News

New scholarship created for Afghan women at Oxford

One scholarship will be awarded to a woman of Afghan descent to study at the University of Oxford each year in a new endowment from the Weidenfeld-Hoffman Trust.

Former L’Oreal CEO donates £30m for new Worcester College library

Worcester College has submitted a  planning application for a new £30 million library, funded entirely by a donation from alumnus and former CEO of L’Oréal Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones.

University style guide criticised by international students 

A style guide issued by the University of Oxford advises staff to use “plain English” to avoid confusing international students.

St Anne’s to close nursery called a ‘lifeline’ for women at Oxford

St Anne’s College will close its day nursery, ending an institution that was pivotal in supporting women students and academics at the University of Oxford.

The Mpemba effect

Mpemba was a secondary school student in Tanzania in 1963 who had the fortune of re-discovering some interesting physics during one of his cookery...

One long word for man, one giant leap for the Big Brother state

Telekommunikationsüberwachungsmaßnahmen. Now that’s a word to get your tongue around after a few. But that hasn’t stopped the Bavarian authorities from using it to...

Duties of youth

Ahh, the Swinging Sixties. An age of change. Music preached individual freedom, and a potent utopia, mingled with even more potent narcotics, fuelled the...

Animal Rights Protest Allowed to Continue During Sheldonian Ceremonies

A judge has denied Oxford University’s request for an exclusion zone to keep animal rights protesters away from the Sheldonian Theatre during graduation ceremonies.A...

Geoffrey Hopkins in concert: Beethoven piano sonatas

A programme consisting solely of Beethoven’s piano sonatas promised to be a challenging recital, but also a very rewarding experience for any pianist or...

Album Review: Cat Powers-‘The search for a black pen and other stories’

3/5An album of covers?  As Amstell would say, "it stinks of Ronson", but Cat Power’s new album is definitely a less indulgent piece.  With...

St. John’s football team & charity sponsorship

Impressive as Barcelona’s Champions’ League win in 2006 was, it was particularly honourable given their kit sponsorship deal with Unicef.  At the other end...

Coffee Concert, 20th January 2008: Jennifer Pike plays Ravel and Franck

One of the greatest young British violinists playing one of the greatest  romantic sonatas: this was the spectacle at the Holywell Music Room last ...

Video Preview: The Flu Season

Sarah Karacs goes behind the scenes at rehearsals in Keble. The Flu Season runs at the Burton Taylor in 3rd week, from 29 January...

Merkel stuffed by Frankfurters… and now the chips are down

In the last few days and weeks I’ve blogged about the threat to the ruling CDU in Germany posed by this Sunday’s regional election...

The review: Action Stations, Baby Love

5/5 And now, a break from our regularly scheduled programming; Lifestyle skips a meal in favour of a night on the town with DJs...

Cinecism

Mohsin Khan compares foreign arthouse to eating cornflakesForeign art-house cinéma: it makes you think of cultured ideas and high-brow creativity. The reality? Boredom, immaturity,...

Foreign art-house cinéma: it makes you think of cultured ideas and high-brow creativity

Foreign art-house cinéma: it makes you think of cultured ideas and high-brow creativity. The reality? Boredom, immaturity, wanton shock, and two minutes of cleverness...

Man in the Chair

4/525 January Ageism is not an easy subject for a filmmaker to tackle. Any film with an axe to grind runs the risk of...

Greater than its parts

Album review: Love Is All Mixed Up by Love Is All Modern Swedish music seems to be making quite a splash recently, with bands such as...

In the Valley of Elah

5/525 JanuaryThe clever approach of this thoughtful anti-war film lies in its choice of protagonist: Tommy Lee Jones plays a patriot, whose loss of...

Wanted: New Singer

 Album review: Beat Pyramid by These New Puritans Every song on this album follows the pattern of opening track, ‘Numerology’. An insistent drum-beat starts out, broken...

Life is like a box of chocolates…

Gareth Peters explores the allure of chocolate In Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one of my favourite children’s novels, most readers shriek with...

Burton’s Bloody Barber

Sweeney Todd3/525 JanuaryBetween the spurting blood, churning human flesh, and snapping necks, Tim Burton’s film of Stephen Sondheim’s musical retelling of Sweeney Todd, the...

The Flu Season

 2/529 JanuaryWill Eno’s The Flu Season sends out a very clear message: ‘This is drama! You need to switch your brain on.’ It’s a...

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