Organisers of Carbon club night ‘Zoo’ have cancelled controversial plans to showcase a “real life zebra” at their Mayday party following pressure from animal rights groups and local people.

A statement on their Facebook page yesterday announced, “Due to problems with…Animal Rights opposition we are no longer allowed the Zebra for the evening. Please note that it was never in our intentions to cause any distress to the Zebra, it was to be enclosed in a large pen OUTSIDE of the smoking area.”

Following the cancellation, PETA, The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Foundation, commented, “We’re delighted to hear that the club has decided against having a zebra at its venue after receiving complaints from local people.

“We commend the club for turning its back on this ill-conceived plan and are very grateful to the people of Oxford who have expressed their objection – it’s a wonderful example of the power that individuals have to make a positive difference in their community.”

Upon learning of the intended plan prior to its cancellation, RSPCA Oxfordshire commented, “The idea is appalling.” They added, “Organizers of this event should be reported to the RSPCA and the venue should be boycotted by all those concerned for animal welfare. The only thing that could be done to ensure that no distress is caused to the animal would be for the idea to be quashed.”

When initially contacted for comment earlier this week, PETA told Cherwell, “With high-tech animatronics and video deejays, there can be no justification for subjecting animals to the stress of travel, confinement, confusing conditions, bright lights and loud and scary noise. We hope Oxford students will see this stunt for what it is – a shameless ploy to sell tickets to an event on a competitive party night – and choose to support other local clubs that don’t exploit animals.” Carbon nightclub declined to respond to such criticisms.

The national RSPCA stated that it is “not against the use of animals for any form of entertainment unless distress or suffering is likely to be caused.” In this case, however, the RSPCA stated it was “concerned that the safety and welfare of the zebra, or any other animal they may use, may be unnecessarily compromised for the purpose of entertainment,” and advised that the organisers sought expert advice about the welfare of animals used for entertainment.

Several students have expressed their disbelief at the scheme, with one third year student commenting, “I think this a ridiculous and insane idea.”

The Facebook group for the event advertised the night as “Guaranteed to be the biggest Mayday party in Oxford” with “something the Oxford clubbing scene has never seen before – a REAL LIFE ZEBRA!!”

On the Facebook event page, the news that a live zebra was coming to Carbon was greeted by 27 likes, with one attendee commenting “genius!” and another stating it was going to be “epic.” Not everyone was so positive, however, with another posting, “Genius? I don’t think so. What a step backward for animal rights. How disappointing. A zebra will be transported, kept in a confined space and exposed to massive stress, how on earth is being responsible for animal cruelty something to be proud of?”

Another posted, “This is absolutely abhorrent. How can these people use any animal in the name of entertainment? Have you got no respect or compassion for a creature that will be utterly stressed out of its mind. WHY? Is this poor Zebra really going to add to the nights ‘entertainment’? PLEASE think again – I don’t think having a zebra or any creature is going to add to the night out.”

The organisers initially responded to the post by stating that it would be “outside” and “in its own pen” with “plenty of space.”

The decision to withdraw plans for a zebra prompted mixed reactions. Second year Jane Northfield commented, “This has ruined my Mayday. I was really looking forward to seeing the zebra, and in fact, it was the main reason I chose to go. It really would have been special. It’s now going to be like Itchy Feet without the music.”

However, Brookes student Eddy Allison stated, “Don’t worry ladies, the animal issue is sorted, I’ll be bringing a snake with me.”

Whale.FM, a citizen science project linked with Oxford University, is underway in an attempt to help scientists better understand the noises whales make.

Research so far has been hindered by the huge range of sounds that whales use to communicate and this is where the masses play their part, by visiting the website, Whale.FM, to take part in the project.

Robert Simpson, a researcher at Oxford and an important part of Whale.FM, explained that, “When you visit the site, you are presented with a sound clip of a recording of a whale. The idea is to match the big sound that you see/hear with one of the smaller ones underneath.

“All the pairings go into a database and we use that to find the best pairs of sounds and build up our understanding of what the whales are saying to each other. Basically: we need help decoding the language of whales.”

Since its launch in November of last year, more than 100,000 people have visited the site, creating almost 150,000 pairs.

Although there have been doubts cast on the efficiency of using the public as opposed to professional scientists, Dr Simpson told the Cherwell, “Efficiency may not be the way to think of it. In a broad sense, we are nowhere near as efficient, in that we require more people to take part to get the same results. But there is a term called Cognitive Surplus, coined by Clay Shirky, that describes all the spare brain power out in the world that is being used to watch TV or play on Facebook or ride on a bus looking out of the window. Whale.FM is trying to tap into that effort and make use of it for science. In that sense Whale.FM is very efficient!”

But citizen science is not just helpful for those with a burning desire to communicate with large aquatic animals. Dr Simpson commented that, “As we head into ever-larger data in science in general, citizen science may prove to be a very useful tool that allows us to put a human eye on much of what we look at”.

Students have reacted positively to the project with first year biologist at St. Anne’s Anna Blaylock commenting, “There really are loads of sounds that whales make, and this seems to me to be a good way to try and find out more about them”. Others, however, were more sceptical about the usefulness of the research, with lawyer John Huxley wondering if they were communicating, “Whale ideas that humans just can’t understand”.

Researchers at the University of Oxford have named dramatist, and former student of Queen’s College, Thomas Middleton as the most likely co-author of All’s Well That Ends Well, a play previously attributed exclusively to Shakespeare.

Inconsistencies of vocabulary, rhyme and grammar led researchers to believe that the play, like many others of the period, was not written by the Bard alone. The play’s unusually high frequency of rhymes and polysyllabic word endings – hallmarks of Middleton’s style – were seen as particular giveaways to the identity of Shakespeare’s collaborator.

Magdalen Tutorial Fellow Professor Laurie Maguire, who led the research along with Dr. Emma Smith of Hertford College, highlighted the positive effects of the team’s findings:

‘The important thing to stress when writers write collaboratively is that there is a harmonic vision,’ she said. “The picture that’s emerging is of much more collaboration; we need to think of it more as a film studio with teams of writers. In that sense, Shakespeare is in all five acts of his plays. He’s talking with his collaborators. So don’t worry, we’re not losing Shakespeare. It’s our gain, not loss.’

Though it has long been known that Shakespeare had collaborators – including Middleton himself on Timon of Athens – the Maguire/Smith hypothesis is new, and suggests that Shakespeare’s writing partnerships ran throughout his career, rather than at its beginning and end.

Though Shakespeare is often considered an isolated master wordsmith, he worked during a time in which high demand for theatre meant collaboration made practical sense. “We have a Romantic view of the creative genius having to write alone”, noted Maguire, “[but] over 50 percent of Renaissance plays were written collaboratively; it was the norm not the exception.’

Oxford Brookes students have set up camp at the university’s Gipsy Lane campus in protest against higher tuition fees and the fee waiver system. They have been staying since Friday the 18th April and have written an open letter to Professor Janet Beer, Vice-Chancellor at the university, listing their demands.

The protestors raised concerns that “future generations are being sold out by the Government” and announced, “the Government is currently dismantling and destroying the Higher Education system in the UK.” They oppose “the privatisation of Higher Education in general“ and therefore called on the university to “make a public statement condemning the hike in tuition fees” and to declare “support for the principle of free public education.”

A further complaint raised dissatisfaction at the university’s fee waiver and bursary package. The protestors have labelled the system of fee waivers a “con trick” that will make little impact since “most students get their debt written off before they pay it all back”. Rather, they propose more bursaries, to give students “money now, when you need it.”

Finally, the students suggested that academics are being given too little freedom to organise teaching; they wish to see an end to “the increasingly centralised management style.”

Oxford Brookes university have released a statement saying, “we believe we offer a sector-leading package of support for students”, including “a very strong package of bursaries, which are cash in hand and don’t have to be paid back.” The university also cited their programmes to support students experiencing financial hardship and their “continued funding of outreach schemes into schools that have low levels of higher education participation.”

The protestors are currently waiting on a reply to their letter of demands and are keeping spirits up with various workshops and entertainment, including sing-alongs, samba classes and debates about the education cutbacks.

The Occupy Brookes movement is optimistic that the university will give their demands careful consideration and believe their requests are achievable: “certainly we’ve yet to see a compelling argument against ditching fee waivers, and other universities have done it so it must be feasible.”

Oxford university students have greeted the news with mixed support. Some agree that bursaries are a better form of financial assistance than fee waivers, while an anonymous 1st year commented, “if the Brookes students care so much about education, they should pack up their tents and get on with their work.”

In response to such criticism, members of the Occupy movement maintain that they are committed to their studies and it is a mark of the “critical importance” of this issue that they have begun this occupation, despite “lectures, seminars, coursework deadlines and exams looming.”

Oxbridge’s traditional domination of university rankings was called into question this week after the release of a new league table suggested LSE was the second best university in the UK.

According to the latest statistics, compiled by the Good University Guide, poorer job prospects for Oxford graduates is the principle reason for this year’s slip down the table.

Cambridge University, Oxford’s traditional rival, retained top spot.

The rankings take into account a range of considerations, including research quality, entry standards, staff-to-student ratios, student satisfaction, and job prospects. 2012 is said to be the first year in which Oxford has been ousted from a place in the top two.

LSE’s bid for second in the rankings was particularly boosted by the highest employment rate in the country: 87.8% of graduates were reportedly in ‘good jobs or further study’ within six months of leaving. By contrast, the same figure for Bolton University was 41.1%.

Dr Bernard Kingston, chief writer for the latest guide, said, “the employment market for graduates remains challenging and this is reflected in the rankings. Some universities have been more successful than others in adapting to the new conditions.

“What is beyond dispute is that all three institutions – Cambridge, the London School of Economics and Oxford – are outstanding in their fields’

A spokesperson for the university suggested that Dr Kingston’s comments showed how small the differences were between the UK’s top three universities.

Jonathan Black, Director of the Careers Service, said, ‘it is unclear what CUG do to the raw data as their score is not a measure of total employment but of ‘graduate level employment’ – though the specifics are unclear. We feel that total employment is the more important figure than some arbitrary definition of ‘graduate level’ employment.

We recognise that LSE and Cambridge students study a different set of subjects. LSE (a much smaller institution) in particular is quite financially focused and their employment score in the CUG plummeted from 91% in 2010 to 82% in 2011, rebounding with the financial services industry to the 88% in this report. Oxford has been steady between 80% and 84% for the last 5 years.’

One Economics student at the LSE, who said he would prefer to remain anonymous, intimated to Cherwell that the news would be greeted positively by LSE students.

“We’ll be hitting Bridge in a big way tonight – London branch that is”, he continued.

Robin Bhaduri, a first year chemist at Keble, remarked, ‘This is embarrassing, first the boat race and now this’. Tom Jesty, a music student at St Peter’s, was equally cryptic, stating “LSE? Don’t you mean LSD?” 

A historian at St Hugh’s claimed that the latest results were probably the work of a “bunch of liberals”.

Taking the findings more seriously, however, was ex-student and moderately well-known cleric James Lockwood, who claimed that they “might signal the beginning of the end for Oxbridge’s dominance”.

Oxford University Careers Service have launched a new program of assertiveness classes exclusively for female undergraduates.

Based on the Springboard Women’s Development Program, a course offered by Springboard Consultancy, it aims to “ensure female undergraduates are equipped for their career after graduation – be it in academia, business or the third sector!”.

The four day program had its first run last week, and consists of three one-day workshops, as well as guest speakers from RBS and BP, which are sponsoring the course. A small number of sought-after internships at the two companies will be made available to the Oxford course participants.

The program hopes to encourage undergraduates in “taking initiative when making decisions in lives, careers and academic work’, improved ‘confidence and assertiveness as women’ as well as ‘increased awareness of their place as women in society and the world around them”.

Jonathan Black, Director of the Careers Service, said, ‘The program aims to give women the chance to focus on and understand their values, set meaningful goals, and build confidence and assertiveness so they feel more able to reach for their aspirations. It’s not about making them more aggressive or demanding to adjust to a man’s world, but encouraging them to be confident in themselves. The three day course also provides very practical steps from female professionals on how to achieve their goals.

“When we did a survey three years ago with the student union on what Oxford undergraduates thought about the industry, and what we found was women in general aren’t applying to high achieving jobs. In more male dominated industries they count themselves out before they’ve even applied because they think ‘they won’t want me’. We’re not saying that all women should aspire to these jobs in the City, but we are trying to show that they should feel able to apply for them.’

“What we find is that women can be pretty assertive in some parts of their lives but not in others,” said Jenny Daisley, the chief executive of the Springboard Consultancy which will run the programme along with staff at the university.

“The undergraduate sitting quiet as a mouse in supervision, giving the impression that they have not got anything to say, may have lots to say but needs positive advice so that they are not invisible.”

Balliol undergraduate Alice Hallewell, who took the course in 0th week, told Cherwell “I decided to apply for the program as I felt that I lacked academic and professional confidence, and this was holding me back in my uni work but also in pursuing my career goals. I had an overall aim or wish but no way in which to start working towards it. The highlight of the course for me was meeting a lovely supportive group of women and being able to open up to each other in a very honest way, it was quite liberating.”

 “The program provided frameworks of how to approach things and take a step back to reflect on things before making decisions. It’s helped me to focus on what I really want and how to go about finding out about it and starting to take small, acheivable steps towards it. I now feel more confident in professional situations and more confident that I am making decisions and taking action for myself.”

Brasenose student Anna Broadley commented “Boys seem to have more self conviction, even when their self-belief is not necessarily based on any greater academic merit. While the girls are freaking out about whether they have done enough work for a tutorial, the boys are more likely to say ‘I’ll just blag it”. 

Last Saturday, St Anne’s students were surprised upon entering Baby Love Bar to find that they were to share their ‘Song Titles’ bop with sixty remaining revellers from a fortieth birthday party.

Although the St Anne’s students had expected to have the club exclusively after 11pm, Martin Forde, owner of Baby Love, stated that they had not requested for the venue to be private.

Some St Anne’s students commented on the queue length and the birthday guests’ behaviour but St Anne’s Entz reps, Stephanie MacGillivray and Alison Hinds, explained that, “although the situation wasn’t ideal and it felt a bit awkward, it wasn’t too much of an issue and people generally had a pretty good night”.

St Anne’s bops, usually held privately at the club and starting at 10pm, started at the later time of 11 on Saturday owing to the privately held birthday party taking place beforehand. 

MacGillivray and Hinds told Cherwell, “the reality was that we were allowed entry from 11, but the guests of the 40th Birthday party were still there. Obviously this caused a few problems because the club soon became very full due to both events being held there, and so some St Anne’s students had to queue, resulting in a few people leaving and going elsewhere.” However, they also commented on the “helpful” nature of the bar’s staff when trying to resolve the issue, adding that “the remainder of students did manage to get in”.

One St Anne’s student, who did not wish to be named, commented on the slightly raucous behaviour of some of the birthday guests, telling Cherwell that one woman was seen “chucking in the toilets” and that a group of men were “lined up at the bottom of the stairs making pervy comments as students walked down”.

When asked about this behaviour, Forde responded “If there was something inappropriate, why didn’t they say? I would have sorted it out and [I] take complaints very seriously”. Another student also commented, “If we wanted to club with other people then we could have gone anywhere, bops are about having fun with college friends”.

MacGillivray and Hinds, however, explained, “The guests of the other party did stay at Baby Love, but they kept themselves to themselves, and so did we”. One St Anne’s fresher seemed unconcerned by the extra guests at the bop, telling Cherwell, “Our college supports fun regardless of age. I look forward to attending the next Babylove diamond wedding anniversary”.

MacGillivray and Hinds acknowledged the misunderstanding saying, “While we are obviously disappointed that they were not more transparent about what they meant by the club being ‘ours’ after eleven, they were helpful in resolving the issue.” The pair also hoped that there would not be “any similar problems in the future”.

Trenton Oldfield, the 35 year-old Australian who dramatically halted the University Boat Race earlier in April by swimming into the path of the Oxford and Cambridge crews, was charged with causing a public nuisance on Monday.

Oldfield swapped his wetsuit for more formal attire when he appeared in front of the Feltham Court magistrates.

Mr Oldfield entered no plea and was granted bail with a series of strict conditions.

The activist is forbidden from entering the City of Westminster on May 9 for the state opening of parliament and entering the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead prior to his next court appearance on May 28.

A number of events planned to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee will take place in the borough during this time.

A further bail condition bans Mr Oldfield from using or being within a hundred metres of roads which form part of the Olympic torch route.

The conditions were put in place after prosecutors referred to the “manifesto” which Mr Oldfield allegedly posted on line before disrupting the race.

The post entitled “Elitism leads to tyranny,” describes his actions as “an act of civil disobedience,” and encourages others to do the same. His suggestions include asking security guards to set off fire alarms during important meetings, and asking pest controllers to “fail at destroying pests” of elitist households.

On the same post, Mr Oldfield lays out his strategy of peaceful protest against “elitists and those with elitist sympathies” which involves using “guerrilla tactics” like “local knowledge, ambush, surprise, mobility and speed.”

Ben Myers, a former University Boat Club president criticized the protestor’s actions, “it was totally the wrong stage for Trenton Oldfield to voice his opinions,” he said.

He described the Boat Race as a “very meritocratic event” in which competitors “work extremely hard to be part of the respective crews.”

Ed Eliot, a first-year from Exeter College described the protest as “really stupid,” but said that he could “understand the reasons behind it.”