Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Blog Page 1574

Homage to Fromage: Fondue

Anthony Collins
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Homage to Fromage: Fondue

I went on Varsity this year. But not primarily for the skiing, or for the nightlife. I went for the cheese. Melted cheese to be specific. A vat of gloriously thick, voluptuously smooth, golden sludge, not boiling but bubbling dreamily, which drips gently off the morsel of crusty bread as you raise it to your mouth.

In the best fondues, a blend of cheeses comes together for a subtle, well rounded flavour: the heady richness of a strong Gruyere, the nutty aftertaste from Emmenthal or Appenzeller, and a creamy texture from Brie or Camembert. Crucially, a generous splash of Kirsch and white wine gives the concoction depth, and cuts through the cheese perfectly.

I returned from the Alps determined to make my own. How hard could it be? Melt some cheese, add some booze, and stick some bread in. Turns out, very. After my first attempt I was left with a curious, golden-brown dumpling at the bottom of the pan. When I plucked up the courage to try again, the cheese and wine separated alarmingly, and I ended up with a kind of cloudy watery stuff.

I’ve now resigned myself to sticking a Camembert (or better, a Vacherin) in the oven, wrapped in foil, studded with garlic cloves and drizzled with some white wine. After 20 minutes or so this turns into a pretty convincing makeshift fondue, which, while not perhaps reaching the dizzying culinary heights of the ambrosial fondue of the Alps, will just about keep my craving for liquid cheese at bay until Varsity 2013.

The Politics of Privilege

Tom Beardsworth
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The Politics of Privilege

Anyone who wishes to be reminded of the significance the House of Lords once held in British politics need only visit its leader’s office. The furniture looks like it was pillaged from Versailles and I take it from the deep scarlet of the carpet and curtains that Lord Strathclyde, its then-occupant, uses the same interior designer as the Queen, with whom he is a close confidant.

When Thomas Galloway Dunlop du Roy de Blicquy Galbraith tells me that the Tories aren’t posh – “it isn’t true and it never was true” – I raise my eyebrows. I’ve opened our interview, mischievously, with the suggestion that the public won’t elect the sort of rarefied gentry that the Rees-Moggs and, well, Strathclydes of this world come from.

Courtesy of primogeniture however – which our rather peculiar democracy accommodates – Strathclyde isn’t elected. After the death of both his father and grandfather he entered the Lords as a Tory peer at the terrifyingly young age of 25 in 1986. He was a minister in the governments of both Thatcher and Major and, escaping the cull of hereditary peers in 1998, then became Leader of the Opposition in the Lords. He entered David Cameron’s Cabinet as Leader of the Lords in 2010. Many people may not have heard of Strathclyde, but until he resigned on Monday, to be replaced by Lord Hill, he was probably the most powerful unelected politician in the land.

“In the 1980s they needed people in the House of Lords who were under 50 and could string two words together,” Strathclyde notes (he is now over 50 but can still string two words together). The Lords of course remains old and doddery, there being eight times the number of over-90s than there are under-40s. But Strathclyde is a good public face for the institution: in conversation, he has a jocular and somewhat lackadaisical temperament not dissimilar from Ken Clarke’s.

And one gets the impression that he doesn’t take himself too seriously, which is a healthy disposition to maintain, given that much of the general public doesn’t take the body he leads all that seriously either. But he is serious about the job, both in steering government legislation through the Lords and in serving as a Cabinet minister.

Turkeys famously don’t vote for Christmas, but Strathclyde was – and he insists, still is – in favour of reform. “People think that Lords reform is all about the House of Lords,” he explains. “It isn’t. It’s about the House of Commons.” This is an argument I’ve heard him make before, and it’s well rehearsed. “If you legitimise a second chamber…it will be granted an authority that will second-guess the decisions of the Commons.” Strathclyde thinks that a “more powerful second chamber, able to hold the government more to account, would be a good thing for politics” but he knows that a fat chunk of the Commons – from both sides of the aisle – vehemently disagrees. For them, the bifurcated US Congress serves as a enduring warning that an expansion of the political class is more likely to lead to an expensive and dysfunctional political system, rather than a better one. This is Strathclyde the tactician, voting with the government in the Lords (as he must) but fanning the flames of backbench revolt in the Commons by endorsing their arguments.

Consequently Strathclyde is one of the most liked ministers in the Cabinet. His status as a peer endears him to senior government colleagues. “It’s the great thing that divides me from the rest of the Cabinet,” he replies, when I move the conversation on to talk about David Cameron’s team. “I work more closely with them than any other person possibly can.” Why? “Because I’m not a rival, so sometimes when they are rivalries… they know I’m not going to be Chancellor or Foreign Secretary, even if I wished to be – and that’s quite stabilising. They can talk things over with me knowing that I’m not going to do anything else with it.” He is therefore Cameron’s eunuch, castrated of ambition to higher office, able to steady the boat in situations where his elected colleagues might be unable. It is, as he says, immensely stabilising. Unsurprisingly he doesn’t describe Coalition as especially turbulent. Tensions bubble away, but they rarely surface in the sort of colourful fashion shown on the most recent series of BBC Two’s The Thick Of It. Cameron, he says, “is a natural coalition-builder.” But he’s no less a conservative (big ‘c’ or small) for it. “We shouldn’t confuse being consensual with being wet about things,” he explains, adopting in his language the Thatcherite dichotomy of ‘wets’ (moderates) vs. ‘drys’ (ideo- logues).

He reels off a list of Coalition achievements, though a cynic would suggest that most of them (“dealing with the debt”, “kick-starting the economy”) remain fairly woolly platitudes, yet to be obtained. In any case, why aren’t the electorate thanking you for it? “Ah, it was ever thus” is his jokey reply. He embraces the government’s mid-term unpopularity as a badge of honour, “a mark of what this government wants to achieve, which is that we don’t concentrate on the headlines next week or next month.”

He thinks it’s important for a politician to “have a hinterland”. Those politicians who have done something else “in law” or, he ponders briefly, have been a “car mechanic”, are invariably the best sort. Is this a swipe at Cameron, Osborne and Clegg, who hopped from one political job to another before running the country at startlingly young ages? “No,” he backtracks, before praising the Prime Minister to the heavens for good measure. “Cameron did in fact work in the private sector”.

On Monday Strathclyde resigned as Leader of the Lords. I headed back to the Cherwell offices to redraft this interview, which I had written up several weeks previously. But really I needn’t have: my original closing remarks (below) proved unwittingly prescient. Accuse me of post-hoc revisionism, but I’m pleading innocent:

Having spent over half his life in the Lords, and even longer in politics, it would be surprising if Strathclyde didn’t occasionally suffer bouts of cabin fever. It helps that his office is rather bigger than the literal cabins that many MPs put up with as offices. But occasionally he seems just a bit weary of the whole game. For that brief period when Lords reform was still hot earlier last year, it must have looked like his retirement (redundancy?) from politics was imminent. I don’t get the impression he’d have minded much. 

 

Comprehensive Welfare Must End

Tom Perrin
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Comprehensive Welfare Must End

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Benefit reform is a seemingly never ending saga that is often muddled by people on both sides of the debate, who let passionate feelings obscure rational thought. The hoo-ha that to light last week was the stuff of the old and the young, specifically winter fuel allowance and child benefit.

The question is this: should benefits be means tested or should everyone be entitled to such support? David Cameron, normally a sunflower in the dreary field of turnips that make up our House of Commons, chose to leave winter fuel allowance untouched. Meanwhile our canary Lib Dem friends, apparently forgetting their less-than-perfect record on keeping promises, tweeted that means testing might be a good idea after all.

I, for one, think that there is little wrong with means testing such things. The starting point here is to ask ourselves whether everyone really needs this support?

Many people currently in receipt of it do not. It is madness to keep on giving things to people who do not need them. It seems there is little meaningful difference between this financial leg-up and, say, bursaries at Oxford. Not everyone can have one because they simply cannot be provided for everyone; they are necessarily restricted to those who need them most. Many would love to have one, but sadly they cannot. C’est la vie. If welfare is to remain comprehensive then those whom it should help will be the ones left disadvantaged.

The reality is that there are a lot of people for whom winter fuel allowance is far from an optional extra. 35% of single pensioners and 15% of pensioner couples are in fuel poverty. Many pensioners face a difficult choice between food and heat. We need to ask ourselves what the most pressing problems are, and what needs to be done about them.

So long as these problems prevail it is ridiculous that those who do not need support, or even those for whom it helps but is not necessary, still continue to receive it. The New Labour culture of giving everyone everything is all very sweet, but it’s not at all viable – particularly when we face a spiralling national debt that is, to a certain extent, the result of their own reckless spending and bad financial housekeeping. 

Many argue that once we start rationing who receives what, we are on a dangerous path, and that ultimately everything, from education services to healthcare provision, will be jeopardised. But these fears should not stand in the way of progress. Instead we should take these examples as an indication that the matters should be handled with care and delicacy, and that all parts of society should be considered.

We are only going to be able to address this issue properly when we understand that the best way of repairing our broken economy and damaged society is for those who are privileged to help bear the burdens of those who are less fortunate. This is ever more the case during times of financial strain such as those we are currently experiencing. At these times a punch in the face for one person can be a tap on the hand for another. Until this is grasped, the root of the problem will remain untreated and will become ever more pressing.

We are not “all in this together” and we won’t be until those who can make sacrifices finally do so. The government has realised that for many households child benefit is unnecessary and has acted accordingly. It’s now time that they follow suit with winter fuel al- lowance and say that for many pensioners it is a welcome gift but not used for its intended purpose.

Total equality may be a commendable aim, but ultimately pragmatism will prevail. The answer to this particular conundrum is pure and simple common sense. 

Books Crossing Borders

Alexander Woolley
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Books Crossing Borders

Brick Lane is a place where beigel shops are packed next to curry houses; on Sundays, market stalls sell the cuisine of every nation under the sun, and even those that aren’t, as the Swedish shop testifies. It felt like a suitable place to meet poet Nia Davies, who is the communications manager for Literature Across Frontiers (LAF), an organisation dedicated to making literature travel.

Europe-based organisation Literature Across Frontiers began a little over ten years ago and was initially focused on encouraging the flow of translation from the Eastern European states that had recently joined the EU, dubbed by Davies as “our so called new neighbours, even though they’d been there the whole time.”

Then it grew. Now LAF is confidently reaching out to Europe’s neighbours: North Africa, the Middle East, India and China. Along with research, their projects centre on getting literature translated from languages spoken by less than a million people and from languages that are currently poorly translated.

Davies spoke passionately about the necessity of translation for the writer: “If you’re working in Estonian or…Welsh even, you have to converse by a translator to reach a bigger audience or interact with the rest of the world.”

But just as important is the disorientating effect of reading translated literature: “If you reading something from Arabic or German…then you’re not going to place in the avant-garde versus mainstream, or give it an ism; you don’t place it – this has come from another world.”

It turns out that England suffers from a scarcity of translation. Davies tells me only “2.5 per cent of books published in the UK are translations…In France and Germany it would be more like 30 or 40 per cent.” In countries where a rarer language is used, most books published are translations, though a lot of those are apparently instruction manuals.

One of LAF’s recent projects gathered young writers from the Balkans, Turkey, Cyprus, the Black Sea countries and the UK, and put them all on trains through south east Europe down to Istanbul. The trains themselves were described as “grim”, and they translated each other’s work along the way, sometimes using bridge languages.

Cultural exchange was, as ever, the aim: “A lot of those writers take influences from all over the world…[But] they didn’t know so much about the literature of their nearest neighbours.”

In her own poetry Davies does not strive, consciously at least, to be across frontiers. “When I write, I’m not normally thinking about anything else than the poem.” But she finds herself influenced by the international poets she encounters at work, and also by Welsh – the language of her mother’s family – though she does not speak it herself. “There might be something in…the musicality of Welsh; in my poetry musicality is really inherent…the sound and the rhythms of the line…I don’t know if I could say it’s important, I just do it, it’s essential.”

It is from this musicality that Davies begins to write a poem. “[I] latch on to interesting sounds and phrases and overheard speech, images.” As for what the poem might be about, that only comes out in the editing process, which is not necessarily a good thing: “Sometimes I get disappointed if it’s all about something very clear and obvious; it loses its mysterious edge which is what drove it on in the first place.”

Meanwhile at LAF the immediate future looks exciting. A project called “Syria Speaks”, which will bring three eminent Syrian writers to the UK, is set to take place in late January.

It is not intended to make a political statement; “we’re interested in Arabic literature that goes beyond the headlines.” But Davies, looking a little weary, said of literary events, “you wonder if they’re going to tackle political issues, and in some ways you have to…[to] raise awareness as a human.”

Latching on to newsworthy political situations is not something LAF is entirely comfortable with: “you can’t discourage people from being interested in another culture, but it’s a bit of a shame that it’s only because of this violent deathly situation.”

For LAF the long term future does rely on politics – or at least on securing funding again from the EU. At the moment it seems likely, for which we should be thankful.

The Art of Deception: YBAs

Nathaniel Whitfield
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The Art of Deception: YBAs

Acronyms fill us with fear. They are corporate firms and sexually transmitted diseases. The cultured hipsters all over London would be falling off their fixie bikes to hear even the suggestion that YBAs might do the same, but we know differently. Never fear though, the Bluffer’s Guide to Art is here to plug any gaping holes in your art knowledge and save you from possible faux pas, starting right now with the Young British Artists (YBAs).

Who: The YBAs or Young British Artists. A group of visual artists who began exhibiting in the late 1980s. Big names include Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

What: We all enjoy the morning-after chat but Tracey Emin took this to a new level as she exhibited ‘Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995’, a tent adorned with the names of her conquests. Her work ‘My Bed’ came complete with menstrual stains, used condoms, cigarette packs.

In Damien Hirst’s ‘A Thousand Years’, maggots hatch, turn into flies, then feed on a severed cow’s head before meeting a violent end at the hand of an insect-o-cutor.

The money: Hirst’s ‘For the Love of God’ was a platinum human skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds. It sold for £50 million.

Dinner party chat: Just say the buzzwords: sex, death and money. Less on the taxidermy while eating. Wearily shake your head and pour another glass when you mutter about them “selling-out” and “becoming the establishment”, with Emin snapping up her Dameship in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours.

The final blow: Show that you aren’t some faker who has read a newspaper guide but a real art lover by mentioning someone other than Tracey and Damien. Say you are so full that you feel like a woman in one of Jenny Saville’s paintings. Enjoy the gentle laughter.

We must end the ‘Cult of Masculinity’.

Gayatri Parthasarathy
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We must end the ‘Cult of Masculinity’.

The brutal gang rape of a young woman, Jyoti Singh Pandey, in India’s capital of Delhi, has captured the nation’s attention and incited worldwide outrage. The horrendous description of what this woman endured has galvanised thousands of Indian women to march on the streets of Delhi, demanding justice. They are protesting for legal reforms to increase punishment for rapists and prevent cases from languishing. They are calling for an expansion of the definition of rape to include crimes varying from physical dehumanisation to penetrative assault.

 

While substantive reform of the whole investigative mechanism – the judiciary, the police force, and the law – is indeed necessary, there is a second focus to these demonstrations: instigating a change in social attitudes. It is curious that this particular case has caused such outrage. The crime is not unusual: in India a woman is raped every 20 minutes.

 

It is not just the anger at her fatal injuries, inflicted with an iron bar by the six men facing court. The outcry was due to a cumulative rage over the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of sexual violence and at the imposed insecurity of the growing middle class of educated women.

 

There is vital progress to be made. In India, rape is inextricably linked by men – and women – to shame: it is seen as the ultimate desecration. This much is evident in the telling last words of Jyoti, ‘Mummy, I’m sorry’, as she felt at fault in her own violation.

 

Sexual violence has always been greeted with a chorus of victim blaming, from society and authority. Delhi police officers blamed fashionable clothing, having boyfriends, drinking alcohol and working alongside men. With this attitude from law enforcement, conviction rates are abysmal. In Delhi last year, there were over 635 rape cases reported, but only one conviction.

 

This is a result of a ‘cult of masculinity’. It is about violence, and proving masculine superiority. It is the systematic propagation of fear among women. And disappointingly, the epidemic of sexual hatred has been accepted as a cultural norm. The UK and US media have been quick to morally critique and demonise the Indian culture, as if sexual violence against women is pervasive only in certain parts of the world and as though it must be reflective of entrenched cultural traditions.

However, it is not unique to societies which have been described as ‘emerging from colonial practices’. Rape and domestic violence are issues prevalent in the UK, where the ‘rape culture’ is perhaps more subtly apparent. A BBC survey in 2012 revealed that more than half of those questioned – both men and women – said there were some circumstances when a rape victim should accept responsibility for an attack. Women, it turned out less forgiving than men.

 

Until attitudes change and women are respected, the gains from the protests will sadly be short-lived. The question that remains is how many more events such as this it will take to force society to look deeply and scathingly in on itself and change its outlook towards women.

It’s time to burst the Oxford bubble.

Rebecca Fairbank
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It’s time to burst the Oxford bubble.

The vacation may yield those coveted lie-ins and home comforts, but with each passing term we’re brought one step closer to that ever-daunting prospect: The Real World.

 

But fear not if the thought of the future sends you running for cover. Not all Oxford graduates end up in the London rat-race, as eccentric alumna Emma Orbach testifies.

 

The 58-year-old, who has a degree in Chinese, has been living off the land in west Wales since 1999. Orbach’s rustic lifestyle features a self-built hut, livestock, home-grown food and a total technology ban. Her monthly living expenses are probably less than an ill-judged binge in Parkend.

 

When the internet threw up Orbach’s quirky lifestyle recently, I regarded her with the same wary eye I turn to college rowers. I admire their enthusiasm, but still can’t fathom the appeal of river outings at six in the morning.

 

However, with the same shock of realisation that hits you as your friends don lycra one by one, suddenly Orbach’s story seemed less remote. What if Emma Orbach is not a new-age hippy, but a graduate who never escaped the Oxford Bubble in which I now find myself?

 

I doubt I could live without my laptop, and recycling the odd milk carton won’t qualify me for eco-warrior status. But being at Oxford is comparable in some ways to an escape from the outside world. You may scoff at the image of Orbach, alone in her hut, playing the Celtic harp before settling down on a woollen mattress at 7.30pm (I’ve done my research).

 

But who are we to judge this castaway lifestyle, when we embark on it to varying degrees in term time? Admit it – you’ve had days when the furthest you ventured from college was to check your pidge. If you’re at LMH without a bike, these days may turn into weeks.

 

And even if I make it as far as Jericho, I’m still surrounded by Oxford culture, not to mention lost freshers and the odd college. We’re all in the Oxford Bubble. It’s a state of ignorance not easily defined. It renders us incapable of dealing with actual dates, reducing time to confusing eight-week chunks. Places more than a 20-minute bike ride away are non-existent to the Bubble-dweller. It’s also the name of a student discount app, which ruins the ambience I’m going for here. But bear with me.

 

If you don’t think you are in The Bubble, you’re in denial. On the car journey home from my first term my mum knew more of the songs on the radio than I did. I knew then that the bubble had claimed me. Since then, each vac brings fresh challenges. Knowing the latest college gossip won’t help when you’re back amongst those who don’t know their bop from their Bod. And no, having the BBC News app on your phone does not count as “keeping in touch”.

 

I discovered the pitfalls of the bubble firsthand, on work experience in a publishing house in 9th week (sorry, December). Despite being fresh from college, I was confident of my ability to blend into a book-based environment after weeks of ridiculously long reading lists. However this was no OUP, but a publicity department churning out celebrity memoirs and thriving on the media. I came unstuck when casually asked the question used in their job applications: ‘What’s the most successful publicity campaign of the last three months?’ You know something’s wrong when you briefly consider ‘Gangnam Style’ as a suitable reply. There may be a sinister side to this failure to keep up with current affairs, or to register that your sixth form’s power couple broke up weeks ago (it was on Facebook, seriously!).

 

Oxford’s prestige and traditions already make it hard enough to promote the university’s inclusive nature. If we return to our hometowns totally disengaged, we’re not going to dispel the misconception of a haughty institution any time soon.

 

The effects are all the more damaging on a national scale, as Cameron’s latest popular culture blunder earlier this month attests. It’s better to be genuinely in touch with the outside world now, if you want to avoid hackneyed attempts to be down with the kids later in life. The ship bearing today’s politicians may have sailed, but it’s not too late for the rest of us!

 

When we capitalise ‘The Real World’, it becomes a more bewildering place for those within Oxford. It’s time to stop making such a distinction between the two spheres. I resolve to be a better informed citizen this term. I will know local election results, I will not forget to send birthday cards, and I will call my mum.

 

I urge you to join me, though maybe call your own mum rather than mine. If you’ve ever emerged from the Gladstone link surprised that it’s dark outside, I’m talking to you. Get yourself a Vitamin D supplement and some human contact. Don’t be an Oxford hermit.

Best of Cherwell Flickr

Richard Nias
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Best of Cherwell Flickr

Check out http://www.flickr.com/groups/cherwellphoto/pool/ for all the newest work from Cherwell Photo team! 

And don’t forget the first week photo competition, email photos on the theme of ‘Beginnings’ to [email protected] by Wednesday of first week. 

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Richard Nias

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Namrathra Rao

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Eleanor Grieveson

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Namrathra Rao

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Amy Rollason

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Eleanor Grieveson

Is he a Saint or a Sinha?

Nastassia Dhanraj
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Is he a Saint or a Sinha?

Stand up comedian and quiz genius on The Chase, Paul Sinha is a man of many talents. Since giving up his job as a doctor, the comedy he describes as “honest storytelling mixed with proper jokes” has made him a favourite on the stand up circuit. He was nominated for the If.Comeddie Award in 2006 (now the Edinburgh Comedy Award) and can regularly be heard on Radio 4’s The Now Show. Since joining the formidable team of Chasers in 2011, Paul ‘the Sinnerman’ Sinha has made a name for himself with his intimidating knowledge of subjects from art to biology. It is a rare opportunity to be able to interview someone who can blow your mind with facts and split your sides with laughter, before medically treating your afflictions.

Sinha was a comedy fan from a young age, but it took a bump in the road to get him to actually consider taking to the stage. “The spur for trying it myself was having six months off after failing my medical finals in 1994 and going to a lot of comedy clubs, and becoming increasingly fascinated by whether it was possible for me to replicate what they were doing. I thought I ought to try it once. I thought I would never forgive myself if I’d never tried it.” His first gig wasn’t either of the clichés so often told of comedians having a riotously successful first gig, nor was it a horrendous experience of talking whilst three men and a dog sat in silence.

Instead it was “a really bad first two or three minutes that were genuinely terrifying, then it sort of came together in the next two or three minutes and it was a gig that was neither good nor disastrous. It was sort of somewhere in between. There were quite a few disastrous gigs in the first few or so I did, but they were always interspersed with quite good ones as well. So there was always just enough to keep me going.” His stand up has changed a lot since those first few gigs. “I used to just do jokes; that was all I did. It all started coming together in the mid-noughties. There’s this cliché about ‘finding your voice’. I think that started happening about six or seven years ago when I started moving from pure joke telling to more storytelling.”

The key to success also lay in taking more risks in his comedy. “I think it’s very important to get rid of the fear of failure and to just try other stuff. I think a lot o f people don’t take too many risks at the start because they just have to get booked. There’s a practical pragmatic approach to stand up comedy where you have the do the job and do it well to keep gigging and keep getting booked back at various venues. It’s quite hard to take risks and that’s where things like Edinburgh come in, because you have an hour and it’s your hour and you can do anything you like with that hour. Artistically speaking I’d always recommend people go up to Edinburgh, because it makes you develop as a comedian.”

Edinburgh, of course, went very well for Paul Sinha in 2006 when he was nominated for the If.Comeddie Award for his show, Saint or Sinha?, alongside acts such as We Are Klang and Russell Howard. Whilst he maintains that this was a highlight of his career, he also mentions that, “at the time it was incredibly stressful to go from not having any media attention to having media attention.”

Surprisingly, his parents were supportive of his decision to quit being a doctor and to try to make it as a full time comedian. “They are the classic template of an Asian parent. They’re interested in success. And the fact that I’m doing well is what is keeping them happy really. Heaven only knows what happens when I stop doing well. The career is a success so everything is fine.”

Luckily for Paul, it continues to be a success. This year, he will be appearing in three episodes of Stewart Lee’s Alternative Comedy Experience on Comedy Central from February, as well as hitting the big screen in The Comedy Store: Raw and Uncut, which will be a series of stand up gigs, recorded at the legendary London venue, shown in cinemas around the UK from 22nd February.

He has not always been successful at everything, though. It took failure to lead him to getting so heavily involved with quizzes. “I took part in University Challenge: The Professionals in 2008, which was a spin-off of University Challenge, and I was in the ‘comedians’ team. We got absolutely walloped by a far, far more knowledgeable team and it was only then that I decided ‘I don’t like this feeling’ and that I’d like to take things more seriously. That was the moment that everything changed really and I decided that I wanted to take it seriously.”

This led him to learn about things he’d never given much thought to before. “Taking it seriously meant I needed to learn about the world of art and culture which as a medical student you kind of miss out on, with the very narrow way that you’re educated. I didn’t really know very much about literature and history of art and classical music and stuff, so I started getting myself interested in it. Bradley Walsh on The Chase now calls me ‘the art man’ because apparently I know more about art than any of the others. If someone had said that to me five years ago I would have laughed in their face as I had no appreciation for art at all. It’s just a case of broadening interests and broadening horizons. I was always going to get medical questions right or science questions right but it was the stuff that I didn’t know that I decided to work really hard on.”

There are some parts of Sinha’s knowledge that he didn’t have to work so hard for. “I can name every number one hit record of 1984, I don’t know why. I’ve never tried to sit down and learn a list of number one records of 1984, I just remember which songs were at number one when I was 14 years old. The developing brain is when things just stick, then as you get older you have to have a genuine keenness for knowledge, but one of the most artificial ways to gain a lot of general knowledge is to watch a lot of quizzes, of course.”

He had been dedicated to the quizzing world for a few years before an opportunity to try out for The Chase was presented to him. “I knew all the people on the show, because the quiz world is a world where you bump into people at events and at this that and the other. There were already three people on The Chase and I knew them all. ITV decided they wanted to bring on a fourth Chaser and I got a message on Facebook, of all things.” After rounds of auditions, he was selected. “I think they interviewed quite a few other quizzers, but luckily I was the one that they chose. I consider myself very lucky.”

And so ‘The Sinnerman’ was born. Unfortunately, he didn’t pick his own nickname. “I was ‘hands off’ from the whole thing. Because I couldn’t think of a nickname I just thought, ‘oh fine, you come up with something’. ‘The Sinnerman’ doesn’t really mean anything at all. It’s all right. I’m aware that because it doesn’t mean anything, people don’t realise that it’s a pun on my name. Some people think it’s something to do with cinnamon. We had someone on Twitter saying ‘Oh is his nickname ‘Cinnamon’ because he’s Indian?’ The answer to that is no. I don’t really concern myself with what I call producers’ decisions. I certainly didn’t pick the white suit!”

A lot of us might find being a professional quizzer a daunting experience, but for Paul it is a lot less stressful than other jobs he’s done. “My experience as a doctor has meant that The Chase doesn’t feel like real pressure. My experience as a stand up has given me the confidence to just express myself and say what’s on my mind, really. Everything you do in life shapes how you react to a certain situation, but when I’m in the final chase I just try to enjoy it, because I’m a very lucky man to be doing this job. It is a game show and we are meant to lose from time to time and whilst it’s very upsetting when we lose, if we didn’t lose then nobody would watch the show.”

Before I finished the interview, I had one question that I simply had to ask: “who would win in a quiz if it was the Eggheads versus all four Chasers?”

“I would have to say that in nearly all formats the Eggheads would win, unless there was an awful lot of pop culture. We’re stronger on the pop culture side of things but the fact of the matter is that the Eggheads contains two of the best quizzers in the world in Kevin Ashman and Pat Gibson, and no matter how good we like to think we are, we aren’t quite in their league. We could fancy ourselves against any of the others, just not Kevin and Pat.”

You can’t help but be amazed at anyone who’s so talented in so many areas. It is clear that Paul Sinha is determined to excel at everything he attempts, and excel he does. What I found most remarkable about him is that he uses failure as an opportunity, instead of just wallowing in it. Funny, clever, and a qualified doctor, I don’t think you can help but feel a little bit jealous.

Simply sensational: Alan Hansen speaks to Cherwell sport

Josh Platt
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Simply sensational: Alan Hansen speaks to Cherwell sport

“No, no, never.” My first question is met with a fairly unequivocal response. “Management was never something I was interested in,” Alan Hansen tells me with certainty. Was broadcasting always a passion? Had he dreamed of sitting on the Match of the Day sofa since he was a little boy? Perhaps not: “When you retire at 36 you have to do something. I wanted to stay in football and so broadcasting was the obvious option.” 

Whether it had been something he had previously thought about or not, Hansen was hired by Sky Television as a pundit and summariser only months after his retirement and he soon made a name for himself in the business, moving to BBC Radio 5 Live before going on to Match of the Day where he has remained ever since, describing “sensational” and “diabolical” performances alike. 

I’ve always wondered how pundits, who are generally required to be neutral, separate their playing days from their current work, but Hansen is quick to quash any suggestion of bias. “You have to say it as you see it. In fact, if anything, my time playing for Liverpool has meant I’ve been hyper-critical of them ever since.” It’s hardly surprising that Hansen has been left frustrated by his old club’s plight ever since his departure. In Hansen’s illustrious playing career for Liverpool he acquired a haul of winners’ medals that any of the current crop could only dream of; including eight league titles, three European Cups, two FA Cups and four League Cups. Since he left, Liverpool have won no Premier League titles. Sorry, but I just had to point that out at least once.

As I so often manage to do, I turned the conversation towards the Scottish national side which Hansen represented surprisingly few times (26), often kept out of the side by the formidable partnership of Aberdeen’s Willie Miller and lex McLeish. The picture he paints for the current side is, unfortunately for me, bleak. “In the 60s, 70s and 80s there really was a conveyor belt of talent. Every boy played football back then, but nowadays it seems like they have other things to do.” This is a statement with which I can certainly identify. My school didn’t have a football team for my age group, but it’s hard to imagine that this would have been the case 30 or 40 years ago. “A poisoned chalice?” I asked, regarding the currently vacant Scotland managerial job. “A difficult one,” he answered, diplomatically. 

I moved on to happier things and he seemed pleased that I’d chosen to do so. “That game at the end of last season, that game…” He was beginning to tell me about his favourite match that he’d ever covered as a broadcast journalist and I knew what was coming; I could feel it. “I mean, it was just…” He’s going to say it, he’s going to say it…“sensational!” Yes! I composed myself as he continued. “The different emotions of that day – watching the Manchester United side at Sunderland trying to work out if they’d won the title or not – it really is what the Premier League is all about.” I, personally, wasn’t so keen on reliving that particularly painful moment, but had to agree that the last day of the 2011/12 season really was unrivalled in dramatic terms. Best league in the world? “Perhaps the technical ability in La Liga or Serie A might be better, but for pure excitement you can’t beat the Premier League. You look at the 8-2 game from last season [Manchester United vs Arsenal] or the 1-6 game [Manchester United vs Manchester City] and you certainly can’t say the games between the big teams are cagey any more, like they used to be in the past.” I held back from asking him about the SPL.

Enough looking back. Time for Alan to earn his salt doing what he does best: making some predictions. With my betting slip in hand, I asked him who he thought would be lifting the Premier League trophy come May 2013. “Well, Manchester United are certainly back again, they’re looking absolutely top class. That’s the sign of the best sides, to come back from a setback like last season and be stronger than ever.” I pumped my fist with delight; let’s hear more of this, please, Alan.

“With Rooney and Robin van Persie up front you’ve always got a chance, no matter how well the rest of the team is playing.” Music to my ears. “Are we in for another decade of Manchester United dominance?” I asked Alan hopefully. “There’s a school of thought that Abramovich changed the face of the game.” (‘School of thought’: as a historian these are three words I’d hoped to avoid to avoid during the vacation.) “And Manchester City have followed this model, but they need to kick on again. United have always kicked on after disappointments, and it looks like they’re doing it again this season.” Couldn’t have put it better myself.

So with United safely on my betting slip for the season, who’s for the drop? “Well, it looked like QPR were a certainty, but you can never rule out the ’Arry factor.” How accurate this seems, and since this interview was conducted QPR have recorded a miraculous away victory over European champions Chelsea. Perhaps Mr Redknapp is in line to pull off another miracle. “It’s just very difficult to tell. Norwich looked like they were in trouble for a while but have gone on a great run, and Aston Villa have been up and down too. It’s constantly changing.” I get the message, Alan; I’ll save my money for Hasan’s finest post-Park End kebab on this occasion

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