Blog Page 1717
Charity tax plans cause anger in Oxford
Oxford University may be set to lose millions of pounds if government plans for a cap on tax relief on charitable donations are realised.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Andrew Hamilton, has written a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osbourne, expressing his concern at the proposals.
The government plan to cap tax relief at 25 per cent of income or £50,000, whichever is higher. Higher tax rate payers can currently claim relief of more than half the tax they pay on income which is donated to charity.
However, they did appear to climb down in the face of opposition from charities, with Downing Street announcing that a “formal consultation” on the measures will take place in the next few weeks. The Treasury previously said that it would discuss the measures with charities.
Oxford and Cambridge accounted for more than 44.2% of new philanthropic funds given to universities in 2010-11, so are set to be particularly affected by any reduction in donations.
A spokesperson for the university commented, “We are certainly concerned about the potential impact in higher education, where the government’s own policy emphasises the role of private and philanthropic investment rather than the public purse. A step that penalizes the government’s own approach seems ill-considered.
“Oxford’s fundraising campaign recently passed its initial target of £1.25bn and we are continuing to seek support. The generosity of Oxford’s donors provides huge public benefit, contributing to teaching, research and student bursaries. We have done our best, along with other universities and charities, to foster a culture of giving in the UK, and this move risks undermining that culture.”
David Gauke, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, stated on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme that the change might raise between £50 million and £100 million for the Treasury. He also said that the government would work closely with charities to minimise negative impacts on philanthropic giving.
Mr Gauke defended the measure, claiming “at the moment people are able to give to charities and indeed make use of other reliefs within the tax system that gets their rate down and the concern that we have [is that] we don’t think it is fair that people are able to get the rate down that low, even when the donations are to perfectly legitimate charities.”
In a bid to dampen criticism, the Treasury has released statistics showing the extent of tax avoidance in the UK, which show that almost 1,000 UK tax payers earning more than a million pounds a year pay less than 30 per cent tax on their income.
Oxford has received at least 11 donations of more than a million pounds in the past two years – five of these in 2009/10, and six in 2010/11. This does not include donations from those who wished to remain anonymous nor those from foundations, which a spokesperson for the university claimed would account for considerably more donations of above one million.
According to a Philanthropy UK report on charitable giving to universities, more than 3,500 donors gave gifts in excess of £25,000 to Oxford in 2010/11, with 500 of them donating above £250,000. James Martin has donated £95 million to the university since 2005, and Leonard Blavatnik donated £75 million in order to found the Blavatnik School of Government.
Last term, the University received more than £26m from Ms Mica Ertegun, in what it described as “most generous gift for humanities students in the University’s 900-year history”.
Martha MacKenzie, the OUSU President, commented, “Philanthropic gifts are incredibly important to student support in Oxford. Donations are a vital source of income for undergraduate bursaries and one of the only sources available to help plug the gaping hole in graduate funding.”
She continued, “I believe it is right for Oxford to protest against these changes as they make it far less attractive to donate; the largest donors will give less to the University as it will now cost them more to do so.
“It is also slightly strange that the government would choose to equate charitable giving with tax evasion whilst simultaneously encouraging us all to donate more and become more involved with the third sector.”
Anthony Breach and Kevin Feeney, co-chairs of the Oxford University Labour Club, expressed similar concern against the plans, stating, “At a time when Government is slashing state funding to universities, OULC believes that choking off private funding to universities will undoubtedly harm both the student experience and the world-class academic performance of Oxford and other British universities.
“Whilst the best American universities have developed extensive alumni and philanthropic networks in the absence of state funding, this move by the Government will cripple any such attempts by Oxford and its colleges to encourage donations.”
“We also do not believe that it will have any substantial effect on tax evasion, and that any comprehensive strategy to tackle tax evasion would need to include putting pressure upon tax havens to ensure that those revenues which belong to the British Government are appropriately collected.”
Interview: Helen Skelton
Helen Skelton is a familiar face not solely from her full-time job as a Blue Peter presenter, but also from her incredible record-breaking role in the Sport Relief trek to the South Pole, a feat that was broadcast and watched by millions this Easter. On top of this acheivement, Helen holds another two world records for her kayaking trip down the Amazon, and is the only person ever to high-wire walk across Battersea Power Station – another feat completed for Sport Relief.
In addition, as part of a Blue Peter challenge, she became only the second woman ever to finish the Namibian 24h Ultra Marathon, a self-reliant race (participants have to carry their own supplies and kit) over 78 miles in temperatures that oscillate between below-freezing at night and over 40°C. Not to lay it on, but she’s also finished the famed Marathon des Sables, which takes place across the Sahara over 156 miles – a competition in which she succeeded where all her Blue Peter colleagues failed.
One would think that to complete these challenges you would need to be a fitness freak, so when asked about how much exercise Helen does ordinarily it was hardly surprising that she replied, ‘I have always been a gym bunny. My family are football fanatics so I have always been around sport but I have never really played anything competitively. I got involved through work, because once you’re in Blue Peter it’s daft not to make the most of the situation and once you see what Sport Relief are doing it’s hard to say no.’
But the expediitions aren’t just what gets seen on screen. When asked what she found the most difficult about her undertakings, she replied, ‘The hardest thing is the training as it is a commitment and your family have to be understanding. You end up avoiding them because you are always in the gym!’
Her South American expedition consisted of kayaking the entire length of the Amazon River (3,230km) on a solo journey in January 2010, an awe-inspiring feat which won Helen two world records: the longest solo journey by kayak and the longest distance in a kayak in 24 hours by a woman. When I asked Helen if she would do it again she replied, ‘South America was amazing. I would go there again. I enjoyed the Amazon as I had great friends there and we were all in it together. None of us had done anything like that and none of us knew what to expect so it really was an adventure.’
Of the 150m tightrope walk between the two chimneys at Battersea Power Station, on 28th February 2011, Helen modestly claimed, ‘I would like to try it again to check that it was not just a fluke!’
Most lately she jetted off to Antarctica to attempt to reach the South Pole using three different modes of transport: bikes for 103 miles, kite skis for 329 miles and skis for 68 miles, all whilst pulling 82kg of supplies. Unsurprisingly, the training for the trip, which she completed this January, was diverse and intense.
Despite this, Helen continued to look on the bright side of the 24-hour daylight experience, commenting, ‘training for Antarctica was the most fun as it was varied – I cycled, ran, swam and dragged tyres. I never got bored as I could always find something random to do. As long as I was active I knew it was helping.’
Some of the training involved pulling tyres along beaches and kite surfing, which took her from New Zealand to Cape Town to Los Angeles. The five months of training almost every day paid off as it resulted in her claiming yet another world record: kite skiing 100km in just seven hours twenty-eight minutes. Yet rather than dwell on her acheivements, Helen merely praised the location, telling me, ‘Antarctica is the most stunning place I have ever been. It’s a total privilege to get to go there. If you get the chance to go I recommend it.’
From our interview, it’s readily apparent that Helen Skelton is a woman with some incredible accomplishments under her belt and every intention of continuing to literally lead the way against the toughest challenges nature can throw at her.
Interview: Lemony Snicket
A SOLO search for A Series of Unfortunate Events produces articles with names like ‘What, Then, Does Beatrice Mean?: Hermaphroditic Gender, Predatory Sexuality, and Promiscuous Allusion in Daniel Handler/Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events’. Snicket’s beloved Beatrice is mentioned by name almost solely in the books’ one-line dedications; this gives some idea of the amount of critical attention directed at the series.
A SOLO search for A Series of Unfortunate Events produces articles with names like ‘What, Then, Does Beatrice Mean?: Hermaphroditic Gender, Predatory Sexuality, and Promiscuous Allusion in Daniel Handler/Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events’. Snicket’s beloved Beatrice is mentioned by name almost solely in the books’ one-line dedications; this gives some idea of the amount of critical attention directed at the series.
These children’s books, and their author, do to some degree provoke the kind of earnest analysis which some science students roll their eyes at. The first sentence of The Bad Beginning tries to deter the reader – ‘If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book’ – and so sets the tone for thirteen instalments of constant (and to some readers, annoying) self-referential and exaggeratedly reluctant narration. Along the way, the questions of three orphaned children chasing the secret organisation VFD are perpetually thwarted, and their ideas of truth and morality undermined. These are children’s books which allude to Dante, Shakespeare and The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. It is all very meta.
So what? Daniel Handler makes it clear that smug postmodern box-ticking means very little in terms of good writing, and makes a point of saying that the qualities I list above ‘can be found in our most ancient examples of literature – they are quite literally the oldest tricks in the book’. Postmodernism is ‘quite the wrong word’ for what he does.
He bristles less at the accusation of having a ‘materialistic imagination’, which is how I tried to express his inclination towards catalogues of objects – in some Unfortunate Events novels these lists take up three pages at a time. The series ends on an island on which detritus from the previous books has washed up, and one of the Baudelaires’ long-running quests is to find and ensure the safety of a mysterious sugar bowl (the significance of which is never explained). Handler’s latest book Why We Broke Up is structured around a series of meaningful items in a shoe box which show the trajectory of the relationship between Min Green and Ed Slaterton. ‘I like a story, and every object has one, often invisible to most of us. That’s intriguing to me. In the case of the Baudelaires, they become interested in what happened before they were born, only to learn that they can never really learn such things. In the case of Min Green, she’s constructing a narrative herself, made from objects she collected while the story was going on. I suppose I like the unknowable-ness of things.’
On the surface, pedantic lists and slippery definitions don’t seem to have much to do with children’s literature, but Handler insists he ‘doesn’t write for specific audiences, really’, and, given his books’ popularity, something in his formula must appeal to children and adults alike. Possibly it indulges a universal urge, particularly pronounced in children, to collect, hoard and examine.
That said, Handler’s tendency to collect bits of other texts seems destined to escape most of his young audience’s notice; for example, The End’s island society is gradually revealed to be a Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, Genesis 1-3 mash-up. Handler reflects, ‘I like conversation, and to me a book is always in conversation with others’. His ‘Why We Broke Up’ project is testament to that; visitors to the website are encouraged to record their own short break-up story, which range from quite moving explorations of loss to ‘her hair smelled’. Occasionally Handler will offer some words of consolation in response, like ‘I had to look up the term ‘pillock’, and learned it comes from the Scandinavian, meaning “penis.” I offer this because it may be of interest.’
Some conversation is less appealing to Handler, such as that involved in the creative nightmare of working on a film. After writing two screenplays (Rick and Kill the Poor) and working on the film adaption of A Series of Unfortunate Events he remarks ‘the writing itself is easier, but then there are all these other people with whom one must argue.’ Developing Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events was particularly difficult. ‘The work on the film was so very long, with so much joy and heartbreak, that I remember only the process and not really the finished result. I’m more interested in what other people think of it, if they do.’
The experience of everyday social trials is nonetheless a source of great humour to Handler, and it is the moments of mundanity and tiny detail in his work which work to create the comic scenes, particularly when set against the mock-gothic characterisations and escapades of Unfortunate Events.
Handler is stubbornly humdrum when asked what his working process is like: ‘It’s like a man at a desk frowning over a legal pad, with a glass of water next to him, tapping unsharpened pencils in time to the music playing.’ Asked about the writer’s notepad he carries at all times, he comments only ‘not in the bath’. And when pressed over what’s he’s most excited about in terms of his various projects, past, present and future, he is resolutely concentrated on the present. ‘Whatever I’m working on at any given moment. After I write this sentence I will be looking at the final cover for the first volume in the new series, so I’m excited about that’.
The new series in question is Lemony Snicket’s four-part prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events, named All The Wrong Questions. The first volume, Who Could That Be at This Hour? is set for release on October 23rd, 2012. Described as a series for ‘older children’, it is sure to exceed that appeal, and SOLO will doubtless see a few more enthusiastic dissections of Snicket’s woeful tales.
These children’s books, and their author, do to some degree provoke the kind of earnest analysis which some science students roll their eyes at. The first sentence of The Bad Beginning tries to deter the reader – ‘If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book’ – and so sets the tone for thirteen instalments of constant (and to some readers, annoying) self-referential and exaggeratedly reluctant narration. Along the way, the questions of three orphaned children chasing the secret organisation VFD are perpetually thwarted, and their ideas of truth and morality undermined. These are children’s books which allude to Dante, Shakespeare and The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. It is all very meta.
So what? Daniel Handler makes it clear that smug postmodern box-ticking means very little in terms of good writing, and makes a point of saying that the qualities I list above ‘can be found in our most ancient examples of literature – they are quite literally the oldest tricks in the book’. Postmodernism is ‘quite the wrong word’ for what he does.
He bristles less at the accusation of having a ‘materialistic imagination’, which is how I tried to express his inclination towards catalogues of objects – in some Unfortunate Events novels these lists take up three pages at a time. The series ends on an island on which detritus from the previous books has washed up, and one of the Baudelaires’ long-running quests is to find and ensure the safety of a mysterious sugar bowl (the significance of which is never explained). Handler’s latest book Why We Broke Up is structured around a series of meaningful items in a shoe box which show the trajectory of the relationship between Min Green and Ed Slaterton. ‘I like a story, and every object has one, often invisible to most of us. That’s intriguing to me. In the case of the Baudelaires, they become interested in what happened before they were born, only to learn that they can never really learn such things. In the case of Min Green, she’s constructing a narrative herself, made from objects she collected while the story was going on. I suppose I like the unknowable-ness of things.’
On the surface, pedantic lists and slippery definitions don’t seem to have much to do with children’s literature, but Handler insists he ‘doesn’t write for specific audiences, really’, and, given his books’ popularity, something in his formula must appeal to children and adults alike. Possibly it indulges a universal urge, particularly pronounced in children, to collect, hoard and examine.
That said, Handler’s tendency to collect bits of other texts seems destined to escape most of his young audience’s notice; for example, The End’s island society is gradually revealed to be a Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, Genesis 1-3 mash-up. Handler reflects, ‘I like conversation, and to me a book is always in conversation with others’. His ‘Why We Broke Up’ project is testament to that; visitors to the website are encouraged to record their own short break-up story, which range from quite moving explorations of loss to ‘her hair smelled’. Occasionally Handler will offer some words of consolation in response, like ‘I had to look up the term ‘pillock’, and learned it comes from the Scandinavian, meaning “penis.” I offer this because it may be of interest.’
Some conversation is less appealing to Handler, such as that involved in the creative nightmare of working on a film. After writing two screenplays (Rick and Kill the Poor) and working on the film adaption of A Series of Unfortunate Events he remarks ‘the writing itself is easier, but then there are all these other people with whom one must argue.’ Developing Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events was particularly difficult. ‘The work on the film was so very long, with so much joy and heartbreak, that I remember only the process and not really the finished result. I’m more interested in what other people think of it, if they do.’
The experience of everyday social trials is nonetheless a source of great humour to Handler, and it is the moments of mundanity and tiny detail in his work which work to create the comic scenes, particularly when set against the mock-gothic characterisations and escapades of Unfortunate Events.
Handler is stubbornly humdrum when asked what his working process is like: ‘It’s like a man at a desk frowning over a legal pad, with a glass of water next to him, tapping unsharpened pencils in time to the music playing.’ Asked about the writer’s notepad he carries at all times, he comments only ‘not in the bath’. And when pressed over what’s he’s most excited about in terms of his various projects, past, present and future, he is resolutely concentrated on the present. ‘Whatever I’m working on at any given moment. After I write this sentence I will be looking at the final cover for the first volume in the new series, so I’m excited about that’.
The new series in question is Lemony Snicket’s four-part prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events, named All The Wrong Questions. The first volume, Who Could That Be at This Hour? is set for release on October 23rd, 2012. Described as a series for ‘older children’, it is sure to exceed that appeal, and SOLO will doubtless see a few more enthusiastic dissections of Snicket’s woeful tales.
World Alpaca Conference held at Keble
Alpacas and their enthusiasts descended upon Keble College last week for the World Alpaca Conference.
Over 180 delegates from 18 different countries attended the conference which celebrates the versatility of the alpaca, an animal closely related to the llama, and the multiple uses of its famously soft fleece. It was the first time the event had ever been held in the UK.
Alpaca owners came in their herds to the conference, which included events such as talks on Alpaca health, fleece testing and workshops about breeding alpacas and processing their fleece.
The alpacas, meanwhile, grazed on the grass outside, much to the amusement of Keble’s students, who are prevented from walking on the lawns in Michaelmas and Hilary. Domestic Bursar, Janet Betts, conceded that “it would have been difficult to fine the animals anyway”.
Later, the delegates moved inside for a fashion show in which alpaca fleece garments, including ponchos, scarves and dresses were modelled. The fleeces of the alpacas brought to the conference were also judged. “Pinkney Angelica” was labelled the winner, having already secured first place for her “Champion Fleece” in last year’s Heart of England Fleece Show.
The conference, organised by the British Alpaca Society, aims to promote the use of alpaca fleece in Britain. All profits are set to go to Amanti, a charity for Peruvian children, which thanked the BAS “for their generous support”.
One delegate commented that she’d like alpaca “to become part of everyone’s vocabulary”. Another delegate, Chris Goffrey, said that the conference was really “a big deal” as it was bound to put “the UK alpaca community on the map.”
Kishan Koran, a first year PPEist, commented that there was “something beautiful and majestic about the idea of alpacas in Oxford”. However another student questioned whether “having an Alpaca conference in 2012 is a smart idea,” as it is a year widely regarded to be “the year of the Mayan Alpaca-lypse.”
Oxford Martin School opens major economics institute
On 12th April the Oxford Martin School announced the opening of a new economics research institute aimed at preventing future global financial meltdowns and tackling Eurozone debt crises. The Martin School has collaborated with the Institute for New Economics Thinking (INET) to create INET@Oxford.
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the on-going Euro crisis, the new interdisciplinary research centre aims to promote innovative thinking on economics and to educate the next generation of economists, business leaders and politicians.
Professor Ian Goldin, Director of the Oxford Martin School, told Cherwell, “This new centre will focus on addressing some of the greatest economic challenges we face ranging from avoiding future financial crises to ensuring that the positive potential of globalization is realized and its risks mitigated.”
The centre will have a five-year budget of over US$25 million and will receive core funding from INET, a non-profit foundation started by business magnate George Soros. Speaking at INET’s annual conference in Berlin, Mr Soros stated that he was providing so much funding for the research because there was an urgent need for fresh thinking in economics, “to mitigate many global challenges, for the creation of sustainable jobs and employment and the wide-ranging challenges of development.”
Over 40 leading academics are to be involved in the centre. A spokesperson told Cherwell, “INET@Oxford will seek to leverage thinking from across academic disciplines in its approach to ecnomics. In addition to economists the centre will work with physicists, biologists, psychologists, antrophologists and others across the physical and social sciences.”
The institute will launch with four main research programmes: economic modelling, complexity economics, global economic development and ethics and economics. In the future, it will expand to research a wider range of topics.
Eric Beinhocker, a former partner at management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company and the new Executive Director of INET@Oxford said, “In addition to working with a strong network of academics, INET@Oxford will collaborate closely with policymakers in finance ministries, central banks, development agencies, multilateral institutions, and other institutions where key economic policy decisions are being made.”
Both parties are excited about the collaboration. When asked for his views on the matter, Professor Goldin stated “The establishment of INET@Oxford is an exciting development which aims to yield major advances in key areas of economic theory and policy.”
INET’s Executive Director, Dr Robert Johnson, added: “The Oxford Martin School’s dedication to innovative interdisciplinary research makes it an ideal home for this major INET centre.”
The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Andrew Hamilton, released a statement, saying, “The Oxford Martin School provides a fertile interdisciplinary home for this new centre which will see the acceleration of research with great potential for positive realâ€world impact.
‘INET@Oxford will greatly enhance our ability to nurture new research and engage with leaders on critical global issues”.
Stiff as a Stoker: 100 years of Dracula
Female Origins
Bram Stoker’s infamous creation has haunted the imagination of storytellers for centuries. All recognise the Transylvanian tyrant draped in black, coffin bound by day but emerging to bite guests at night. Yet the inspirations for Stoker’s icon are far removed from the Dracula we know and, well, fear.
Vampire legends had been circulating Europe long before Stoker wrote his masterpiece in 1897. In 1885 Emily Gerard described the ‘vampire, or nosferatu’, as a walking undead ‘more decidedly evil’ than its benign counterparts, ‘in whom every Roumenian peasant believes as firmly as he does heaven or hell’.
A female figure that spurred Stoker’s imagination is that of Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary. Supposedly the most prolific female serial killer of all time, she is rumoured to have killed around 650 women. According to hearsay, she bathed in the blood of young virgins to restore her youth and it’s no coincidence Stoker’s Dracula also appears younger after drinking blood.
Stoker is equally thought to have been inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire thriller Carmilla. This tells of a lesbian vampire who creeps into the bedchamber of her victims in the form of a black cat, leaving them with mysterious chest wounds and unsettling dreams.
The characters of Carmilla and Lucy (from Dracula) bear resemblances in their unusual concoction of feminine fragility and sexual prowess. Stoker used Le Fanu’s sexually progressive vampire to voice Victorian society’s growing concern about the virility of young women. Whilst Stoker may have been aided by historical and literary sources, it was his amalgamation of these ideas into Dracula which resurrected the iconic literary demon whose presence in popular culture remains alive to this very day.
Charlotte Hart
Gothic Tunes
If Dracula were roaming the hinterlands of Eastern Europe today what would he be listening to? Aside from the screams from his victims, obviously, the vast and prolific genre of Gothic rock undoubtedly provides an (entirely bloodless) feast for the ears for any self-confessed incubus, fictional or otherwise.
Typically tackling morbid themes through introspective lyrics, the Gothic rock genre splintered from punk rock in the late 1970s. Artists including The Cure, Joy Division, Bauhaus, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, with their darker take on punk’s angry, nihilistic drive, were the forerunners; but what remains perhaps most striking is the diversity of the Gothic rock movement.
Influenced by everything from The Doors, The Velvet Underground, and Bowie’s Berlin albums, to J.G. Ballard and 1930s horror films, the cold metallic overtones of Siouxsie and the Banshees and the lugubrious, elongated vocals of Joy Division provide the most recognisable signposts of the Gothic rock trajectory, but it’s possible to see the genre’s scope extend further still.
Deservedly considered a Gothic tour de force, The Cure’s fourth album Pornography (full of portentous, darkly psychedelic opening bass lines) not only encapsulates the mood of Gothic rock; it also sounds uncannily like music Interpol and The Killers would produce more than two decades later.
So less a hard and fast music genre, Gothic rock might better be viewed as an intangible musical ‘state of mind’, which from its nascence in the 80s, has come to permeate large swathes of the contemporary music landscape.
Ever sensitive to the aphotic side of the human soul, Dracula would surely approve.
Olivia Arighio-Stiles
Haunting Meldodies
One of my biggest cinematic shocks in recent years came upon hearing Radiohead’s ‘15 Step’ set to the closing credits of the first Twilight film. What had possessed Yorke to sell one of the best tracks from In Rainbows, an album famously released online for whatever price the downloader wanted to pay, to one of the most commercially successful films of all time?
I’m no Twilight-basher, I enjoyed the awkwardly boring love triangle, Jacob’s pecs, and even Edward performing a caesarean section with his teeth just as much as the next fangirl, but – not to be snob about it – Radiohead just seemed too good for it.
I spent years questioning why Thom Yorke sold out; it’s just too cynical to think that perhaps they regretted releasing an album for free and needed, to quote Alec, a dollah.
It has finally come to me. Thom must have seen in Edward a kindred spirit, someone destined like him to walk the earth only understood by those in the know; in Radiohead’s case, Pitchfork and post-emo angsters, and in Edward’s, his blood-sucking kin and Bella.
I don’t know why I didn’t realise it sooner: ‘I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here, I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here’, the melancholic refrain of one of alt-rock’s most famous outcasts would certainly not feel out of place issuing forth from the smouldering yet sullen lips of Monsieur Cullen.
Carmella Crinnion
Cult Dracula
In 1972, during the height of the Blaxploitation craze, William Crane released the bafflingly brilliant Blacula starring William Marshall as a reborn African prince called Mamuwalde. Sniff all you like – the film was a box office hit and spawned sequels like Scream Blacula Scream and Blackenstein. One of the most bizarre adaptations that you can see (if you can find it) is the Warhol-produced Blood for Dracula. Starring cult icon Udo Kier, the film sees a dying Dracula travelling to Catholic Italy in the hope that there are one or two remaining virgins left there unlike, apparently, his native Transylvania. The film is most notable for being unbelievably camp and for its poster which, I’ve discovered, is missing a possessive apostrophe (ANDY WARHOLS DRACULA). Tut tut.
Perhaps most famously brilliant is Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula which stars the inimitable Gary Oldman as a geriatric version of the Count. The film takes a stab at explaining the backstory to the Dracula legend, but is, frankly, better off when it allows Oldman to chew scenery rather than virgins’ necks. Unfortunately it stars Keanu Reeves which, even worse, allows him to speak.
So if you’re looking for a dose of blood, and don’t fancy a trip to Headington, you might be interested in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter which, despite being directed by Timur Beckmanbetov, has released an ‘interesting’ trailer. Though I’m sure it’ll be disappointing. After all it’s no Blacula.
Nick Hilton
Dirty Vamps
Gays: still not as gay as Twilight’ read the stark white titles of yet another misanthropic meme generated by the masses of mouthy internet tweens. A quick Google search vomits up various images inspired by this mildly offensive, massively outdated trend for making intrinsic connections between glitter, good skin, and chick-flick romance and homosexuality. There are images of wrestlers with faces sweatily buried in their opponents’ beefy behinds, of The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s gender-bending Dr Frank-N-Furter, of sticky, oily members of the Village People, and of a bejewelled and beshaded gentleman fellating a rainbow-coloured confected penis, each with the title; ‘Still not as gay as twilight’.
The makers of these memes have evidently not been exposed to the heady and hilarious homoeroticism of ‘Here!’ network’s The Lair. More’s the pity. Described in its press release as a ‘sexy vampire soap’, The Lair somewhat graphically regales the viewer with the story of a secret gay sex club upon a mysterious island populated almost entirely by ripped young men. The twist in the tale, is that the workers at this club – the eponymous Lair – are secretly agents of the undead, committing a string of sinister killings. The Lair’s hero, Thom, is an obligatorily hunky young journalist who must sexily sleuth his way to the killer amidst oodles of intense eye contact moments and melodramatically passionate kisses. The virile vampires of The Lair bit the dust in 2009, yet the series continues to loom shadily within the recesses of the internet. Forget the sparkles and vampiric vegetarianism of Twilight; The Lair proves that gay vampires can be far dirtier, and probably want to suck more than your blood.
Jack Powell
Staged Nightmares
Light increases and invades the body of the cadaver, little by little, and ends by reaching his face. Hardly is his face bathed with the light, than the eyes of the cadaver open wide and his mouth smiles lugubriously. Lord Ruthven first sits up — then rises completely and after having shaken his hair to the wind, he deploys great wings and flies off.’
The name Lord Ruthven does not have quite the same cache as his equally aristocratic cousin Count Dracula, but perhaps it should. The above are the stage directions for the 1820 play Le Vampire – one of the first appearances of the mysterious, undead Casanovas we would come to see as vampires. Ruthven first emerged in short story, the character consciously modelled as a supernatural Lord Byron, with subsequent French and Italian playwrights exaggerating his satanic tendencies. Lord Ruthven and his various vampiric derivatives appeared endlessly on stage throughout the late 19th century, well before Bram Stoker put pen to paper – it is this Victorian vampire that gave Stoker the inspiration for his own demon of the night.
But make no mistake, the stage vampires of the Lord Ruthven variety were no literary icons. The ‘vampire theatre’ of Stoker’s time filled the same gap that horror B-movies did in later years; artistically worthless melodramas that fill their audience with cheap thrills and licentious acting.
As much as Dracula builds on this tradition, it was certainly not above it: the stage performance of Stoker’s Dracula precedes the publication by eight days. Perhaps this tradition of theatrical vampires is worth a revival – Twilight on stage anyone?
Angus Hawkins
Novel Opportunities
Given the preponderance of both Gothic architecture and graveyards in Oxford – the two most central being St Mary Magdalene’s on St Giles and the Holywell Cemetery, which houses the bones of notable Victorians like Walter Pater and Benjamin Jowett – it’s a surprise that there isn’t more literature which makes Oxford a convenient and cultured centre for the undead. Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Trilogy is attempting to readdress this surprising vacuum.
Harkness, Professor of American History and wine blogger, is the author of A Discovery of Witches, the first in the trilogy. In the novel, Diana Bishop, a reluctant witch/scholar, discovers an unholy manuscript in the Bodleian, Ashmole 782, which leads her to meet a vampire-scientist, Matthew Clairmont. Harkness’ blog states that her ‘career in fiction began in September 2008 when I began to wonder, “if there really are vampires, what do they do for a living?”’
It is difficult not to see this as the inevitable result of the Twi-mania that has caused an explosion in supernatural-genre writing. As with Victorian sensation fiction writers, those who currently write about the paranormal enjoy large publisher advances and customers quick to try other books within the genre. Harkness’ novel – with its prestigious academic setting – is a bid for authentication, a step above the teenage angst of Forks. I cannot agree with Harkness that the employment opportunities of vampires are a matter of interest, but I think she and I agree that our continual fascination with these shadowy figures has not yet been explained away. The real fascination is our enduring allegiance to clichés – to humans who aren’t quite human who, despite their mystery, behave as we expect them to.
Christy Edwall
Bram Stoker’s infamous creation has haunted the imagination of storytellers for centuries. All recognise the Transylvanian tyrant draped in black, coffin bound by day but emerging to bite guests at night. Yet the inspirations for Stoker’s icon are far removed from the Dracula we know and, well, fear.
Vampire legends had been circulating Europe long before Stoker wrote his masterpiece in 1897. In 1885 Emily Gerard described the ‘vampire, or nosferatu’, as a walking undead ‘more decidedly evil’ than its benign counterparts, ‘in whom every Roumenian peasant believes as firmly as he does heaven or hell’.
A female figure that spurred Stoker’s imagination is that of Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary. Supposedly the most prolific female serial killer of all time, she is rumoured to have killed around 650 women. According to hearsay, she bathed in the blood of young virgins to restore her youth and it’s no coincidence Stoker’s Dracula also appears younger after drinking blood.
Stoker is equally thought to have been inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire thriller Carmilla. This tells of a lesbian vampire who creeps into the bedchamber of her victims in the form of a black cat, leaving them with mysterious chest wounds and unsettling dreams.
The characters of Carmilla and Lucy (from Dracula) bear resemblances in their unusual concoction of feminine fragility and sexual prowess. Stoker used Le Fanu’s sexually progressive vampire to voice Victorian society’s growing concern about the virility of young women. Whilst Stoker may have been aided by historical and literary sources, it was his amalgamation of these ideas into Dracula which resurrected the iconic literary demon whose presence in popular culture remains alive to this very day.
Charlotte HartBram Stoker’s infamous creation has haunted the imagination of storytellers for centuries. All recognise the Transylvanian tyrant draped in black, coffin bound by day but emerging to bite guests at night. Yet the inspirations for Stoker’s icon are far removed from the Dracula we know and, well, fear.
Vampire legends had been circulating Europe long before Stoker wrote his masterpiece in 1897. In 1885 Emily Gerard described the ‘vampire, or nosferatu’, as a walking undead ‘more decidedly evil’ than its benign counterparts, ‘in whom every Roumenian peasant believes as firmly as he does heaven or hell’.
A female figure that spurred Stoker’s imagination is that of Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary. Supposedly the most prolific female serial killer of all time, she is rumoured to have killed around 650 women. According to hearsay, she bathed in the blood of young virgins to restore her youth and it’s no coincidence Stoker’s Dracula also appears younger after drinking blood.
Stoker is equally thought to have been inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire thriller Carmilla. This tells of a lesbian vampire who creeps into the bedchamber of her victims in the form of a black cat, leaving them with mysterious chest wounds and unsettling dreams.
The characters of Carmilla and Lucy (from Dracula) bear resemblances in their unusual concoction of feminine fragility and sexual prowess. Stoker used Le Fanu’s sexually progressive vampire to voice Victorian society’s growing concern about the virility of young women. Whilst Stoker may have been aided by historical and literary sources, it was his amalgamation of these ideas into Dracula which resurrected the iconic literary demon whose presence in popular culture remains alive to this very day.
Charlotte HartBram Stoker’s infamous creation has haunted the imagination of storytellers for centuries. All recognise the Transylvanian tyrant draped in black, coffin bound by day but emerging to bite guests at night. Yet the inspirations for Stoker’s icon are far removed from the Dracula we know and, well, fear.Vampire legends had been circulating Europe long before Stoker wrote his masterpiece in 1897. In 1885 Emily Gerard described the ‘vampire, or nosferatu’, as a walking undead ‘more decidedly evil’ than its benign counterparts, ‘in whom every Roumenian peasant believes as firmly as he does heaven or hell’. A female figure that spurred Stoker’s imagination is that of Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary. Supposedly the most prolific female serial killer of all time, she is rumoured to have killed around 650 women. According to hearsay, she bathed in the blood of young virgins to restore her youth and it’s no coincidence Stoker’s Dracula also appears younger after drinking blood. Stoker is equally thought to have been inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire thriller Carmilla. This tells of a lesbian vampire who creeps into the bedchamber of her victims in the form of a black cat, leaving them with mysterious chest wounds and unsettling dreams.The characters of Carmilla and Lucy (from Dracula) bear resemblances in their unusual concoction of feminine fragility and sexual prowess. Stoker used Le Fanu’s sexually progressive vampire to voice Victorian society’s growing concern about the virility of young women. Whilst Stoker may have been aided by historical and literary sources, it was his amalgamation of these ideas into Dracula which resurrected the iconic literary demon whose presence in popular culture remains alive to this very day. Charlotte Hart
Varsity Ice Hockey
In a packed Oxford Ice Rink, full of fans lured by generous drinks deals and the prospect of the fastest sport on ice, the Dark Blues put on quite the show. All the hard training paid off and Oxford ended up winning 17-1.
The home side were simply sublime. The first period saw them concede their only goal of the game, and even in that period they were very much in the ascendency. This form continued throughout, and the goals just kept coming for the men in Dark Blue.
In what was the epitome of a team performance it’s hard to pick standout performers, but Adrian Haight bagged four goals, and was named Man of the Match. Several of his Canadian compatriots also put themselves onto the scoresheet, in a team with a heavy proportion of those from the land of maple syrup.
Further afield, forward Rashid Muhamadrahimov, who hails from Namibia and poached the first goal of his ice hockey career in this game, said, ‘Credit goes to our goalie, Henry Spelman. With 20 Cambridge shots on goal against our 76, if he hadn’t (literally) been there we would’ve lost by 3 goals.’
Though this thoroughly dominant spectacle must represent the pinnacle of the season for Oxford there is one further test ahead. On the 21st of April they face Manchester in the British University Ice Hockey League National Final at Ice Sheffield. If they manage to win this OUIHC will become one of Oxford’s most successful sports clubs. Ice hockey’s profile is burgeoning currently among University students, with the ice rink regularly thronged on weeknights for beginner sessions. Rookie Katherine Skingsley said, ‘I was a bit suspicious when I was first cajoled down to the ice rink – I thought ice hockey was all toothless Minnesotans knocking lumps out of each other – but it’s a huge amount of fun and I now fancy myself as the next Wayne Gretzky!’
All in all then, with an utter shellacking of Cambridge under their belts, a cup final to come, and growing grass roots in town, it seems ice hockey and Oxford have some future together. It’s hardly about to challenge the Boat Race, but if you fancy an evening out you could do much worse than heading to the ice.
Oxford professor will not be charged over colleague’s death
Dr Devinder Sivia will not face any charges for the death of his friend and work colleague, fellow academic Professor Steven Rawlings, the Crown Prosecution Service has announced.
Professor Rawlings was found dead in January this year, aged 50, at a bungalow belonging to Dr Sivia.
Dr Sivia, a stipendiary lecturer in mathematics for sciences at Oxford, was subsequently arrested on suspicion of murder. He then spent 24 hours in custody before being released on police bail, pending further inquiries.
Upon his arrest, Rawlings’ wife, Linda, stated that she did not believe Dr Sivia was responsible for the death, stating, ‘Steve and Devinder were best friends since college, and I believe this is a tragic accident… I do not believe that Steve’s death is murder and I do not believe Devinder should be tarnished in this way.”
She expressed her relief at the outcome of the investigation and said in a statement, “I am satisfied with the decision made by the Crown Prosecution Service that there will be no criminal charges brought.”
Bajit Ubhey, chief crown prosecutor for Thames and Chiltern Crown Prosecution Service, released an official statement, stating, “Professor Rawlings died at the Oxfordshire home of a friend. A post-mortem examination was conducted, but was inconclusive and further tests were required.
“Devinderjit Sivia was arrested, interviewed and bailed pending further inquiries. Having received the file from police and considering all the evidence, I have decided he will not face any charges in relation to the death of Steven Rawlings.”
Dr Sivia’s father, Gurbaksh Sivia, told the press that his son was leading a normal life again and had returned back to work. He added, however, that the death of his friend would continue to be “on his mind.”
Aung San Suu Kyi may visit ‘beloved Oxford’
Prime Minister David Cameron has invited Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to the United Kingdom in June to visit her “beloved Oxford.”
Despite reports on Wednesday morning from the BBC and The Guardian stating that the visit had been confirmed by both parties, a spokesperson from Downing Street told Cherwell that this had been “misreported”, and that the visit was still yet to be confirmed by Suu Kyi.
The visit, if it goes ahead, will be her first to the UK since being placed under house arrest in 1989.
Suu Kyi gained a degree in PPE from St Hugh’s College in 1969, where she is now an honorary fellow, and left her husband and children behind in 1988 to lead Burma’s pro-democracy moment against the military junta.
During the press conference, Suu Kyi described the fact that she could say “perhaps” to the invitation, rather than “thank you but sorry” as “great progress” and is currently considering the invitation subject to the timing of the Burmese parliament.
The Prime Minister’s invitation came as part of a series of messages in which he told her that her “courage for standing up for things you believe in has been inspirational.” He also emphasised the role that he hoped to play in Burma’s reforms, stating, “There is a real prospect for change and I’m very much committed to working with you and trying to help make sure that your country makes those changes.”
Nora Godkin and Ebba Lekvall, Co-Presidents and founders of the Oxford Burma Alliance (OBA), told Cherwell, “We hope Cameron’s invitation is a sign that the UK Government intends to maintain and strengthen its support for the pro-democracy movement in Burma,” and added that they hoped the “recent reforms” would be “irreversible.”
Further, the pair expressed a wish that, “If she is able to make the trip, we will be able to show Daw Suu that Oxford students are committed to supporting Burma and the Burmese people on their journey towards democracy and freedom.”
Sara Polakova, JCR president at St Hugh’s, told Cherwell, “To us, as free citizens and free individuals, it seems almost impossible that someone’s desire to change things for the better in their homeland that they love would be answered with such harsh limitation.”
She added, “We are very proud to have such a notable alumnus in our college community. Oxford and St.Hugh’s has changed the lives of every single one of us – it is a life challenge to walk in Aung San Suu Kyi’s footsteps and use this privilege of world-class education to change the lives of others.”
Although no details about the visit can be provided until it is confirmed, an Oxford University spokesperson informed Cherwell, “We would be delighted to welcome her back to the University at any time.”
