OUSU president-elect L.J. Trup seems to have hit a pothole with one of his flagship policies to build a monorail. Investigations made by Cherwell into the financial and administrative feasibility of Trup’s proposed transport system suggest that the construction will not be able to go ahead without major financial backing.

Cherwell Deputy Editor Patrick Beardmore drew up a proposal for the monorail’s route (pictured) based on the system outlined in Trup’s ‘personifesto’. Using this as a blueprint, Cherwell obtained a quote for the potential costs of building a monorail. Jerry Sanders, CEO of SkyTran Inc. and associate fellow of the Said Business School, gave us this expense proposal and breakdown, “We could bring this in for under $85M all inclusive (stations, vehicles, candy bars). Roughly $10M a mile for guideway; $500K per station; and $25K per vehicle). This assumes no payment for the right of way or other government levies.”

Whilst this seems to be reasonably priced for a project as large as this, the expense would consume the whole of the OUSU budget for the next sixty-five years.

In another blow to Trup’s project, the Oxford City Council have expressed scepticism about the proposal and have even stated that they believe it would damage the city’s tourist reputation. They said, “It would be challenging, to say the least, to propose a monorail through the historic centre of the city without having an adverse impact on the world-famous beauty.”

The council have also ruled out the possibility that they could provide any funding and insisted that the project would require institutional backing. They dismissed the overall proposal as unnecessary, claiming, “Such major infrastructure projects are really only viable in very large cities.”

However, an economic analyst at Cherwell has noted that Trup’s proposal to downsize term-time by removing fifth week from the Oxford calendar would reduce overall university expenditure. The monorail would obviously be a long-term project, and the construction funds could be offset by the overall reduction of term time, which would reduce spending by 12.5 per cent. When factoring in projected revenue that the monorail would accrue, optimistic projections suggest it could be profitable within twenty years.

These projections do not take into account the positive effect that the monorail could have on Oxford’s tourism. In Orlando, Florida, the construction of a monorail (in conjunction with the development of a few Disney-based theme parks) has caused a huge spike in tourist revenue in what was formerly an area of desolate marshland.

Trup has risen to prominence on a wave of popular support not seen since Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign, and it now seems he will face similar problems that the American premier has been forced to confront in recent months.

Like Obamacare, Trup’s monorail is an essential, but expensive, modernising process that would drag the city into the twenty-first century. However, sceptical technocrats and political points-scorers are determined to kill the project while it is still in its cradle, citing cynical budget concerns as unsurpassable.

A group of Thai students are boycotting a visit by Deputy Prime Minister Phongthep Thepkanjana to Oxford this week in protest against a controversial bill proposed by the Thai government.

The Amnesty Bill is a heated piece of legislation that has provoked unrest, government debate, and street protests in Thailand for many months. The bill proposes to offer amnesty for acts of violent unrest carried out between 2004 and August of this year. This would apply to several disgraced political figures close to the current government, most notably the older brother of Yingluck Shinawatra, the current Prime Minister.

Deputy Prime Minister Thepkanjana, who has supported the Amnesty Bill despite fierce public opposition in Thailand, is set to meet Thai scholarship recipients at an informal lunch meeting on Saturday, 30 November.

However, a group of Thai students led by Thaya Uthayophas and Duangnapa Kovanich have raised objections to the terms of the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit. In an open letter to Thepkanja, they strongly condemned his government’s policies and declined his invitation to take part in the event.

“Contrary to the government’s tactics, we believe that a true democracy is not the same as  majoritarianism, that the voice of the minority, political decency, and the rule of law must be upheld,” the letter reads. “Therefore, we, the Thai students at Oxford University who oppose the Amnesty Bill, do not wish to have any involvement with your coming visit to Oxford.”

Thaya Uthayophas, a third year PPEist visiting Pembroke from Brown University, is one of the leading signatures of the open letter to Thepkanjana. He is optimistic about the political dialogue created by the protest in Oxford and elsewhere: “We believe our letter has been well received by the majority of Thai students at the University of Oxford and also some other members of the Thai community in Oxford and the UK,” Uthayophas told Cherwell.

“We hope that our boycott will prompt Thai students, both in Thailand and overseas, to be inspired to voice their opinions and engage in the greater political dialogue of the country.”

Thai students supporting the boycott have chosen not to protest the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit

for the sake of the Oxford Thai Society, which has no official political affiliations and does not represent Uthayophas and Kovanich’s group.

A first year MBA student at St Hugh’s expressed mixed opinions the visit, commenting, “I  personally welcome the man because I heard, from a reliable source, that he was fair and actually not a corrupt politician.

“But we cannot welcome the Deputy PM who tries to pass that Amnesty Bill that would destroy the rule of law in our country.”

Uthayophas expressed his disappointment that the Thai Office of Educational Affairs, which organised the Oxford lunch, did not specify that the Deputy Prime Minister would be attending.

“We believe that their omission, given the current political situation in Thailand, has led some students to make uninformed decisions,” he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Thepkanjana has not yet responded to the Oxford students’ open letter, nor was he available for comment.

A termly meeting in which junior deans are encouraged to “exchange war stories” has been condemned by welfare staff as “entirely inappropriate”.

The junior deans’ dinners, which began in Hilary 2013, are termly social events for deans to meet. Concerns have been raised after the email organising the Michaelmas meal described the event as “a time and space for junior deans to come together to confidentially compare experiences” and “trade war stories.” It continues, “Most importantly, this is done over a relaxed dinner and a fair few drinks.” The email was sent to all junior deans in the University.

A room was booked for the event to ensure “we have the privacy we’d need to discuss College issues.”

One anonymous dean, who revealed the event to Cherwell, condemned the events. “My opinion is that organising a social event around which to discuss these cases is entirely inappropriate. There is already a very well thought-out system in place by the University Counselling Service which offers a forum to discuss issues presented by junior deans in an official, secure and confidential environment.

“What seems to be lacking in this case is the understanding that colleges are small environments: maintaining confidentiality isn’t just about the withdrawal of names, it is about the withdrawal of information that could lead to the identification of the person or persons from the divulgence of information.”

They continue to describe the event as “wholly inappropriate”. They said,  Junior Deans “who are often entrusted with information of a sensitive nature”, should not be prepared to “to divulge this information ad libitum to peers outside of a formal structured setting.”

They went on, “I hope that university takes a strong approach to these ‘social’ events and recognises the potential for the breaches of confidentiality which may occur.”

The dinner is being held on the Tuesday 3rd December, and follows on from a drinks event at the St Aldates Tavern at 8pm on Wednesday 19th June.

The University, and the organisers of the event, did not respond to Cherwell’s request for a comment.

The motion bluntly states that “all electronic games consoles connected to a television are to be removed from the JCR and that any future additions of a similar nature be voted upon by the JCR”. It was argued that the presence of the PlayStation meant that four people could, and did, dominate the TV and the bar, making it a less sociable environment. A further point of contention was that, whereas the installation of a darts board in the JCR had required a motion, the PlayStation and FIFA had been put there, without a vote, and somehow allowed to stay for two years.

FIFA has previously had a stormy relationship with the Permanent Private Hall’s authorities. The College Valediction Dinner, attended by parents and the principal, was interrupted two years ago by shouts of “you f***ing f**k I can’t believe you f***ing won” from gamers in the bar, after a particularly competitive match.

Although the motion has little to do with this previous incident, the JCR believes that episodes such as this are indicative of the divisive and anti-social nature of having a PlayStation, FIFA and other games. Indeed the game has proved so dominant that the bar room is colloquially referred to as the ‘FIFA room’ within the Permanent Private Hall.

Opinion within the PPH is generally receptive to the measure, with one student commenting, “For me, although it regrettably means I can’t hone my frankly enviable FIFA skills and spend my days dominating the pitch, it does mean I finally get to watch real men running around on the screen instead of fake ones, which really don’t have quite the same appeal.”

Even a self described “FIFA addict” declared his support for the PlayStation’s removal stating, “Whilst I am certainly addicted to FIFA, I’m even more addicted to having a congenial atmosphere in the bar room so I am all for the motion.”

Another anonymous FIFA-playing member of the college similarly welcomed the motion commenting, “We have a particularly sociable JCR and the absolute priority is to keep it that way. If banning the PlayStation means more people in the common room, then I am very happy with that – besides, I might get some work done!”

Not all voices were so positive however. Thomas Fawcett, who opposed the motion, dubbing it “fascist”, told Cherwell, “The ban on Regent’s PlayStation 3 represents a saddening concession to ignorant populism. I did my very best to offer a spirited defence of the console’s importance to our enjoyment of university life here at RPC, but the outcome of the vote was apparent before debate even began.”

Although many other colleges have games consoles in their JCRs and bars, students seem unconcerned that such a measure could spread. Emilia Demetriades, a first year law student from Jesus, which has an Xbox and PlayStation, declared herself in opposition to any similar action stating that, “In the same way that FIFA and other PlayStation games create anti-social behaviour they also encourage those members of college that would not enter the JCR except for the PlayStation, to come and socialise within the common room, surrounded by their fellow peers.

“With the right games and the right attitude towards the games they can be used to encourage people to get together and participate in activities, rather than them isolating themselves in their rooms. Perhaps an allocated time and day for when group gaming sessions could take place would overcome this problem of so-called ‘anti-social behaviour.”

An Oxford student has won Science magazine’s annual ‘Dance your PhD’ competition.

Dr Cedric Tan, from the University of Oxford’s zoology department, submitted a dance that reflected his research on animal reproduction.

Tan stated, “There were two main ideas in this film. First, a male invests more sperm in the females that have mated with his brother. Second, the female ejects a higher proportion of sperm from the brother of the first male mate and favours the sperm of the non-brother, facilitating a higher fertility by the non-brother’s sperm.”

The video features people dressed up as sperm chasing an inflatable “egg” in the water, and artistic interpretations of chickens reproducing.

On why he was inspired to enter, Tan told Cherwell, “I love the arts, especially music and dance, and ‘Dance your PhD’ is one competition that allows me to combine my passion for the arts with my interest in Science. Further, I strongly believe in promoting research to the wider audience, in both a fun and easy-to-understand manner, and thus providing insights into the scientific concepts that people may not be aware of.”

He further stated that he enjoyed making the video, commenting “Six weeks of tough work together with all my friends was stressful, challenging, but extremely delightful to have gotten such an amazingly enthusiastic crew! Once filming was over, and the tiredness took over, we, however, felt sad that it was all over.

“I recalled those times at the lake when we were filming the stripping scenes, we ran to the end of the jetty, stripped our tops off and put them back again just to repeat the shot. That certainly gained a lot of popularity as a crowd of people gathered to watch, and took videos of us, an amused expression on their faces, secretly hoping that we would perhaps also removed our shorts into our skimpy tight swim wear.”

Oxford University also commented that, “It’s always great to hear that our staff and students are finding new and creative ways to share their research with wider audiences.”

Cedric’s submission was supported byGreen Templeton College, and The Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, which is part of the University’s Department of Zoology, as well as the European Society for Evolutionary Biology.

Tan also participated in the competition in 2011 and has since created similar videos every year. This year, Tan was supported by Stuart Noah, who wrote the original music, and Hannah Moore, who helped choreograph the dance.

One Oxford student commented, “That video is one of the strangest but best things I have ever seen. Who doesn’t want to learn about chicken’s reproduce?”

Last Tuesday saw protesters occupying the space outside the entrance to British Gas’s Oxford headquarters.

The demonstration was part of a nationwide campaign to put pressure on the Big 6 Energy Companies, whose high prices are seen to be a major cause of fuel poverty and winter deaths. Similar events were put on in London, Lewes, and Bristol on the day that the UK winter death statistics were published.

The Office for National Statistics reported that there were 31,000 deaths caused by the cold in the UK last year – an increase of 29% compared to the year before. Caroline Abrahams of Age UK said, “It should be a cause of national shame that last year’s cold weather claimed so many lives unnecessarily.”

Oxford based protesters were hoping to share that message. Fuel Poverty Action Oxford, the protest group that led the demonstration, insisted, “Millions of us are having to choose between feeding our children and feeding our gas and electricity meters, which force the poor to pay more for energy and cut off our heating when we can’t pay.”

Student participation numbers are unknown, although members of Oxford University have been active on behalf of the cause for several months now.

A member of Oxford University Labour Club said, “I’m sure there are lot of people here who feel passionately about the issue. It’s one of those few cases that is truly a matter of life or death – and instead of helping the government is just making things worse.”

Npower, one of the energy companies that the protests were aimed against, argued too that the government was to blame. Green taxes are supposedly making it increasingly difficult for them to offer affordable energy.

Demonstrators were not happy with this explanation. “The real problems are the big six’s profiteering and the rising cost of polluting energy like oil and gas. Energy is a basic need, too important to be left in the hands of profit-hungry private companies”, said Fuel Poverty Action’s James Grainger.

A first year PPE student told Cherwell, “It’s great that the people of Oxford are making an effort. It’s all about awareness and putting politicians and those in positions to help under pressure. We should be doing more as a university to help.”

The campaigners, who claim that “This is a long-term fight”, have more events planned for the near future.