St Anne’s JCR debated a motion to abolish High Table on Sunday night, ultimately voting it down by a count of twenty-nine to forty-six, with ten abstentions.

The motion, proposed by second-year History and Politics student Joe Collin, read, “The JCR notes that: St Anne’s is renowned for being a mod­ern and informal college, which has always championed equality. The JCR believes that: High Table is an out­dated tradition that is a physical and visual expression of inequality.”

Collin told Cherwell the reasons for his motion, arguing that High Table “cannot be reconciled with our col­lege’s values, a college founded on the basis of equality, in giving women an education.”

He continued, “pre­tentious and outdated traditions like High Table damage the external im­age of Oxford and the college. As Ac­cess and Equal Opportunities rep at St Anne’s, I know that ridiculous tra­ditions like this do have some impact in discouraging some students from applying.”

Collin also attacked the concept of a High Table: “If you believe tutors should sit there because of academic achievement, should graduates sit physically above undergraduates? If you believe they should sit there due to their service to the college, why don’t scouts, or porters sit there?”

Second-year PPEist Ben Rosen­baum, who seconded the motion, explained how it came about. “A few days ago, Joe and I were having an ar­gument about High Table with a few of our friends and we were surprised by how many extreme reactions it got on both sides (although we were in the clear minority). We heard that Wadham had abolished High Table and thought it was worth a go here, although it was pretty speculative at­tempt – we both thought it was very unlikely to pass.”

Collin intends to propose this mo­tion again a year from now; Rosen­baum added that they would be able to pass the motion if St Anne’s had “a liberal intake of freshers.”

During the debate, second-year Sam Rodrigues argued that High Table is a sign of respect in a merito­cratic system; Rosenbaum replied, “if we lowered [tutors] a metre, I would not lose respect.” Will Dufton, a fresher, asked, “Do you see them with anger when you see them up there?” concluding that High Table does not affect daily life enough to justify the cost of change. Another student com­mented, “Many traditions are actu­ally simply very nice.”

St Anne’s is not the first college to try to abolish High Table this year. In Michaelmas, Somerville’s JCR debat­ed and rejected a similar motion.

An Oxford Professor is to start a Tolkien Spring School for members of the public with an interest in the author.

Dr Stuart Lee, who lectures in Old English, has organised a series of introductory lectures by world-leading Tolkien scholars to take place in the English Faculty this March.

Talks will range over a variety of topics including Tolkien’s life, his work as an academic, his mythology, the influences of medieval literature on his fiction, his languages, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and his other lesser known works.

There will also be panel discussions looking at Tolkien’s place in the literary canon.

Tolkien spent most of his life in Oxford, first as an undergraduate at Exeter, and later in a teaching capacity at Pembroke and Merton.

There will be opportunities to see the sights of Oxford that were so important to Tolkien and his colleagues, as well as an introduction to some of the Tolkien collections at the University.

Dr Lee said that the recent film of The Hobbit has been useful for stimulating interest in the talks: “it allowed us to advertise it at the height of the publicity for the new Hobbit film.”

He argues that interest in Tolkien has never been greater: “remember The Hobbit was published in 1937 with only a print-run of about 17,000 all told. It did well enough for a ‘sequel’ (which became LotR) but this did not appear until the 50s. Since then interest in Tolkien and the books have grown.”

According to Dr Lee,“Spikes of popularity are in the 60s with the illegal ACE publication in the US, then the rise of other fantasy writers and fantasy role playing in the 70s (when there was also a film of the first part of LotR), then of course renewed again with the new set of films.He is bigger now than he was in the 90s, 80s, 70s, and so on. It is also helped by the steady stream of new Tolkien books edited by his son Christopher.”

Dr Lee said he thought the new film was “OK”. He added that Tolkien would have “probably enjoyed some aspects of it (the opening battle outside of Moria for example, the dragon) but less so others.

“He would have recognised that there had to be plot changes but I think what would have irked him the most were the unnecessary and clumsy changes to the plot. Jackson does seem to put as many fights in as possible, and make silly changes for no reason, or reduce characters to caricatures. The bit that I think would have annoyed Tolkien the most was Radagast. I see no reason for him being pulled along on a sledge by a load of rabbits apart from the fact that it might make a nice new toy to flog to kids …”

Finally he said, “One point I’d like to stress is that all profits from the school are going to a graduate fund held by the English Faculty so it is for a good cause!”

Oxford undergraduates were positive about the course. One student, studying English, commented: “I think this is a fantastic idea.Tolkien is important for many people who aren’t necessarily interested in literature otherwise. There’s also a lot of depths to the books, so I think people would get a lot out of them and it would make a cool introduction to literary criticism. It’s just annoying we’re not allowed to study Tolkien!”

A group of Oxford students from different subjects across the university are using Twitter in order to further inform potential applicants about life at Oxford.

The scheme, christened ‘OxTweet’, aims to record a week in the life of a number of Oxford students. It is hoped that learning about the university from the students themselves will inform applicants regarding misconceptions about Oxford, and encourage more students from less advantaged backgrounds to apply.

The project was launched on Sunday by Magdalen student Jamie Miles, who last Michaelmas started the ‘Applying to Oxford’ YouTube channel, with the help of a college-sponsored Creative Fund.

He told Cherwell, “when I was applying to Oxford I noticed that there was a hole in the access information on what Oxford was like from a student perspective. Hearing from a primary source what it is like to apply, live and study would have helped put me at ease about any misconceptions I had about the university”.

All eight students, who have so far accumulated over 200 followers between them, interact amongst themselves as well as answering questions by potential applicants. Among the student tweeters are Classics, Medicine, Law and English students, all of whom tweet about their daily activities from the perspective of their own subject.

Jamie highlighted the importance that such projects can have in encouraging applications to Oxford, adding that “offering an informal student perspective on the Oxford experience” is crucial. “Hopefully this initiative will snowball and improvements to Oxford access that I can’t even anticipate will emerge on the journey. That’s what makes things like this so exciting!”

“The accounts have been specifically setup for the ‘Week in the Life’ project, so they will remain in cyberspace for the future reference of all potential applicants. Hopefully, the week of tweets will act as an invaluable resource in demonstrating how human the students at Oxford really are, along with the applicant voice being recorded through the questions people are asking.”

Typical tweets range from complaints about essay crises to jokes, advice and answers to questions from followers. So far, #OxTweet has been a success, with many of the participants posting over one hundred tweets in a single day.

Tom Edkins, one of the eight students tweeting about their experiences, explained “we’re opening up the real ethos of Oxford’s student life to those who want to know what it’s actually like, but we’re also offering this insight to people who may never have considered coming here before.

“Rather than read the same old ‘Brideshead Revisited’ spiel rehashed by the Guardian every few weeks, GCSE and A-Level pupils can now speak one-on-one with real students whose only agenda is to let people know that, really, Oxford is a great place for those who love their subject, regardless of background.”

Florence Avery, the Equal Opportunities Officer at Somerville, shared her thoughts on the idea, “Using Twitter is a great idea because it’s such a widely used social media; people will really be able to relate to it. I think potential applicants often feel that they can’t really relate to current students, especially if their school doesn’t typically send many people to Oxford and they might not know anyone who is currently studying there. If people can just passively browse twitter and get a more accurate impression of what studying at Oxford is like then I think it’s likely to reach a lot more people”.

After two unbeaten seasons and a £500 charity drive, several mem­bers of The Queen’s College Rugby team have pledged to get themselves waxed, shaved and, in the case of their team captain, even tattooed, in order to raise money for charity.

Team Christian Walters explained “The idea came from a 4th year, Tom Sneddon, who suggested that see­ing as we were looking particularly strong this year, and in a low division, an unbeaten season was a possibility. I agreed with the idea, adding the £500 for charity clause, as it would give players an extra incentive to play each week, which, seeing as we had struggled for numbers last year, could only have been a good thing. The tattoo idea was Sneddon’s, I’m not entirely sure why I’m afraid, but the tattoo will be the Queen’s crest on my right buttock.”

He added, “£250 will go to Wooden Spoon, a charity that raises money predominantly through rugby to help disabled and disadvantaged children, and the remaining £250 will go to the Divog Stars FC, a foot­ball team in a small village in Ghana that I helped to set up last summer,.”

The rest of the team is similarly committed. One member, Hugh Handy, commented, “I’ve shaved my head for £50 and if we raise another £50 we are going to wax the other social secretary’s [Tom Pollard] par­ticularly hairy chest without his per­mission.” Pollard, however, seems to have upped his price and said that it would take £100 before he would consent to being waxed.

Handy continued, “[We are also] considering doing a ‘slave for a day’ event where you bid for one of the players and if you win, he’s basically your bitch for a day. The rest of the players have been good at raising awareness for it, and have made up most of the donations, mainly at rug­by drinks.”

The Queen’s JCR President, Jane Cahill, said, “A lot of charity drives these days seem to involve men and hair…Queen’s JCR and others did Movember competitions, and now the rugby team are getting waxed. It must get exhausting for them.”

One Queen’s college student said, “I think it’s great what they’re doing. And no one can say it’s not attention grabbing. Although, they might want to keep out of the scrum for a little while after the tattoo itself.”