’s Rent and Accommodation Officer did not respond to a request for comment.

PHOTO/Baz Richardson

4 News

6th November 2014

Union rules to change Oxford students to be consulted NICK MUTCH NEWS EDITOR

» Continued from front page whilst also allowing those members who may have a particularly strong desire to see a speaker the opportunity to see them, even if they are unsuccessful in the ballot”.

These changes come as part of a wide ranging attempt to reform the way the Union is run They follow the introduction of a means of impeaching the President and other senior officers, as well as a rule requiring automatic suspension from office following an arrest.

Union President Mayank Banerjee explained the reasons for the introduction of these changes: “People often complain about how Union elections are run, and these changes are designed to make them as open and fair as possible. Alongside some of the other changes that have already passed this term, we hope that they will go some way to addressing members' concerns about the Union.”

Banerjee added: “I encourage all members to suggest any amendments to the electoral changes over the coming week, and to attend the meeting to pass them taking place at 5pm on Thursday of 5th Week.”

Another senior Union official elaborated the reasons for the changes: “The nature of the society has changed and the rules as they stand are outdated for our current purpose. It was the 1970s when the Union outlawed slates, then known as electoral pacts, as well as public ‘hacking’. It was 1998 when the Union outlawed electronic campaigning in any form.

“The original idea was we are a debating society; what should sway you is someone's rhetorical strength in the chamber, not your personal popularity, and certainly not your association with someone else’s popularity. However this is no longer how it works in practice. It is also the case that the collegiate system at Oxford will mean that running on slates is extremely advantageous.”

Union officials also confirmed that they considered, but then rejected, a mooted idea to introduce online voting similar to the one used by the Cambridge Union Society. “There were two reasons for this,” an official explained. The first is that it would be a logistical nightmare; it will be extremely difficult to create a voting system that is secure enough, and because people buy membership for life, there are potentially 184,000 votes that could be cast. We would not be able to create a system that could cope with this.

“The second is that the skills required for successful electioneering under the current system are actually similar to those required when inviting speakers.

If you can’t convince someone you know from College to come down and take ten minutes to vote for you, you will not be able to convince an agent in Los Angeles you have never spoken to give you Morgan Freeman’s time.”

Last term several candidates, including a candidate for President, were convicted of electoral malpractice and disqualified from the election including for soliciting votes via electronic means following a tribunal.

These actions would now become permissible under the proposed changes.

in search for new Vice-Chancellor

Participation welcomed in process to replace Professor Andrew Hamilton MAXWELL RAMSAY

Student input is to be sought in the selection of a new Vice-Chancellor after Professor Andrew Hamilton completes his term in the role in September 2016, according to a notice in the Oxford University Gazette, the University’s weekly publication for official announcements.

The notice states: “The Nominating Committee […] has now begun the process to identify [Hamilton’s] successor”, and “aims to propose a name to Council [the executive governing body of the University] early in Trinity term 2015”.

In an unprecedented effort to gain consensus, the committee “welcomes views from individual members of the collegiate University”, while also “seeking the views of, among others, departments and faculties, colleges and OUSU”.

An Oxford University spokesperson

noted previous student input into university decision-making, commenting: “OUSU already represents students’ interests on major University committees, including Council, and regularly contributes to consultations undertaken by the University.

“OUSU officers have met once with the Nominating Committee for the Vice-Chancellorship and are now consulting with students across the University. The Committee has invited them to present their findings at a further meeting later this term.

“The Committee will consider carefully all submissions made to it, including those made by OUSU on behalf of the student body.”

OUSU President Louis Trup confirmed the meeting between OUSU officers and the Committee, reporting: “As well as presenting our views, we asked if we could return to present the results of a student consultation.

PHOTO/Oxford University

An online submission has been the main method through which we have consulted, providing a range of views from a diverse group of students.

“We will be presenting the findings of this consultation to the nominating committee again in late November and have also secured a meeting with the recruitment consultant to present the student view to them.”

News of the student consultation into this appointment has been generally well-received. Bláthnaid McCullagh, Academic Affairs Officer for St John’s JCR, commented: “I think it’s very important that the views of students are considered in this decision”, and noted her belief that “we need to ensure that the world class teaching which is a hallmark of the University, is not jeopardised”.

However, one second-year PPEist took a less positive view: “I have serious doubts how much influence students can have, there is certainly an element of image [in student consultation].”

He nonetheless agree that student contribution was a very positive step.

In contrast, Louis Trup, OUSU President, is hopeful, stating: “The nominating committee have said they have taken our views on board and I believe that this high level of student involvement represents a genuine interest from the University to hear the student view.”

To voice your opinion on the selection of the next Vice-Chancellor, you can send comments to VCNomCom@ admin.ox.ac.uk by 21st November 2014.

Controversy over return of Wadham scholars' dinner NUS ditches free education demo

Wadham second-years enraged by sporadic and "morally objectionable" invitations ADAM DAYAN NEWS EDITOR

Wadham’s reintroduction of scholars’ dinners has caused controversy among the College’s undergraduates.

Despite not holding scholars’ dinners for a number of years, Wadham sent out dinner invita-

PHOTO/lorenzaccio*

tions to second-years who were awarded scholarships on the basis of their results in last year’s exams.

The invites read: “The College is pleased to celebrate the collective achievement of this year’s scholars and recent finalists. To this end, the College would like to invite you to an inaugural celebratory dinner in Hall on Saturday 1st November.

We do hope you will be able to attend this first of what we hope to be an annual event in celebration of academic success.”

The invitations caused opposition among Wadham students, after emails were not sent to some high-performing prelimmers. Sean Bullock, an Oriental Studies student, received a first in Prelims but was not invited to the dinner.

He posted a picture of himself eating dinner on Facebook with the caption: “Hope you're all enjoying your morally-decrepit Eurocentric scholars' dinner. No first-students from Oriental Studies were invited so we must all be irrelevant. I will enjoy my tomato rice with pride.”

However, others suggested that Oriental Studies students were not invited due to clerical error or tutors’ prerogative.

Loukia Koumi, another Wadham student, commented: “Regardless of technicalities, whether people

weren't invited due to euro-centrism or a clerical error, the fact that College held this dinner is morally objectionable. Hopefully, the people who are raising the issue that they weren't invited are raising it in order to undermine the dinner itself.”

Koumi continued: “Hard work and intelligence are not the only things that contribute to a first – there are so many other sensitive factors which can determine which classification you get and the College has ignored all of those by holding this dinner.”

One third-year Wadham historian told the OxStu: “I don't particularly mind that those who've done extremely well and worked very hard to get a first get a chance to be celebrated, though God knows getting a first from Oxford is celebration enough, and the SU was consulted about it. But this cannot be divorced from the Warden's supposed agenda of pushing Wadham away from being the "progressive", "party" college and towards being more "respectable" and "academic" This while Wadham is top fice in the Norrington tables. To many students it's quite divisive.

The outrage is more about what scholars' dinners represent rather than the dinners themselves.”

President cites “ unaccetpable level of risk” as reason for U-turn MATTHEW DAVIES NEWS EDITOR

The NUS has abandoned its support for the upcoming “free education” demonstration, citing the “unacceptable level of risk that this demonstration currently poses to our members”.

A statement from NUS President Toni Pearce issued with “huge reluctance and regret” highlighted accessibility issues, the concerns of NUS liberation officers, and the absence of public liability insurance as factors in the decision, suggesting: “We do not believe there is sufficient time between now and the demonstration for these risks to be mitigated.

“The reality we are confronted with is that this demonstration presents an unacceptable level of risk, is not accessible, and does not meet the minimum expectations our members would expect for an action that carries NUS support.

NUS has policy to support free education, and we will continue to lobby and campaign for this, but no action that we take should be put above the ability for all our members to be safe. We have gone to considerable lengths to help change that position, by working with the organisers, but that time has now run out.”

The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) demonstration, which will still go ahead, had won the

backing of OUSU, as well as 14 JCRs in Oxford. The OUSU Council motion and the JCR motions which preceded it resolved to“support free education as a policy and the NUS campaign against fees and debt.”

Michael Chessum, a national organiser for the NCAFC and former head of the University of London Union, criticised the NUS decision, suggesting that Pearce’s claims were only being made because “the NUS leadership could not get away with not backing the demonstration: it was too popular.”

Chessum further stated that “how they intend to do this [pull support for the demo] given that NUS NEC has formally supported the policy is a democratic mystery. But then democratic mysteries are rather the norm in NUS.” Members of the Oxford Activist Network also criticised the NUS decision.

Xavier Cohen, a Balliol PPEist, commented: “I'm quite sure there will be an issue with access and safety. But that precisely means the demo requires more NUS attention, not less (or even fucking none).” Kae Smith, a Ruskin student, accused the NUS of hypocrisy.

However, a Magdalen second-year backed the NUS, saying: “Looking out for accessibility and ensuring the creation of an inclusive space is admirable.

All the liberation officers are backing it; the ultra-lefties criticising this decision should listen to them”.

News 5

6th November 2014

Ex-Somervillian contacts students for porn Christ Church offers money for undergraduates to live out Cindy Gallop offers money for Movember themed video

£1500 on offer for JCR members as College appears to hit max accomodation

ELLIOT THORNLEY DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR

LAURA KENNEDY DEPUTY EDITOR

» Continued from front page Gallop is the CEO and founder of makelovenotporn.com, a website to which users can upload and watch ‘real-world sex’ videos. The website states that it is “of the people, by the people, and for the people who believe that the sex we have in our everyday life is the hottest sex there is.”

It goes on to say: “We are not porn - porn is performance (often an exceedingly delicious performance, but a performance nonetheless).”

“We are not 'amateur' - a label

PHOTO/Julain Hanford

that implies that the only people doing it right are the professionals and the rest of us are bumbling idiots. (Honey, please.)"

Gallop told the OxStu, "I've always been keen to have Somervillians contribute to Make Love Not Porn." She then added, "If any Somervillian had contacted me to epress unhappiness with [my post] I would, of course, have apologised and removed it" In response to Gallop’s post, one Somerville student commented: “It was a real shock to see something like that on the JCR noticeboard. I can’t see anyone actually going through with her suggestion, though I desperately hope someone has the guts! After all, a potential £2000 for charity is nothing to be sniffed at!”

“I can already see the Daily Mail headlines. But Cindy Gallop has got thirty thousand followers and a blue verified tick on twitter.

When someone with that kind of social media presence tells you to do something, you do it. She’s probably our third most famous alumnus.”

Another member of Somerville who is taking part in Movember told the OxStu “it's not in keeping with what we are is trying to achieve at all. It's as simple as moustaches sparking conversation - encouraging people to get checked and speak out about what's going on. I also don’t think it would draw the right kind of attention to Somerville either.”

Christ Church students have been offered £1,500 to forego College accommodation for the next academic year.

As part of the College’s “rolling programme of accommodation improvement”, refurbishments to the historical Peckwater Quad have been scheduled to take place in the academic year of 2015/2016, decreasing the number of rooms available to JCR members.

In an email sent to Christ Church JCR members on Monday 3rd November, Senior Censor Professor David Nowell and JCR President Louise Revell insinuated that next year the College will be unable to accommodate all JCR members, and invited junior members to volunteer to find alternative accommodation.

Subject to final Governing Body approval, the College has offered each of those who live out a subsidy of £1,500, the promise of priority in the room ballot for the following year (behind scholars, exhibitioners and JCR executive officers), and an extra guest dinner priority pass for the year during which the student lives outside of College accommodation.

The scheme of incentives will extend to approximately 40 students. Should more students volunteer to find alternative accommodation, a ballot will decide who may take advantage of the offer. Conversely, if fewer than 40 students apply, those who come at the bottom of the general room ballot

PHOTO/archeon

for 2015-16 will be forced to live out.

Concerning the reception of the College’s proposed accommodation plans, JCR President Louise Revell commented: “The email explaining the refurbishment plans was only sent [on Monday] so it is too early to gauge what the general opinion is and how many people will go for the scheme. The JCR Officers were consulted about the plans and proposed benefits before the email was sent.”

Until now, Christ Church’s accommodation policy for JCR members has been that “students are eligible for college accommodation throughout their undergraduate degree”, either on the main College site or in nearby locations.

In recent years students at New College have also been affected by sudden changes to accommodation

policies. In the 2012/2013 academic year, a surge in the number of successful applicants applying to New College, coupled with an unprecedented number of fourth-year students, dramatically reduced the number of rooms available to third-years.

With regard to the approach proposed at Christ Church, a third-year English student at the College commented: “There are always people who want to live out, so it's not a disastrous solution. But it's still a big ask for students to be split three ways in second year (between College, the Liddell building and now those forced out).

“The incentive is pretty tempting maybe especially for fourth years, but it amounts to a huge sum for College to give away. There better be plenty of tourists flooding through the gates next year…"

Calls for a female Bishop of Oxford Don't get the JCR locked, JCR President warns student Church of England yet to have a woman Bishop President warns that college may consider Lincoln JCR closure following "awful state" CHARLOTTE LANNING

Leading figures in the Church of England have called for the next Bishop of Oxford to be a woman, following the retirement of the Rt Revd John Pritchard last Friday.

This would make the Bishopric of Oxford, whose seat at Christ Church Cathedral, the first in the Church of England to be filled by a woman This follows the the decision of the General Synod on 14th July 2014, in which the required two thirds majority voted in its three constituent parts to enable women to become Bishops.

The diocese of Oxford has long been a supporter of women in the clergy, with two canons and three out of four Archdeacons being women.

The names of many women have been in circulation for the appointment of first female Bishop for some time due to the anticipation of such reform.

The main contenders are Lucy Winkett, the former Canon Precentor of St Paul’s Cathedral, Vivianne Faulle, the only Church of England female Provost in history, and finally, Rose HudsonWilkin, Chaplain to the House of Commons and the Queen.

The women’s rep for Pembroke College, Anna Simpson, commented: “It is fantastic to see this possible change tying in with wider movements in Oxford for gender equality and more generally that institutions are moving forward with the times”.

The Dean of Christ Church, Reverend Martyn Percy, was unavailable for comment, but the Chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham, Revd Canon Rosie Harper expressed how the Church of England needs to counteract the distaste that many people (particularly the young) feel towards it, commenting: “Saying that we are inclusive is not enough. We need to act in inclusive ways. This will mean actually making some women bishops”.

Acting Bishop Rt Revd Colin Fletcher says that his key concern is to “find the right person for the job”. The Revd Canon Rosie Harper is confident a woman can meet this brief: “There are some very experienced and talented women and I see no reason why one of them might not be found to be the best person for the role”.

There will be a Public Meeting on the 11th November at Christ Church Cathedral at 7:15pm to discuss the appointment

MATT COULTER

Lincoln students have been threatened with closure of their JCR by college, the Lincoln JCR President has said.

Mark Williams sent the email to the College student body on Friday, 31 October, following complaints that the JCR and Mitre pub have been left in an “awful state” this term.

The JCR President warned students that the College is “seriously considering” locking the JCR if the

PHOTO/simononly PHOTO/Andrew

mess continues, whilst mess in the Mitre will make it harder for the Lincoln JCR to organise events there in future.

He added that: “The scouts work very hard for us and it is not their job to pick up Hassan's boxes and bits of onion and pumpkin.

“Oxford has enough of a reputation for us being entitled brats without us demanding the staff deal with our detritus.”

Asked to comment, Williams said: “There were complaints about the conditions in various communal areas in Lincoln, including the

JCR. An email was sent on Friday bringing the matter to everyone's attention, asking them to be more thoughtful.”

In the email, he also suggested a number of pointers for Lincoln students, in order to prevent excessive mess. These included not leaving empty vodka bottles and kebab boxes lying around, and not sticking things to the walls.

He also asked students to “Consider if mutilating root vegetables is really worth it.”

Commenting on the matter, one Lincoln fresher said: “We’ve had quite a few warnings about the JCR…I’ve got to say it seems okay to me, apart from the Hassan’s and Domino’s boxes”. He also added: “If I’m honest I think they’re overreacting."

Another student at Lincoln expressed their joy that the affair had boosted the College’s reputation, saying that: “We've endured claims of being 'boring', 'small', 'uninteresting'. No longer.”

He added: “Our upstanding JCR Pres has taken action - not just against mess, but against the depressing Nietzschean nihilism of Lincolnian nothingness. We’re on the map. Watch out Green Templeton.”

The Senior and Junior deans at Lincoln could not be reached for comment.

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1974-2014

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Comment 6th November 2014

Fergus Peace

Magdalen College

R

ussell Brand does not have a plan.

From his most recent appearance on Newsnight, that much is very clear. What he does have is a cluster of anecdotes and a hyperactive enthusiasm for his cause. Protesters in Parliament Square, his mate Leigh in Grays, residents on Hoxton’s New Era estate: these are good, ordinary people, fighting against the machine of corporate hegemony. Boris Johnson’s meetings with bankers, the tax evasion of Google and Amazon, quantitative easing: these are the representatives of the failure of capitalism, and the death of true democracy.

It’s settled opinion, among the people in the media who have written about it, that Brand made a fool of himself on Newsnight last week. In his book, he suggested that General Motors should be ‘taken back’ from the private shareholders who own it. Interrogated about the idea, he called the debate a “silly administrative quibble” and refused to engage. Shown a graph of real wage increases since the 19th century and asked whether he really wanted to do away with capitalism, he mocked the graph and waved off the question. And he insisted that we “have to remain open-minded to any kind of possibility” as to who committed the 9/11 attacks. At one point, in the Guardian’s words, interviewer Evan Davis was “reduced to almost pleading” – “I’m trying to take you seriously”, he said, and it’s very easy to conclude that Brand just wouldn’t let him.

There’s another movement that raged

against a system they said was broken and that journalists and politicians struggled to take seriously. The first posters of the Occupy Wall Street movement asked “What is our one demand?” The question was never answered. The Occupy movement became a hub for protest against nearly every aspect of a system that was seen as rotten to the core.Demands, policy platforms, leaders – they belong to the old, broken way. Occupy was not a movement that would fight until it achieved some specific demands and then peter out. It was meant to be an ongoing fight for reform of almost everything, until power was back with the people.

explain just what people mean when they say “capitalism isn’t working”. But he is still a figurehead for a movement that is incredibly broad and fragmented. Leigh from the Fire Brigades Union and the workers at General Motors aren’t signed up to a common manifesto. They don’t have a shared scheme for redesigning politics or a vision for a changed society.

Brand gets that. When it look like he’s evading important questions, he’s in fact recognising a simple truth about the movement he wants to support and be part of. He says that what he wants to do is amplify the voices and protests of the people he talks about. It’s tempting

to dismiss those as anecdotes, to call his program “piecemeal” as Evan Davis did last week. But Brand’s book, and his media presence, is about highlighting problems people face and helping them to fight those problems themselves – it’s not about trying to be a leader, or a theorist of a new and better world.

When Davis asked him whether he would consider standing in next year’s general election, it’s almost laughably missing the point. But, just like with the Occupy movement, the media’s structural need to find someone who can explain what they want to change and how blinds them to a very different

Comment 7

kind of political action.

That’s not to say we should come out staunchly in support of Russell Brand, whose aggression in interviews and bizarre views on (for example) 9/11 might not make him the best person for an amplifying, ambassadorial role. It’s not even to say that political movements without leaders and clear agendas are the best way of addressing social challenges.

But they are a way, and journalists looking out only for people with concrete, overarching plans for how society needs to change aren’t very good at seeing that.

The media don't get Russell Brand That was baffling to journalists. Who were they supposed to interview? They could speak to any one of the thousands of protesters in Zuccotti Park or St Paul’s or hundreds of other camps across the world. But they would all say different things. None of them could represent the movement, none of them could be the talking head journalists are used to having. The media was very poorly suited to covering the Occupy movement – not because of any ideological bias, but because it was structurally unable to deal with the way the movement organised and expressed itself.

When Russell Brand agrees to come on TV and talk about ‘creative direct action’, it seems like the problem solved.

At last, there’s a figurehead who can

PHOTO/Eva Rinaldi

Ebola is tragic, but British citizens are not at risk Matthew Burnett Wadham College

T

he outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is a tragic state of affairs.

The Ebola virus is a serious, usually fatal, disease for which there are no licensed treatments or vaccines.

In the states of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, it is arguably the most virulent health crisis since the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. Yet in the developed world, medical professionals are confident the disease will not spread.

opinion. Yes - we may have several cases of Ebola in the UK - but limited almost exclusively to the people who have journeyed recently from West Africa.

It also transpired that newspapers failed to mention key pieces of epidemiological information: Ebola victims do not become infectious until they have developed symptoms. The disease then progresses very rapidly.

This means infectious people do not walk around, exposing themselves to others, with the contagion for a long period. Medical professionals would bet good money passengers travelling on the same plane as an Ebola victim are very unlikely to catch the disease.

In contrast to the airborne influenza virus, transmission of Ebola is limited almost completely to body fluids. It is therefore routine to employ stringent

The UK has started drafting up to 800 NHS volunteers to work in Sierra Leone

It is moreover tragic that the western world has been led down a path of misinformation and, in some cases, nonsensical hysteria. Headlines such as “Ebola in Britain by Christmas” do not accurately reflect expert medical

PHOTO/European Commission DG

medical practices to ensure the virus can be contained effectively.

The UK has very strict infection control proceduresm, like wearing protective clothing and quarantine isolation units. Airport screening has also been implemented, in liaison with UK Border Force, to provide tests and advice for passengers returning on flagged routes and high-risk countries.

To put the low-risk we face into context, less than 1000 passengers arrived from the affected West African countries last month and 85 per cent of those arrived at Heathrow.

What is worrying however, was the delayed international response. The World Health Organisation has recently come under fire after admitting they mishandled the early stages of the outbreak. It was claimed that WHO failed to recognise the risks of the disease in the fragile states of West Africa.

Poor health care, a lack of education and geopolitical tensions are suspected to have hampered the efforts of UN health agency workers.

This series of events has prompted the UK to start drafting up to 800 NHS volunteers to work in Sierra Leone.

Dally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, had remarked: 'It's been phenomenal, it's very moving' in response to the recruitment drive.

These health workers 'are trained to cope with the risk' as specialists in intensive care.

The western world has been led down a path of misinformation and nonsensical hysteria

In some ways, the UK's commitment to the international response is no different to the dedication of our armed forces serving abroad. We are confident that our borders are safe - so much so that we are prepared to send health care workers into West Africa. It is also worth noting that Oxford University is trialling Ebola vaccines; reminding us how close to home the international effort is being led.

So let us cast our troubles away - there is no cause for alarm at home - but spare a thought for the safe return of our NHS volunteers.

8 Comment

6th November 2014

Mary Seacole’s statue: inaccurate and inappropriate Harrison Edmonds

University College

M

ary Seacole was a Jamaican-Scottish ‘doctress’ who stands as an example of what one can do when they put their mind towards achieving an objective. Yet her memorial statue to be built next year does a disservice to history for a number of reasons. The narrative of Mary Seacole’s life that has been presented so far, including a previous article in this paper, is one strewn with inaccuracies and historical untruths.

Her memorial statue does a disservice to history for a number of reasons Mary Seacole was never a hospital nurse: she had basic first aid and nursing skills but she was not a nurse in the Victorian sense, and referred to herself as ‘doctress’ in her autobiography. The fact that this statue will wear the uniform of a hospital nurse is insulting to those nurses who served in the Crimea, but also stands in blatant disregard of history.

Rather than a hospital, Mary Seacole ran the ‘British Hotel’. Whilst it is true that she did attempt to treat soldiers with serious wounds and illnesses, her medicines involved herbal remedies and, in her early

career in Panama, she admits that she made, in her own words, “lamentable blunders” and “lost patients she later could have saved”. The British Hotel itself was not exactly a hotel; it had no accommodation for soldiers to spend the night and was mostly used as a canteen by soldiery and members of the public alike, and as a location where work parties would assemble. This is reflected in what she actually wore, a flamboyant costume more befitting her role as head of a restaurant. Whilst she did bandage wounds in field hospitals during battles, she primarily used these events as opportunities to sell sandwiches and refreshments to officers behind the front lines, as well as to their wives and visitors. She would often leave refreshments for injured soldiers.

Another myth is that her work saved thousands of lives from cholera. Again, the fact is that she ran a restaurant, not a hospital or a clinic.

She knew basic remedies, but she administered toxic lead acetate as a treatment for cholera. Despite this, she was favoured by the soldiers and many would come to seek her advice on their ailments because of her friendlier attitude compared to the puritan, dour Nightingale.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of Mary Seacole’s cases were men with stomach pains and headaches.

The relationship between Nightingale and Seacole has lead to the most serious and controversial fabrications about their lives. Popular histories and the BBC’s ‘Horrible Histories’ have insinuated that Nightingale rejected Seacole because of the fact that she was black. This is an absolute lie. Seacole never asked to

work for Nightingale and only ever asked for a bed one night whilst in the Crimea, which the latter duly provided. Seacole, whilst checking her gold stocks in London, was in fact rejected by numerous nursing organisations, but it seems likely that it was not because of her skin colour. Instead, Seacole herself suggested that being 50, with homemade medicine and a lack of qualifications made them wary of taking her on. Whilst she did muse over the possibilities that her darker skin (she had 3 white grandparents and was half-Scottish- and proud of it) may have been a factor, she puts it

down to her lack of official nursing qualifications in her own book.

The problem is that this raising up of Seacole has come with undue belittling of Nightingale, from calling her a racist on a children’s programme to claims that she ‘helped kill soldiers’ when she was in fact, dealing with things outside of her control. At the same time, Seacole has been presented as being the ‘real angel of the Crimea’.

The real reason Nightingale has been remembered much more than Seacole is because she left a larger historical footprint, pioneering hospital organisation, sanitation

PHOTO/EMILY BARNEY

and hospital reforms as seen in the Crimea, where her actions helped reduce death rates in hospitals from 23 per cent to 2.5 per cent from one winter to the next.

She campaigned successfully for sanitary reform in India and in Britain, with her reforms for devolution and changes to drainage contributing to increasing British national life expectancy by 20 years from 1871 to the 1930s.

The relationship between Nightingale and Seacole has lead to the most serious fabrication about their lives What makes this statue of Mary Seacole so problematic is not only the clothes, but also the fact that it is 8ft high. Standing taller than Nightingale’s and positioned outside St Thomas’s Hospital, where Nightingale set up her own nursing school, it seems greatly disrespectful to Nightingale and her achievements.

That is not to say that Mary Seacole does not deserve a statue. In my humble opinion, she most certainly does: she funded her expedition over to the Crimea out of her own pocket and genuinely cared about the soldiers who she aided. She was kind, caring and determined in her mission.

But for her to be represented by this statue at this location is a disservice to history, Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole herself.

We are failing people with mental health difficulties Connor Hamilton Pembroke College

O

ne of my clearest mental health memories is of anger. Slowly recovering from suicidal depression and self-harm myself, I was Interrailing with friends and we were delayed by a suicide on the line. A few insensitive comments were made, as is unfortunately so normal, but that wasn’t what made

me angry. I was angry because we hadn’t been good enough. That person hadn’t been supported enough. They hadn’t been caught by the safety net and now they were dead. Society had failed that person - we had failed that person.

We’re still failing those people today.

The mental health charity Mind recently revealed that local authorities only spend around 1.5 per cent of their health budgets on mental health issues, despite these representing a quarter of the total health burden. Less than £40 million was allocated to mental health services by local

PHOTO/LIZ SPIKOL

authorities, as opposed to £671 million on sexual health, and £160 million on stopping and preventing smoking. According to Mind, some local authorities don’t even plan to spend a penny on preventing mental health problems this year, even when it is estimated that one in four people will face mental health difficulties in that time period.

Nor is the picture any brighter at the national level. The NHS spent around 8 per cent of its total budget on mental health in 2013/2014. Nick Clegg may be promising waiting time standards, but mental health waiting time limits have actually been around for a long time, with “high-priority” cases such as self-harm often blocking out “low-priority” cases until they too reach a crisis level. Unfortunately, until mental health waitingtime initiatives come with more money and resources, these problems will persist.

This woeful underfunding of mental health services isn’t just unfair, it’s also potentially even more costly than treatment. Mental health problems cost the economy £100bn every year in lost working days, benefits and lost tax revenue.

However, this is only an economic figure.

It doesn’t include the misery, suffering and fatalities that many mental health issues, such as anorexia, bipolar disorder or depression cause to the individual and

their families.

Why are mental health services so woefully underfunded? The first reason is that mental health problems are ‘invisible’ illnesses. As a result, mental illness simply falls off the radar for many people, making it an easy target for government cuts or austerity.

Some local authorities don’t even plan to spend a penny on preventing mental health problems Secondly, this invisibility means mental health problems are still stigmatised in today’s society. Nine out of ten people with mental health problems say they face stigma that negatively affects their lives. To some, mental health problems are seen as a sign of weakness; that the person just wasn’t tough enough to cope in the modern world. Alternatively, many people see mental health as choice: that anorexics just need to “eat more”, while people with depression should just “cheer up.” This not only erases the real difficulties of mental health, but undermines the fact that mental health problems often require specialist care and treatment. As

long as this stigma exists, mental health services will always struggle to get the resources and support they need, and people will be reluctant to share their problems and get the support they really need.

The only way to get rid of this stigma is by being open and honest about mental health. We need to make it clear that mental health problems are just as serious as many physical health problems, and that they often require the same level of treatment. However, we need to not only value mental health services equally, but also to start treating them equally, by giving them enough funding and resources to be effective.

Society is failing people with mental health difficulties. The gulf between how common mental health difficulties are, and how poorly they are funded means that people falling through the cracks is an all too common a tragedy.

To change this will take several steps.

Firstly, we need to talk about mental health issues openly, and without fear, because only through doing this can we end the stigma surrounding mental health. More importantly, we need to put our money where our mouths are, and start properly funding what are vital services to so many. A failure to do so will only lead to more people on the tracks.

Comment 9

6th November 2014

Change is best achieved in the room, not from outside Alex Chalmers Oriel College

W

hilst I was standing in the queue outside the Oxford Union, waiting to be allowed in, I found myself next to an OxStu reporter. He was asking people if they had any views on the small but vocal protest outside the gates; I provided a mildly catty comment, asked him leave off my college and for a while, I was content to leave it at that. However, the Israeli ambassador Daniel Taub said something that made me change my mind. Referring to “the elephant outside the room”, he remarked that it was a shame that those with a different perspective and who had a genuine contribution to make to the debate chose to stand in the street and shout, rather than come inside and engage constructively.

If there is one thing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could do without, it is more black and white, Manichean thinking, the like of which is responsible for many of the region’s present ills. Whether some people on the left like it or not, Israel will have to be part of any future moves towards peace in the Middle East. The ambassador was quite right when he said that the conflict shouldn’t be about being pro one side and anti the other. Despite being a representative of its government, he was perfectly prepared to accept that Israel had made mistakes in the past, that soul-searching was required after

the events of the summer, and that the Palestinians required advocates.

Unfortunately those outside chose not to take such a nuanced approach. The irony of professing to believe in peace whilst shouting ‘shame on you’ at a venue hosting someone who had been involved in peace negotiations was apparently lost on the protestors.

Few would question the fact that the conditions in which many Palestinians have to live their lives in both Gaza and the West Bank are horrendous

and that both sides share some of the blame to varying degrees. The only way these conditions will be ameliorated is through peace; after the results of unilateral disengagement in Gaza in 2005, Israel is not going to lift restrictions on Gaza or end the occupation of the West Bank until its security is assured.

If solidarity with Palestine means attempting to shout down and deny a voice to those in the peace process, then it is a wretched, hollow idea. It will not improve the life of a single ordinary

PHOTO/PUBLIC1LONDON

Palestinian, nor will it help the Israeli having to live their life within seconds of a rocket shelter. Instead, it will serve only to embolden the hardliners on both sides, whether they be the Hamas terrorists that store rockets in schools and use children as human shields, or the ultra-Orthodox settlement leaders who think sitting down at any sort of negotiating table at all is a mistake.

The only way these conditions are going to be ameliorated is through peace An argument I have frequently heard is that demonstrations such as the one we saw on Tuesday, combined with campaigns such as Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), will ‘delegitimise’ Israel and force it to the negotiating table. This line of argument is skewed for a variety of reasons. For a start, it implies that Israel refuses to sit at the negotiating table.

Both sides, to their credit, have been prepared to sit down and talk to each other, with changeable levels of success. The ambassador cited the example of the successful compromise reached for Palestinians living in Jerusalem who wanted to vote in elections to the Palestinian National Council. It is through slowly building mutual trust, starting with small measures like joint patrols, that negotiations will proceed, as opposed to shouting the same tired, hackneyed slogans at anyone trying to

discuss peace. If you think proclaiming ‘viva Palestina’ (because you can’t have a protest for peace without glorifying bloody South American revolutions) will help matters, fine, but please don’t disturb other people actually attempting to discuss the issues.

I also get the impression that if someone from Hamas or one of its affiliates was speaking, the group of protestors we saw on Tuesday would probably have stayed at home. The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and allies tend to stay remarkably quiet on the subject of Hamas, despite their appalling actions both in war and on the domestic front towards their fellow Palestinians. An internationally-recognised state, in the Campaign’s view, should not be given a platform, but I fear they would not complain if an internationally-recognised terror group was.

Negotiation is a complicated, difficult process, especially within the context of the Middle East’s highly contested history. No lives will be saved and no progress made through the unconditional hatred of one side, blaming them for everything that has gone wrong since 1947. By all means criticise the actions of participants, but like the ambassador, do so in a constructive way and with a degree of self-reflection.

Midway through his talk, Daniel Taub referred to a video clip of a Hamas terrorist grabbing a young child to use as a human shield as he walked out into the open and crossed a road. Whilst I do not doubt the sincerity and good intentions of many of those outside, I have to wonder which of the two Palestinians in the video - the terrorist or the child, the protests really help.

It’s not easy being Green, especially on television Sascha Brookbank

St Anne’s College

I

must admit to being rather proud of the Green Party. They’ve reacted staunchly to the incompetence exhibited by the broadcasters who, on 13th October, announced a preliminary format for the leaders’ debates next year. The Greens released a statement that was a pleasing mixture of condemnation and self-confidence after the realisation that the plan included Nigel Farage in one of the three televised debates.

Quite frankly, I see a basic lack of good judgment in what the broadcasters have proposed: two traditional style debates, on which for now, I’ll say no more, followed by a third, including UKIP alongside the three main party leaders. This blatant disregard for the Greens and their right to engage on an open platform with us, the voters, has caused a backlash that I imagine the bumbling broadcasters couldn’t have expected.

Natalie Bennett, Green Party Leader, immediately issued a direct challenge, saying: “With these proposals the broadcasters are demonstrating just how out of touch they are with

the public mood.” The facts firmly support such a claim. In the European elections earlier this year, the Green Party finished with more votes than the Liberal Democrats (considered to be one of the three ‘main parties’), sending three MEPs back to Brussels compared to the single remaining Lib Dem MEP. I can’t help but see double standards when the European election results are used as one of the reasons to justify the inclusion of UKIP, but not the Greens.

The blatant disregard for the Greens has caused a backlash the broadcaster didn’t expect

What about MPs? UKIP has just gained its first elected MP through the Clacton by-election. Whereas, by the time the General Election comes around next year, the Greens will have had an MP in the House of Commons for five years (Caroline Lucas for Brighton Pavilion).

This, along with the recent increase in Green party membership (in the past ten months, the Green Party of England and Wales has seen its party membership increase by 52 per cent, passing 21,000 in mid-October) shows a growing interest amongst the British electorate that I believe should

be reflected in the leaders’ debates.

The broadcasters who put forward the ludicrous proposal consist of the BBC, Channel 4, ITV - all of which having a history of ignoring the Greens - and worst of all, Sky TV, a channel which forms one arm of Rupert Murdoch’s ugly, Brobdingnagian media empire. It takes little digging to discover that Murdoch is vehemently opposed to the Green Party and the policies it stands for. Sky TV has repeatedly disadvantaged the Greens in their news coverage, for example by counting them as part of ‘others’ when reporting on the European elections, despite the Lib Dems having fallen below the Greens for the first time in over a decade (something that, by all accounts, should have been big news).

public, a letter was sent to the broadcasters calling on them to explain and reconsider their decision. They also requested a meeting within two weeks to make the case for their inclusion.

The letter ends with a strong statement: “Should we be unable to come to a satisfactory conclusion, we regret that we will have no alternative but to seek formal legal advice with a view to taking action.”

I can’t imagine the broadcasters will

be able to ignore the issue, considering the media attention that this debacle has had, along with the level of support shown by the public as well as political commentators - with even the Prime Minister supporting the Greens on “grounds of fairness”.

As of yet there has been no reversal, but I hope the Greens keep pushing and follow up their strong message with action and don’t let it drop off the radar.

It takes little digging to find that Murdoch is vehemently opposed to the Green Party

The Green Party reacted assertively to this unjust treatment. An online petition on Change.org garnered over 150,000 signatures within just 36 hours, and polling by YouGov had 47 per cent in favour of including the Greens in the leaders’ debates (with 32 per cent against). Following this strong show of support from the

PHOTO/JONANAMARY

Profile

10 Profile

Elf Lyons Alys Key

Somerville College

E

lf Lyons is, by her own confession, incredibly competitive.

“In everything: Ping-Pong, arm-wrestling, rapping.” We meet at an appropriate time for this determined streak to come through, as she is about to make a speech in a comedy debate at The Oxford Union, and is determined to win.

“The being funny thing is totally fine. I’m not very good at arguing though, I’m terrible at arguing. But I’m just trying to relax and I’ve written all my ideas down and I’m normally known for improvising when I’m on stage. Whatever happens it’s going to be really good fun. And as long as I’m funny and the audience enjoy my performance that is the most important thing. And that we win.”

“As long as I’m funny that is the most important thing”

She has a dedication to her craft which is admirable, and that drive has led her to become one of the most promising new talents on the British comedy scene. Not only is she

a stellar stand-up performer whose efforts have taken her to the final of the Funny Women competition, she is also an organiser of comedy nights and co-director of a theatre company made up of Bristol graduates.

Her own career began in her student days, and although she has since moved to London and done an MA at Queen Mary’s University, she still has a deep affection for the Bristol comedy world.

“Bristol’s comedy scene has always been great and is just constantly getting better, so it was so lovely – going back to Bristol last week to do a gig – to see how many new comedy nights have sprung up since I graduated. It’s just such a wonderful feeling. But it must be brilliant at Oxford because of your colleges, you’ve got so many different nights.”

This isn’t the first time Elf has been to Oxford, having done an internship at Oxford Fire Station a couple of years ago. In fact, this isn’t even the first time she’s been to the Union.

The comedy debate was supposed to happen last term, but ended up being delayed after the infamous No Confidence motion against the president took all evening. It had never occurred to me to wonder what the scheduled comedians were doing during this time, but Elf tells the story with characteristic energy and wit.

“I remember sort of getting locked in this room [The Gladstone Room] for the entire evening while it took

place. We’d had dinner ages before and we just got left with all the alcohol. We were all here until the very end until they eventually said [at this point she puts on the low, posh drawl of the stereotypical Union official], ‘Um, don’t think it’s going to go ahead because it’s half past ten.’

And by that point I was gone. I’d drunk so much whiskey with all the other comics and I thought maybe I should just go to bed. So I’m glad to be back now.”

“I love being naked anyway... you just learn to relax it all”

It’s good of her to be so ready to return. One gets the impression there aren’t many limits on what Elf is ready to try. She’s even done a naked performance. Whereas most people would be terrified at such a prospect, she talks about it as just another exciting opportunity.

“I did that one very early on in my career when I didn’t really have any fear about anything. I did another naked gig recently in August, with Naked Cabaret again, and it’s just a great thing. It’s so good for me. I love being naked anyway. You just want to make the audience laugh. And it’s good to have that confidence in your body as well, because you hold

so much tension in so many places.

You learn to relax it all and just be in the moment on stage. It’s brilliant.”

She tells me that she’s asked about the naked performances a lot, and I wonder whether people focus a lot more on Elf’s confidence and selfconsciousness on stage because of her gender. I confess to her that I had originally thought of asking her something about women in comedy, but had then decided she must be so bored of the same point of focus all the time. Before I’ve even finished she’s nodding in agreement: “so fucking bored”. Still, this brings us onto a discussion about the way comedy approaches feminism, and how it has changed in recent years.

“I love how much feminism has become such a beautiful topic to talk about now and like nobody shies away from it. If you see a comedy gig saying ‘feminist comedian’ it’s seen as a positive and attractive feature, rather than negative. You wouldn’t have called yourself a feminist in my first year of university as a comedian, whereas now, for my first show in Edinburgh I had ‘The Feminist Times: One to Watch’ as one of my quotes and they really liked me in the Funny Women finals. I had lots of people turning up and saying ‘We saw that word, [feminism] and we wanted to come because of that’.”

She follows up by mentioning a few of her favourite women in comedy, who include Sara Pascoe and Bec

PHOTO/Ellen Fife

6th November 2014

Hill. She seems to have such respect for practically everyone in the industry though, and is hard-pushed to pick a favourite comic out of so many good ones. We do, however, share a fangirl moment over Noel Fielding.

“Don’t write comedy you don’t find funny” “I love Noel Fielding. Always have.

Always will. He was the guy that I fell in love with as a comedian. I saw him and was like ‘Wow, comedians are rockstars’, and for that reason he’ll always be my favourite.”

While we’re on the subject of inspirations to enter the industry I feel I can’t go away without asking Elf for her advice to aspiring stand-ups.

“Give it a go. OK first of all just take five minutes and write all of your ideas down. Write everything down. Because not every idea may seem funny now but in five or ten years when you’re a bit more mature you’ll look back on it and think, ‘ah, now I can make this work’. And the worst thing that can happen on stage is that the audience don’t like you.

That’s it. And they’ll heckle you. But that’s the worst that will ever happen.

You’re never going to see them again.

Stick to your guns and don’t write comedy you don’t find funny. It’s got to be something you find funny.”

Stage 2 Stage

6rd November 2014

Setting the bar: should we be investing in theatre in prisons?

Robert Selth University College

There is surely a danger of merely alienating the prisoners from the performance, especially when the show is followed by a “discussion session” that focuses on healthy and constructive ways of relating to one’s family. It is not, perhaps, excessively cynical to suggest that some prisoners may experience this as little better than a bad high school ethics class. Better to simply open the experience of theatre to prisoners, and allow it to work its transformative magic on its own.

J

ust under two years ago, an Italian film called Caesar Must Die snuck into UK theatres with barely any marketing, and soon disappeared again. It was a simple tale about a group of inmates in a high-security prison, staging a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

The film was not exceptionally good, but it did do a fine job at showing how the play’s themes – loyalty between friends, loyalty to the state, honour, criminality, the legitimacy of civil disobedience – might resonate enormously with men whose lives had been deeply and cruelly twisted by their collisions with the law.

Simply bringing in actors to perform the play for such men might well have done them some good on its own. But allowing them to stage it themselves – to inhabit the roles, to explore the drama on their own terms – opens to these prisoners the unparalleled power of the theatre, for actors, to confront the basic problems of human motivation and human decision-making.

And if they can learn how to act these roles, might it not help them to better understand themselves?

Can there be many people in the world more in need of an aid to self-

Some may experience this as little better than a bad high-school ethics class

knowledge than serious criminals?

The question of theatre in prisons might, at first glance, appear an obscure niche in the world of rehabilitation, for the very possibility of involving prisoners in theatre simply does not occur to most people. And to be sure, it’s hardly on the front line of the prison reform agenda. The Howard League for Penal Reform, arguably the UK’s leading advocacy organisation in the field, does not have an official policy on it.

But in fact there are a great many people operating just below the radar to bring the performing arts within the prison walls. Most of the charities in the field are now co-ordinated as the National Alliance for Arts in Criminal Justice (formerly the Arts

In reality, you don’t have to speculate very far to imagine how this might go very, very wrong

IMAGE/ Alice Troy-Donovan

Alliance), which brings together non-profits working to give prisoners the chance to get involved in music, dance, painting, crafts – and theatre.

More venerable, founded in America in the early 1980s and now operating in Britain, is Geese Theatre, which not only runs workshops with prisoners but stages performances designed to explore the very problems that may have landed members of the audience in prison in the first place.

The spectrum of approaches and purposes is broad. Prisoners visited

by Pimlico Opera have the chance to stage musicals for audiences composed of members of the public (more than 50,000 since 1991, the company claims). Female prisoners may be lucky to have the chance to work with Clean Break, the womenonly charity that uses theatre to help them explore the place of women in social dynamics of criminality.

In America, prisoners in several institutions are currently developing productions with Shakespeare Behind Bars, which believes the

experience will help them to develop “empathy, compassion, and trust,” and to improve their “decision making, problem solving, and creative thinking skills.” The foundational philosophy is consistent: acting gives prisoners a unique forum in which to confront a range of moral and personal dilemmas, and, additionally, it helps them learn to work as part of a team.

When the purpose of getting the prisoners involved becomes not simply to give them a chance to act, but to explore issues of criminality and justice itself, then there is a danger the enterprise might stray into more questionable territory.

One of the very first shows developed by Geese Theatre was called The Plague Game, and took the form of a structured improvisation in which the audience would be invited to suggest how a character should respond to a given situation – and the actors would then play it out accordingly.

So a prison inmate receives a visit from his wife, who tells him she

is pregnant by another man. The actor then asks the audience of real prisoners how he should respond, and they invite him (for the most part) to abuse her, kill her, or track down and kill the other guy. These reactions and their consequences are played out, and it is made demonstrably

“They find something to live for...I think that’s the gift that art and literature can give” clear how destructive and counterproductive such responses would be.

Or so the theory goes. In reality, you don’t have to speculate very far to imagine how this might go very, very wrong. An audience that declares itself in favour of seeking violent revenge is likely an audience that will feel preached at or condescended to when the play becomes, as they may well perceive it, a morality tale.

An exploration of how this might happen has recently shown up in Oxford itself: Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play Our Country’s Good ran at the Keble O’Reilly Theatre in 3rd week. It was set onboard a convict ship bound for Australia in the 1780s, and depicted the staging of a play by the convicts.

In this production, when the convicts stepped into role and performed their parts, they stepped up onto a higher, elevated platform on the stage; but when out of character, they had to remain at the bottom level, with the officers who were both their prison guards and their directors staying firmly above them.

The staging dramatises the disruptive power of theatre – by adopting new roles, prisoners can leave their identities behind and try out new personas – and in the brutal setting of the convict voyage, this was naturally bound up with questions of repression and authority. But there is a more wholesome aspect to the same phenomenon. As the director of Our Country’s Good, Fay Lomas, explains, theatre can allow prisoners “to transcend the bleakness of what they’re going through. They find something to live for, and though it might seem extreme to cynical politicians, I think that’s the gift that art and literature can give.”

We can hope that in a contemporary prison, with a charity managing the production, this same opportunity to test themselves in other lives, as other people, is offered to our own prisoners. For some of them, perhaps the arts will indeed do what the wellworn but valuable cliché says it can do: make them better people.

Stage 3

6rd November 2014

The rain of kings? Shakespeare meets the elements in Henry V Charanpreet Kaira Exeter College

B

e prepared to be rained on, shouted at, and pushed around in Luke Rollason’s gritty new production of Henry V, coming to Worcester College Gardens in 5th week. Bringing promenade theatre to Oxford for the first time, Rollason plans to stage an interactive production, drawing the play out its reputation as a stuffy history, and dumping the audience in the middle of the action.

Oxford boasts garden Shakespeare productions nearly every week in Trinity, as audiences sit in colleges’ beautiful gardens serenely watching the likes of As you like it and Othello.

This production is set to be very different, however. The audience will be restricted to an intimate 30 each night, but don’t be fooled into thinking that you’re in for a cosy viewing.

I met Rollason in the Turl Street Kitchen, hiding from a typically miserable day of rain and gale force winds, so that when I heard the location of the play, how he plans to deal with the weather was an obvious first question. A short pause and anxious frown later, Rollason revealed that, in fact, he wants it to rain on his audience.

In their role representing different

groups at different points – at times the English army, French lords at others – the audience’s experience needs to be as immersive as possible, and if they’re “jolly miserable” at points, then all the better.

The audience will be given dog tags and enrolled into Henry’s army at the start of the play. We’re always looking for ways to make Shakespeare ‘speak’ to audiences – how better than for Henry to literally speak to the audience as if they are his army?

effort to make the play relevant to his student audience.

One of the bridges he’s forced to gap is the apparently jingoistic tone of the play, with its most famous speech, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends.” I asked Rollason how his audience would react to this seemingly alien way of thinking.

His funny and irreverent take on the play draws out the cynicism that’s already there, flagging up the opportunities for modern viewers to absorb themselves in Shakespeare, and handing them to the audience. The play shows that our supposedly modern skepticism about militarism is actually an old thing. The play is already full of humour and irony – its just about highlighting this for the audience.

Rollason’s experiment will be hard to pull off, but if all goes to plan this is set to be a marvelous experience for the audience. They will decide how the play pans out, making up half the action by being incorporated into the cast. If you’re feeling up to the challenge, then don’t miss this chance to enroll in the most ambitious and experimental play of the term.

The audience’s experience needs to be immersive, and if they’re “jolly miserable” at points then so much the better

Rollason takes his influence from Propeller, an all-male theatre company which explores different ways of expressing Shakespeare for a modern audience. By throwing the audience into the same boat as the cast, Rollason aims to break down the barrier between the two. He explains that its all about being generous with the audience, making an effort to grab and keep hold of their attention for every single minute of the production. The Chorus becomes a lethargic Oxford tour-guide, as Rollason makes every

PHOTO/ Myfanwy Davis

Henry V is playing in Worcester College Gardens in 5th week

The Pillowman’s black story-telling captivates William Aslet Somerville College

Claire Bowman’s performance as Katurian was highly nuanced

Y

ou would be hard pressed to find a comedy blacker than Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. It is a world in which brutal police interrogation precedes talk of itchy arses.

Police interrogators squabble over whether or not to put the electrodes on. Extremes of innocence are pushed to extremes.

The main character of the story at first seems to be one that we’ve seen before – a writer, the surreally named Katurian Katurian Katurian (could the “K” winkingly refer to Kafka’s Joseph K?) – is interrogated for crimes that he did not commit.

At first, we assume that Katurian’s interrogation is politically-motivated; however, in the first plot-twist of many, we soon realise that Katurian’s alleged crimes are so grave that they appal even the accusers.

The plots of his macabre children’s stories – tales that could, as one interrogator remarks, easily be titled “101 ways to skewer a five year-old” – have been carried out in reality.

Katurian’s brother, whose mental handicap stems from years of

PHOTO/ Dina Tsesarsky

“artistically-inspired” torture at the hands of his parents, is implicated.

A great advertisement for genderblind casting, Claire Bowman’s performance as Katurian was highly nuanced. She brilliantly highlighted Katurian’s arrogance and pride in his own stories, showing his inability to resist the urge to answer back.

A gifted story-teller, Bowman held all captive as she strode the stage as the eponymous Pillowman. Her depiction, moreover, of Katurian’s gradual self-realisation was truly spine-tingling.

Most touching was the relationship between Katurian and his brother, Michael. As Michael, Emma D’Arcy’s performance was nothing short of virtuosic. At first, her literalistic reading of the character’s handicap made me feel slightly uneasy. Was it tasteful? Would it lapse into unfunny and unpleasant parody? However, as the play progressed, the D’Arcy’s immense sensitivity in the role quickly became apparent.

Her depiction of Michael’s youthful innocence brilliantly highlighted

Katurian’s own hypocrisies and made me question the extent to which Michael is the one who feels the biggest scars of his parents’ torture.

There were superb performances

by Dominic Applewhite as the wisecracking Tupolski and Jonathan Purkiss as his thuggish partner Ariel Although his queues in the second half weren’t as sharp as they might have been, Applewhite’s quick-fire delivery drew the biggest laughs.

Purkiss shone in Act 2 as we saw Ariel’s softer side.

Director Thomas Bailey’s vision for the world of The Pillowman was realised by the fantastic sets of Joel Scott-Halkes. Whilst they made full use of the Playhouse stage, his sets never distracted from the action.

He added, literally, a new dimension to the play: at key moments, the back wall of the cramped, interrogation room gave way to an eerie forest scene.

Never gimmicky, the restraint with which this was deployed only served to maximise its impact, never impinging on the play’s claustrophobia.

Riddled with reveals and unexpected turns, it seems that Katurian is not the only one who loves telling stories. This production was of a near West-End level of professionalism that highlighted the brilliance of McDonagh’s writing. I recommend it without reservation.

4 Stage

6th November 2014

“So tell me, why do you want to talk to me?”

Tony Award-winning lighting designer Rick Fisher tells us why lighting design should not be an invisible profession Amelia Brown Jesus College

scribble” for any other department.

As an industry based on technology it is continually changing. “In the old days you would say oh no I don’t have a light there,” and a change in the staging would mean clambering up a ladder and manually switching the lights around. Nowadays, almost everything is computer operated, and flexibility is much easier to achieve. The push of one button has the potential to create “the look of any moment” in complex detail. But with this comes the current concerns about energy usage facing the industry. Despite theatre lighting usually making up less than 20 per cent of energy use in theatres, lighting is what people see and therefore what they criticise.

“We’re in danger of losing some of the quality of lights that we used to have.”

Rick quickly dispels the myth that lights and those who operate them ought to be invisible, both on stage and off. On stage he describes good lighting as lighting “that seems entirely appropriate,” “almost as if it was inevitable,” as if you could rip the ceiling off the theatre and the lighting would just be like that.

A

s I sit down to interview lighting designer Rick Fisher, questions in hand, he turns to me and asks: “So tell me, why do you want to talk to me?” I am momentarily flummoxed, my neat list of questions seeming temporarily redundant. But it is a fair question, in a celebrity-obsessed culture fixated on the people who we can actually see: lighting designers, typically, are not the most visible part of a dramatic team.

I talk about the importance of seeing behind the scenes, beyond the actors visible on stage. “With any live theatre production, the people you see are the tip of the iceberg,” agrees Fisher. “You could have five people on stage, but forty people supporting them in different roles.”

And he should know, with an impressive CV spanning a variety of different theatrical mediums – from the West End’s musical Billy Elliot to Jerry Springer The Opera at the National Theatre and Hamlet at the Edinburgh International Festival, as well as Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake and a show or two at The Royal Court (not to mention a few casual operas).

Fisher describes himself as an “accidental lighting designer”.

Growing up in America, he was a “jack of all trades” within the theatre.

Initially he was attracted to acting, but found he enjoyed working in the supporting roles just as much as he did the acting, and “walking out and confronting a darkened auditorium” seemed like less of a good idea.

He took on an apprenticeship – “you were called an apprentice which was a polite term for slave” in which he did a bit of everything, from building scenery, to working on the box office, and some lighting.

Moving from the USA to Britain, he “fell in love with the theatre”: he found it a diverse environment, and a contrast with the older audiences he was used to in America, where theatre at the time was in decline.

Working with small fringe

“We know that we’re supposed to be invisible, but we don’t want to be too invisible” companies, doing sound and lighting interchangeably, he found that lighting earned him more recognition when asked how he wanted to be credited. “It wasn’t a planned trajectory, but I was being asked to do something that people needed.” People would describe what they wanted their show to show look like in “visual images” and it was his task to relate this to

“You figure out what you want to do and the business figures out what it wants you to do”

PHOTO/ Flickr user DenP Images

the lights available, something he found he really enjoyed.

Over the course of his career, Rick has had the chance to work on a large variety of productions from musicals, to plays, to dance.

Despite being initially attracted to the theatre from seeing musicals, “I really like getting inside a good play, because the subtlety of plays can take you in unexpected places”.

Opera presents an entirely different challenge, a chance for “bigger gestures” and “a bolder look”. Focus spots are traditional in opera, so the lighting can focus more on mood

than simply illumination. Working on Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake was a project that Rick particularly enjoyed, experimenting with “a freer palette” to suit the dancing.

He claims to have no favourite: “I usually like whatever I’m working on. Where I’m helping to tell the story, where there’s a story being told.”

The major challenge of lighting, according to Rick, is that “light is very hard to describe and talk about”.

The idea of cold light looks very different to different people, and so at a technical rehearsal “you

just never know what’s going to work”. During rehearsal he will simply try things out, having talked to the director and designer, and attended as many rehearsals as he can to develop a structure of when the light and mood changes, and create a “language of light” for the show. “Lighting is the eye makeup of theatre,” says Rick. It can only be done in the space with the people and the scenery. This also means that it is a very vulnerable and exposed process. At the technical rehearsal, the whole cast and crew will see what would be the “first

Off stage, Rick has recently given up the position he has held for 15 years of chairman of the Association of Lighting Designers.

The organisation aims to support young lighting designers with money and publicity, also ensuring that lighting designers and the team behind them are not ignored. “We know that we’re supposed to be a little bit invisible, but we don’t want to be too invisible.” He is also quick to dispel the reputation sometimes assigned to lighting designers of being “princes of darkness”. “I like to light people well,” he says.

Having fallen somewhat accidentally into his line of work, he still recommends drama school, as a way to meet people and to try things out.

It isn’t a stable business by any means, with long hours and frequent travelling and touring, so his main advice is to try everything and see what works for you. In a business made up of so many different aspects, “you figure out what you want to do and the business figures out what it wants you to do.” Ultimately, he recommends punctuality (“turn up on time”) and positivity: “say yes to everything.”

As Rick leads me out of the theatre after the interview, he takes me via the stage, pointing upwards to the lighting rig that he has unusually persuaded the director to allow to be visible to the audience. Perhaps this is a sign of change – a new visibility for the lighting designer?

Music 5

6th November 2014

Music

Jessy Parker Humphreys Jesus College

D

espite the misleading band name, Stornoway are one of Oxford’s best homegrown bands, and this month they are back to play one of its most impressive venues. The folk pop band will be celebrating the fifth anniversary since they last played the Sheldonian by playing it again on 5th November.

And then again on 13th November.

I spoke to Oli Steadman ahead of the show about how it all managed to come about.

“They told us that we were the first ever pop band to play there five years ago. And they’ve told us again that in the intervening time they haven’t had anything other than classical or speaking events or graduations.

“So I think we’re the second pop band to play there as well. And because it’s two nights, we’ll be the first, second and third ever pop band to play.”

In terms of being allowed to play the venue, Stornoway prove that if you ask for something you might just get it.

“We’ll be the first, second and third ever pop band to play [the Sheldonian]” “We had been a band for a little while already and we’d been working with a local violin player called Rahul (Satija). He was at Balliol as a postgrad in statistical biology. He just came along to one of our gigs one day and said “Do you mind if I play along? You don’t even have to have me on stage. I’ll just stand in the audience and play along on my violin” “We thought this was quite endearing. It was quite a lonely song called ‘The End of the Movie’ (from their debut album, Beachcomber’s Windowsill). We pictured the lonely violin player in the corner of the room.

“In the end we felt too bad to do that so we invited him on stage and he joined us as a full time member really.”

Rahul had big ideas for the band from the very beginning.

“Within a couple of weeks, he was talking about getting us some really quirky shows because he was living in the heart of Oxford and

he was gown whereas we’d come from town. He came up with this plan quite rapidly of just going for the Sheldonian. It was the biggest, craziest venue in town that he could think of.

PHOTO/six07press

“Right now if I formed a band with a kid who was still at school I don’t know how I’d go about it”

“It took him maybe a couple of months to book the night. He made it all happen. He even wrote some of the parts for some of the songs.

It’s all thanks to Rahul.”

Although unfortunately Rahul won’t be present for the band’s grand homecoming.

“He now lives in New York which is a shame because we love playing with him. We have him back in the band whenever we tour the States.”

Stornoway epitomise the perfect blend between the ‘town’ and ‘gown’ aspects of Oxford.

“We all met in Oxford in about 2005. I was a kid at school locally, so was my brother. The other two were postgrads at Wolfson College.”

Brian and Jon actually met at the university’s freshers fair and soon decided to found the band. They advertised for a bassist and Oli was the only one to reply. His brother Rob soon also auditioned for the band. Yet, it means there’s quite an impressive age gap within the band.

“It’s actually exactly ten years between Brian (singer) and Rob (drummer). There’s always a ten year age gap on stage which makes such an interesting dynamic. We’ve all had different experiences and we all bring a different listening background.

“It was a really strange thing to do in hindsight.

“Right now if I formed a band with a kid who was still at school I don’t know how I’d go about it.

“I don’t know if it happens often but it creates some interesting dynamics and we’ve managed to stick it out. We’re still together almost ten years later.”

Stornoway will be able to enjoy the ten year anniversary of being in the band next year, when they will release their third album. Their debut, Beachcomber’s Windowsill, was an undoubted success, throwing them into the mainstream consciousness with catchy singles like ‘Zorbing’

Stornoway at the Sheldonian lowed it up last year with Tales from Terra Firma as well as the shorter album, You Don’t Know Anything.

“Basically in the next six months, in the new year, we’re going to release it. I’m convinced people are going to love it and are going dance to it. There’s a song on there for everybody.

“Oxford’s the kind of place where you can get reggae, Indian raga, slow trance and everything in between”

“I live in London now, but I come back to Oxford for producing records and stuff. But when I’m commuting round London I just have my headphones in listening to our latest mixes because we have a dedicated engineer who’s just happy to remix and remix. I spend my time on the tube making notes about how the mixes are sounding.”

When he’s back in Oxford though, Oli enjoys visiting his local haunts.

“I tend to hang out at a pub called The Star. That’s where all the Oxford musicians seem to go, especially on Tuesday’s where there’s nothing much else happening. It seems like the whole town comes to a standstill. You can always find a party at The Star.”

It’s clear that the music scene in Oxford continues to thrive and produce a significantly high number of successful groups.

“I think it’s something to do with the number of people coming in.

Fresh faces arriving in September, October every year. Lots of them play really well. They have great tastes, varying tastes and also ears open to hearing some different stuff.

“Oxford’s the kind of place where you can get, on any night of the week, reggae, Indian raga, slow trance and everything in between.

And without that feeling none of the bands could ever happen. It’s just an amazing place.

“I’ve been meaning to watch this documentary made recently. This guy called John Spiro who owns a local video shop made a documentary film a couple of years ago

on Kickstarter to expose Oxford as this place where Supergrass, Foals, Radiohead, Ride and everyone else came from.

“Oxford’s a real hotbed of talent and no one understands why”

“And I think we’re actually featured because a couple of years ago our second album had just come out.

“It is funny that there are all these different communities who write about [Oxford] and report it.

“It’s a real hotbed of talent and no one understands why.”

Even if we can’t quite figure out why so many bands come out of this city, we are greatful they do.

Stornoway are just a tiny part of the enormous pools of talent which enriches the music scene in Oxford.

Their two shows at the Sheldonian are truly deserved and are very apt.

The Sheldonian is a landmark of both the town and the university so fit well with a band who happily represent both parts of the city as a whole.

6 Music

6th November 2014

The Oxford Lieder Festival’s ‘The Schubert Project’ The end of October may mark the end of the festival, but our reviewers remember the best bits Leo Mercer Kellogg College

F

or three weeks, Oxford has been filled with Schubert songs.

This has been the vision of the Oxford Lieder Festival, an annual October festival for classical songs.

This year, devoted almost entirely to Schubert, has been visionary. Schubert wrote over 600 songs (despite dying at the age of 31), many of which are the most famous pieces in the repertoire, and all of which were sung here during the festival. And, as well as performing the song, the series has hosted a whole range of accompanying events, including talks, masterclasses and plays, with some of the best musicians on the scene, like Thomas Ades, Ian Bostridge and the Aurora Orchestra. Overall, it has been an ambitious and exciting festival.

To get through all the songs, there was a lunch time concert every day in the Holywell Room. In the first of these, two young acclaimed singers - Kate Royal and Manuel Walser sang a selection of the songs set to poems by the German poet Schlegel (Schubert set many of the great Ger-

man romantic poets to music, and fellow composer Liszt called Schubert ‘the most poetic of composers’).

For anybody worried about the seemingly operatic and over-dramatic sound of classical voices, this would have been an ear-opener. Both sang with calm, controlled expressiveness, nothing showy or pretentious about them. What was remarkable in all the songs was their restraint: Schubert’s piano accompaniments are incredibly delicate, yet the songs always take you somewhere. Though they were sung in German, the translations were available to read at the same time. The Festival’s tagline - ‘Bringing Schubert’s Vienna to Oxford’ - felt very accurate: it wasn’t difficult to imagine these being sung at home or in Viennese drawing rooms, the centrepiece of social gatherings.

The Lieder Festival is just one example of the many classical music offerings at Oxford. There’s a huge amount on offer in Oxford: there are always concerts at the Sheldonian, Hollywell Music Room, chapels around Oxford, and elsewhere. It’s quite remarkable to have so much in so small a place, and it’s definitely worth taking advantage of while we’re here.

PHOTO/AskonasHolt

Charlotte Parr Jesus College

D

espite the wealth of concerts on offer as part of Oxford Lieder’s ‘The Schubert Project,’ an evening with the tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Thomas Adès performing Schubert’s final song cycle Winterreise (1827) stood out as an unmissable highlight. Bostridge and Adès are considered to be one of the most dynamic musical partnerships of recent years. Subsequently expectations at the Holywell Music Room were high, but the duo did not disappoint if the standing ovation they received is taken as a sign of the audience’s approval.

Bostridge and Adés are considered to be one of the most dynamic musical partnerships

A sequence of 24 songs, Winterreise is thought of as the pinnacle of the Lieder genre but is one of the few examples where the piano is equal to the voice. The evenness of Schubert’s writing was impressively depicted in the formidable unison sections of ‘The Weathervane’ and ‘Stormy Morning.’ Adès’ accompaniment was musically supportive but never overpowering. The approach to climaxes in songs like ‘Rest’ were at once a spontaneous eruption of emotion yet meticulously measured, proving the seamless communication between the performers. The piano also offered Bostridge physical support, as he often gripped, leant on or sought solace from the instrument.

Ultimately, however, Bostridge was left to wander dark and desperate

corners of the human psyche alone.

His hauntingly simple interpretation of ‘The Crow’ created a tension that heightened the text’s disturbing psychological content. Bostridge ensured that each syllable was steeped in significance, yet there was little sentimentality due to his explosive German pronunciation. Any occasional harsh timbre found in his voice only heightened the poignancy of other moments. Bostridge has previously been criticized for his mannered performance. Although it can be understood that his dramatic delivery might not be to the taste of conservative audiences, it is hard to see how his gestures could be interpreted as artificial. The physicality of his stage presence is admirable and could teach any musician or actor many valuable lessons.

The silence that followed the end of the recital was longer than a respectful audience is obliged to pro-

vide, and served as a fitting epilogue to the melancholy final song ‘The Hurdy-Gurdy Man.’ These moments of reflection enabled the audience to notice the ghostly fingerprints left on the piano by Bostridge, mirroring the lasting impression that Schubert’s musical fingerprints have left on the audience’s soul.

Bostridge was left to wander dark and desperate corners of the human psyche alone

There is another chance to experience this first-class music making at London’s Barbican on 12th January 2015. In addition, Bostridge returns to Oxford during November for a series of lectures and recitals (free for Oxford University students).

PHOTO/Wikipedia

Leighton Meester pulls at listener’s Heartstrings with her debut LP The Gossip Girl star impresses Aimee Kwan with her raw country style

Aimee Kwan

Magdalen College

I

know given the artist I’m going to have to plead with you to read this review. I also know that the consensus is that be any actress deciding to release an album should not be taken seriously. But hear me out here.

I wasn’t planning to review this album, but then I gave it a listen and decided it would be foolish of me not to. Meester’s debut album is a short one, encompassing only 9 tracks. It’s placed firmly under the genre of country, and was self released by Meester

via her own label on the 27th October in the US. However, Leighton Meester’s debut is not along the lines of overproduced country pop such as Lucy Hale or Taylor Swift. Throughout the album, both in the songs and the production, the collection sounds more like an alternative ‘70s inspired private recording session than any familiar country artist of today. It’s an aura that suits Meester well, enabling the listener to take her music more seriously than the pop she produced earlier in her career.

That’s not to say the entire album is perfect. It’s not as coherent as others in the genre. While the more poppy, or copycat sounding songs fit their purpose fairly effectively, it is the more country sounding songs, that

are worse. Her voice is quite lovely to listen to, and the slow songs such as ‘Heartstrings’ enable us to bask in its emotive quality fully. Will this be an album that will cater to the masses? Hardly. In fact I think it’ll take a combination of both the open minded and musically aware to be able to sort through the sounds and find the gems on this record.

With Heartstrings, Meester has managed to quite surprisingly create an album that sounds out of time. If you had played it to me without context, I would have assumed it came from some old school pre-80s artist. The fact that Meester was able to channel this in her sound makes, at the very least, her album worth a listen or two.

Music 7

6th November 2014

“Oh baby give me one more chance, I want you back” With the rumoured return of S Club 7, OxStu discusses which bands we would like to see reform Jessy PH

T

ABBA

he original purveyors of the famous Scandinavian pop tradition, the simple fact that ABBA came to European attention by winning Eurovision is proof enough that they were a magical band. Whether it was the terribly and embarrassingly fantastic outfits or the adorableness of two couples double-dating as a band, ABBA captured and continue to capture our hearts and minds. You only need to look as far as the global success of Mamma Mia to know that ABBA haven’t lost any of their popularity.

Agnetha, Benny, Björn and AnniFrid wrote and performed some of the best songs to dance to and the best songs to cry to. Surely, we’ve all wailed to ‘The Winner Takes It All’ in our own time and practised our dance moves to ‘Dancing Queen’.

Technically, ABBA never did actually break up so there is always hope but with the couples now divorced, it is unclear how much animosity still remains within the band. But we can still have a dream, a fantasy.

Josh Brown

W

Busted

hen it was first announced that Busted was reforming, I was as excited as the next Busted fan, until it was revealed that Busted were not really reforming. They had just created a new pretend band made of imposters calling themselves McBusted.

Like any true ‘90s kid, I hated Mcfly. How dare Mcfly and Busted claim to be ONE BAND? The only true reformation of Busted I will accept is when Charlie Simpson rejoins the band. His eyebrows have been looking a bit too well sculpted of late so he will have to grow them back a bit to revive that true ‘early noughties’ vibe. Only then will we be able to attend shows where the ‘original One Direction’ play their whole back catalogue without any rude interruptions with songs like ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ or any of their other rubbish. Busted wrote the theme tune to seminal Vanessa Anne Hudgens film Thunderbirds.

You can’t even compare that to any of Mcfly’s achievements.

Peter Lock

Nasim Asl

S Club 8

W

PHOTO/Wikipedia

ith their older counterparts reuniting, it only seems fitting that S Club 8 also bite the bullet and get back together en force. Although Aaron, Daisy, Jay and Stacey (following her X-Factor rejection, awkward) briefly performed together from 2013 until earlier this year, this was short lived and not well publicised.

Weirdly, it seemed that people didn’t care. I don’t see why not - as a group they managed a top five debut album, multiple tours, a spin-off TV show to debut their not-so-great acting skills and massive popularity with the pre-teen market. Six of their seven single releases made the top ten. If such a feat was attempted now, I can only imagine it falling flat on its face - the early noughties bubble was a great place. However, there is no logical reason why a reunion of the eight would not be a success now - I’m sure that The Saturdays would be able to let Frankie and Rochelle go for a bit.

I

Musicians of the RMS Titanic

don’t really listen to modern music. The overly commercial artists of today have no commitment to their craft. I want bands with real dedication. I want bands who play their own instruments. I want bands who will literally continue to make music until their dying breath. The eight members of the Titanic’s orchestra were true musicians.

You want award-winning acts?

These guys have an actual bandstand which was erected in their honour. You want five-star reviews? A second-class passenger said they had the right to “undying fame”. You want a great performance? They continued to play even as the icy depths of the Atlantic approached. Truly they were a cool band. And this is all without mentioning their sweet Edwardian sartorial style. These guys really outstrip what passes for music today, and if it came to a sink or swim situation, they would undoubtedly come out on top. Oh, wait...

Calvin Harris’ new album is not the Motion it could be The EDM legend’s fourth LP boasts an impressive list of collaborators, but is nothing remarkable

Aimee Kwan

Magdalen College

C

alvin Harris, current king of popular-dance-EDM, is back with new album, Motion. It’s been two years since his successful release 18 Months, and his new 15 track LP officially dropped this Halloween. Harris will certainly be hoping to replicate the success of 18 Months, which became the first album in history to boast nine Top Ten singles and debuted at number one. It’s unlikely Motion can fill its predecessor’s boots, despite the first couple of releases from it gaining the number one spot already.

With Motion, I actually don’t think there’s that much to say. If you like Calvin Harris, you’ll like his new album without any problem.

If you’re a general EDM fan, you’ll like it too. The album is filled with hits that have already hit the charts, such as ‘Under Control (with Alesso featuring Hurts)’ and the recent ‘Blame (featuring John Newman)’.

The more cynical about EDM will wonder what exactly it is Calvin Harris is attempting to offer in his new album.

There are moments when you feel like you’re living through the same formula

I’d argue there are some new sounds which are unexpected. Upon my initial listening, I was surprised to be drawn by ‘Love Now (featuring All About She)’. It’s not a revolutionary track, and screams echoes from his previous ‘Thinking About You (featuring Ayah Marar)’. But then comes in the string hook, and you’re instantly intrigued. Billboard’s recent article on up-and-coming Norweigian DJ Kygo shows that EDM is still changing its sound in the charts. On Motion, Harris sounds as though he’s trying to keep up with these changes – this can evidently be heard on the reggae beats on ‘Slow Acid’ but as this is the Calvin Harris, of course he puts a spin on it.

However, there are moments when you feel like you’re living through the same formula. I don’t always feel

I’m being brought something new, and if he does bring something different to the table one gets the feeling another artist could do it better.

The list of artists Harris collaborates with this time round may be telling of the kind of music he’s trying to create – one that’s more ‘out there’ (whatever that means) – one that is more progressive and formulaic than before. The tracks with HAIM show that: ‘Pray to God’ is surprisingly likeable. Good on him if he’s really trying to do that, but he hasn’t succeeded just yet.

I used 18 Months pretty exclusively as my work out album for the past two years: I listened to that album to death, and song for song, I think I like Motion more. Songs like ‘Together (featuring Gwen Stefani)’ manage to achieve the balance between voice and EDM beats perfectly to create an effective drop. Yet overall, the new LP is a less consistent record than the one before it.

We move from HAIM to Big Sean in one swoop – a bit of a jolt for anyone to have to face.

Overall, you know if you like Calvin Harris or not. If you don’t it’s probably pointless for you to get the album – listen to song previews and

figure out if there are tracks you like.

It would be cruel to deny that Motion is a step forward for Harris, but unfortunately for him his fourth al-

bum is not as fresh as he might like it to be, both in comparison to the overall EDM market and himself.

After all, Summer is over now.

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10 Arts & Lit

Arts & Lit

6th November 2014

The Opposite of Loneliness at Blackwell’s Stephanie Kelley

Regent’s Park College

O

n Saturday evening, October 25th, over thirty people gathered in Blackwells for what would have been the 25th birthday of Yale student and writer Marina Keegan to celebrate her posthumous collection of essays and short fiction. In attendance were her parents, high school English teacher, publisher, and friends. People crept down the stairs slowly, almost cautiously. It was eerily silent. Several stopped to look at posters with Marina quotes: “I want enough time to be in love with everything.” It’s impossible not be struck by the tragedy of the statement. Keegan was killed in a car accident days after graduating from Yale, before she could begin a job at The New Yorker.

Author events are typically preceded by a buzzing anticipation, or chatter, with heads peeking over others’ shoulders, anxiously awaiting the beginning. For Keegan, that moment never came. With a subtle knack for awareness of mortality in her work, none could have predicted her death would come so prematurely – the fact we, her readers, know the ending before its beginning is undeniably sad.

Still, the event at Blackwells was intended to be a celebration. And it was. It was the celebration of a truly awe-inspiring young woman, whose little book is more than enough to merit the whisper, “Isn’t it just so special?” which echoed

throughout the evening.

The introduction to The Opposite of Loneliness presents Marina Keegan as the type of girl we’d all like to be. An acclaimed novelist speaks at Yale and tells an audience that writing, as a career, is “virtually impossible.” Enter Keegan: “A student stood up.

Thin. Beautiful. Long, reddishbrown hair. Long legs. Flagrantly short skirt. Nimbus of angry energy. She asked Helprin if he really meant that. It was what everyone else had been thinking but no one else had been brave (or brazen) enough to say.” Within two paragraphs, I was ready to fling The Opposite of Loneliness across the room. Why couldn’t I have done that? I thought pathetically, as if someone had just invented the iPod, or mapped the human genome. Brazenness and all, Marina had, in one retort, phrased the comeback of an entire generation of English literature undergraduates. We’re all told in some way from a young age how the odds are stacked against us – do we think to question it?

Marina Keegan wasn’t afraid to interrogate the paradoxical status quo, even at the risk of sounding naïve or looking small. In this city, where hyper-intelligent undergraduates are eager to quickly skip over the ignorance of adolescence to begin sounding like the mature, articulate, successful, (boring) people they want to be, maybe we all could take a tip or two from Keegan, who writes like a college student and a teenager without compromising her compelling intelligence and emotional truth.

She writes about the beauty of being young, and the excitement and

tribulations it can bring: from an essay describing her first car like the life of a sibling, to a poignant essay written for Yale seniors describing her sense of community, and the “opposite of loneliness” she’s about to leave. “Of course, there are things we wish we’d done: our readings, that boy across the hall,” Keegan muses, but “We’re so young. We’re so young.

We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time.”

And for the little time she had, Keegan certainly did a lot. The Opposite of Loneliness is rich, soulful, and earnest. Whether her protagonist is a young woman coming home from college to a fractured household, or a 42-year-old single woman with a newly adopted daughter, Marina shines – and artfully at that. She eschews cynicism and the fear of being sentimental without compromising her grasp of the cruelties of the world. The stories may sometimes be dark, but there’s always hope. At its essence, her book is worth reading because it’s proof that literary brilliance and the perils – however banal or juvenile – of adolescence can go together in the same sentence; something every young student secretly wants to hear. In Marina Keegan’s fictional world, life is never pathetic – it’s just true.

Marina Keegan was a remarkable person, and as Beth McNamara, Marina’s English teacher, said after the event’s finale: “To read her work is to know her and love her.”

The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan is available from Blackwell’s Bookshop for £12.99.

Caleb Hahne is a recent grad (he’s the kind of 21 year old that makes me feel like I’ve done nothing with the same number of years) from the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design whose work revolves around the utilisation of technology and traditional techniques to confront the allure of a blooming cyber media. Or, in more practical terms, he creates mixed media collages that borrow from classical antiquity, internet culture as well as art .

As usual, find the full interview with the artist online at www.oxfordstudent.com

Words by Natalie Harney

Arts & Lit 11

6th November 2014

Harry Leslie-Smith and Man Booker Prize: Owen Jones talk politics Now We’ve Come Special debate at Sheldonian Theatre

James Riding

Magdalen College

O

n Tuesday 28th October, a special event was held at the Sheldonian Theatre to celebrate 350th anniversary of the building’s foundation. Two generations of socialist campaigners, 30-year old Owen Jones and 91-year old Harry Leslie Smith, combined their powers for a one-of-akind asseveration on the state of the nation and the change they feel is needed to combat its woes. Smith has authored numerous books about Britain during the Great Depression, the

Second World War and postwar austerity, and this talk comes after his most recent release Harry’s Last Stand: How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down, and What We Can Do to Save it (October, 2014).

His age did little to diminish his on-stage presence as he captivated the audience with his incredible life story I confess that I was unaware of Harry Leslie Smith’s work before the event, even though he received a standing ovation at this year’s Labour Party conference for telling David Cameron to “get his mitts off the NHS”. His age did little to diminish his on-stage presence as he captivated the audience with his incredible life story and clear passion for justice. Smith recounted how he was forced out to work as a seven-year-old in Barnsley, where limited prospects and little social protection were com-

monplace, because it was “a matter of life and death” for his povertystricken family. In 1926, the same year his sister died of tuberculosis, the country was ravaged by economic collapse. Smith argued that a very similar situation had occurred in 2008, leading to dramatic increases in food banks and unemployment. He claimed that the cruelty of austerity budgets “could spell the end of democracy”, sacrificing his grandchildren the same way his generation were sacrificed through “greed and incompetence”.

Meanwhile author and columnist Owen Jones, a regular speaker on the political circuit, was as outspoken as ever. His exordium was that the ‘establishment’ have benefited from economic decline at the expense of everyone else. Despite forcing 1 million families into poverty, he noted, wealth for the top 100 people has doubled in the recession years. He was appalled by the government’s decision to sanction benefits while bosses of failing banks have been bailed out with enormous paycheques, which he dubbed “socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor”. The ‘establishment’ have got away with this, he declared, because the people’s anger against them has been directed onto their neighbours instead, creating a “politics of envy”.

He concluded with the demand for us to defend and build on the work of Harry’s generation.

The atmosphere in the theatre was electrifying, the crowd invigorated by the verbosity and storming arguments

Both speakers offered some ideas as to how the situation could be ameliorated. Smith called for higher corporation taxes and a lowered minimum voting age. Jones felt that affordable childcare and jobs in the renewable energy sector were key to creating a “society built on the interests of working people”.

There was little in the way of expostulation or even-handed debate over the course of the evening, owing to the similarity of the speakers’ views, but Melissa Benn (who chaired the discussion) ensured that the queries of the audience were given suitable airtime.

The atmosphere in the theatre was electrifying, with the crowd invigorated by the verbosity and the storming arguments of the speakers. It was truly possible to visualise that, with their passion and charisma and such devoted followings, the great change they are seeking could some day become a reality.

to the Beginning Stefano Domingues de Castro Pachi Somerville College

E

arlier this year, Joshua Ferris became one of the first American authors to be nominated for the Man Booker Prize. Ferris’ To Rise Again at a Decent Hour managed to make it into the shortlist, but was trumped at the end by Australian Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North. This was not a particularly surprising development: To Rise Again was a generally funny novel; a fact that lowers, quite considerably, the likelihood of a Booker win. Humour is not in and of itself anathema to the Booker prize - most longlists contain at least one book that could be called humorous and funny novels such as Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question have sometimes won - but the statistics point against comedic winners: there are only maybe a handful of them among the 46 Booker Prize winners.

To be fair, To Rise Again’s loss is more likely a result of tough competition than of a bias against its making readers laugh. Flanagan’s The Narrow Road, for example, is the bleak tale of a war prisoner forced to work on the construction of the Burma Railway. Its language is ornate and poetic, its thematic concerns the terror of war, the cost of ambition and the ambiguity of human nature. To Rise Again is funnier, but not often poetic; more focused, but less comprehensive; and more zeitgeisty, but, as a consequence, less universal.

These shortcomings are actually somewhat surprising given the quality of Ferris’ debut, the PEN/ Hemingway Award-winning Then We Came to the End. The latter manages to combine an experimental narrative structure and a large, varied cast of characters with explorations of essentially human concerns, such as the desire for connection, the inevitability of change and the shadow of death.

Its prose is more consistently, uproariously and frenetically funny, and, though it is not poetic in a conventional sense, it still manages to be surprisingly moving.

Then We Came to the End is easily the better book, which leads to an interesting question: had American authors been eligible back in 2007, how might it have fared in the Man Booker Prize? Comparing it to that year’s actual win-

ner, Anne Enright’s The Gathering may be useful in this regard.

On the surface, they could not be more different: The Gathering is a nonlinear first-person narrative focused on trauma and its consequences, whereas Then We Came to the End features a rare “we” perspective where the characters gossip about the lives of people in an eccentric advertising agency.

Yet, despite such differences, there are also plenty of similarities. Both novels are, for example, quite adept at using form to highlight and reflect content. The nonlinearity of Enright’s narrative reveals the labyrinthine qualities of human memory and the novel’s constant repetition of certain key moments mimic the recurring nature of traumatic events.

The practically nonstop use of reported speech in Ferris’ novel creates for the reader an experience of socializing with one’s coworkers, which ultimately leads to the reader’s inclusion in the “we” narrating the novel. The novels even share thematic concerns: just as The Gathering’s main-character actively explores possible reasons for her brother’s suicide; in Then We Came to the End “our” gossip stems from a desire to understand each other’s personal tragedies.

In a year with no humorous novels in the longlist, could a novel that makes you laugh at loud have won?

Given their relatable core concerns and similar level of technical proficiency, a decision between both may very well have come down to the question of seriousness. In a year with no humorous novels in its longlist, could a novel that makes you laugh out loud have won? Booker history tells us probably not: the scarcity of comedic winners points towards judges who are generally more easily convinced of a solemn novel’s worth than of a humorous one’s relevance.

Which is a pity, because the humour in Then We Came to the End is not a diluting accessory to its very serious subject matters but possibly the only means to explore the seemingly shallow act of gossiping to reveal its true nature: the illusion of control, the terror of redundancy, and the yearning for human connection.

It may all sound funny, but really it’s no laughing matter.

12 Arts & Lit

6th November 2014 “Ha! They still using that name?

Yeah, I am the Buddha, but I really prefer Sid.” “Do you mind if I call you the Buddha?” piped Jesus.

“Yes. Yes I do.”

BEAT THE BLUES WITH

THE W&W

COMEDY WEEK Jesus & Buddha

By Tasha Dhanraj

“Oh hi! Sorry, I, um, I didn’t expect anyone else to be in here,” he said as he peeked his head around the door.

The room was dark and it was only the light from the large screen in front of him that was illuminating a man’s rather large gut. He reached out to shake the hand of the fat man.

“I’m Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth. Hi. Sorry. Hi. Sorry. Yeah. Just trying to get my head round all this!”

“Oh don’t worry about it. It took me a while to adjust as well. My name’s Sid. Siddhārtha Gautama,” said the fat man.

Jesus stared at ‘Sid’.

“Jesus. You’ve been staring at me for about fifteen years. Are you OK?” asked Sid. “You’re the Buddha!”

The two men stared at each other for what was probably only a few weeks, but felt like years. Finally, the Buddha turned away from Jesus and faced the screen in front of him again. He pulled out a small remote control. Each digit on the remote was glowing with a blueish hue, but apart from that it looked like any regular remote. In fact, not even a good regular one. It looked like one of those shit ones you buy from Argos when you’ve lost the actual remote from your TV. The Buddha entered the numbers eight and two. Suddenly the screen lit up with the image of a dark green forest. They watched it together for a few months. Every so often a badger would walk past, or a wolf, or a wolf with a badger in its mouth. Other than that it was pretty boring.

Eventually, Jesus broke. “Why on earth are we watching England right now? I bet there’s some pretty cool stuff going on in Jerusalem. I mean I only died a few months ago. I bet my friends are having the best time as the mates of the risen God.” “I find it helps to meditate whilst looking at England. It is peaceful.

The people are too stupid and backward to realise that the forest isn’t infested with centaurs and so spend their whole time moving massive rocks around,” said the Buddha.

Jesus snatched the remote away from the Buddha and started frantically pressing the channel buttons up and down in a desperate attempt to find anything that resembled home. The Buddha stared at him for a few hours before informing him that he had to press the red button and select the continent first.

Jesus found Jerusalem just in time to see the last of his disciples get crucified.

“Are you actually kidding me?”

“Cheer up – he might get reincarnated as a powerful king. You know, or a kangaroo.”

“I’m the Son of God! I thought everyone would be converted to Christianity by now and that it would be almost time for me to pop down again and gather up my followers. I don’t get this.”

“God sent me down to help everyone to realise that greed, hatred and delusion were causing their suffering. I thought, sure – I’ll go down there.

Everyone will get enlightened and we’ll all escape the eternal cycle of rebirth together and we’ll all be in Nirvana in fifty years. A hundred tops. That was over three hundred years ago. I’ve been waiting in here ever since.”

Jesus blinked. “What are you saying exactly?”

“I’m saying that you can’t underestimate people. You’re going to be here for a while.” The Buddha stretched out his arms above his head and he

yawned and reclined back in his chair. “Wanna go halvies on a pizza?”

“But, but, my Dad wouldn’t do that to me. He.. he.. he wouldn’t leave me here for three hundred years,” Jesus stuttered. He hadn’t stuttered since he was a child and all the other kids made fun of him for being shit at carpentry. The only thing that got him through those dark years was the thought that one day he’d send those little fuckers to hell. Suddenly, that once constant comfort was slipping away from him.

Jesus looked back at the screen. It was now the year 380 AD. A bloke called Augustine of Hippo had just come up with the idea of Original Sin. “Fuck.” Jesus said.

“Yeah.” The Buddha replied.

The two sat back in their chairs and watched as humans evolved and invented. After 6th August 1945, they decided that the people probably weren’t worth watching anymore and started a game of scrabble that lasted until the sun burnt out. They didn’t notice.

Did this tickle you? If so, catch Tasha Dhanraj’s latest ‘divine’ comedy, “Father God’s Nativity’” a subversive, feel-goodtwist on the traditional story. Premiering at Mansfield College in 8th Week. Dates and Tickets TBC.

Temple Run

by Avinna Yeroff Temple run So much fun

Play for years Beat your peers

All day long Going strong

Swish up jump There’s a stump

Kids grow up You grow up

Flick left turn No concern

Friends arrive You must survive

Temple soul Takes it toll

Then they go Can’t be slow

Lost the day Where are they?

Still you run Not yet done

What happened Where am I

Never stop Duck, turn, hop

Temple run

PHOTOS/Sophie Sparkes

become a

leader! nominations are now open

To find out how to get involved with Oxford University Student Union and some useful hints go to: www.ousu.org

Follow us on: t f OUSUnews

#OUSU2014

Fashion Fashion 14

Worcester College

Perhaps spandex leggings are the new improved dungarees (i.e. flatteringly spared of all man repellent qualities).

Not only do they keep one very much in with today’s gluten, dairy, meat and calorie-free, green juice-gulping, bikram yoga-doing fashionable society of today, but equally their subtle trusty pockets could change a woman’s life forever.

Goodbye over-spending on après smoothies and coconut water - the back pocket is perfect for a couple of coins, and hello to hands free living

Acceptable in the 80s... Acceptable now?

- no more bags getting in the way of those hashtag ‘fitinspo’ Instagrams that we all know and love (or that we all started following when we decided to embark upon that fitness regime last summer... Unfollow).

Perhaps spandex leggings are the new improved dungarees (i.e. flatteringly spared of all man repellent qualities).

I suppose with the ever brighter running shoes and sports bras that have recently taken the market by storm, it is only fair that we get our

PHOTO/Adifansnet

B

een feeling put to shame by the lack of exercise you do compared to your friends? Don’t fret. All they really did was make a trip to Sweaty Betty. (N.B heart palpitations due to extortionate prices, not the five-minute walk to the high street).

Following the dark ages characterised by H&M leggings, Ugg boots and awkwardly fitted dresses (more like t-shirts if we’re honest), which were subsequently burnt (by that I mean given to charity, of course) when the Urban Dictionary opened my eyes to the world of the VPL, I’ve recently found myself questioning the newfound ubiquity of spandex running leggings. Although a highly practical item, I find it hard to believe that our generation of late teens and early twenties really exercises that often and manages to remain looking that put together. Perfect hair and flawless complexions are not, if we’re honest, the true consequence of working out. If the number of pairs and duration of wear of leggings on the high-street, however, does honestly reflect the fitness regimes of ladies nowadays, well, hats off to you - you might want to take a rain check on the old hygiene though...

I’d rather not grab a coffee with you sitting in a recently sweat-soaked skin of lycra.

Perhaps what I have said so far seems a little harsh - I can’t deny that spandex does, in fact, have its benefits; its magical ability to cancel out all calories consumed whilst being worn is, to give one example, magnificent - so tragically engrained is

this belief that my friend once actually stopped for ice cream during her run, before continuing to jog the 100 metres to her college door. Respect.

So, despite my negativity, these bottom-shaping beauties do seem to be gaining momentum and I fear there is no going back, although perhaps that’s what they thought in the 80s.

Unlike the purely aesthetic, note I don’t say necessarily aesthetically pleasing, lycra of the golden age of Blondie, I have come to accept running leggings as undeniably ‘practicool’.

PHOTO/Adifansnet

Clementine Haxby

6th November 2014

money’s worth with such items. The only way, of course, is by combining them with the (sometimes matching) lycra leggings. Although I suppose I can just about get my head around that concept (mainly because my new Nikes are too comfy and frankly fabulous to justify not wearing them), what I find hard is deciding where to draw the line. Where, in our health-obsessed society, does sporty chic become street fashion, and more worryingly, where does it become couture? As if actual sports shops weren’t enough, the Nasir Mazhar collection at LFW ‘14 placed more emphasis on sporty than chic, displaying what can only be described as tight brights, with a sprinkling of masculine sports kit, while Alexander Wang’s recent collaboration with H&M told customers to “sharpen your elbows and put your game face on” - note to self: don’t venture to the H&M sale this year..terrifying.

Even Beyonce is jumping on the band wagon by creating a streetwear label for Topshop. Whatever happened to the good old days of planning a running route so nobody was witness to one’s workout attire?

That always kept us on our toes. I suppose the major positive, however, is the total embrace of the ‘look good

feel good’ ethos - one which I very much adopted after a recent break up... £150 worth of Nike’s new neon pink range later the bastard was history. I would highly recommend it.

Whatever happened to the good old days of planning a running route so nobody was witness to one’s workout attire? That always kept us on our toes.

Following outcry against the advertising of unrealistically thin models, is this the fashion world’s latest attempt to subconsciously brainwash girls into losing weight through exercise? If that is true, its safe to say it isn’t working. A pair of Adidas leggings are, in my opinion, the perfect pant for a trip to Ben’s Cookies - you never know when a jog to get the last warm batch might be needed. So keep the hearts pumping (that is the men’s hearts, don’t even think about working up a sweat in those puppies) and jog on fashionistas.

Fashion 15

6th November 2014

The beauty of the internet

Jennie Graham Christ Church

T

he fashion world is rife with chic pairings: Dolce and Gabbana, Victoria and David, socks and sandals. It’s true that “two for the price of one” has always been an appealing proposition, but it seems that this season in particular fashion brands are starting to hear their biological clocks ticking (or is that the clinking of cash registers?) and coupling up left, right and centre.

For Autumn/Winter, a new wave of collaborations between heavyweights from the worlds of fashion and celebrity are hitting the stores, and while many have been together for

tips, videos and inspiration. Ever wondered how French women look so effortlessly pristine at all times?

Learn their weird and wonderful tricks here. Currently offering free UK delivery - yippee! www.spacenk.co.uk

Originally in French and now mercifully translated into English, this is an online beauty marketplace with all the products you can think of as well as a make up forum for

The ultimate marketplace for luxury beauty brands. Every copycat site launching in the UK today will use SpaceNK as their template for making a successful cult beauty e-shop. Their products are a little pricey perhaps, but we can lust from afar.

All three sites offer a range of brands and introduce new products every day, from the skinniest liquid eyeliner you’ll ever see to innovative make up sponges that will render all brushes completely inadequate.

years, for some, it looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

First up is Nike and Liberty, longterm bedfellows with a penchant for paisley and music festivals. Beloved by “sporty” stylistas, these teenage

Ora and Adidas, who are bringing girly back to tracksuit tops and giving us all another reason to get to the gym with all types of fitness gear in fanciful florals available now online (working out optional). But

brand whose romantic record reads like a Who’s Who of big hitters in the fashion world - Christopher Kane, J W Anderson and Mary Katrantzou (she gets around) to name a few. This season Topshop

newest designers Holly Fulton, is definitely up there as one of our favourites. Like the couple you would never have seen together but that somehow work, these two combine all that is best about old

kicks have been consistently great over the last few years. Head to the new Nike at Liberty space on the 1st of November or wait until they are available on Nike’s online store from 28th November. Another couple who have decided to get physical is the truly loved-up Rita

Adidas has been getting around this season, and has found itself a new partner in Mary Katrantzou, who has been working her kaleidoscopic magic and will deliver a bold, colourful capsule collection on 15th November for the brand. Let the battle of the bombers begin.

And then there are those achingly

has been juggling a few partners, with Marques’Almeida creating a collection and word of another collaboration with Meadham Kirchhoff in the pipeline. Riotous pops of colour, artful fraying and an emphasis on texture have featured heavily in Marques’Almeida’s offering, which is available now, and the same (but bigger) will surely be the theme of anything Meadham Kirchhoff produces for the iconic British brand. But given that both of these labels already have design duos at the helm, you’ve got to wonder what to call these new relationships… A ménage à trois in the world of prêt-à-porter?

This is all getting very European.

Now we all love it when two of Britain’s sweethearts get together, and the steadfast relationship between the adorably British Radley and one of our nation’s

and new in the world of British design, and a few collections in it seems they complement each other perfectly. Head to Radley stores now to scoop up one of their traditionally quirky bags reworked in Holly’s Art Deco style and let Britannia rule.

And finally, there is nothing like the thrill of the new, and this exciting hook-up sent the rumour mill into overdrive when news of it was released last week. Beyonce has reportedly decided to collaborate with Topshop (definitely into free love) on a new sports and activewear label for launch in 2015. This is definitely a match made in fashion heaven, as the star has been a big supporter of the brand for many years. Get ready for some serious gymspiration with campaign images of the most perfect posterior in pop dressed up in lycra. Well, at least our credit cards will be getting a workout.

w w w. t h e b e a u t y s t . co.uk

www.cult beaut y. co.uk A rather excellent online beauty

PHOTO/Cindee Snider Re

PHOTO/Gorgeoux

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hopping for make-up and skincare products online has taken off in recent years, in tandem with the explosion of the cult beauty scene. Whilst Boots and Superdrug are undoubtedly the goto for basic make up essentials, they rarely stretch beyond Maybelline, L’Oréal Paris and MaxFactor, and you’d be forgiven for thinking the beauty world ends here. I first discovered beauty e-shops when I was living in Paris for a year, a city that is hopelessly devoid of a French alternative to Boots. Instead, their make-up stores are piled high with luxury products at prices that had

emporium, selling all manner of products from brands such as Alpha H, Dr Bronner and Eve Lom. Top tip: subscribe to their newsletter (which is a considerably better offering than most other newsletters that come sailing into your inbox on a regular basis) and get free delivery on your first order.

Two souls, one big budget It seems that this season in particular fashion brands are starting to hear their biological clocks ticking (or is that the clinking of cash registers?) and coupling up left, right and centre.

cool edgy couples who wear each other’s clothes, buy ironic slogan t-shirts and only drink artisanal coffee. Alexander Wang and H&M are one such urban pairing. 6th November is the launch date for this hotly anticipated collection, complete with boxing gloves, goggles and so much neoprene you could surf in this stuff. H&M has courted many an up-and-coming designer over the years - Isabel Marant, Stella McCartney, Matthew Williamson all of whose stars have subsequently soared, so it was only a matter of time before these two got together.

H&M sure knows how to pick ‘em.

Topshop is another high street

PHOTO/Sara Cimino

The Queen’s College

me running for the hills. Enter three exceedingly well-done cult beauty websites which stock the very best make up and skincare products from smaller brands that combine the latest cuttingedge technologies with natural ingredients that won’t harm the environment… or your pocket.

Welcome to online cult beauty; the trend that is set to revolutionise your make up bag.

PHOTO/Sara Cimino

Lisa Cave

Fashion 16

6th November 2014

White Noise Photographer: Anna Bellettato; Model: Ella Harding; Concept and Styling: Jennie Graham; with thanks to The Varsity Club.

6th November 2014

Fashion 17

18 Screen

Kate Sinclair Wolfson College

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hat makes a movie ‘foreign’?

Is it the financing, or the location? The language of the performers or the ethnicity of the director?

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) designates all foreign-language films as foreign films. So does the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

As a native Canadian, I’ve always had difficulty with the ‘foreign film’ designation. It strikes me as curious that a movie filmed and produced in Canada, starring Canadian actors and set in, say, Yellowknife, should compete in a different category than another movie filmed and produced in Canada, starring Canadian actors and set in, say, Quebec City.

Why, I ask myself, should Phillippe Falardeau be categorised separately from Sarah Polley?

The distinction between ‘Film’ and ‘Foreign Film’ has always seemed to me ad hoc. But then, much awardgiving is ad hoc and Hollywood has always been ambivalent toward foreign films. In the long history of the Academy Awards, only 11 nonEnglish language films have ever been nominated for Best Picture awards, and none have won. Meanwhile, the ‘Foreign Film’ category is beset with controversy.

filmmakers had chaffed against the apparently arbitrary film establishment and the spectaclesporting bureaucrats who police it.

Divine Intervention had been rejected by the Academy on the grounds that Palestine could not be listed as a submitting country

Bureaucracy dictates that countries (but not individuals) may compete in the foreign film category, with one nomination permitted per country.

So-called ‘foreign films’ cannot be in English, but they do not have to be in the language of the submitting country either. This poses problems for small, English-speaking countries like Canada, New Zealand, and Ireland, which fancy themselves distinct from the United States, but which are constantly drawn into Uncle Sam’s ‘artistic’ orbit.

As the film industry globalises, non-American films struggle for imaginative real estate, while absurd and porous Academy regulation perpetuates absurd nominations.

Aki Kaurismaki’s film Le Havre, for example, although written in French and filmed in France, earned Finland the Academy nomination in 2011.

Still more bewildering is the fact that Woody Allen has been touted as a

It strikes me that the designation ‘foreign film’ has become becoming increasingly arcane. It is also an ontologically inconsistent designation (because, of course, foreignness is relative).

To complicate the matter, not all film festivals make a distinction between foreign-language film and (home?) film. Festivals that do award ‘foreign film’ prizes continue to operate based on elusive and inconsistent criteria.

While Jane Campion’s The Piano (New Zealand), and Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine (Hong Kong) shared the Palm D’Or at Cannes in 1994, they could not even compete in the same category at the Academy Awards later that year.

More recently, it is notable that Abdellatif Kechiche’s internationally-

acclaimed Blue is the Warmest Colour (La Vie D’Adele) was excluded from Academy Award billing altogether.

If the Foreign-Film category is mystifying, it is because the raisond’etre of the category remains unclear. Is the award meant to celebrate cultural difference or to give low-budget films a chance? Does it exist merely to extend the alreadylengthy Awards Ceremony? Or is it an awkward form of affirmative action?

Either way, the category is apparently dysfunctional.

By distinguishing films based on the language in which they are written, the Academy tacitly assumes that language is the most important cultural marker, not recognising the surfeit of distinct cultures that exist

within languages themselves.

All of this simply reinforces a wellworn thesis: America monopolises the film industry. America also monopolises the English-language film industry. And while foreignlanguage films are given a discrete (if confusing) category, foreign-English language films are left to compete alongside American behemoths.

Dated foreign-language regulations have meant that all English-language films are classified as domestic, while everything else is given the esoteric status of ‘foreign film.’ Although American mavericks like Woody Allen might have the privilege of drifting between foreign and domestic film markets, this remains unheard of, perhaps impossible for his ‘foreign’ rivals.

What does the designation ‘foreign film’ even mean anymore?

In 2002 Palestinian filmmaker Humbert Balsan was outraged to find that his film Divine Intervention had been rejected by the Academy on the grounds that Palestine could not be listed as a submitting country. Balsan decried the double-standards of the Academy, which had previously accepted submissions from Hong Kong and from other politically contentious national units (Taiwan and Puerto Rico). Unsurprisingly, the controversy raised several

Haneke’s films are precise, suspenseful, and explicitly and disturbingly violent.

eyebrows, leading many to question the intermingling of art, politics, and bureaucracy in the projection booth.

It was not the first time that

‘foreign-filmmaker’ since the release of To Rome With Love, a film starring an almost-entirely All-American cast (Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page et al) and written predominantly in English. “The language is never a problem,” says Allen, “there are only a few things you ever talk about and you learn them right away.

“I did three pictures with a Chinese cameraman who didn’t speak a word of English – not a word. And it didn’t matter at all because we were only talking about lighting and angle.” Although he confesses that he has always wanted to be a “foreign filmmaker”, Allen acknowledges that when Europeans started to finance his films “very, very generously”, they did so “under [his] rules”, without interfering with him in any way. Of course, this is preposterous if one still assumes that foreign film should be about foreign ideas (and should not be about recreating Annie Hall in sundry ‘ethnic’ locations).

PHOTO/Il Fatto Quotidian

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6th November 2014

6th November 2014

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Anti-Pick of the week: Coronation Street

Review: Nightcrawler

Thomas Roles gives Nightcrawler four stars

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Thomas Bannatyne St Hilda’s College

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or all the trashy TV I have watched over the years, soaps have never drawn me in. There is something about joining a story midway through that is unappealing, and I never had much of an interest in the sort of stories they tell. That is not to say that I wasn’t aware of them (I often catch the end of Eastenders when I’m waiting for something more exciting to start), but I had never sat down and watched a whole episode. At least until Friday, when I gave Coronation Street a try.

And I hit the jackpot immediately.

Rather than the terraced houses and city street I’d been expecting, I was greeted by a grand looking venue, hosting a wedding. Or at least it would have been hosting a wedding, were the bride not being led away in handcuffs. I had no idea who she was, or where the groom had gone, but the prospect of a ruined wedding was all I’d hoped for and more. Amidst the crying and smeared mascara, I saw an older man tagging along behind the police, who I learned was Mr. Barlow.

Ah Ken, I realised, Corrie’s longest standing character. I know about him.

Unfortunately, he was the only person I knew about, and I was lost in all the fancy hats and weeping, trying to work out what on earth had happened at the end of the last episode.

As if trying to shake off my inexpert attention, focus then shifted to Les Dennis (another person I recognised, but only from Family Fortunes) who was sitting blankly in a living room, with a shocked looking family. This must be related to the wedding, I thought. Wrong. Les had some kind of heart condition, and seems to have

nothing to do with the others.

Suddenly back with the criminal bride, I learn a bit more. Someone called Peter is in prison. Rob, the groom, has run away. Tracy has been arrested for helping Rob. Then Ken delivers the sort of expository dialogue I need: “Rob confessed killing Tina to Carla and now he’s on the run.” In one line, I have been filled in on what I need to know to understand what is going on, without needing to scour ITV Player for the answers. But what does this have to do with Les Dennis? Now he’s getting help from some young looking people who have been chosen to help because they can use Google. And they are looking for his estranged son. Hang on, what?

I’ve spent 29 minutes watching people talking in a pub

Amid all the melodrama, there is a lot of discussion in the pub (where else?) about various people I don’t know, between a mixture of old women and dodgy-looking blokes. Some of them probably have something to hide – I wonder if I’ll find out what in a minute.

I won’t, because we go back to Tracy, still crying, in a police interview. She’s getting out on bail. And then it’s the end.

I can tell that I’m nowhere near the end of this story. But I don’t know who Tina was, and I don’t care about Rob or Peter or Tracy, and I’m not interested enough to find out what’s going to happen. I can see why people who have spent more time with these characters would keep watching, but as a newcomer there just isn’t the hook that I need. I’ve spent 29 minutes watching people talking in the pub, a man frowning in an armchair and a woman crying at the police station,

and nothing else happened. But if that’s part of a huge story arc that people have been enjoying from weeks ago, I can see why things have happened that way.

Thanks to Ken, I have been given a pithy summary of what is going on, and I’m not completely lost, but it is the details that make a story like this worthwhile.

The problem is that every episode is just a chunk of the story, with no introduction or conclusion.

Whereas regular TV programmes have beginnings, middles and ends, Coronation Street is just middle after middle after middle. I need a something else to help me get into it, to fill in the blanks and make me interested. When a new season of a programme starts, it re-establishes its characters and starts, or reinvigorates a storyline. But here things keep happening, and if you haven’t been with the characters before, it is very difficult to work out who to like or who to feel sorry for. And if you can’t do that, you can’t get invested in the storyline at all. Even when it involves a woman getting arrested at her own wedding.

Maybe its an inherited thing, where if your parents enjoy it, it is easier for you to watch it and to get to know the characters. When watching a soap becomes ritual, understanding the stories becomes second nature. But on one watch, there is little to fire the interest. The only redeeming feature is that there always seems to be something ludicrously exciting happening, but no matter how realistic it tries to be, it is always too artificial and distant. I bet there’s never been an episode where the highlight was someone running out of milk for their cereal. Now that would be something I could relate to.

I’m sorry Corrie, but I just don’t care enough to tune in three times a week, every week, forever.

annihilation. Riz Ahmed puts in a likeable performance as Bloom’s twitchy (who wouldn’t be) assistant Rick, who carries out Bloom’s dirty work in order to scrape together just enough money to get by. They form an intriguing double act, fuelled by different shades of desperation.

reporting: a burning car wreck has attracted the attention of film crews who swarm, vulture-like, around the bleeding body of a woman, trying to circumvent the police in order to get the best angle. What’s more, this profession has a mantra that fits perfectly with Bloom’s neat, but morally-adrift, view of the world: ‘if it bleeds, it leads’. Bloom sells a bike to buy a camera, and his own headlines start coming in thick and fast: drunk drivers, home invasions, toddler stabbings.

not necessarily sustained. Later, there are unnecessary sequences of dialogue, revisiting ground that has already been well-trodden by earlier, and more subtle, exposition.

The deliciously dark comedy of the opening scenes gradually mutates into a farce; possibly mirroring Bloom’s own descent into a mad chaos that even he cannot control, or possibly the narrative symptoms of an idea pushed to its absolute limit.

Either way, Nightcrawler is morbidly compelling cinema that captures the state of 24-hour news and shows just how far it’s drifted from its original purpose.

A plethora of local channels serve Los Angeles and other major cities across the US. When they’re all ruthlessly competing for ratings, video journalism becomes a race to the bottom, in order to reach the top of the viewing figures. Journalism, in this microcosm of misery, is no longer about just reporting life; it’s about making a scene, that, as Bloom himself observes, ‘looks so real on TV’.

Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut hums with an electrical energy.

PHOTO/Stefan The Cameraman

Nightcrawler is morbidly compelling cinema.

Rene Russo is fascinating as the highly-strung News Editor of the channel to whom Bloom sells his unsavoury wares. She wants the stories that will make her ratings soar, and Bloom knows it. Bloom’s need for love, affection, or something baser, becomes just another bullet point on his long list of life goals; Bloom’s uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time becomes another bargaining chip that he can use to carve out his ideals.

The sense of restlessness that rocks the first half of the film is

PHOTO/Wired Photostream

PHOTO/Tim Welbourn

he glittering lights of nighttime LA provide the backdrop to the opening credits of Nightcrawler. As dawn arrives, the city’s landscape is swamped in the suffocating noise of the mass-media, with radio and cable-TV stations unflinchingly reporting the sordid details of the night just passed. Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut hums with an electrical energy.

Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) cruises the streets of LA looking for ways to make a fast buck. He preys upon the city’s weaknesses for his personal gain, beats up police officers who intervene, then steals their possessions. Yet Bloom can’t be dismissed as a careless, reckless maniac. He’s more an astute and calculating sociopath, with an armoury of natty aphorisms and motivational one-liners, betraying a mind that has consumed an unhealthy number of self-help books.

Heading home after another night spent stealing and mugging, Bloom discovers the world of TV crime

Quite how dangerous Bloom is seems to leak from the edges of his impossibly placid, boyish facial expression. Gyllenhaal finds a mesmerising balance between the persona of a cloyingly naive, yet inexplicably successful, entrepreneur and a man who is only ever one wrong turn away from self-

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Features

Features 11

6th November 2014

Hugh McHale-Maughan

Brasenose College

I

have to admit a little apprehension coming into this interview.

Coming from a military family, I was well aware of General Lamb’s reputation for brusqueness, straight talking, and his intense dislike of the media. My trepidation was not quelled by a quite literally bone crunching handshake (I spent the first five minutes of our chat trying to massage some feeling back into my digits) and some loud tartan trousers.

I needn’t have worried. Sir Graeme was an engaging and fascinating interviewee: passionate about his country, its military and its record in overseas conduct. Most importantly of all (for an OxStu reporter), he articulated his thoughts in perfectly formed sentences; his erudition was broken only by a frequent, toothy grin.

He seemed excited for the imminent debate, where he would be arguing in favour of the Iraq War. Lamb is clearly impassioned on the subject: “I think that if you look at Iraq in 2003 as a snapshot in time there are all sorts of reasons why we

Meeting General Sir Graeme Lamb shouldn’t have invaded – but what you have to do is look at Iraq over the arc of time; see these issues spread over not only years but decades or even centuries.” Quoting Kipling, he argues that we need to “meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same” – a stoicism that he clearly believes the West has lost, especially in the case of the 2003 invasion: “It’s only through the long lens of history that one can truly see whether the conflict was for the better or the worse.”

“We are unreasonable men. I will finish my tea on the cooling body of my enemy in a heartbeat”

The General, who served as Director of UK Special Forces during Tony Blair’s premiership, is similarly – and unusually – upbeat about the former Prime Minister’s record. “He brought the Labour Party into the 21st century, he put the Tories on the back foot, he was articulate, he could carry people with him.” On the Prime Minister’s decision to

PHOTO/ Jennifer L Brown

enter Iraq, he is even more effusive, describing Blair as “Churchillian” with “big political balls”, and damning those who would have him indicted as a war criminal.

He is also fully in line with his former political master’s interventionist stance on the Islamic State. “If you think the butcher’s knife is the weapon of choice of ISIS then you’re misunderstanding them – their weapon of choice is propaganda. They represent a clear and present danger to our way of life.” He is fierce on this point, reiterating: “These are people who want to kill us, kill our prosperity and change our way of life. Well, I say ‘Bugger them’.” As Lamb jabs his finger and his eyes gleam, I can suddenly see the young second lieutenant who won a distinguished service order for conspicuous bravery in the twisting streets of Northern Ireland.

Nonetheless, he is uncompromising on his own record in Iraq (where he was recalled at the special behest of Generals McChrystal and Petraeus): “I remember having a conversation about reconciling with the Iraqi tribes, and an American general

turned round to me and Stanley McChrystal and said ‘How can you negotiate with these people, they’ve got blood on their hands’ and so on.

I turned round to him and said ‘raincheck here – we’re drenched in it’.”

“A number of people here at Oxford will make the fatal error of going and chasing money”

This is a general who is painfully honest about life in uniform and its graphic corollaries. Talking about the clips of drone strikes released on the news, he paints a vivid picture: “If you’re on the ground when a 500lb bomb drops it will blow you clean off your feet. It will kill anyone, it will destroy a compound. It is very, very violent, body parts spread everywhere, bits of people burning.

This is Hobbes’ world.”

The grin disappears entirely when he speaks of what makes a soldier.

“We are unreasonable men. I will finish my tea on the cooling body of my enemy in a heartbeat.” Again,

he reaches into his bank of quotes: “But we are absolutely necessary.

It’s like Orwell said – ‘People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf’.”

Despite this, his vituperation is greater when directed at private sector careers, damning those who chase money. The condemnation is cutting: “A number of people here at Oxford will make the fatal error of going and chasing money. They’ll end up working for shits. They’ll own houses that are too big, Ferraris that they won’t be able to drive because they’re too busy. They’ll be doing crack cocaine on the side to maintain their workload, or drinking like fish.

They will have an ugly life, and the majority of it will be in that space.

You think that’s a worthy life?”

“In the military everyone is converging to the same problem”

In tandem to this, his pitch for a military life is compelling. “Two simple reasons why I stayed in the

army for 38 years: number one is the people. In the military everyone is converging to the same problem. That is very unusual in the civilian world – in fact, it is probably impossible.

Number two, what you do has a sense of purpose. It’s about being a force for good in a demonstrable and practical way. Now, the truth is, that is truly a worthy life.”

“Soldiering is a serious business - but it must never be taken seriously”

Witty, ferociously clever, and committed above and beyond the call of duty, General Lamb represents the very best of the British military.

More than anything else, Sir Graeme exhibits a reflective dignity and selfdeprecation that is both charming and old fashioned. Sitting back and reflecting on his own life, his comment is simple: “Soldiering is a serious business – but it must never be taken seriously.”

12 Features

6th November 2014

Phillip Babcock St. Stephen’s House

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PHOTO/Emerge2014

an successful businesses be profitable while simultaneously making the world a better place? Just what responsibilities do corporations have towards society as a whole and how can they best impact and transform communities and nations? These are some of the many pressing questions that business schools, startups, investors, and concerned citizens are grappling with as they seek to proactively challenge and creatively address complex societal problems while safeguarding the bottom line.

Social entrepreneurship, the fusion of business with social advocacy and activism, is not new. It has, however, become increasingly important in a world with a growing awareness of our interconnectedness, interdependency, and the need to solve social problems on a large scale. While a wide range of approaches have been envisioned to realize these goals, launching a socially invested business presents unique challenges and opportunities.

The financial sector, for example, is still dominated by traditional models of business where profit

various social causes, there remains significant reticence to support less profitable enterprises, particularly with stockholders seeking high yields and executives under pressure to maximize portfolio dividends.

Businesses are not charities and they have important responsibilities to their constituents.

Just what responsibilities do corporations have towards society as a whole?

Oxford University’s Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, part of the Saïd Business School, has taken a leading role in this emerging domain, endeavouring to shape the future by improving society at large.

Dr. Pamela Hartigan, the Director of the Centre, has become a leading proponent for innovative businesses which are designed to have a global impact. Central to her mission is to equip professional leaders to become social entrepreneurs, and facilitate successful startup launches in this arena.

As part of its outreach effort, Oxford University’s Saïd Business

of SBS, the programme is one of the highlights of the academic year, showcasing the importance of business careers aimed towards making a global impact, and enabling people to turn great ideas into reality.

Offering inspiration and information through networking events, keynote addresses, and speakers’ panels, the conference was designed to provide attendees with ample opportunity for constructive conversation as to how they might make a positive difference in society.

A highlight of the weekend was the £500,000 Mustard Seed Competition, a high-stakes event in which 13 business startup finalists were invited to make five-minute pitches for the coveted award before a panel of angel investors. Leaders of organizations with goals as diverse as cutting food waste, creating digital passports for products, and crowdfunding scientific research gave presentations. At the conclusion of the pitches, audience members were invited to cast their ballots for the five most compelling social entrepreneur presentations.

When all the votes were tallied, it was announced that Naveed Parvez of Andiamo, a medical equipment and orthotics service for children with disabilities and long-term conditions, was the winner by a large margin.

Approximately 500 people participated in the two-day event from all over the world. Noone expects change to happen overnight, but as the Emerge Conference continues to grow, the potential for this new field to expand is unquestionable, paving the way for social entrepreneurship to reach a world-wide audience.

The new model: introducing social entrepreneurship PHOTO/BeInspired

is the primary determining factor for investment. While it may be good for marketing departments to proclaim their company’s support for

School recently hosted its annual Emerge Conference on social entrepreneurship. According to Peter Tufano, Peter Moores Dean

Challenging the system from within at the Emerge Conference 2014 Ronja Lutz

Worcester College

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anli Prinsloo is standing on stage talking about her passion for water. And the funny thing is, I feel touched. That I would never have thought about setting up an NGO to promote ocean-awareness doesn’t matter. This isn’t my project, but it truly is hers. Hanli has found her dream and is trying to share it. I feel that here, at the Emerge Conference 2014, I am going to learn a lot about dreams.

When no talk or discussion is going on, a bustle of activity pervades the Said Business School. The people here seem driven, full of ideas. Inventive, but strangely pragmatic. They are clearly more entrepreneurs than activists. A rare species of problem-solvers. Who are these people?

Among them, there is Paul Gilding, the person who has done just about everything (advising Unilever and being CEO of Greenpeace International, to name just two). His leitmotiv: living a life on purpose. But this comes with not a hint of anti-corporate resentment. Too pragmatic to let things like ideology get in his way, he assesses the problem and then finds a way of solving it.

This seems to be the prevalent attitude in a session with social entrepreneurs sharing their venture experiences. Jackie Stenson, for instance, never wanted to

become an entrepreneur. As a trained engineer, she planned to go into product development. However, while travelling after her degree, she realised that most of the exciting and useful products she was dreaming of already existed. The problem: no one knew about them.

Now, she is co-founder of Essmart, a company that bridges the gap between life-improving technologies and the local market in South India.

“New topics require new answers. We also need inventive people at government level”

What is the most important thing to have in a social enterprise, then? All four panellists agree: it’s people. People who are just as motivated, as crazily enchanted by your mission as you are. It is also helpful to bear in mind that, after all is said and done, a social enterprise is still an enterprise. Jackie believes that her project – as opposed to so many others – succeeded mainly because of the years of research she had done to find a business model before she got started. “Finally, we found it – and we stuck to it.”

David Haskell, CEO of Dreams InDeed, adds that it was crucial to him to get started in the private sector to gain the skills necessary to ensure success in the social sector. It sounds like cherry-

picking: take the skills, but leave the competition at home. Make profit, but don’t work for the sake of profit.

The last piece of advice Jackie offers us?

“Ignore the advice!” A real do-it-yourself mentality.

Whether one aims to democratise science, decrease food waste or develop 3D-printed prostheses for children, everyone here aims high. Jesse Moore, having already connected more than 100,000 homes to solar power, still feels his enterprise is only “starting to walk”. Many others feel this frustration of scale, the sense of being just a drop in the ocean.

“We cannot rely on entrepreneurs to save the day,” says Maggie De Pree, cofounder of The League of Intrapreneurs.

She describes intrapreneurs as being like entrepreneurs that sneaked into a system to pull the levers from the right end. The League’s focus is finding those highly motivated people who often don’t realise their potential. Their hope: creating a network of people who can bring about change in big structures.

Julian Fricke is no stranger to the challenges faced by intrapreneurs: “When I went to join the German Federal Office after University, my friends thought I was crazy.” He has to admit, however, that it is not easy to be innovative in the public sector. “In foreign affairs, you cannot take risks easily. But then, in some parts of my work, I can try new stuff.” He stresses that although government structures have the image

PHOTO/Emerge 2014

of being rigid, it is even more important to approach them with a fresh mind – instead of seeking one’s fortune in the private sector. “New topics require new answers. We also need inventive people at the government level.”

At this point Inna Veleva, who

“What you do matters.

Not the institution”

is project manager at the BMW Foundation, intervenes: “But, you know, your project still has to fit into the enterprise!” This is a reminder that we

shouldn’t try fighting our way through big organisations that work completely against our beliefs. However, if there is a fruitful give and take, any company will probably be happy to have someone able to think for themselves.

While I don’t feel I could be an intrapreneur; facing encrusted corporate or public structures, I sense they have a point: once you manage to subtly alter the job description, you can start to affect change from within, overtaking the ones that tried to do it all on their own. I agree, like almost everyone in the lecture theatre, with Paul Gilding when he says: “What you do matters. Not the institution.”

Features 13

6th November 2014

Lidia Fanzo St John’s College

“I

s there anyone from Germany in the audience?” comedian Henning Wehn asked as he opened his set. After several minutes of incomprehensible German conversation whilst the rest of us sat dumbfounded and confused he abruptly stopped: “Oh, sorry, I’m just doing what you Brits do on holiday.” The theatre was filled with awkward laughter as we were forcefully reminded of our unfortunate reputation for butchering the language in almost every foreign country we visit. But Wehn does, in fact, raise a serious point. Why is it that the British have such a have such a hard time learning foreign languages?

Why is it that the British have such a hard time learning foreign languages?

One answer to this question probably dates all the way back to World War One when English became commonly used as the “lingua franca” – the language adopted as a common language by speakers of different native tongues – of Europe, if not of the whole world. Even today, there are more users of English as a first or second language than of any other language. It is therefore quite obvious why large numbers of native speakers don’t feel any great urgency to acquire another language. Professor Pamela Moores of Aston University explains that our

“Anglophone complacency is intact and deeply entrenched” and it just takes a trip across the channel to gain first-hand experience of this. Whilst on holiday this summer in southern France, I embarrassedlywatched young British friends asking a nonEnglish speaking ticket seller for “two adults”, despite the fact that they were almost certainly taught how to say “deux adultes” during GCSE French.

The statistics equally show that language study in England is also almost constantly in decline; yet again in 2013 they didn’t manage to make it into the Top 10 most studied GCSE subjects. Although whilst, more optimistically, slightly more students chose to take Spanish, fewer took both French and German, despite these being the languages spoken by two of our biggest trade partners.

What is even more worrying, however, is that fact that so few students decide to study languages post-16. Last year, just 1 in 10 of the students who studied GCSE French continued it through to A-level, with the overall A-level numbers for 2014 showing a huge 7.4 per cent reduction for French, 1.3 per cent for German and 0.7 per cent for Spanish. The reasoning for this perhaps includes the difficulty of obtaining A* grades and students consequent fear that they won’t meet university requirements if they opt to study a language. In 2013, 8.4 per cent of Physics, Chemistry and Biology grades achieved were at A*, while just 6.9 per cent of French, German and Spanish were. This raises the question; why study a subject that is going to reward you more harshly for your efforts?

Dr. Ben Bollig, fellow and tutor in Spanish at St. Catherine’s College,

Europe and the English language

PHOTO/ Bokur Sigurbjonsson

explains that one of the principle reasons why English students don’t feel inclined to study languages at school is as a result of a lack of language contact from an early age. He says that, in contrast to our more multilingual neighbours, primary school children are barely taught foreign languages. I had laughed at the futility of trying to teach Spanish-speaking three yearolds English vocabulary in Peru this summer, mostly by jumping up and down singing “Three little monkeys jumping on the bed…”, but it is clear from countries like Belgium where children are taught English from an equally young age that it is this early contact which really fosters a lifelong understanding of the importance of other languages.

The consequences of our monolingualism are numerous.

According to the Confederation of British Industry the UK is held back by a lack of language skills, which are clearly crucial to doing business abroad and act as a tax on UK trade.

“Anglophone complacency is intact and deeply entrenched”

In fact, James Foreman-Peck of Cardiff Business School has estimated that the language deficit in Britain costs the economy £48 billion each year.

According to the website ‘Languages Work’, which aims to encourage careers using languages, 74 per cent of employers are looking to employ

people with conversational language skills, and up to a quarter of firms may have lost business due to a lack of foreign language knowledge.

Customers addressed in their mother tongue are much more likely to do business with you, for as Nelson Mandela famously said “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” However, the advantages of knowing a foreign language aren’t all economic. Dr. Bollig explains that it opens up a whole other culture and enables us to talk to, read literature from, and understand an entirely different community.

So unless we want to carry on being the butt of a joke made by a nation infamous for having no sense of humour, it’s probably time we started learning some foreign languages.

The Oxford pub crawl, week 4: The Rose and Crown

Jack Lale & Hugh McHale-Maughan

Wadham College & Brasenose College

O

xford has some of the best and most interesting pubs in the country. This is what one must always remind oneself when in the city centre, surrounded by former independent pubs that have had to join a bigger family to survive or to diversify away from their humble origins. The overbearing prevalence of Greene King, Youngs and Wetherspoons is indeed something to lament, and their growth has done little to slow the pub closure rate (which currently stands at over 31per week). To the well-known and well trodden ground of the familiar Oxford ‘classic’ pubs, this must not seem to be such a threat. But beyond the ancient walls of The Turf or The Bear, finding a character-filled pub that is both non-commercial and under-appreciated is a difficult task. Luckily, The Rose and Crown is just such a place; a place which restores confidence in the future of independent pubs.

On first appearance The Rose and Crown scores highly. Situated in the centre of North Parade Avenue, this distinctively pink pub is well placed amongst other small but successful independent shops. On this street alone there is a highly recommended coffee shop, Brew, and a lovely small market that occurs here every other week, perfect company for a pub that retains a sense of being different from the rest.This sense is quickly confirmed on entrance to The Rose and Crown. Inside, the decor is eclectic and eccentric, interesting in a throwntogether way whilst ensuring no individual piece looks too out of place. The wood panelling and old bookshelf give the place a cosy feel to it, which is not too hard to generate when the general area is as small as it is. I would imagine that inside The Rose and Crown it would

be hard to fit more than 30 people before the atmosphere changed from busy to cramped.

However this is not a problem for the pub, because one of its key features is the attractive and secluded beer garden behind the smaller inside area. The outside is almost as eccentric as the inside, situated between two ancient sign-covered walls with an awning that is extended above as the evening draws on. The garden is also ideal for smokers who don’t want to have to feel like

they’ve been kicked into the middle of nowhere in order to indulge. The combination of the small but cosy inside, and the secluded and unique outside, means that the whole of The Rose and Crown has a refreshingly individual character, exactly the break from the commercialisation of pubs that I have been looking for. This pub has stayed true to its ways over the last 150 years, and the character it now has takes some beating in Oxford.

The range and quality of the beer however does not quite match that of the atmosphere. With three cask beers permanently on, and another on rotation, the quantity is good for the size of the pub, but it still cannot compete with the best in Oxford. Despite this, the pints we had were well kept, and there is an extensive range of malt whisky behind the bar. Beyond the ale, the bar was well stocked, with European bottled beers and a small but carefully considered cider range (including Westons on tap). The big problem comes with the price to pay for having such PHOTO/ Natalie Harney a character filled pub; the pints

are very expensive. At £3.90 for the Old Hooky, it is one of the most expensive pubs in Oxford to drink at. This is in seeming discrepancy to the food menu, which whilst offering generally uninspiring pub grub, does at least do so for a reasonable price.

Eclectic and eccentric, interesting in a thrown together way

These points do therefore take away from The Rose and Crown, which otherwise would be the sort of place that I would frequent all too regularly. It is a refreshing and intriguing place, one that any classic pub lover should go to, but with the understanding that it will cost them for its independence. Ultimately though, if this is the price to pay to avoid drinking in chain pubs, then so be it.

The Rose and Crown is located at 14 North Parade Avenue.

Sign up for MOVEMBER Oxford RAG is running the annual intercollegiate Movember fundraising competition and we need you! Just go to movember.com to register and search for your college team

←

 Here’s a Mo for those Mo Bros and Sistas who can’t grow their own!

OxStuff 15

6h November 2014

One to watch

There are many notable malefemale duos: Bonnie and Clyde, Richard and Judy, Jack Myers and Jessica Sinyor (affectionatlely known in the offices as 'The Jeditors'). Niall Docherty and Livi Dunlop are a dynamic pair, whose collaboration looks set to take the Oxford drama scene by storm. They've already worked together on a play as part of the New Writing festival last year, but this term they are co-directing the much-anticipated production of Orlando at the Keble O'Reilly in 6th week.

Between them they have an impressive list of credits. Niall has

performed in numerous plays and musicals, including Lord of the Flies, Parade, and most recently The Furies. Not one to be outdone, Livi began her directing career by establishing a Shakespeare company at her Sixth-form, and burst onto the Oxford scene with an ambitious adaptation of Milton's Comus for last year's Cuppers.

She's also acted in Surprise and the all-female As You Like It in Worcester's gardens. With credentials like these, Orlando promises to be an unmissable show, and one which will make the names of these two thesps.

PHOTO/The Mo' Sistas

Livi Dunlop, Exeter College Niall Docherty, Merton College

OxStuff

D

Cliterary Theory

uring the luxuriously long and lazy days of the summer vacation, I coined my first catchphrase: shit happens when boredom strikes. Wake up to an empty house, and an even emptier bank account? Max out your Santander overdraft. Find yourself sleepwalking through yet another disappointingly dull and uneventful evening?

Make a terrible decision. And when, eventually, I tired of my newfound shopping addiction and similarly illadvised shopping list of terrible decisions? Well, that’s when I embarked upon the antediluvian social experiment of ‘ex-sex’.

Before you jump to conclusions, I’m not talking about the painfully vanilla post-break-up ritual that we all know and love. I mean ‘ex-sex’ in its purest form: sleeping with a blast from the past with whom you haven’t spoken, much less seen, for more than two years. Think The Notebook, but minus the Hollywood lights, the rowing boats, and the happy ending.

Don’t get me wrong: 'ex-sex' is fun – and one of very few acts of momentary

regression that I would dare publicly to condone. For once, you may happily rest assured that – providing your slam piece hasn’t acquired any questionable habits from

undesirable rollick-monkeys in the interim – this casual encounter will be free from the common sexual faux­ pas that so often cloud the hard -to-

nail one-night stand. Adios, Mr Chip-and-Pin-Fingers! Ciao, Mr Awkward-Dirty-Talk! So long, Mr Socks-in-Bed! Moreover, lest we forget, buried somewhere amongst the worn-out boyfriend jumpers and archaic Facebook messages, still lies a tried-and-tested formula – a one-way express ticket to a first class orgasm for two.

But, alas, nothing gold can stay.

Even the physical satisfaction of a handful of unobjectionable rendezvous will be insufficient to mitigate the stomach-churning sensation of being vacuumed into a dizzying time warp. When the dazzling glare of Hollywood lights is replaced by the dim crimson glow of a cheap bedside lamp, the naked truth – that your ex is now more of a stranger to you than your latest post-Wahoo conquest – is plain to see.

The conclusion of this particular social experiment, which I so dutifully played out for your literary pleasure? Without doubt, ‘ex-sex’ is a necessary staple on any coitus bucket list. Like all the best sexual escapades - from Elizabeth Wurtzel’s infamous ‘accidental blowjob’ to Lindsay Lohan's leaked sex list - it makes for the perfect cocktail party anecdote if nothing else. But always remember it’s just casual – even if you’re a proud card-carrying member of the holier-than-thou group that doesn’t do casual sex. It’s a one-night stand, without the guilt. And, also, a perpetual reminder that shit really does happen when boredom strikes.

- Connie Lingus

Mo’ money, mo’ sistas, or so the saying goes.

It’s certainly proved true for these four Somerville students who have already raised £800 for men’s health. The team of four women, including OxStu’s own Harriet Fry, are beating the men at their own game and raising a ‘stache of money and awareness mo’ successfully than most, as their fundraising efforts currently make them the 57th highest raisers in the UK. Their fundraiser included stretch goals that took them from just wearing fake moustaches at hall to now all drawing 'taches on their faces every day after they reached the hair-raising mark of £750. But the moustache question is: Can they reach the big £1K?

The Mo' Sistas

+800

HackDaq -87

Bridge

Sometimes outsiders think that Oxford clubs must be the classiest nightlife spots in the country. How wrong they are. Reaching a new low this week, Bridge appears to be stepping into ableist territory with its “Midget Night Bridge”. Alongside cheap drinks, this offered the chance to club with two little people in superhero outfits. Because obviously that’s not at all dodgy. Is this a desperate bid to prevent the Thursday night favourite from going out of fashion? If so, it may be too late. Alternative places are gaining favour, (apparently Lola Lo’s is an actual place people go now. Horrifying, I know). If there’s any way to prevent Bridge from sinking into the abyss of forgotten clubs, we’re really not sure employing an incy-wincy Spiderman is it.

16 OxStuff

6th November Guild Champagne Social Camera

Music

6th November OUPS: Poetry Now T S Eliot Lecture Theatre

Social

Poetry

6th November OUO Michaelmas concert Sheldonian

Presidential Address

OxDigs Pascal Bose New College

Pascal Bose New College

Matt Rose Jewish Society President

PHOTO/Matt Rose

OxStuff Pick of the Week

6th November 2014

What’s the worst thing about J-Soc? Two Jews, three opinions, four opinions on how to run J-Soc. Wait, am I being slow? I don’t get it.

If there were two Jews in a room, they’d have three opinions about how to run J-Soc. Why would they have three opinions?

Because they’re all argumentative. It’s a Jew expression.

Wouldn’t there just be two opposing opinions then? I mean I’m not the expert I’m not Jewish.

Haha, no ok, so there are two Jews in a room, and between them are three opposing opinions about how to run J-Soc.

T

hink this looks like a double set? You could be forgiven. Mathematicians like Pascal obviously need space to think – possibly not seating that supercedes that of the Oxford Playhouse, with a double-whammy of coffee tables to boot, but, you know. Sometimes one sofa just isn’t enough.

It’s a thing, trust.

Along with two pieces of art on free loan from the JCR art store, Pascal boasts a bookshelf replete enormous cuddly toys – it’s difficult to decide if they’re cute or petrifying (or both).

Let’s move on. If you could be the president of a society not J-Soc, which would you pick?

“Haven’t you seen these before?” Pascal asks quizically when I point in their direction. “They’re squishables.”

[Brilliant.] “People in College have been exchanging them.”

What parallels would you draw between historical re-enactment society and J-Soc?

Presumably to counteract the cutsie image, the “squishables” are positioned in close proximity to the contrastingly sporty hockey stick, with dumbells lying sneakily beneath to make sure no one thinks that this mathematician’s physical exercise are invested solely in abusing large, pink, furby-like cratures with a hockey stick.

PHOTOS/Raphael Hogarth

Okay.

It’s not all fun and games above the rolling pastures of New College gardens, though. Out of one of what seems like a hundred windows is a view of the “Sqeaking Mound” – a New College landmark that looks something like an ancient Aztec monument plonked amidst the dreaming spires. “It’s a nice view, but people never stop clapping at it.” They’re not applauding its legendary beauty - the mound has a quirky architectural feature whereby, if you clap at it, it sqeaks at you. Can’t imagine anything worse. Other than, like, people coming home from Park End, which is what most of the rest of College listens to at two o’clock in the morning...

I mean I guess “two Jews in a room with two opposing but reasonable opinions” is actually just quite normal.

No but it’s like a joke, because there are three opinions because Jews all disagree with each other so much.

Historical re-enactment.

Dedicated membership. A strong emphasis on tradition, full of over-enthusiastic people who won’t stop talking about the battles of the past.

If J-Soc had a superpower, what would it be?

Turning people into BNoCs. As President, do you wield that superpower? Or undergo its transformation?

Personally, I wield.

So you would describe yourself as a wielder rather than a taker?

Aren’t we both?

Yeah thanks mate I’ll ask the questions.

Sassy.

I think we’re done here.

This made my essay late.

Good.

9th - 15th November Drama Cuppers Performances

Drama

11th November Scandinavian Society present: ‘The Sittning: A Night of Nordic Delight’

Drama

Societies

Clubbing

7th November Skylarkin’: LAID BLAK at Cellar

12th - 16th November Henry V on the Promenade Worcester College

See our What’s On Calendar on oxfordstudent. com for event listings

OxStuff 17

6th November 2014

What you were reading on oxfordstudent.com

PHOTO/Rosie Shennan

Rosie's Recipes Rosie's Recipes

1. OUSU VP for Welfare Chris Pike suspended Adam Dayan

Ultimate foodie Rosie Shennan shares some of her student-oriented recipes this term to help you battle freshers’ flu, 5th week blues and get in the Oxmas spirit. Follow her on Instagram @a_scone_atatime or her blog asconeatatime.wordpress.com

Ingredients

Can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained ½ clove of garlic 1 red pepper ½ red chilli pepper ½ lemon

Takes less than ten mins to make: perfect to whip up for a posh predrinks or fireworks

Peel the garlic and add to the chickpeas. Using a hand held blender or food processer, season and then whizz.

Add in the red pepper and chilli pepper.

Squeeze the lemon, add the juice and olive oil. Blend until smooth.

3. JCR President commits electoral malpractice Jack Myers 4. Review: Welcome to the Parish of CummerbundUpon-Tweed Olivia Lynch-Kelly 5. Review: Our Country’s Good Olivia Lynch-Kelly

Puzzles

2 tbsp olive oil

Red pepper hummus

2. Review: The Pillowman William Aslet

Easy

Difficult

Sport 18

6h November 2014

Luis Suarez: was his punishment from FIFA unjust?

Alexandra Vryzakis St Hilda’s College

T

his past week has been less than kind to Luis Suarez. His first game of football in four months ended with a disappointing defeat to his new club’s main rivals in La Liga. Add to that his conspicuous omission from this year’s Ballon d’Or nominations, and you would think that things can only get better for the divisive centreforward.

Ever since that fateful day at the World Cup, when the Uruguayan sunk his teeth into Giorgio Chiellini’s left shoulder, serious questions have been posed about punishment and rules in football.

Is it possible to measure punishment for biting an opponent in football matches? Apparently it is.

Should Suarez’s predilection for similar incidents contribute to the length of a ban? It seems it should.

Is biting really worse than breaking someone’s leg in a mis-timed tackle? From the public’s reaction, it appears it is.

Suarez himself has spoken out about the subject, “I know biting appals a lot of people, but it’s relatively harmless.”

And it’s hard to argue with him.

There have been many comparably unpleasant incidents over the years, not least Nigel De Jong’s ill-judged tackle on Xabi Alonso in the final of the 2010 World Cup, for which he was booked. In that instance the referee, Howard Webb, stated that he would have sent off De Jong had he seen the incident properly, but can a simple red card really be the corresponding punishment for the crime? Alonso’s rib was broken in the challenge, and it would be wrong to not think that unacceptable, regardless of allowances that

seem to be made on the football pitch.

People could argue that the act of biting requires intent and, to some extent, premeditation. Suarez definitely meant to bite Chiellini, just as he meant to bite Bakkal and Ivanovic. It’s more difficult to ascertain the intent in unfortunate tackles though; added to which, players who are consistently aggressive in their play are rewarded in the English game, instead of being admonished for their actions.

The mixed messages in football can lead to a lot of confusion.

Consider the punditry for BBC’s Match of the Day; while one pundit might applaud the ‘determination’ of a player to win the ball, another might have a problem with the very same tackle, and end up calling it dangerous play.

If the so-called experts are unable to agree, how can the average young fan understand the delicate nuances of the right and wrong ways to conduct one’s self on and off the football pitch? There appears to be a fundamental flaw within the rules of the game.

This blurring of the boundaries of the acceptable is unfortunate, as Suarez’s foolish actions received lengthier bans than the reckless legbreaking tackles we see time and again on our screens. FIFA came down hard on him, although Suarez was allowed to move to Barcelona during his ban, relieving Liverpool of their responsibilities.

He now not only plays for a team where the passing game is everything, and where he is less likely to become frustrated and misbehave, but also in a country which will suit him better culturally. Only time will tell whether he will be able to control himself in the future, but it would be a great pity if such a brilliant player weren’t able to display his talents on the world stage.

Varsity Athletics Round-Up Phillip Babcock St Stephen’s House

T

PHOTO/wikicommons.com

he greatest rivalry of university athletics in Britain, Oxford vs.

Cambridge, always proves to be an exciting, high-stakes challenge.

The Freshers Varsity Match between Oxford University Athletic Club (OUAC) and Cambridge University Athletic Club (CUAC) on Sunday November 2 at Iffley Field was no exception.

In the men’s competition, Cambridge edged Oxford with a 99-92 final composite result. The best performance was by Jacob Lange, Cambridge, hammer 47.83m (blue standard: 44.75m). Oxford women were also narrowly defeated by Cambridge, 92-98. The best performance in the women’s match was by Brigid Eades, Cambridge, 400m, who distinguished herself with a freshers varsity match record, 59.1s.

Oxford had many outstanding performances. Louis Rawlings won the 800m and then returned to the track 40 minutes later to win the 400m. Kate Davies also won numerous events including javelin and high jump. Melvyn Lubega proudly represented his team by winning the discus event against Cambridge.

In an exclusive report to OxStu, Adam McBraida, President of the OUAC commented, “The Freshers Varsity Match (FVM) is an excellent opportunity for new athletes to experience the Varsity spirit early on in the year so that they can focus on the main event in May. Although we narrowly lost both the men’s and women’s matches, there were lots of very promising performances. The greatest positive is that many of the notable performances from Oxford athletes were in areas that we’re looking to fill in both of the Blues squads.”

OxStu Sport Predicts: England vs the All Blacks T

PHOTO/Geoff Trotter

his weekend sees the start of rugby union’s Autumn International’s, with England kicking off their campaign against New Zealand at Twickenham on Sunday.

The All Blacks have been one of the most dominant teams in world sport over the last few years and are sure to go into next year’s world cup as overwhelming favourites. England come into the series on the back of a fairly solid Six Nations last spring and although they were whitewashed in their summer tour of New Zealand, there were many positives to be taken.

In an attempt to show off the OxStu sport’s team not so vast knowledge of rugby union, OxStu Sport Predicts turns to casting its crystal ball in the direction of south-west London this week in an attempt ro predict the score of England against The AllBlacks. Dan Smith (still fresh from his team’s derby defeat last weekend) joins smug City fan Emma Williams and OxStu’s Deputy Online Edtior Rupert Tottman in conjecturing the score.

Emma Williams - Sports Editor

Rupert Tottman - Deputy Online Ed

Dan Smith - Sports Editor

After the whitewash defeat of the summer internationals against the All Blacks, England had some serious work to do. They have to find a way to hold out for the win and to stop the seemingly invincible finishing power of the New Zealand team. However, the All Blacks have a win rate of 80% against England and are the current World Champions, so the odds are against us. Their power and technical ability is second to none, so England will have to get everything right on the day to take the victory. The England players have got that very recent experience of the summer internationals however, which could help them massively in this game. They know what they need to do to stop the All Blacks, and if they manage to pull that off, may have a chance of winning. I think it’ll be a close game over the 80 minutes. but unfortunately think New Zealand will just edge it in the end.

A raw and developing England side taking on an All Blacks rock solid in their position as the best team in world rugby, surely there’s only one result on the cards? Yes, New Zealand should win this but England will certainly be able to make them work just as hard as they did during their summer test series down under where they were desperately unlucky not to take a win against their illustrious opponents.

However this England team is a different beast to the ones that have performed meekly at international tournaments in recent years. Stuart Lancaster has installed a team spirit not seen since the heights of Woodward’s reign and with a squad now possessing genuinely world class players England’s future is bright indeed. This game will come too soon though, an All Blacks win, but expect it to be close

England have undoubtedly become a much stronger outfit under the stewardship of Stuart Lancaster but there is still a huge gulf in class between them and the All Blacks. The addition of Sonny Bill Williams to their ranks from rugby league has made an already imperious team, appear even more imperious. New Zealand go into the game on the back of a 74-6 thrashing of the USA and I really struggle to see how England can get anything from the test. With Joe Launchbury now out for the duration of the Autumn Internationals, the Red Rose have lost one of their most influential players and with numerous uncapped players named in Lancaster’s squad; the odds are certainly stacked against the home team. However, there are still players in the England squad who have the quality to hurt New Zealand.

Prediction: Eng 24-26 NZ

Prediction: Eng 26-30 NZ

Prediction: 10-20

Sport 19

6th November 2014

Football Cuppers returns with a shock in the first round David Buckley

University College

S

aturday of 2nd week saw the eagerly awaited return of JCR Football Cuppers, and fans were not left disappointed as a trio of shock results provided the drama in a goal-fuelled first round.

2013/14 Premier Division champions Teddy Hall looked in particularly ominous form, with a 2nd half hatrick from forward Jack Moran seeing them on their way to a 8-0 demolition of Christ Church. There were big wins too for Premier Division heavyweights New and Keble, each earning comfortable 6-1 victories over St Peter’s and St Hilda’s respectively. Early Premier Division pacesetters Worcester came through with a hard-earned 3-0 victory over a resilient Oriel, and last year’s finalists St Catz made light work of Corpus/ Linacre in a 4-0 win.

One of the ties of the round saw Jesus and St Hugh’s play out a cagey 1-1 draw, meaning the victor would be decided in the lottery of the penalty shootout. The shootout was as tense as the 90 minutes that had preceded it, but the teams were eventually separated as a missed Jesus penalty meant Oxford’s most forgot-

ten college edged through 4-3.

A Heilbron brace was enough to see Second Division Queen’s earn a memorable 2-1 scalp over First Division Lincoln. Queen’s were to be outdone by league rivals Pembroke however, with the latter romping to a 4-0 victory over First Division Brasenose. Two major upsets on the Saturday, but the best was still to come in the late Sunday kickoff.

Last year’s Cuppers champions Exeter had started the season well, with victory over Keble in their opening league game. There had even been boasts in a recent Cherwell article of a league and Cuppers double being on the cards, with the same article describing first round Cuppers opponents Univ as “permanent strugglers”, with the match sure to be a “comfortable victory” for Exeter.

Though bordering on the slanderous, these comments were not lacking substance. Going by the 2013/14 league tables, Univ were officially the second worst team in Oxford, and spectacularly crashed out of Cuppers at this stage last year in a 10-1 defeat to Teddy Hall. On paper, the match was a foregone conclusion: David v Goliath, Mansfield Town v Real Madrid, San Marino v England.

Univ thought differently. They had read the Cherwell, but they had not read the script.

After 60 minutes, Univ somehow

PHOTO/Univ Football Team

found themselves with a 4-1 lead, the pick of the goals an absolute worldy from fresher Dinneen who, having picked up the ball deep in his own half, waltzed past three of the Exeter midfield before firing into the far corner. Looking down and out, Exeter turned to Blues midfielder Ess-

man for inspiration. He duly obliged, hammering in from 20 yards and then cooly converting a penalty to make the score 4-3 with 4 minutes remaining on the clock. In the ascendancy, and with memories of their last gasp heroics in last year’s final spurring them on, an Exeter equaliser looked

Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge: the world of dodgeball Rob Snell

Balliol College

Y

ou’ve all seen the movie, you’ve all played it at primary school, so why not come down and take part in one of Oxford’s most relaxed sporting societies? With more potential than Raheem Sterling, more enjoyment than what law freshers experience during Trinity of first year, and more drama than an episode of Made in Chelsea, Oxford University Dodgeball Club is the perfect forum to let off some steam in a chilled out and friendly environment.

Only ever as intense as you make it, dodgeball combines an element of competition with the chance to pelt friends and foes alike with yellow rubber balls on the field of dreams that is Iffley Road sports hall. Games played range from a standard dodgeball format to some fairly wacky variations, and the rules are dead simple. There are two teams of six people and the aim of the game is to throw the ball at a member of the opposing team to get them out. You can also get people out by catching a ball that they’ve thrown, and this also allows a member of your team to come back in.

The game continues until every player on one side is out, leaving the other team with the victory and a hearty sense of achievement to

boot.

In contrast to Nigel Farage’s immigration policy, absolutely everyone is welcome, and it honestly doesn’t matter whether you’ve played so many times in P.E. that you consider yourself a seasoned pro, or if you’ve never picked up a dodgeball before.

There are also opportunities to play in university wide tournaments, with a special mention to the up-

coming tournament that’s being run in conjunction with RAG in order to raise money for Movember.

With membership at £10 per year, the equivalent of five Balliol Blues or half a sock from Jack Wills, this really is a Diafra Sakho style investment, rather than a Roberto Soldado. Alternatively, many members just opt to turn up on a week-toweek basis and pay £1 for the privilege. Maybe not quite as good a

use of a quid as a Jagerbomb from Warehouse, but it runs it a very close 2nd! The society also holds a variety of socials (last year we even watched the film) and it really is a great melting pot of various colleges, subjects and personalities.

Whether you’ve got an arm like Glenn McGrath or pride yourself on having the least amount of physical co-ordination possible, come and give dodgeball a try.

PHOTO/U.S. Air Force

imminent. They set up camp in the Univ box, seeking that precious goal that would would force extra time Alas, it did not come. Univ held on to secure the most famous 4-3 victory, surely the most shocking result in the 132-year history of Oxford football Cuppers.

OUAFC comeback

T

he Men’s Blues produced a second half comeback to beat Birmingham Uni 1sts in a fast-paced and hard-fought game at Iffley Road.

A slow-start from the Blues saw Birmingham generally on top although the Blues had some good opportunities from corners. However the Blues fell behind after a robust Michael Moneke tackle was deemed worthy of a penalty and a yellow card.

The penalty was duly dispatched by Birmingham and they took that 1-0 lead into halftime.

Some choice words at half-time for the Blues from Blues coach - and Oxford United Assistant Manager Mickey Lewis sparked Oxford into action. Within 90 seconds of the restart a brilliantly worked Oxford move found Ed Mole on the byline who pulled back for Peder Beck-Friis to calmly finish for 1-1.

A hugely impressive 20 minute spell at the start of the second half from the Blues saw them hit the bar before the hard-work and industry of Ed Mole paid off once more when he closed down the Birmingham keeper and his attempted clearance ricocheted off Mole into the net for 2-1 Oxford.

Towards the end of the second half the game became tempestuous and Alex Tsaptsinos and Mike Essman received yellow cards for the Blues.

But the Birmingham pressure failed to create many serious opportunities and the Blues managed to hang on for an important victory.

PHOTO/ OUNC

Sport

6th November 2014

OUNC unveiled: The captain’s view Emma Williams Oriel College

N

etball is one of the largest girls’ sports in the country, with many girls, and a few boys, getting involved at all different levels around the UK. It is also an extremely important sport at Oxford University, with one of the largest clubs here being OUNC. I got the chance to interview the captain, Liz Murray, to find out more about OUNC and what it’s like to captain such a great club.

What is OUNC all about? Why do we have a University team on top of all the individual college teams?

“OUNC is about having a high level of netball at a university level and creating as professional an environment as we can for the girls.

So trying to provide a really good training environment so that they can improve their skills as much as they can, and building a good team environment are key. It brings people together who all have a similar interest and creates a social network with a good group of people.”

Why did you decide to get involved in OUNC? “I have played netball since the age

of 10 and have always loved it; it’s a big deal in Australia. I found it was a really good way to meet people outside your normal circles, bringing people together from all different colleges, across all different subjects, across different age ranges, from freshers right up to third or fourth year grads.”

It is demanding playing for the club and requires a large time commitment. The added pressure of being captain and that extra responsibility must require another step up in itself.

How does it feel to be the Blues captain? How different is it to just playing for OUNC? “It’s more different than I had anticipated from when I first took on the role. You have to balance organising the sessions and making sure they run well as well as taking on responsibility for people’s skill development. There’s also the pastoral side and making sure everyone is okay. Having to do all of those things mean I cannot just sit back and relax and do the training like I used to. Now when I come to training I have to be switched on, prepared, arrive early to set up, stay on behind to talk to individuals, and just generally have a lot of extra responsibility. Between myself and the President if things do not go to plan, the buck will stop with us.

It’s a big responsibility and time commitment compared to just being in the squad.”

How high is the standard at the moment to make the squad?

“The standard this year is fairly similar to other years; it is definitely a step up from college, of which a big part is probably to do with coaching and the increased number of sessions we have. Where at college level you will have one session a week, we have four or five training sessions. One thing we have done to address that step up is to increase the number of teams to three instead of two.

It used to be really difficult with 80 to 90 girls trialling for two teams and we kept finding that there was a group of girls that were just missing out that were almost at the standard but we just didn’t have enough spaces to offer them one. Therefore, we brought in a third team last year as a development squad and it was for those people to train and to step up eventually into the Blues or the seconds (Roos).

The development squad, and indeed the third team or Emus as it’s called now, plays in the Oxfordshire Netball League. This third team has been formalised to make them feel a full part of the squad and that they are just as important as the other two teams.”

What’s the atmosphere like in OUNC? Is there a good social scene?

“It’s a really nice atmosphere; I think partly that happens organically but partly we make that happen as well. So this year we introduced a few new measures such as welfare’s OUNC family structure which go across squads and ages. There’s OUNC grandmas who have played for OUNC for a while, to OUNC mothers who have probably played for around a year before, to OUNC daughters who are new to the club.

That’s just one example of how we try to integrate all teams and discourage cliques and support the new players, especially freshers. The social scene is part of this with social things every Wednesday evening that are actively encouraged. Part of playing well is knowing each other well off court as well as on.”

Having played in past varsity matches, how do those occasions compare to other matches?

“Varsity is a really big deal, although I didn’t realise it until I played in one. I thought to myself it’s just a match, why does everyone build it up so much? But actually it is, which adds to the fun of it. We have dinner together the night before and have varsity buddies so that someone who has played in a varsity match before will be paired with someone who

hasn’t to support them through the lead up to the match. It can be little things like catching up for coffee or pidging them little treats just to make sure they’re ok. There’s also things like the varsity t-shirts, and with away varsity matches there’s the group journey with the whole squad.

This year it will include the third squad too, so it makes everyone a part of it.”

And finally, what do you think is behind the recent varsity success over Cambridge?

“We have convincingly won against them in the last two years that I’ve been involved in OUNC. I think a lot of it is to do with our club culture; Cambridge don’t seem to be as cohesive as a group as Oxford do.

When we go to court to play them, we feel invested in each other more and want to do the best for our team mates, and everyone brings it on the day. We also have a really great coach, Trish, who is such a great asset for OUNC. Our skills and matchplay and tactics have really improved under her. Having the third team also which Cambridge do not formally have means we can build up player development more so they can make the step up to the Blues and Roos and they know what training and playing at that level is like already. I think that will help us maintain our advantage going forward.”