Tuesday 1st July 2025
Blog Page 10

A strikingly egalitarian meal at Rhodes House 

Lara Murrani
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A strikingly egalitarian meal at Rhodes House 

When I arrived at Rhodes House, someone pointed gently to my shoes – off, please – and handed me a head covering. I was then quickly led into a very tall, very ornate hall, where the first thing that struck me wasn’t even the impressive architecture, but the rows of white sheets laid neatly across the floor.

Dozens of people sat cross-legged along them, listening quietly to a speech. As I hesitated by the doorway, someone leaned over, pointed to the mats, and whispered: “We all sit on the floor here.”

I paused. I had arrived with a backpack, a purse, a cap (which I could not wear under or over my headscarf), and was still holding my knee-high boots. 

Suddenly aware of how much I’d brought with me, I tried to shove them quickly and awkwardly into a corner. I was struck by how unwieldy my belongings had made me. All around me, the hall felt calm and very intentional, stripped of excess. There was no seating plan, no obvious hosts. Just a lot of people sitting down together. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a long row of tables with metal and plastic canisters piling on them, the contents of which I could already begin to guess. 

You see, this event was a Langar, the Sikh Society’s third annual one in Oxford. Langar, as I’d read when I skimmed the Wikipedia page beforehand, is a centuries-old tradition of serving free food to anyone, regardless of religion, caste, status, or background. While it began traditionally in Sikh gurdwaras, the principle at the heart of it is simple: No one gets turned away, and no one leaves hungry.

It was one thing to read about it and quite another to be sitting there, with the sound of the tabla, a set of small drums, and the dilruba, a long stringed instrument, ringing an entrancing rhythm through the room. Apparently, the name dilruba can be translated as ‘thief of the heart’. 

I wanted to understand more, not just about the logistics of putting on an event like this, but about what it meant. So, before the food was served, I managed to grab and sit down with Serene Singh, a Rhodes Scholar who helped bring the first Langar to Oxford three years ago.

She talked about experience. “Sometimes we forget,” she told me, “You don’t need to teach Sikhism through books and lectures. Come experience it for yourself. You will sit on the floor in equality.”

Serene also describes Langar as an “anti-segregation movement that was started 500 years ago”. She told me: “everyone sits on the floor completely egalitarian, and everyone is served the exact same, vegetarian, simple, nutritious meal. It doesn’t matter if you’re a professor, it doesn’t matter if you’re a lord, it doesn’t matter if you are the Queen. Everyone sits alongside one another”. 

This, I must attest, is something I did experience myself. At one point, when being served food, I found myself sitting next to a legal academic who had apparently that very morning had breakfast with the head tutor in my college. 

I couldn’t help but ask Serene about how she had found setting up an event like this in Oxford; however much we may love it, the University does have its fair share of hierarchies. From high tables at formals to scholars’ gowns, there are levels everywhere.

“Actually, I think Oxford students have craved this type of event,” she tells me. “We say eradicate the tables. Everyone sits on the floor. It’s all One Light. There is no difference. And so, the real radical act of Sikhism is non-discrimination completely.” 

I wasn’t the only one noticing the difference. Quite a few people I spoke to, whether attending their first Langar or returning for another, echoed what Serene had told me. Guests ranged from undergraduates to academics to staff, all with varying degrees of familiarity with Sikhism. 

Kim, a staff member at Rhodes House, told me that what struck her most was the openness: “I think one shouldn’t be afraid of walking through a gurdwara’s door. Tonight’s langar is open to all.”

Another guest, from a Sikh family, confided that: “I don’t think I felt as at home or like I belonged in Oxford as much as I do today.”

As much as everyone was telling me that the event was about the people in the room, it was hard to ignore the elephant in the room. After all, we were sitting in the imposing hall of Rhodes House, surrounded by ten-foot-tall paintings. A meal on the floor is one thing, but a meal on the floor of one of Oxford’s most formal National Heritage sites, known for its controversial past, is something a little different.

According to Fennella Porter, the Director of the Scholar Programme at Rhodes Trust, this event began as “most of their best events have,” from the scholars. In this case, Serene herself suggested the event three years ago. 

I couldn’t help but feel that there was perhaps a twinge of bitter irony in such an event being held in a building built in memory of Cecil Rhodes. “A building like Rhodes House is, sort of, originally built on hierarchical power,” said Gurkarishma Dhillon, incoming Graduate President of the Sikh Society. “But we have the power to change that. We have the power to promote unity as opposed to focusing on our differences. No place is ever stagnant.”

She gestured around the room: “People like me and you would probably not even be let into this building, right?”

“Who would’ve thought so long ago that we would all be sitting here? With the opportunity to share our faith, and share that love to others.”

Sitting there, at an event that had grown so large from the seed of one scholar’s idea, I couldn’t help but think: maybe this is what change at Oxford really looks like. Not big initiatives, not sweeping statements, just letting people in, and letting them share what matters to them. 

And yes, the food was excellent. And there was a lot of it. I spotted Serene helping pass out some rice on the fourth round of helpings, who waved at me cheerfully. 

Earlier on, I had asked Serene what she hoped people would carry with them after leaving this room. 

“We’ll see Oxford students become prime ministers and heads of states and scientists and lawyers and judges and journalists,” Serene said. “The one thing we ask of you at Langar is, can you also take these values of equality and oneness we teach here with you in those disciplines, and out into the world?”

CRUSH preview: ‘A chaotic scramble through the teenage years’

Eloise Sheffield
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CRUSH preview: ‘A chaotic scramble through the teenage years’

I sat down with Hannah Eggleton, Director & Writer of CRUSH, to talk power, performance, and the making of her debut full-length play, premiering at The North Wall.

Presented by WriteOff Productions, CRUSH is a sharp and tender coming-of-age play that examines the blurred boundaries between power and affection, teacher and student, performance and reality. It probes the messy, often uncomfortable truths about adolescence, desire, and authority with insight, wit, and emotional honesty. 

It also arrives with an impressive pedigree. The play grew out of Growing Pains, a one-woman monologue Hannah wrote for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 37 Plays initiative – a nationwide call-out for fresh voices in British theatre. Growing Pains was selected as one of the winning entries, and CRUSH marks Hannah’s full-length follow-up. 

With all the sharpness of youth and the clarity of hindsight, this debut asks difficult questions about power, consent, and the roles we play – on stage and in life. It’s a timely reminder that, even in a school play, the most powerful drama often unfolds behind the scenes. If you’ve ever had a teacher you adored, a best friend you idolised, or a version of yourself you’re still trying to outgrow, then you’ll feel right at home in the audience. 

Set in the emotionally charged microclimate of St Margaret’s School for Girls, CRUSH follows a group of teenagers as they prepare to stage a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in collaboration with a nearby boys’ school. What begins as a lively rehearsal process soon takes a darker turn, as protagonist Annie begins to notice something unsettling between her classmate Mary and their charismatic English teacher, Ms Evans. 

“There are parts of my school experience that snuck their way into CRUSH,” Hannah reflects. “The underground workings of an all-girls’ common room felt very familiar. I also took part in my fair share of joint school productions. Though none of us, to my knowledge, lost our virginity at the Harvest Day parade.” 

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream plays a central role in CRUSH – quite literally. “[A Midsummer Night’s] Dream has certain themes – passion, self-discovery, jealousy – that naturally chime with the world of CRUSH,” Hannah explains. “It’s also just a delightfully silly play: witty insults, bad actors, physical comedy, a donkey’s head… What’s not to love?”

“CRUSH celebrates a very specific age,” Hannah notes, “the age when you’re learning how to be a ‘good person,’ and the many, many ways in which you can get that wrong. It’s painful, but we all go through it. In that sense, I hope that CRUSH is a play that all ages can relate to. It’s a chaotic scramble through the teenage years, however long ago they might have been.”

The North Wall Arts Centre offers one student production annually the chance to stage their show in a professional theatre environment, complete with mentorship and support. The residency has a history of helping student productions flourish, with past participants going on to win awards, launch professional theatre companies, and succeed at major festivals like the Edinburgh Fringe. 

WriteOff Productions, the company bringing CRUSH to the stage, is working closely with The North Wall team to make the most of this opportunity, offering the audience a real-world theatre experience that stretches from creative development to production management. 

Ria Parry, Director of The North Wall, explains: “Through our ArtsLab programme for early-career artists, we’re delighted to be hosting WriteOff Productions. Hannah is a brilliantly talented new writer whose work was previously recognised by the RSC’s 37 Plays season. ArtsLab is all about giving young artists – whether they’re writers, directors, producers or designers – the space and support to understand how professional theatre really works. We’re thrilled to be welcoming audiences to CRUSH’s premiere.” 

Producer Carys Howell echoes this appreciation for the collaborative environment. “It’s such a unique opportunity to get a piece of new writing on its feet with a team of professionals supporting its creation,” Carys explains when asked what attracted the company to the residency. “You don’t often get that – and it means so many new writers and companies don’t get the support they should when they’re starting out.” 

According to Carys, this experience isn’t just about putting on a play – it’s about making WriteOff a creative space for students, actors and crew alike, who want to take their work beyond Oxford. “Having the North Wall team’s input throughout the process has really helped us look at things with a longer lens – they’re invested in the project being taken further, which is a massive vote of confidence both in Hannah’s writing and for a new production company! We’re keen to keep that energy for our future projects both within and outside of Oxford.” 

This residency offers emerging theatre artists an invaluable stepping stone into the industry, providing the kind of hands-on experience that can transform ambitions into careers, and it’s this blend of professional support and creative exploration which helps make CRUSH a standout moment in this year’s student theatre calendar. 

CRUSH premieres at The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford, from 5–7 June, as part of their 10-year partnership with University student theatre. 

Real-World Problem Solving: What No Textbook Can Teach You

External Contributor
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Real-World Problem Solving: What No Textbook Can Teach You

There is comfort in textbooks. They present problems in neat packages, offer tidy solutions, and promise mastery if you follow their logic. But the world outside the classroom resists this kind of order. In real life, problems are not clearly defined, solutions are not always obvious, and success often relies more on judgment than formulas. That’s where real-world problem solving begins, at the point where the instructions end.

In school, we learn to solve for x. We memorise historical dates, define biological processes, and draft essays with thesis statements and topic sentences. These are useful skills, but they only go so far. When you’re asked to lead a team through a stalled project, respond to a public crisis, or launch a new product in an unfamiliar market, the variables are messy and human. You can’t just turn to a chapter called “What to do when the client threatens to cancel the contract.” That’s when students and professionals alike find themselves searching online for tools that go beyond coursework – sometimes landing on an essay writing service in hopes of making sense of something far more complex than the academic model ever prepared them for.

Why Textbooks Aren’t Enough

Real-world problem solving requires a toolkit that’s built through experience: adaptability, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and communication. Consider the workplace conflict. It’s rarely about just one disagreement. Instead, it’s layered-personality clashes, misaligned goals, communication breakdowns, and perhaps even cultural differences. A textbook might suggest conflict resolution strategies, active listening, assertive communication, but applying those in a room with real people who have real emotions and real stakes is something else entirely.

Even the process of defining the problem is often overlooked in formal education. In real life, problems are rarely handed to you in clean language. You have to identify them yourself, often in ambiguous, high-pressure situations. A team misses a deadline, why? Was it poor planning, low morale, unclear goals, or something else? Getting to the heart of the problem requires asking hard questions, analyzing conflicting information, and sometimes challenging assumptions that others take for granted.

Facing Problems with No Instructions

Real-world solutions are constrained by more than just time and resources. They’re also shaped by politics, social dynamics, and competing interests. A decision that makes financial sense might alienate a key stakeholder. A move that boosts productivity might damage employee trust. In academic exercises, the “best” answer is usually objectively correct. In life, choices often come down to trade-offs, compromises, and risk management.

Collaboration plays a central role in this environment. While school teaches group projects, these are often more about logistics than true cooperation. In real-world problem solving, you must navigate diverse personalities, delegate effectively, and maintain alignment over time. You might need to build consensus among skeptical peers, motivate a disillusioned team, or explain a technical concept to a non-expert. None of this can be fully taught in a lecture hall. It comes through doing: trial, error, and adjustment.

The Role of Uncertainty and Risk

Another layer that textbooks can’t fully address is uncertainty. In the real world, information is often incomplete. Outcomes are unpredictable. You might make the best decision possible with the facts at hand-and still fail. Academic instruction doesn’t prepare you for failure that isn’t your fault, nor does it teach you how to keep going when there’s no clear reward. Resilience, the capacity to absorb setbacks and continue learning, is essential. It can’t be memorized. It must be lived.

Creativity also plays a larger role than most students expect. Textbooks tend to frame creativity within limits. But real-world problems often demand new ideas, not just new applications of old ones. Whether you’re designing a user experience or figuring out how to get clean water to a remote village, innovation is often a necessity. Problem solvers who thrive are those who connect ideas in innovative ways, not those who rely on memorized knowledge alone.

Developing the Right Mindset

Textbooks reward certainty, correctness, and following the rules. But the real world favors those who adapt to ambiguity, question conventional wisdom, and take calculated risks. The people who grow in difficult environments often treat failure as data and change as opportunity. This mindset can’t be downloaded or crammed before a test. It’s cultivated over time, often in uncomfortable situations.

This doesn’t mean that academic learning is irrelevant. Foundational knowledge matters. But real-world problem solving stretches beyond it. It builds on that base, asking us not only to apply information but to reshape it. We navigate uncertainty, manage competing demands, and act decisively even without perfect clarity.

In a world increasingly defined by complexity, this kind of thinking is more valuable than ever. Consider the pandemic: governments, businesses, and individuals had to make decisions quickly and with limited information. Some succeeded. Many didn’t. The difference often came down to how well people could interpret trends, communicate clearly, and adapt in real time.

The same applies to the climate crisis, technological disruption, and global shifts in labor. These are not textbook problems. They are evolving, unpredictable, and deeply human. They demand leaders who can think broadly, act responsibly, and stay flexible under pressure. They require people who see relationships others overlook and act without waiting for complete certainty.

Turning Experience into Expertise

So, how do we build this ability? By leaning into experiences outside the classroom. Take on projects that challenge your assumptions. Volunteer to lead, even if you don’t feel fully ready. Ask questions no one else is asking. Listen deeply to those who disagree with you. Reflect after every success and every failure. 

Surround yourself with people who push your thinking, not just those who affirm it. Seek out moments of discomfort and complexity; this is where the learning happens. Avoid reducing challenges to a list of steps. Most real problems won’t follow one.

Ultimately, real-world problem solving is not about having the right answer. It’s about asking better questions. It’s a skill that grows with every stretch outside your comfort zone. No textbook can give you that, but life can if you’re willing to learn.

Ellie Goulding to perform at UN and Uni-backed climate concert in Oxford

Laurence Cooke
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Ellie Goulding to perform at UN and Uni-backed climate concert in Oxford

Singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding will perform at Oxford’s New Theatre on Friday 6th June in a concert hosted by Oxford University and United Nations Human Rights. The event, ‘The Right Here Right Now Global Climate Concert’, aims to highlight the effect of climate breakdown on human rights worldwide. 

The show forms part of a series of exhibitions, lectures, performances, and workshops centred on environment issues. Events will run until the 8th June, and will be held in different locations around Oxford. 

Ellie Goulding, a multiple BRIT award winner who also has two GRAMMY Award nominations, became a UN Goodwill Ambassador in 2018. She is a longtime campaigner for environmental causes who addressed 85 heads of state at an Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in London. She also became a WWF ambassador in 2022. 

With songs like ‘Love Me Like You Do’ and ‘Outside’ receiving over 1 billion streams on Spotify, tickets come in at just under £60 each. 

Meanwhile, the wider series will be launched this Wednesday by Vice-Chancellor Irene Tracey at the Sheldonian. Guests will include COP26 president Alok Sharma and Volker Türk,  UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This will be followed by a hybrid event on Thursday, coinciding with World Environment Day.

In defence of the much-maligned offseason

Natalie Tan
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In defence of the much-maligned offseason

What will you watch? That’s always the complaint, the second the final whistle blows on the last game of the season and football loses all its appeal. This is not a show going on hiatus. This is a love letter to the summer offseason, unassuming, underrated. What will you watch? The undercurrents, obviously. The comings and goings. The silence of millions of pounds changing hands, dispensed to you only in emoji-laden Instagram captions, poorly-Photoshopped graphics, insider traders masquerading as journalists. Rodrygo to Arsenal. Wirtz to City. Sunderland til you die, or maybe just ‘til the Prem. 

The death of the offseason has been in many ways facilitated by the rise of social media, best illustrated in the Instagram carousel of the same player’s face superimposed on the kits of about five different clubs. There’s something unnerving about that third-order simulacrum, of how close we are to a landscape where you can never be sure what’s real and what’s not. Like it or not, you know news before you even hear it, before it even happens. It’s almost enough to ruin the summer. 

Almost. Almost, because despite it all, the dreamy haze of possibility persists. The romance of it. The chasm of hope. The dog days—or maybe not even that. Maybe this little window, when everything’s almost wrapped up, when the old’s not quite out, the breather before the new comes rolling in. All my life the sun has set at precisely the same time every day; I’m only now understanding how much more different a summer makes a season, how the days stretch like elastic and turn it to something almost eternal.

But I love it, and all the preseason tours it comes with. All of the bark and none of the bite. Football in places it shouldn’t be. A North London derby? Sure. In Hong Kong? Hey, hang on a minute. There’s something so quintessentially English about them that it’s strange to see them in Madrid and Milan, let alone Asia or America. Things like that expose the whole machine for what it really is: Beyonce fills stadiums, Messi fills arenas. It’s one thing to know it in your heart, to have it washed away by the brick-and-mortar of the stadium in the backyard of your city, another to have it laid out in the open like that: the athlete as touring artist, a laundry list of friendly opponents as special guests. 

A cynic calls it for what it is: a capitalist ploy to wring revenue from its international audiences, where people who can’t afford to see them play regularly will splash out on a once-in-a-lifetime chance to watch their team live. But I’m from Singapore and the last time Arsenal played here they still had Özil. You can be a cynic and still be sentimental, criticise it and still fall for the twinge of nostalgia in your heart anyway. That’s what being a lover is all about. 

And there’s something about these matches that makes them weightless. It’s precisely because they truly don’t matter that you can enjoy them with an uncomplicated eye, bend their results to fit into your agenda any which way. We’ve gotten a little too comfortable using that descriptor on games against relegation fodder: win, draw, or lose, those games still put points on the board. Tip over into June and suddenly anything played has absolutely no bearing on anything whatsoever; suddenly there’s room for interpretation. Lose a friendly against your sworn rival and it’s because you’re just not at full sharpness yet; win and it’s a portent of how your season shakes out. The league feels like it’s been won or lost before it even starts. The league feels like it can’t come soon enough.

It’s a fleeting thing, the offseason. Disappears into the sand with nothing to show for it. With seasons, at least, you’ve got records, consequences, trophies, goals. Meanwhile the summer gets shrunk down to signings and no one remembers what happened in those sun-soaked days, the space between a year and the next, the breathless expectation. Which is a pity, because sometimes you get real gems: in the beginning of August last year, Arsenal and Leverkusen met, managed by Mikel Arteta and Xabi Alonso, childhood friends who went on to have vastly different careers. Each saddled with a prodigal son: Kai Havertz, who’d risen to prominence at Leverkusen, and Granit Xhaka, who’d gone from Arsenal’s captain to disgrace to fan favourite in three years. Each with something to prove. Arsenal won that game four goals to one, and went on to finish the season in second place, but it was Leverkusen who took a leaf out of their book and went invincible for the first time in their league’s history. There are narratives that get buried by the relentless march of time; enjoy them while they last. They’ll be gone with the summer, gold and flowing, by the time fall rolls around.

Fencing Novices may be new, but they get the point

Thomas Yates
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Fencing Novices may be new, but they get the point

Varsity competitions might seem out of reach to many. Sportspeople who fill the ranks of Blues teams have often mastered their disciplines long before coming to Oxford, putting the new player at risk of feeling there is no way into the game. This is where novice competitions come in, providing an opportunity for those who have picked up the sport within the academic year to test themselves against the Tabs. For more niche sports like fencing, Novices is an excellent way to bring new players into the fold in a sport that could otherwise be challenging to break into. This year’s novice fencers took to the stage at Iffley on the 17th of May, putting up performances, the likes of which seasoned veterans would look on with pride.

The full-day affair began with the team competition, which took place in a relay style. An Oxford fencer faces off against a Cambridge opponent in a bout to five points, at which time both players swap out for a new pair of duellers, who compete until one side has (cumulatively) amassed ten points – and so on, with play advancing in multiples of five points, up to 45. Oxford reached the golden 45-point mark in all but the men’s foil, meaning there was a convincing victory for the Dark Blues overall, of 172-147 in their favour. This included an exceptionally tight Women’s foil matchup anchored by St Hugh’s College’s Lily Harris that finished 45-44, but there was clear daylight in women’s epee, where Cindy Yeung anchored Oxford in a 45-27 success.

Fencing resumed after a lunchbreak, but the pause in play did not disrupt Oxford’s dominance. This time, individuals faced each other in a straight knock-out mixed gender tournament. Sabre, absent from the team round, also made its appearance. Sabre fencing makes for fast-paced, aggressive action, as not just the tip of the sword but the whole blade can be used to score points. Proactive, offensive play is rewarded, and the flying lunges on display were a joy to behold, not least in the final, that was played in a hastily set-up new section of the hall as badminton players came to requisition most of the space. This was between Cambridge’s Matt Swales and Oxford mathematician Rico Chung. This matchup went down to the wire, ending 15-14 in Chung’s favour. Cambridge won by the same scoreline in foil, their representative squeaking past Balliol College’s Jaden Ruddock by the finest of margins. His exuberant celebrations in the aftermath showed that defeating Ruddock was no simple challenge. In foil, just the tip of the blade can be used to score points, and even then only on the torso and groin, making for fascinating tactical matchups.

Epee, too, only uses the tip for point-scoring, but the whole body of the opponent becomes a valid target. Both participants can score a point in the event of simultaneous strikes, making sudden counterattacks a key part of the game. Although his semi-final went down to a nerve-wracking tiebreaker, Hugh’s Jacob Humphrey came into his final having not gone behind in any previous knockout round. This all changed against an unorthodox Cambridge fighter who quickly gained momentum from a buoyant away support. The tables turned back in Oxford’s favour though, after a failed attempt at Humphrey’s feet. Having parried this successfully, a quick jab by Humphrey on the stomach put him 5-4 ahead, a lead that would grow to 15-10. Oxford’s total domination in individual and team epee is all the more impressive given that Cambridge have dedicated epee coaches of their own. In the end, however, it was only foil where Cambridge seemed able to match Oxford’s strength.

These results keep the good times rolling in what has been a standout year for fencing in Oxford. In March, Oxford’s Men’s Blues claimed a Varsity victory over Cambridge for the first time in six years, an achievement which has been recently nominated for Sporting Moment of the Year as part of Oxford University Sports Federation’s Sports Awards 2025.

It will be no surprise to see some of these successful novice names graduate to fight for seconds and Blues teams in years down the line.

No sight of a finish line for the cult followers of running

Agastya Rao
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No sight of a finish line for the cult followers of running

My first experience with running in Oxford came on a cold Michaelmas night last October. I was in the midst of my first ever essay crisis. At 11:30pm I put on my shoes and fled the cosy Regent’s library. Little did I know that this run would not only be incredibly eventful, but would also lead me to start running at ridiculous hours during term. 

I originally picked up running as a hobby during the pandemic. Cut off from school life and missing my fencing training, I began running three times a week, usually in the morning, purely as a way to exercise. It was almost the perfect pandemic sport – all you needed was a pair of running shoes and a place to run.. 

But the frenetic pace and excitement of Freshers’ week and the delightful workload of a law degree left me without the time or energy to run in the first week of Michaelmas. Which brings me to the midst of a rather fiddly constitutional law essay in week 2. I was frustrated and tired, and naturally decided to go for a run. Whether it was purely procrastination, muscle memory of happy endorphins, or quite literally me running away from my essay problem, my very first run in Oxford had a major impact on me. 

It was only as I stepped out of my college that it struck me that University Parks was probably shut, and I wasn’t really sure what to do. I ended up simply bolting down St Giles, past the kebab vans, all the way down to Iffley Road. This was fitting especially given the storied history of the track at Iffley, where Sir Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile.  The highlight of the night was when I ran into an incredibly drunk man named Jeff outside the Four Candles. Merry Jeff saw me running, and, being in very high spirits (pun fully intended), attempted to race me. Naturally, Jeff was in no state to run, but the fact that he attempted the impossible despite faltering steps gave me the confidence to shake off my writer’s block and finish my essay. 

In a fast-paced environment like Oxford, it is difficult to ever truly feel in control of what’s going on around you. Running puts you in a completely different world; one where you are almost totally in control of everything you do. The pace, the direction and even the playlist are all under your control. The first 15 minutes of a run are generally the worst part, the one where you question why you ever bothered to put yourself through this, but the second you get into a groove, you achieve a sense of quiet. It is this level of peace and control that sets running apart from most sports. The only person you’re truly competing with is yourself. 

Now maybe I’ve overromanticised what running it truly is. Maybe it really is just a ridiculous sport that leaves you sweaty, gifts you sprained ankles and shin splints. But there’s probably a reason why over 6000 people ran the Oxford Town and Gown 10K this year. It was not for a participation certificate, it was for the love of the game, the peace it brings them and the sense of community that binds runners together. More importantly, they ran for charity, and raised over £300,000 for Muscle Dystrophy UK. 

Whether you are a person who wakes up at 5am or someone who is willing to run past midnight, if you ever need your world to slow down just a little bit and find a sense of control in this chaotic world, running might just be what you need.

Diane Abbott criticises University disciplinary process for pro-Palestine sit-in

Ila Banerji and Gaspard Rouffin
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Diane Abbott criticises University disciplinary process for pro-Palestine sit-in

Diane Abbott, former Shadow Home Secretary, has written a statement of support to the University of Oxford for one of her constituents, who is currently involved in a disciplinary process following their participation in the occupation of Vice-Chancellor Irene Tracey’s office on 23rd May 2024. 

In the letter, exclusively viewed by Cherwell, Abbott said: “As a parliamentarian committed to the principles of justice, civil liberties, and the right to peaceful protest, I believe that submitting… students to formal sanctions for their involvement risks undermining the core values of freedom of expression and academic freedom that universities ought to uphold.” 

Abbott cited that the protest was “non-violent” and that the police “declined to pursue criminal charges”, arguing that these facts should be weighed before taking disciplinary measures that could “have long-lasting consequences on a young person’s future”. 

She went on to say that “it is neither fair nor reasonable for a university to treat principled protest on urgent moral and humanitarian issues as misconduct warranting punitive measures. To do so risks chilling the very civic engagement and moral leadership that we should be encouraging in the next generation.” 

Cherwell understands that the final hearings of the disciplinary proceedings will take place between the 10th and 16th of this month. Previously, students involved with these proceedings have told Cherwell that: “Continuing to have this weight hanging over [them] without a sort of acknowledgement of how it could affect [their] studies, [their] life, [their] health… is not proper conduct from them.” 
This comes after an open letter in response to former Hertford College Principal Tom Fletcher’s speech at the United Nations. The letter urged Fletcher to “call on Irene Tracey… to consider how future generations might judge her decision to prosecute students acting on their moral indignation about events in Gaza and to terminate the University’s proceedings against them.”

A letter calling for the University to drop the case against the Wellington Square student protestors has also surfaced and has been reposted by Oxford Against Genocide (OAG) on Instagram. It currently has 209 signatories, including Oxford students, faculty, staff, and alumni, as well as members of the local community and other academics.

The University was approached for comment but did not respond.

How to Prepare for Financial Curveballs 

External Contributor
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How to Prepare for Financial Curveballs 

Financial curveballs happen to almost everybody at some point in their life, whether it’s a sudden loss of employment or unforeseen car repairs. But there are ways you can prepare for these challenges in advance to reduce the impact they have on your life. So, here are just a few steps you can take to give yourself peace of mind when it comes to your financial future.  

Build an Emergency Fund

An emergency fund is a separate pot of money that you only use for emergencies. It’s designed to cover you should you face a financial crisis, so you should aim to have at least three months of expenses in it. You can use a tool such as this Sofi emergency fund calculator to help you work out how much you need to save. 

The amount may feel overwhelming, but you don’t need to have it saved up immediately. As long as you consistently add to it, no matter how little, you can build it up over time. 

Consider Insurance 

Whilst insurance does add to your monthly bills, it can be an important safety net. There are a variety of types, from health to home insurance, and each policy is different so it’s important to do your research so you get the right type of policy and the right level of coverage.

Diversify Your Income Streams

Relying on one source of income can leave you unprotected if it is disrupted. If you have the time, resources, and skills, consider setting up a side hustle or take on freelance work to give yourself a second source of income. Your side venture doesn’t have to bring in a considerable amount of money, just enough to ease your financial pressures. 

Avoid High-Interest Debt Where Possible 

High interest credit cards and loans can quickly become a financial burden, and they can make it more difficult to handle unexpected financial situations. It’s best to avoid these where possible, but if you do take out a credit card or loan with high interest, you should make paying it off one of your top priorities. 

Remain Informed 

The more financially literate you are, the better equipped you will be to deal with a financial curveball. Be sure to keep up with the latest financial news and stay on top of your personal finances so you always know what position you’re in. 

Be Prepared for the Worst

It’s important to prepare yourself for the worst case scenario, but hope for the best case scenario. By building an emergency fund, getting the right insurance, ensuring you have more than one income, avoiding high interest debts, and staying financially informed, you can have peace of mind and prepare for any financial curveballs you may face.

Telling stories about telling stories: Previewing ‘The Antipodes’

Emma Scanlon
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Telling stories about telling stories: Previewing ‘The Antipodes’

In a windowless room in an abstract part of Oriel, I sat in on a rehearsal for Annie Baker’s The Antipodes (2018), on at the Pilch this term. There was a large table with five of the cast huddled around, strewn with miscellaneous snack debris – crisp packets, an apple, a large popcorn multipack – as director Kilian King shouted instructions to “keep making more empty packets”. 

This debris is crucial to showing the passage of time, as Baker’s play spans a long, exhausting series of meetings where the characters attempt to come up with a good story for a somewhat unclear cause. Struggling to come up with ideas they all approve of, they tell different tales to each other in order to try and find some inspiration, all the while the stress and mania of being trapped in the discussion room mounts and fear and panic over their jobs, sanity, and the opinion of their imposing, venerated boss begins to set in. The characters all seem to be perpetually working, even sleeping in the office, so the first glimpses of the play I saw were the swift clearing of the table for morning scenes and the rescattering of the mess to indicate the passage of time to the evening, over and over, letting the days run into each other and time become immaterial. It was snappy, and detailed, and had a really brilliant effect (especially after the first couple of run-throughs) showing the careful attention being paid to the show’s specifics.

Setting the actors free to go on break (and film the mandatory marketing material), I got to talk vision with the directing team. Kilian told me that since the script itself was very precise, both in the sense of its stage directions and in its dialogue, a similar level of attention was needed in the staging and directing of the show. One of the assistant directors, Anna Stibbe, said she felt especially interested in the details, like small environmental objects or minor expressions, when thinking about how she wanted to stage the show. Kilian’s directorial vision was about “putting it on in the way that makes sense”, which to him, since the play isn’t especially famous or canonical, meant working with the text rather than attempting any great subversion. Certainly it’s been rather fashionable lately in Oxford to (sometimes drastically) reinterpret the work you’re staging – recall cameras at the Playhouse, Doran’s rather uninspired pseudo-feminist ending to Two Gentlemen of Verona, strobe lights and free shots in Julie, or Anna Karenina with pantomime comedy – sometimes done successfully, and sometimes risking coming over a bit ‘fur coat, no knickers’. Additionally, there has been comparatively little engagement with contemporary work (perhaps because the rights are cheaper for out of copyright shows with a special twist), making Kilian’s approach to The Antipodes feel genuinely refreshing. 

Having seen part of the show, I still think his summary of his directorial vision is quite a reductive description of the subtle and very deliberate direction of the cast – objectively, yes, the decisions make sense, but they also draw out the implications, humour, and depth of emotion of Baker’s prose. There is no random, left-field reimagining going on, but certainly an incredible amount was brought to the script both by its direction and the participation of the actors in character decisions and performance. 

Kilian also talked to me about the vision for the set, managed by set designer Leon Moorhouse with assistant Elle Jardine, describing the construction of a sort of room-within-a-room. Around the central board table, the ‘boardroom’ itself would also be constructed on the stage out of UV paracord in a box structure, to heighten the claustrophobic sense of the show. The most successful Pilch shows have always been the ones which engage with the space beyond just accepting its black walls, such as the impressive draped-fabric room effect of The Goat or the changing seat structures of Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and I’m excited to see how this voyeuristic set design will interact with the play’s concern of storytelling, watching, and being watched.

I asked Kilian a little about character, and he summoned over Cameron Maiklem, who plays the often-offstage yet ever-present Sandy, the group’s revered boss, seemingly at first to do a pretty good Trump impression. Cameron talked to me about Sandy, whom he described as a respected and successful but ‘fatigued’ man, which Kilian noted was something he hadn’t considered about Sandy himself until Cameron brought it to the performance. In my conversation with Cameron and across the rehearsal, the extent to which the actors were being encouraged to consider the interiority of their characters really came across. Though in theatre, every event from curtains up to curtains down has been considered, planned, and doesn’t change, the cast seemed to have an approach of genuinely working through why they would behave in a certain way, why they’d say something, or why they’d react, with a great emphasis on the interiority of their characters throughout and creating a naturalistic feel to the performances, which is necessary to ground such a disorienting narrative. As Kilian declared to the room: “You have to like your character! Find what you like about them!”; it felt that each had a strong identification with who they were becoming when the scenes began. This identification is especially well utilised in a show like The Antipodes, as much of the emotional tension rests on the slow divulging of increasingly personal stories and reactions to the rest of the room.

Something else notable about the rehearsal was actually the atmosphere – despite the often heavy content, the cast seemed more like a group of friends during the breaks, passionately debating about mermen and planning their own cast socials. While this is always a better environment for rehearsing, it also created a strong chemistry quite necessary for a production so dependent on the collaboration of the ensemble. Due to the story swapping and the shared hysteria in the show both relying on its ensemble nature, this collaboration is especially necessary in The Antipodes, and to me seemed especially well executed. I watched a scene towards the end of the show (so I’ll try not to spoil anything!) where, exasperated and tired, one of the writers, played by Sanaa Pasha, begins to spin a strange, monstrous Genesis-like narrative, gradually waking up the rest of the room and drawing them in as the story moves from bizarre to gruesome to gentle to tragic. Though it was an earlier run-through – Kilian preferred to run it and see how the cast respond to it themselves rather than being too prescriptive – it was clear the off-stage relationships had the cast responding much more naturally to each other on stage. The rising intensity of the story being told was stopped suddenly by characters bickering; the tension burst, and I realised I was sitting forward in my seat. 

The Antipodes, when I saw it, was still over a week from being staged, but already showed the promise of an unmissable night at the theatre. Amongst some trend of exaggeratedly shocking or obscene student theatre seemingly for its own sake, this production engages with the naturally unsettling tone of Baker’s sharp prose and its inherent strangeness. It is clearly being directed by a precise vision of the nightmarish tone of the show’s prose to create an almost magical-realist experience, and is brought to life by a cast with strong identities for their characters and stronger ensemble chemistry. The Pilch is known for its more experimental and unusual offerings, and I think The Antipodes is the termcard listing I’m looking forward to the most – well-made, new, and genuinely, properly, actually weird.

The Antipodes is on at the Michael Pilch Theatre, June 4-7th.

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