Oxford's oldest student newspaper

Independent since 1920

Headlines

Lord Hague: “Oxford made a huge difference to my own life. I believe in helping other people have the same transformative experience.”

https://youtu.be/emJnKTlaTMo Lord William Hague is certain that we are headed for a “decade of change” and is convinced that he is the person to steer the University of Oxford through it. He is keen to place Oxford at the centre of the next technological explosion, to continue growing access to the University, and has many thoughts on the financial situation of the UK higher education sector. In our conversation in the Oscar Wilde Room at his old college, Magdalen, he...

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Features

Students split on latest UCAS changes

Among a sample group of Year 12 students surveyed for Cherwell, 69% agreed with UCAS’ assessment, suggesting that this “roadmap” might indeed give students a clearer vision of the end product. 

The ‘cult’ that recruited Oxbridge students… including me

I was barely seventeen, thousands of dollars of crypto money in, and sat on the 2nd floor of a Berlin conference centre.

You can’t choose your (college) family

Required reading for new freshers and anxious parents - perhaps even the biological ones.

Has Oxford made us hate reading?

"Ever felt like you were suffocating under a pile of books, making the idea of picking up yet another feel utterly daunting?"

The Tradwife phenomenon: homesick for subservience

If you’ve been on TikTok at all recently (or Instagram Reels, if you’re that way inclined), you will have noticed a vast array of videos featuring picture-perfect American wives competing in beauty pageants weeks after giving birth, churning their own butter, donning 1950s house dresses, and advocating marital subservience....

General Election 2024: Cherwell’s Politics Hot Takes

Oxford is a notoriously strange place with a notoriously strange populace, one which includes Union hacks who desire nothing more than to rule the world, and scholarly types who get off on reading Schopenhauer deep into the night when most of their peers are… well, getting off, or something....

Profiles

Lord Peter Mandelson on New Labour, his time at Oxford, and why he is running to be University Chancellor

"Oxford is a global university, and I believe it needs a global Chancellor"

James O’Brien on Brexit, Boris Johnson, and making radio go viral

"Nigel Farage thought he was coming in to have his tummy tickled. I helped him soil himself."

Culture

Books you can’t sink your teeth into: A brief look into unsolvable manuscripts

If there’s one thing that most people appreciate, it’s a good mystery with a clever solution. It is no accident that Agatha Christie is listed as the Guinness World Records’ best-selling fiction writer of all time. A genuine mystery that disorientates, befuddles and demands unsatisfied obsession, however, is more...

Review: Will Heaven Fall on Us? A Béla Tarr Retrospective

Will Heaven Fall on Us? A Béla Tarr Retrospective, which aired in cinemas this summer, confirms the status of the Hungarian director as an auteur with a monumental vision.  Watching the five films of the retrospective, with a total run time of 981 minutes (16.4 hours), is not an easy...

Life

Oxford kebab vans: For the uninitiated

Oxford students have loyalty to two things: their college and their kebab vans.

Stockholm syndrome: Reversed 

Education folklore has it that for many years, students at MIT have scrawled the acronym ‘IHTFP’ (I hate this fucking place) around campus in an attempt to express disdain for their university. After two years at Oxford, I can now report that students here often experience similar feelings.

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