Tuesday 7th April 2026
Blog Page 1376

Review: Branca

Ibaad Alvi
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Review: Branca

Branca is sleek and sexy and is cut like a crystal into the face of Walton Street. The curved glass wall is of a lovely street-lit sheen and when you enter, the loudness of a mid-range restaurant on a Friday night envelops you like a cocoon. Merlin the Manager (that’s his name… yes it is) would later say this is an intended effect. But more of that later.

My companion Howard and I are led to the back of the restaurant past a mass of tables where an astonishingly wide range of people are eating. Wide in terms of age at least. They all look kind of alike. Glossy shirts, sharp haircuts, languorous body language – they suit the restaurant, which is all smart marble top tables and miniature chandeliers.

The service is almost overbearingly quick; the waiter has shown us our table and set down two pieces of bread before bums hit chairs. The bread is soft, sweet and square with a saltiness that blooms in your mouth. With the balsamic vinegar it’s lovely if a tiny bit stale.

We proceed to order what the waiter recommends: I get the crispy fried prawns and squid with alioli cicheti (£4.95), and the lamb rump with roast veg (£16.95). Howard (who is vegetarian, for tonight at least) gets the buffalo mozzarella with almond pesto cicheti (£3.75) and the tagliatelle with goats cheese (£12.75).

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The slab of wood bearing the bread is whisked away and returns with my prawns atop it. Cicheti is basically tapas and when it is set on the table the smell of charred shellfish is immediate. The plating is beautiful until I destroy it. The prawns are fresh and pleasant but lack the twang of burnt goodness the aroma promised. And the iodine flavour sea-food lovers crave is amiss.

But Howard’s cicheti, the buffalo mozzarella, is gorgeous. I curse vegetarians everywhere. I’ve never had almond pesto and it complements this cheese beautifully. Pine nuts have been crumbled on top giving the dish a contrast of texture that mine lacked. Round 1 Howard.

Then the mains are brought out. My lamb is overwhelming. Reading from my note book (which is seriously greasy) I find a part which says “It’s wobbling while I write this!”. This refers, I’m sure, to the thick medallion slices of meat that are, as the menu promised, served pink. They are sandwiched between some salsa verde, of which one only wishes there was more, and slow-roasted vegetables of a softness that makes chewing obsolete. It’s like baby food. In a great way.

The meat, again, smells slightly charred but this time the first bite delivers. It is sweet, and the lightly crisped exterior sets it off perfectly. I am full after two bites, and anything further becomes pure indulgence. This is good – if you are paying £16.95 for one dish, you want to go home clutching your belly. Howard’s tagliatelle is, in his words, “cosy”. It tastes and looks much more like home-cooking, which is welcome after the intimidation of the previous course. The goat’s cheese however is a bit of a no-show.

The two most popular desserts are the chocolate torta and the warm banana cake, both with ice cream (£6.95 each). We order them both and an espresso apiece. I expect a gooey mess but when they arrive they are deliciously restrained; identically and elegantly sized slices with a dab of ice cream.

The banana cake is the clear winner, and my mouth waters at the memory. Super-moist with a delightful nuttiness, it comes with half an actual banana that is absurdly good (“This banana is absurd!” says Howard). The chocolate torta on the other hand depends too heavily on the ice cream, which is over-crystallized. The espressos are like a kick in the face after the heaviness of the food. The coffee here is clearly very good.

At the end of the meal I talk to Merlin, the aforementioned manager, in the garden. Branca is in its thirteenth year and the devastatingly handsome Merlin, a born-and-bred Oxford local, has been around for five. He describes the emphasis of Branca as having developed in his time towards a focus on quick and flavoursome food.

He intends to have a friendly, well-spoken staff and décor that emphasizes the shift from rustic to modern chic, much like the rest of Walton Street and Jericho as a whole. This I think is achieved. For some reason I remember that my glass of water was refilled for me at least two hundred times so the service is definitely very good.

Branca does what it intends well and it indeed delivers exactly as much as you are made to pay for it. The service is sleek and the atmosphere is shiny. If you want somewhere that is vibrant, loud and young, if a little pricey, go here. With food that isn’t very complex it is definitely not a foodie’s paradise but in my limited experience, places that look this good rarely are. If you feel a little shabby, enter and be ejected feeling hip and warmed.

The stories that rule the world

Mary Reader
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The stories that rule the world

“Those who tell stories rule the world.” Plato’s observation is as true today as it was millennia ago. Stories give our lives meaning, and this places immense power in the hands of storytellers. It is of no coincidence that the word ‘authority’ is derived from the Latin ‘auctor’, meaning originator or promoter. Stories provide the flesh of authority on the bones of power. A story is defined as a “narrative that pieces together certain characters, facts or events into relationships, contexts or sequences.” It is a union of individual things into a synergetic patchwork.

Thus, in his recent book Lessons from the Top, Gavin Esler shows how individual leaders consciously promulgate their ‘story’ in order to gain legitimacy and influence. Perhaps the most powerful stories however are those by which regimes themselves legitimise their philosophy and actions. The potency of Nazi Germany lay in the story spun by a systematic propaganda machine. The burning of books, the confiscation of ‘degenerate’ art and the demonization of jazz music were all instrumental to the silencing of any story that contradicted the Nazi ‘Weltanschauung’. This story set up a hierarchy of authority, pitting the ‘goodies’ – the Aryan, blonde, blue-eyed – against the ‘baddies’ –in other words, against any of the ‘unheard’ (Jews, gypsies, the disabled, Communists, Socialists, homosexuals and others) whose very existence signified a rebellion against the primacy of this story in human consciousness. Those at the top of the hierarchy had a monopoly on authority not just in a physical, coercive sense, but also because their story was the only one to be told. Indeed, silencing the stories of those at the bottom of the hierarchy in such a brutal and systematic way had a pernicious effect on generations to come. 

Stories are essential in how groups come to see themselves; The persecution of the Jews is a story that has intensified their sense of community and identity. Part of the reason why the conflict in Gaza is so intractable lies in the fact that there are two conflicting ‘stories’, both of which give one or the other group an intimate connection to the land. The territorial significance of Gaza has less to do with geography and more to do with stories. More importantly, the failure to find a peaceful settlement lies in the failure of communal stories to engage with one another – it is often as if the barrier of these competing stories is as insurmountable as speaking in different languages.

There are fundamental and aching rifts in the world between the stories of the rich and poor, West and East, male and female, black and white, gay and straight, Jew and Arab. The problem lies not so much in the fact of division (up to a point) – conflict is a fundamental part of social change – but the impact this division has had upon storytelling across the rift. If, as Martin Luther King argues, “A riot is the language of the unheard”, then the Ferguson riots, along with all uprisings all over the world, are a cry of frustration against an incumbent authority (a promoter of a particular story) that fails to listen.

As Chimamanda Adichi powerfully argues in her talk ‘The danger of a single story’, when this dialectic of storytelling is absent, injustice is inevitable. It is also doomed to render the ‘single story’ empty of meaning. Just as the Nazi story exterminated all possible opposition and thus left itself protected from counter-narratives, so we are faced everywhere with a prevailing and often unchallenged story, the over-telling of which undermines its very power. The content of the Western story is always the same: overcoming a seemingly invincible obstacle or enemy through sheer perseverance, Disney-style – because “anything is possible, if you just believe” (whether the obstacle be social immobility or, at this moment in history, Isis). The problem with these stories is that they propose an over-simplified solution which, when it fails to appear, will leave people feeling hopeless and disillusioned.

The regurgitation of these stories through the onslaught of graphic and harrowing scenes in charity advertisements and newsreels has unintentionally desensitized the public from suffering because they know that their £3 a month will not cure world poverty. The fact is, donating to charities may be a good thing, but does little more than paper over the cracks. It does not provide a long-term solution because it relies upon a ‘single story’ of the Third World as a barren and distant land to be pitied and fed crumbs from the table. The reality is that these countries possess immense cultural richness and raw materials, and deserve diplomatic and economic support to fulfil their potential – for example, through fairer trade agreements with the West and a boycott on the arms trade.

In British politics, we have been spoon-fed the Tory story, encapsulated by frankly laughable soundbites such as “The Big Society”, “We’re all in this together”, and “We all need to tighten our belts”. This story casts state ownership as a monster, benefit-recipients as ‘scroungers’ and immigrants as ‘job thieves’. As Chimamanda Adichi points out, “Show a people as one thing — as only one thing — over and over again, and that is what they become.” If we don’t want to make our unemployed into scroungers, our immigrants into outsiders, or the Third World into a weak and defenceless ‘Other’, then we have to actively fight the stories that cast such damaging caricatures. 

We have been manipulated into being “all in this together”(i.e. bearing the burden for a financial elite whose recklessness crushed the foundations of our economy) and “tightening our belts” (i.e. dismantling and privatising the Welfare State) because we do not feel sufficiently empowered to form a strong counter-story. We have accepted the yarn, set up by the government and spun by the press, that the NHS is inefficient, incompetent and negligent and that it can only be saved by the creeping privatisation and commodification of one of our most important social institutions. We have accepted the idea that the socio-economic elite should be accorded more authority than the majority, who are struggling to provide for their families as the cost of living rises exponentially and incomes wither on the vine. Why have we accepted this? We have become too disillusioned and wrapped up in the ‘single story’ to form our own stories. But there is hope for change. Counter-stories are emerging from a broad spectrum of people, from Owen Jones, to Russell Brand, to a group of Darlington mums who sparked the ‘Save our NHS’ march through the country. But these voices need more recognition and support to seriously challenge Tory rhetoric.

The single story is neat. It doesn’t have any raggedy edges. The goody triumphs over the baddy, rags transform to riches. It is this very neatness and sterility that makes it dangerous. We should embrace a dialectic of storytelling, with all its rough edges arising from the inevitable differences in how people perceive the world, in the hope that greater resolution will be achieved through an organic patchwork of stories than through the ‘single story’. 

Review: The Riot Club

Ollie Johnson
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Review: The Riot Club

★★☆☆☆
Two Stars

If you’re reading this review on this website, you’re probably already aware of the publicity surrounding The Riot Club, and its potential for pernicious influence on Oxford’s PR persona. You’re probably also expecting a scathing attack on how it depicts the University as a cesspit of classist tension and Cassanovian debauchery. Sadly this isn’t the case. If I had left the film feeling anguished over its attitude towards Oxford, it would have had to have been far more engaging and convincing. As it is, Lone Scherfig’s film is a lukewarm attempt at too many different things. 

The Riot Club follows Miles, a new student at Oxford, who becomes involved in the eponymous society, itself a not-at-all veiled parody of the Bullingdon. The film follows his love life, his initiation into the club, and the eventual shock which occurs when privileged elitism meets real life. The real focus of the film, though, are the members of the club; in the same way that you spot animals at a zoo, a moviegoer is invited to gawk at their uniqueness, their strangeness, and how far divorced they are from normal life. 

It’s undeniable that elements of the film are enjoyable. A scene early on involving an Aston Martin and vomit set the tone well, and during the club’s annual dinner, very much the film’s centre piece, a drinking game based on Latin was well executed and fun. Two performances also really stand out; Tom Hollander as the deliciously sinister ex-club member with an overwhelming sense of self-worth, and Sam Claflin’s Alistair Ryle, who is the epitome of cockiness, twattishness and passive-aggressive jealousy that all the other club members should have been.

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The problems for the film can be traced back to its status as an adaptation of a play. As a piece of theatre, originally called Posh, it’s easy to imagine the film working well in a perverted History Boys sort of way, but on the big screen, it becomes glaringly obvious from an early point that not nearly enough was done to turn the play into something extensive enough for a film. If I could level one main point of criticism at The Riot Club, it would be that it feels deeply uncinematic. There’s nothing at work to suggest this wouldn’t have worked better as an adaptation for TV, or even as a live broadcast of a theatre production. 

A perfect example is the set-piece dinner sequence. On stage, I can see it being an extravagant scene that used the design of the stage perfectly. Unfortunately, on film it comes across as a distinctly underwhelming apogee for what is meant to be a hotbed of iniquity and the climax of the plot. Consequently, it quickly becomes tiring, repetitive and far, far too long. Even the perspective that the audience views the action of the film is evocative of a theatre production, the camera staying perpetually at the middle distance of imaginary stalls instead of utilising the full breadth of depth that film can.

A concurrent problem that seems to be a result of the source material, rather than the adaptation, is that the film never decides what it wants to be. It begins as a satire of classism at a top university, before adding a nebulous love story, then morphing into an ensemble drama-comedy and culminating as a tragedy. Yet none of these strands are done effectively. The satire is simplistic and juvenile, reducing the depiction of classism to a battle between accents north and south of the M25. The love story is so superfluous that the film eventually abandons interest in it, just like I did, and relegates it to a purgatorial no man’s land of irresolution. Worst is the ensemble aspect, which is let down by characterisation of the Riot Club members that is so indistinct that they far too quickly become a blob of chiselled jaw lines and tail coats. Their dialogue is also nowhere near as snappy or quippy as it should be, consigning any chance of consistent humour or engagement to the imagination.

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Moreover, the eventual tragedy of the story is done with such cack-handed obviousness that anyone who didn’t see it coming would have to have entered the screening 15 minutes before the end, and have blocked their ears from the almost laughably menacing soundtrack that pre-empts the denouement.

If it had had the courage in its convictions to carry through just one of these strands effectively, the film would have worked. The satire on classism seems the easiest, given how the caricatures of pompous, extravagantly wealthy and breathtakingly supercilious Hooray Henrys essentially write themselves (and are extremely easy targets for villainisation). Yet, rather than creating characters that are hateful in anything close to a meaningful way, instead they are childishly condensed into two-dimensional, violent goons as if to effusively underline that we are meant to hate them.

An hour and forty-five minutes is a long time to spend in the company of people who try your patience from the word go. It would have been completely excusable if the result had been much wittier, or more focussed or even more caricatured. Instead, The Riot Club presents a group of characters that aren’t evil enough, distinct enough, or funny enough, and who end up being grating companions, accompanying the audience on an aimless and dull journey to nowhere. 

Amelia Hamer removed as Oxford Student Editor

Helen Thomas
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Amelia Hamer removed as Oxford Student Editor

Amelia Hamer has been removed as Editor of The Oxford Student following the publication of an online article in June. 

The decision was taken by the board of OUSU’s Oxford Student Services Limited (OSSL), which publishes The Oxford Student newspaper. In a statement made on their website, OSSL said that the decision to drop Hamer as Editor has been taken as the board has “lost confidence in her because of her handling of an article published (briefly) on The Oxford Student website on 29 June 2014”. They also stated, “Hamer is entitled to appeal the decision to OUSU Council”. The OSSL Board is made up of the OUSU President, Louis Trup, the Vice Presidents and an OUSU staff member.

The article, published under ‘The OxStu News Team’ byline and entitled ‘Oxford Union ‘rape victim knew her claim was false”, featured messages between ex-Oxford Union President Ben Sullivan, who was accused of rape earlier this year, and his alleged victim. The article was subsequently accused of victim-blaming and compromising the identity of the victim in question, and removed. However, an identical article, also co-written by Hamer, remains published on The Telegraph website.

Thames Valley Police and the Crown Prosecution Service decided against pursuing charges against Ben Sullivan in June; a week before Hamer’s article was published.

In an online petition that currently has 316 signatures, Siobhan Fention, former Editor of The Oxford Tab, called for The Oxford Student to “issue a full apology acknowledging that the victim blaming in your article was wrong and irresponsible. Amelia Hamer, writer of the article and editor of the OxStu, must resign.” In light of Hamer’s dismissal, Fenton said, “I am relieved by the OSSL board’s decision to now remove Amelia Hamer as editor of the OxStu. I hope that the university strives to support its students, to engage in progressive discussions about rape myths and to send the message that no victim is ever responsible for their attack.”

Earlier this month, OUSU responded to the claims made against the article by announcing that they would send the two Oxford Student Editors on a media law training course worth nearly £200 each. In an article for The Tab, Fenton said, “Such a response is at best meek and at worst insulting”. 

Caitlin Tickell, from OUSU’s WomCam, stated, “It is right that Amelia Hamer has been sacked for the horrendous article written last term, which peddled rape myth after rape myth, and may well have compromised the anonymity of the women mentioned.”

She added, “There is no place in our university for that kind of victim blaming and it is incredibly important that we work towards making safe spaces for victims of sexual assault and this action is a step in the right direction. I hope that all student journalists will think about how they report on issues of sexual violence, and that measures are put in place to ensure nothing so offensive happens on our campus again.” 

However, in an e-mail to her editorial team, Hamer responded to the accusations and her dismissal by stating, “I’ve been called all manner of things over the past three months – “rape apologist”, “slut shamer”, “victim blamer”. I can assure you that I am none of these things. What I am is someone who cares about the truth.”

When answering why The Oxford Student chose to publish the article, Hamer stated that it was “not because we were attempting to “shame” a supposed rape victim or support Ben Sullivan, but because the information was in the public interest. There is little point to a newspaper if not to reveal information that people have a right to know.”

She continued, “The copy was far from perfect, but it was not illegal and did not break the PCC’s Editor’s Code of Conduct.” In response to Fenton’s petition, Hamer wrote, “People demanded an apology: we largely didn’t issue an apology because the OxStu legal advisors advised against it.” She described OSSL’s actions as “unjust,” and said that “the OxStu as a legitimate, independent publication is dead”.

Cherwell has contacted OUSU President Louis Trup for comment. 

The melting pot of the Middle-East

Zena Agha
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The melting pot of the Middle-East

I’ve often heard it said that Amman is one of the most boring cities in the Arab world. That judgement is not altogether untrue, it lacks the key ingredient that makes the Middle East the richest place in the world: history. Amman has barely been around since the 18th century, practically an embryo when compared to Damascus, which is the oldest inhabited city in the world, not to mention Baghdad, Jersusalem, Cairo et al. They also say Amman is devoid of culture: the markets aren’t as bustling, the mosques aren’t as beautiful, the food (a big part of Arabic society) isn’t as flavoursome and there are malls, McDonald’s and consumer brands galore.

Having said that, Amman’s young history is precisely why its people are carving out their own. Jordan – especially Amman – is a nation of refugees. Over 60% of the population are Palestinian refugees, be it from the Nakba (1948), 1967 or any of the other contentious points in the demise of Palestine. Since then there has been an influx of Iraqis post-2003 and (of late) Syrians, not to mention the six million economic migrants from Egypt. Jordanians, such as they are (remember these borders and ethnicities are not our own and have existed for less than a century) are very much in the minority and that has been reflected in the demographics. Jordan’s relative stability makes it the first port of call when calamity strikes the region. The results of this – though tragic – are rather beautiful: Arabs from all over the region who have endured civil war, ethnic cleansing and persecution have found a tentative solace in Jordan and their creativity is rapidly burgeoning. There are bars and restaurants, courses in Arabic and fashion, there are web designers, actors, musicians all meeting in the creative waiting room that is Jordan.

Amman itself is a mountainous city, comprised of seven or so ‘circles’ (roundabouts) which connect the sprawling centres. The trendy Paris Circle in Jabel Webdeh is rapidly becoming the haunt of edgy tourists and locals alike who work in the cool cafés with MacBook Pros, harem pants and drink watermelon juice or Iranian coffee (yes I’ve deftly just described what I’m doing now – is this the Arab equivalent to Champagne socialism?) These people frequent cool parties on rooftops overlooking the city and talk politics. Indeed Jordan has an inherently politicised population. Arabs are perpetually gripped in discussions about the future of the Middle East – particularly the role of Israel. You cannot enter a café without hearing (watermelon juice in hand) the young fiercely debate the future in accented English and Levantine Arabic.

The politics is both a relic of the outgoing refugee population and an indicator of what’s to come. The discussions are simultaneously harrowing (the stories one hears are truly heartbreaking) and inspiring: here is a population that is unafraid to vocalise its hesitations about dictators, revolutions, gender, sexuality – and pivotally – its Zionist neighbour. They are increasingly engaged and educated. Provided the peace remains, (a legitimate concern considering the early signs of ISIS in the country) we will see a generation of intelligent and ambitious minds. It is precisely these discussions that make Amman worth visiting. The politics of the region will undoubtedly get dirtier but the young are rapidly seeking out solutions, not just settling for the status quo. Amman used to be a stepping stone to the rest of the region but now, with war raging on three borders and these young minds mixing together, there’s a lot to be said for visiting the Middle East’s melting pot.

 

University and OUSU move to tackle sexual harassment

Tom Calver
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University and OUSU move to tackle sexual harassment

Both OUSU and University authorities have promised new measures to tackle sexual harassment, starting with OUSU’s compulsory consent workshops to be held in freshers’ week.

The University has also promised that a revised harassment policy, to be released “during the course of the term”, will make “explicit its inclusion of all aspects of harassment, including sexual violence, assault and stalking”, as well as “encourage disclosure”,

The announcements follow major concerns about the ways in which University officials deal with cases of sexual harassment.

A recent survey by the NUS reported that 37% of women and 12% of men say they have faced unwelcome sexual advances in the form of inappropriate groping and touching, while at the start of the month an Oxford student using the pseudonym Maria Marcello wrote a blog describing how she had been raped while she lay unconscious at a party.

She describes how the University largely ignored her requests for help, and that the police – in forcing her to make a decision whether to press charges or not, while emphasising that her case would not stand up in court – pressured her into dropping the case.

When queried about the failings of the existing harassment policy, a university spokesperson told Cherwell that the review for the new policy “in formulating a procedure for students, has focussed on providing the complainant with a greater right of inclusion within the process, with a consistent point of contact for advice and support.

“The procedure details the stages of the process and also provides clarity for students as to where they should go for professional and practical advice. Where the matter is potentially a criminal offence, the student will be encouraged to report allegations to the police.

“All forms of harassment are unacceptable at Oxford and all members of the University community are expected to play their part in creating an environment which is free from it.”

Commenting on the new policy, OUSU Vice President (women) Anna Bradshaw told Cherwell, “Over the last few years OUSU has put a lot of work into improving harassment policies and procedures at Oxford University.  OUSU’s It Happens Here campaign, successive Vice-Presidents (Women), and members of the Student Advice Service team have worked with the University to update the University’s harassment policy. 

“The new policy is in the final stages of edits and approval, and I am personally really pleased with how much of an improvement it will make to the current policy.”

The University is also working on new training methods for its staff – a spokesperson explained that “pilot workshops were run in spring 2014 for front-line staff in colleges to build their confidence in responding effectively to reports of any type of abuse”, while in particular, staff have been guided on signposting students to sources of specialist advice and support, as appropriate to the incident.

Meanwhile, at least 24 colleges will be holding OUSU sexual consent workshops this freshers’ week, with 20 of those compulsory for first year undergraduates. The workshops have been running across the university since 2011, while Wadham was the first to make theirs compulsory last year.

The aims of these workshops, as an OUSU statement explains, are to “provide a safe space in which to evaluate and develop our understanding of sexual consent, and to stimulate community-wide conversations about sexual consent. This helps to create a culture of enthusiastic and informed consent, and may also help to reduce harmful attitudes towards sexual violence such as victim blaming.

“The workshops deliberately validate the stories of survivors of sexual violence, and send a clear message that sexual violence is not tolerated within the community. We believe that all of these measures are desperately needed.”

The workshops will last for one hour, and take place in groups of about 10 students, while all facilitators are trained by OUSU. In March 2013 the workshops were a finalist in the UK Sexual Health Awards in the category ‘Adult sexual health service/project of the year’.

While they may be nationally recognised, organisers are keen for them to become compulsory for all new Oxford students. Jesus’s JCR women’s representative Emilia Carslaw explained that if the workshops were optional, “Only those who were already interested in consent-based issues would attend.”

Bradshaw has however expressed her excitement at the number of JCRs who have so far agreed to run the workshops, telling Cherwell, “[the workshops were] a central election pledge of mine in November, and it has been wonderful to work with so many students who recognise the importance of starting college-wide conversations about sexual consent.”

However, because of the relative autonomy of each college, it is not certain that the policy will be immediately adopted across the entire university. “A big piece of work for OUSU this year, led by our campaigns and working with the University, will be to pressure colleges to update their harassment policies to match,” Bradshaw explained.

“The updated policy is a step firmly in the right direction, but we need to change the culture as well as the policy. This is why growing the OUSU Sexual Consent Workshops is a key focus for me this year, because a shift in culture is what they are all about.” 

Details about the University’s current harassment policy can be found here.

Hertford hall now decorated solely by portraits of women

Alex Stronell
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Hertford hall now decorated solely by portraits of women

Hertford College has commemorated the 40th anniversary of the first admission of women to the college by replacing the formerly all male selection of portraits hanging in the hall with those of women.

The project, pioneered by Hertford fellow Dr Emma Smith, includes images of the college’s first woman fellow, Julia Briggs; former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith; museum curator Xanthe Brook; and BBC News reporter Natasha Kaplinsky. 

Smith remarked, “We haven’t gone for our most famous, most successful or richest. They’re not necessarily intended to be aspirational figures – they’re just some individuals who have done some interesting things.”

Twenty-one photographs were commissioned, most from photographer Robert Taylor. As part of the initiative the college even attempted to source a doe’s head to replace the stag trophy hanging in the hall. “Alas, there’s no doe so far”, Home Bursar Dr Andrew Beaumont told Cherwell. “Funnily enough, hunters don’t tend to keep does’ heads as trophies – the conspicuous lack of antlers among female deers being a fairly major reason – so try as I might, I’ve not been able to source one. The stag will be sharing my office for the time being. You’re welcome to visit and pet him if you like”.

Florence Kettle, co-founder of the Hertford Feminist Society told Cherwell, “I love what the portraits represent – our college’s commitment to equality and progression. Sitting in hall, we’ve joked about not being able to relate to all these anonymous historical white men or the anonymous stag, and it’s fantastic to see change in our environment, provoking us to think about what we surround ourselves with and why.” 

She continued, “Seeing these women on our walls challenges what we value and how we express that as a college and university, and gives us a chance to stick it to the racists and sexists of the past. Hertfordians are not all men, not all white, and are very much alive and delighted to see these portraits change. It is about time we saw physical manifestations of who we are today as Hertford, and who we want to be in the future.”

Under the initiative, which has been in the pipeline since last year, the portraits are intended to hang for one year, but Dr Smith seemed hopeful that their stay might be extended. Speaking to Cherwell, she said, “We will wait to see what people think – especially our students – when they come back in a couple of weeks, before making a decision about what happens after that.”

Second-year Hertfordian Rebecca Grant added, “This is a very visible commitment to reflecting women’s achievements and contributions to Hertford and the world. Hertford’s Hall, like that of other colleges, is an important social and ceremonial space – as sixty percent of our undergraduate body is made up of women, it seemed odd that the pinnacle of success was represented exclusively by deceased white men – that’s my excuse for not getting a distinction in Prelims anyway.”

Meanwhile when asked if other colleges should do the same, Hertford student Ellen O’Neill commented, “it might do something to combat the Riot Club-style perception of this university. We absolutely should celebrate such great C16th alumni as we have, but I am looking forward to sitting in the hall every day and seeing people who are really worth my admiration (and whose identities are actually known) as well as knowing I am in an institution that publically accords the same respect to living women as dead white men.”

Review: Magic in the Moonlight

Damien Shannon
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Review: Magic in the Moonlight

★★★★☆
Four Stars

Woody Allen’s sheer capacity for work puts most film directors to shame. He has written and directed a feature length film almost every year since the early 1970s, taking lead acting roles in many. 2013’s effort was Blue Jasmine, a rework of Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire so good it earned its lead actress this year’s Academy Award. For 2014, we have Magic in the Moonlight.

Set in the 1920s, the film opens with a magic show performed by ‘master magician’ Stanley (played by a typically superb Colin Firth). After the show, he is approached backstage by an old friend, also a magician, who requests his help in exposing as a fraud a purported psychic medium. This invitation Stanley accepts enthusiastically, and in doing so travels to the south of France.

Here he meets Sophie, the supposed psychic, played by Emma Stone. Sophie is beautiful, likeable and disarming. She is also without wealth or status. Encouraged by her mother, she has been using her ‘gift’ to win the affections of a wealthy aristocratic English family with whom she has taken residence. One of the young men in this family – a future inheritor of its estate – has blindly fallen for Sophie, and after inflicting upon her a dreadful self-sung serenade, makes a marriage proposal.

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Stanley is a child of late Victorian England. He is avowedly and eloquently committed to the power of science and reason. He elevates rationality as the highest human ideal, and abhors sentiment and emotion. He espouses a Hobbesian view of humanity, seeing life as nasty, brutish and short. He quotes Nietzsche approvingly, and is a firm atheist. His intellectual dynamism enables him to successfully manipulate audiences into believing his magician’s act, and his proficiency as a magician he fully expects will equip him to expose Sophie as a fraud.

Events turn out quite the contrary. Sophie’s abilities seem to defy reason. She has personal knowledge of Stanley and his aunt despite never having met them. Unable to formulate a rational explanation for Sophie’s ‘abilities’, Stanley becomes spellbound by her. He abandons his earthly rationality, and with it his Hobbesian views. He begins to appreciate beauty, art and nature. His entire life changes.

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All of Allen’s films are at least in part confessionals. Perhaps twenty years ago Stanley would have been played by Allen himself. Magic in the Moonlight continues a long-running Allen theme – man’s power of reason eluding him, confounded by love. Stanley’s pessimistic view of the world is symptomatic of the absence of genuine romantic love in his life. When he finds this in Sophie, all of his beliefs crumble and he finds himself questioning the very nature of existence. Of what worth is rationality if it proves so frail?

The critical press has been near unanimous in its verdict – this is not Allen’s finest effort. That assessment is fair but ultimately misguided. This is a delicate, clever and humorous exploration of male frailty. While not quite on par with Manhattan or Everyone Says I Love You for sheer enjoyment, like all Allen films, this is essential viewing.

Review: Night Moves

Sam Joyce
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Review: Night Moves

★★★☆☆
Three Stars

A corkscrew wind chime hangs from a tree, spinning in the wind. Its edges grow and shrink as it turns, in and out, in and out. It’s always there, yet seems to disappear and reappear. This image defines Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves, an ecopolitical thriller which follows three activists in the build up to, and aftermath of, their attempt to destroy a hydroelectric dam.

The film is obsessed with this apparent magic trick, with the idea of hiding in plain sight. Unfortunately however, just like the wind chime, an illusion can only hold your attention for so long and, after a promising start, the film gradually squanders our interest as it runs out of places to go.

A slow burn from start to end, the film takes its time introducing its characters and revealing the plot. We’re first introduced to Josh, an introverted, calculating presence played with surprising shades of vulnerability by Jesse Eisenberg.

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Josh is soon joined by Dakota Fanning’s Dena, and Harmon, a lackadaisical ex-marine perfectly played by Peter Sarsgaard. The film shines in the quiet moments of miscommunication between these three characters, who must trust each other with their lives, but know and say so little to one another.

We feel the anxiety of the characters as we follow them through the minutiae of their preparations. We watch them procure a boat, acquire 500 lbs of fertiliser, and navigate a police check. Reichardt wrings every drop of tension from these situations – we watch in terror as the characters push the needle between making progress and attracting attention.

For much of the film’s midsection, Reichardt wisely puts the focus on Dena, whose humour and passion make her the film’s most likeable character, even as she remains something of an enigma. Fanning’s slightly rehearsed quality becomes a virtue in the role. Her behaviour is learned, copied, and replicated from those around her. We, like Josh and Harmon, never know exactly who we’re looking at.

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The film is really a film of two halves, the first perhaps the least glamorous heist movie ever shot, the second an attempt to dramatise the human costs of secrecy. The first half’s slow, steady pace does nothing to hinder its sense of purpose, thanks to Reichardt’s controlled direction and three strong performances from her leads.

However, the script takes a risky gamble by placing the heist as the film’s centrepiece rather than its climax, and it’s a bad bet from which the film never truly recovers. The explosion sends the gang scattering in all directions, off to hide in the normalcy of their everyday lives. Reichardt cuts short the film’s most compelling aspect – the paranoia and mistrust between the conspirators – by separating the characters for the final hour, and as a result the film drags without a clear direction.

The motivations of the central trio are sketched only lightly – ideological, humanitarian, perhaps a little anarchic. This lightness of touch allows the film to engage politically without having an agenda itself. It seems content to act as a conduit for discussion, rather than attempt to provide conclusions.

An early scene sees Dena and Josh watching an activist’s film screening. The film is crude and amateurish, but they are inspired to act by its message of small scale resistance. Later a character remarks that blowing up the dam was “just a piece of theatre.” In this way the film offers differing perspectives on the medium of terrorism, but they never loom too large over the human story at the film’s fore. It’s a tricky balancing act, and not a wholly satisfying one.

Reichardt, as she has in her previous films, wonderfully captures the dichotomous tranquility and wildness of nature. The score is minimalist but ominous, the editing sparse but deliberate. Her style is austere, but it brims with portent.  She presents us with her story, with her images, but we are left to infer their meaning; we are, like that wind chime, twirling in the breeze.

Oxford City Council divests from fossil fuels

Luke Barratt
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Oxford City Council divests from fossil fuels

Oxford City Council has become the first UK Council to commit to divest from fossil fuel companies after an online campaign reached almost 700 signatures.

At a meeting of the full council on July 14th 2014, a motion proposed by Green Party Councillor Craig Simmons was passed, committing the council to end direct investment in fossil fuel firms.

The motion was seconded by Councillor Ruthi Brandt. 

Campaigners waited until September 16th to announce the historic event, so that it would coincide with the lead-up to the UN climate summit in New York this week.

The action by Oxford City Council is a landmark in the rapid progress of fossil fuel divestment campaigns. A recent study by the University of Oxford found that the current campaign was growing faster than any previous one, and could cause significant damage to coal, oil and gas companies.

Miriam Wilson, from the Turl Street-based People and Planet, commented, “Oxford City Council’s decision to divest from the fossil fuel industry is a great triumph for the UK Fossil Free campaign. As the first council in the UK to divest, Oxford is leading the way forward for other institutions to follow suit. In the absence of bold action on climate change by our world leaders, it is absolutely vital that our municipal governments take significant steps to address this most pressing threat. I hope that Oxford City Council will be the first of many in the UK to do so.”

While the news was greeted enthusiastically by campaigners at Fossil Free Oxfordshire Divestment campaign, many were quick to point out that this is not the end of the road. The Oxfordshire Local Government Pension Fund, according to information obtained by the Oxford Mail, still invests £27.9m in fossil fuel firms.

Councillor Bob Price, Leader of Oxford City Council, told Cherwell, “The City Council’s direct investments have historically been restricted to a limited range of banks and building societies with high security ratings; equity investment has not featured.

“However, Oxfordshire County Council manages the Oxfordshire Local Government Pension Fund, to which City Council employees’ contributions and the employer element of the Scheme funding are directed, and some proportion of that fund is invested in equities. The City Council has sought the Fund’s agreement to move away from investing in fossil fuel companies but that has not been accepted.”

But a spokesman from Oxford County Council insisted that the authority had no legal power to choose its investments on ethical grounds.

The news of Oxford City Council’s commitment to battling climate change comes soon after some 67 Oxford academics, including Lord Professor Robert May, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of the UK Office of Science and Technology, wrote an open letter to the University asking it to end its own investments in fossil fuels, something a number of American universities, including Stanford, have already done.

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