Saturday 4th April 2026
Blog Page 1055

College rivalries: good for life at university?

Colin Donnelly and Antonio Gottardello
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College rivalries: good for life at university?

YES: College rivalries form an integral part of the culture in Oxford and therefore should be preserved

Colin Donnelly

Tutorials, punting, gazing wistfully across the dreaming spires while writing vaguely pathetic romantic poetry. Staying up through the night to write an essay. Staggering past the Rad Cam at four in the morning in rapidly dissembling black tie bellowing a song to which half the words elude memory’s grasp. Despising the Tabs. Despising one’s rival college. These are the experiences that, for many, define Oxford. They are what sets the place apart from the many other excellent universities around the world.

Some hopelessly modern fringe elements within our university criticise intercollegiate rivalries on the grounds that they needlessly separate and divide students. This, like so much of what is sold to us as “progress”, is hogwash, and will be quickly recognised as such by most Oxford students.

It is perfectly possible to practice St. Augustine’s famous admonition to act, “Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum” (which translates as “Love the sinner, but hate the sin”) with regard to college rivalries as well.

In my first week of university, I remember being taught of the historic wickedness of St. John’s, and their most loathsome and evil acts which began its rivalry with my college, Keble.

Yet I know many students guilty of the most appalling and wretched sin of belonging to St. John’s college. Perhaps surprisingly, they are nonetheless perfectly nice people. Friendships have formed even where college rivalries divide and, indeed, these rivalries provide an easy and constant source of conversation.

Moreover, college rivalries ground students in the history of the university and of the communities they inhabit. When Keble was founded in honour of the wise churchman John Keble on land purchased from St. John’s, the students of St. John’s consumed with avarice and prone to causeless war. They formed the Destroy Keble Society, which aimed to tear down the infant college brick by brick, and succeeded in stealing several pieces of the original structure. Ever since this unprovoked, unwarranted, and coldblooded aggression there has been conflict between the two neighbours.

Other Oxford colleges have similar tales. That’s good. There’s a reason such creation stories and moral tales exist in each and every human society right across the world: these stories are an essential part of community building.

In the USA, where I am from, the invocation of a Founding Father carries tremendous moral weight, because all Americans grew up on stories of their intellectual prowess, battlefield cunning, and indomitable courage. The voracity of these stories is immaterial. The fact is that society requires such shared heritage as is preserved through these tales to function. It acts as a binding agent, sealing together otherwise diverse and disparate individuals, and allowing them to function as a collective whole. This is as true of an Oxford college of a few hundred as of a superpower of three-hundred million.

As society pushes forward, we must be wary not to leave these essential cultural ties behind. Those who believe that preservation of culture is merely a wishy-washy issue of significance are sorely mistaken. Culture is essential to the proper functioning of society.

Indeed, there is concrete evidence that, even today, these abstract elements of culture have serious impacts on things like the economy. In a 2006 paper given at Princeton University, the Italian economist Guido Tabellini argued that regional culture and history “is an important determinant of current economic performance” specifically with regard to the different regions of Italy. Looking more broadly, he found that certain cultural traits, “strongly correlated not only with the economic development of European regions, but also with economic development and institutional outcomes in a broad sample of countries.”

Culture is not simply a collection of feelings and nostalgic half-truths clung to by the old and the old-fashioned, but an essential cause of societal success and societal failure. College rivalries have long formed an integral part of the culture of Oxford University, a culture which has produced unparalleled success. We would do well to leave them in place.

 

NO: College rivalries shouldn’t be maintained for the sake of tradition: they fail to add to student life Oxford

Antonio Gottardello

As the barred windows of Jesus and Exeter will testify, college rivalries were once certainly an important feature of inter-collegiate life, and one of the utmost seriousness. The tension has since evaporated, and even Brasenose has ceased to care for Lincoln’s centuries-old refusal to shelter one of its students, which resulted in the death of this poor Brasenostril in a mob beating. Yet, the dissolving of any real animosity, has left a residuum of puerility, as annoying to dispose of as the idea itself.

It is common knowledge, or, perhaps, common cliché that one goes to university ‘to find oneself’, and become a distinct individual with a distinct personality. Yet, this banality doesn’t appear to be deep-rooted enough. Many embrace rivalries they truly do not care about, just because that seems to be the practice. While this objection could be raised to any demographic with any sense of camaraderie, and the need to be ‘part of something’ is just as important as distinguishing oneself from the group, inter-collegiate rivalries are perhaps the most boring and empty expression of this there can be. I would be a hypocrite if I wouldn’t admit to, on liquor-fuelled occasions, singing along to my own college’s elegant and articulated “Shit on, shit on, shit on Magdalen’. On some occasions, this harmless custom can be even fun, but the very fact that one must lower his or her cognitive abilities to enjoy such boring and repetitive quasi-rituals is quite telling.

And yet, at times the seemingly harmless can take an unexpected turn for the worse. In 2010, a group of Balliol students poisoned and killed all but one of the Trinity fish by pouring detergent in the pond. Certainly, such behaviour was an exception and a mistake. However, the series of practical jokes inflicted on rival colleges are, simply, terribly unfunny and unoriginal.

Back when college rivalries were heartfelt, the practical jokes were somewhat amusing and even ambitious. Pembroke’s cow-painting adventures at the expenses of the Christ Church herd is an example. Comparing these sorts of old-fashioned pranks and tricks, with the laughable ones being conducted now, the word ‘sad’ springs to mind. College rivalries and their practical jokes are simply one of those things which should either be taken seriously, or shouldn’t be done at all.

College rivalries are certainly a distinctive feature of Oxford. One can hardly have a centuries-old university without some old nuisances that just seem to cling on, just as one can hardly be a hiker without suffering from blisters at some point. But this doesn’t mean they should be maintained and perpetuated, just because of the legitimacy given to it by time. Nor does it mean that they should be kept alive for tradition’s sake.

Even if ignoring and scorning college rivalries does cause a historical amnesia, when has anyone gazed upon Oxford, and thought it wasn’t traditional enough? At times we cherish such practices, often so boring it is almost hard to write on them.

But if the truth is to be said, aside from some rugby and rowing rivalries, college rivalries remain an ignored and minimal aspect of one’s time at Oxford.

The fact that they do not, in any way, constitute a real feature of student life at Oxford displays the fact that they genuinely fail to add anything to the ‘Oxford experience’. Loud chants and poor quality pranks simply do not seem to interest Oxonians. In this matter, traditional rivalries don’t ruin one’s experience in any way. But while they are not a detriment per se, they linger on, not adding anything to the social scene of the university, like an ugly accessory, wasting space while not adding any beauty or utility.

But traditions at Oxford do not need to take the form of rivalries. Interestingly enough, some of the most famous and peculiar traditions at Oxford do not stem from rivalries, but from attempts to extinguish them. Still today, Lincoln College, on Ascension Day, serves Brasenose free drinks as an apology for the perviously mentioned occurrence. Now, how is this less historical or entertaining than nicking a plate?

College rivalries are simply a relic of the past, kept alive by laughable escapades, which embarrass more than they commemorate.

Interview: Pamela Matson

Stephanie Wright
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Interview: Pamela Matson

Pamela Matson is a global thought leader and interdisciplinary earth scientist whose research aims to reduce environmental impacts of agriculture. She is Dean of the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences at Stanford University where she leads a research laboratory and participates in many programs that connect research to policy. She has edited and co-written books including Seeds of Sustainability and Pursuing Sustainability to communicate her research. Cherwell spoke to her about her work and how we can pursue sustainability ourselves.

In ‘Seeds of Sustainability’ you talk about the green revolution. What is this?

We’ve worked hard to meet the needs of humans, and populations have grown very quickly and have been consuming more. In meeting the energy needs of people, one inadvertent consequence is a lot of greenhouse gases that are driving climate change. The same in agriculture—back in the 50s and 60s we began to realise the human population was growing incredibly quickly and we didn’t know where the food was going to come from. The international community started investing in keeping food production at pace with population growth through green revolution technologies: the use of improved genetic material, higher yielding cereal crops, new fertilisers and irrigation systems. They were incredibly successful in speeding up food production but there were some unintended negative consequences. Air and water pollution, greenhouse gases, indigenous communities losing land resources, and on and on. The challenge as we go forward is to continue to meet the people’s needs without those consequences.

Your research lab at Stanford uses the Yaqui valley, Mexico to develop sustainable practices. Why the Yaqui valley?

You can wave your hands and talk about things but in order to actually understand and test new ideas you have to pick a place to work. The Yaqui valley is an important place agriculturally; it’s where the green revolution for wheat got started and it’s just off the home base for CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Research Institute. Most importantly we had colleagues there, and you can’t do research unless you have strong partners.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned from your research in the Yaqui Valley?

One of the biggest lessons for me (there’s a chapter in our book called ‘Lessons Learned’) was that all the best science in the world is not necessarily going to be used by decision makers if you don’t work with them. I learned how challenging it was to link knowledge with action, and as a result I began some other projects with other colleagues around the world trying to define best practices in terms of linking the knowledge that we create in research communities with decision making. There’s an idea that we in academia discover things, put them into a pipe, and they come out the other end and the decision makers will start using them. It doesn’t work that way.

Have difficulties arisen in your work connecting science to policy makers?

Often when we use the term ‘policy makers’ we’re thinking of people in government who make changes in laws, but there are different kinds of decision makers are operating at many different scales. The first thing we need to do is understand who our decision makers are. In the Yaqui project we needed to be working with farmers and started out assuming they were the decision makers. We realised after some trial and error that in fact the credit unions were playing an important role in determining what decisions farmers make. Thinking at multiple scales is hard but forces us to think about who to partner with to create workable solutions in the real world.

Lastly, what can we do as students to help pursue sustainability?

Regardless of the area that one works in, regardless of the major the student takes, there’s a role in sustainability. We have to be open minded about the challenges we’re facing in a systematic way, not a piecemeal way. Policies must be thought of in the context of humans, the health of the people and the place, the technology you have available, and the environmental issues related to it—a coupled system. It’s a mind-set and the willingness to be empathetic, to care. We don’t need top down leaders as much as people who work together. Something we also explore at the end of ‘Pursuing Sustainability’ is what it takes for people to promote change. It’s nothing fancy, just open-mindedness.

I have a lot of optimism and hope that if we all work together we’re going to make great progress.

An academic education isn’t everything

Toby Williams
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An academic education isn’t everything

On her plans to reintroduce selective education, Theresa May claimed the current system is “sacrificing children’s potential because of dogma and ideology.” Ironically, the vast array of evidence based counterarguments appears to damn her own policy as doing just that. Yet as far as I can see, all of the arguments for and against grammar schools seem to rely on one key assumption: the idea that an academic education is best.

From the one side we hear “everyone should have the best education” and on the other, “we should be levelling up, not down.” Each statement rests on the premise that only with an academic education can children fulfil their potential. Instead, imagine a world in which academic disciplines were not seen as the pinnacle of education but just part of its many facets. ‘Vocational’ would no longer be a by-word for ‘second rate’, and those who learnt how to construct a car, not just an essay, would be equally rewarded.

Just take a look at some of our European neighbours, whose attitudes differ radically from ours. Germany is famous for its vocational qualifications, which give their graduates the same economic and social status as those who went to university. One of the reasons for this is that German children are taught from a young age that not being particularly academic is no barrier to success. This is reinforced by secondary schools which are on a spectrum, without top or bottom, from ‘Realschule’ which are tilted towards vocational skills, to ‘Gymnasium’ which are focused on academic disciplines, and ‘Hauptschule’ which teach a mix of both. There are no entrance tests and students are free to move if parents, teachers, and pupils agree. Coupled with such excellent vocational qualifications in higher education, those who are less academic often have the same chance of success as their more academic peers. It means no teenager feels left behind, or held back. And the key to it all is that purely academic qualifications are not seen as superior.

Hence, ‘Gymnasium’ schools are not coveted in the same way as grammar schools in the UK. The idea that a child clearly suited to vocational skills is getting a worse education at a ‘Realschule’ doesn’t exist. Thus, it is a misnomer to think of an education system which includes academically-focused schools, grammar schools, as being selective in any sense other than filtering pupils into the right school for them. There is not even a need for a test. To think otherwise is simply to fall fowl of anachronism.

Many still point to the numbers of highly successful people who have been educated academically. Yet I need only look to Twitter on Results Day to see the litany of celebrities – actors, sportspeople and singers – tweeting about their low grades not being a barrier to success. Plus, let’s not forget that Oxford can cause us to view success through a rather narrow prism of partnerships and ministerial appointments.

So why do I really want to see academic schools – which I call grammars for convenience – introduced? I too suffer from a lack of objectivity. I cannot help but think an academic education is best, if only because of my experiences. But there are many others who think a musical, sporting or vocational education is the same. None are wrong; the only thing that would be is to prevent them from pursuing whatever they think is best.

Interview: John Robins – “There are no real shortcuts”

Emma Leech
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Interview: John Robins – “There are no real shortcuts”

John Robins, comedian and Radio X host, who will soon be touring a live version of his podcast, has come a long way from his days commentating on karaoke nights at the St Anne’s college bar. Former Cherwell music editor and English graduate, his comedy has been influenced by his time at Oxford, making his act “more wordy than others,” with 19th century authors being used as reference points in his stand-up. His remarkable career and success in many aspects of the entertainment industry took him from the dreaming spires all the way to Mock the Week.

John’s enthusiasm for his Oxford years is clear from the start. He calls them “the best of times, the worst of times,” and excitedly tells me of his upcoming return for a pub crawl. I ask him if he thinks he made the right choice English at Anne’s. “It was the first thing in my life that I’ve been absolutely sure about, other than that Queen were the best band of all time.” He is hesitant, however, to broadcast the fact that he attended Oxford for fear that people may assume that this put him at an unfair advantage in the comedy world. In fact, the early days of his career were very different, “I sort of found it very difficult making that transition from college life to living in a city. I moved back to Bristol and I was working in Borders’ bookshop.” He continues, “so I went down to a local open mic night and just got up on stage because I used to host things in the bar at St Anne’s when I was at Oxford […] but I had never done stand up before.” John tells me that this was his pivotal moment. “A few months after that I found I enjoyed it so much that I quit my job in order to be able to not miss any gigs.” He says the need to earn was the big motivator in securing himself bookings and speaks of his “lonely Sundays of the soul” as his nerves for upcoming gigs overwhelmed him. This apprehension, clearly, has dwindled somewhat as he recently won a Chortle award for Best Compere.

John also, alongside being a successful stand-up comedian, is the co-host of the Elis James and John Robins show on Radio X. The tour of this show promises to be a resounding success, with some dates already sold out. John says he hopes that the show will not be “too loose” without their producers on hand but more like meeting a group of friends. That is what is most striking about this show and its podcast: the avid dedication of its followers. The fans, who refer to themselves as Podcast Devotees, have a Facebook fan page with well over 4,000 members and the podcast itself has its own merchandise. The unmistakably genuine friendship between Elis and John is surely part of this but we speak about another “point of difference” between their show and others. John is quite open about what he refers to as “the darkness” and his previous struggle with a gambling addiction. It is quite jarring to hear, as a listener, a presenter light-heartedly mention his struggle with mental illness but John believes this is important. “It’s normal. Everyone wakes up and feels shit some mornings or has a lonely evening of reflection and I think that’s part of existence so it doesn’t need to be turned into some kind of big deal. I think people [appreciate] hearing it referred to as off hand, just as if I got stuck in traffic.” It is not always appropriate, he jokes: “We’re lucky in the time that we’re on, if we were on the breakfast show I don’t think that would work, to sort of wake up the nation at 6am saying you feel like you want to kill yourself.” In the de-stigmatisation of mental health issues, John and his fans show this can be done in a friendly and often funny way

On a recent trip to Fringe to watch some of my more talented peers perform, I noticed the distinct need for originality just to get noticed amongst the swathes of similar acts. John insists that this has only happened over the past five to ten years and that there is a strong element of luck involved. “It’s not dissimilar to applying to Oxford,” he tells me. “I didn’t get in the first time I applied. Now, that doesn’t make me any thicker than I was a year later or any more intelligent. But it’s just, if you’ve got a thousand comedians and 500 hundred of them are good and 200 of them are very good and there are say 10 slots a year for new TV projects then that’s going to be 190 very good comedians who haven’t got anything out of it, but it doesn’t mean they’re any worse.” He adds, “it’s just the sheer volume of people, like in the same way as the volume of applicants for a good university. The people they turn down could still be world beaters.”

It is the love of the trade that keeps you motivated, he says, and there is nothing to gain from doing it for the fame. “There are no real shortcuts,” he insists, when starting a stand-up career. His advice to those who aspire to one day fill the Hammersmith Apollo is simple: “going and watching comedy as often as possible is important in finding out what you like and don’t like. And also talking to the people in and around the venues, the staff and the people who book it, just to find out how the mechanics of it all work.” From what I can tell, live and breathe comedy. And avoid karaoke night spoken-word renditions of Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’; reviews by John’s university peers dubbed it “intense […] not in a good way”.

The Elis James and John Robins Experience runs from 7th Oct to 6th Nov

Elis and John are on Radio X from 1-4pm on Saturdays

 

Profile: Amara Konneh

Katherine Pye
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Profile: Amara Konneh

Fortune has not always worked in Mr Konneh’s favour. Born on a mud floor in the twilight years of a peaceful Liberia, his family struggled to send him to school. He helped his father dig for diamonds in their village each morning to keep finances afloat. When Konneh was 18 Liberia was plunged into civil war, which lasted over a decade. He lost his father and three siblings to the fighting before finding sanctuary across the mountains in a Guinean refugee camp.

What is fortunate, however, is that he has never left his success to odds. He set up schools for refugee children, which brought him to the attention of the International Rescue Committee, who helped him go to study on a scholarship in America. When war ended in 2003, he returned from the US to his country to manage its economic rejuvenation, as Minister of Finance. In Liberian public service for ten years, he dealt with the Ebola crisis, a crash in global commodity prices and an attempt by the Liberian legislature to imprison him.

His previous experience hence makes his new job managing the World Bank’s Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) Hub in Nairobi seem like a walk in the park. I spoke to Konneh just after he finished a conference in the Blavatnik School of Government, on global fragility. It featured experts from all over the world, discussing problems faced by states recovering from conflict, and how to stop them relapsing.

Konneh sees his work in Nairobi very much as part of an international political picture, “today we have more countries on the fragility list than there were in 2006, you have more refugees now than there were in 2000; we need to ask what is going on.”

His leadership has a clear goal; to bring the World Bank back to grassroots level, to the people it serves. “My vision for the hub is to bring the World Bank closer to the clients, to reduce the time from initial commitment in the boardroom in Washington to results on the ground. We will have to engage, we will have to be there with our colleagues who are managing the country.”

Fragile states is Konneh’s new currency, and he works as much as a political strategist as an economist: “when a country is classified as fragile it speaks to the inability of the government to deliver basic services to the people, to provide fair and adequate security, to provide the space for equitable justice and rule of law.”

A textbook case of fragile statehood, then, was the Liberia he returned to after 14 years of bloody civil war. The control exerted by central government was flimsy. The GDP had dropped by 90%, electricity and running water were non existent. Mr Konneh had his work cut out.

His logical, pragmatic approach to reconstructing Liberia mirrors his undergraduate background in computer science, “think of post-conflict state building as a computer. You have the hardware which is the computer itself, and then the software, the programmes that make the computer work.”

“In most post-conflict countries, infrastructure is missing. You need infrastructure to get the economy going, to create the jobs to attract the private sector. So roads, energy, airports, seaports; you have to rebuild everything to rehabilitate, that’s the hard part.”

“But, you also have to address the “soft” issues around human conflict. Issues of governance, for example. You have to create a civil service for the public when most civil servants will have been fighters in the war. You need the correct form of human capital for the hardware to work.”

“The other software component is extending government to the interior of the country; people after war will still feel the exclusion from the government that made them participate in the conflict in the first place.”

After ten years of peace and recovery, West African states were knocked double by the Ebola crisis and a dramatic fall in global commodity prices. Konneh campaigned to have the economic effects of Ebola recognised, setting up the Ebola Trust Fund. The Liberian economy is only just getting back on its feet. What can developing economies learn from this?

“Diversify, diversify, and diversify”, Konneh’s voice echoes across the spacious fifth floor of the elegant new Blavatnik building. “This is the first lesson. And this requires a lot of tough decision making to decide which sectors you want to grow. In the case of Liberia, the economy is run mainly by extracting raw materials, rubber and iron ore, and any exogenous track leaves your economy very insecure to crises like Ebola. So you need to diversity using sectors like agriculture to withstand an external shock, as we saw in Côte d’Ivoire.”

But Konneh’s optimism and clear-cut, neatly packaged economic solutions hide the fact his journey as a Minister in the Liberian government has not always been smooth. In February the Liberian senate attempted to jail him for proposing a $1.2 million budget cut, clamping down on politicians salaries. His imprisonment was blocked by the Supreme Court, but Konneh left government soon afterwards.

He chuckled when I brought up the event, politely refusing to comment on the current political situation in Liberia. He did, however, point to a wider problem in the refusal of politicians to accept expenses cuts.

“What is absent [in politicians] in most post-conflict countries is that sense of commitment to the people, commitment to deliver. They do not recognise that you can’t receive a large salary with all the perks when the roads are bad, when the garbage cannot be collected, when the schools are failing.”

As we spoke, Theresa May was attending the UN summit for Refugees and Migrants, where she argued the refugee crisis must be tackled at its “root”; the unstable war-torn countries that Konneh deals with, rather than by taking more refugees. Mr Konneh was inclined to agree. “We need to invest in the prevention…increasing investment in fragile states but targeting the investment so that the benefits reach the people.”

One of the most challenging parts of being a refugee, he argued, is maintaining their dignity. “You want to make sure that they are productive contributors to the economies of the countries that welcome them.” He cited his own experience as a refugee, including the killing of his family “[it] shaped me into who I am as a professional and also as a human being”.

“The parcel of land that was given to me by a chief in Guinea changed my life, so if we’re putting money into activities like those, so refugees don’t feel that they are dependent on hand-outs but can become productive citizens, it will change their very composition.”

 We ended the interview setting out his ‘vision for Africa’ in his new book, Amara Konneh: An African Journey. He laughed, “I don’t want to sound philosophical, Africa is a big continent.”

“That said, I really believe Africa is going to be where the action will be in the 21st century. There is a lot of potential; a lot of smart, young Africans are returning to Africa.”

He paused. “There are so many aspects that we don’t see on television. So the vision I have for Africa is an ability to harness that massive capacity rather than watching people drown in the Mediterranean trying to get to Europe for opportunities instead.”

Hours after we parted a boat carrying over 500 migrants from African states capsized in Egyptian waters, killing 162. Wars in Sudan, Somalia and Libya rage on. Africa remains the poorest continent in the world, and Konneh’s vision, at the moment, appears unlikely. But he has a habit of defying odds.

Fiction: “You don’t seem to know anything”

Oliver Baldwin
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Fiction: “You don’t seem to know anything”

Good morning! Is it? I don’t see why not. Well, you said that yesterday and we all know how that went don’t we? Yes, but – But? Today is a new- A new beginning? Yes, today is a new beginning. And why shouldn’t it be? Well, let me see… I shouldn’t have asked. How did yesterday actually go? Can you even remember? Cast your mind back. Did you leave the house when you planned? No, but that- No ‘buts’! You failed. You set yourself a target and you failed. So what happened then? You have to run to the station and you get all hot and bothered. Actually, let me revise that: you looked bloody awful. Anyway you finally make it into work – God knows how – and lo and behold! A truly, stupendously, cataclysmically awful day.

Do you fancy Danny? Yes. Is he single? Yes. Has Charlotte told you that you should talk to him or – God forbid – ask him out? Yes. Do you think you should? Yes. Did you avoid him all day at all costs, reversing rapidly into the stationery cupboard when he walked past with his friends? Yes. You are an embarrassment. I know. And while we’re on the topic, let’s talk about those friends of his. What about them? They are better than you. Take Lucy as an example. She started working with you what… six months ago? Yes? She started a good year and a half after you and yet she’s already been promoted to team leader! Why haven’t you done anything like that? Well she had all that experience at her old job. And so did you when you joined. I know. And what did you do about it? Nothing. Why didn’t your experience get you promoted to team leader after six months? I don’t know.

That’s half the problem! You don’t seem to know anything. You’re just pathetic. Please don’t bully me. Who’s bullying you? I’m just trying to help. Like now, for instance, you’ve only got ten minutes before you have to get that train and you haven’t even finished getting dressed! Well that’s because I’ve been sitting here listening to you. Today was meant to be a new beginning. I was going to get things done today. I’ve got aims. I’ve got objectives. I can be a better person. I’ve got my appraisal with Nick today and I‘m going to speak to him about possibly getting some more responsibilities, helping Lucy out a bit so I could potentially cover for her when she goes on holiday next week. Also, I know that Danny has to come over to our side this afternoon to discuss the new project and I’ll chat to him then, just casual stuff. Charlotte tells me he quite likes the theatre and I used to do a bit of am dram back in the day.

I have to believe in myself. If I keep letting myself listen to all your negativity and self-loathing I’ll just end up letting life pass me by and I can’t let that happen. Don’t. What? You were going to say something. Was I? Yes. You were going to say that I’ve already let life pass me by. Like you say, I’ve been there for ages compared to Lucy and still I’m in the same position and she’s team leader. Likewise, I’ve been basically in love with Danny for months – I can’t stop thinking about him and my heart almost stops when he walks by – and I haven’t said anything. I hide in stationery cupboards! I’m a grown man and I’m pathetic. And I know all of this. I can see it plainly before my eyes and yet nothing ever happens.

Why can I never change? Maybe this is just it. Maybe this is what life is. But it can’t be! How could human civilisation carry on if everyone felt like this? Lucy doesn’t feel like this. Danny doesn’t feel like this. They have fantastic lives. Lucy has just got married, they have a lovely house, an amazing car, she’s just been promoted and I know Nick thinks she’s great so she’ll probably be moving into the goldfish-bowl before Christmas! How does she manage everything so brilliantly? And as for Danny – he’s funny, he’s intelligent, he’s kind, and he’s utterly gorgeous. How could he ever possibly fancy me? Actually, Charlotte said he might.

And what would Charlotte know? She’s not exactly what one could call an expert in the field of love is she? And anyway she was probably just flattering you so you’d stop going on about it. No, you’re probably right. I’m hopeless, absolutely hopeless. I should just be happy with what I’ve got. But I’m not happy. Other people seem to do so well. Why shouldn’t I? I’m just as deserving as them. I am going to do well. I have decided. I’m going to go into that appraisal, dazzle Nick and get a promotion. And then I’m just going to go for it and ask Danny out on a date. I may as well. I haven’t got anything to lose. All he can say is no. Here we go – my new beginning! Have you seen the time? You’re going to miss that train. Don’t bother running, you’ll never make it. Just call Nick again. How do you think that’ll go down in the appraisal? So much for a new beginning. There’s always tomorrow.

Willie Healey: star in the making

David Lawton
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Willie Healey: star in the making

A true Oxford homeboy, most of Willie J Healey’s music videos comprise, as someone at Zappi’s once told me, of him “pissing around on the Cowley Road with his mates”.

Willie describes his music as “rock n stroll” and has been compared to the likes of Kurt Vile and Mac Demarco for his lo-fi rock and home studio sound. Having landed up on National Anthem/ Columbia records, Willie J Healey is certainly one to watch, having progressed quickly from one eighteen-year-old dude recording for fun in his garage.

This summer I headed down to see him gig in his hometown. And what better venue for a bit of sweat ‘n’ roll than the Cellar. Before the show his frizzy ginger lid identified him to me, as he lingered by the purple turtle, greeting friends and fans. The gig on the whole was very low-key, with a gaggle of dedicated fans singing along at the front. At one point someone from the crowd passed Willie a San Pellegrino in special reference to his well-known proclivity for the beverage. The venue was pretty much full (not so impressive considering this is the Cellar we’re talking about).

Willie certainly had presence on the stage, one’s eye naturally drawn to him (and to his attractive second guitarist to the left). There is an identifiable uniqueness to his music – it’s not a slacker-rock, Mac Demarco rip-off. He employs less jangle, more classic rock. Musically, I hear Bowie and Bryan Ferry, especially in Healey’s punchy vocal style. Lyrically Willie’s songs are light-hearted but fun – memorable without being overwrought.

Although Healey had it within his ability to play all of the instruments on stage, his band did a great job of backing him up. Healey certainly had chemistry with his band, but this could’ve been stronger. There was little to no chat between songs, perhaps a conscious decision, perhaps nerves.

Standout songs were definitely ‘Pipedreams’ and ‘Subterranean’ – the latter was especially great live – the tempo of the song building and building from a lulling unaccompanied slide guitar to an energised quick-tempo full wall of sound. Real jump-along stuff with Healey’s unique bass vocals punching themselves over the rhythm.

Healey took the opportunity to play some new material that also clearly had potential. The biggest drawback with the gig was its length. It was disappointingly short. This is due mainly to the amount of songs that Healey has written, which is understandably short given his age. One gets the impression that this guy, given another year or two of serious music making, will be really really good. For now though I can honestly say my ears were left wanting more.

An open letter to Phoebe Aldridge

Cat Bean
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An open letter to Phoebe Aldridge

Dear Phoebe,
I’m sure that after a summer of indecision, you’re happy (or at least settled) with your decision to join Oxford. So, welcome to the university! Making a decision to leave Ambridge’s close farming community is a brave thing to do. While some of your peers are eschewing academics for a direct entry into the workplace, you’ve joined one of the oldest educational institutions in the world. It must seem like a far cry from collecting eggs on Willow Farm. Be prepared for godforsaken hours one will end up awake, living in a building so old that central heating is but a dream, an ‘everyone-knows-everyone’ community and an abundance of tweed. Perhaps it isn’t that different to Ambridge after all?
If Oxford is to teach you anything, it is to postpone entry into the real world for as long as possible. Perhaps you’ll never leave – this degree could be the beginning of your very own spinoff into academic life. From one student to another, my advice is not to be intimidated by reputation and intensity of the university; you’ll soon plough your own furrow in the Oxford community. Don’t let the likes of Josh and your mother convince you that other routes will be just as successful. Work hard, and you’ll reap what you sow. As a fellow PPE student, you’ll be joining the ranks of nearly every important leader our country has ever seen, and quite frankly, who wouldn’t want that?
So, be glad to be saying goodbye to Ambridge for the next 8 weeks. It is unlikely that many of your new fresher friends will be in the know of about your small farming community, but you’ll now be able to join in the student tradition of yore of moaning about your own embarrassing hometown. If you do start to miss home, perhaps a visit to the cows of Christchurch meadow, or failing that sink a few pints at the Lamb and Flag will bring the sights, sounds and smells of village life back to you.
Regards,
Cat Bean, PPE 2nd year at Oxford

A world in one sentence

Priya Khaira-Hanks
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A world in one sentence

“Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” The first line of the book that-shall-not-be named contains so much more than a cursory introduction to character and setting. Uptight suburbia, twitching curtains, skeletons inside perfectly charming, rose-painted closets: all conjured in the defensive “thank you very much”, as Rowling greets her readers with a knowing wink and an irresistible invitation to find out why the Dursleys were wrong. In only twenty-one words, she creates a wry voice, a relatable universe, and one of the most globally recognisable opening lines in fiction — it’s from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, for those of you that live under a joyless rock.

The opening sentence of a piece of adult fiction is subject to many competing agendas: establishing genre, catering to the narrative arc and circumnavigating the fine line between an intriguing beginning and a shameless, cheap hook. Whilst this all may be present under the surface in children’s fiction, it is ultimately subordinate to the main goal: to create an escape. Parents are shouting, people are crying, things are happening you do not understand, and you are denied the adult escape routes of calling a friend, storming out of the house or pouring yourself a large alcoholic beverage. You need a book you can open and instantly be transported elsewhere. Hence, the opening lines of good children’s books are some of the purest and most masterful lessons in escapism that can be found.

If JK Rowling is the queen of this art, then Eva Ibbotson is its high priestess. She produced stellar specimens such as “Ellie had gone into the church because of her feet” (The Star of Kazan) or “There are children whose best friends have two legs, and there are children whose best friends have four— or a thousand, or none at all” (The Beasts of Clawstone Castle). Her gift for the pitch-perfect literary welcome mat in no way diminished toward the end of her career. Her final novel, The Abominables, was posthumously published from a typescript found among her papers and opens with “about a hundred years ago something dreadful happened in the mountains near Tibet”. Even now, reading this line creates a pleasing buzz of anticipation and excitement. The key is how the promise of faraway lands is combined with the nebulous threat of “something dreadful”. The Abominables is about climate change and animal cruelty. As with all the best children’s fiction, the surface whimsy is rooted in reality. The perfect first line, then, strives for the optimum blend of magic and mystery, which transports the reader but does not shy away from darkness. It is important for the otherness to be palpable, yet not in any way sugar-coated.

Elizabeth Goudge achieves this delicate alchemy in The Little White Horse, where we meet Maria Merryweather, Miss Heliotrope and Wiggins, riding in a rickety carriage through the dark night. Goudge describes how “the carriage gave another lurch” and the characters console themselves with “those objects which were for each of them at this trying moment the source of courage and strength”. This first line captures the Gothic allure of a horse-driven vehicle barrelling through a mysterious landscape, whilst at the same time confronting how this would really feel, evoking the very real sensation of emotionally anchoring yourself on an object as the world around you seems out of your control. For Goudge, this coping strategy is not unique to humans — Wiggins the spaniel keeps himself sane by focusing on the remains of his last meal, preserved in his whiskers. Thus childlike open-mindedness is combined with real emotion, pulling the reader into an immersive story world without talking down to them.

Goudge’s realistic exploration of character interiority does not detract from the fact she is creating a universe in which her readers can forget their troubles and lose themselves. The joy of first lines is that they open up a more exciting world. This is true of Chris Riddell’s Ottoline and the Yellow Cat; as soon as we learn that “Ottoline lived on the twenty-fourth floor of the Pepperpot Building”, our eyes are opened to an entire city of chimerical architecture and girls with fairy-tale names. Mary Hoffman’s underrated Stravaganza series begins in a room overlooking a canal, where “a man sat dealing cards out on to a desk covered in black silk”, proving that the first line of a children’s book doesn’t have to be overtly fantastical to create that essential sense of difference. Like the slicing of Will’s subtle knife in the His Dark Materials trilogy, the sentence that opens a children’s novel is the rip in your current reality, through which a fully-formed new world is ready for you to step into.

Poets and adult writers could learn a great deal about concision, world-building, humour and subtlety from the few choice words that open our favourite stories. They exemplify a skill that often goes unacknowledged: the ability to see, or rather to create, a “world in a grain of sand”. Whole universes can lie in the sentence that opens a children’s novel, and it is comforting to know they will always be there, waiting, for when everything gets just a little bit too grown-up.

Rewind: The English Bible

Amy Booth
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Rewind: The English Bible

Bizarre as it may seem to today’s modern and increasingly secular population, translation of the Bible into English has historically been a highly controversial endeavour. A Bible accessible to the masses, rather than just educated clergymen well-versed in Latin was once considered to be a dangerously radical idea with the power to topple the authority of the Catholic Church. The eventual publication of such a tome in 1535 marked a huge leap in the people’s ability to think and speak freely about religion. Gone were the days when the only possible interpretation of scripture was whatever your local priest droned through on a Sunday morning.

Work on an English translation began as early as the 14th century, when Oxford scholar and religious dissident John Wycliffe sought to bring the word of God directly to the people without the Church as a middle man. The translation proved popular and, in a shocking turn of events, he and his followers were labelled as heretical by Church authorities and many copies of their work were collected up and burnt.

It was not until the early 16th century that a full Bible in English could finally be compiled and published. This was the work of Wycliffe supporter William Tyndale, who, like his successor before him and Richard Dawkins some time later, incurred the wrath of the Catholic Church. Tyndale fled to mainland Europe to continue his work, and as new portions were completed, they were smuggled onto English shores in covert operations. In a situation uncannily familiar to us today, on the orders of Henry VIII and the Church England’s borders were patrolled by ships and officers tasked with searching incoming vessels from Europe for what was seen as dangerous contraband threatening the English way of life. However, in an act of most admirable spite, following Henry’s noted squabble with the Catholic Church, the newly formed Church of England promoted direct access to the Bible for all Christians and Tyndale’s Bible was circulated with the full support of the king. In fact, by 1539, the royally authorised Great Bible even depicted Henry on its title page!

Once works as important as the Bible could lawfully be produced in English, the prestige of the language was increased massively. English now commanded power and respect, planting the seed of its later status as the global lingua franca we know today. Who knew the Bible could be so influential?

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