A series of “near misses” between delivery vehicles and pedestrians at the South Parks Road entrance to University Parks has highlighted the importance of the recent proposal for a new pedestrian path alongside the park. The existing route is currently the only vehicle entrance to the park and a busy thoroughfare for joggers, families, dog walkers and other pedestrians, causing much concern over potential accidents. The use of headphones and mobile phones by walkers and runners has further complicated the situation at the busy entrance.
Aware that vehicles cannot be relocated, Oxford City Council has submitted a plan for a new pedestrian path running between the parks and the University Science Area, offering a direct, landscaped route for residents to use safely instead of crossing the South Parks Road entrance, “mitigat[ing]” the risk of accidents in the area. The path’s construction would not include digging and would avoid disrupting nearby tree roots. University Parks Superintendent Dr Carolyn Jenkins has stressed that although risk cannot be eliminated and the South Park entrance will remain open to the public, this plan will greatly increase the safety of pedestrians by offering traffic an alternative route.
University Parks Management told Cherwell: “The new pedestrian path will be created in summer 2024 to offer an alternative to the current shared vehicle and pedestrian route from the South Lodge entrance. It allows pedestrians to walk behind the mixed border instead of on the roadway. This should improve their experience of walking through the Parks, providing a more direct, vehicle-free route from South Parks Road heading north before joining Thorn Walk again at the junction with South Walk.”
Commenting on the “tricky corner,” City Councillor Anna Railton expressed her support of any proposal which “reduces conflict between pedestrians and vehicles.” The recent “near misses” have further drawn attention to the necessity of action.
In response to the new pedestrian path some residents have returned to the popular request for dropping the bike ban within the parks. However, the University has made clear their “firm” stance that in order to ensure the parks are “a peaceful space for everyone to enjoy” cycling will not be allowed, even after the temporary lift of the ban in 2023. Instead, they hope this new path, where dogs off-lead, children, and joggers can move about freely with peace of mind, will increase the overall safety of the area.
“It’ll be a fucking feast,” Mother Catweazle declares. Strapping in for the second Catweazle Club of February, Common Ground is abuzz with anticipation.
Streams of poets, singer-songwriters, comics; the old, the young, regulars, first-timers, locals, tourists, academics, troubadours, expectant mothers, mingling singles, loved-up couples, going-on-20-years marriages – had queued to sign up for the opportunity to perform at the oldest (and best?) open unplugged-mic night in Oxford. The sari brandishing ‘Catweazle’ as a halo for performers has been hanging since 1994: the Club turns 30 this year.
Iwent along and met Mother Catweazle, founder and performer, Matt Sage to talk all things open mic.
The start of the meeting (an understatement for what the evening was) was marked by the metamorphosis of chatter into a hum harmonised with troubadour-turned-emcee Matt’s keyboard chord. We were humming, making collective music, but it felt as if everyone – and Common Ground on Little Clarendon Street must be able to squeeze in at least 70 people – was intently, whole-heartedly listening to Matt’s folk routine. He called it an “experiment” but each Club commences in this way. I suppose everything, though, is a bit of an experiment at Catweazle.
But in cobweb-ridden, creaky, conventional Oxford, Matt “was amazed to discover that there was no kind of open mic or communal performing scene of any kind. In 1994, it was all about Radiohead and Supergrass and being cool and getting signed. Within 3 weeks of being here, I realised that if I wanted to find a home, I’d just have to build one myself.”
The open mic club was born out of that experimental ethos. Its fledgling ceremony, Matt writes, came “in the early Autumn of 1994. I was a musician and moved down from London and on to a boat on the Oxford Canal, in search of some peace and quiet. In those days I had been part of a very nurturing scene based at the Troubadour in Earl’s Court, where every week a dizzying array of talented musicians and poets would congregate from all corners of London. Regulars would turn up religiously every single week; it was such an inspiring environment.”
Matt Sage in 1994. Image courtesy of Matt Sage.
It might take guts to seat yourself on the glittering deity throne of Catweazle. Up close, you can see the pieces of paper bearing scrawled poems and song lyrics trembling in the hands of their performers. But, out of (30 years’ worth of) regularity, comes comfort. And people have made homes with Catweazle. On the door, Matt has enlisted the help of a fifteen-years-long attendee. She tells me that tonight, she will sing about “a great social and political issue: providing ketamine for horses.” Even horses have got to feel at home.
The Catweazle Club’s first home in 1994 was the Victoria Arms – my apologies, the Vicky Arms – in Jericho; it relocated to Cowley Road and now takes place in Common Ground. Why Oxford? “It’s just where I happened to end up, but there is something about the scale and also the transience of the population that seems to suit it well. I also love Oxford. It is a deeply magical and lyrical place, and I feel that both myself and The Catweazle Club are now a part of that lineage.”
Hopping around, though, is part of Catweazle’s essence. Matt continues, “The Club is itself something of a nomadic troubadour, and we have been in many different venues over the past three decades: the body may change, but the spirit lives on. We feel very at home at Common Ground. There are so few places to hang out in Oxford; we are lucky to have this one.”
One performer, Samantha Twigg Johnson, had returned to the stage after a years-long hiatus. Her first attendance was as plus-one to an Oxford academic in the noughties. At this Catweazle, she was, as her song invoked, a “maple seed making her way to the ground”. It certainly didn’t matter whether or not you had heard the song before as the Club became a battalion of voices for the song’s refrain.
As for town and gown, Matt says “I think there are way too few occasions or events or spaces where town and gown can come together and share an experience as equals, but Catweazle is definitely one of them.”
You may or may not return with an academic on your arm but “to my mind, this landscape has remained exactly the same for the past thirty years, and no doubt for the one thousand before that. But I’m very happy that we have managed to create something that transcends those boundaries. I love the generational blend of the event.”
Even the Club’s namesake is all about tying up loops of time. “In the 70s, there was a tv show about a fictional 11th-century wizard – Catweazle – whose spells never worked, and who, in order to get away from the Normans who were hunting him, somehow accidentally magicked himself forwards in time to what was then contemporary rural Kent, where he couldn’t understand anything whatsoever about the modern world in which he suddenly found himself.” And then Matt prophesied: “as a five year old, similarly stranded and bewildered in suburbia, I massively identified with him. When looking for a name for the space I wanted to create, ‘Catweazle’ was the natural choice.”
The Club does seem to have a sort of trippy effect. You spend time at Catweazle and suddenly you can “remember from the age of five being at family weddings or events, and always being completely awestruck by the band (who were probably pretty dicey), but a five year old doesn’t necessarily differentiate – just gets wowed by the instruments and the lights and the music coming together out of nowhere.”
Matt spends the first few minutes of Catweazle daring us to be the first to sit on the carpet at the front where, in his words, “vibrations are most potent, omniscient even”. He told me that “it is such a privilege to sit at the feet of someone who is conjuring up the Magi, here in the moment, in front of my very eyes and ears. I think we’ve become a little numb to that in some ways, getting our hit vicariously through TV or the internet, or gigs being so big that you’re miles from the stage. Up front in a packed, intimate environment, it’s actually pretty bloody magical, this live artistic performance thing.”
Catweazle in action. Image credits: Olivia Boyle.
After more than 1500 Catweazles, Matt will have seen unending cycles of students and locals. Sure, the audience has been big but the Club never fails in stitching a tight knit.
“I think one of the key aspects that makes this such a unique space is the intimacy we have always enjoyed there. We purposely refrain from using a PA system, because the connection that the listening quality provides is what makes Catweazle so often so magical. I happen to believe that the Art of Listening is an artform as highly prized as any other. So that when we come together, we are all artists, be it musician, poet, storyteller or listener. Keeping it small is the key to all that. With a roster of around 20 performers in an evening (of an invariably high standard), for audiences it will always be a very inspiring and uplifting night out.
We are still here today because it satisfies a fundamental need in the people who come. It’s not just about entertainment (although it clearly is entertaining); it’s more about connection. Catweazle is the very antithesis of the entirely soulless TV talent competition culture which has become the mainstream norm.
People crave something more authentic, more vulnerable, more human and engaging. These are the spaces in which we get to really meet ourselves, not via some shiny showbiz-porn platform. I think we are able to create a very sharing and uplifting environment and in my experience people get a really good hit from it, myself included. It’s not for everyone, but it serves very well its own quiet and unique little niche.”
I must say, there was nothing ‘quiet’ about Catweazle. One person did a full-bodied knee slap timed with a howl of a laugh at a stand-up bit. There was always attentive, thoughtful listening – the silence of the enraptured, the thrumming feet of a Dylan-esque, anti-work number, and murmurs of awe at a poet speaking through a stammer.
Pretty. Bloody. Magical.
Picture this – a day in Autumn ‘94: “20 of us gathered in the snug of the Vicky Arms in Jericho and took turns to read a poem or sing a song, while everyone else took turns to listen. At the end of a deeply delightful evening, we all agreed to come back the following week. And here we still are, some 1,500 weeks later!”
It often feels like versions of Chekhov can be categorised neatly into either the “traditional” realist productions or the modern adaptations. So, in place of Chekhov’s gun, reviews of productions seem to operate on the principle of Chekhov’s samovar. If the set includes a samovar, reviewers are sure to tell you about it, and, if not, they let you know all the same. For the majority of Harry Brook’s Cherry Orchard, which showed at The Oxford Playhouse in Week 2, we are faced with a production that looks as realist as they come. Isabelle Kori’s set design and Ailish Guaghan’s costume design complement each other to keep the first three acts looking period. It’s fair to say that there’s not much in the set that is distinctly Russian: when Isle-Lee van Niekerk’s Lyubov declares ‘I love this country’, the house she owns doesn’t seem to give us any evidence of the claim. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Part of what is so interesting about the Russian gentry Chekhov brought to the stage is their disconnect from the vast majority of the people that surrounded them. Will Shackleton, whose Yasha is desperate to leave for Paris, convincingly plays his discontent not with Russia as Russia, but rather with Russia as nothing at all
If the look of the production is traditional, then Esme Buzzard’s translation is distinctly fresh. This might be the old Chekhov of the country estate, but in Buzzard’s rendering it contains ‘goddamn bookcases’ and is approached by ‘fuckoff railways’. The present-day vernacular is relished by all the actors, with Jules Upson’s Lopakhin feeling remarkably reminiscent of today’s smarmy corporate busybodies. Brook’s direction is equally unafraid to bring out parts of Chekhov’s characters which older productions might have left only implied: the staging of Yasha’s relationship with Catty Claire Williams Boyce’s Dunyasha is immediate and uncompromising. At one point they even enter with Yasha zipping his flies and Dunyasha wiping her lips. The stand-out performance, though, is undeniably Van Niekerk’s Lyubov. She brings deep emotion to all aspects of her performance, but most impressive is the sheer strength of her voice. A theatre the size of the Oxford Playhouse presents a challenge to untrained student actors that doesn’t arise at smaller venues like the Pilch, yet van Niekerk’s lines are especially resonant.
By the end of the third act, what we seem to have is an impressively well-executed version of Chekhov’s classic. The realism works as is intended, and Brook has integrated a new sensibility to a long established way of doing Chekhov. The fourth and final act brings this to another level. Lopakhin, the nouveau-riche grandson of a serf, buys the estate at auction. Here we see Chekhov’s abiding concern with the replacement of Russia’s indebted aristocracy, so that he now seems prophetic of the events of 1917. The decline of the landed gentry and the old Europe also precipitated the end of the realist project. If Chekhov foresaw 1917, then 1922 and avant-garde modernism is equally significant. Chekhov is a realist par excellence, but the plays also contain the seeds of their own demise.
So, when in the fourth act we are expecting only the family belongings to be packed up and the cherry orchard to be chopped down, Brook opts to stage the demise of the realist stage itself. Characters, to varying degrees, shed their period costume, and the walls of the house are wheeled around to reveal chipboard backs with director’s notes scribbled on them. The proscenium arch, so often realism’s metonyn, raises itself to reveal the lighting rig hidden behind it. There are productions in which these kinds of twists feel like flashy distractions. Revealing the stage lights runs the risk of seeming gimmicky, or just a copy of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, when Will asks ‘If we so rich, why we can’t afford no ceiling?’ before the camera pans up to the lighting rig. In Brooks’ version, though, since the realism was taken seriously, it feels like the twist has been earnt. Each actor remains on stage throughout the act (this, alongside the chipboard, seems a nod towards Jamie Lloyd’s version of The Seagull at The National Theatre), conversations appear fleeting, and we become aware that the social relations which the characters are so consumed by are – at the Playhouse in 2024 but also in the Russian provinces of the fin-de-siecle – performed. Rosie Mahendra, who is strong throughout but especially so in the final act, leads the troupe off stage, and the upstage wall opens to show the outside world, complete with a Madri tent. OnlyJoe Rachman’s Firs is left behind. Once he lies motionless on stage, sound designer Iona Blair baits the audience into tentative applause, before we hear the final sounds of chainsaws and falling trees.
In the first act, Cosimo Avisio’s Gaev had announced ‘If a large number of cures is suggested for a particular disease, it means the disease is incurable’, and perhaps the same is true of Chekhov. His plays contain so many possibilities, so many interpretations, that to put them on is to come to terms with the fact that you can’t do justice to them all. Harry Brook has done justice to more than most.
Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor, Irene Tracey, has encouraged graduates to “get behind our British universities” with donations.
In a recent interview with The Telegraph, she claimed that, with increased donations, universities would not have to rely on international fees, a “vulnerability in the system.” The VC emphasised how, historically, thanks to the generosity of Oxford’s alumni, the University’s leaders “have not, thankfully, been driven to a model where [they] are dependent financially on the international fee structure.”
This generosity of Oxford alumni has been substantial in recent years: In 2021/22, the University received over £249 million in donations, the second largest total received in a single year. Oxbridge accounts for almost half of all donations made to UK universities over the last decade.
The Chief Development Officer, Liesl Elder, declared that these philanthropic tendencies are “[…] testament to both the impact that Oxford is making in the world through the delivery of transformational teaching and research, and the generosity of our donors.”
Alumni donations have long been intertwined with Oxford’s funding: from Dr John Radcliffe’s donation in 1714 that paved the way for the construction of the now-iconic Radcliffe Camera, to the £30 million that Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones KBE gifted to Worcester College just last year, which will fund a graduate accommodation building and a new library.
However, amid recent changes to student loans and difficulties with cost of living, some have raised questions about whether today’s graduates are prepared to “give back” to their alma maters after having already accrued an average of £45,000 of debt as a result of their education.
In 2023, the student loan debt in England surpassed £200 billion for the first time, likely amplifying any reluctance felt by graduates to donate to their universities. However, loan repayments also saw an increase, reaching over £4 billion in 2022-23 due partially to higher inflation, which may have positively affected borrower salaries.
Oxford’s own student population is characterised by a large proportion of international students. 46% of the student body are international students, coming from more than 160 different countries. This is nearly double the national average of 24% overseas students.
According to a study conducted by The Council for Advancement and Support of Education and More Partnership, annual donations to UK universities have doubled over the last decade. Recent years have also seen public funding for these institutions plummet, now reaching its lowest level since the 1990s: in 2020, 32% of universities reported an in-year deficit compared to just 5% in 2016. Whilst donations to UK universities reached £1.5 billion in 2022, the Russell Group estimates that it lost an average of £2,500 for every home student last year, thus explaining this reliance on donations and steep international fees.
Expectations were high for Daddy Longlegs. The cast was apparently impressive – the lead role being played by a supposedly ‘born actor’. A lot of money had been put into it, from a lot of sources – and a lot of time as well. Production had been going on since the Christmas holiday. Costumes and set all sourced from the National Theatre. In short, I’d been promised quite the spectacle – and I got it.
Daddy Longlegs went above and beyond the standard I’ve come to expect of student productions in my time at Oxford. It was clear I was in for something brilliant from the start, with the remarkable set, standing apart from anything I’ve seen in Oxford before. The centrepiece was a magnificent rotating platform. On one side was a confessional box, decorated with crucifixes and sombre dark paint. On the other, its inverted mirror image, two toilet cubicles separated by a glory hole, on a backdrop of bright, lewd graffiti. It was a masterwork, brilliantly representing the two aspects of the Priest’s personality – and it was hilariously funny as well. The whole thing must have taken a mountain of time and effort to put together, but it worked perfectly.
I’d also been promised good acting – or rather, great acting. But it was even better than I could have expected. Will Shackleton, as the Priest, dominated the stage throughout the production, with a Barry Keoghan-esque performance which started off as the slightly pitiful socially anxious outsider but grew increasingly more unsettling as the play went on. His expert capturing of the mental instability of his character was transfixing to watch, but, perhaps more importantly, it was also comical throughout. This was an actor who could fully embody all the different aspects of his complex character, and do them well. A ‘born actor’ indeed, and one I hope to see more of in productions to come.
Daddy Longlegs is a bit of a one-man show, but the supporting cast were all spot-on in their own performances. Susie Weidmann, Lucas Ipkendanz and Juliette Imbert all delivered expertly as the struggling family who each come to see the Priest in turn in the confession box. Imbert was particularly impressive in her convincing portrayal of a fourteen-year-old schoolboy. George Vyvyan gave a touching and heartfelt performance as the love interest Jamie, and perhaps best of all was Vita Hamilton as the mother, who expertly toed the line between loving maternal figure and an underlying instability often as unsettling as her son’s. This was a production in which no performance disappointed. Which brings me to a final question – did I enjoy it? The script was witty, and very sharp, but ultimately the whole story was inconsolably depressing. If this was the scriptwriter’s intention, they certainly succeeded. All the magic of brilliantly-done theatre can only go so far to offset a production which seemed fundamentally underlined by pessimistic nihilism, as far as enjoyment was concerned. I wasn’t quite sure what the play was trying to say, and it may have been that it wasn’t attempting to say anything at all. Fair enough, but it didn’t always make for the easiest watching. But all of this could be pinned down to personal taste. As student plays go, production, set, costumes, lighting, and acting – all were a level above the competition. For me, at least, Daddy Longlegs has set a new standard for student theatre in Oxford. Let’s hope to see more from where that came from.
The 5th week blues are an infamous and universal part of the Oxford experience. They are as renowned as crewdates, formals, and bops – although not quite for the same positive reasons. As a clueless fresher at my first college-family formal, my parents gave me a run-down of everything I needed to know about Oxford, warning me about the 5th week blues looming ahead. I was told to be prepared for the stress, depression and overall gloom awaiting me in 5th week. However, after experiencing the highs and lows of my first Michaelmas term, I felt they were made out to be a whole lot worse than the reality. With that being said, my JCR did organise cookie decorating, hot chocolate walks and even breakfast burritos – which probably helped reduce the miserableness of the week. Despite all of that, I still feel like it is possible to beat the dreaded 5th week blues by yourself.
Now, in the 4th week of Hilary term, they are fast approaching again and while I feel like I overcame the 5th week blues well last term, there is still a nagging feeling that it will be different this time around. Returning to the exhausting schedule of weekly essays and lectures after a relaxing Christmas vac has made Hilary feel more overwhelming – does that mean that 5th week will be even worse this time around? Regardless of the different situation this term, I am determined not to let the 5th week blues take me down.
What we really need to get through 5th week is a solid distraction. Whether this be a hobby which allows you to spend time doing something enjoyable, hanging out with your friends or even getting immersed in a really interesting part of your degree. Any distraction which reminds you of the fun in life can help. Spending time with my friends really helped me push through 5th week last term. I am a sucker for what my friends call ‘tea-time’ – essentially sitting on the floor of my friend’s room, drinking tea and munching our way through several packets of bourbons and custard creams, all while having a good gossip about our day. This tends to go on for several hours whether we planned it or not. I would recommend adopting some form of ‘tea-time’ with your friends, just to prevent yourself from rotting away miserably on your own in 5th week. Of course, sometimes the best way to keep yourself going is to have a night out, to escape from all the stress and feel revived. I’m a personal fan of Parkend Wednesdays, and being mid-week, it rolls around just as the 5th week blues start to really hit. The DJ’s shout-outs, overcrowded dance floor and well-earned kebab at the end of the night are often the best remedy for lifting your mood. Or, if you’re more of a bridge fan, then no doubt you’ll get some cheering up dancing in the sweaty rooms or chatting away in the smoking area.
A hobby which forces you to just focus on doing what you enjoy can also drag your attention away from the gloom of 5th week. I love getting involved in college netball and no matter how terrible our skills on the court or the turn-out for weekly matches, I always come away feeling better. It could be anything from sports or societies to solo activities like reading, baking or drawing. Whatever it is that drags your attention away from that feeling of never-ending work and exhaustion can help keep spirits high for the final few weeks. This is not to say that the work itself can’t be a source of enjoyment. I personally love the paper I am taking this term and I really look forward to writing my essay each week. But that’s not the case for everyone and even if you love your degree, it is still important to escape from the library to help get through 5th week. Whatever it is that works for you, I really do believe we can beat the 5th week blues. There is a way to have fun and keep spirits high for the last half of term, we just need to make sure we actively seek out the things that keep us going. Find that fun distraction and don’t let the gloom of the mid-way point get to you this term!
They say you leave Oxford with one of three things: a first, a Blue, or a spouse. I can’t do sports, and I’m more of a slightly mouldy academic sponge than an academic weapon. So, marriage it is, I guess. But dating in Oxford is quite possibly a new circle of hell. Dating within your course is awful; I missed about half of my lecture series last term because of a drunken mistake. Dating within college is just so convenient until suddenly you can’t go to the library because seeing that person would be too awkward. Even joining societies is no use: one misstep and you can never return. Ultimately, the only real option is a dating app. Good old Hinge.
I wish I could say that Hinge, or any other dating app, is a good idea. But between my flatmate spending hours trying to find my profile and then messaging me “you want me”, and the guy who told me that by the time he was done my “guts would look like Zeus’s hair”, Hinge has been nothing but a solidly harrowing experience. I’m not saying it’s impossible to find love on Hinge – I’m sure some people do – but if given the choice between going out with my friends or trekking the twenty minutes to Magdalen to hook up with a postgrad who said he “likes undergrad historians”, making the choice to go on dates becomes less and less tempting.
What is it about dating apps that has had this impact? Why is it that people feel comfortable sending messages that are too graphic to put into this article, when they would never say the same thing to a stranger at a bar? Online anonymity has been an issue since its advent, yet it can become so awful on dating apps. I guess there’s something to be said for the relative anonymity of dating apps: if you don’t like the person, you can just unmatch them and never see them again. It’s easier than having to end things. It’s also taken all of the love out of dating.
Hinge is dehumanising. Six photos and three prompts to sum up a person. Are you vulnerable? Funny? Sarcastic? Charming? I have said before that Lord Byron would have loved Hinge, but I no longer think that’s true. How would a poet describe themselves on Hinge? Humans separate ourselves from animals through communication, so what are we when that communication is stripped down to its bare bones? We take ourselves apart for the sake of the hope of finding love, and our parts don’t even approach what makes us whole. Nothing will make you realise this like seeing your friends’ Hinge profiles – seeing the people you love reduced to a few words and photos. Seeing people who you’ve made memories with and stayed up until 2am laughing with make themselves fit into small palatable boxes – and for what?
It’s not like the matching part of Hinge is any less dehumanising. It’s a modern problem: choice overwhelms us. You don’t want to rule anyone out, because what if no one likes you, what if you’re unlovable? You match with people you have no real interest in simply because you need to feel wanted. You accept people who have matched with you even if they’re not your type because the validation you get from them sending you a Rose makes you feel like you’re worth something. Every minute you spend on Hinge, your self-worth becomes more and more inextricable from your looks. People don’t care about personality on Hinge. It doesn’t matter if you have nothing in common. All of us become vapid and shallow, seeking validation from whoever will give it to us.
I think dating apps have ruined love for me, just a little. The hopeless romantic who grew up on Disney movies and romcoms is gone; the cynic rules now. People are no longer people on Hinge: we’re options, like choices in a Tesco meal deal. Hinge isn’t good or bad, it’s just ugly, and it’s made dating uglier too.
It has been a week. Read that last word in italics, if you will – I am unsure if the Cherwell’s print formatting will allow me to place the appropriate emphasis on the word, and it is not an emphasis on which I am willing to compromise. Because, as I have said, it has been a week.
Middle-of-term blues are a known event in the Oxford calendar, marked by Welfare Weeks and posters advertising Mental Health Dog Walks – all valiant and admirable attempts from college JCRs to mitigate the inevitable drag of university without reading weeks – or really any breaks at all.
Perhaps the strangest part of my recent stranding within a long period of breakless-ness has been the fact that, eventually, it ends.
Essays get handed in (even the worst ones) tutorials finish (even the worst ones), and suddenly I have found myself at something of a loose end.
I have, for a moment, time on my hands.
It is time I am lucky to have, and time that should really be spent productively, in cleaning and essay prep and every other useful task I’m forgetting right now – yet it is a stillness I welcome.
The presence of spare time is almost startling, after its absence.
It takes a moment of recalibration, a breath in which you remember that you are an actual person; with spare time, I drink coffee for the taste, not the caffeine, walk places that aren’t the Bodleian, make jokes without self deprecation. I remember that I love my course, that I am grateful for my friends, that I can be, when given the space for it, funny and kind. I wear outfits and not just clothes. I decorate my room, cook meals and make tea for anyone who will take them, desperate to anchor this remembering of how good things are in something physical, something that I can point at later and say here it is. I write sentimental articles.
There is, possibly, an element of bragging about this – a lot of people don’t ever get these moments of pause. It’s probably not a moment of pause I should be taking. In a week I will probably read this column back and wish I could grab the girl writing it and tell her to put down the smug article and actually work. My future self is probably right.
But spare time, being hard to come by, is even harder to give up. Tomorrow I will get back to work, as I did yesterday and the day before.
This week saw me, along with all the other hordes of students in second year, cross the halfway mark of my degree. Maybe it’s the fifth-week blues talking, but passing this seemingly ceremonial, and therefore somewhat inconsequential, boundary had me feeling rather existential.
What better way to ponder on your existence and life purpose than with eggs? It felt only appropriate to reward myself for making it to the second act of my degree with a Shakshuka. Full of bold, herbaceous and fruity flavours, the beauty of this Turkish dish convinced me to exist with my own thoughts during breakfast, rather than watching a slew of ‘silly’ instagram reels.
As I pierced the peppered white of a poached egg with a slice of toast, I watched my reflection dance in the sheen of the viscous yolk. Was I happy, relieved, or sad to have made it halfway? To be candid, probably a mix of all three.
The emotional growth I have experienced in just eighteen short months honestly, at times, feels like I’ve gone through three episodes of puberty all at once. Such rapid rates of maturing are not really helped by the sheer density and breadth of learning which all undergrads are tasked with. Often, daily life makes it difficult to be able to see the woods through the trees. Progress can feel slow when time passes so fast. Everything, from relationships to friendships, often feel like supercharged emotional time bombs.
How do we process such a windstorm of feelings at the interval? Obviously, processing will differ from second year to second year. Nonetheless, the feeling that everything, yet simultaneously nothing has happened in the first act of the degree is a sentiment felt by many across the university. My suggestion is to cast your mind back to your matriculation, and think about how much growth that naive young person has achieved, how much their tastes have changed. If so much can develop in under two years – think about how much more growth can happen in the next two!
Getting to a big milestone, particularly when associated with ageing and growing up, can be a little unnerving to say the least. Coupled with the fact that Hilary can be a particularly dreary time, especially with the dingy skies of February casting a shadow on what fun can be had in such few hours of daylight. Whilst much easier said than done, it is worth maintaining optimism.
Briefly consulting the bigger picture before returning to the ‘mundane’ everyday can be incredibly refreshing and empowering. Although keeping a smile on one’s face can be exhausting, especially when the eighth stupidly long reading list has hit the inbox, our lives are so much better enriched by looking for the light in our lives. Keep those eggs sunny side up!
The governing board of the Ashmolean Museum, the Board of Visitors, has formally recommended to the Oxford University Council that a 16th-century Indian statue be returned to its original temple. The Board of Visitors of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History has also recommended the repatriation of a human cranium to the Hopi Tribe of Arizona.
These decisions come at a time when repatriation of artefacts and human remains has become increasingly common, especially from Oxford museums, caused in part by student-led conversations about the relationship between the University and imperialist legacies.
The repatriation process for the Indian bronze was initiated in 2019 by the museum itself, thanks to a tip from an independent scholar. The scholar was researching the photo archives of the IFP-EFEO (Institut Français de Pondichéry and École Française d’Extrême-Orient) and discovered a photo of the statue still in its original temple location, dated 1957. The scholar notified the museum which led the museum to contact the Indian High Commission.
On 3 March 2020, the Indian High Commission then made a formal claim of repatriation. The process of repatriation was slowed by the pandemic, but in July 2022 it resumed, culminating in the present recommendation of the Board of Visitors. The bronze statue, a 16th-century depiction of Saint Tirumankai Alvar, was acquired in 1967 by the Ashmolean at an auction held by Sotheby’s of Indian and Southeast Asian art. Sotheby’s claims that the statue comes from the collection of Dr J R Belmont, a major collector of Indian artefacts.
At the same time that this request for repatriation was granted, a parallel claim by the Indian High Commission for another statue, an 11th century bronze of Shiva with his attendants, was denied by the Board. The Board justified its decision by stating that “there is no evidence to support the work’s previous ownership or its possible theft.”
In 2022 Oxford and Cambridge University agreed to repatriate more than 200 of the famed Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, while two years earlier the Pitt Rivers Museum removed its “Treatment of Dead Enemies” exhibit from public display. But the national discussion is far from resolved – in November of last year, Rishi Sunak reignited the argument surrounding the Elgin Marbles by cancelling a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis intended to discuss the matter.
During a recent talk at Magdalen College, the Victoria & Albert Museum’s director, Tristram Hunt, suggested that the statutory obligations of some nationally owned museums may prove an obstacle to restitution efforts. The British Museum Act of 1963 and National Heritage Act of 1983 restrict museums from returning objects outside of a narrow range of conditions, such as items which turn out to be forged or duplicated.
The V&A itself worked on the long-term repatriation of gold regalia looted from Ghana, also in 2022.
