Much like freckles, receding hairlines, and a tendency to forget names, one of the traits passed on to successive generations of the Finlay family is that of the art of giving awful gifts. Its almost syphilitic pervasion through the generations of my family fascinates and terrifies me. Like a werewolf awaiting the ascension of the full moon, come Christmas time I wander lonely through the shops each year hoping I haven’t fallen victim to the Finlay family curse. Looking back at the awkwardness caused by my elders’ choices of gifts, I don’t think I have it as bad as they do.

Notorious among the Finlay clan for her skill in choosing ill-advised gifts is our reigning matriarch, my grandmother. The fact she purchased a DVD player four years ago shows that she is clearly out of touch with other areas of life. Namely, any kind of modern style and fashion. One memorable Christmas she bought for my mother, her daughter-in-law, a pair of nylon zebra-stripe tights. The kind that would make Anna Wintour vomit blood. ‘Abject horror.’ Those are the only words that describe the sensation around the gift-giving circle when this particular present was unwrapped. Everyone in the room stared at the offending garments precisely in the way that one stares at a car accident on a motorway. My aunt hissed in my grandmother’s ear ‘Where on earth is she going to wear those?’. My grandmother frankly explained that she assumed that my mother could wear them when she was ‘out on the town’. She never elaborated on what she meant by this but whatever attention my grandmother thought my mother would draw because of the safari-themed leggings, I’m sure it was not the kind she wished to attract.

Many years later the two women clashed once more in the pit of the gift-giving circle. Hoping against hope for a gift she actually wanted, or at least one she could pawn off to another relative next year, my mother gritted her teeth as she opened her present from her mother-in-law. As the paper was ripped away from the gift it disguised, her eyes focused on a single word. In a nervous squeak reminiscent of a guinea pig under extreme duress she let out a gasp and said ‘Poison?!’. Advertised by its creators at Dior as a ‘fragrance of mysterious depth that asserts daring and fatal seduction’, one must again question what kind of woman my grandmother thought my mother was. Although this time the gift was accepted graciously, the recipient of it swiftly became convinced due to the unfortunate name of the product that its donor was plotting to murder her. To this day she has not been able to shake off this suspicion and opens each present from Granny with the fear that it will be the last one she ever opens.

Knowing your loved ones and knowing them well, avoids the quandary of mistaking your daughter-in-law for a prostitute or serial seductress. But my mother doesn’t appear to have learned from her own experiences. Knowing full well that her husband wished for nothing more than his own pet cat in Christmas of 2014, without telling anyone, she bought him a pet dog. Even five year olds know that cats and dogs are fundamental opposites. Not so with my grandmother.

Learn from these parables. Do not underestimate the effect of a poorly chosen gift. As you deliberate buying a pair of slippers or a scarf for your mother, make sure to remember that although they love you, no one holds grudges like your family do.

Anuba – a haven of cheap drinks, a comfortingly uniform reggae playlist, and a provider of a reliably good time? So I thought until I woke up one Friday lunchtime in my friend’s bed with no recollection of the night before. After a standard vodka cranberry or two, I blacked out. It was around 11:30 pm. The last thing I remember is comfortably swaying with my friend to “three little birds,” and then everything goes blank. Anuba, while a haven, apparently was not a safe one. I have never blacked out before, and I had no idea how frightening the experience would be, waking up with no knowledge of what I had said or done, feeling utterly vulnerable. How can twelve hours of your life pass by so quickly without any recollection of it?

I pieced the night together by speaking to friends, who luckily surrounded me the entire night. Apparently I had seemed a little tipsy but overall fine, until I fell flat onto the floor of the smoking area.  I lost control of my limbs, and had to be lifted up. I was taken into the bathroom of Bridge, where a bouncer came in and forcibly dragged a friend and I out. I respect the difficult role of bouncers, however to grab two girls so aggressively that their arms were covered with blue-black bruises for the next week is excessive. Although I was lucky enough to be with a friend, to throw a girl out onto the streets who was clearly in no fit state to get herself home is simply dangerous. Fortunately, I was carried home by people from my college, whose Thursday night was spoiled. They spent the journey trying to provoke any sign of consciousness, carrying my limp body and trying to open my eyes. In a typical display of independence, I repeatedly shouted at them to put me down, declaring that I could walk perfectly fine by myself. Of course, when they did finally indulge me, I collapsed to the ground. When brought back to college, I passed out unconscious and proceeded to spend the whole of the following day throwing up whatever drug was in my system. I felt utterly weak and disillusioned for the next few days. It was a profoundly depressing realisation that, even in an Oxford student night, no one is safe.    

When I discussed my night with other students, I discovered that several other people with similarly uncomfortable experiences at Anuba. That same night, another girl from my college was spiked – after just one drink she was on the floor, unresponsive, and similarly had to be taken home. A few weeks previously, a male friend felt sexually assaulted there. While I had little information to provide the police with, I regret not filing a report if only to make them more aware of the problem. Therefore the purpose of this article is as a warning to alert others. I felt like I was in a secure environment, and was no vigilant about constantly monitoring my drink when at the bar or letting others buy drinks for me. I cannot stress enough how important it is not to leave your drink unattended and to physically watch the bartender pour your drink. I was lucky in that I had friends with me all night who were able to take care of me, but who knows what could have happened otherwise. I am determined not to let it stop me going out, but it was a frightening wakeup call that you have to be aware when you go out, even though it is a time to relax and hang out with friends. Even if we cannot find these sickening people, we can do everything we can to try and prevent them from spiking drinks and sexually assaulting innocent students.

I go to Oxford. I study history. I am shit at it. At least, that is the impression I got after one term here. My tutors seem to stare at me as if I am some moronic pest in every tutorial. I get comments like: “superficial at best” and “not devastating.” To be honest, it’s not their fault; in most of my tutorials (and whilst preparing work for them) I’m quite inebriated. It’s not a problem I promise Mum – It’s just that I feel everyone at Oxford is much cleverer than I am. Call it a coping mechanism if you want. The biochemists might as well be studying History for all I know; they know a lot more about my subject than I do. Henry II, is he really all that different to Henry I – let me check with Wikipedia.

I am shit at History. The only reason I picked this stupid subject was because it has fewer contact hours than any other course, and, I am the dictionary definition of sloth. I spend most the day in the library hoping that some process of osmosis will allow knowledge to transfer from the books to me. The highest score I have got all term was on the NHS alcoholism survey.

I did dream of coming to Oxford; it seemed like some mystical academic place. If it was so special I wouldn’t be here, so why am I? How on earth did I slip through the interviews then? It is because I only got good grades at A-level. My school was an exam house. Everything I shat out in my exams was spoon fed to me in lessons. They tutored me for interview by coaching my lying skills. If there is one thing that I have achieved, it is proving the fallibility of the Oxford admissions process.

The bizarre truth is that many I have met in Oxford are in the same position as me: an unending path of self-doubt. If you truly and undoubtedly think that you belong in, or have the right to be at, Oxford, without a single moment of hesitation, might I suggest that you seek imminent medical attention to remove your own head from being so far up your own arse. I don’t feel clever, maybe I am not, but perhaps this feeling is nothing but a result of the pressure Oxford bears on us all. By fifth week a fresher in my college had already rusticated and, more telling than anything, ten percent of the Oxford student body seeks counselling every year. The problem, therefore, is not you. You might feel like little more than a crippled wreck but this is something born of both your expectations of the university and it of you.

At the bottom level, most of the people here are, like you, distinctly normal. I feel Oxford creates this unrealistic and unhealthy necessity for success. Stop treating university like a means to an end. You are studying at Oxford. That alone is fucking fantastic. You have earnt this and don’t need to prove anything anymore. 

Our visit to St Cross bar didn’t start on a promising note, stumbling around Pusey Lane, vomming at the sight of the Oriental Institute, mistakenly wandering into Regent’s Park, and then wondering whether St Cross does in fact exist at all. Luckily it turns out it does – behind a clusterfuck of scaffolding and shattered dreams. We managed to find an access door designed for construction staff and tailgated some rando postgrad on a bike into the hallowed college. Our first sight was of an abandoned supermarket shopping trolley casually left round the back of the chapel – maybe some masters students got a bit too smashed on intellectualism while writing their irrelevant theses on thirteenth-century Lithuanian puppet theatre and decided to go to Tesco and loot the place dry. Or maybe not.

Once inside, we were briefly distracted from our mission by the surprisingly pretty archways, and got lost in one of their quads. When we eventually managed to break in without a key card, we found the bar tucked away down a stone spiral staircase. The bar’s décor is striving to be Titania’s leafy Midsummer’s Night Dream glen or Poison Ivy’s lair, with sprigs of fake greenery and parsley hung from the beams. Instead, it hits the note of a cheap shitty Italian chain that you used to go to with your mates when you were fourteen (they just need Frank Sinatra playing on loop), and the token plastic plants are as impressive as bop decorations. The floors were tiled with cheap red tiling that would seem more at home in a public lavatory than in an establishment that supposedly serves the neeky elite. In one corner sits a crummy-looking upright piano reminded you of a tragic low-end backpackers pub going out of business. This is the only bar to have a piano, although maybe that speaks volumes about the clientele.

On to the positives – they serve two pound cocktails that include Dark ‘n’ Stormys, margaritas and daiquiris. And to be fair, they were the best cocktails we had ever had outside of Raoul’s. The beer selection is akin to the Turf Tavern – a selection of IPAs, all your classics, and even a couple of local brews. Lagers and ciders are in the mix too so we’re all happy, even your decrepit aunt. Trying hard to fit in with the geriatric vibe and pretending to be boring post grads, we ordered their drink of the month, a Singapore Sling, which was fantastic. On Sundays they also do brunch, a welcome respite from breakfast.

If St Cross was actually interesting, it would make a for a great bar. Shame, to be honest. I won’t be returning.

There’s nothing we love more than slagging off a better-than-average college bar and condemning it into oblivion. Picking holes in the Ikea furniture, questionable playlists, rancid drinks and dreadful atmospheres of such establishments brings a certain sadistic pleasure to the Cherwell bar reviewer. It is with great regret, therefore, that we must report that New College bar so gloriously exceeds its collegiate competitors that even our usually bitchy souls can find little negative to say about this bar. Of course, it helps that New is one of the richest colleges.

The bar itself is decorated with an exceptionally tasteful hybridisation of the ancient castle structure with a modern aesthetic: the interior designers have reason to be proud. As New College is widely known as one of the poshest, it was no surprise to find the kids decked out in a sprightly collection of jodhpurs and Joules. Pity we prefer trackies.

Not only do they serve their ‘college drink’ in a martini glass, they also have three pages of other cocktails, smoothies and a fantastic stock of beers, ciders and spirits. The great first view really started to unravel, however, as we got down to the business at hand. For Cherwell, a good selection is not enough for high marks.

The thing is, it’s all just a bit try-hard and elitist. One major victorious quibble, however, comes with the not exactly cheap £5 cocktails. Despite being laboriously made in a cocktail shaker, more than half the martini glass was filled with cheap, uncrushed ring shaped ice that smacks of amateurism, and to be honest we could have made a better drink at home. I mean, £5 is fine when Daddy is footing the bill – which seems to be the signature aesthetic of this bar, which, to be honest far outshines most of the other Oxford ones because of how much the alumni (?) have spent doing it up. The Cherwell Bar Review Team certainly does not support a bar which is more expensive than the majority of pubs in this expensive town. Marks docked.

The New College Smile, their signature drink, divided opinions – while the putrid purple colour was at first weirdly appealing, the taste was unpleasantly reminiscent of dissolved blackcurrant starbursts, and the overload of blue Curaçao left us unimpressed. It was at this point that we realised New College bar has a slight identity crisis – they’re aiming to compete with the likes of House and All Bar One, and yet are not quite hitting the mark, with corners cut in drink quality and professionalism.

As we march, rushing headlong, towards winter and trees begin to shed their leaves, which fall into the cold wind’s icy grip, soups will become an increasingly important part of your diet. Both warming and filling, a potato-based soup is certainly one of the easiest and cheapest meals you can make. Once again, you will require a hand blender to make this recipe, since chunky soups just don’t cut it here at Cherwell.

Ingredients:

1 large leek, sliced

2 potatoes, peeled and diced

2 stalks of celery, finely chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

2 stock cubes

Enough water to cover all the above (depends on pan and potato size)

Generous helpings of butter

Paprika, cumin, salt and pepper for taste

Fry the onion, leek, celery and garlic in butter until the onions have turned translucent. Take this pan off the heat and boil the pan of water before adding the potatoes. I do not normally waste the skin – I peel the potatoes and then fry the skin with the onions and celery, but this is totally optional. Add the buttery veg and the stock cubes, along with the spices and salt and pepper. After about 20-25 minutes, the potatoes should be soft – the key here is to pierce a large piece of potato with a knife. If the knife goes through as if it were cutting butter, then the potato is ready. If not, then boil for a few more minutes. Once the potato is boiled, take off the heat and leave for about ten minutes. Once slightly cooler, the soup is ready for the blitzer. At first use the lower setting so that you don’t get scalded! Keep blitzing until the soup has become much thicker and a uniform light green colour. At this point, it is ready to eat. However, I find the addition of some single cream or crème fraîche makes the soup much more palatable and removes the slightly insipid celery flavour which accompanies its necessary inclusion in this recipe.