Thursday 10th July 2025
Blog Page 1510

Brasenose sports and arts dinners under threat

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The future of the Sports and Arts and Societies Dinner at Brasenose College has been put into question this week.

An email sent around Brasenose’s JCR stated that the Dean has called for “radical alterations to the dinners”. The email further states that the Dean “believes that the current management of the dinners has been problematic” and that “the cost saved from ceasing the dinners could be used more effectively elsewhere.”

It also stated that the Dean felt that the dinners “do not fit in the College’s core activity and academic reason for being.” This year the Sports dinner cost £2,260 (£18. 38 a head), while the Arts and Societies Dinner cost £1,821 (£15.18 a head).

The Dean has proposed to use the money to support sports and arts practically instead. He also suggested that the dinners should be paid for by attend the dinners in the future.The email asked students to contribute to the discussion and send in their opinions about the Dean’s proposal, and whether or not the dinners should continue or not.

Brasenose JCR President James Blythe told Cherwell, “Brasenose is currently consulting on how best to spend the money allocated to supporting the arts and sport in College. There is no question of reducing that money and no decisions have been made. The JCR President and VP, having organised a consultation for JCR members, will be closely involved in decision making, along with the Fellows who have responsibility for Sport and Arts, and the Dean.”

In response to Cherwell’s enquiries into the planned changes an email was sent to Brasenose sports captains by the JCR Sports Reps. It told students “You may be approached by the Cherwell asking for your view on the future of the Arts/Sports Dinners… and I would like you not to comment on it to any journalist until we have had a chance to talk about it.

One Brasenose student, who wished to remain antonymous, commented, “I’m sure a compromise can be found between those who want to retain the dinners and the Dean’s obvious good intentions in wanting to free up money to invest in sports and arts.”

Brasenose Dean Dr Christopher Timpson declined to comment.

Christ Church JCR to defy House on rainbow flag

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Christ Church JCR has passed a motion to “collectively break” college rules and “fly the flag from their own room windows” after the House refused to fly the LGBT rainbow flag.

The motion was proposed by Rachel McCafferty and seconded by Meltem Osman at the general meeting last Sunday night. It acknowledged “an increasing number of colleges fly the LGBT flag” but “the relevant [Christ Church] authorities rejected the student body’s request to fly the flag”.

The Head of House, Christopher Lewis, told Cherwell, “We have a clear policy which is to fly the Royal Standard on royal occasions, the Christ Church flag on House occasions and the Union Flag on national occasions. We do not fly other flags.”

The motion calls for the JCR to petition the House authorities to fly the rainbow flag for Oxford Pride in June. The motion also sees the JCR resolve to “provide flags via the Welfare/LGBT team” for students to hang from their windows in college.

The motion further resolves to “pay resultant fines, if incurred by junior members, as a further demonstration of our collective action.”

The JCR motion argues, “The LGBT flag symbolises diversity, acceptance, and equality… Should the first part of the motion pass, it will demonstrate that the majority of the JCR is committed to exercising its support for the LGBT community.”

JCR Vice President Rosemary Brewin told Cherwell, “the College hasn’t yet been approached about the possibility of flying the gay pride flag… so we do not know what action they will take.”

One Christ Church student told Cherwell, “Students seem to understand the difficult position Christ Church is in regarding flying the flag, given its affiliation with the Church. While I respect their opinion, us students would like the college to be able to show their support for the LGBT community, which is why we flew the flag over the boathouse on Thursday.”

Review: Il Barbiere di Siviglia @ St. Peter’s College

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Novel in its usage of the commedia dell’arte staging, recently formed company Opera Lyrica’s take on Il Barbiere di Siviglia was one which would have pleased Rossini with its concept. By adapting the various figures in a commedia dell’arte to the characters of Il Barbiere, Figaro became an arlecchino (harlequin), Rosina and Almaviva the unhappy lovers, and Dottore Bartolo the Pantalone – a miserly merchant. It was an idea that was laid onto the opera by director Paola Cuffolo, contrasting in a wholesome, traditional manner with the goofy, often cartoon-like modern stagings of the opera, where (at least in the most recent Royal Opera production), there is no notion of time or space – only action.

Opera Lyrica’s production on the contrary seized Rossini’s opera and set it pretty much according to his wishes. Il Barbiere di Siviglia is a comic opera buffa whose characters don’t possess a great deal of psychological or intellectual depth; the music is beautifully constructed and its array of arias sublime, but it was intended wholly to be an opera more about caricatures than representations of real human beings. This was a notion that was very well captured by the costumes we saw in the piece; a lot of red velvet that marked the period, Figaro’s clown outfit and pin-on nose, the wig and brown ribbon that rested on the head of Almaviva, and the stick with which the miser Dottore Bartolo presumably futilely threatens Rosina his ward. From there stemmed a lot of vivacious movement and comic effects, notably Almaviva’s disguise as a nun in Act II, where he arrives at Dottore Bartolo’s house and feigns a wish of “Gioia è pace per mill’anni” (‘A thousand years of joy and peace’) to him.

A great deal of the singing was carefully guided and technically accurate, although occasionally the more than challenging coloratura called for vocal phrases left hanging without a conclusion or sometimes with an excessive vibrato on top. Jorge Franco Bajo in the role of Almaviva possessed a luscious tenor voice with a pleasant vibrato effect, but his breath control often didn’t manage to sustain the ends of phrases, allowing the dynamics and strength of the last notes to come toppling down. Although some potent singing came from Colette Lam as Rosina, many of her movements off stage were not free or loose, and often she appeared more concerned for the correctness of her singing – which for the most part was managed technically well – than for the blossoming of her cunning character. The production’s Figaro, Alexandru Nagy, possessed a booming, huge bass which unfortunately lacked a great amount of vocal mastery. While it made sense to see him tottering around on stage, a trait which sometimes gave the impression that Figaro was drunk, his voice tottered a little too far, so that often what could have easily been round, well placed notes turned out to be flat, shaky, tremulous, wavering notes that criss-crossed the auditorium rather than filling it. The two vocal jewels of the evening were Bragi Jónsson as Don Basilio and Paloma Bruce as Berta. The former contained a great deal of force and warmth in his voice, which in addition to being potent in itself was also guided in the right direction by his careful and authoritative display of vocal technique. Paloma Bruce’s soprano was especially impressive in Berta’s aria, “Il vecchiotto cerca mogile”, which was sung not only with spontaneity and pizzazz on the young soprano’s part, but also with a wonderful spin on the piece’s coloratura and a beaming, shining, flexible instrument that gave the impression of having few technical limits.

Overall this was an extremely well thought out production with lavishly handsome costumes designed and made by Elena Marteau and Kasia Katner; a concept that made more use of its limited financial endowments than many huge opera houses make of their large ones. It caught the spirit of Rossini’s opera not only in terms of its incidents and personages, but also in terms of its background and place in the development of opera as an art form.

Renaissance Man: Week Five

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If you were born into a good family in a well-off area, then it’s unlikely that you’ve experienced mugging. You’re missing out on an essential piece of life in Cameron’s Britain.

Mugging is gritty, real street theatre. Although a rite of passage, many students have never been mugged and without having done it before, it’s easy to feel intimidated. What should you wear? How should you behave?

That’s where the bespoke mugging firms come in. For just a small extra commission, you can pay to be mugged at a location of your choice arranged days in advance. Optional extras include choice of weapon, and a variety of injuries inflicted.

It’s a service many moving to London find incredibly useful. Local crime lord ‘Shanker’ explained to me that there was a big demand in certain areas, as young middle-class graduates fresh from universities like Oxford arrived and wanted the authentic urban experience.

“We’re catering for a new demographic, often first-time muggees,” he explained to me at a secret location in London, as he took a sip from his Starbucks coffee and read the local Shoreditch Gazette. “They’re often a bit nervous about being mugged, and you want your first time to be with somebody who’s experienced and knows what they’re doing.”

He admits that he’s been surprised by the uptake. “Some people seem to be doing it just for fun,” he explains. Talking to a few previous clients, it seems clear that once you’ve got the mugging bug, you just can’t stop.”

Simon has paid to be mugged over ten times. “It costs less than a trip to the National Theatre,” he explained to me. “And it’s always fantastic. Plus, what other muggers can claim to be 100% vegan and organic?” He’s started to use the surprise mugging service, where you’re jumped by gangs when you’re least expecting it.

“There was one awkward moment when I got mugged by somebody who wasn’t actually from the company. But I just look at it as a free mugging!” he jokes.

As I say goodbye to Shanker at the train station, he pulls a knife on me. “Give us your phone,” he says. I nervously hand it over, unsure if I’m doing it right. “That was great!” he reassures me, as he hands me a mugging receipt. “Nice doing business with you.”

Getting mugged is something you can’t usually put a price on, but in this case you can: whatever you have on you, plus a 15% commission.

The Cherwell Profile – Philip Pullman

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Dubbed “one of the greatest storytellers of our time”, Philip Pullman was once one of us. His most vivid memories of student life, reading English at Exeter College, Oxford, were “Friendship, laughter, drink, and several private intellectual discoveries that made a great difference to me but had nothing whatever to do with the course I was studying. For instance, one of the books that had a great effect on me — it changed the direction in which I was going — was Frances Yates’s Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. I found that by browsing in the Oxford public library. Another was Hans Jonas’ The Gnostic Religion. I found that in what used to be the Paperback Shop, where Blackwell’s Music Shop now is.”

Oxford in Pullman’s time was a very different city to the one we now experience. He recalls its poetic tranquillity. “I used to go on a walk past Nuffield College and then turn left into what used to be known as Paradise — an area of St Ebbe’s which was later cleared and ruined in a piece of vandalistic town-planning. It was full of odd little corners and neglected but richly picturesque little vistas. I made a sort of ritual of this. It’s all gone now. I suppose I was dreaming-of Lyra’s Oxford long before I thought of Lyra. Oxford has changed more in the past 50 years than in the previous 700.”

In Pullman’s view, the biggest change in Oxford has been the mixing of the colleges. “I think that has made the place vastly more civilised. It simply feels much nicer. What’s more, I think the care of students has improved beyond measure. It used to be very much sink-or-swim, and one or two of my friends sank. I don’t think they would have done today.” Pullman could be considered to have ‘sunk’. He graduated with a third in 1968 — while he got good marks at school for English, “I soon realised that English at Oxford was a different sort of thing, and I wasn’t very good at it, and furthermore that it would be of little or no help if I wanted to write myself.”

In retrospect, Pullman would have “stopped doing an intellectual subject altogether and taken up cabinet-making. I think I’d have been quite good at that. I would still have written, of course, but I’d have been able to earn a living doing something physical and craftsman-like, which, much later in life, I discovered I liked a lot.”

“If such a thing as a creative writing course had existed in those days, anywhere, I would no doubt have applied for that. But,” he continues, “I don’t think that would have done me much good either. We teach ourselves the most important things, or we don’t learn them at all.” I ask him what he thinks would constitute a good creative writing course. After a few moments he comes up with a suggestion. There is an old superstition, he says, that if you sleep on top of a specific mountain in Wales you wake up either mad or a poet. Why don’t we pack aspiring writers off to Cader Idris with a sleeping bag and see what happens?

Despite a successful career, Philip Pullman is remarkably humble about writing as a profession. He doesn’t believe in inspiration, claiming it hits him only two or three days a year. “The only thing that makes you a writer is the habit of writing every day.” He laughs at writer’s block – “I write three pages a day, by hand, as I have done for forty-five years. Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s hard, but habit is a wonderful friend.” For him, “the major edit comes later”. What is important is the discipline.

“Never have a plan,” Pullman says, “the time to write a plan is after you’ve written the book”. He describes how once he spent three months writing a very detailed plan, but eventually got so bored that he threw it away and began an entirely different novel. “Structure is a superficial feature of narrative,” he explains – books can always be reordered, whereas “tone is fundamental”. Pullman also advises to “never start with a theme”. Instead, begin with an idea and see where it leads you. For him, the major turning point in the composition of Northern Lights was the idea of a daemon that changed shape for children but not for adults. With this idea in place, he explains, the narrative took care of itself. On the subject of inspiration he says that “Dreams are not much help. The best thing in dreams is the mise-en-scène, the décor, the costumes, the lighting. The casting is occasionally quite good, but the narrative is hopeless. Absolutely dreadful.”

Pullman’s most recently published book is a version of the Grimm Fairy Tales. Although “you have to put the classics in”, Pullman’s selection includes more obscure tales like ‘The Juniper Tree’, and ‘The Goose Girl up the Spring’. He is quick to explain that fairy tales are not ‘texts’, per se, but “the transcription of one performance on one occasion”. Pullman doesn’t have much German, but he describes how he loved using the process of ‘triangulation’ – reading several different English translations alongside each other for comparison.

When asked whether his new fairy tales are appropriate for children, he agrees that many are too ‘grim’. His Penguin edition is presented as an adult’s book, but he writes on the assumption that these tales will be “read aloud by Granny”, or that, at the very least, “parents should read stories first if telling them to a young child”. His own experience of writing school plays for a mixed audience of parents and children was a “blessing” that led him into writing children’s books. “The children’s book world is different to the adult book world – less bitchy”, he said, praising writers like Jacqueline Wilson, Shirley Hughes, and Susan Cooper. Pullman is of the belief that “children should be able to find pretty well everything they have to cope with in a book” and despises authors that dumb their fiction down to suit younger audiences. His one caveat: “I don’t want to leave a child in despair – there has to be some sort of hope at the end.”

Christopher Hitchens once described His Dark Materials as the modern-day Narnia series. Pullman did not seem very happy with this comparison. He considers C.S. Lewis a great critic, but when he wrote children’s stories, says Pullman, “the devil entered into him”. The Narnia stories contain “the nastiest kind of morality, too explicitly presented”. He recalls the exclusion of Susan from heaven in The Last Battle because she has grown into a woman. Pullman also recoils from the section in The Magician’s Nephew where Diggory’s mother is cured from her illness because he is good and resists temptation. This kind of morality is evil, Pullman asserts – it tells children that if you are a good boy then your mother will get better; if she doesn’t, it was your fault.

Pullman is self-conscious and critical about his work. He regrets not spending another six months on the final instalment of the His Dark Materials trilogy, caving to pressure from publishers and the public. He is hilariously cynical about the process of adapting his book into a Hollywood movie, deciding in the end that he wasn’t interested in being heavily involved with the process.

Pullman is under no illusions about the quality of the film. He is much more positive about stage adaptations, enjoying his involvement with the National Theatre production of His Dark Materials. Can you make a perfect adaptation? No, he replies, but short stories make much better films; there is less necessity to cut material. Pullman doesn’t seem to mind that his novel has been ravaged by Hollywood. As he points out, things have always been adapted. “The existence of adaptations doesn’t harm the book itself, and it’s nice to have the money.”

OUSU living wage "hypocrisy"

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Oxford University Student Union has come under fire for using a cleaner who is not paid the living wage, despite OUSU campaigning for the University to pay the £7.45 hourly rate to all employees.
 
The Oxford Living Wage has been affiliated with OUSU since November 2011. The campaign describes its members as “Students, University staff and members of the local community committed to securing a Living Wage of £7.45 for all Oxford University employees.”
 
Will Brown, chairman of the Living Wage Campaign, told Cherwell, “It is imperative that this is corrected as soon as possible to set a powerful example of the importance of fair pay.”
 
He added, “It is obviously disappointing that not everyone who works in OUSU’s premises currently receives the Living Wage, especially given its laudable commitment to campaigning to end poverty-level pay for the employees of the University and its Colleges.”
 
David J Townsend, OUSU President, commented, “Since the cleaner is sub-contracted, we are only in a position to ensure payment of the Living Wage for the services provided directly to OUSU.”
 
He added, “What the cleaner is paid for other contracted work is beyond our immediate power, but a matter on which we are lobbying the University, with considerable success in respect of directly employees so far.”
 
Townsend continued, “Once this question was brought to my attention, in consultation with the Vice-Presidents I took steps to ensure that, as from the coming year, the cleaner will indeed be paid the Living Wage.”
 
The development comes a month after the University agreed to pay all direct employees a living wage with immediate effect. However, much of the cleaning work is still being subcontracted to providers who do not pay their staff the wage. 
 
The University subcontracts its cleaning work to several companies. The OUSU offices on Worcester Street are contracted to Calber Facilities Management, a firm based in Wantage.
 
The company’s recruitment policy states that ‘Consideration will be given to pay rates with attention given to market rates, skills and experience. Calber is aware of equal pay and discrimination legislation and will comply with the provisions of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998’. The company does not include any provision to meet the living wage.
 
The company’s JobIsJob.co.uk entry lists their cleaner wage as ‘£6.30 per hour’. As of Thursday evening Calber Facilities Management were unavailable for comment.
 
Sarah Santhosham, Vice-President for Charities and Communities, told Cherwell, “This situation came to our attention earlier this year and we have been taking steps to ensure that all sub-contracted staff in our building will be paid a Living Wage as of the start of next academic year.” 
 
The issue was addressed at Wednesday’s OUSU council meeting, in a motion proposed by Santhosham. A motion resolved “to continued to raise this issue active with the University and Colleges.” However, David Railton, Chair of OUSU Council, told Cherwell they, “already had a policy of supporting the Living Wage before this motion- our policy lapses every 3 years so this was just a renewal of past policy.”
 
Pavel Linshits, a 2nd year History student, commented, “If this isn’t the definition of irony, I don’t know what is. It seems hypocritical of OUSU to promote the living wage without deeming it a necessity on their own turf.”
 
Tom Rutland, the OUSU President Elect, commented that he “will be working to spread the living wage as per the pledge I, and all the other sabbatical candidates, undertook as part of the hustings.”

CNB: Summer VIIIs 2013

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Summer VIIIs – End of Day 2 – How they stand

courtesy of Feather & Square LLP

Keble’s welfare condom-drum

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Students have called for the return of condoms to Keble JCR’S welfare stash, after a hundred were stolen in first week. The condoms were taken from the sports cupboard,  and have not yet been replaced.
 
In a JCR meeting, Keble’s JCR welfare reps, Andy Paine and Ellen Peihl, reported, “Stolen condoms. This is theft – they cost money.” In the meeting it was also reported that “Some [condoms] have been pidged to people with notes, which is unacceptable, but [there have been] no complaints yet.” The welfare team stated that if there are any complaints about the anonymously pidged condoms, “the deans will likely get involved.”
 
One JCR member told Cherwell that the notes accompanying the pidged condoms were “quite insulting”.
 
Keble’s welfare reps declined to comment to Cherwell.
 
James Newton, Keble’s JCR president, told Cherwell, “Their disappearance is a shame. We buy the condoms so that everyone in college has easy access to free contraception and to see them gone is a bit depressing. Buying condoms takes up a hefty part of the Welfare team’s budget, meaning that we as a JCR are out of pocket for no real good reason.”
 
He continued, “If whoever it was wanted condoms and had asked we would have given them plenty – even if they wanted 30, 40, or 50, I’m sure that would’ve been fine. But whoever needs hundreds of condoms is either having an absolutely great time or (more likely) doesn’t know how to use them properly.”
 
Newton stated that, because nobody had complained about the notes alongside the pidged condoms, “we can’t act upon any of them and since we brought it up with the JCR they have stopped.”
 
One Keble fresher told Cherwell, “I don’t quite know how anyone can possibly dream of getting through 200 condoms. It’s clearly either somebody vastly overcompensating for a lack of success, or just a practical joke that’s stealing from our JCR budget.“
 
They added, “Some members of the JCR seem to think that there are multiple culprits due to the assortment of sizes that have been pinched. If it is just a joke, we’d quite like our condoms back.”
 
Another Keble student commented, “Having free condoms is great, but it’s vital that they’re easy to get hold of. College contraceptive provision should be readily available at any time of day or night, so as to deter students from risking unprotected sex.”

Student loses to RON in Wadham SU elections

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A Wadham student’s controversial ideas seem to have lost him the recent election for Wadham SU Treasurer. Last week, certain Wadhamites reacted to the “ridiculously offensive” nature of his campaign by ripping down posters from the Library door and the campaign strategy which the student had hoped “would make people talk” seemed to backfire at the elections last Friday. He lost out to the two other candidates, with even RON receiving 23 more votes overall than him.

The winning candidate, Olivia Allen, holds clearly opposing views; her manifesto read: “As someone who would love to indulge in more slutwalks and likes nothing more than a bit of Oxford Left-wing nonsense I would like you to consider me as your next SU Treasurer.”

The student’s campaign sparked debate when he condemned the use of college money to fund transport to Slutwalk, and to support Oxford Left Review and Oxford Radical Forum. His poster slogan read: “Fight Wadham’s Far Left, vote [for him] as YOUR Treasurer’ and his manifesto called for fairer distribution of college funds to the whole student body, especially those ‘who are too busy to waste their time at SU meetings debating bureaucratic and ideological motions’.”

Wadham JCR President Jahni Emmanuel commented on his defeat in the election: “I don’t think it was inevitable – I think the reason he lost was not necessarily because the posters were offensive, but because they illustrated some of his ideas which were quite controversial and not particularly popular.”

Asked whether she believed that the ripping down of posters had affected the election results, she responded “I think it was bad that the posters were removed but I don’t think it impacted on the result of the election – many of them were left up, and even the ones which were removed were in place for a significant amount of time beforehand. Furthermore, more posters were out and up after the initial ones were torn down.”

When we contacted the student, he said that “he was disappointed by the turnout.” Out of 600 students, there was only a voter turnout of 147 students. He proceeded to say that “only 11% [of Wadham student population] voted for Olivia. I will be sad to see the £30k+ intended for the other 89% students blown on more ‘slut-walks and left-wing nonsense’.”

It does seem dissapointing that only a quarter of students, approximately, voted in the elections but in a college where Feminism and Left wing views are clearly held – they recently passed a ‘zero tolerance’ sexual assault motion – it seems unlikely that his views would have ever gained mass support.