Tuesday, May 20, 2025
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It’s not them, it’s their…

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It’s not them, it’s their…

Sister. It’s their sister. Don’t get too excited, folks. This may sound like the beginning of some deservedly cheap erotic novel but unfortunately it is not quite as excitingly Freudian as that. His sister was in my year. We were both 16. I was comfortable knowing only this about her and nothing else, but we were forced into association through dissatisfying circumstance. We were in the same biology class, but I desperately avoided trying to speak to her. She was not exactly what one would call normal. She would always sit in the back making small paper voodoo dolls out of the pages of her notebook and read/write fan fiction on her laptop. Naturally, this didn’t make the other members of the class like her any more. She did her thing on the back row, and we did our thing…avoiding her on the back row.

A boy, her older brother, had asked me to come to his birthday party. To a 16-year-old, this was an offer that just couldn’t be refused. He was 18, and the idea of older boys at a party was too exciting to decline.The cute little mole near his lower lip was a surprisingly attractive feature to a younger girl. The opportunity of merely being close to an older guy stimulated my romantic imagination enough to tempt me into accepting an invitation. But his sister was much more excited than any of us were. She ended up inviting most of our year group to come and observe all of her brother’s hot friends in action. Sadly,we had all been a bit repressed and the opportunity to view the male sex in their natural environment was far too inviting for us to resist. 

So at this party, this endearingly mole-faced boy began to kiss me in the hallway. As our lips locked, I looked up, not to find Cupid with his bow and arrow, but his sister filming the moment on a camera. But she wasn’t using her phone to film. She was using the family video camera. I knew because it was the same one my dad used to film my fifth birthday. It was the kind of camera that flips open on the side, and it had a piece of tape on it with their family last name. The kind you’d associate with happy family memories of opening Christmas presents or riding a bike solo for the first time. No doubt, when his whole family is sitting around on his 21st birthday and decides to whip out the old family video camera to look at some old, vintage, cinematic moments, they’ll find me, sucking the lips off their son. For some reason I feel his sister made 15 copies of it and keeps them buried in different areas in case the house burns down.

I had no desire to become such a hugely noticeable part of family history. As I prised my face off of his and stared into the abyss-like lens of the video-camera, I caught a deeply horrifying glimpse into my own future. I immediately worried that this video would be some tame version of a Kim Kardashian sex-tape, following me around for the rest of my life and prevent- ing people from ever taking me seriously. The reality of what would happen was much, much worse.

As if these video-camera shenanigans weren’t disturbing enough, arriving at school the following Monday, I was ambushed by his sister’s joyful shout. “Now we’re sisters!”, she shrieked to the everyone within hearing dis- tance. She declared our new relationship status to the entire common room. Since we were now practically kin, she would walk me to class, clutching my arm with a vice grip, and wait for me at the school gates at the end of the day. She even invited me on their family holiday. The endearing mole boy and I had only kissed once and had never gone on a date. 

The only thing she seemed more interested in than our relationship was Justin Bieber. I seemed to have somehow gained the world’s worst sister-in law, and we hadn’t even been on our first date yet. I knew that were I to date mole boy, the situation would just keep getting worse and worse. Would she hide under the bed and film us during all our make-out sessions?

Would she keep photos of us in a locket under her pillow and look at it every night before bed? With these images in mind, when the date finally came, I took it upon myself to end everything with him halfway through the dinner. When he asked me what had gone wrong, I proceeded to abort all further attempts at conversation and take a very long trip to the toilets in which I rang through all the recent callers on my phone asking for advice. Every- one told me to eat the rest of my meal as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there. I did handle everything with him pretty poorly, I confess, but I console myself that it wouldn’t have worked out anyway. It turns out that his decision to play tonsil hockey with me may have been a very convincing attempt at appearing to be a heterosexual male. By his next birthday party, he was in a relationship with my ex-boyfriend. If we had ended up going out, I think it’s more than likely that he would have ending the relationship saying, ‘It’s not her, it’s her vagina’. 

When the symbols of our past are gone

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When the symbols of our past are gone

Whenever I log onto social media I always see the same things. I see videos of cute animals falling over, photos of smiling people standing awkwardly in front of cars holding certificates celebrating the success of their third driving test and a string of celebrity rants and status updates, none of which I truly care about. Then, every so often, I find something else. Celebrities that were once internet-wide objects of ridicule suddenly become the focus of collages commemorating their contributions to culture, society and our childhoods. The actors and musicians that we grew up with remain dear to our hearts well into our early adulthood. Their sad deaths elicit an equally strong reaction in the hoards of fans that they accumulated over the course of their lives. The death of iconic stars, such as the illustrious actor Alan Rickman and the unforgettable David Bowie in the last week, have captured the attention of the media and the hearts of the public.

It’s always a strange moment learning that a celebrity you admired has died. Though we didn’t know them personally, and although their passing does not directly alter our lives, you cannot help but feel deeply affected. Perhaps this is because of the profound impact they had on us personally. Maybe they were the first singer you saw live, or the author of the first book you fell in love with, or even an actor that played your favourite role in a movie that defined a generation. No matter what they meant to other people, we feel irrevocably connected to them. Their art spoke to us and that intimacy comforted us in times when perhaps our friends and family couldn’t.

When you log onto social media over the next couple of days, everyone will be posting messages of thanks, commemoration, and grief. When you really think about, it seems weird. What are we thanking them for? Fundamentally, they were just doing their jobs. Bowie wrote and sang songs for a living. Alan Rickman simply learnt and performed the lines written by another person for our pleasure. But I think it’s more than that. We thank them for the contribution they made to our lives, for providing us with the comfort we feel when listening to our favourite songs or watching our favourite movies. We thank them for helping change our views or teaching us something new. We thank them for the happy memories associated with whatever they did. I personally remember, when I was really young, going to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I was absolutely terrified of Professor Snape, with his flowing black robes and deep, threatening voice. The thing is, I associate that thrill of fear and the subsequent rush of adrenalin with Alan Rickman’s unique drawl. In a way, I suppose, we’re also thanking them for moments like that.

These people, in a way, provided the cultural background to our childhoods and it hurts when they die because it feels, in a way, like we’re losing some of that. Terry Pratchett was the author who got me hooked on books, and for as long as I can remember, there’s always been a new Terry Pratchett novel on my bedside table. It’s always been something to look forward to, a tantalising prospect of one more story, one more book, one more stroke of genius.

When he died in April 2015, the news hit me hard. There wasn’t going to be a new Pratchett novel; the era of my life which had been punctuated by these works is over. Okay, I still have all of his old stuff to fall back on, but gone is the excitement of opening up the first page of a new work, oblivious to what lies ahead. I suddenly realised that was never going to happen again. Admittedly, I was lucky, because his final novel, The Shepherd’s Crown, was released posthumously, which allowed me one final communication with the man whom I had admired so much. This, I suppose, brings me quite cleanly to my next point.

The mark of a truly great artist, whether they’re a singer, actor or writer, is that they’ll put a little bit of themselves in their work. So, when we engage with their songs, their films or their books, it can feel like we’re engaging with them and their personalities. In watching or reading their work for the first time, it’s like we’re making a new friend in a way. When we watch it over and over again countless times, it’s like we’re reconnecting with a lifelong friend. When they pass away, maybe we do feel like we’re losing that. If they truly were your childhood heroes, the odds are you’ve been following their careers for a long time. You’ve watched all their interviews and learnt some of their quirks, you’ve made jokes about them with other fans and if you’re re- ally lucky, you may have even met them. This might just sound a little stalkerish now, but isn’t all celebrity culture just an acceptable form of idol worship anyway? When you get down to it, the whole point is that you are engaging with these people on something far more than a commercial level. They leave an impact on you, they mean something to you. It can feel like a real and significant loss in your life, and whoever they were and whatever they meant to you, it is obvious that they will be greatly missed. 

Creaming Spires HT16 Week 1

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Creaming Spires HT16 Week 1

0th week: collections, essays, my period. The ideal sexual atmosphere, non? Ah, well let me prove you wrong, dear reader, with some quite surprising facts. The return to uni has been a long-awaited one for me, especially with the prospect of a new partner awaiting me back at college. Oh, the things we were going to do! The positions we were going to try! The toys we were going to give their inaugural whirl! Never did I expect so many hurdles be- tween me and the satisfaction of my libidinous appetite. But then again, the course of kinky sex never did run smooth; although usually for the better. For alas, the hallowed dawn of Collections descended upon Oxford, completely bypassed by the lucky few (such as I) with a tutor who finds exams “pointless, darling, pointless.” So, as I burst into my boyfriend’s room, zealously clutching the suspenders that had just arrived in my pigeon-hole (discreetly packaged, I may add. No luck for the porters on that day) I find him there, the vision of studiousness at its most bleak. Seven hours of exams plus countless hours of revising really cuts off all that desire you manage to build up over an especially dry vac. Who knew Ovid could be such a turn-off?

Unsultry studying wasn’t the only cramp on my 0th week sextravaganza. Another time-bomb ticks ominously in the background: ding ding! It turned out that from Monday I would be surfing the crimson wave, or indeed shagging the Red Baron. It was now or never. Now you may think, why not just have period sex? There’s nothing wrong with two open-minded people accepting the other for their body’s natural processes? I assure you he thinks the same, and I quote: “As long as you don’t mind me skipping 3rd base”. However, as a girl who has never been with a man who was not in the least disgusted by even a bit of hair down there, this is a tough one to approach. There are so many questions.

Will this be the most un-arousing experience of my life? What will we tell the scouts? How much do I love those BHS bedsheets? But then again, after hearing stories of blood spattered walls and Carrie-like sexperiences, I decided to give it a safe thumbs down. But my man was so obvi- ously in need of rescuing from revision-induced stress, how could I possibly be so cold-hearted not to lend him a very eager hand? The thing is, I wanted to give him quite a bit more than just a hand. Luckily, collections hadn’t quite crossed the boundary into being his WHOLE life this week. That’s right, boys and girls, I managed to steal a night with my boy. Take that, Latin grammar, you’re not the only one who looks good spread across a desk! Sure there were a few hiccups after such a long time apart. The highlights include a mysteriously disappear- ing bottle of lube (yet to be found. Updates to follow) and a quick bedraggled trip to our local Welfare Officer – never mistakenly leave your condoms in your room when interviewees are about. Damn those pesky kids. But despite the ups and the downs of wetting that long ol’ dry spell, I never was one to miss out on a few explosions. When the going gets tough, the tough get foreplaying 

A letter to…the queue jumper

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A letter to…the queue jumper

I like to think I’m a reasonable guy, patient, kind. I always try to see the best in people. But you are one of the most disgusting, putrid humans I have ever had the misfortune to meet. The mere thought of you forces me into doing breathing exercises just so that so I can prevent chunks of my body from splat- tering the room after having exploded from pure anger.

Overall, I’d say I am quite annoyed at you. But you probably don’t remember why – hell, you probably have no idea who I am. But let me explain. It was last term, and I was sitting in the library, slowly giving up on my essay and my hopes of sleeping that evening. In the last hour, I had written one hundred words, read one page of a book and broken down in tears 12 separate times. Really, it was just an average Tuesday night. But I nonetheless per- severed, hoping desperately to get the essay finished on time, and hoping that I would be able to sleep before my tutorial the next day. And so obviously I did none of that and went to Hassan’s. And here, my friend, is where you come in. Because as I joined the back of the queue, you stumbled in, very obviously drunk, after what I assumed was a good night at Lola Lo’s. You decided to just waltz in front of me, with no regard of the system of queuing whatsoever.

‘This cannot stand’ I thought. You were not merely pushing in front of me, ruining my night and forcing me to wait for my chips, but you were potentially ruining my entire life. Maybe if I had been faster with getting my food, rather than waiting for you to take a whole minute to decide on what sauce you wanted in your chicken wrap (mayonnaise, a frankly disappointing choice after you spent so much time pondering the various options) I would have got back to my essay sooner. Maybe I would have written a better essay. And who knows what would have happened then!

My life could be monumentally better if you had just obeyed convention. In fact, your blatant refusal to queue is not only an insult to me, but to everyone. Our country is based on queuing: people queue for everything, from the train to the shops. We would be nowhere without it.

But no, instead you decided to push in front of me, disobeying convention, throwing caution to the wind. But it’s okay – you were drunk, right? We’re all silly when drunk. We all make mistakes, wake up in bed next to strangers, road signs or the occasional puddle of our own making.

But that’s fine, that doesn’t affect ME. I don’t care if you make a mistake. I only care that I get my chips.

Debate: ‘Should Donald Trump be refused entry to the UK?’

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Debate: ‘Should Donald Trump be refused entry to the UK?’

Yes: Shahryar Iravani

Donald Trump’s brand of Islamophobia combines prejudice and political capital; this is the definition of racism. His specific targeting of vulnerable ethnic groups epitomises the kind of violence inflicted against Muslims since 9/11 on both sides of the Atlantic. The unprecedented rise in Islamophobic attacks in recent months cannot be ignored when coupled with Trump’s populist anti-Muslim hate speech. His demand for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” is vague, plays on an insidious ‘us-v-them’ rhetoric, and deliberately demonises each and every Muslim as a threat to American security.

I believe that when we fail to condemn racism, when we fail to properly and actively and explicitly challenge racism, we condone it. If we fail to react appropriately to Trump, we risk throwing innocent and hard-working Muslims under the bus. We allow vulnerable people, refugees escaping conflict and brutality, to be portrayed as violent and monstrous. In the context of a modern Europe that will find any excuse to hate and exclude Muslims, inviting Trump merely adds legitimacy to his views.

As Home Secretary, Theresa May has used her power to exclude people deemed dangerous to British safety and security. She has excluded Islamist extremists and neo-Nazis, people whose rhetoric is violent and incites hatred against vulnerable groups. May has excluded more hate preachers than any of her predecessors. The issue therefore is why it is so inconceivable that we should crack down on Donald Trump’s own incitements of hatred? These are incitements which not only stigmatise all Muslims, but also have a palpable effect on British Muslims who would be targeted by his blanket ban.

May has already banned 84 people for their hate speech, for their presence in the UK being unfavourable to the public good. These rules should be applied consistently and equally to all, regardless of status or political position.

The Home Office’s rules for banning people for “unacceptable behaviour” cover fomenting terrorism, provoking acts of terrorism, fomenting other serious criminal acts, and fostering hatred that might lead to community violence. This definitely seems to cover the very real violence that has resulted and will continue to result from Trump’s inflammatory remarks.

Indeed, his words cause violence. They cause crime. They fuel the constant, systematic alienation of Muslims in western societies, who of course are then blamed for failing to integrate sufficiently. Worryingly, his words are incredibly popular. This is not the silencing of someone with unpopular views, speaking truth to power – it is the rejection of rhetoric that will cause actual damage.

There are tangible, physical, and often violent consequences to Trump’s speech. He uses his political power to paint all Muslims as so dangerous to the security of the United States that their entire presence can no longer be tolerated. For Trump and his supporters, Muslims are inherently dangerous. This kind of fear mongering is, of course, highly racialised. His calls for Muslims to wear special IDs and for mass deportations of immigrants and refugees are disturbingly reminiscent of historical fascism. There is less of an outcry about protecting freedom of speech when other figures are banned from entering the UK, despite inciting similar hatred against marginalized communities.

In times of increasing Islamophobic attitudes, it is no wonder that people are less concerned about the presence of a figure so toxic and so influential in his open hatred of Muslim people. The defense of Trump’s behaviour is symptomatic of a society that already devalues and denigrates Muslim people. It epitomises the general apathy shown towards anti-Muslim sentiment.

What Trump advocates is a desecration of freedom of religion, and there seems to be little outcry about this from those supporting his entry to the UK. Banning Trump would not be an affront to freedom of speech: he isn’t being censored or restrained; as a presidential candidate he has the widest scope of listeners, an entire nation prepared to vote on his views. Banning him from the UK would certainly not have an effect on how loud Trump can speak. But to ignore his relentless incitements of racial hatred would be hypocritical; it would side with the powerful over the weak; it would be a betrayal of innocent Muslims everywhere.

No: Alexander Curtis

Is it right to ban those who you don’t agree with? Perhaps you believe it is if your name is Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, or Mao Zedong. Such people are definitely not by any means role models to follow though, especially not if you are trying to maintain a liberal democratic society like the one situated in this country in which we live today. I don’t particularly like Donald Trump. The man speaks with a nasty tone far too often for the liking of most reasonable people, and I completely disagree with a number of aspects of his politics. However, if we were to take a step back and objectively examine him for what he is; what would we define him as? In such a scenario, I would say that he is a very financially successful businessman who has made a considerable contribution to the Scottish economy. He has also proven so far to be skilled when it comes to exploiting the populist demands of large swathes of the various US Republican primaries electorates. In what circumstances should such an individual be refused entrance to this country? It would be useful to begin by examining the legal dimensions of such a matter.

It is clear that there are a number of fairly obvious official reasons for refusing people entry into this country; including having been convicted for a crime, having broken UK immigration rules previously, and having submitted false travel documents. The Home Secretary also has had the power since 2005 to ban individuals promoting hatred, serious criminal activity, or violent terrorism from entrance to the UK. Assuming that Donald Trump hasn’t broken immigration rules previously, are there really any grounds in the absolute slightest for refusing him entrance to this country on any of the latter three grounds? In short, no. The introduction of such powers for the Home Secretary did not occur for the government to simply ban people whom they dislike. Thankfully, we do not live under such a controlling authoritarian regime, like so many hundreds of millions of people around the world in countries like China, Egypt, and North Korea.

For Theresa May to plausibly issue an order to refuse someone entrance to this country, she would realistically have to put forward a justified statement that explained why Donald Trump’s presence would be a very real danger to the British citizens, residents, and other visitors presently in the United Kingdom. Yes, Trump has made some simply horribly distasteful remarks recently regarding groups including Mexicans, Muslims, and women; but the man is hardly likely to incite violent terrorism in the same way as an ISIS hate preacher, encourage serious criminal activity like a corrupt mobster or drug lord, or promote hatred of a similar magnitude to that spouted by leading figures of aggressive white supremacist groups.

I’m sure that many would argue that Trump’s comments do often inspire some hatred, but if you look at the list of figures officially banned by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith between 2008 and 2009, those banned for reasons of promoting hatred included the Westboro Baptist Church spokesperson, Shirley Phelps-Roper, who openly proclaims that “God hates fags” and pickets the funerals of AIDS victims and American soldiers killed in combat.

By any stretch of the imagination, no matter how much you dislike Donald Trump you cannot construct a sufficiently strong argument that considers the nastiness he presents as comparable in the slightest to the hatred spouted by such figures.

Without even really getting into the debate on government authoritarianism and civil liberties, it is evident that there is just not even an appropriate legal justification to deny Donald Trump entry into our country. The exclusion of individuals from our country is completely justified if the individuals in question pose a very real threat to the safety and security of people presently here. Crucially, there is a clear legal framework which sets this out, a legal framework which Trump is nowhere close to coming under.

In the final analysis, it is highly unlikely in the extreme that ‘The Donald’ would organise some sort of terrorist attack or develop a violent crime ring. At worst, he might offend a few people; but that absolutely isn’t enough of a reason to deny him entrance on arrival to British soil.

If people want to tackle Trump’s rhetoric, there are many other avenues to pursue and many debates of a much more interesting nature to have than this dilemma. In reality, banning him from entering this country would have no consequence on his US Presidential candidacy, and could potentially simply make Britain look immature. To put it simply, why go to the effort to ban Trump from this country?

Chez Chaz: boeuf borguignon

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Chez Chaz: boeuf borguignon

This is the paradigmatic French bistro dish. Although it suggests something complicated, in reality it is very simple to make. It can be prepared in advance and keeps well (if not better) overnight. There are as many recipes as there are bistros in France: mine keeps it classic, but I omit using the traditional baby onions and cook the mushrooms separately so they retain their texture.

Ingredients (serves 4)

800g stewing beef (ideally chuck steak), cut into large pieces

4 rashers smoked streaky bacon, sliced into strips

1 large onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

4 carrots, cut into batons

1 heaped tablespoon plain flour

2 tsp sugar

1 bottle of red wine Bouquet garni

(2 bay leaves and a bunch of thyme sprigs)

400g chestnut mushrooms, quartered

Butter

Parsley (optional garnish)

Method

Get a large stewing pot on a high heat, add a bit of oil and add the beef. Allow it to brown generously on all sides, before taking the pieces out, reserving the fat. Add the bacon and stir until crispy, before taking out. Turn the heat down a touch and add the onions. Stir occasionally for 3 minutes before adding the garlic, and then the carrots. Allow to fry for a bit before adding the flour and sugar, stirring around to mix it in. Pour in the bottle of red wine and scrape the bottom of the pot so all the brown bits get mixed into the sauce. Add the meat back to the pan, the bouquet garni, salt and pepper and leave to simmer for 2-3 hours or until the meat has cooked through and the sauce turned thick, stirring very occasionally. To cook the mushrooms, fry them over a high heat in olive oil until brown but not mushy. Season before transferring to the stew pot right before serving. Add the bacon back to the pot and stir in a knob of butter. Serve with crusty bread, boiled potatoes or tagliatelle, garnished with parsley. 

Clunch Review: Merton

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Clunch Review: Merton

When the only options on a college menu are listed as ‘TBC’, you question the quality of the food you’re about to receive. Happily, all of Merton’s clunches are carefully planned out with a variety of colourful delights. A friend tells me to ‘expect a plate of brown, served with potatoes’, which, if I’m honest, after drinking a small vineyard worth of wine the night before, I’m all up for. I’m told by a reliable source, however, that I’ve made a big mistake coming to dine on a Saturday. And this from a man who applied solely on the grounds of Merton’s ‘top nosh’. A mistake indeed I seem to have made. Whilst it is well planned, the menu reflects a stunning lack of imagination.

The pork served à la apple baby food looks dry and rather unappealing. The Mertonian sat next to me looked reluctant to even try it, preferring to push it around his plate rather than to sully his taste buds. The carbonara looked edible at least whilst the moussaka was probably the best bit. It looked as palatable as carb upon carb laced with aubergine can be. For once, the grease doesn’t ooze from the *gine as you bring a forkful to your mouth and say a few Hail Marys for the damage you’re about to commit unto your body.

The best bit, ladies and gents, is the fabulous offer. A £3 lunch includes a main with two sides, a soup with bread, a salad bar serving quiche and various meats, and a dessert. I half expected someone to offer me a cheese board and a glass of port at the end, thinking I was so sleep deprived I’d slept through lunch and woken up mid formal. If I lived in Merton, you’d have to roll me out of college by the end of term – Christ knows how I’d look by finals. True, the food is nothing special. The soup is wet: what more can you ask for? It’s as full of veg as you could want, if somewhat lacking in flavour, and the chocolate sponge is top-notch school dinners standard. Luckily, the surroundings are pretty, all be it that getting a group of you onto a bench in hall involves an operation of military proportions and the potential loss of a few from the officer corps should you bring too numerous a group

We have reached peak Jericho

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We have reached peak Jericho

We’ve been rather late in reviewing the Oxford Wine Café this year. I considered it last term, but thought I needed to give it another go. Going to Somerville, it’s been fun being able to walk past it each day to see the same faces popping in and out. It’s a real mix: artsy students with their macs open trying to look like they care for their work jostled among middle aged professionals who have finished work early for any excuse to socialise. In truth, I applied to Somerville because of the alternative prospectus; in it, it spoke of this “Boho” part of town in which cafés and cheap diners gave you a break from the hellish white stone centre of Oxford and the Vaults and Gardens style beautiful-surroundings-for-a-price type of restaurant.

Over my (now four!) years here, I have seen Jericho gentrify rapidly. It was already well on it’s way, but now old establishments like Manos and Jude the Obscure (both slightly worse for wear but brilliant nonetheless) are facing ever increasing competitions from the likes of this, the Oxford Wine Café. Now, when I first drove past it, I was in a state of almost ecstasy-induced shock. I couldn’t credit it: my two favourite things shoved together in one ever so convenient location (neighbours with the Co-op, neighbours with Somerville)!

However, my excitement quickly turned to disillusion. One night after the college telethon, we, the busy-bee workers in dire need of some distilled refreshment, headed off to the Oxford Wine Café. Astounded I was by the prices they advertised. The thing about wine and me is that I’m no sommelier. I like a drop – don’t get me wrong. Claire down the Co-op knows me for my Australian own brand and 20 Richmond menthol daily purchase. In fact, now I’ve given up smoking and am cutting down on the old alcohol for finals, she’s distraught by the changes in the my shopping basket.

However, as I say, I’m no expert (as highlighted by the fact I loved the £4 Co-op own brand). This means that when out, I’m struggling with a £9 bottle being your cheapest. The lights are lovely and the bar snacks are really tasty and not too pricey. Of course, since the ultimate goal of your peanuts, pork scratchings and olives is to make the punter thirsty for some more Mummy Ribena, this makes sense. What is good about the Wine Café is their day-time trade. Their coffees are really nice and quite a good price. However, when they bring round the candles and remove your sugar, it’s time to leave. Like most of Oxford, you’ve been priced out by such gentrification.

Constellations: Preview

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Constellations: Preview

This production of a piece of contemporary playwriting has the makings of a truly unique and unforgettable Oxford theatre experience. Based conceptually on multiverse string theory, we see the development of a relationship between two characters in terms of alternate possibilities – in any given scene, we see different eventualities acted out. For example, we see the initial meeting of the two at a barbeque with different results – him having a wife, them getting on well, and her coming off oddly as well. Without giving too much away, this novel concept is then used to create heart-rending scenes where we see both the very best and very worst of situations juxtaposed within minutes of one another. This emotional complexity of showing subtle variations of scenes requires an intense and sustained pair of performances from the two lead actors, Calam Lynch and Shanon Hayes. They both live up to this rather difficult task, giving transfixing performances as Roland and Marianne respectively. I would say this was some of the best acting I had ever seen, with subtle nuances of emotion cleverly shown in every facial expression to give an authenticity to a concept that threatens to sink under the weight of its own pretensions.

Watching the ‘creative process’ of this play was particularly enlightening in terms of how this natural seeming relationship was constructed. Instead of going straight from the script, they improvised and riffed over the themes of the play, then returned to the script and moulded it in their own image under the charismatic direction of Sammy Glover – creating a highly naturalistic, genuine development of emotional connection between the two leads. This effectively heightens the emotional stakes of the play beyond what is intrinsically written into it, making it all the more harrowing, comic and bittersweet by turns.

Not only is this the first time this play is being performed off Broadway, but it is also being performed in the round, adding yet another level of novelty to this already envelope-pushing play. It is also worth noting that the presence of only two people on stage, speaking dialogue, does theoretically run the risk of creating an excessively still theatrical space. However, this is no hinderance to the effortless characterisation and does nothing to damage audience interest in the progression of the play. This is  done to heighten the intimacy of the audience to the characters which, as with many of the ‘tricks’ of the play, effectively attempts to bring the audience to become completely involved in the fates of the protagonists.  When sat in such close proximity to the acting, the quality of the acting became even more apparent – every word was delivered with such sensitivity that it rendered even the preview completely unforgettable. Who knows how powerful an impact the show proper will leave!

Some may feasibly complain about the piece being too jarring. Each alternate possibility of each scene comes straight after one another, with special effects being used to signify when a change of possibility is occurring. This is a daunting task, to make it flow effortlessly, yet I think the completely natural dialogue helps to ensure that no audience member will be left confused or otherwise dissatisfied with the effectiveness of the play at showing its deep emotional core.  The challenges of the play are not only made so they are not challenges, but become fundamental facets of its unique and undeniable appeal. The possible pretentiousness, the stillness, the lack of extra people on stage – all are inverted to become fascinating revelations of the play’s emotional progress.

Ultimately, this play is bold in its writing by Nick Payne, but is even bolder in its execution. Here I think the old adage that ‘Fortune favors the bold’ applies; and I am very optimistic that this will pay off in one of the most exciting pieces of theatre to come to Oxford.

The Cherwell Encyclical: HT 1st Week

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The Cherwell Encyclical: HT 1st Week

Just in case you weren’t present at Donald Trump’s recent rally in Florida, it premiered a new song from a group called ‘The Freedom Kids’. It received mixed reviews from critics: the Huffington Post described it as a “warbled creepy jingoism”, NME as a “haunting Lynchian Nightmare” and the Mirror as an “utterly bizarre North Korean style propaganda song”. Well, I guess those reviews aren’t actually all that mixed. It’s not all bad though: it frees up a lot of time in your week because after you watch it you can’t sleep for days. What’s more, I actually think they offer a surprisingly concise explanation of recent conflicts in the Middle East:

“Over here – USA! Over there – USA! Freedom and liberty everywhere. Oh say, can you see it’s not so easy? But we have to stand up tall and answer freedom’s call.”

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Although some are concerned about the snowstorm hitting the USA’s East Coast, Donald is said to be over the moon. It is the whitest he has ever seen America.

The award for the most irrelevant item in the news this week probably goes to the publishing of the Beckett report. What on earth is that I hear you say? Well, it is a 35 page document, but beyond that is is all speculation because it is so boring that no one has actually read it yet. Apparently it is about the reasons behind the 2015 election defeat, though I would have thought they could have summarised that pretty well with three letters and a picture of a certain Mrs Sturgeon. Presumably it will also be inscribed on the same tombstone that Miliband engraved his election promises on.

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Far more exciting is the announcement of a new reality TV programme, ‘I Want To Be A Nun’, that will be shown on Spanish TV later this year. The show will follow five aspiring nuns as they embark on their training, and there is widespread speculation that, upon reflecting on his current career, Ed Miliband has signed up to be a participant.

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It would appear that the conservatives have much better things to do with their time, such as preventing journalists from talking to the participants of their staged propaganda press conferences. Though it may initially seem worrying, after they blocked the press interviewing Muslim women at the PM’s speech about giving that same group a voice, I am beginning to think that it must all be ironic. I mean, it’s not as if the conservatives actually have anything to hide about their extremely well thought out policies. You’ve got to love Cameron’s sense of humour. One of my favourites is when he cuts the budget for English language classes (August last year) by £45 million, and then six months later says that it is a £20 million drive to teach thousands of Muslim women English. Though it would probably be a lot funnier if it wasn’t true.

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