Lifestyle

The psyche behind a museum gift shop

Like most soon-to-be finalists, I spent the majority of my summer vacation after second year researching and preparing for my dissertation.

Acts of time, physical giving, and words of touch

Ask someone their love language, and they’ll probably have an answer. They might even pull out online test results.

Cooking for friends: An apology, served hot

“It’s probably a bit bland,” my friend said tentatively in the first week of living out of college, just after they had put down a delicious plate of fish and rice.

Beyond the Rad Cam: My quest to visit all 22 Bodleian Libraries

Between March 2025 and October 2026, I visited all 22 Bodleian libraries, from the reading rooms of central Oxford to the obscure medical libraries.

A social blend: the history of the Oxford coffeehouse

‘I have measured out my life in coffee spoons’ is a line which comes uncomfortably close to describing how I spend much of my...

Reality TV: harmless fun or mental health disaster?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t watch reality television. In fact, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love reality television. Growing up...

Confessions of an (un)qualified Au Pair

“Don’t you dare cry. Don’t let them see a chink in your armour,” I told myself. Commands, negotiations and bribes had failed miserably, simply falling on...

Eating disorders – the elephant in the room

TW/CW: Body Dysmorphia, Eating Disorders, Trauma This article contains explicit mentions of harmful behaviour.  Please consult the resources under the article if you or anyone you...

Cherpse! Daniel and Lindsay

Daniel, English, University, 2nd Year First impressions: Extremely awkward, for some reason we ended up messaging for ages with the audio on but cameras off, very...

Do It For the Gram: Dalgona Heartbreak

I’ve grammed my food exactly once in my nineteen years. In my defence, it was Thanksgiving, the food is really only in the lower...

In Defence of a Goddess: why I love Nigella

In the comedy Miranda, Penny, Miranda’s preposterous mother, laments that her daughter ‘hasn’t been blessed by the goddess of socialising.’ ‘There isn’t a goddess of socialising’,...

Nora Ephron, and Why You Should Never Regret the Potatoes

"I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them," says Nora Ephron in her thinly-veiled autobiographical novel, Heartburn,...

Oxford’s bike black markets and other vicious cycles

When you find yourself locked in a stranger’s car, alone, behind an MOT station 30 miles away from college, half an hour until your...

A man’s best friend

As a child, I developed a strange habit: whenever I wanted anything, I would make a PowerPoint. My younger self had a compulsion to...

Going for a run – a reality check

‘Running’, says American long-distance champion Kara Goucher, ‘allows me to set my mind free. Nothing seems impossible, nothing unattainable.’ Now, I’m not sure how she feels...

No more “Viva la Revolution”: Has our generation become boring?

Throughout history, students have been feared as the archenemy of social and political order: from Paris to Cairo, we’ve revolutionised cultural norms, broken laws,...

Lockdown dating: a guide

Your ex is messaging you, that one-night stand from Bridge is in your Insta DMs and you are struggling not to write an Oxlove...

A Perspective on Validation

The inability to feel validated is something many of us struggle with. We routinely identify certain parts of our lives that we are not...

Why food festivals matter

Every year on Shrove Tuesday, I put aside the time to make my family pancakes - despite the fact that my parents would much prefer...

Love, actually: dating in 2020

I can’t lie, when I heard the news that we’d probably all be holed up in our rooms for the next few months, without...

Cherpse! Trudy and Will

Will, St. Hilda’s, Physics 1st year First impressions?  Her fashionably late entrance left me worrying I had been stood up on a Zoom date - that would...

Letting loose: our relationship to “natural hair”

It’s been about three months since the start of what we now know to be a worldwide shutdown. Like many other students, I’ve been...

Tradition and transformations: reconnecting through food

What is your Christmas smell? Mine is cinnamon. At that time of year, it seems to spill off the table and into every bowl and dried...

Oxford, Reviewed

The Radcliffe Camera The pièce de résistance, the joire de vivre, the petit filous, the jewel in Oxford’s mighty, mighty crown. You’ve posted the shit...

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