The Oxford Guild has announced that Kanye West will be giving a talk at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

At 11pm this evening (March 1st), the Guild’s Facebook page created an event entitled “Kanye West speaks to the Oxford Guild Business Society”, and reported that West would be speaking at the Museum of Natural History tomorrow (March 2nd), at 3pm.

According to the event page, the first batch of tickets will go on sale at midnight, with further releases at 2am, and at 9am tomorrow morning.

Students were encouraged to sign up to a random ballot for tickets. However, the organisers were keen to emphasise that students would be chosen completely at random.

The Guild told Cherwell that as of 12.30am, over 1,800 students had balloted for tickets.

Once selected, students will have two hours in which to buy their tickets before the link expires.

Abbas Kazmi, Chairman of the Oxford Guild, told Cherwell, “We are very excited to be hosting such an inspiring and high profile a speaker as the legendary Kanye West and expect it to be a fascinating and memorable event.

“It is great to see the hard work pay off after having spent many hours negotiating against the odds and keeping things under wraps to secure this event, which is a real coup for the Guild, which I am proud to see continuing to grow from strength to strength, reaching even higher heights and winning ever more national awards and accolades.”

He continued to thank the Guild committee, and went on to say, “This is the first in a series of incredibly high profile speakers the Guild has lined up. We have been working industriously behind the scenes and would recommend you watch this space!”

There has been no word yet on the subject of West’s speech, but the rapper has been outspoken about business in recent years, condeming, among others, Louis Veitton.

West is in the UK for the Brit Awards, where he performed on February 25th, revealing on Twitter last night that his upcoming album is to be titled So Help Me God.

So Help Me God pic.twitter.com/e3UUsQQEts

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) March 1, 2015

Kazmi also told Cherwell that a full video of the talk will be available, and explained the reasoning behind the event’s ticketing system. “We do not want students to waste their afternoons queuing outside the Union chamber Frewin Court for example, only not to be let in and to be left disappointed. Nor do we want students to ballot and then not turn up leaving empty seats which have been taken by others.”

He also emphasised that only Oxford-registered emails would be valid in the ballot.

Sean O’Neill, of Hertford College, was one of the first students to secure a ticket. He remarked to Cherwell, “I get to be in the same room as Kanye West! This is so great it almost makes me like the Oxford Guild.”

Oliver Johnston-Watt, a member of the general committee, commented, “Aside from the executive, only two other committee members knew about this. When the first e-mail came in I thought it was some kind of joke but with Kanye being in the UK at the moment for the Brits it all started to make sense.

He remarked that it was “absolutely outrageous for any student society to bring in a speaker like Kanye West.

“Clearly,” he continued, “the Oxford Guild mean business.”

Two gay Oxford students were the victims of homophobic abuse at The Cellar nightclub on Thursday 26^th February, after they were seen kissing on the dance floor.

Both students have requested to be identified solely by their first name.

Sacha, one of the victimised students, explained to Cherwell, “I was dancing on the main dance floor, and then me and this guy went to the other room, where there are a few tables and seats. We sat in a corner by a table and started kissing.

“A man, who was roughly forty five years old, tapped me on the shoulder. From the minute I got tapped on the shoulder, I knew it was going to be something homophobic. I was expecting it in a way.”

The man reportedly said to Sacha, “What the fuck are you doing?”, to which Sacha replied, “I’m kissing.” The man then told Sacha and Josh, the other student involved, that “This is not a gay club”, prompting the two students to stand up.

Sacha explained that at this point, “I just saw that it [the conversation] would degenerate, so I went to the bar and looked helplessly at the guy standing behind the bar. Then a strong, muscular man joined in. He was much more aggressive than the other man; he was shouting insults at us and threatened to punch us. My friend didn’t want to back down. We weren’t going to let this go.”

The man who had been shouting homophobic insults at the gay couple then purportedly head-butted Josh. Sacha elucidated, “He just went for him. It wasn’t strong enough to make him bleed or break his nose or anything, but he went flying back, and we were both in shock afterwards.

“You don’t really realise to what extent something is shocking or intolerable until the next morning – we tried to carry on as if everything was normal. We went back to the main room, and started dancing. We kissed again, and this is when we were approached by a bouncer, who asked us to leave.”

Allegedly, the bouncer asked the students to leave as they had been kissing in the middle of the club. Sacha recounted to Cherwell how the bouncer said to him and Josh, “I’m not looking for trouble, but you might make some people angry. You’re provoking other people.”

However, Tim Hopkins, the Venue Manager at The Cellar, denied that the couple were asked to leave, saying, “The students said they would leave anyway. The Cellar is a forward thinking place, we’re not homophobic. This was probably a bit of a misunderstanding. The bouncers did chuck out someone who was uncomfortable with the two guys kissing.

“People can kiss in The Cellar. Our policy on kissing is that it’s absolutely fine, but we tell people to hold it down if it’s any more than kissing. If you’re gay and you want to kiss in The Cellar, you can. It’s a case by case situation – if there’s a heterosexual couple in the corner, and it gets a bit frisky, we’ll ask them to calm down a bit.”

Hopkins reiterated, “We wouldn’t kick out some gay people for kissing in The Cellar. We’re a friendly music venue that embraces all walks of life and cultures and whatever. We don’t discriminate at The Cellar.”

After leaving the nightclub, Sacha told Cherwell, “I was so fuming, looking for someone to complain to. I wanted to go back in.” However, the bouncers refused Sacha entry. Sacha continued, “I must have looked too angry or violent or gay or whatever.”

Describing his anger at the bouncer’s treatment of him and his friend, Sacha said, “It was absolutely insane. The Cellar is probably one of the most promiscuous, incestuous places in Oxford.” He further added that he had believed the nightclub to be, “Alternative and open-minded”.

Former Merton LGBTQ rep Alex Beecham commented, “I was angered to hear that two friends of mine had been subjected to such appalling homophobia in The Cellar and by their staff, and was surprised as I have often seen same-sex couples kissing there and have myself considered The Cellar to be one of my favourite places in Oxford. Many in Oxford’s LGBTQ community will avoid that club to its detriment unless the management reacts appropriately to ensure that we do not have to fear the threat of violence and intimidation.”

As his College’s LGBTQ rep, Sacha posted about the incident on the College LGBTQ reps Facebook group. He commented, “I was completely lost, with no idea what to do. Reactions from friends in College were extremely supportive, and on the wider LGBTQ reps Facebook group – they were great as well.”

The President of the Oxford University LGBTQ Society, Otamere Guobadia, expressed outrage at the news, telling Cherwell, “To be a minority, even in Oxford, our self-proclaimed ‘bastion of progression’ is to be in constant vigilance. There are the daily microagressions that feed into wider prejudices and contribute to othering and alienation, but then there are these very real very tangible acts of violence; acts that threaten our bodily integrity and what little sense of welcome we have in society.

“My college [Univ] flew the rainbow flag for the first time in its centuries long history today, and yet under these spires we are still being denied our right to determine their own lives and loves. We will not let this go. Our bodies have a right to take up space, and own who we are in public spheres, and to say that this is horrendous is an understatement. Fuck queerphobia and fuck establishments that perpetuate it.”

Hopkins told Cherwell, “If they’d [Sacha and Josh] like to have a chat with me personally, I’d be happy to do that”, further adding that The Cellar would review CCTV footage of the night to assess the claims of homophobic assault.

The University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry has released a study revealing that those diagnosed with depression are around three times more likely than the rest of the general population to commit violent crimes.

Violent crime was defined by the study as a conviction for homicide or attempted homicide, aggravated or common assault, robbery, arson, and sexual offences.

Researchers uncovered that 3.7 per cent of men and 0.5 per cent of women who were identified as clinically depressed committed a violent crime, in comparison with 1.2 per cent of men and 0.2 per cent of women in the general population.

However, the study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, was keen to emphasise that the overwhelming majority of depressed people are neither violent nor criminal and that the study does not seek to stigmatise those with mental health afflictions.

Researchers tracked the medical records and conviction rates of 47,158 people in Sweden diagnosed with depression during a three year period. They then proceeded to compare the data with the records of another 898,454 people, who had no history of diagnosed depression.

Achim Wolf, a research assistant in Oxford’s Department of Pyschiatry and somebody who worked on the study, told Cherwell, “First and foremost, our findings are destigmatising, emphasising that the vast majority of people with depression are not violent. However, the fact that there is an increased risk should encourage patients, their carers, and doctors to discuss and address any violent thoughts and behaviour patterns. Depression is an increasingly important public health issue.

“Studying its relationship with violence could help us better understand how to prevent violent crime and possibly reduce other adverse outcomes.”

He continued to discuss whether doctors’ guidelines or public policy should take into account this potential risk of violence, commenting, “Doctors routinely assess risks of suicide and self-harm in patients with depression. This is not currently done for violence. Our findings suggest that clinical guidelines should consider violence risk assessment in some patients.”

Paul Farmer, the Chief Executive of mental health charity Mind, commented, “Depression is the most common mental health problem, affecting one in ten people in England.

“The vast majority of people who experience depression pose no risk to others. In fact, they are far more likely to take their own life or self-harm than be violent towards others, as this research clearly shows.

“The link between dangerous behaviour and mental health is often exaggerated in the media, which fuels public misunderstanding and makes people fearful to talk about mental health issues. There is still a tremendous amount of stigma about mental health problems which can make it hard for people to come forward and seek the help they need.”