The Mechanisms are utterly unique. Each of their albums feature sci-fi reimaginings of classic folklore, from Grimm’s fairy tales to Arthurian myth, perfectly capturing the nerdy passion of Oxford at its best. Most of their songs consist of folk
standards, re-written to suit a plotline, making them a sturdy base line from which to work, and the performers sell their roles (of bloodthirsty space pirates with a penchant for storytelling) with arresting conviction. Recorded in 2012, their debut album Once Upon a Time (in Space) tells the story of a brutal interplanetary dictator and the rebellion led against him. It is probably The Mechanisms’ most accessible album. There are rookie errors – the voice acting, for example, is rather weak – but there’s an absolutely mesmerising story at its core, along with some of the band’s catchiest tunes. Their second
album, Ulysses Dies at Dawn, contains an even headier combination of styles and images, this time creating a grim cyberpunk version of Greek mythology. While a bit less accessible, the central image is absolute genius. Their recent EP, Frankenstein, is strong, with a lean and disturbing tale of a rogue AI, even if the underlying composition feels fairly workmanlike. The Mechanisms still play Oxford occasionally (you may remember their appearance at the Bullingdon in January), and are currently
working on a new full-length album. For fans of folklore or folk-music, this is not a band to be missed, and the fact that it’s right on our
A Beginner’s Guide to… The Mechanisms
Ana and the Other: a split of the self
The other her looked at Ana with wide, quizzical eyes, expecting, Ana thought, to see some shred of greatness there. Ana leaned back against the counter, pressing her palms, still soapy with disinfectant, into the scuffed laminate. The few patrons in the diner were staring. The old man who’d sent his coffee back twice because it was “too cold” now drank the scalding liquid with renewed fervor. He wanted to see how this would play out.
Ana pushed off the counter with the heels of her hands. Careful not to touch the other her, she skirted around the bar stools and strode with forced ease to the other side. She was happy to be behind the counter where no one could see her knees knock. She pushed the rag to the side, mopping up stray bubbles of disinfectant, and slapped the rag over the side of the plastic bucket. She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a pad and pencil. She flipped to a fresh sheet.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked her other self.
The other her shook her head. “No,” she said. “I just wanted to see you.”
She didn’t sound quite like Ana. Her voice had a different pitch – higher, Ana thought – the consequence of different choices. Maybe her mother hadn’t smoked like Ana’s had. Ana had a sudden urge to meet her other mother, something she had not thought about since the second Earth had been discovered, floating listlessly in that faraway section of space.
Ana rubbed her hands on her faded jeans. The cheap ring Scotty had picked up from a pawnshop the day they found out she was pregnant caught on a tear in the seam.
The jeans hadn’t been new for years. Ana had spotted them in a department store when she was 16. She and her only friend Mikaela had crammed into the dressing room to ogle at the way the pants fit her round hips and short legs. Ana’s abuela had always loved the way Ana took after her mother but growing up in the white suburbs Ana had wished she had looked like her dad and sister: pale and skinny like a lollipop stick. Mikaela lent Ana her sweatpants to wear over the jeans. They walked out of the department store, Mikaela in Ana’s Goodwill slacks, while Ana’s armpits wetted with fear.
She was sweating now. Her deodorant stick had broken this morning and she had had to use Scotty’s. She hoped she didn’t smell like a man. The other her smelled like old woman’s soap. Ana wondered if her other self had showered at her abuela’s that morning. The sudden thought that her abuela may be alive on Earth II made Ana’s stomach clench.
“Can I at least get you some coffee?” Ana asked. She was being rude. She didn’t quite understand why.
“Sure,” the other her said. “That would be nice.”
She talked like a white person. Ana grabbed a mug of dubious cleanliness and sat it down in front of the other her. She poured thick, black coffee up to the rim. “Is that a fresh pot?” the old man in the booth asked. The mother at the table by the window gasped at his boldness and turned to stare at her reflection in the dark glass. Outside, cars rushed by in blissful ignorance along the highway.
“No,” Ana said. She sat the pot back on the burner.
“I’ll take a refill anyway,” the man said. Ana stared at him. He was grinning. He was proud of the way he had inserted himself into her private moment. Ana poured coffee into a new cup and stuck it in the microwave. She punched two minutes into the machine.
Across the diner, the mother was watching Ana in the reflection of the window, scolding her child for staring. He was a freckled boy with sandy hair. He had turned himself around in his seat and gaped through the slats in the chair. Ana turned back to her other self.
“So,” Ana said. “What do you want?”
The other her looked down at her untouched coffee. She spread her fingers on the counter. “I don’t know,” she said. “I want… to know you.”
Ana scratched her head. She wanted to know her, too. All the mistakes her other self had or hadn’t made. She wondered what she had done during 7 minutes in Heaven with Jeremy Ekkerd or if she had worn white jeans the day she got her period in tenth grade. She wanted to know who she was when she had the chance to be someone else. Without meaning to, Ana rested her hands on the growing bump under her apron.
Her other self looked up at her and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This was a mistake.”
The other her stood up to leave. “That’s $1.99 for the coffee,” Ana blurted.
Ana’s other self stared at her. Maybe they don’t have dollars where she’s from, Ana thought. She began to panic. Maybe everything was different there. Maybe George Washington and his band of merry rebels had never flipped England the bird. Maybe her world dealt in gold still or something completely foreign to Ana.
The other Ana reached into her pocket and pulled out a few crumbled bills. She placed two on the counter. George Washington’s bored, stoic expression stared up at “I’ll get you your change,” Ana said. She pressed a few buttons on the register. The drawer spit open.
“That’s alright,” the other her said. “Thank you for this.” She walked out the door. The chiming of the bell as the door slammed closed brought a hand to the mother’s mouth. The woman clenched her eyes shut and started to shake. Ana rushed around the counter and outside into the parking lot. She looked up at the sky, expecting some sort of spaceship to be hovering over the neon sign announcing their 24/7 open guarantee, but above there was only darkness.
Ana wiped warm rain off of her face and squinted at the cars rushing passed on the highway. She must be then the other her had found the other Scotty somehow.
Ana wiped her hands on her damp, stolen jeans, turned, and with hand on her growing child, re-entered the diner where growing child, re-entered the diner where her life was waiting.
Recipe: Breakfast Bircher Bowl
You can prepare most of this the night before, making it the perfect breakfast to eat on the go in the morning. It’s healthy too, and has a very low GI – which means it’ll keep you going all the way to lunch!
Ingredients (serves 1):
25g oats
100ml milk/almond milk/apple juice
Salt
1 apple
1 tbsp yoghurt
1 tsp honey
Hazelnuts/ walnuts or similar
Raisins
1) Place the oats in a bowl with the liquid and a pinch of salt, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge overnight. This lets the oats soften and creates a much nicer texture than using unsoaked oats. You can use whichever type of liquid you prefer – almond milk makes a sweeter bircher, while apple juice gives a fresher taste.
2) In the morning, stir the oats and grate the apple on top.
3) Add the yoghurt and honey, and mix it all together. Chop up the hazelnuts and scatter on top with the raisins too.
It’s really easy to adapt this recipe to in- clude different types of nuts, seeds or fruit; just use the oats, milk, apple and yoghurt as a base and then experiment away! Enjoy!
Best cafés for studying in Oxford
- Pret a Manger: Usefully situated at the top of Cornmarket, this is an ideal place to work. There are a few seating areas to choose from, all open plan and split up by overhead beams (upstairs is best for working). It gets busy in the afternoon, but first thing in the morning it’s quiet and you can hear the the surprisingly good acoustic playlist. Plus the cookies are warm and you might even be able to grab a fresh croissant…
- The Handlebar Cafe and Kitchen: a fairly new café above a bike shop on St Michael’s which serves an amazing all-day brunch – the best kind of revision fuel. From the coffees to the bikes hanging from the ceiling it’s all very pretty and instagram-able, albeit at the more pricey end of the scale. The staff are friendly and it’s become so popular to work here that they’ve even intro- duced “study zones” during peak times.
- Waterstones Café: on the 2nd floor of Waterstones there is a café which overlooks the edge of Broad Street. It’s light and airy with floor-length windows, and there’s a mix of low armchairs, bench seats and classic tables. The coffee is good, and this is one of those places where you never feel pushed to order another to stay longer.
- Queen’s Lane Coffee House: this is one of the oldest coffee houses in Oxford, (alongside the Grand Cafe on the opposite side of the road) but isn’t stuffy or snooty and happens to serve paninis that rival even Taylors. There are two rooms and loads of tables; it’s not that special inside but the service is great. It has an extensive drinks menu too, so whether you’re a vanilla chai latte or simple filter coffee kind of person it will satisfy your essay cravings.
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Brew: this tiny café on North Parade (just on the left from the Banbury Road side) has only a handful of tables and serves quality coffee in little teacups. It provides an escape from town without being in the library, and also brings you to the cute independent shops and sandwich bars close by. Bear in mind how small it is though – it’s not the place to spread out pages of notes and several books.
MOOCs: the future since 2012
Online courses have been the future of education since 2012, when the three behemoths of the digital degree – Coursera, Udacity and edX – were founded. We are now in 2016, and by my estimation, that future is no closer than it was four years ago. The unfortunate reality is that brick-and-mortar institutions, especially ones as caught up in their own history as Oxford University, cannot be made “redundant,” as Brockliss argues, by the Internet.
There are two reasons for this. First, that the university experience is just that: an experience. Massive open online courses, or MOOCs as they’re known, cannot be compared. There is an insurmountable difference between the three to four-year undergraduate degree – where one is surrounded by peers and liberated from the constraints imposed the entirety of one’s life hitherto – and the process of completing online quizzes and homework at a sterile computer screen.
Second, an institution like Oxford, steeped in a thousand years of history, tradition and privilege attracts applicants and professors for those very reasons, not only the superior quality of its existing programmes. For the same reason that alumni donate small (and not-so-small) fortunes to American universities, school students apply to Oxbridge: the brand.
Oxford would be remiss if it did not start playing catch-up in terms of providing online courses. (Harvard, MIT, Stanford and dozens of others already do.) And the digital degree has the potential to be an equalising force in the education market in the coming ten, twenty years. But it might also further stratify, as the brands of the Ivy League and Oxbridge stand firm whilst others begin to weaken.
NUS conference debates Holocaust commemoration
The annual NUS conference began with controversy over the leading presidential candidate and ended with calls for Oxford to disaffiliate from the national union after that candidate was elected. In the meantime, the event dealt with issues ranging from climate change to Yik Yak’s role on campuses.
Perhaps the most widely reported event of the conference, held in Brighton, was when Chester University representative Darta Kaleja argued against commemorating the Holocaust on the grounds that it would ignore other atrocities.
“I am against the NUS ignoring and forgetting other mass genocides and prioritising others,” Kaleja said. “It suggests some lives are more important than others. When during my education was a I taught about the genocides in Tibet or Rwanda? It is important to commemorate all of them.”
This was picked up by national and university media sources; though, it was also often taken out of context to imply Kaleja did not want to commemorate the Holocaust at all, rather than wanting it to be remembered with other atrocities.
In the end, the calls for commemoration of the Holocaust passed along with the rest of the anti-semitism motion proposed by Oxford NUS delegates Oh Well, Alright Then. The Oxford representatives also proposed and passed a motion for the NUS to focus on mental health and made speeches throughout the conference, as well as running a popular live Twitter feed of the event.
Earlier in the conference, members voted to move to ban Yik Yak and other anonymous social media platforms for being “not nice.” They also debated lobbying to ban legal highs and denied the movement for One Member, One Vote soundly, keeping the power centre of the NUS relatively small, which some derided as something that will “do wonders for the student engagement that they already didn’t have.”
Car crashes into shop in Cowley
Cowley Road was cordoned off by emergency services after an out of control car crashed through the side of a shop just after 7am last Sunday. The vehicle, reportedly a silver Peugeot 207, first knocked over a lamp post in front of Tesco, and then drove into The Furniture Shop at the intersection of Cowley, Bullingdon Road, and Chapel Street.
“Thames Valley Police was called at 7.19am on April 17,” Lucy Billen of the Thames Valley Police media team told Cherwell.
Eyewitnesses told the police that they had seen two people, a man and a woman, get out of the vehicle after it crashed, and leave by foot. No injuries were reported, though there is still no word on the whereabouts or condition of the car’s two occupants. The police have kept searching for them and are concerned they may have been hurt, judging from the state in which the car was found. “The investigation continues,” Lucy Billen added.
The family-run shop however was seriously damaged in the crash, and the owners said it would have to be closed for at least a month as the owners repair and rebuild their business. As well as the shop window which was entirely destroyed in the accident, a brick pillar supporting the building was damaged.
Because this affected the structure of the shop, works started straight after the car was towed away by a team of around 20 firefighters. The family running The Furniture Shop have said the total insurance cost of the reparations could be up to “tens of thousands of pounds” and described the damage as “surreal” according to Oxford Mail.
“This is a big shock for us all and we are now counting the cost,” Omar Nawaz told an Oxford Mail journalist. The 35 year-old and his brother Kasim Nawaz help their parents run the shop which has been owned by the family for 30 years. “It’s the East Oxford spirit – you just get on with it,” Omar Nawaz said. “We have been here for a long long time, we don’t intend on going anywhere. It is all a bit surreal but you can’t hang around and not get on with things or you would be in the same position.”
Juliette Perry, a Somerville first year who will be living in Cowley next year, told Cherwell she saw the neighbourhood as a “friendly, relatively quiet” area. “Just like any city it has the odd incident but nothing too unusual. It seems very irresponsible and a real shame that people haven’t taken responsibility.
“However I wouldn’t be worried about cycling to and from Cowley next year when I’m living there – accidents do happen, does it put me off – no, it’s no more or less safe than cycling anywhere else in the city. I just think it was lucky that no one was hurt.”
Oxford’s future may lie online
The future of the university may lie in offering online degrees, according to the University’s new official history. The book proposes that such a shift could expand Oxford’s public presence and improve the university’s appeal to students from a wide range of backgrounds.
The history, launched this week by Oxford University Press, is quoted in The Guardian stating that “it is only a matter of time” before the influence of computer technology begins to transform the way in which higher education is provided. The book warns of a future in which universities might become obsolete in their current form.
The author, Professor Laurence Brockliss of Magdalen, told The Guardian, “I could envisage 10 or 15 years down the road one of the newer universities developing online undergraduate degrees in a serious and creative way. If that were to happen and if employers – and employers would determine the success or failure of this – were to feel that the quality of the education was as good as residential universities were giving, then that kind of initiative would really take off.
“I don’t think we’re as good as we used to be at connecting with public. We don’t have as many academics who occupy the same kind of space that Sir Isaiah Berlin or AJP Taylor did in the past – people who were known among the population because they appeared regularly on radio and television and were able to bridge this gap.”
Brockliss argued that online degrees might help to transform the university’s image and encourage applications from students of more diverse backgrounds. “[Oxford] can take the lead and potentially enjoy a future where its influence is even greater than it is at present – and where the carping about the social profile of its graduates would be finally laid to rest”.
Harry Gibbs, JCR IT Officer at Jesus College, was wary of such a big change. “Such an important part of university is the people you meet, especially at Oxford. I assume online courses would be done outside Oxford (at home etc) – so how would these students meet people beyond those whom already know? How would their ideas be challenged?
“As for the idea of the university becoming private, again I’m not keen. It certainly won’t help dispel certain ideas of the place- people would likely get the wrong impression and view it on a par with private schools.
“The technology is there (and growing- the potential for virtual reality is huge), and it could be adapted to suit these sorts of things, but there’s no way it can match the experience of being here.
This follows a string of attempts to offer online education in the US. Harvard and MIT paired up to launch EdX, which charges huge fees for courses, while a group of Stanford professors started CourseRA to offer certified college courses to the masses.
Arizona State University has been offering online degrees for years and the California State system recently scaled back a plan to enrol a quarter-million students in online degrees when few people showed interest.
Daniel Kodsi analyses Brockliss’ claims here.
Oxfam sends teams to Ecuador after quake
Following the recent 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Ecuador’s northwest region, Oxfam has deployed a seven-person team to Ecuador as part of its humanitarian response.
The team, consists of water, sanitation and hygiene experts as well as logisticians to assist the Government response. “We will coordinate with local authorities so that our actions are complementary to government agencies”, said Simon Ticehurst, Oxfam’s director for Latin America and the Carribean.
Oxfam, in coordination with the Spanish government, has also sent its first two-ton shipment of aid, as part of a multi-agency airlift, to secure basic hygiene and clean water among affected communities.
“The most urgent need is for safe drinking water and storage, as well as shelter for thousands who have lost their homes,” said Enrique Garcia, Oxfam humanitarian coordinator for Latin America and the Carribean.
“Our main purpose now is to get to the people who are most vulnerable to worsening health conditions, because sanitation services have been badly affected and in some cases destroyed. We will also promote preventive measures to help people avoid diarrhea and other vector transmitted diseases,” he added.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs expects at least one million people to be affected by the earthquake. At least 500 lives have been claimed, with over 4000 injuries. Hundreds are still missing.
“The best way to help right now is to donate”, said Tania Escamilla, Oxfam regional Media and Communications Coordinator of Latin America and the Carribean.
Oxfam has launched an emergency appeal and is already receiving donations for its humanitarian response, which can be done online.
The Oxford Students Oxfam Group told Cherwell that they will be fundraising over Trinity Term.
“Of the money that we raise generally for Oxfam, usually half goes towards current emergency appeals, which may, this year include Ecuador but if not, [they] will nonetheless be for very pressing and worthy causes,” they said.
St Johns crushed in University Challenge
St John’s college lost the University Challenge final 215-30 on Monday evening, after an incredible performance from Peterhouse College, Cambridge brought an end to their impressive run. Having beaten a long list of contenders, including Bristol, Liverpool, and other Cambridge colleges on their way to the final, St John’s faced Peterhouse for the second time. Having very narrowly lost the first meeting between the two colleges in the quarterfinals, St John’s seemed to have a fair chance to win. However, an impressive display from the Peterhouse team left St John’s and their captain Angus Russell playing catch up very quickly.
A few good answers from theology student Charles Clegg on the Fairy Queen and Shostakovich as the final drew to a close ensured that St John’s were not shut out completely. Historians Alex Harries and Angus Russell, and chemist Dan Sowood were unable to build on their performances earlier on in the season. Instead, Peterhouse’s team of three historians and a geologist were able to dominate the final, with geologist Oscar Powell and captain Hannah Woods putting in particularly strong results.
St John’s now have the unfortunate record of being the institution to reach the final the most times without winning in the Paxman era. This is their third time taking part in the final, having lost to Imperial College London in 2001 and to Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 2010.
Captain Charles Clegg , discussing the difference in the two encounters between St John’s and Peterhouse, told Cherwell, “We were off form and Peterhouse – a strong team in any case – were very much on form. In a way, it’s reassuring to know that we could never have won that match on that set of questions.”
The trophy was presented to Peter house captain Woods by Marcus de Sautoy, the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and a fellow at New College. He called the final a “phenomenal performance” and a “well-deserved” win for Peterhouse.
As with the rest of the series, almost all of St John’s, including Clegg, Sowood, and Harries, packed the TV room to watch the final questions together, with one John’s first year student describing it as taking place in a “good atmosphere” despite the defeat. Both teams ventured to the bar together following the final. As one Merton student who was present said, “They lost by an arm and a Clegg – if it had happened to me, Sowood I.”
The reception of the results at Peterhouse was more jubilant, with students overflowing into the bar to watch the final, and free drinks for the team all night. Julian Sutcliffe, an historian on the Peterhouse team, was overjoyed and told Cherwell, “It was only really at the end when I was convinced we’d won it and it didn’t feel real.”
Clegg also said, “I have been recognised quite a few times – which never fails to make me smile – and the team have been sent some lovely letters of support by St John’s alumni. I’m sorry St John’s didn’t bring the trophy back to Oxford this year, especially as it’s on the wrong side of the Fens.”
