Friday 18th July 2025
Blog Page 1009

Review: OUDS Tour – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Matt Roberts
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Review: OUDS Tour – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The OUDS international tour describes itself as the “pinnacle of any student’s involvement with drama” – not without cause, as this tour which is associated with Thelma Holt kickstarted the careers of the likes of Rosamund Pike and Felicity Jones – both names writ large in the programme for this show.

This year’s production, manned to the brim by this generation’s would-be Pikes and Jones, is of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – directed by Will Felton. It was fitting on one of the warmest July evenings I can remember, to be ushered into the secluded idyll of Brasenose quad, to be drawn into the magic and the wonder of the Bard’s most outlandish romp through romance and dreams. The incessant bells of University Church, a police helicopter, and at one notable point, a pigeon, may have punctuated the evening but failed to spoil the magic of this production.

As is the form with any student Shakespeare production, this Dream was transposed from the lofty acropolis and heady groves of Classical Athens to the sooty lows of “1920s industrial Bradford”. I can only presume that director, costume designer, and production hairdresser all share in the same fervent love for the sharp lines and thick woollen suits of the BBC’s Peaky Blinders.

It is a shame that this exciting and fresh angle on the production did not extend particularly far beyond costume or hair – with the Mechanicals (particularly Tommy Siman’s Bottom and James Mooney’s Quince) and Demetrius (Calam Lynch) being the only actors capable of summoning up a half decent Brummy accent. So yet again we have a production playing lip service to an interesting theme or reimagining, but failing to meaningfully incorporate these ideas into the action, other than in purely aesthetic terms.

As excited as I was for a faithful reconstruction of the woes of Thomas Shelby in iambic pentameter, I can’t really fault this production for failing to double down on conceptual underpinnings – it made this a solid but relatively straightforward production of a MSND, rather than one that overreaches itself.

Four entangled lovers comprise the main body of the action – Hermia (Clemi Collett), Helena (Ellie Lowenthal), Lysander (Cassian Bilton) and Demetrius (Calam Lynch). It’s a little bit convoluted, but Demetrius betrothed to Hermia, Lysander and Helena are deeply in love, whilst Helena’s adoration for Demetrius is left unrequited. The powers that be in Athens have decided that Demetrius and Hermia must marry – leading Lysander and Hermia to elope from the city together, hotly pursued by a thwarted Demetrius and lovelorn Helena.

The lovers excelled when grating up against one another – the conflicts and losses occasionally showing genuine flares of frisson-inducing passion.

I didn’t quite follow all of the characterisation – Lynch’s brusque Brummy Demetrius felt very earnest, in stark and confusing juxtaposition with Bilton’s foppish and farcical Lysander; Lowenthal showed an impressive range, but a lack of continuity made Helena’s characterisation feel slightly disjointed over the course of the play, whilst Collett’s Hermia reached an intensity during her perceived betrayal which it struggled to reach elsewhere. These Athenian nobles collide with the magical world of the fairies – where a lover’s tiff between Oberon and Titania leads to a long and similarly convoluted series of hijinx.

The absolute stand out performer in this section was Ali Porteous as Puck – an unparalleled level of manic energy brought a sorely needed dynamism to several scenes. The Mechanicals (Bottom’s acting troupe) played out Pyramus and Thisbee at its most melodramatic, hectic and side-splittingly funny. The attention to detail in the characterisation of the players must be lauded – a toe-curlingly awkward Flute (Isaac Calvin) and a startlingly balletic Snout (Nils Behling).

Overall, when tight direction combined with strong characterisation, the drama hit brilliant and entertaining peaks; however, occasional drops in pace and rhythm of speech left some scenes feeling slack and overlong.

An idea that has increasingly gained traction in Oxford theatre of late is the concept of ‘physical theatre’ – try playing bingo with this phrase in the programmes, previews and marketing materials of various plays come Michaelmas. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that this production similarly incorporated some tried and tested techniques to express thematic overtures through the physicality of the actors. The Dream opened with an oddly mechanical dance – wherein the doting, scheming, valiant lovers of Athens contested one another on the field of love – the course of which, we are told, never did run smooth.

The jerkiness of the choreography here suggested some sense of predetermination – later compounded by the intervention of Puck, who repositions the dancers into a variety of compromising positions. This opening sequence plays powerfully upon the themes of free choice in love, and intervention (both social and magical), which stands between our heroes and happiness.

However, as with physicality elsewhere in the play, some really phenomenal ideas were undermined by a sloppiness that can only be a consequence of under-rehearsal – hopefully something that will improve over the course of the run.

The music was an outstanding aspect of this production – lunging haphazardly from “electroswing, to R&B, to Bosnian ska” in perfect alignment with the action of the play (although again, failing to live up to the promise of 1920s Bradford). The band primarily formed of Bottom’s acting troupe brought moments of high energy that picked up the pace amongst occasional lulls in a play that comfortably fills out its three hour running time.

When this production shone, it really shone – a subtlety of language and expression which is rare in student drama.

Oxford academics win award for Women in Science

Zachary Klamann
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Oxford academics win award for Women in Science

Two Oxford academics have won “Women in Science” Fellowships, awarded to some of the most promising and talented female scientists from around the world.

From among 400 applicants, mathematician Dr Maria Bruna and paleobiologist Dr Sam Giles were two of the five selected for the prestigious fellowships, sponsored by L’Oreal and UNESCO, worth £15,000 for any purpose related to their research.

Dr Bruna’s won the award for her work studying group behaviour. She creates models that predict how particles interact, which can then be scaled to understand how tumours form, how animal flocks interact or how people act collectively.

On the other hand, Dr Giles studies evolutionary history using 3D renderings of brains and the bones that protect them. This allows her to research evolution through novel and modern techniques, helping illuminate the history of vertebrates dating back millions of years with limited fossil remnants.

The timing of the award could not have been better for Dr Bruna. “It comes at an ideal time for me, as I’m on maternity leave for the birth of my first son, and I will use the Fellowship to kickstart my research on my return from that”, she said.

Like her fellow award winner, Dr Giles sees the fellowship as a way of pushing forward with her research, but now with a bit of added flexibility that may allow her to pay for years of childcare or travel to international conferences to present her findings and learn more from colleagues across the world.

The ways in which they intend to use the award points toward struggles which often afflict women in science: balancing career and family. Both of them have expressed hope that fellowships like this will help correct gender imbalances at the university and across the sciences in general.

“Awards like this one are very important to raise awareness of women in science and to help redress the gender imbalance in most sciences”, Dr Bruna said. “While we have a lot more women in the University now than 50 years ago, I feel that in some sense the culture in academia (with long hours, more administration, scarcity of jobs) is becoming harsher, especially for women and people with young families.”

This son of York won’t leave you discontented

Alec Fullerton
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This son of York won’t leave you discontented

Rupert Goold’s captivating production of Richard III at the Almeida theatre in Islington began with a directorial move that has become cliché enough to be used even on the stage of the O’Reilly or BT: the audience entered the theatre to find the action already underway.

On stage, actors reconstructed the now famous excavation that took place in Leicester in 2012, when Richard III’s strikingly misshapen spine, along with the rest of him, was discovered under a car park. Spookily enough, it was dug up right below a faintly painted letter ‘R.’ Given the mundane and ignoble nature of this resting place, it is hardly surprising that Shelley’s Ozymandias comes to mind.

This introduction helped create a buzz of anticipation and excitement amongst the packed audience and served to contextualise the play in light of this recent discovery. However, most importantly, this link draws attention to the relationship between the historical Richard, whose crooked bones are very much real, and the villainous character shrouding his memory, the Richard demonised for eternity in Thomas More’s historical biography.

Goold and the Almeida have gone from strength to strength in recent times – last year’s season ‘The Greeks’ receiving plaudits from all of the available pundits for restoring the Classics to their pride of place in the theatrical canon. It is no wonder, as the worthies of theatrical opinion fall over themselves to ululate in favour of this hauteur, that Goold can attract such ferocious star power as Ralph Fiennes to star as the eponymous scheming monarch.

Fiennes inevitably brings charisma and an enthralling stage presence to the character, although I found the most striking element of his performance to be the ease and control with which he reflects all the sides of Richard’s multifaceted character.

As the play begins with what must be one of Shakespeare’s best-known quotations, ‘Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York’, the hunchbacked Duke is depicted as the archetypal darkly comic villain. It must be said that during these comic moments Fiennes’ delivery and timing was spot on, demonstrating his absolute control over the audience and mastery of the role.

As the play progresses and Richard’s plotting thickens, we witness the exposure of a more sinister character, who remorselessly gives the order for his own two nephews to be murdered while they sleep by hired killers. Of course no successful bid for royal power would be complete without the typical duplicity of the falsely compassionate and loyal Richard, which is contrasted greatly by his furious rage and desire for revenge as, once King, his lords turn on him. The brilliant range of Fiennes’ ability reaches its final extremity just before the final battle scene, as Richard momentarily falters after being visited by the ghosts of his past victims.

It must be said too that Fiennes’ exceptionally nuanced and, at times, terrifying, performance as Richard was perfectly complemented by his fantastic costume. It consisted of a prosthetic hump under his shirt, giving him a Quasimodo-esque hunchback, which also revealed through his shirt a gnarled, crooked spine. At one moment he removes his single, right glove to reveal a fantastically grim withered hand. The production’s brave refusal to back away from some of the horrors of Richard’s physical existence plays on a much maligned theme in the original text – that his malice might have been a response to the ostracisation he suffered as a result of his deformity.

Of course, this play wasn’t just about Ralph Fiennes, although the audience’s reaction as he took his final bow really said it all, he was supported by a very talented, capable and energetic cast. Special mention must go to Vanessa Redgrave as the senile Queen Margaret.

Besides the world class acting, a huge part of what made this performance so special was the incredible atmosphere created in the Almedia.

First off, the stage had the almost semi-circular backdrop of a brick wall, shrouded mostly with a curtain of iron chains. An observant audience member will notice too how as Richard’s grisly kill-count rises, a new skull is placed somewhere on the back wall for each new death. Then, when the ghosts come to visit Richard, the night before the final battle, as each one approaches and curses his soul, their respective skull lights up – perhaps a little heavy handed, but it was genuinely chilling in its execution.

The eternal question for modern directors with Shakespeare is modern or traditional costume? There has been a fad lately for exceedingly dislocated and specific relocations – most egregiously, The Globe’s most recent production of The Taming of the Shrew, which was set during the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. In this case, Goold clearly couldn’t make his mind up, resulting in a surprisingly effective mishmash of modernity and tradition, which even the stuffiest of Shakespeare aficionados would struggle to criticise.

Given the framing of the play within the 2012 discovery of Richard’s body, it is therefore logical that the events depicted took place chronologically before that. Despite this, Goold opted for predominantly modern dress, including army uniforms and AK-47s.

This playful hesitancy between a definitively modern or period backdrop is used to great effect, for example, during the first scene, Richard asks Hastings ‘What news abroad?’, to which Hastings pulls an iPhone out of his pocket, scrolls through it for a moment and replies nonchalantly: ‘No news so bad abroad as this at home.’ The occasional use of this phone gag during the play was one of the comic highlights, a wry nod towards self-aware anachronism that managed to avoid being cripplingly smug.

However, for the final battle scene, all the combatants don very impressive suits of armour, which makes for a frankly jaw-dropping finale. As rain came down, the warriors battled with sword, pike and halberd until finally, inevitably, Richard is slain.

For inventive direction, a hugely atmospheric setting and above all, the incredible performance of Ralph Fiennes, this Richard III is an absolute must see this summer.

Baseball’s greatest voice

Xavier Greenwood
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Baseball’s greatest voice

The American Forces Network has transmitted radio and television entertainment to American servicemen and women since its inception in May 1942. A little over fifteen years after its foundation, the young graduate Dave Niehaus abandoned his inclination towards dentistry and joined the network to cover the Los Angeles Dodgers. For a time, he broadcast success, calling for the MLB’s New York Yankees and the NHL’s New York Rangers before handling the LA Rams of the NFL along with UCLA basketball. This was all to change in 1976 when he was approached by the Seattle Mariners, the MLB’s newest team, to become their play-by-play announcer.  He accepted the offer and said of his and the Mariners’ first game, “There was just incredible excitement. Anticipation. A new baby. Hopes. I was nervous. The fans were so happy. I’ll never forget that night as long as I live.”

The Mariners lost this game, 7-0 to the California Angels, and lost many more in what came to resemble a two decade off-season. They didn’t record their first winning season until 1991, when they held a record of 83-79, still only good enough to finish fifth in the seven-team American League West. Throughout this aeon of underachievement, Dave Niehaus’ announcing was indefatigable. He was the kind of storyteller who saw windmills as giants. When Ken Levine joined Niehaus’ broadcasting team in 1992, the latter was quick with wry assurances, “I figured it out, Kenny. For me to get to a .500 record [50% Seattle Mariner victories], the team would have to go 2042-0.”

Although Niehaus had helped cultivate a fanbase for the Seattle Mariners which packed out stadiums regardless of the result, this came under threat in the mid-90s: falling attendance, falling revenue, and a tendency to lose led to the possibility that the team would be sold and relocated to a different city. In September 1995, the residents of the county voted against a tax increase to fund the building of a replacement stadium, as a result of which the ownership group of the Mariners set a deadline of the end of October for local leadership to come up with a plan to finance a new stadium, or else the team would be sold and possibly transferred to another city. Teams lose and lose and lose, but are rarely ever lost.

Amid this period of financial and existential despair, however, something special began to happen on the field. After being as many as 13 games behind the first-place California Angels in mid-August, the Mariners embarked on a September winning streak marked by late-inning comebacks, which led to them being tied with the Angels for first place at the end of the regular season. Winning the tiebreaker game 9-1, they advanced for the very first time to the American League Division Series. Two games down in a best of five series, the Mariners won the next two at home and forced a decisive Game 5. This was the game which would save baseball in Seattle.

October 8th 1995: the Mariners are down 5-4 in the bottom of the 11th inning. They need one to tie and two to win. Joey Cora is at second, Ken Griffey Jr. at first. Edgar Martinez comes in to bat. He spends his off days listening to Latin American music. If he can score Cora and Griffey, he will take the Mariners to the American League Championship. McDowell pitches. No ball. Strike. A gravelly voice laden with cigarette smoke and whiskey cracks over King County transistors:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8SBJzOEcyU&w=560&h=315]

The cadence, accent and timbre, the excitement and the incredulity of Niehaus’ call cannot possibly be transcribed. Following the match and a drastic upswing in public support, the Washington State Legislature approved funding for what would eventually become Safeco Field, securing the Mariners’ future in Seattle.

Dave Niehaus was the one figure whose belief in the cause was interminable. And even now after his death, his voice seems to bounce off Mount Rainier, sweep across Elliott Bay, and slide down 1st Avenue South, in an unbroken basso echo which hits all four corners of the diamond and rises up towards the overcast sky: “‘If’ is the biggest small word in the English language”.

A cultural devolution

Adam Dumbleton
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A cultural devolution

The lengthy summer train delays to which we become so accustomed are doubtless a blessing to advertisers, as throngs of red-faced commuters are left stuck in train carriages for even longer than usual and become, in their helplessness, the proverbial captive audience. But with more time to stare apathetically at the information overload presented by the various advertisers, some may find themselves questioning what the posters are offering.

One such advert currently to be found on the network proudly announces the arrival of ‘Time Explorers’, an event comprising new ‘digital missions for children’, at Hampton Court Palace. The event is doubtless designed to make the prospect of a visit exciting to children.

But this invites a glaring question: when did we become a society where a Tudor palace needs to be made exciting?

The phenomenon is neither new nor unique; the poster, in this case, indicative of a wider trend. Across countless institutions of the cultural, historical, and artistic communities, things once considered objects of cultural or intellectual import, and correspondingly presented as such, are being dumbed down in what can only be described as a gradual acceptance and encouragement of intellectual decline.

The Natural History Museum, too — surely one of the great treasures of this country — now appears intent on replacing as much actual content as possible with interactive displays and computer games. The place is scarcely recognisable compared to its former self. One can only fear for the day the same minds take control of the British Museum. It has, perhaps, been spared this fate so far by its curators’ knowledge that res ipsa loquitur: the thing speaks for itself.

It’s hard to differentiate cause and effect: are such practices a response to the genuine needs of the majority of today’s public? Or, do they do nothing but perpetuate what was once a small problem of declining engagement from certain sections of society, which now, through attitudes intended to include people despite their apparent desire for ‘culture lite’, has become more widespread unnecessarily?

The aforementioned poster perhaps offers a clue. Does it really tell us that children find history boring, and that they need it to be made exciting and accessible? Really, it tells us nothing of the sort. Who can really say what children think of such things? What it reveals, instead, is a mere belief on the part of those responsible that this is what people want. They believe that there is an engagement problem, so they make history ‘cool’. And that’s the most dangerous thing.

Such misguided beliefs guarantee only one thing: perpetuating a problem which, actually, wasn’t a problem in the first place. If ‘culture lite’ becomes the norm, what will children possibly come to grow accustomed to other than ‘culture lite’? It seems, today, that no child could foster an interest in real dinosaur fossils and facts, rather than animated cartoon dinosaurs, even if they wanted to.

Increasingly, leaders in the fields of culture, arts and history abdicate the single most important responsibility of their positions: to preserve not only artefacts and knowledge, but to preserve a curiosity and an interest in those things in the people who will come to represent the future of those fields.

Charles Dickens’ absurd caricature in Hard Times of an authoritarian schoolteacher, Mr Gradgrind, famously insists on his students’ behalf that, “we want nothing but facts, sir; nothing but facts!” As much as the character is intended as an exercise in hyperbole, there is more truth in the presentation than Dickens seemed to intend. Children are curious. They want to learn. And, contrary to the apparent belief prevailing today, they are capable of learning about the world in unadulterated form.

The world needs to learn to recognise this. In doing so, we can — and must — halt the patronising descent towards the intellectual vacuity which current practices will surely end in.

Univ launches new programme to improve access

Marianna Spring
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Univ launches new programme to improve access

University College is launching a new programme to increase the number of UK students from disadvantaged backgrounds who attend the college.

The new scheme, called the Univ Opportunity Programme, involves committing extra undergraduate to students from less privileged backgrounds, as well as introducing a free summer bridging course.

The programme comes after Univ was revealed as the fourth worst performing Oxford colleges for state school acceptance in December, with 48.3 per cent of acceptances from the state sector.

As of this October, the college is to increase its undergraduate intake by 10 per cent with new places only available to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The applicants, however, will still be selected in the usual way according to the usual academic criteria.

The projects aims to ensure that “very deserving students of high potential who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, but who might otherwise miss out on a place at Oxford due to the sheer number of applications” have the chance to study at the university.

Students who are identified in the University’s contextual data system as having attended a low-performing school and as living in a place of relative socio-economic deprivation will be eligible for the new places. Those who have been in care for more than three months will also be eligible.

In addition to this, They must be predicted to achieve the standard conditional offer for the course to which they have applied.

Students from these backgrounds are currently under-represented in the Oxford student body and so should be a priority for widening access, according to the university.

Applicants will follow the usual process and all eligible applicants, including those who initially applied to another college but are pooled to Univ, will be considered across all subjects offered by the college.

Univ will also offer targeted academic support through a four week bridging programme the summer before prospective students start their degree, which aims to ease applicants’ transition from school to high-level university study.

The bridging programme will consist of subject-specific tuition, exploration of academic material, and the development of key academic skills to ensure students “hit the ground running” when they start in Michaelmas term.

The college will offer a £500 grant to each student who attends the course to ensure they can live in Oxford during the programme, as well as free accommodation and food.

Master of University College, Sir Ivor Crewe, commented, “We’ve developed a scheme which promotes widening participation and which works within the University’s current admissions process and competitive standards. It takes students who have already shown exceptional ability and potential, and then through an intensive bridging programme gives them that extra boost which other students already benefit from because of their school and family background. In offering new places, we’re not reducing anyone else’s chances of gaining a place at Univ – we’re creating a new opportunity for new students.”

Oxford University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, said, “I am delighted to welcome Univ’s creative new initiative to bring to Oxford more smart students from disadvantaged backgrounds and to provide them with an innovative bridging programme to help ensure that they thrive here.”

Oxford to establish comic research network

William Taylor
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Oxford to establish comic research network

In an attempt to combat the lack of research into comic books and graphic novels, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) will set up a new network of academics and artists named Comics and Graphic Novels: The Politics of Form. To foster discussion on the range of disciplines which comics and graphic novels concern, TORCH will alternate talks by researchers and comic creators themselves, starting in the Michaelmas Term.

One of the artists speaking in the network’s inaugural term, Karrie Franzman, told Cherwell  that “there are very few barriers for entry into comics- anyone can give it a go as long as they have pencil and paper. Comics are unique in their ability to combine words and pictures into ‘sequential art’. It is the art of drawing moments in time across physical space: comics are a very primal form of storytelling that go back to drawings on cave walls.”

Despite this longevity, comics have often been overlooked in academic research in favour of traditionally ‘higher’ art forms. However, research into the field has been on the rise recently as more journals provide opportunities for publication and increasing numbers of research networks allow cooperation between different disciplines.

Dominic Davis, a member of the research group told The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities that one of the reasons for this lack of attention is because “by their very nature, they don’t fit easily into the disciplinary structures that we have today… the tools needed to read them are interdisciplinary. So it’s really important that our network creates a space for conversations to take place across the traditional disciplinary divides.”

“We’re trying to bring literary critics into dialogue with visual cultures scholars,” he added. “Given that the comics and graphic novels we’ll be discussing in the seminars cover such a range of topics, we welcome historians, geographers, and politics students into the conversation as well”

The seminars will take place every two weeks and are open to everyone. For those interested, more information can be found by joining the network’s mailing list by emailing [email protected] and following further updates on the network’s blog. In advance of her upcoming talk, examples of Karrie Franzman´s work may be found here.

Nice attack: terror made at home, not abroad

Toby Williams
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Nice attack: terror made at home, not abroad

It took less than 24 hours for the Nice attack – which killed 84 innocents including ten children – to fall from the front pages. In that time the world’s gaze had shifted from the French Riviera to Turkey. Whilst this reflected the magnitude of the attempted coup, it also demonstrated how we are growing accustomed to such deadly terror in France. It is as though some are beginning to see these events as normal, something to be expected.

This becomes most apparent in the worrying predictability of people’s reactions to an attack: Statements of sympathy and solidarity will be made by leaders around the world, Francois Hollande will announce a continuation of the state of emergency and even the same hashtags (#JeSuisNice) will be used on social media. Our familiarity with how to react, more than anything else, shows how terror is becoming an evermore common part of life in France.

But how is it that such a state of affairs has been reached? Two years ago it would have been ludicrous to suggest that France would have suffered so many atrocities to such a degree. Many of its European neighbours and allies have managed to prevent any major attacks over the past decade so why can’t France? This isn’t because things have changed but because they haven’t.

This contrasts with the view of Marine Le Pen and the National Front that France’s newfound suffering comes from a reticence to change policy in failing to take firmer military action and curtail excessive levels of tolerance toward other cultures. Yet of all European countries, France is by far the most involved in the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria and the State of Emergency has permitted its security services far greater powers than ever before. Clearly then, the French don’t lack the conviction required to act through force. It is merely that this type of response is ineffective. The answer is not to be found by fighting fire with fire. As any American would testify after Iraq and Afghanistan, The War on Terror is not won on the basis of military might. Chest-beating will serve only to ferment, not prevent terror.

Regardless of the military dimension, the National Front may still point to France’s perceived over-tolerance of Islam as being the ultimate cause of the spike in attacks. Yet, given its controversial law on banning the Burqa in public spaces and the French state’s rigorous enforcement of laïcité, like prohibiting the wear of religious symbols in schools, it is difficult to say France is any more tolerant than other Western countries. Moreover, this imagined tolerance would surely make young French Muslims less, not more likely to attack their own country. Thus, it is the intolerance of France towards many of its immigrants and their cultures which has served to create a climate in which young men from Muslim countries can be easily radicalised.

Over nine per cent of the population in France are immigrants, with over 25 per cent coming from North Africa and former French colonies, known as les Maghrebins. In France, unlike Britain where there has been a policy of multiculturalism, there is an expectation that new arrivals will assimilate and adopt French culture. This serves only to raise tensions between les Francais de souche, a controversial expression which refers to people not only born in France but with several generations of native French ancestry, and les Maghrebins. Neither is this helped by the somewhat acrimonious process of French decolonisation in North Africa. All of these factors create a climate in which immigrants are treated as outsiders.

A fact seen physically in the poor, dilapidated housing estates found on the edge of French cities in which many immigrants are placed. Somewhere from which Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhel, the Nice attacker, came after he moved from Tunisia in 2005. Ghettoised in a city where 25 per cent of the population vote for the National Front, it is not difficult imagine the ease with which he became radicalised. The conditions were perfect.

Over the past two years, the vast majority of perpetrators of attacks in France have been young French Magrebs, often marginalised and feeling apart from their own society. This is in no way justification for their actions, but it does help to explain them. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhel was just one in a long line that will only grow unless the French Government changes policy and bridges the divides in French society. Instead of launching further attacks abroad, the French government should be reaching out to those at home. If France does not, this horrific cycle of terror can have no end in sight.

NUS to decide Jewish rep without input from Jewish students

Daniel Kodsi
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NUS to decide Jewish rep without input from Jewish students

The National Union of Students voted yesterday to approve an amendment which gives the Union of Jewish Students no say over who represents Jewish students on the NUS’s Anti-Racism Anti-Fascism (ARAF) committee.

The deciding vote in favour of the amendment was cast by NUS President Malia Bouattia, who has previously faced allegations of antisemitism for comments she has made concerning Zionism, such as referring to “Zionist-led media outlets” and calling the University of Birmingham a “Zionist outpost in British Higher Education”.

The amendment’s approval means that NUS’s National Executive Committee will have sole responsibility over who is chosen to to be the ARAF committee’s Jewish representative, although a NUS spokesperson said that “further consultation will take place over this year and the policy may change”.

UJS campaigns director Josh Nagil said in a statement, “NUS NEC once again showed its complete lack of commitment to Jewish students by voting for a motion that means that Jewish students will have no say in who represents them on the NUS Anti-Racism, Anti-Fascism (ARAF) committee.”

“This decision is undemocratic and excludes the 8,500 Jewish students that we represent. It was no surprise that the NUS President, Malia Bouattia, who had the deciding vote, once again showed that she has absolutely no interest in defending Jewish students’ interests by voting to remove the ability of Jewish students to shape for themselves the student movements’ fight against racism and fascism,” he added.

The vote will provide slight vindication to the ‘No Thanks NUS’ campaign, who last term pushed for Oxford to disaffiliate from the NUS over Bouattia’s election to president. The campaign ultimately failed in a June referendum, with more than 58 per cent of students voting to remain affiliated.

Louis McEvoy, President-elect of the Oxford Forum, told Cherwell, “Beyond the fact that it’s obviously disgusting and exclusionary towards the one minority the hard left isn’t too keen on ‘liberating’, what is particularly infuriating is that it shows that all the words Malia Bouattia and her ilk put forth months ago on listening to and understanding Jewish concerns were simply that: just words.

“The NUS has made it clear, yet again, that they have no interest in representing Jewish students. The ‘Yes to NUS’ campaign in Oxford repeatedly spoke of reforming the NUS from the inside. We have seen no evidence of this yet, and it would be nice to see those who were part of this campaign condemning this and to see them start putting their promises into practice.”

The Oxford Jewish Society have been contacted for comment.

Pokémon Go or Pokémon No? A debate

Cherwell Culture
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Pokémon Go or Pokémon No? A debate

“Pokemon Go represents the deep malaise at the heart of this society.” Discuss.*

For – Benn Sheridan

My co-editor argues that Pokémon Go is a revolution in gaming, a ‘transformative experience’ which gets those otherwise inclined outdoors, blinking, into the fresh light of day. I’d be inclined to disagree, not because I don’t realise that encouraging slobbish, pale-skinned gamer stereotypes into the outside world is a wonderful thing, but because I don’t believe this is the stereotype to whom Pokémon Go really appeals.

The main USP of the game is its simple combination of nostalgia and accessibility. It tugs at the heartstrings of overworked millenials whilst at the same time fitting neatly into their busy regime. In other words, it’s designed to appeal to those already out and about, and turn non-gamers into iPhone addicts. I think this is a fundamentally dangerous phenomenon. If you disagree, walk along a busy street around lunchtime and you’ll understand what I mean: when I was out, I estimated that at least one in every four people was catching ’em all. It’s quite sad really, aside from the fact that people get lost, or mugged, or attacked. Just the sight of a quarter of the population now not only using their phone, but being used by it – modifying journey routes, talk patterns and even productivity according to the closeness of the next gym.

In the US, it’s bigger than Tinder, and about to be bigger than Twitter – it seems to have more sway than either our desire for sex or socialising. This is evidenced in problems it’s caused – which form the second reason as to why Pokémon Go should be deleted from all hapless teens’ phones immediately: it’s dangerous.

My Facebook newsfeed is clogged with videos of crowds of people – like supersized insect swarms – massing at the sides of roads and then crossing as one, disrupting the oncoming traffic. Newspapers report with glee to their dwindling readership (lost to online platforms like this perhaps) cautionary tales of players stuck in caves, or lost, or even stumbling upon a dead body. Such are players’ involvement that they forget this game has tangible and real world consequences – of which, inevitably, many will be negative. In a way, once we lose the distinction between reality and its augmentations, we lose sight of what is important…like ‘should I really go down that cave’ or ‘that car’s coming on rather fast?’. I’d hazard a guess that even the poor girl who found the dead body would have had a sudden sensation of irritation at having to cut her game short – given we’ve already witnessed news of the release of a porn parody, nothing now could surprise me.

And it’s this ubiquity that riles me most: it demands that the game come first. On asking friends for thoughts on the problems with the game, one replied ‘well, there weren’t any on Oxford Street for a start’; another, ‘I don’t like it because I’m not very good’. Unwittingly, individuals’ perceptions of the game have become intertwined with their own success, such that places are valued for their pokémon yield. Apart from Oxford Street and its pathetic Poké-haul, the game teaches us to irreverence not just famous streets, but even the areas which deserve the deepest respect. This is embodied in the Pokéstops, like the one at Ground Zero or the Holocaust Museum, which imply that the significance of these places is less their commemorative agency than the fact that I can collect a few Pokémon balls. For all they represent height of the resilience of the human spirit, their power wanes before a global, and uniform, Pokémon-induced cultural apathy…this is far more than just cannily making use of endemic digital addiction, it signals its legitimisation.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sj2iQyBTQs&w=560&h=315]

Against – Daniel Curtis

I have spent a considerable part of my Oxford career trying to maintain an outward appearance of cool or, at the very least, respectability. Whether I am believed to have succeeded or not depends on how well you know me. However, through indie music and knowledge of the creative arts, I have seemingly duped my way into having people think I am a somewhat alright guy.

I would venture a speculative guess that I am not the only one. Yet at midnight on Wednesdays on the cheese floor at Park End, all of this pretence and posturing gives way to a frenzy of childlike nostalgia with the opening blast of the Pokémon theme tune. It is the precipitator of honesty – for three blissful minutes, there is no need to pretend.

And now, that beautiful honesty has been extended to Britons everywhere with last week’s UK release of Pokémon Go; the fitness gym has been forsaken for the nearest Pokémon gym, while slovenly days inside (guilty as charged) have been forsaken for long strolls through the local surroundings. It is a truly transformative experience. Indeed, perhaps the most glaring indicator of the app’s impact is the scores of users outlining the ameliorative effect that Pokémon Go has had on their mental health: people previously fighting invisible battles keeping them from leaving the house – a PTSD-suffering war veteran, sufferers of anxiety and depression – now keenly able to escape in order to catch ‘em all.

While no way near as marked as those examples, I have found Pokémon Go to be a balm for my own depression, making the outside once again inviting when it is so much easier to stay in bed. How could one focus on the darkness of the world when there are Pokémon to catch? Having recently made it to Level Five, I can finally access Pokémon Gyms to make my first steps in the world as a trainer. As such, this tantalising prospect will only increase my game time, not reduce it. But first, I must visit the Pokéstop across the road to get some equipment… and then the hunt begins around the wilds of North East Derbyshire.

Thus, what the app has done, with a level of genius which can be attributed to the pioneers at Niantic games, is to make the world a playground once more, accessible through smartphones. To say that Pokémon Go just has more people outside with their noses buried in their phones is missing the point: if you looked around last week, or at gigs, or festivals, people are already buried in their phones to such an extent where it is genuinely becoming an epidemic – and I write that as someone who was heartbroken when their long-held high score in the Facebook Messenger basketball app was broken. In making people re-engage with the world around them, Pokémon Go uses the digital addiction of the millennial and actively rails against it, with a level of subtlety so nuanced that it’s easy to miss. Pokémon Go forces you to use your phone as a catalyst for real world exploration. Like millions around the world, I can’t wait to see where I end up.

*Quote by Magdalen second year William Rees-Mogg.

 

 

 

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