Voices from the Past: Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf is one of the most celebrated and intriguing writers of the 20th century. Her highly innovative works are the pinnacle of modernism, focusing inwards on subjectivity and the self, as well as exploring important contemporary issues such as gender, class and war. This recording of her voice is the only one in existence, and was made on 19th April 1937 as part of a BBC documentary called Words Fail Me, when Woolf was fifty-five years old. She lived a life plagued by mental illness and bipolar disorder, and committed suicide by drowning herself less than four years after it was made.
In this fascinating broadcast, entitled Craftsmanship, Woolf argues that words possess endless potential for meaning, and are ‘the wildest, freest, most irresponsible, most un-teachable of all things.’ She argues that attempts to codify words or restrain them by rules of grammar are futile – words do not live in dictionaries, but, as she repeats twice in this short extract, ‘they live in the mind.’ This idea is central to Woolf’s work and its constant attempts to stretch the boundaries of what language and writing can achieve. She speaks clearly and with the perfect elocution of the upper-class 1930s Englishwoman, the confidence and polish of her voice belying the underlying anxiety with which she struggled throughout her lifetime.
New recruitment platform with only ten-minute sign-up
Fed up of lengthy job applications? Not enough time to do applications, study, and have a social life? I may just have the perfect solution…
TalentPool is a new recruitment platform that allows students to complete a ten-minute sign up, for free, in return for exposure to hundreds of employers looking to hire. It speeds up the dreaded job-search by getting rid of the hours of endless searching and applying – which inevitably result in a fistful of rejections, anyway. Instead you have one quick application. Job seekers can then, quite literally, just sit back and wait for the opportunities to come knocking.
Many of the recruiting employers working with TalentPool are SMEs and startups. At these organisations, you have the opportunity to have a real impact and, of course, it’s experience that will look great on your CV. Some of them are so innovative and different that it is quite possible that, without TalentPool, you would never know they existed.
A bit more about this mystical ten minute application, you ask? Well, does it really take just ten minutes? Yes. Through a series of drop down options and tick boxes you chart your work experience, education history, personal attributes, and characteristics. It is this unique combination of information that guarantees you to be contacted only by companies that are genuinely interested in you, for roles that fit your talents and preferences. It’s so quick; it can easily be completed during a revision break, and has been found, in fact, to be a very worthy form of procrastination, as opposed to, say, Netflix, or that fifth water break.
To top it all off, TalentPool shares every pound they receive with one of their five partner charities – and each new sign up gets a say in which one to support. So by using TalentPool to expand your own opportunities, you also get to feel pretty good about yourself.
So, why on earth wouldn’t you sign up? You’ve got nothing to lose. Well, maybe ten minutes. But weren’t you just going to go on Facebook anyway?
Creaming Spires HT15 Week 2
I flirt with everything that moves. Exceptions include very creepy people and most animals. But if someone is into light innuendo and mojitos, our conversation will sooner or later enter the dimension of ‘flirty’. It’s inevitable. That’s my natural way of dealing with humanity, especially after a couple of cocktails, and as long as I manage to physically restrain myself in the presence of handsome tutors, all is well.
Except that sometimes it’s not. Occasionally I come across a person who takes my coquettish ways as a sign of genuine intent and the result is often very awkward. Of course, I’m not saying that I am the world’s most desirable woman and boys and girls fall at my feet whenever I flutter my eyelashes, but neither am I unappealing.
The problem I am trying to describe is unintentionally leading someone on, and then not knowing what to do about it. Like when you spend an entire crewdate pennying one pretty guy and laughing at his drunken stories because that’s just what you do, but then at Park End you realise that he’s buying you lots of drinks and all the girls are giggling about your conquest.
Or when you’re dancing with the man in a Batman costume at a bop because you fricking love Batman, and forget that sexy-dancing may send a message you don’t really want to send. Of course, no one should feel entitled to sex just because they bought someone a few vodkas. On the other hand, you can understand how it would make a guy feel like a girl’s into him. No one has ever been nasty or unpleasant to me when I rejected them after hours of apparently not-so-harmless flirting, but the awkwardness is tough.
I’m not going to lie and pretend that having someone’s (non-creepy!) attention isn’t a massive ego boost. Still, the oh-my-god-aren’t-I-the-greatest effect wears off pretty quickly, and you start feeling, as my grandmother would put it, like a tease. I’ve been used in this way before.
A sexy man, usually in a suit, usually from Christ Church, suddenly appears in whatever bar I’m in and after some heavy flirting and my raised expectations, he decides to leave my life forever. Maybe he doesn’t really fancy me. Maybe he just likes to tell women what he’d like to do to them later (it was relevant to the conversation).
Either way, I’ve boosted his ego, served my purpose, and now I’m dismissed. I was played, and didn’t even get to see him naked. Surely, after an experience like that, I should be more sensitive and flirt responsibly? Not constantly lead people on? Like any good resolution, I don’t expect it to last past the next crew date…
Bexistentialism HT15 Week 2
Somehow my self-conscious indulgences have spilled over from term to term without me being asked to leave and never return. For me personally, there is at least some amusement to being asked to get drunk on my own inadequacy on a weekly basis. But this week, it’s a bit different. I don’t want to talk about why I am incapable of going seven days without doing something fucking stupid.
Because though it’s funny, it sometimes gets a bit too much. This week I have an audition. Perhaps that sounds very mundane to you. It’s rather different for me. I find auditions rather similar to Oxford interviews; I walk in with a familiar sense of inadequacy. Within seconds I make my first assumption: they don’t like me.
My legs start shaking, my mouth is dry, and I feel the heat rise in my cheeks. Their faces give away nothing as the torture ensues. In my head a chant rises, lacing together kind words of failure. As the audition ends I run away as fast as casual walking can look, leaving the thrones of authority to laugh at my shrinking back.
This ‘torment’, means that auditions cease really to be a thing for me. I’m one of those bastards who doesn’t turn up. Sometimes I claim I’m ill, or I’ve forgotten a tute, and sometimes I don’t even email. Sometimes a friend forces me to go along. But beginning my fifth term at Oxford, I could count the number of auditions I have been to on one hand.
I got out of my worst audition, mentally blocking their email so I wouldn’t have to receive the official rejection. I squirmed at the thought that these two people, from whom I now flee in clubs and in Tesco, would forever define me as the worst actor their eyes had ever seen.
That is unless they were looking for someone who was exceptionally good at acting like they can’t act. At this point you lift your head from the page and say ‘man up’. Good timing.
Because this week something strange happened. I raise my hand to tick off the next, and I go along. And it feels awful. I feel the fear and once more I shrink.
But, just like my Oxford interview –somehow – it’s not rejection that gets handed to me. And I sit in the King’s Arms for my first meeting with the cast. And I think, maybe not everything has to go wrong all the time.
Making it through the wilderness of sex
The first term at university is full of all sorts of new experiences – new friends, new places, new things to try. Whether or not you were straight out of school, the university lifestyle was, in all likelihood, a big change from what you had experienced before. And the word on many people’s lips? Sex. We are, unfortunately, all suckers for college gossip – who’s hooked up with who, who’s done what. And of course the big V-word. You’re a virgin? Oh, ok. You’re not? Well you’re probably up for anything then. But a girl’s virginal status does not indicate her sexual experience – having sex once doesn’t make you a connoisseur. Nor does it make you a ‘slut’. But all of a sudden you’re sexually active and supposed to be at it the whole time.
There’s so much uncertainty about virginity because we don’t actually know what this word is referring to. What defines virginity? Is it a physical or an emotional thing? Intimacy is a very personal matter – some things mean much more to some people than to others. Sex can be a casual act of carnal desire, or it can be a manifestation of emotional attachment to a significant other. The concept of virginity is given a significance that it doesn’t necessarily warrant. The first time is often not the most special, and certainly not the best – so why all the emphasis on it?
Moreover, there are different types of sex – what counts? Virginity is often defined as not having had penis into vagina intercourse, but some would argue that anal and oral count as sex. And does sex have to be heterosexual? People who would identify as LGBTQ wouldn’t necessarily have ‘p in v’ sex, therefore can one only lose their virginity by having heterosexual intercourse? Of course not. The whole concept of virginity is utterly heteronormative.
It has also been used by men as a way of subjugating women – traditionally, men wanted a virgin bride so that they knew no other man had ‘had’ their wife and that she was pure, chaste, and ‘unspoiled’ But the whole notion of a woman being a man’s possession, a sexual object of theirs, is disgustingly antiquated.
The highly publicised exhibition by Clayton Pettet, Art School Stole My Virginity, focused on this conservatism and the gender normative way in which society approaches losing your virginity. In an interview with Dazed and Confused magazine, Pettet commented that the value of a virgin has changed and one’s virginal status can dictate what people think of you. Moreover, the differentiation between a gay and a heterosexual virgin is a product of this concept of virginity. Further to this, for Pettet, “sex is sex and (virginity) is more of a mental state.”
Not only is the definition a source of ambiguity, but the social pressures regarding virginity are even more confusing. Things like social media, TV shows, magazines, are all sending mixed messages; one moment it’s all about losing it, the next it’s about trying to preserve it, even acquire it back with painful and unnecessary hymen replacement surgery.”
The winner of the 2014 Miss Bum Bum competition (yes, there is such a thing, and I can’t even begin to discuss the vulgarity of a competition that rates women’s backsides) stated that she was undergoing surgery to theoretically reclaim her virginity by having an artificial vaginal membrane created. She “wouldn’t feel good” about having nude photographs of herself if she “wasn’t exactly as (she) came into the world”. Miss Carvalho also reckoned being a virgin would give some respect to the Miss Bum Bum title.
Personally I really don’t agree with her reasoning as I think not being a virgin is not something to be ashamed of. You might recall Charlotte in Sex and the City delighting in the idea that if you abstained from sex your virginity could ‘grow’ back. Again, it is difficult to actually define what virginity is – the state of your hymen or of your sex life?
And the obsession with it seems more explicitly designed to bring women down. To be fair this is a general societal problem – boys, have you ever been catcalled in the street? Or been in a club when someone has wrapped themselves around you on the off chance you’ll find it endearing?
Virginity is a concept that is widely misunderstood and misused. It is unduly obsessed over; it has both positive and negative connotations; it is something and it’s not. Like with all these things – coy chasteness versus self-assured hussy, we’re putting this unachievably ‘perfect’ girl up on a pedestal. Can we take her down now?
Review: Ex Machina
★★★★☆
Four Stars
Alex Garland adds fuel to the fire of that age-old debate: are we human because we have living, pumping consciousness, or do we have said consciousness simply because we’re human? In his directorial debut, the novelist-turned-screenwriter lets us think this film is prodding us in the right direction, only to relish every opportunity to sweep the floor from beneath our feet.
In a succinct opening scene, we see awkward computer programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) winning a once-in-a-lifetime competition to spend a week with the enigmatic and reclusive CEO of his company at his remote retreat. It’s strangely reminiscent of winning a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but the reward here isn’t sweeties, it’s the chance to be involved in a groundbreaking innovative experiment concerning artificial intelligence.
Caleb doesn’t know anything about his mysterious CEO. No one does. But when he first lays eyes on Nathan (a bullish Oscar Isaac), beating the pulp out of a punch bag, we quickly learn everything we need to know. Nathan is a man of theatrics. He most probably staged their first meeting in order to assert his authority. He is also a drunk, as he quickly reveals by stating that he is nursing the mother of all hangovers. Who exactly is Nathan trying to impress? It all seems a bit unnecessary for the sake of shy and introverted Caleb, who is just feeling lucky to even meet his boss. But before he even has time to crack Nathan’s cryptic opening monologue, in which the CEO attempts to establish a carefree, easy, laddish atmosphere, he is whisked off to begin a tour of the house, if that’s indeed what the lonely mountain estate can be called.
Nathan reveals the true purpose of Caleb’s stay. The programmer is to perform a Turing Test on the latest of Nathan’s many failed attempts at AIs. The current model is chillingly human, with an attractive face and a skeletal figure far beyond what one would typically expect of a robot. It moves with a staggered but authentic gait; it sees with breathing, lurching eyes. And, perhaps most importantly of all, it’s a female. Nathan has rather simply but affectionately named this model “Ava”. The idea of the test is that Caleb must ascertain whether or not Ava grasps human consciousness, or displays functioning human characteristics of her own. Already, we can see where this is going. Nathan didn’t create a beautiful woman robot for no reason. Caleb is going to be tested himself, in more ways than one.
What we immediately gather about these three primary characters is that they are all excruciatingly unreadable. As Nathan brags about his state-of-the-art facilities (he has clearly been deprived of human contact for far too long), we notice the finer details of the house. Ancient statues, tribal masks, a Jackson Pollock painting. We’re forced to wonder why a man who prides himself so deeply on carving the future insists on owning so many relics from the past. Equally, we can’t help wonder why gentle Caleb was plucked from obscurity, or why he is so excited to be engaged in the project. Is it to finally have himself heard, to have his name acknowledged and remembered? He’s as much of a closed book as Nathan. But perhaps most puzzling of all – for obvious reasons – is Ava. She’s wonderfully brought to life by Alicia Vikander, every nuance of her slightly mechanical movement meticulously thought out. She speaks with the standard slow, sultry voice that Scarlett Johansson has made so customary for all female robots in Her. But it is Ava’s consciousness, or lack thereof, that is most intriguing – far more so than the men’s. Has she been programmed to flirt? Does she really feel pain or heartache? If she could cry tears, would they be genuine? Ex Machina asks a million questions, but regrettably hasn’t the time to answer them all.
There’s a moment when Nathan tells Caleb that he had to kill the workers who installed the security network of his facility, because they saw too much of what he was creating there. Caleb’s reaction is blank, and Nathan cracks into a sly grin to suggest that he was joking – but really, we’re not so sure he was. Much of the film is spent reveling in this fight for masculine supremacy. Neither man is prepared to admit that he cannot afford to fail with this project. They each want to be the first to crack the code of artificial intelligence. It’s about the alpha male vs. the beta male, but they’re not competing for the attention of the woman – they’re competing to see who will emerge as the dominant force of intelligence.
When Ava tells Caleb that the experiment is not all that it seems – that Nathan has deceived him – the dilemma delves deeper. Who is Caleb to believe – the innocent and infantile AI, or his charismatic employer? In other words, should he trust the robot, or the human? Nathan is living proof that humans are flawed. They are arrogant, ambitious, and selfish. But Ava is pure and wide-eyed. Her view of the world is Frankensteinian – she cannot understand why her creator would have any cause to do her – or indeed anyone else – harm. She almost gives hope to humanity, and then we must jolt ourselves and remember that she isn’t actually human.
What makes us human? It’s not the most original of questions, but Garland juggles it with impressive constraint. There are hints and undertones of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner, and the film has a very obtrusive techno feel to it, as if it is perpetually trapped in the 70s or 80s (especially when Nathan breaks into fantastically impromptu and mesmerising dancing to Get Down Saturday Night). You can’t even blame this film when it arguably glosses over scientific theory, because there’s just so much going on here. Science fiction? Thriller? Erotic? It’s impossible to categorise. As Caleb frightfully informs Nathan, to meddle with the realms of human consciousness and creation is not an act of man, it is an act of God. In the end, as one might expect, the AI arguably emerges as more human than the humans themselves, but the real skill of this film is the thrusting, writhing thrill it injects as it unravels. It’s survival of the fittest, but with a new species in play.
A fairytale childhood in New York
There’s a line I often throw out, hoping it might confer some sort of immediate social kudos: “I grew up in New York.” I’ve been aware of this meet-and-greet Tourette’s for some time now. My closest friends are now immune to it, walking by me mid-flow and rolling their eyes. Excitedly, I anticipate the logical next step, grateful for my conversational partner’s (apparent) enthusiasm. Oh really, cool!
Whereabouts in New York? Manhattan? This is my cue. Bring on the sickly stuff. What I miss about New York… New Yorkers are so [insert adoring reminiscence]! Yes, all in all I did only live there between the ages of three and seven. My claim to be native is embarrassing. However, for all those whom I’ve ever locked into my soliloquy… I promise, I mean well. My over-enthusiasm is the inevitable result of a few magical years in an animated city that transformed my childhood into a moving picture book. I was incredibly lucky to have spent so much time in New York.
I went back this summer. This wasn’t my first time back in the US of A, but it was my first time in NYC as a semi-responsible adult all on my own. I’m all too aware that my romanticism of New York bypasses a lot of real city life. When I lived there, I spent my first six months in America living in a hotel. I thought New York was all about after school ice creams, 5th Avenue perfumes and West Side delis. It was all one big toy shop, one big playdate. I’d lived there but I knew nothing about what real life there was actually like.
My bus then got caught in a traffic jam. The driver opened the doors, “We ain’t going anywhere, Obama’s in town.” Later, I realised that Obama’s posse were all piled into that hotel, my very temporary childhood ‘home’. The Waldorf Astoria. Hundreds of NYPD officers crowded my view. That was a bit weird. The set of my fairytale childhood belonged to a more confusing, present world. But then, the magic of the city brought me out in goosebumps once again as I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge towards the famous skyline. I left New York less than a year before September 11th. My Dad and I used to drive out of the city, joking as the World Trade Centre disappeared behind closer buildings. Sometimes, one tower would eclipse the other as we rounded the ring road. We would laugh at the ridiculousness.
This time, New York had filled the gap in the skyline with the new Freedom Tower, or ‘One World Trade’. The next day I saw the site for Ground Zero’s new Westfield shopping centre. My love for New York hasn’t faded at all, de-
spite realising that the place itself is far more complicated than the fairytale I remember.
Iffley Road sports hall named after Olympian Acer Nethercott
Acer Nethercott, regarded by some as the best British cox of his time, will have phase one of the new Iffley Road Sports Centre named after him.
He coxed three Oxford crews to victory over Cambridge in the Boat Race, steering the women’s boat in 2000, and the men’s boat in 2003 and 2005. He also won an Olympic silver medal and two World Championship bronze medals.
Glynis Evans, Dr Nethercott’s mother, said, “The idea of naming the new Sports Centre building after Acer is awesome – to use a word that he himself would have used.”
“It is a lasting source of comfort, as well as one of huge pride, to continue to hear of Acer’s lasting impact and I am deeply touched that the new Sports Centre will be named after him.”
Dr Nethercott, who died 2 years ago, was not only a successful sportsman. He also excelled in his studies, gaining a first class degree in Physics and Philosophy before pursuing a masters and then a doctorate in philosophy of language.
Professor Andrew Hamilton, Vice-Chancellor of the University, commented, “Acer was the model of a ‘scholar-athlete’, as he not only achieved incredible sporting success but also excelled in his studies at Oxford.”
“Acer always strove hard no matter what he was aiming for. Consequently he succeeded on many levels, personal, academic and sporting,” said Andrew Triggs-Hodge, a friend and teammate of Dr Nethercott.
“I knew him through his endeavour to be the best cox he could be, a restless mission of self-improvement. He was respected for his work ethic, admired for his skills, and loved for his humanity. He brought out the best in those around him, who in turn helped him to get the best from himself. A true role model sportsman.”
Acer had been preparing for London 2012 when he was first diagnosed with brain cancer. “He’ll never receive recognition for the work he put into London 2012,” said Triggs-Hodge.
“However, through the gifts towards the Acer Nethercott Sports Hall he will be remembered, an inspiration and role model. He will continue to be a guiding light, the role he felt was most rewarding.”
The Acer Nethercott Sports Hall will be the first building to open as part of the £60 million redevelopment of the University’s Iffley Road Sports Complex.
The project will expand the space currently available for the University’s nearly 90 sports clubs, as well as providing better facilities for members of the local community.
Iain Dunn, a Univ fresher, told Cherwell, “First and foremost I’m thrilled that there’s going to be a much-needed redevelopment of the facilities at Iffley Road. It’s even better that Acer Nethercott’s achievements are being recognised in the process. Sports men and women should receive more recognition around the university. College halls are filled with alumni portraits, but so few of them are sports people.”
Subsequent phases of the project will include an indoor tennis centre, a combined rugby and rowing training centre, and a new grandstand incorporating a cricket school.
William Tilston, Merton Sports Captain, commented, “I think it’s a very fitting move by the University. Oxford churns through new students each year, but it is comforting to know that its brightest sparks, and those tragically lost too soon, don’t get forgotten. He has set all Oxford sportsmen and women a fantastic example of what can be achieved both in the boat and in the library.”
Construction work on the new sports centre will begin once the University has completed its fundraising efforts. It is hoped that the building will be completed in 2016.