Sunday, May 18, 2025
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Review: Chaucer Here and Now, Weston Library

Bryony Fishpool
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Review: Chaucer Here and Now, Weston Library

‘I found I had a soul congenial to his’, John Dryden wrote in 1700. ‘He’ is Geoffrey Chaucer. There is a three-hundred year gap between the former, a Restoration-era satirical wit, and the latter, a medieval poet. Despite Dryden’s critique that Chaucer often ‘runs riot’, lacking a filter altogether, mingling ‘trivial Things with those of greater Moment’, something remains between their two souls. Dryden judges himself close enough in essence to Chaucer to deserve his role as translator. After a few terms studying Chaucer firmly within his own era, I was interested to see how much truth there was in this statement, whether our own souls could indeed be made more congenial.    

The question of what ‘remains’ is the focus of ‘Chaucer Here and Now’: an exhibition at Oxford’s Weston Library, running from December to April. It is wonderfully curated by Marion Turner, the current J.R.R. Tolkein Professor of English Literature and Language. The exhibition itself is absorbing; as you move through it, an argument unfolds. It is tightly structured, tied together by the concept of ‘reinvention’, as Turner shows how every century from the fourteenth to the twenty-first has moulded Chaucer to their own tastes. We begin with the earliest manuscripts, featuring mansplaining scribes, scandalised censors, and unfinished endings. Even from day one, there is no stable and single Chaucer: manuscripts are notoriously collaborative. Chaucer was not too bothered about his endings, leaving works like The Cook’s Tale hanging after only fifty eight lines; scribes often finished this for themselves. The exhibition then dedicates a whole section to The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, which Dryden famously refused to translate; he declared ‘tis too licentious’ for all its talk of ‘bigamye’ and ‘octogamye’, as well as its ironic stabs at Biblical hypocrisy. King Solomon was hardly the paragon of monogamy.  

But it is really the beauty of the books that makes the exhibition come alive. Gathered partly from the Bodleian’s archives, all the famous Chaucers are on show. William Caxton’s 1483 edition, complete with early woodcuts is unmistakable, helping to bring Chaucer’s pilgrims to life. The 1896 Kelmscott Chaucer, though, a huge Pre-Raphaelite edition covered in white pigskin, is most spectacular; its creators called it a ‘pocket cathedral’ for its magnificent illustrations – seriously, Google it! The interwoven vines, scattered autumnal leaves, and monochrome illuminated lettering play into the Victorian re-imagining of the medieval era, full of rural idylls and tragic Arthurian love. It is an attractive idea, making for an attractively illustrated text. But it is also entirely inaccurate, skewing the reader’s understanding of Chaucer. 

Turner is keen to avoid a ‘Merry England’ view of Chaucer in the exhibition. As in her recent biography, Chaucer: A European Life, she emphasises the deeply cosmopolitan side to Chaucer; he was multilingual, travelling to Spain and Italy, in contact with then-modern Italian writers like Petrarch and Boccaccio, and importing new and innovative forms like the rime royale stanza into his poetry. It is this (then)-edgy experimentalism which we value most today. He blends and juxtaposes registers, characters, and influences; his diverse group of pilgrims meet in a pub in Southwark, telling a range of tales from the high-status knight to the bawdy miller. The exhibition has screens and headphones to watch an early-2000s BBC adaptation of a few of Chaucer’s tales, which convey this eclectic mix well, as the animators use a different style for each tale.

Medieval studies are currently under fire, steadily losing popularity in a time when ‘relevance’ is looked for above all else. I found ‘Chaucer Here and Now’ to do a brilliant job of communicating the intrinsic interest of Chaucer’s works – much more humorous, witty, and experimental than we give him credit for – whilst also seeing them as a lens through which to explore the culture in which they are received. Inevitably, each reader will set him against themself, recognising the sparks of immediacy which chime with their own experience. The exhibition’s final section, focusing on postcolonial re-imaginings, shows just this. Turner offers us a wide selection of books – also available to read in the Weston’s sofa area – such as the Refugee Tales, which expands upon Chaucer’s idea of movement and displacement, as well as Zadie Smith’s play The Wife of Willesden, and Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze’s ‘The Wife of Bath in Brixton Market’. Do go and see this exhibition; it will shake up your understanding of the medieval period, just as it helped me to reinvent an author who can be far too easily pidgeonholed into his exam-essay context. Or, if nothing else, there’s birdsong playing as you walk in. 

Get your flatmate to cook on Valentine’s Day

Georgie Allan
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Get your flatmate to cook on Valentine’s Day

For Valentine’s Day last year, I lay on the floor of my room and ate self-bought, discount chocolate. I intend to do the same this year. It is the only time to do so, no questions asked – and those chocolate hearts are divine. But, if you really prefer to spend your Valentine’s with someone special, food should be your love language. With restaurants fully booked you may be tempted to try your hand at cooking themselves – I asked my resident culinary expert, flatmate Jack, what he would prepare for a first date.

Unsurprisingly, he had an answer; pan fried, oven-finished duck, with a red wine reduction, celeriac mousse, fondant potatoes and green beans. With the menu, wine and date all set, he got to work preparing what will probably be the closest I’ll get to a romantic meal this Valentine’s.

I walked into the kitchen and was immediately confronted with my first obstacle to this article. Identifying cuts of meat is not my forte – I am often reminded of the time I was sent to buy bacon and instead purchased pork belly. In my defence, we were in a foreign country (whose language I don’t speak), it looked like a thick cut of bacon, and Jack made it work regardless. After throwing around guesses of wing and breast I hit the jackpot with leg. 

We were eating duck leg. 

These ones were seasoned with salt and black pepper.

Next came the intensive veg prep. The potatoes were shaped into rough cylinders. I was informed that more effort could have been put into the shaping, and even a circular cutter used but the chef was indifferent for this meal. My potatoes were instead an array of irregular polygons, and I was really feeling the love this holiday is all about.

The celeriac (which is the root of celery) was similarly carved to remove the skin and ‘chunked’. It was then blanched to soften, but not fully cooked, ready for its transformation to a mousse. Jack did not manage to procure shallots so onions were substituted and diced. The dicing need not be perfect as they do not constitute part of the final dish, only provide flavouring for the red wine sauce. In moments like this, I am grateful that Jack is a skilled chef. Whether it’s because of the onions or…something else…, I will not be crying on Valentine’s Day.

Butter and double cream were used to finish cooking the celeriac. In a separate pan, the onions and roughly diced garlic were fried off to release flavours, before thyme, rosemary, star anise and bay leaves were added. The wine (Hardy’s, Shiraz, 2022) also went in and was reduced before the chicken stock was added. Jack made a point to clarify that beef stock would be better, but he only had one cube left and wanted to use it for a lasagne. Way to make a girl feel special. All of the stock cubes in his cooking are gelatinous rather than powder; he insists they produce better flavour. At least it had that going for it.

In a third pan, oil was heated to a high temperature, before the duck was patted dry and placed skin side down to sear. Three high heat pans really steamed up the room – not the sort of steamy valentine you might usually picture, but as close as this kitchen was or ever is likely to get. Once seared, the duck was placed on a tray with butter, rosemary and thyme to be infused with flavour.

At this point the celeriac was ready to be removed from the heat and placed in a large bowl for vigorous blending. If there are any lumps, add some cold water to smooth them out. The potatoes were added to a pan to colour the ends of the cylinders, before being basted in stock and infused with that flavour.

The red wine sauce, once reduced, was strained – first through a colander, then in a cafetière. For all the expensive knives, and fancy ingredients, Jack does not own a strainer. He then thickened the sauce with the addition of both stock and butter. The final component of the meal, green beans, were coated in a beurre fondue of butter and water.

When the finished product arrived in front of me it was a sight to behold. Beautifully plated, with splashes of colour from the wine reduction and the paprika, added last minute to the celeriac, I was happy I didn’t have to wait to tuck in. It did not disappoint. The flavours were intense, easily distinguished, but I have to give particular credit to the red wine reduction. It was rich and nicely complemented by the savoury fondant potatoes. The potatoes themselves were a bit underdone, the duck a bit tough (apparently a breast might have proven softer), but it tasted incredible. I would happily take this over any college formal, or restaurant meal. It was certainly cheaper.

A word of warning to anyone considering preparing this dish yourself:

It took over an hour and a half. The clean up was a Herculean task – even between two of us. Though I do think if you want to show your love for someone special in your life, the time and effort you devote to them says more than words ever could. It’s certainly nice to know I have friends willing to painstakingly prepare duck and red wine reductions upon request.

Gawain and the Green Knight – Review

Ralph Whitworth
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Gawain and the Green Knight – Review

Gawain and the Green Knight was a play I was eager to see. The title promises strange and exciting adventurers from Arthurian myth; the promotion posters gave us an eclectic mix of mysterious objects including the all-important Green Knight mask (a very well made prop) with its hollow eyes and crown of leaves. Performed in the BT studio, the playgoer has to dip down a side street behind the Oxford Playhouse and ascend a tight staircase to the very attic itself. It was all very mystical. Going into the small theatre, however, I hit a stumbling block at the sight of the set, which seemed to be decorated solely with mudstained sheets with sections of runes scrawled on them. It wasn’t exactly Camelot, or the woods of Arthurian myth. The play hit another wrongfooting before it had even begun, with the jarring sight of the Green Knight himself crouched diminutively in an alcove behind the curtains, probably hoping not to be seen. As we waited for the rest of the cast to arrive, I puzzled over how the play would turn out. Were these little oversights simply anomalies, or were they a taste of things to come?

The first thing I noticed was the costumes. In the first scene, these were very fun, and the Green Knight was decidedly impressive. Arthur’s Court wore black tie, but augmented with fur capes, jewels, horns and silver makeup. It was a fashionable and modern take, and we were back into that realm of the mystical and supernatural that all the advertising had tried to put forward. The Green Knight wore a makeshift ensemble of cardboard, plastic plants, green paint and a wetsuit, but thankfully it didn’t look like it – in the dim lighting he made a fantastical figure, particularly with the black-eyed, staring mask. But as the play went on, costume quality began to deteriorate. Once Gawain reached the castle, he was greeted by a cast of servants whose modern uniforms were plain and unoriginal. Worse was the Lady herself, whose uninspiring green dress may have been salvageable had it not been for the glittery green shoes she was wearing them with. They were unpleasant to look at and made it constantly hard to take her seriously.

Costume is not everything, and doesn’t doom a play by any means. A good set would have gone some way to offset it, but this was sadly something else the production was lacking. Set design was reduced to the ugly aforementioned sheets and occasional use of a carpet or a box. Without the sheets it could have aimed for minimalism, with them it became confusing. The set was at its weakest in the scenes where characters went behind the sheets to have conversations. They were semi-transparent, but not enough: I found myself sometimes straining to see what was going on. Lighting went some way to saving the situation, however, particularly in the Green Chapel scene where green lights and a forest soundscape did their best to offset the lacklustre set.

Again, none of this is fatal. The best actors can save any production. Gawain and the Green Knight sadly did not have them. You would think, from the title of Gawain and the Green Knight, that such a play would be a somewhat two man show, and it would have been better had this been the case, because, whilst neither Gawain nor the Green Knight were astounding actors, both showed an impressive degree of skill and were highly enjoyable to watch. The supporting cast, however, failed to blow me away. Performance was often lacklustre, or otherwise felt forced and artificial. Jokes frequently fell flat and an emotional connection was hard to make. Gawain and the Green Knight went some way to offset this, but they could only do so much. It was a somewhat disappointing spectacle.

To be fair to the cast, they were let down some of the way by an equally disappointing script. It is hard to be funny when the jokes aren’t, and hard to be convincing when the dialogue isn’t. Grappling with a traditional medieval story, the writer seemed unsure as to what period their language was coming from, and it floated uncomfortably between archaic terms and modern ones. The story was changed very little from its inspiration, but notable was the conclusion, where Gawain’s harrowing experiences and the apathy of Arthur’s court provoke in him a grim epiphany, whereon the lights fade to black. This silly detail felt like a botched war flashback and created an abrupt and uncomfortable cliffhanger.

Gawain and the Green Knight is a challenging piece of source material to compose a play from. The titular characters tried their best, but sadly, it was not enough. Initially at least aesthetically pleasing, this play stumbled from one poor decision to the next. It would be unfair to say that Gawain and the Green Knight was all bad, but the ultimate effect was one of disappointment.

The Eagle and Child to be restored and reopened

Joel Jackson Buckley
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The Eagle and Child to be restored and reopened

The Eagle and Child, a pub in St Giles renowned for its literary links,  has been visited by new owners to discuss details of its upcoming refurbishment and newfound additional purpose as a social hub for the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT). 

The celebrated pub unfortunately had to close its doors in 2020 following lockdown after 336 years of business. The previous owner, St John’s College, had failed to find adequate buyers until last year when the American-founded tech institute EIT acquired the property. EIT is set to complete its laboratory campus in Oxford Science Park in 2026 and intends to use the space as a city-centre base. Architects Norman Foster and Partners who are designing the main campus are also managing the refurbishment of the Grade II-listed building. 

Lisa Flashner, Chief Operating Officer of EIT, and her architect associates visited Oxford last month. They went to the recently refurbished Lamb and Flag pub opposite Eagle and Child to speak with Oxford Drinker. While the bottom floor of the pub is still intended to be open to the public, Ms Flashner stated: “On the upper floors, we will create spaces for our scholars to meet and get to know each other, including private dining.” The pub was most famously frequented and admired by literary icons J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis as members of The Inklings, a group of writers and academics that would congregate in the “Rabbit Room” at the back of the pub.

There will be changes to the pub’s layout as the current dining area will be demolished and the back garden expanded as a way to create more space across the ground floor. There will also be a passageway created to the garden through the side as another entrance to the pub, aiding the separation between the EIT hub and public house aspects of the property. 

However, there are structural issues that arise from the pub’s four-year abandonment. Ms Flashner claims the pub is currently “in a serious state of disrepair.” Tom Myers, an architect, also commented: “It will be slow going reopening the pub. Our plan is to reopen it as soon as possible, but we need patience.” Aside from architectural concerns, Ms Flashner was receptive to community praise in reopening the pub. She stated: “If people celebrate us half as much when we open the campus as when we reopen the pub, we’ll be doing well.” 

Previous regulars of the pub across Oxford look on in anticipation such as Sir Malcolm Evans, Principal of nearby Regent’s Park College. Speaking with Cherwell, he recounted the “pleasant atmosphere” of the pub – nicknamed the “Bird and Baby” – he experienced as a student. Despite going through a significant transition, there is hope in sight for current and future generations of students to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors in enjoying this legendary landmark of Oxford culture. 

The Rooms Before Me

Zara Arif
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The Rooms Before Me

The first rooms that are fully our own once we leave our family homes become part of our identity and sense of self. Being able to decorate a space and fill it as you want allows for an exploration of the self that is fuelled by a limitless freedom of expression. A university room is both a private and shared space. Visiting someone’s room can give an insight into who they are, what they like and even who they want to present themselves as being. A room is therefore more than a space we occupy but a representation of the self.

A room at Oxford, a city with centuries of history, adds interesting layers to the room as an exploration of the self. Many of us occupy rooms in buildings that are hundreds of years old and have had hundreds of previous occupants. The college system even means that we often know the previous occupants of our old or future rooms. We often even walk past our old rooms on a regular basis and see a new person taking up a place that was once so personal and unique to us. So how can we make a space our own, for the brief interim where it is indeed our own, when we know that it carries so much history of so many people before us, within it?

The fact that a space already has a history and individual stories tied to it does not necessarily make it any less meaningful for each person who comes to reside within it. This plurality and layering of meanings speaks to the university experience itself. Thousands of students pass through Oxford for only three years at a time. They make memories in the city that are unique to them but also tied to the academic and social traditions that have come before them. This is true of any space – our memories and perception of it are based on and inspired by what we already know to be true of it. In this way, an Oxford bedroom does not exist within a vacuum or present itself as a blank canvas for us to fill on individual terms. It is instead a chance to add our own story to a wider and more extensive narrative. This narrative and history is perhaps what makes the Oxford experience so unique. We are 21st century students with modern perspectives and stories but by existing in this city and partaking in all its traditions we are always in contact with and tied to the generations of students who have come before us. A city is nothing more than a geographical limitation without its inhabitants and their stories, just like a room is just four walls without those who have lived in it.

But does positioning our individual stories within a greater history risk erasing the particularities of our experiences, and our identities? Is the thought of all the history which surrounds us not a terrifying reminder of our transience?

If we see our rooms as an expression of ourselves, then the thought of our transience does not need to be so terrifying. Who we are, as we conceive ourselves and project outwards, is always constantly changing and evolving, especially in our university years. Our rooms each year should therefore be seen as a space that a certain version of ourselves once occupied at a certain point in time. A box room with a dodgy sink might have been the perfect home in first year,  for a past version of ourselves. The nostalgia we have for our previous rooms,  is of the past, along with our versions of ourselves. But despite this nostalgia, it doesn’t feel like these versions of ourselves and our spaces lie in our future. We can memorialise these spaces without seeking to return to them.  

This idea of memorialisation links back to decorating our spaces and expressing ourselves. In my own experience, as I have moved from room to room over the course of the last four years, I have taken the same photos, posters and decorative pieces with me. So, even when I feel a twinge of nostalgia as I walk past one of my old rooms, I don’t experience a complete sense of detachment from that space or the version of myself that occupied it and that is because I still have the things that filled that old room. I still have the same postcards on the wall in my current room and to them I have added all the others I have accumulated from my year abroad travels. Looking at my walls, therefore, reminds me of the past but situates it within everything that has changed since then and everything that is still yet to come. Ultimately, for me, that is what space and the things we take ownership of are all about. It is more about the memories and the meanings, the versions of ourselves which are tied to them, than the actual thing itself. 

The university experience is all about changing and growing as an individual. The rooms we live in, where they are, how we decorate them, what we choose to do in them, can therefore be used as markers of this individual change. Embracing the room as a metaphor for change and development allows us to reconcile the dissonance between acknowledging that a space is ours but has also meant something different to so many others before us.

A room is much more than just four walls. It is a space of expression and personal freedom. Thinking about all those who came before us and our relation to them allows us to understand ourselves. Spaces are defined by the people who inhabit them and are therefore marked by, and themselves symbolise the change and development of each person who lives within them.

The forgotten pandemic?

Martin Conmy
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The forgotten pandemic?

Martin Conmy discusses the unlearnt lessons from the pandemic.

Remember COVID? 

That might sound like a ridiculous question; of course you do. Who could forget the virus that ravaged the world, killed an estimated 27 million people, slashed British GDP by almost a fifth and locked us indoors for months at a time?

But if we remember COVID-19, we certainly don’t act like we do. Wherever you look – socially, politically, economically, even culturally – the virus and its impact are, by now, virtually invisible. The coronavirus may have been humanity’s “biggest test since WW2”, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres declared in 2020, but our refusal to change the pre-COVID status quo instead seems to testify to a quote from Andrei Tarkovsky – “in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all”.

The early days of COVID-19 saw a near universal consensus emerge among political commentators: the pandemic had demonstrated the folly of individualism, with the public quick to embrace communitarianism and collective sacrifice. Everything from our acquiescence to lockdown restrictions to the weekly clap for nurses was taken as immutable evidence of this. Gueterres was not alone in comparing COVID with WW2; just as wartime Britons had accepted the need for collective action and sacrifice in combating the German threat, so had contemporary Britons bravely agreed to stay at home to save lives and protect the NHS. Numerous journalists, and even Keir Starmer himself, cast the Labour leader as the next Attlee, Labour’s transformative postwar leader. Indeed, in 1945, the inevitable result of this shared experience would be a radical turn towards leftism.

Whether or not this spirit of collectivism was a mirage then, it has all but vanished by now. The emergence of anti-vaccine extremism demonstrated that the ghost of dogmatic individualism lived on – according to one poll, as many as a quarter of UK adults believe that COVID was a hoax.

Similarly, COVID did not help the left very much; people remain as attached to the rugged individualism and self-obsession of right-wing neoliberalism as ever. Trump has opened up a decisive poll lead in America; in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AFD), a far-right party whose founder has criticised the memorialisation of the Holocaust and spoken in favour of a “more positive” attitude to Germany’s Nazi past, is currently the second-most popular party. In the UK, Labour may have opened up a major poll lead, but it is hard to see Keir Starmer, a man who has praised Margaret Thatcher for enacting “meaningful change”, as the next Attlee. Britons have gone back to holding each other in as much contempt as we did before the pandemic; compared to early 2020, people are more hostile towards state expenditure and more supportive of stricter benefit laws according to YouGov polling. Almost no sacrifice was too great in preventing deaths from COVID – and yet Britons refuse to stomach even minor changes to the cruel benefits system that contributed to as many as 300,000 deaths since Cameron-era austerity cuts.

COVID did not teach us the value of communitarianism then, but, even more extraordinarily, it did not even teach us the necessity of pandemic planning. According to the Global Health Security Index, not a single country is sufficiently prepared for future health emergencies; healthcare spending in the rich world, meanwhile, has fallen since 2021, and is now almost identical to its level pre-COVID. The wet food markets in Wuhan that likely gave birth to the disease remain open today, as they have been since 2021. Even working from home, perhaps the primary lingering legacy of the pandemic, has declined enormously since the pandemic’s end, seeming more like a temporary aberration rather than a fundamental transformation.

Why exactly we have completely forgotten about COVID, and refused to learn from it, is a more nebulous question – our complete disinterest in the pandemic is shown by the lack of studies into this question. Perhaps, unlike an era-defining event like WW2, our experience of COVID was one defined largely by mind-numbing boredom rather than any dramatics; making it fade from the memory more quickly; or maybe, unlike an event like the 2008 financial crisis, we subconciously see it as something natural, having no human antagonists present to point the finger at.

George Santayana’s famous quote “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” may be an enormous cliché, but it is a cliché for a reason. COVID-19 should not only serve as a lesson in the necessity of preparing for unpredictable catastrophes. It also ought to teach us the folly of individualism and the need for communitarian ideals in dealing with them. Unfortunately, we can only expect more economic disaster and needless deaths in the future if we maintain senseless individualism and ignore the lessons of COVID.

The effects of media attention on upcoming sports stars

Rosina White Belchere
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The effects of media attention on upcoming sports stars

Media brings people together, as does sport, and young people are the figureheads for combining the two and creating something extremely powerful.

Having grown up as consumers of media themselves, more so than the generations that came before them, young sportspeople today recognise how to use it to their advantage. This is especially prominent with the use of social media, such as Instagram, X, and Facebook. Hundreds of influencers are earning a living from uploading videos and photos to TikTok and Instagram – posting frequently, thanking one’s followers, and even interacting with them can have seismic effects.  Young sporting stars, bursting into the sporting world and breaking world records, attract throngs of the younger generations to them and their sport. These athletes are supporting their sport with their ability to understand social media and its audiences, using their own publicity to appeal to a wider consumer base and draw attention to their sport. 

Luke Littler is one such example. At only sixteen years old, he was the first darts player in history to gain one million followers on Instagram, with the world champion Luke Humphries even asking him to share the love. He interacts with his audience and appreciates the strength that their support can give him. Whilst watching the recent World Darts Championships, one moment during the quarter-finals came to mind.  Playing against Brendan Dolan, Littler decided to go for the ‘Big Fish’, a highly challenging and impressive move – a game winner. After the first two throws, both landing as intended, he turned to the crowd and was rewarded with the loudest roar from the legion of supporters filling the Alexandra Palace, before turning back to the board again for his last throw. Even the commentators were equal parts shocked and impressed at this small act. Littler was using the crowd to urge him on, performing for them, and having the time of his life whilst doing so.  

Another fresh face on the sporting scene is Emma Raducanu, the winner of the 2021 US Open at just eighteen years old. Over a span of three months in 2021, her Instagram following swelled from 10,000 followers to 2.1 million, currently sitting at 2.4 million. Living nearby Bromley at the time, I remember the pride that my family immediately felt in her despite never meeting her. Britain was so proud to have such a young talent in tennis, especially following Andy Murray’s earlier success. She soon appeared on the Met Gala red carpet, became a Tiffany and Co. ambassador, and starred on the front cover of British Vogue fashion magazine in September 2021. This photoshoot consisted of her wearing designer outfits by Alexander McQueen, Gucci and Louis Vuitton, paired, perhaps surprisingly, with Nike trainers. She jumps out of the page, right arm swinging back, holding a tennis racket and shoes picking up orange dust from the clay court surface. She brings a freshness to some very mature pieces, appealing to fellow young people with her radiant smile and youthful energy. In fact, one video which has appeared several times on my Tiktok feed  is the moment a young fan sitting in the audience asks to marry her – preparing to serve, she turns around and plays it off beautifully with a laugh. 

The audience’s thirst for drama and success can however become too overwhelming for the players. There is now somewhat of a precedent of young stars warning the next upcomers about the danger of reaching fame at such a young age. In the music world, Justin Bieber showed concern and care for Billie Eilish through her rise to fame, who then passed that concern on to Olivia Rodrigo. Many celebrities announce that they will be taking time off from social media to re-focus on themselves, such as Selena Gomez, Tom Holland, and Shawn Mendes. This is no different for celebrity sportspeople. Raducanu showed her concern for Littler in his rocket launch to fame, as did snooker world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan who started his career in snooker at a similar pace. Fellow darts player George Anderson warned the media in an interview following a match that if Littler’s current course through the sport became unstable and he crashed just as quickly as he gained his fame, it would be the fault of the media themselves. 

Media sets unrealistic expectations for these young stars. They train so hard as kids because they simply love the sport, they love the thrill of the competition and the reward of the win. When they begin winning on a professional level however, their audience grows from supportive parents, friends, and coaches to a global viewership. If you follow an upcoming athlete based on the knowledge of that person’s age and miraculous talent, and not because you know them personally, it creates a significant first impression and sets a high expectation for them to continue impressing you. Some people cannot refrain from the opportunity to anonymously express their disappointment on social media when their preferred sports stars perform less than a miracle, and this only elevates the pressure. Even the pressure to upkeep their social media profile, post frequently and meaningfully is a lot to handle. Eventually, their priorities change. Once, they loved the sport – now they’re terrified of it. In a world concerned so much about mental health, especially in young people, why does the media still create so much damage?

Five Songs for the Fifth Week Blues

Bryn Mollet
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Five Songs for the Fifth Week Blues

I believe that music makes a lot of things in life better. Fifth week at Oxford is no exception. Whilst it won’t help you in an essay crisis, attend tutorials in your place, or shake a Park End hangover, it can help romanticise your university experience right at the time when it really needs romanticising. So here are five songs that I believe will help get you through fifth week blues:

Point and Kill – Little Simz (feat. Obongjayar) in Sometimes I Might Be Introvert

‘Point and kill’ is a Nigerian expression derived from the marketplace practice of pointing at the live fish you want, and it being killed fresh for you. The song is all about going out, getting what you want, and achieving success; you can’t let anyone get in your way and you must keep your eyes on the prize. If that isn’t motivation to finish your essay, then I don’t know what is. The song is characterised by the distinctiveness of Obongjayar’s Nigerian-British accent on top of a percussive and refreshingly energetic afrobeat rhythm. It features in Little Simz’s album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert which explores themes of self-belief, feminism, and the artist’s own introversion, and is worth a listen.

Keep It Simple – Raleigh Ritchie (feat. Stormzy) in You’re a Man Now Boy

Given that Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, it feels fitting to include a love song. Keep It Simple perfectly encapsulates all the emotions associated with a new romance; happiness, nerves, and the incessant desire to spend all your time with that special person. One can imagine listening to it, skipping merrily back from a perfect first date. The title refers to the desire for love to just be nice and simple when everything else in our world can be so complicated. Ritchie’s genre is hard to define, with the artist himself admitting he does not quite know what it is, though one could say, it sits comfortably somewhere between hip-hop and alternative R&B. This track is also blessed with a Stormzy feature (three years before he released his debut album) whose style compliments Ritchie’s more songful vocals.

Comb My Hair – Kings of Convenience in Peace or Love

But if your Valentine’s Day was not all that successful, back, then this song may be more appropriate. “What good is to comb my hair, It won’t be touched by you?” is one of the many elegiac lyrics in this song that really condenses that feeling of having our everyday thoughts revolve around a distant crush. The dreamy guitar arpeggios perfectly symbolise that sense of the daydreaming and yearning associated with an unrequited love. Kings of Convenience are a Norwegian acoustic band, who create the most gentle, sweet, and ‘granola bar-esque’ music, accompanied with poetic and thoughtful lyrics. All their albums make for great music to listen to whilst you study, or equally, whilst you hanker after your lecture crush who doesn’t even know you exist.

But chin-up, there is always Bridge Thursday…

Australia – The Shins in Wincing the Night Away

The Shins use the metaphor of Australia when it was a penal colony to portray the nature of a nine-to-five office job, as repetitive, draining, and limiting to the capacities of humans to really live their lives. Their philosophy is that people should not be confined to weekends to have fun, find love, and do the things that are important to them. The song warns how quickly this can be realised; “Well do it now or grow old, Your nightmares only take a year or two to unfold”. The aim of the song is to persuade the listener to go out, live life, and pursue a career that truly fulfils them. Instead of being stuck in an office, “dammed to pine through the windowpanes” The Shins want you to “give [them] your hand, and jump out the window”. The idea of optimism and looking for a better life is portrayed in the song’s typical upbeat, guitar-led, indie rhythm, despite the bleak sentiments of some of the lyrics; Definitely a song I would recommend to any E&M students aspiring on a career in investment banking.

Space 1.8 – Nala Sinephro in Space 1.8

If you are someone who enjoys listening to music whilst you study, then this is the album for you. I am convinced it makes you at least three times as productive, maybe even four? Sinephro is a Belgian-Caribbean performer and composer, who plays the pedal harp, keyboard, and a whole host of other instruments, including modular synthesizers. In Space 1.8 she is accompanied by other accomplished drummers, reed, and bass players, with whom she creates an ambient, dreamy, soundscape, which one can very easily lose themselves in. The album has 8 tracks, which seamlessly blend into one another. Her motifs are developed gradually throughout, and alternative sounds, rhythms, and layers are introduced, punctuated by delicate saxophone solos. Its intensity and timbre fluctuate and demonstrate Sinephro’s capabilities as an arranger and player. Space 1.8 is a great way into the world of experimental jazz and listening to it is an experience in itself.

So, whether you are stuck on that last-minute essay grind, a hopeful, or hopeless, romantic, or just need something new to listen to, there is something there for everyone. The above songs have some rather interesting qualities and if you enjoy them, I would definitely recommend listening to the albums in their entirety to see if you discover something even more magical. No matter where you listen to these songs, be it alone in the sweet confines of your room, or marching down the High Street to attend your gruelling 9am lecture, I hope that they can help make your fifth week that little bit less blue.

Crafting Kingship: Hellenistic Royal Portraiture

Rachael Cummings-Naylor
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Crafting Kingship: Hellenistic Royal Portraiture

There was a shared goal for Hellenistic kings to establish themselves as rulers following the division of Alexander the Great’s empire into three main kingdoms under the Antigonids, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids (323 BC). This resulted in the development of a standardised visual vocabulary of royal ideology represented by statues and coinage. 

A newer style of royal portraiture designed to represent the “charismatic, aggressively militaristic ideology of kingship,” won the Successors (Seleucus I Nicator, Ptolemy I Souter and Antigonus the One-Eyed) their kingship in the absence of legitimacy. A common style across the coins reflected beardless, ageless, and jewelled images of Hellenistic kings. In an attempt to associate themselves with the legitimacy expected of a Macedonian king, the Successors adopted this style which evoked images of Alexander who appeared as such in royal portraits, although not originally in coinage. 

Statues and coinage maintained a standardised style with defining features exhibited through similar expressions of body language, physiognomy and degrees of divinisation. The use of ‘display poses’ and depictions of fighting figures became a universal language of power adopted by Hellenistic kings to showcase personal dominance. For example, the Terme Ruler (third–second century BC) displays the figure in a relaxed position indicating the fact that he is non-threatened, whilst the tilted pelvis may also reveal security or the absence of fear in the exposure of a man’s most vulnerable area. This common motif depicted ruler figures as confident in their own forms of self-expression and thus in their presentation as kings. 

Nudity was also a common theme among royal statues, reminiscent of the gods but adapted to suit them as rulers. This additionally allowed for displays of exaggerated muscularity and athleticism which are further enhanced by a raised grip, all of which are motifs of military and political power. The raised grip itself was a symbolic legitimisation of conquest (‘spear-won land’) initially used by Alexander and later adopted by the Successors as the legal basis for the Hellenistic kingdoms.

Both statues and coinage were heavily influenced by Alexander who popularised costumes and certain attributes to convey royal power and divinity. Hellenistic kings used ram’s or bull’s horns, elephant-scalp headdresses, winged diadems, solar rays and mythological props associated with him. It is common among ruler tetradrachms to see kings presented with royal diadems on their heads, paired with a youthful appearance and full hairline that was evocative of Alexander–asserting his royal authority and legitimacy onto themselves. The Ptolemies favoured divinising iconography which can be seen in the coinage of Ptolemy I and sculptures of Ptolemy II. The former coinage illustrated a goat-skin aegis slung across Ptolemy I which was closely associated with Zeus and identified him with the king of the gods to imply his majesty. The latter portrayed Ptolemy II adorned with an elephant-scalp headdress reminiscent of Alexander’s conquest of Africa, whilst his boots and club displayed the twin divine ancestry of the Ptolemaic dynasty through Heracles and Dionysus.

That is not to say there were no variations in style, as kings adopted different features to emphasise alternate aspects of royal ideology. This idea is demonstrated well by the use of ‘jugate’ portraits under the Ptolemies to convey dynastic continuity. Iconographic depictions of Ptolemy II and Arsinoё II as sibling-gods can be seen in Egyptian coin portraits. The style was a product of Ptolemaic ideology in an Egyptian cultural context and was adopted by other kingdoms, such as the Seleucids, as it was seen as necessary for promoting dynastic continuity and familial similarity.

Even royal female portraiture played an important role. It appears their shared styles with male royal portraits were used as tools to consolidate kingship and dynastic rule. The statuette of Arsinoё II closely resembles that of her brother-husband Ptolemy II in its body language: the body is in a relaxed position to show she does not feel threatened and her arm is raised in a military style which could suggest her influence within the Egyptian government as Ptolemy’s political partner. Alternatively, she is presented as feeling secure under her husband’s rule and mirrors him as an extension of his royal power. 

Hellenistic kings had a shared goal to establish themselves as rulers by communicating royal ideology through coins and statues which could be accessed by the public. Royal portraiture was broad but it had definable limits: variations in style formed part of a standardised set of visual elements which conveyed power and status. This form of self-presentation allowed Hellenistic kings to present their personal, charismatic leadership and statesmanship in the absence of legitimacy. As such, their kingship and their family’s dynastic rule were established and maintained, whilst female royal portraiture seems to have acted as an extension of male self-presentation which borrowed from its style. 

Get ready for the most important year of your life, yet

Roy Shinar Cohen
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Get ready for the most important year of your life, yet

If you follow global or regional politics you are probably aware that 2024 is not like any year before it in recent history, and possibly ever: the globe is getting warmer, two wars are raging, the United Nations seems more dysfunctional than in decades, and we will see nearly 4 billion people going to the polls in more than 60 countries around the world. This makes 2024 the biggest election year ever. It is not just the sheer number of elections, but the incredibly influential places in which they are happening – including Taiwan, Malaysia, India, South Africa, the European Union, and the United States. 

The consequences of these elections could reach far beyond domestic and foreign policy. Consider this: will the Taiwanese election, which the anti-Chinese Democratic Progressive Party won, influence Beijing’s willingness to invade? Could Trump’s victory decide the results of the Ukraine war, and hand Russia the win? And more generally, will the elections we are facing accelerate or slow down the global democratic backslide? While deliberating on these crucial questions you should, also, not forget that the likelihood of influence campaigns being involved in every major election is incredibly high. Such campaigns, which we have seen in the past (including Cambridge Analytica), not only sway the electorate in an un-democratic way but also cast doubt about the legitimacy of the results – no matter what they are. They do so by spreading fear and disinformation through social media in a way that pushes the electorate towards a certain candidate or party, often involving xenophobic and racist rhetoric. So, not only will we have elections in some of the most influential countries in the world, but different actors will try to influence them, and no matter the results large numbers of citizens are unlikely to believe them.

These elections alone should make us all stop and consider the stakes of 2024, and the risks that lie throughout it, but the elections are not all that is happening. The war in Ukraine enters its third year with no end in sight; the war in Gaza seems to be entering a state of violent stagnation. Simultaneously, the Middle East resorts to violence in and around Yemen, in Iraq, between Iran and Pakistan, and between Israel and Hezbollah, which is a slippery slope towards a regional war. This means the two wars currently raging are at risk of being sidelined by a larger, Middle Eastern war. Not to mention the probable American and Western military involvement in such a war.

35 years ago many thought that they had witnessed the end of history. Today we know that we are living through history happening in all its drama.

But where does it all meet us? Most of the readers of this article are probably Oxford students, like me. Considering the probable British election this year (which has yet to be announced, but will have to be called by December 17th), in addition to EU and American elections, approximately 80% of Oxford’s student body comes from countries going to the polls. More importantly, all of us will be substantially influenced by these elections and wars. Setting aside for a moment the rising cost-of-living these wars and instability inflict, throughout this year not only will we have to sit through endless dinners discussing Trump’s last outrageous statement, but we might suddenly find ourselves in a less democratic world: a world full of leaders fighting against the values, institutions, and norms that most of us believe in, and that have been fought for in history.

I may have convinced you that 2024 is truly the most important year of your life thus far. Regardless, the question should be asked, can we do anything about this impending storm? The answer is yes. In fact, the answer must be yes, not because of some ‘Oxford exceptionalism’, but quite the opposite. The answer must be yes because we are regular people, citizens. History is full of inspiring citizens who rose to the moment and pushed the arc of history towards justice, but so is the present. We have all been inspired time and again by the people of Ukraine and their strength as individuals and as citizens. I wonder, however, if a similar model could be replicated against different threats to our societies (most of which are much less tangible than Russian tanks and missiles). Could each country unite for its democracy’s survival, and could people unite globally to slow down, or stop, the democratic backslide?

I think universities in general, and in particular institutions as international as Oxford, should have a role in safeguarding our democratic institutions. Universities should remind us of the kind of world we had before our modern democracies, explain the risk of war and division, and propose ideas for maintaining the current democratic state. Not only that, but universities are an international hub unmatched in most societies. Oxford alone has members from 160 countries, which could make them the base for global organisation and cooperation across borders and oceans. But will they? It is partially up to us to make it happen.

The days we are living through will be the subject of history books, but the story is yet to be written. 2024 will be a crucial year for the struggles of our time – for the climate, for our rights, for our lives, and for the world as we know it. No matter what you choose to do about it, as much or as little as you’d like, I urge you to at least read up on what is awaiting us in 2024. When you’re done, you should know we are all looking forward to seeing how you are going to defend democracy. Let’s begin.

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