Tuesday 1st July 2025
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Rewind: Jean Rhys

Samantha Phey
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Rewind: Jean Rhys

On May 14 1979, the widely acclaimed author of Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys, passed away in a small village in Devon. She left behind an incomplete text of her autobiography. She was born in the West Indies, and this featured as a backdrop for most of her writing. Her most famous work is the widely acclaimed Wide Sargasso Sea, written as a response to precede the events of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

Rhys shone a new light on the infamous ‘madwoman in the attic’. Through the multiple deaths of Bertha, Rhys reveals that she is far more than merely a one-dimensional character.

Bertha Mason’s descent into madness is aptly demonstrated by the symbolism of fragments and pieces. The most obvious of this symbolism in this transition is the way Bertha is addressed by others. “Antoinette”, as she is first known, means ‘beyond praise’. She is then renamed by Rochester as “Bertha”, indicating her first death and a break from her original self. Ironically, “Bertha” means ‘bright one’ and is a glaring reference to her death in Jane Eyre, going up in flames in a dramatic ending.

The book is divided into three parts: Antoinette’s childhood, her honeymoon with Rochester and her life as Bertha in England. This is perhaps reminiscent of the many facets and personalities of Bertha we have come to know.

Bertha has served mostly as a foil to Jane, but Brontë’s symbolism throughout the text draws some eerie similarities between the two characters. For Jane, her rise to power is coupled with the image of fire, symbolising her passion, spirit and growth in the Bildungsroman. Brontë describes Jane’s mind as “a ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring”. This parallels uncomfortably with Bertha’s pyromaniac madness, whose power and influence in the novel climaxes when she sets Thornfield Hall ablaze. In the process, she injures Rochester and plunges him to a fall from grace.

Indeed, it can be said that it was not merely Jane who had ‘tamed’ Rochester, but also Bertha. Holding a mirror to each other, perhaps it is arguable that Jane and Bertha are two halves – two parts – of the same person. In their multiple deaths, the re-telling of Bertha’s back story reveals the real death, taking apart the façade of the death described in Jane Eyre.

“I was a part of him, nothing more”

Simran Uppal
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“I was a part of him, nothing more”

Chai chai, garam chai garam garam garam chai, chai wallah! Chai chai, garam chai…

When your train pulls into a station in India it’s sometimes like someone has suddenly turned the volume up on a radio symphony. Columns of tea and coffee dealers rush up and down alongside the train windows, a few leap inside and drag tall streams of glittering milky tea from their canteens into little cups. Each has their own chant advertising their wares, and it’s like their rhythms and melodies stream in and fill the space, interlocking into each other.

Kaafee wallah, kaafee wallah! Garam kaafee, garam garam kaafee wallah! Kaafee wallah, caafee wallah…

My grandfather was on the train opposite me, the bottom half of his face lit brightly by the gold Indian brightness. We were passing the border from Delhi and Haryana into his – our? – home state, Punjab. Punjab, the Land of the Five Rivers. ‘Panj’, ‘five’, was one of the few Panjabi words I’d ever learnt – ‘garam’ for ‘hot!’ and ‘suad’ for ‘delicious’ weren’t unimportant too. There was a touch of a frown, it looked like, under the shadow on his forehead. This was our first time in India together, flying straight from Heathrow after the 20 minute drive from his house in Hounslow.

Stepping out of your airport cab into Delhi is like nothing else: the heat hits your properly, and the hot burnt tarmac smell of metropolises in the sub-tropics, and the noise that characterises every big city in South Asia, all wraps you like a shawl folded tightly round your shoulders. Kingsley Road, by his house, has three Indian confectioners, a sari shop and two halal butchers, but it’s a faded dull shadow in comparison with even the smallest parade of shops in Delhi.

You saw them sail past from the train windows, and I wondered what he was thinking of as he looked out on them, stalls draped all over with strips of five rupee foil sachets – toiletries, sweets, sometimes little things of mango pickle – and all I thought of was how the shampoo sachets were the same brand as the one my aunt uses at home.

Little parts of his identity were scattered around the world now – 35 years in the Post Office in London, homes made by children and grandchildren a Tube journey from the government that had taken his country once, but still those old, old lands in Punjab.

Our home had been there, deep in the crazy bright green of the agricultural lands, for hundreds of years. Pride of place at home in Hounslow went to photos of his children; pride of place in the India house went to an old nobleman’s sword. In India he was different to my quiet grandfather, some other core took over and he became prouder, he smiled deeper. He wore a turban again after a few days, tied with unshaking hands, hands distorted a little by his age. The white wraps of fabric covered the hair he’d cut back when he first moved to Britain.

You think of those long pieces of dark hair, never cut from birth, washed combed with a wooden comb every day since it first grew long enough. They were tossed away in a Southall bathroom bin but his hair was white now and, it seemed, it felt like the vow in his heart was never broken.

The sunlight through the open, glass-less windows had shifted up as the train moved or as the day passed and the edges of his white turban were catching the glow of the sky. The green of the plants and fields is so bright it’s like the gold of the sun has poured down and stirred into the rich black earth and water until there’s just endless dark glowing perfect green, just glowing dark green.

As we passed deeper and deeper into the fields and open plains of water and paddy his shoulders relaxed and slipped down a little more, and it seemed like his breath slowed a touch, calmed. It was funny because he always seemed in his element around my grandmother (leader of the house) and my father and even with me and his sister in his soft natural English – but passing into the rich lands of his home he somehow became a man in his own home.

Chai! Garam chai, garam! Chai wallah chai! Chai! Garam chai…

The music started again as the train slowed and people, vendors, samosa wallahs leaped on and off and around. He smiled and it was as if his smile translated the black characters on the yellow station sign outside. Jalandhar was just a few miles from our home, from our nearest station. There were a few parts of me in this land, too. He was at home and I was a part of him, nothing more. Perhaps he was a part of me, too, but most importantly the rich black earth, golden green fields had taken us both and wrapped us in her sandalwood-scented arms. He stood glowing with the golden light you only ever see in Indian trains, light poured in through the open glassless windows and his white turban wrapped round his forehead, soft rich smooth fabric he held high.

 

Review: Le Petit Prince

Alex Barasch
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Review: Le Petit Prince

As the most translated French-language novel of all time, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince is a story with nostalgic significance for many. This makes it a strong choice for a new French Play in the tradition of Oxford’s Italian, German and Greek offerings, but comes with its own set of challenges – not least the difficulty of staging a tale in which the title character travels from planet to planet with the help of a flock of birds. Despite my initial reservations, however, the team behind the adaptation at the Simpkins Lee Theatre have decidedly risen to the occasion.

The story is told by a man who, having been discouraged from more creative pursuits at a young age, instead became a pilot – a decision that leads to his crash in the Sahara Desert and an unlikely encounter. Thousands of miles from civilisation, a young boy approaches the wreckage and requests, without preamble, that he draw him a sheep. As the narrator says, “When a mystery is too powerful, one dares not disobey.” So begins an unlikely friendship: while the Aviator struggles to repair his plane, the Little Prince tells the story of his life on Asteroid B-612 and the journey through the stars that brought him to Earth.

The cast take turns in the roles of the Aviator and the Little Prince; when not playing one of the two leads, they also double as disapproving grown-ups or vain wild roses as the plot requires it, but they are perhaps most impressive when bringing the colourful inhabitants of the prince’s universe to life. Though each of these characters – including a King with no subjects, a Drunkard who drinks to forget the shame of drinking, and a Lamplighter doomed to perform his duties twice every minute due to the rapid rotation of his tiny planet – only appears in a single scene, the exaggerated physicality of the performers makes them both amusing and memorable.

Having several people play the Aviator sometimes feels clumsy, with actors speaking over each other instead of in unison and switching off seemingly arbitrarily. The calibre of the acting itself, however, is generally high: Serin Gioan is especially compelling in their early turn as the Aviator, illustrating the character’s distaste for his fellow grandes personnes convincingly and entertainingly. As with the comedic planet-hopping interlude, the more emotional subplots are strong. Particularly noteworthy is Alexander Bridges as the Fox opposite Georgia Crump’s Little Prince – the two have excellent chemistry, with an endearing first encounter and sad farewell after they share some of the play’s most meaningful meditations on the nature of love and friendship.

While there is little in the way of a set (an innovative, bicycle-part-based plane wreck aside), and the irregular costumes make for a somewhat motley ensemble, these shortcomings don’t detract from the story they seek to tell. As the Fox notes before he and his Little Prince part ways, what is essential is invisible to the eye – and is indeed present in this production. All in all, a heart-warming performance that does justice to Saint-Exupéry’s beloved novel.

The Oxonian Dandy

Dante OKeefe
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The Oxonian Dandy

Sleep: the great staple of our race as humans, yet something the frequent reader of this column might not get too much of. Whether returning from a night out at some new pop-up bar in Jericho, with funk bopping round the brain on the offbeat to a pair of marching loafers on the cobbled streets, or rising early to practise lines for a summer Shakespeare performance, inevitably the dandy won’t get his eight hours every night.

However the fleeting slumber of an Oxonian chap, despite its brevity, is something to be undertaken. And, where there is undertaking, there is opportunity for fashion. When brushing one’s teeth as the sun rises over the copper-clad spires, as the lark gleefully chirps from its roost in the quad, what greater pleasure can be taken than to glance at oneself in the mirror in a full set of button- up silken pyjamas?

A set of pyjamas ought to be positively louche. Indulge in patterns and colours that could well induce sickness to an unexpecting beholder. A paisley cotton combination consisting of purples and greens could work especially well if one was in a mood for a late-night working stint, or choose a turquoise-orange scheme for some casual reading by the mood-lamp (or fireplace if your accommodation is so furnished). A collar is essential on any decent pair of pyjamas – you are, after all, wearing a shirt. Pyjamas are often overlooked in favour of underwear, while some forego the formality of the pyjama shirt, simply sleeping in bottoms. This is a catastrophic no-no for any dandy who considers himself worth his salt. If you’re too warm in bed, either you’ve been eating too much Reblochon before bed, or your duvet is too heavy (I myself prefer to sleep under two translucent silk sheets with a third lace sheet to hide my modesty).

When the occasion calls for a bit more warmth, perhaps while lingering in the stairwell chatting to a chum with a hot brew in hand, a dressing gown is the appropriate garment. The well-equipped would have multiple of these versatile robes: something heavy and unpatterned (so as not to clash with the aforementioned paisley P-Js); some- thing lightweight, preferably silken and profligate, perhaps from the orient, for summer; and something akin to a bathrobe, for stav- ing off the chills on the return journey from the shower. However, if only one raiment can be practically maintained, then decisions must be made – those looking for warmth ought to choose the first option, while those wearing a skimpy set of jim-jams and seeking to maintain the sense of the sibyllic ought to wear the flowing silk gown, to ward off the wandering eyes of the lascivious downstairs.

In terms of accessory items, slippers and nightcaps are the obvious candidates. There’s not an awful lot to say here: with both, you want a pom-pom on the end. Get slippers with gold lace inlaid, and which curve upwards to a point. Make sure your nightcap has a good length for flop, and don’t be afraid to take an alcoholic nightcap before putting it on, either. I like a sherry. Next week: ball attire.

A little bit awkward

Sam Norman
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A little bit awkward

When you’re growing up, there are loads of awkward moments. When you’re in school, it’s when you get in trouble for throwing water at your friends and desperately don’t want Mum to find out or she’ll stop you playing on the computer.  As you get older, it’s the fear of seeing sex on television when with your parents- when you break out into cold sweats the moment Daenerys Targaryen turns up in Game of Thrones, through fear that she may take her top off. And then, there’s the rebellious teen years, the moment you come home still a little drunk from the previous night and proceed to cower over the downstairs toilet as your whole family awkwardly try to finish their Coco Pops, taking mouthfuls in between the intermittent retches.

But there is one area that sticks out for so many people. It’s a cause of awkwardness that has persisted since time immemorial: religion. Religion has been making things awkward for thousands of years, from the second century Carthaginian student coming out to his parents as a Gnostic, to the sixteenth century Swiss girl telling her Mum that she thinks Calvin raises some valid points, to the angry existential teenager reading Nietzsche and angrily shouting ‘God is dead’ at every available moment.

Now, my family aren’t exactly super religious: my Mum for example doesn’t believe Jesus was God, just that he was a great bloke who said some pretty nifty things. But they go to church every Sunday, and my younger siblings go to Sunday School, making papier mache crucifixes and watching videos where cartoon vegetables explain Bible stories. So, it wasn’t that controversial when I told my Mum I didn’t believe in God- she coped well with it. But when I broke it to my younger siblings, it was a little more awkward.

Like so many awkward family stories, it happened on Christmas Day. We’d just finished Christmas dinner, and I had just finished my Christmas Pudding: literally a whole Christmas pudding. Nobody else in my family likes it, so I had the arduous task of fighting through the Tesco Finest clump of dried fruits, nuts and brandy. But, once I was suitably full, giddy with the shear bulk of calories I’d worked my way through, I decided to go to the park with my younger brother and sister. And so we left the house, singing carols, shouting “Merry Christmas” to random strangers as we encountered them on the streets and basking in the merriment of the season.

But I ran on ahead, eager to reach the swings before my siblings because I wanted to get to the swings before them, as that’s all any intelligent person wants to do at the park. As I ran ahead of my siblings, they started talking about Jesus and his birthday. Nothing exciting of course, but the kind of pseudo-Theology you’d expect from primary school children. “Would Jesus get both birthday and Christmas presents?” “Why was Jesus not born in a hospital?” “Is there a messianic secret motif in Mark’s Gospel?” Basic stuff, really. But then, my brother asked me “Sam, why did you not come to church today? It makes Jesus sad.”

“I don’t believe in Jesus”. I said, not really paying attention. Silence. “What?” my brother whimpered. “I don’t believe in God. I’m not a Christian”. My brother let out a noise like a slowly deflating air-bed, while a solitary tear ran down my sister’s cheek. “But if you’d believe in God, you won’t go to heaven, and if you won’t go to heaven it won’t be heaven because you’re not there”. His reasoning was impressive, although I didn’t have time to appreciate it through the tears and whimpering.

I couldn’t respond. Explaining why I’m an advocate of a Universalism view of salvation didn’t stop the barrage of wails and tears. Short of finding God right then and there, I don’t think anything could have consoled them. It was so awkward, they just stood there looking at me, not sure what to do. They were just sad. This had never happened before; whenever we’d talked about God or death or any big questions, they would always shrug it off. Maybe they would be sad for a moment, but they’d forget, somehow getting distracted by a pigeon they saw, or giving up on sadness so they could get back to the task of being happy. They just didn’t seem to care or understand. But now, something had changed. Now they cared about these issues. It was painful to watch them so utterly, utterly depressed.

I guess I just never considered them people who could think and reason. They were just my younger brother and sister. I just saw them as these little children who I played pretend sword fights with, as people who I am meant to look after and who can’t think on meaningful, difficult topics like death and religion. That’s the way they had always been as they had been growing up. But these awkward moments that come from the collision of my image with their reality was powerful; the awkwardness came from me expecting something different, from me viewing them as simple human beings, forgetting that they grow, evolve and change. As awkward as that Christmas walk was, I’m glad it happened. I feel I see them differently now, I understand them a bit more. And I welcome the next awkward moment, the next moment I realise that they’re changing, becoming themselves and growing up. So, next time it gets awkward, remember, it might be for the best.

What the Scottish elections mean for the whole UK

Charles Clegg
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What the Scottish elections mean for the whole UK

In a sound bite no doubt prepared for the increased majority that never was, Nicola Sturgeon hailed the SNP’s third consecutive Holyrood victory as “historic”. Historic in the sense of posterity, yes; but that qualified victory was far from the most seminal result of an election whose lessons and consequences will affect the whole of Britain.

Everyone in Scotland was a winner of some sort last Thursday night. The SNP remain in government. The pro-independence Scottish Greens are up from two seats to six. The Liberal Democrats’ seat count remains, against the odds, at five. The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party soared into second place. Everyone was a winner except, that is, Labour. The party now has less than a fifth of the seats in the house it built.

Labour’s failure in the Scottish elections should chill the spines of Corbyn and his supporters. But it doesn’t. Successes in London, Bristol, and Wales can mask the worst local election results of any new opposition leader since the War; but it is in Scotland that the damage from Labour’s leftward lurch can be best assessed.

Remember the autumn of 2015. With the constituency map of Scotland dowsed in yellow and some polls putting the SNP on 60 per cent ahead of the Holyrood elections, it seemed to follow that if the Scots are left-wing, and the SNP are left-wing, then Corbyn’s being left wing could redeem a lapsed Labour heartland. It didn’t happen. Not only did it not happen, but Labour’s fall was mirrored almost exactly by the Tories’ rise in many areas. It’s no longer just the SNP who are eating into Labour’s electorate. Their weak stance on the independence question and threatened tax rises did more to help the Conservatives than Labour. If that’s the case in a part of the country that John Smith once hailed as more moral than its southern neighbour, then not only will righteous Labour struggle to win in heathen England, but it will struggle to win at all in 2020 without the cohort of Scottish MPs on which it could once rely.

Labour may have reason to be discomforted by the Scottish elections, but the UK as a whole, and Scotland in particular, should be able to breathe easy for the meanwhile – hopefully. Despite multiple promises to make the 2014 independence referendum a “once in a generation/lifetime” affair, the miraculous apparition of the wrong result deemed all such promises void before the will of the Scottish people. But just as the will of the Scottish people had prevented a break up in 2014, it halted an SNP majority in 2016. Despite what Sturgeon may blusteringly insist, she has no clear mandate for a second referendum; and with oil revenue plummeting, promised powers for Holyrood delivered, and Britain still in the European Union – for now – that may just suit her fine.

The night’s greatest success – and surprise – was for Tories. Before the election, some had predicted they would grasp second place, but only by default against a collapsing Labour. In the event, they more than doubled their representation by storming the regional lists and retaining all their constituencies while bagging two each from Labour and the SNP. They now have four more seats than SNP did prior to 2007. For nearly 20 years, the Scottish Conservatives have prayed for anything better than electoral stagnation: last Thursday, it was given to them and that right emphatically. Just as Dugdale and Corbyn’s Labour could tack left of the broadly centrist SNP and still hit the rocks, the Tories’ success shows that any belief in Scottish exceptionalism needs to be reconsidered. Many Scots still detest the Tories; many who voted for them will have done so reservedly, but as they take the opposition benches, they can no longer be dismissed as an alien force, irrelevant except when it poisons. The centre-left consensus that dominated the Scottish parliament from its creation has been shattered. That a strong alternative to the SNP’s mock-socialist posturing and separatist ambitions has been brought to the fore of Scottish politics is the truly historic result of the night.

Oxford research attacks evidence behind ‘weekend effect’ in NHS

Stephen Hawes
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Oxford research attacks evidence behind ‘weekend effect’ in NHS

Studies suggesting that more NHS patients die from surgery taking place at weekends have been put into question by the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre.

The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt claimed last summer that the ‘weekend effect’ was responsible for around 6,000 deaths per year. This figure was used as a central argument for the changes to junior doctors’ contracts, prompting the dispute between the government and the British Medical Association, which is still ongoing.

The figure of 6,000 deaths per year was taken from a study by England’s Chief Medical Officer Sir Bruce Keogh, originally published by the British Medical Journal. The journal did not claim that the extra deaths were related to staff shortages. The new research focussed on care for patients suffering from strokes. It suggests that because fewer low-risk operations were performed at weekends, no conclusions can be drawn from a comparison between weekends and weekdays.

Researchers also found that about a third of patients who were admitted for strokes were miscoded. Many of them were admitted for other, low-risk procedures that were carried out Monday to Friday. They suggest that this trend of poor NHS record-keeping is likely to have affected mortality rates in other areas of healthcare.

“The report was exploited by the government, who grossly misused this data”

Alex Mafi

The research was led by Peter Rothwell, Head of the Centre for the Prevention of Stroke and Dementia and Professor of Clinical Neurology at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. In a statement he said, “There is increasing research evidence that strongly suggests that the so-called ‘weekend effect’ is certainly overestimated by the government and could quite possibly be completely artefactual due to flaws in the data used in previous studies. Much more reliable evidence is required before we spend very considerable sums of money to restructure weekend health services.”

Responding to the research, Alex Mafi, President of Oxford MedSoc, told Cherwell, “Even before this report, evidence for the ‘weekend effect’ was sketchy. It [the report] was exploited by the government, who grossly misused this data to associate correlations with doctor working hours and death rates to imply a strong correlation between the two.

“It’s encouraging to see these studies emerge from our university that provide solid evidence of the government’s misinformation and stealth tactics to mislead the public about the need for these contracts.”

The research has increased suspicions that the ‘Seven Day NHS’ is part of a wider attempt to privatise the health service. Balliol medical student Ellouise Bishop told Cherwell, “Even though it’s become so confusing with all these different stats and statements thrown at us about why the contract has to be the way it is, it’s actually a really simple issue: they’re trying to get junior doctors to work the same crazy hours for less money. It’s a move towards privatisation, which goes against everything the NHS stands for.”

 

Downing Street has reiterated that data from previous studies is still valid and that the consensus remains that there is a statistically observable ‘weekend effect’. The contract imposed on junior doctors is due to come into force in August, despite continued resistance from the BMA. Climbing up the walls before we spend very considerable sums of money to restructure Responding to the research, Alex Mafi, President of Oxford MedSoc, imply a strong correlation between “It’s encouraging to see these studies emerge from our university that provide solid evidence of the misinformation and stealth tactics to mislead the public about the need for these The research has increased suspicions that the ‘Seven Day NHS’ is part of a wider attempt to privatise the health service. to get junior doctors to work the same crazy hours for less money. It’s a move towards privatisation, which goes against everything the NHS stands for.” Downing Street has reiterated that data from previous studies is still valid and that the consensus remains that there is a statistically observable ‘weekend effect’. The contract imposed on junior doctors is due to come into force in August, despite continued resistance from the BMA.

Latest admissions data only reinforces stereotypes

Daniel Kodsi
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Latest admissions data only reinforces stereotypes

The University released admissions statistics for 2015 entry this week.

The data shown on its website provides a look into the composition of this year’s class of first years with information on nationality, UK region of domicile, gender, ethnicity, school type and income level. It also shows acceptance rates for each course and college.

There is a possibility that it will provoke controversy, with admissions to Oxbridge always subject to intense scrutiny. The University is commonly criticised on the grounds that its student body is not demographically representative of the UK population. For instance, while independent schools educate only seven per cent of the UK’s school population, this year’s statistics show that of UK applicants attending state or independent schools, 44.4 per cent of places went to students from the independent sector.

The proportion of state school students admitted, however, has, for better or worse, remained relatively constant over the last several years: 52.7 per cent of the cohort admitted for 2007 entry had attended state school. The new data shows that state school students constitute 54 per cent of those accepted for undergraduate study in Oxford for 2015.

Oxford has also been accused of failing to attract and accept black and minority ethic students, notably by the Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford campaign. According to the 2015 statistics, 83 per cent of Oxford’s latest intake are white and 14.1 per cent are BME, although only 38 students accepted were of black or black British ethnic background.

However, Oxford has noted that its ethnic mix is not ‘dramatically out of line with either the national picture or its peer institutions’, pointing to admissions data for Russell Group and UK first-year undergraduates. Yet, Oxford’s proportion of BME students is more than 30 per cent lower than the national proportion of first year BME undergraduates, which is 22 per cent.

But Oxford is taking steps to improve access, with targets set under its Access Agreement with the Office for Fair Access. Target categories include: students with disabilites, students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and students from schools and neighbourhoods with historically low progression to Oxford or participation in higher education.

For 2015 entry, 41.7 per cent of UK applicants met at least one target category, and ended up constituting 34.4 per cent of successful UK students.

There were a total of 18,377 applications, the data shows. UK-domiciled students continue to make up the great majority of applicants (63.8 per cent), and an even greater proportion of those offered a place (80.8 per cent).

Within the UK itself, more than half (56.5 per cent) of applicants hail from the South East, the South West and Greater London (and 58.4 per cent of those offered places).

The University data also provides other insights into Oxford admissions, separate from demographic breakdown. For instance, the most applied to courses last year were PPE (1651 apps), Medicine (1433 apps), and Law (1262 apps). Meanwhile, Theology & Oriental Studies only saw four applicants.

Brasenose, St John’s, Keble and Balliol were the most applied to colleges; only 63 students applied to the Permanent Private Halls.

The enterprising school student might do well to consider applying to St Hilda’s (22 percent accepted) for Classics (36 per cent accepted).

The University has been contacted for comment.

Jamie Vardy made honorary member of Brasenose JCR

Guy Bennett-Jones
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Jamie Vardy made honorary member of Brasenose JCR

Jamie Vardy was made an honorary member of Brasenose JCR this week. He has also been invited to run for the position of Ball President.

The JCR motion noted that, “Jamie is the man who climbed the ladder from non-league football to the Premier League, is now currently the league’s top scorer and on current form is the most dangerous player around. His pace gives defenders nightmares and he is pulling goals and assists out of his backside.”

“Jamie loves to throw a party; if the position of Ball President hasn’t been filled by Sunday then I am sure he would love to run for it.”

“Jamie Vardy has scored more Premier League goals this season than Cristiano Ronaldo”.

The proposer, James Scoon, told the JCR, “Leicester’s number 9 scored 24 goals this year…He has scored more premier league goals than Lionel Messi. Jamie Vardy is very good at throwing parties. We would be idiots to let this one pass.” Lionel Messi has never scored in the Premier League because he has never played in it.

A member of the JCR criticised the motion: “There is no point to this” to which Scoon replied, “That is a fair comment.”

Common People, an Uncommon Stage

Ellen Peirson-Hagger
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Common People, an Uncommon Stage

Common People Festival, curated by DJ Rob Da Bank (of Bestival fame), is to take to Oxford’s South Park on May’s bank holiday weekend, 28-29 May. Whilst there are some big names playing this event (namely Duran Duran, Primal Scream, Katy B and Craig David’s TS5), the excitement for this festival – the largest of its kind to take place so close to the town – lies in the Uncommon Stage.

Set to showcase the fantastic local talent of the city, the stage has been curated by Nightshift, “the excellent Oxford music mag” as described by Vienna Ditto, the electro rockabilly duo who will play the Uncommon stage on Sunday evening. When I ask what the excitement of playing a festival curated by Rob Da Bank means to the local band, they answer with “I do know that Ronan Munro put us forward for it; he’s something of a local John Peel. I’m almost more chuffed that he chose us, considering the local talent.”

When I speak to Julia Meijer, the Swedish-born singer-songwriter who moved to Oxford three years ago, and who will open the Uncommon Stage on Sunday afternoon, she, too, is keen to sing the praises of the music scene here. “I think Oxford is a really nice size – there are a lot of lovely venues to play. I’ve played here at the Modern Art which I really love: twice downstairs in the basement, and once outside in the entrance in the garden. I also really like the Jericho Tavern. And I’ve played in both spaces in the Old Fire Station … there are so many venues here.”

And it really is not just us critics harping on about the musical capabilities of this town. Every musician I speak to is overwhelmingly positive about the musical opportunities living in Oxford has given them. The Uncommon Stage will only celebrate this. Zaia, a seven-piece reggaedub-dance outfit also have sprung out of a town which has only accentuated the diversity of their sound. Complimentary of Oxford’s scene (which they are of course a part of), they tell me, “This is a city which punches well above its weight.” This depth and breadth is explicit on the Uncommon Stage’s line-up, from Zaia’s eclectic fusion to Little Brother Eli’s garage rock; and teenage duo Cassels’ “incendiary” sounds to Julia Meijer, who is so often described as “folk”, though she doesn’t see herself as a “folk” musician. “I’ve been described as ‘cosmic folk’”, she says, “or ‘hymnal dream folk’ – another good one.”

The joy of this festival will be the needlessness of genre labelling. Duotone, AKA Barney Morse-Brown, a guitarist, cellist and vocalist who will be opening the Uncommon Stage on the Saturday afternoon, is keen to have new people experience his music without feeling the need to categorise it. As we sit in a crowded café on St. Michael’s Street he tells me, “I’d like to think that if people hear something wafting over a field, it’s gonna appeal to them and bring them into the tent.”

Anything could happen in South Park in May. Cassels, the Oxford teenagers channelling grungy punk with socially charged lyrics, will play an early evening Uncommon Stage slot on Sunday evening. Timing is everything at a festival, and they tell me, “We’re on early so there’s a good possibility there will be no one there. Hopefully some incendiary types will show up and cause a ruckus. We’ll shout a bit like we usually do.” And this raucous festival nature will be clear in the sets of the other Uncommon bands too. The members of Zaia understand that there’s not usually time for a thorough sound check at festivals, and although setting kit up so quickly can be stressful, “there really is no better feeling in the world than that moment when you’re playing your music to a big dancing crowd, it’s moments like these we live for as musicians.” The same sentiment goes for Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band, the joyous vintage seven-piece who have previously played the Royal Festival Hall and Bestival, and who will be headlining the Uncommon Stage on Saturday night. They say “There is nothing quite as exhilarating as a lively festival crowd. For us there is no great difference [between festivals and ordinary gigs] as we don’t tend to spend large amounts of time sound checking anyway. Plus the idea of turning up at the last minute greatly appeals to us.”

Festivals are geared up to allow their punters to discover new music. There will be a buzz in the air from these Oxford bands attempting to win over their audiences who may only have come for the bigshots Duran Duran or Primal Scream. The Uncommon Stage will be at the centre of all of this.

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