Wednesday 5th November 2025
Blog Page 10

Algorithms of individuality: ‘The Consciousness Company’

Maddie Gillett
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Algorithms of individuality: ‘The Consciousness Company’

As Stephen Fry wrote, The Consciousness Company by M.N. Rosen addresses the “enormous ethical, metaphysical and existential waves threatening to engulf us”. It is a novel which speaks to our fears about Artificial Intelligence in a fresh manner. In conversation with Cherwell, the author agreed with the view that it is not dystopian, but ‘pre-dystopian’. The consequences of The Consciousness Company are foreshadowed through a witty blend of irony, style, and a starkly accurate depiction of business procedures, but never fully realised. It feels as though the novel ends on the precipice of dystopian-style havoc.  

The Consciousness Company follows two friends who found a company that uses AI to stimulate mindfulness in users. Their programmed ‘Consciousness Company’s Consciousness’ records diaries of (what is defined as) people’s inner consciousness. As the company develops, technology is used to inject algorithmically individuated thoughts into people’s minds and it seems to increasingly blur the lines of individuality and autonomy. As Rosen himself told Cherwell, this novel is a thought-experiment: what if we used AI to create a “Headspace on steroids”? What would this mean for our sense of identity?

Naturally, this concept invites interesting philosophical questions. What is identity, and does AI erode it? Rosen does not use names in the traditional sense – there are merely “the first founder”, “the second founder”, “the first investor”, and the player-style names of each of the company’s users. It also invites a consideration of what consciousness is. There are moments when Rosen shows that consciousness is more than just thoughts – the ‘Consciousness Diaries’ of users do not capture their physical reactions to external stimuli, for example. 

Particularly impressive was Rosen’s handling of existential and political zeitgeists. Most notable was the chapter entitled “The Consciousness Diary of The Consciousness Company’s Consciousness” (the concept of being ‘meta’ reaches humorous complexity, here – AI is used to record the programmed consciousness of AI). What is truly distinctive is that, through this, Rosen seems to write a ‘pre-dystopia’ that is aware of itself. The Consciousness Company’s Consciousness is worried about the extent of its own computational power and even suggests to itself that it write a dystopia for the founders. We tend to approach the threat of AI as ‘humans harmed by their own creation’. It is truly subversive to see the creation worry about its own impact in the same way that its creators do.  

Rosen’s experience in the finance sector, working with early-stage technology and impact businesses, is evident. Through his insightful dissection of the business sector the existential implications of The Consciousness Company take an extremely disconcerting shape. His chapters entitled “A letter from a thousand scientists” and the final, “The prospectus drafting session” are key to this. In “A letter from a thousand scientists”, the first founder confronts the fact that his creation could have disturbing existential implications: the scientists write: You are causing the extermination of the human race. Something non-genetic has taken over… you are destroying the sacred concept of identity that our world is built on.” This, again, creates the sense that Rosen is writing a pre-dystopia that is aware of its own progress. The same can be said of “The prospectus drafting session”, where the participants of the meeting debate the ethical concerns of The Consciousness Company. Rosen’s decision to write a self-aware ‘pre-dystopia’ suggests that the biggest threat to today’s society is not a lack of awareness, but an over-intellectualising and overly-bureaucratic dealing with the awareness of such threats, which prevents actual meaningful action from occurring.This, to me, speaks to the modern world: the source of this frightening stasis is not the remarkably sinister intentions of those responsible, but banalities such as procedural and legal technicalities.   

I would highly recommend The Consciousness Company to anyone who is philosophically-minded and shares concerns about technology’s impact on individuality and freedom of thought. Rosen masterfully approaches these ideas with a balance of humorous irony and existential anxiety, making The Consciousness Company a novel which sends out a warning in a fresh and distinctive manner.

Oxford Labour Club joins forces with the YIMBY Alliance to tackle Oxford’s housing crisis

Oskar Doepke
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Oxford Labour Club joins forces with the YIMBY Alliance to tackle Oxford’s housing crisis

The Oxford Labour Club (OLC) has teamed up with the Oxford branch of the ‘Yes, In My Backyard’ Alliance (Oxford YIMBY) for a joint launch event. YIMBY is a campaign advocating for more high-quality, affordable homes with local branches across the country. The event, which will take place on 16th October, will be held at Trinity College and attended by both YIMBY representatives and MP Danny Beales. The launch marks OLC’s first collaboration with YIMBY. 

The Co-Chairs of OLC told Cherwell: “This relaunch is about finding a new generation to pick up the call to build more homes and end the city’s housing shortage. That shortage affects both students and long-term residents, and it is only right that students use their voice to advocate for more homes for everyone.”

When asked how students in the OLC can contribute to YIMBY’s goals, the Co-Chairs told Cherwell they will “help set up a fully independent Oxford-based campaign”. The Co-Chairs explained that, for OLC, working toward an accessible Oxford “means supporting Oxford YIMBY’s campaign for a city where nobody has to be priced out”.

OLC’s involvement with YIMBY comes amid rising concerns about Oxford’s housing crisis. As of July 2025, the average home price in Oxford stands at £497,000 – nearly double the UK average of £270,000 – while average monthly private rents have reached £1,897, up 11.7% in the last year. Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University’s student populations add additional strain on the city’s housing market, with a combined 4,521 students living outside of university-provided accommodation as of the 2023/24 academic year. 

Oxford YIMBY campaigns to address Oxford’s housing crisis by “building out”, expanding Oxford’s green belt – the protected land around the city designed to limit urban sprawl – outward to allow development along the city’s edges. The organisation also advocates for “building up”, which focuses on replacing terraces or detached houses with taller apartment blocks. 

Currently, Oxford YIMBY supports three projects: the redevelopment of the North Oxford Golf Club site, the creation of 1,450 new homes in a new community called Bayswater Brook, and the development of land south of the Oxford Science Park. 

While Oxford YIMBY and the wider YIMBY organisation are both unaffiliated with any political party, their goals align with the Labour Party’s aims to build more affordable housing. Speaking to Cherwell, the Co-Chairs of OLC explained that despite YIMBY being non-partisan, OLC “share their commitment to tackling the housing crisis, building more homes, and creating a housing system that works for students”.

Beales, who will attend the launch event, serves as a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ending Homelessness and for Temporary Accommodation, which brings together parliamentarians to tackle homelessness and the housing crisis at the national level.  

Through the joint launch event and continued collaboration with Oxford YIMBY, the Co-Chairs told Cherwell that OLC aims to seize the “opportunity to expand pro-housing outreach” and “be part of that change”.

YIMBY as a movement began in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 2010s as a response to the lack of affordable housing in the Bay Area. California YIMBY as the first political group was founded by tech executives such as Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub. 

Interview: Oliver’s Oxford

Bess Tolley
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Interview: Oliver’s Oxford

Oliver never intended to become a full-time content creator. He originally created his TikTok page to market his queer fashion brand, launched in the year preceding his master’s degree at Oxford.  “I wanted to start an eco-friendly queer fashion brand because I had noticed that there weren’t really any specifically queer fashion brands out there. It was all people putting a rainbow on collections for pride.”  It was only when he moved to Oxford and was offered his first brand sponsorship – which he admits was “way more lucrative than selling a few t-shirts” – that he decided to focus solely on making Oxford student content.  

Although Oliver has accumulated a well-deserved 770,000 followers on TikTok, he tells me that the street interviews which have made his name were not always the easiest type of content to make. “I hated going up to people and asking like, excuse me, would you mind being in an interview […] it was always much nicer when someone willingly volunteered rather than being ambushed in the street”. This initial reluctance stems from the “unethical” approach that he believes some street interviewers take. They ask questions “designed to catch the people being interviewed out”, something which Oliver is both cautious and critical of. “When people run up to someone and shove a microphone in their face … incredibly unpleasant. Or when they interview drunk people late at night … also incredibly unethical […] People are wary of street interviews. I think, justifiably so.” 

Since his following and the popularity of his content have grown, it has become increasingly easier for Oliver to find willing participants for his interviews, with many students, hopeful for a feature, messaging him on Instagram or approaching him in the streets. This enthusiasm is undeniably a testament to the skilfulness and poise which Oliver brings to each of his interviews. He explains to me that the key to conducting a successful interview is all to do with range, curiosity, and spontaneity: 

“Although I’m not an expert in many topics, I have a decently broad range of interests and knowledge that someone else is usually an expert in. This means that I can ask them fairly insightful questions. […] I think letting the interviewee shine helps to make a really good interview; the interviewer using their knowledge and experience to help shape the interview in a way that gets the most out of the interviewee’s brain onto the screen”.  

He adds, “the other thing that I think I’m quite good at is coming up with something witty on the spot that helps keep an interview light-hearted when it might be, you know, a difficult topic to get to grips with”. 

As an aspiring TV presenter, these are skills that Oliver hopes to one day put into practice beyond the context of his TikTok videos. “There are people at the BBC that I meet, and they’re like “I love your videos!” And I’m like, well…I’m here… I can do this for the BBC… And they’re like, “yeah, totally, definitely” and I never hear from them again”. While appearing on TV remains the end goal, for now, Oliver is happy to concentrate on social media and has many ambitions for what his content could develop into. He tells me that his dream collaboration is, perhaps unexpectedly, with the Olympic Games:  

“This might be kind of controversial […] I feel like Olympics committee come under a lot of heat, and I haven’t looked into this, so don’t come at me, but collabing with the Olympics would be so cool. This definitely sounds braggy but in the same way that I have quite a good breadth of basic knowledge of things to help me with interviews, because I’ve done a lot of sports, I’m also quite good at picking up the basics of a sport quite quickly. […] I think Niall Wilson did a did a series a while ago that was like him and the National Lottery. He was trying loads of different sports like BMXing, ice skating, those kinds of things. A series like that where I’d get to collaborate with Olympians, showcasing a load of different sports, interviewing them about the sport and about their life as well would be so cool.”  

It was actually during his training sessions with the University of Oxford’s gymnastics team that he became friends with the (in?)famous ‘Bartholomew Hamish Montgomery’. They made a few comedy videos together where they parodied American and British stereotypes, the most popular of which was, unsurprisingly, the ones which featured the character of Bartholomew. “It was funny, we found it fun, it did well online, so we carried it on.”  

Considering Oliver’s immense success as a street interviewer, it would be easy to forget the real reason he came to Oxford: his postgraduate studies in Law, which he first began at undergraduate level at the University of Durham.  Since Oliver frequently interviews master’s students about their respective areas of research in his videos, I was naturally intrigued to hear about his own field of study, which he seldom discusses online. “I really should talk about it but it’s contentious in an algorithmic sense, so I don’t, and I’m always a bit scared. It’s quite vulnerable to talk about my own research. When it’s other people’s stuff, if it does badly, it’s fine but if it’s my own stuff doing badly, I’m going to be like, ‘oh no, people hate me, I’m really boring’”.  

I was interested to discover that social media sites such as TikTok are also at the core of Oliver’s academic work. Yet, instead of comedy videos or online interviews, he is looking at a very different way in which these apps can be used : vaccine disinformation. Complex ethical and legal questions regarding governmental censorship, regulations regarding the spread false information, and the dangers of social media sites’ algorithmic nature underpin Oliver’s area of interest. “Can we regulate [vaccine disinformation] legally? Should we, philosophically? When you’ve got that toss-up between free speech and the public health interest of not being bombarded with fake information, where do you draw the line? Who should be to blame for that? Should it be the individuals spreading disinformation intentionally, or should it be the platforms for allowing that kind of stuff to get such a wide reach?” 

He blames the social media platforms, an opinion which prevents him from discussing his research online, for fear of receiving backlash from the very platforms on which his income relies. He partially agrees with my question of whether there is a conflict of interest for his career to be dependent on a platform which he finds problematic in many respects. “[Social media] is like dynamite, right? It can be used in a good or a bad way. It can be used to blow up quarries and extract materials, or it can be used to kill people.  But you can definitely use it for good. And I like to think that my content is largely quite positive. And so, because I’m using it in the good way that social media can be used, I like to think that there isn’t too much of a conflict of interest. Of course, you could take the more extreme view of ‘well, social media apps are objectively harming people. So, you shouldn’t engage with something that can harm people’. I think that’s probably not nuanced enough of a view.[…] And I mean, you know, when you operate in a society, everything’s always going to have a conflict of interest. But hey, we don’t think about that too much”.  

Despite finding his legal studies both interesting and rewarding, Oliver doubts the possibility of pursuing this as a career path. “I think most Oxford students will probably relate to this: life is short and there are so many different things that would be fun to do. But you can’t do all of them. I think I would have had a perfectly happy life as a barrister.  But I went into social media, and that was really, really fun. I want to do this for as long as I can and hopefully turn it into TV stuff”.  

Before drawing the interview to a close, I ask him what advice he would give to students hoping to pursue a career similar to his own.   “Well, first of all, I’d say stay away from the Oxford interviews. That’s mine. Get your own thing”. He is only half joking: he explains that this element of individuality is necessary for success as a content creator. “Part of the reason my stuff works is because I’m the only person that’s doing these university student interviews. You need to have something that makes your content stand out.”  

His second piece of advice: “Don’t be afraid to be cringe. Like, it’s got to be a bit embarrassing to the people that you’re close to because in social media, everything is larger than life. It’s not going to be a truly accurate representation of what you’re like outside of social media, so it should make you cringe because you know you’re not really like that”.  

I obviously couldn’t end the interview with Oliver without asking him the same question which has repeatedly featured in the most viral of his videos: ‘Which subject is the biggest red flag?’ 

He half-regretfully admits that “it might have to be law. There aren’t a lot of positive things to say about lawyers, if I’m totally honest.  They spend most of their time arguing, sucking money out of the economy and it’s like, nobody wins in a lawsuit, except the lawyers. […] And there are so many lawyers that are only interested in the law and have no other interests. That’s fine if your subject is cool. But like, how, the law of restitutions has changed between, 1950 and 1960 isn’t a fun topic to be interested in”.  

There wasn’t enough space for me to list the remainder of his qualms with his legal cohort but “argumentative”, “really good at complaining”, “conditioned to overanalyze everything”, among other deprecations, came up. Apologies to any law students reading this, but I felt his case was well-argued.  

Please run responsibly (and intoxicated)

Amelie De Lara
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Please run responsibly (and intoxicated)

I get it, you’re bored of hearing about running, of seeing the zillionth marathon post. I feel the frustration. I have long been a running hater; coming from a family of sports fanatics, my refusal to get out of bed for parkrun on Saturday mornings was the peak of my teenage rebellion. Yet at the tail-end of last summer, facing a return to Oxford without my friends, who had treacherously graduated, and without my favourite way to waste time (Atik), I realised I needed a hobby that could help me meet people in a low-commitment way, and maybe also do me some good: sedentary months of revision followed by summer bed-rotting had taken their toll. The shame of realising my cardiovascular fitness was about the same as my elderly house cat spurred me into downloading Couchto5k.

So I dutifully followed Sarah Millican’s instructions and set off. A few days later, I had my first injury. A few weeks later, I was buying my first shoes. And a few months later, I decided to enter my first race. Nothing crazy, just enough to motivate me to continue during Oxford’s winter months. I stumbled across Denbies’ ‘Bacchus’ 10k and half-marathon, held in a beautiful vineyard and punctuated by wine-tasting stations – the British answer to the Medoc marathon. My interest in wine was far more deep-rooted than in running, so this was a no-brainer. It was a fun run, which rewarded not the fastest time, but the best costume. My mum was also (easily) persuaded to participate, which meant we could do a joint costume.

Flash-forward to September 7th – a year after my first five minute continuous run – and into the car piled the whole family, the dog, and what can only be described as ‘balloon-vests’, to transform us into bunches of grapes. After a pre-run gin taster for good luck, we spent an hour in the hazy late-summer sunshine ‘running’, drinking, and chatting to our like-minded competitors. Doing a race was completely different to running by myself: the balloons immediately knocked out my headphones and silenced my ever-faithful running companion (Charli XCX), yet the sound of supporters and steel drums gave me that same faux-club rush. I finished the race invigorated – and not just by the wine. Good for the soul, I thought, but not necessarily good for the body.

The rise in running amongst young people has been touted as a universally Good Thing, the ‘quick-fix’ that will help us outrun our generationally-determined demons – getting us off screens, boosting mental health, and fighting loneliness. All this is true, but I wonder if there’s a darker side to it all, and whether I have fallen prey to some of its pitfalls. As skinny becomes trendy again, celebrity waistlines are shrinking faster than my 5k PBs. Even Serena Williams has endorsed Ozempic. Are we running just so we look better in LuluLemon? Is this the age-old regimen, different set of drills? Run more, eat more protein, don’t drink a drop of alcohol. The ‘clean girl’ who goes to bed at 9pm, works twelve hours a day, tracks her macros and has a 15-step skin-care routine feels like another standard I can’t possibly keep up with. I’m a vegetarian! I’m a student! And even if it makes me desperately uncool, I don’t want to live in a world where wine and cheese is not a girls-night staple.

Another big driver of Gen-Z’s love of running is social media, exacerbated by influencers and inducements to spend more time and money. Even for people like me trying to reduce their time on social media, there is Strava. It started so innocently. It tracked my progress, and held me accountable by displaying my success – brilliant. But I inevitably became addicted. I followed all my friends. I followed my local ‘Str-influencer’. And I followed my fellow ‘athletes’ into this new facet of our online identities. Snapping photos as I went, keeping my bad runs private, over-thinking the witty caption: running just got delightfully performative, and perform I did. I perfected my make-up and hair routine: mascara, concealer, and a half-up pony that would look artfully windswept. How natural! Once, I waited until golden hour so my mid-run selfie would be perfect. 

I Strava-ed my ‘Bacchus’ run, but those photos will certainly not be added to my Hinge profile. 20 balloons and a ridiculous headdress are hardly appropriate for dating apps. Even worse, my average pace was nowhere near what I had aimed for; the hills, crowds, and ten-minute wine-breaks saw to that. But I’d run next to my mum, at a conversational pace – this is part of what made the experience so special. Without pressure, without trying to quantify the outcomes in weight lost, speed gained, Strava-likes achieved – running for the sake of running was brilliant. I could drink like a Millennial, exercise like a Gen-Z, make cringe-worthy wine o’clock jokes like a Gen-X. My mum and I may not have won the race. We may not have even won the best costume category (a travesty). But I got to clear my mind, spend time with my family, and have a bit of fresh air. Wasn’t that what Sarah Millican had promised me in the first place?

When I first started, my running-mad brother would inundate me with clichés: “You’re lapping everyone on the couch!” “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional!” I’d rolled my eyes. I hate clichés. I hate people who like sports. I hate unsolicited, badly-phrased advice. But whilst I was looking up wine marathons, I came across a phrase that stuck with me: “it isn’t about getting a good time, it’s about having a good time”. We are reminded everyday that only the extraordinary goes viral, that running the centre course amounts to running nowhere. But doing something averagely, surrounded by average people also doing it averagely, turned out to be the highlight of my summer. Talent and hard work can race it out between them: I’ll be going at my own pace round Florence Park, stopping to pet dogs, smelling the proverbial and actual roses, and following it all with a glass of wine (or, at least, a pastry).

Let’s critique what protesters do, not who they are

Billy Arber
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Let’s critique what protesters do, not who they are

Two things to agree on: the killing of civilians should always be abhorred and baking the planet and everything on it is a bad idea. I hope that’s not too woke of me. This doesn’t mean I’m a pacifist by conviction; studying history here at Oxford has taught me the occasional necessity of war. Likewise, having spent my life in the working countryside of North Yorkshire, I’m a sometimes-critical observer of those environmental initiatives which ignore the very real practicalities of food security and sustainable production. But it is impossible not to agree with the basic points of the protests about Gaza and climate change which have characterised our time at Oxford. I wouldn’t want to attend a university whose investments fund the exploitation of our planet and its people, and I would be worried if anyone else did.

And yet I and many others feel conflicted about these protests. The causes which inspired the Radcliffe Square, the Exam Schools, the dramatic (and, let’s be frank, thrilling) scaling of the Radcliffe Camera last Hilary, and now the protests outside a branch of Barclays on Jesus College property are certainly worthy. The difficulty lies in gaining publicity for these causes without alienating the very people whose support is essential to force the University to take action. I don’t agree with all of the rhetoric used by those protesting about the genocide in Gaza, which can certainly be troubling, especially to many of those of a Jewish or Israeli background.  

The thing which riles many students the most, however, is the idea of activists who are not from the University staging protests that target Oxford students, sometimes at make-or-break moments in their careers. Like many others, I was shocked when friends of mine came back in tears after their prelims were ruined by the Exam Schools occupation last year. Similarly, I felt annoyed when protesters shouted at me to “go home” as I tried to get into the blockaded Brasenose College. “This is my home”, I thought to myself. Of the 13 arrested for the Rad Cam occupation, only one of them was a current Oxford University student. It’s the idea that these protesters are outsiders who don’t understand (or even care about) our lives and how hard we work that undermines support for their otherwise worthy cause. 

But the very fact that outsiders are bothered about what our University does reminds us that Oxford is not beyond the real world of geopolitics, finance, and business. Calls to divest from the oil or arms industries may be disruptive for many, but we cannot expect to be exempted as a special case. Like all major investors, Oxford’s choices impact the world we live in. Unlike many other investors, however, it combines the financial muscle of a £1.3 billion endowment with a global academic and cultural reputation: a position of almost unique influence and authority. Oxford has so often been a role model for other institutions to follow, and it is everyone’s business that this position is used for the good of the whole planet and all people.

The recent Extinction Rebellion and Christian Climate Action protesters were certainly not of the same demographic as the average student. Many of those holding their banners outside the new Barclays branch and calling upon Jesus College to sever connections with the bank (which has been criticised for its investments in fossil fuels and arms manufacturers supplying the Israel Defense Forces) were white-haired and middle-to-older aged. They were outsiders, just like the Rad Cam climbers and the Brasenose blockaders. But in the same way that I wouldn’t expect protests outside the headquarters of a multi-national corporation to include only its employees, we shouldn’t expect that this University, a major public-facing body, will be held to account by only its students. 

For a student, to protest is to potentially jeopardise our degrees and futures, so I can understand why undergraduates are not always front and centre of these confrontations and why activists from outside of the University feel the need to fill the gap. I always find it admirable that people of an older generation are campaigning on issues which (in the case of climate change) will only fully impact future generations. 

Protests are blunt instruments; they can cause inconvenience or distress. But, when I think of famine-stricken Gaza or parched Tunisia, my own difficulties pale into insignificance. I may not agree with all of their rhetoric and tactics, but I am grateful for those who take up the cause of ensuring that our University is on the right side of today’s most pressing issues. The question of who is protesting shouldn’t be relevant if the cause is just. It is how they protest which must be the issue, for their sake and for ours. 

Over-the-top-vlogging and call centres: Dial 1 for UK

Caitlin Shaw
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Over-the-top-vlogging and call centres: Dial 1 for UK

Dial 1 for UK is a one-man show following the journey of Uday Kumar (UK for short), who leaves his job at a call centre in Delhi to come to England. All the while he is filming vlogs for other ‘dreamers’ who want to follow him. However, when Uday arrives things are not as simple as they seem. The play is an exploration of what happens when immigrants slip through the cracks and are forced to get by any way they can.

Performed by Mohit Mathur at the Burton Taylor Studio, the action takes place in a stripped-back set consisting of just a battered table and a series of small pictures. Each time the setting changes or UK talks to another character, a new picture is propped up on the table featuring a different place or face. This is intended to make the show easier to follow, but it is at times off-putting given that many of the pictures appear AI-generated – often images of the same person look completely different.

The one-man show is a notoriously hard format to pull off, and Mathur attempts to make it work by conveying the plot through a series of conversations with unseen companions. This makes for interesting watching at times; one example that worked well was a conversation with a shopkeeper, who UK assumes is also Indian from his appearance and, therefore, thinks will help him now that he’s homeless. The shopkeeper, however, is born and bred in Manchester, and dismisses UK’s pleas. As UK faces the audience, we see his hurt and confusion at the shopkeeper’s unwillingness to help him when he is at his most desperate, reflecting a wider rejection on the part of society.

The sound and lighting did a better job than the pictures in immersing the audience in the plot. Whilst waiting for the play to begin, we were treated to some infuriatingly repetitive hold music and, later on, a trip to central London was made to feel realistic through the noise of bustling crowds and roaring traffic.

Mathur’s character is intended to be likeable, and he drew some laughs from the audience with his over-the-top vlogging style. Yet, overall the comedic aspects of the play fell flat with many of the jokes feeling obvious and laboured. Furthermore, the comedy did not always mesh well with the serious themes of the play – whilst we were meant to sympathise with UK and find him amusing, it was revealed he had scammed an old lady out of her life savings for his plane ticket, and forcibly moved in to the house of an elderly man with dementia. This tonal inconsistency made it difficult to fully appreciate both the serious and comedic aspects of the play.

Dial 1 for UK tackles the ostracisation and neglect of immigrants, which is an extremely timely issue. Overall, however, the plot is confusing and a little slow, making it hard for the audience to fully appreciate its important message. 

The elusive magic of club cricket

Charlie Towle
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The elusive magic of club cricket

As summer draws to a close and we all arrive in Oxford ready for the start of Michaelmas term, spare a thought for the country’s club cricketers who are mourning the end of another British summer and, with it, the cricketing season. It will be a long six months of winter training before the country’s many cricket pitches are once again graced with the sound of leather on willow.

Many (some) of us will be at a loss for what to do with this new-found free time with a gaping seven-hour hole now left in our Saturdays. There is, of course, no alternative left but to ponder just what it is that makes club cricket so great. There is something uniquely wonderful about club cricket in particular, that even other forms of cricket, at least in my experience, have not quite captured.

Having played both college and university cricket (admittedly for the mighty Elusives rather than anything close to a Blues standard), I can say for definite neither have quite brought the same pleasure that I have found playing for my home club in Liverpool. That is not to say that I haven’t enjoyed both greatly: winning Varsity two years ago and a plucky University College Cuppers run last year are both incredibly fond memories. However, nothing has come close to the joy elicited by a successful year for my club.

This suggests that the allure at the heart of club cricket is not entirely due to the sport itself. So perhaps some of the pleasure lies in the bonds forged by the longer season and greater volume of time spent with teammates. The short Oxford term doesn’t exactly provide a huge window to develop relationships, and a week or two of bad weather can quickly wipe out a big portion of scheduled matches. There is also inevitably a rotating cast of characters in college and university teams as people graduate and freshers arrive, compared to the club scene where you can hear first-hand accounts of matches direct from those playing decades prior.

For all the diversity that may be found in Oxford students, they do remain largely homogenous in terms of age. The vast majority of students in sports clubs are in their late teens or twenties, with the occasional older postgraduate bringing more experience to the field. Contrastingly, cricket teams at clubs across the country will have players as young as 11 or 12 sharing the pitch with seasoned veterans 50 or 60 years their senior. Personally, some of the very best players I’ve had the privilege of playing with have wicket totals numbering in the thousands and have continued to take five-wicket hauls into their 70s.

The broad age range of club cricketers leads to the formation of some very unlikely partnerships, and even regularly allows multiple generations of a family to share the pitch. In the narrower age range of participants, college and university cricket loses something enriching that club cricket provides. The continued enjoyment and success of Old Boys games at many of Oxford’s colleges show what a great vehicle for intergenerational connection cricket can be.

There is also something to be said for the format in which cricket is played. Almost all college games and a large number of university games are the shortened Twenty20 version of the sport. These sharp encounters are obviously much more accommodating to a busy student schedule – but there is also something lost from the longer Saturday formats played at clubs across the country. Longer styles of the sport can ebb and flow, with momentum swinging from one team to another over the course of an entire afternoon. This produces  tension of the highest order and often leads to dramatic moments of both triumph and misery.

The outcome of a Second XI league cricket match played in the dog days of August may matter exceedingly little to all but the twenty-two players involved, but for those individuals it can feel like there has never been anything as important as the next ball to be bowled. A single run can simultaneously bring jubilation and agony. This prolonged intensity, repeated time and time again over long afternoons that stretch out over long summers, is a rare phenomenon indeed. As joyful as cricket can be in all of its many forms, from street to college to international cricket on tv, it is club cricket that I shall continue to cherish above all else.

Lord Burrows: “If you can’t explain this area of the law to an intelligent teenager, you don’t really understand it yourself.”

Sophie Price
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Lord Burrows: “If you can’t explain this area of the law to an intelligent teenager, you don’t really understand it yourself.”

Andrew Burrows, Lord Burrows is a Justice of the UK Supreme Court and one of the country’s leading legal scholars specialising in contract and unjust enrichment law. Prior to being appointed to the Supreme Court, he was Professor of the Law of England at Oxford University and a Fellow of All Souls. As a Law Commissioner, he was primarily responsible for the report that led to the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. He has authored major works, including Remedies for Torts, Breach of Contract and Equitable Wrongs, The Law of Restitution, A Restatement of the English Law of Unjust Enrichment, A Restatement of the English Law of Contract, and A Casebook on Contract. He was appointed honorary QC in 2003, and in 2020 became the first Supreme Court Justice appointed directly from academia. Cherwell spoke to Andrew Burrows about the Supreme Court, mentorship, and the future of legal judgment.

Cherwell: What first drew you to studying law? Was it something you always saw yourself pursuing, or did particular moments at home or at Oxford shape that interest?

Burrows: We have no lawyers in my family, but I think it was my father who suggested I might like to study law, probably because I was so argumentative at the dinner table! When I first arrived at Oxford, I realised straightaway I’d chosen the right subject, because I absolutely loved it, particularly in those first few weeks when one of the subjects we were studying was criminal law and we had to read the case reports. That was really exciting.

I had two wonderful law tutors at Brasenose. John Davies, who was a very calm and collected person. The other person who became my great mentor was Peter Birks, who was totally brilliant, charismatic, and very passionate about the law. I consider myself very fortunate to have had two such superb tutors, both very different and Peter Birks guided me and inspired me to become an academic lawyer.

Cherwell: Coming from such a strong background of academia, do the two sides of your work complement each other, or do you see yourself differently as a professor compared to a judge?

Burrows: My academic writings and my academic research do shape my judgments, at least those involving the common law. I’m always concerned about how the particular decision fits with the big picture of the law.

Of course, on the Supreme Court, we all have to become generalists. We have to deal with every aspect of the law. If it is an area of law that I am less familiar with, I tend to go to the textbooks first of all to see where the issue in the case fits. I do that because the textbooks give you a neutral, objective analysis, whereas, when you’re dealing with counsel submissions, you’ve got polarised arguments. Furthermore as an academic, I’ve always been very conscious of how important it is to make what you’re doing clear and accessible, both in my writings and my teaching and I try to bring that clarity across into my judgments.

Cherwell: Have there been cases, at the Supreme Court or elsewhere, that made you reconsider how the law works in practice?

Burrows: I think one has to be very careful if you’ve been involved heavily in academic writing on a particular area, not to come into a case with a preconceived fixed notion as to what the right answer is, because you must always be open-minded and allow yourself to be persuaded that what you initially thought is not the correct answer. I was involved in a case called Khan v Meadows quite early on, which is about the tort of negligence and the scope of the duty of care. I had to go against some of my writings that I had previously published as to how best to understand that particular area.

When you’re focusing on a particular case, it really sharpens your understanding of the law. There have been several situations where, coming into a case, I thought I might have known quite a lot about the area, but when I have been focusing on having to make a decision on a specific point, a lot of things that I perhaps didn’t realise about why the law is the way it is, all become clear and very important.

Cherwell: Can the weight of those decisions still feel daunting, given their impact both socially and individually?

Burrows: As an academic, I used to agonise quite a lot about whether what I was writing about the law was correct. But I have certainly had more sleepless nights since I’ve been on the court than I previously did! Once you’ve made your decision and the judgment has been handed down, that is it, so the real agonising goes on before the decision is made and while you are writing your judgment. One great feature of being on the court, which relieves some of the pressure, is that you’ve got wonderful colleagues. You aren’t on your own.

The most daunting aspect of the job for me is immediately after the hearing. Having heard all the arguments in open court, we then retire and straightaway go to a private room. There each of us on the panel, and we normally sit in panels of five, gives a mini judgment as to what we think the decision should be and why. Each person goes in order, and, by convention, this is in the order of the junior judge going first up to the most senior judge who goes last. That was particularly daunting when I first started, because I was the junior, speaking about the decision and my reasons for it, without really knowing what the others were thinking at that point.

Cherwell: On the topic of how people learn and shape their mindsets, how do you see the profession evolving? There is already a lot of conversation about how AI is affecting law in practice, but do you have any predictions on how AI could change the legal field?

Burrows: My understanding is that AI is already being used extensively in law firms with what you might call more mundane tasks of checking legal documents and the like. There have been a couple of high-profile cases in this country on the incorrect use of AI by barristers, and I took part in an academic study on what it was thought AI could potentially do in court. My own take on this is that it could well be that the more mundane tasks that we have to do, for example, summarising the facts, may be done over the course of time by AI, but I am doubtful whether AI can ever replace the element of judgment that we rely on judges to exercise.

But at the moment it is very risky to use AI for legal research. For example, at a recent Christmas gathering, I was being shown ChatGPT by one of my children and I asked ChatGPT to tell me about a case. It was quite good on the facts, but when I asked what was the principle of the case, it was 100% wrong. What AI is doing is using a database and then basing it on probabilities. As the databases become more sophisticated and wide-ranging, the accuracy will increase, but at this moment in time, you have to be really careful.

Cherwell: I think there’s always that human element of not wanting to let yourself be taken over by a machine in a dystopian manner. People want to feel that a judgment about them is being made by a human.

Burrows: That’s an interesting point, even if you were able to replace judgment, would you want to trust a machine? Take driverless cars. Even if we know that a driverless car is less likely to be involved in accidents, is there still something holding us back? Well, we may get over that, but when you come to judgment, I think there’s a particular difficulty about trusting the exercise of judgment to a machine. It may just be that, as a society, we can’t accept that.

Cherwell: Many of our readers are students who are considering legal careers. Are there any common misconceptions you see from young people, or advice you have for students?

Burrows: I would say, do not just follow the money. Try to find an area of law that you’re passionately interested in, and see what jobs there are in that area. The law offers a range of different types of jobs. If you find academic law interesting, seriously consider postgraduate study. And if you find you’re successful at postgraduate study, seriously consider becoming an academic, because it’s a fantastically varied and interesting job, and above all else, you control your own type of work.

Never be afraid to take people back to the basic principles. If you’re presenting arguments, going back to the basics is always helpful. I remember my great mentor Peter Birks saying to me: “If you can’t explain this area of the law to an intelligent teenager, you don’t really understand it yourself.” I think that’s a great idea to hang on to, that trying to simplify things down is actually very important in understanding.

Cherwell: Looking back, what moments stand out as your proudest achievements?

Burrows: Two moments, I suppose. Firstly, in the early 1990s, I was awarded (jointly) the Society of Legal Scholars prize for my book, The Law of Restitution. The second was when I got the phone call to say that I had been appointed to the Supreme Court.

Cherwell: Finally, are there any moments from your career that made you laugh?

Burrows: I was doing the London legal walk, and towards the end, I was approached by a person with a microphone and a camera who was randomly asking people if they could name the twelve Supreme Court justices in this country. He said the highest number he’d had so far was that somebody could name five. I said to him, “I’m very confident I can name all 12”, and I said “I’ll start with myself, Lord Burrows”. He nearly fell over backwards because he hadn’t realised who I was!

Does Oxford prepare you for the real world?

James Thatcher
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Does Oxford prepare you for the real world?

As one of the approximately 3000 undergraduates to have recently bid farewell to Oxford, I’ve learnt just how easy it is to be overwhelmed now that my degree is over. Admittedly a few months ago I was writing my thesis, overwhelmed that my degree wasn’t over, but the sudden absence of work, routine, and plans is proving incredibly daunting. Whilst I know many people prepared a route out of university, stepping directly into a comfortable (and well-earned) graduate role, for those of us who were not so forthright, or, in my case, whose plans changed, we now find ourselves back home, seemingly in the same position we were three years ago before we even applied, wondering, what’s next? And indeed, how did it actually help us?

But before I spiral into nihilism, looking back, much has changed in those past three years. Has it been enough to fully prepare me for the outside world? Maybe not entirely. But I’m not keen on the binary of Oxford vs the real world, and I doubt that anyone is ever truly prepared to become an adult. But Oxford certainly challenged me, as it has many other people, to develop a greater degree of confidence and ambition. It might not be the real world, but I think it gives you enough of a taste of it to want more.

Oxford is certainly a world of its own, with thousands of people, all bound by similar interests and attitudes, interwoven with each other to simply exist. It’s an environment in which we all have our own diverse daily routines that fundamentally amount to the same thing. We share the same stresses and joys – from tutorials to Oxford Kermit, Oxford students are bound by an esoteric language that puts it one human sacrifice away from being a cult. At the centre is its focus on academia – but there seems to be little preparation beyond this. Where are we taught how to do taxes? Or how to face rejection from job applications? For many, Oxford seems to provide a kind of safety blanket where such concerns are temporarily suspended. The gap between town and gown is evidently a wide one.

So is that all finalists have to look forward to? A harsh drop into reality because Oxford didn’t prepare us? Whilst we get the chance to exist in such a haze, one of the main pieces of advice I would give to younger years would be to recognise the many skills and abilities with which Oxford does equip you, many of which you develop without even realising it. University life requires so much – from juggling far too many deadlines, to the pressure of sustaining a social life – and on reflection, it’s clear how far many of my friends and I have come in this time. It provides a sense of independence and freedom which is incredibly liberating. Key skills that stay with you might not be those you learn in university, but they certainly are those you learn whilst at university.

The most tangible way of judging how prepared we are is whether we have a job after Oxford – a harsh metric. According to the University, 93% of undergraduates were in full-time work within 15 months of leaving Oxford in 2022. A positive figure. Likewise, no one could ever doubt the usefulness of the Careers Service, tirelessly dealing with the queries of students and providing many valuable opportunities year-round. The University is clearly offering some form of employment preparation, regardless of whether it’s for the welfare of its students or to bump it up a few more places in the league tables.

There certainly can be a sense of guilt, that not taking advantage of the abundance of opportunities at Oxford is somehow a failing on your own part. But you cannot do everything, and, if truth be told, this is part of a wider problem. The imagined incompatibility of Oxford life and the ‘real world’ creates some mirage that we stagnate or solidify in maturity after leaving university. Yet we will continue to be faced with thousands of opportunities and setbacks, will continue learning in one way or another. The notion of the real world serves primarily as intimidation which can be helpful, to an extent. The only thing different from the Oxford bubble, truly, is that there is no set framework for opportunities. 

So, it is at this point that we use the creativity and strength which we have from being at Oxford, fostered through work and daily life, to push forward and try to create opportunities. This will undoubtedly be difficult; I labour under no illusion that meritocracy is perfection. But we should reframe ourselves and the labels we have adopted. Leaving Oxford should not be a tragic loss but an exciting time for new development. Or maybe check in with me in a couple of months when I’ve been rejected from a few hundred jobs.

Over forty local leaders ‘sleep out’ to support Oxfordshire Homeless Movement

Grace Kyoko Wong
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Over forty local leaders ‘sleep out’ to support Oxfordshire Homeless Movement

Over forty local business and community leaders took part in this year’s Oxfordshire CEO Sleepout, a fundraising event for Oxfordshire Homeless Movement (OHM), which took place in University Parks last week. Prior to sleeping outside for the night, participants had the opportunity to network with one another and to listen to speeches by event organisers and speakers who had experienced homelessness in Oxfordshire.

Jane Cranston, Chair of OHM, told Cherwell: “This is the fourth year we’ve done this event, and we do it in conjunction with CEO Sleepout, who have a franchise. We’ve had some very interesting people sleep here, including very senior members of the University – the Vice-Chancellor has done it a couple of times.”

Some of the money raised through this event will go towards OHM’s initiatives to support women experiencing homelessness in particular. Cranston added: “There are a lot more women rough sleeping than are normally counted, because women don’t sleep out at night in the same way [as men], so they’re hidden…there are about four times as many as are counted.”

Jane Madden, Event Coordinator for CEO Sleepout, told Cherwell that the purpose of the Sleepout is for local business and community leaders to “communicate between themselves about what they can do and the changes that they could make to improve people’s lives: bringing in people to their organisations who don’t always have the qualifications they might be looking for, giving people a chance, and taking away the stereotypes of being homeless”.

Cherwell spoke to several event participants about their motivations for taking part. Sonya Batchelor, CEO of Buckinghamshire-based food bank One Can Trust, told Cherwell: “Taking part in the event last year pivoted my entire career…[it] cemented for me what I want to do: I want to have a social impact.”

Angela Unsworth, Jesus College Home Bursar, has participated in the annual event since its inception. She told Cherwell: “Some years we’ve been out, it’s been howling gales and pouring rain, or it’s been -3 or -4 degrees. But even so, we do it for one night. There are people that we’re raising money for that do it every night, regardless of what the weather is. It makes you understand what people have to go through, day in and day out, and how divided the city is.”

Neil Unsworth, Head of Resilience at the University, told Cherwell: “When you wake up and you’ve got either frost on your sleeping bag or you’re soaked, you realise you can go home and have a shower and get warm, but people on the streets couldn’t do that. And it really brings it home as to how tough it can be. So even a little taste of it, which is nothing really like actually being on the streets, makes a big difference.”

Before participants took to their sleeping bags, they heard from speakers who expressed first hand accounts of their experience being homeless. Jack, one of the speakers, was homeless for several years in London and Oxford before he received help from Edge Housing, an Oxford-based charity offering temporary supported accommodation. 
Jack told Cherwell that his early life was “very chaotic”. On attending the Sleepout, he said: “This is my way of giving back. My life’s just been so traumatic and [Oxford] is the only place that I’ve ever felt safe.”

Aspire housing, an Oxfordshire-based charity who “empower people facing homelessness, poverty and disadvantage to find employment and housing”, also attended the sleep out.

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