Page 172 – Cherwell

Oxford-led study finds concerning levels of PFAS chemicals in Norwegian Arctic ice, posing risks to ecosystems

Science & Technology

Canqi Li

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19th February 2023

Oxford-led study finds concerning levels of PFAS chemicals in Norwegian Arctic ice, posing risks to ecosystems

An Oxford-led study found that the Norwegian Arctic ice in Svalbard is contaminated with worrisome levels of PFAS chemicals, threatening downstream wildlife.

Dr. William F Hartz, a researcher of Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences, led the study and detected 26 PFAS in a 12.3 m remote ice core of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.

The research initially targeted the measurement of 45 PFAS in total using scientific techniques focusing on identifying different molecules based on their mass. “Svalbard ice cores have been shown to provide a valuable record of long-range atmospheric transport of contaminants to the Arctic,” the study stated.

PFAS are a group of synthetic chemicals used in everyday products such as clothes and firefighting foam and industries like electronics and construction. Research has so far found links between PFAS exposure and cancer as well as immune response, fertility, and obesity issues.

Data obtained by analyzing the ice core showed the continuous presence of toxic chemicals called perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs). Another substance toxic to humans and animals – perfluorooctanesulfonic acid – was also detected in 82% of the ice core samples. The study found that due to the mobility of some of the chemicals, PFAS can come into contact with ecosystems in the Arctic fjords.

Since climate warming has been found to be more rapid in Svalbard compared to the global average, Hartz noted that as climate changes and ice melts, a “doubling up effect” of PFAS on animals can be observed. He said: “There’s a washout of contaminants that occurs seasonally … and some PFAS seem to be mobile during melts, which could be important to ecosystems downstream.”

Hartz also added that “as a polar bear, you have exposure to toxic man made chemicals, and stresses from a changing habitat”. It has previously been shown that polar bears, animals crucial to Arctic ecosystems, had high blood levels of PFAS.

Contaminated meltwater containing PFAS and other toxic substances also has adverse impacts on the entire Arctic food web that, besides polar bears, includes animals such as plankton, fish, and seals.

The specific hazards of TFA are currently unknown. According to the authors of the study, the “limited knowledge about the safe levels of TFA in the environment needs addressing”.

International Queer Cinema

Culture
Film

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19th February 2023

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Hollywood has made major strides in LGBTQ+ representation in recent years, but it is small-budget international features that have been ahead of the curve in telling stories. Smaller audiences and budgets allow international filmmakers to bring a liberated sensibility to their films, busting taboos and disregarding the expectations of mainstream audiences. International cinema displays queer lives in all their diversity and beauty, in a range of contexts far wider than we can see in Hollywood.

The following list could be endless – there is a great variety of international queer cinema on offer – yet here is where to start:

One of the big names in international cinema is Spanish filmmaker Pablo Almodóvar. Starting out in the 1980s, and gaining international recognition by the late 1990s, his films are characterised by melodrama, bold colours, complex narratives, and irreverent humour. Perhaps his most famous film is 1999’s All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2000. The film tells the story of Manuela, a nurse whose son is killed in a car accident on his seventeenth birthday. She travels to Barcelona hoping to find her son’s father, a transgender woman, who she’d never told about her son. The film is a celebration of women and sisterhood, and explores issues such as AIDS, homosexuality, faith, and transgender identity.

Almodóvar treats his subjects with generosity and sympathy, especially significant at a time when there was still a huge amount of stigma around AIDS, and transgender representation in Hollywood was invariably damaging. All About My Mother stands out in its representation of trans women through the scene-stealing Agrado, a transgender sex-worker, notably played by a trans actress. She is witty, grounded, and sympathetic, delivering a monologue towards the end of the film that explores her trans identity in a way far ahead of its time; it ends with the memorable line, “You are more authentic the more you resemble what you’ve dreamed of being.”

Secondly, French filmmaker Celine Sciamma has explored queer themes in a number of her films, but Portrait of a Lady on Fire from 2019 is her most widely acclaimed work. The film, set on a remote island in Brittany in the 18^th century, follows the aristocratic Heloise, and a painter, Marianne, commissioned to paint her portrait which will be used to help secure her marriage to a nobleman. A slow-burn romance develops between the painter and her subject, with the film exploring the nature of power and desire. Sciamma described the film as a “manifesto about the female gaze,” and a key theme of the film is what it means to be looked at, and to direct your gaze at others.

Other films take more abstract approaches to queer themes.

Titane, for example, is a French body horror drama written and directed by Julia Ducournau: it became the second film directed by a woman to win the Palme d’Or in 2021. It is a bold, surreal, and often shocking film that mostly defies description. The protagonist of the film is a female serial killer who is attracted to cars, who is later taken in by a firefighter who mistakes her for his son who went missing 10 years previously. A strong stomach and high tolerance for weirdness is needed to enjoy the film, but it explores gender identity, androgyny, and the malleability of identity in a way that is truly unique.

There are also exceptional international documentaries that explore queer themes. French documentary Little Girl (2020,) tells the story of transgender seven-year-old living in provincial France, and the experiences of her and her parents as they struggle to understand each other and gain acceptance in the wider world. The film is a testament to the strength of trans children, and the depth of parental love in the face of an unaccepting society. The film’s considered and empathetic approach is a welcome contrast to deeply polarised debates in the press about trans children.

Whilst artistic and entertaining, such films also have a unique social value. Roger Ebert, one of the most respected film critics of all time, described a film as “a machine that generates empathy” through helping us “understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears.” In this context, the utility of queer cinema is obvious; empathy is a powerful tool in advancing LGBTQ+ rights globally.

Particularly noteworthy in this regard is A Fantastic Woman, a Chilean film from 2017 that follows Marina, a trans woman who deals with grief after her partner dies, and hostility from his family and Chilean society at large. Political scientists Carsten-Andreas Schulz and Cameron G. Thies argue that the international recognition that the film received temporarily made support for trans rights a matter of national pride in Chile, paving the way for the passing of new laws that advanced trans rights in the country. When stories are told authentically, and when people are in charge of telling their own stories, cinema can be powerful in generating empathy for marginalised groups, leading to tangible political change.

This list is by no means comprehensive, but I hope that it may inspire anyone to step out of their comfort zone. These films may feel ‘foreign’ in their settings, subject matters, and styles, but in their humanity and empathy they are universal.

“There’s a lot of men out there that should’ve been hugged more by their dads”: In conversation with Maisie Adam

Profiles

Charlotte Perry

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19th February 2023

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“There’s a lot of men out there that should’ve been hugged more by their dads”: In conversation with Maisie Adam

If you’d told me a couple of years ago that I’d get the chance to sit down with a comedic hero of mine, I would’ve laughed. Not quite as loudly as I do when watching Mock the Week or Have I Got News for You, but quite loud nonetheless. Yet, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I found myself frantically rereading through my notes, considering each of the prepared questions, and anxiously tapping the side of my mug; preparing more for what was about to happen than I do for most of my tutorials. Almost simultaneously, I hear a happy, lively greeting – “Hello!” – inflected with a recognisable Yorkshire twang that puts me at ease. I’m used to seeing the face before me today on televisions and billboards, but never would I have thought that I’d get to talk to her in person. Well, as in-person as you can get on Zoom.

The first stop of our interview seems an almost inevitable starting place; that of her current tour, Buzzed. Initially starting in August 2022, the tour enjoyed such levels of sold-out success that a second leg of the tour has been added. I’m curious as to how she came up with such a name, was it an easy endeavour? “Writing the material? I’m grand. But trying to sum up the show in one title, in a way that sounds enticing but not wanky, but not so enigmatic that nobody knows what it is; that’s quite stressful. It’s the hardest part of any show sometimes.

“I guess a little bit of me went for the name because of the haircut I’ve been rocking for two, almost three years. Another aspect, I don’t know if it’s a Northern thing, is that I always say that I’m buzzing – or buzzed – when I talk about being excited, and off the back of the pandemic I just was desperate to get back on tour and get back doing live stand up that I am buzzing to be back.”

“I kind of craved looking ahead at that point in lockdown. I think all of us were sick of the situation, of talking about Covid. I know I, for one, was.” I’m smiling along at this stage, nodding politely, trying to not make it blatantly obvious I was frantically scribbling through line-upon-line of pandemic-based questions I’d prepared. As a comedian who’s spent almost half of her career battling against the curtailing of comedy by successive national lockdowns, I could understand why she might feel ambivalent towards the topic.

So, what sort of stand-up routine does one create on the back of what was, for many, some of the loneliest, most isolating times in recent memory? “I ended up writing what I thought would be a very uplifting show, very positive, very optimistic, and the whole process has been really fun. I went and did Edinburgh with it, then went on tour straight away through September and October. It was originally just 33 dates, but it went so well and so many were sold-out that we’re back for another 30! We’re doing round two!”

One of the most special elements of the show is the first act of Maisie’s performance. Alongside performing a traditional stand-up routine, Maisie tells me how she goes to great lengths to personalise the show for the place she’s performing in. “Oxford is somewhere that I think I’ve only ever gigged in perhaps two, three times since starting comedy. I’ve never played at the Old Fire Station before. With my first tour, I see it as an opportunity to get to know all these places, but also get to know my audience. Most of my comedy career so far has been doing tour support for other comedians or being in a line-up show’ so not really being the main reason why someone’s bought a ticket. This is the first time where I’m doing a tour where everybody in the audience has bought a ticket because it’s me, so I think the least you can do is make their night unique. I come out for about 20, 30 minutes and basically use the time to get to know the crowd that night. It’s really nice, because it brings everyone in the room together, and that feeling can’t be replicated anywhere else in quite the same way.

“I think the show itself, which happens after the interval, also goes much better when you and the audience have had that very unique interaction, it can’t happen anywhere else. Each place has been different too; one evening can feel more like a parish meeting, almost something out of the Vicar of Dibley, and then the next night it’s raucous, lairy, and fast-paced.”

Does she have any favourite memories or moments from backstage in her tour so far? “I think, when people think about what it’s like backstage at a comedy gig, they think that it must be quite rock and roll. I’m actually on my own for a lot of it. A lot of it is turning up, soundchecking, sitting around, ironing your outfit, maybe having a cup of tea and watching Pointless, before it’s time to head out on stage.”

“My fiancé came to a few of the dates towards the end of the first leg of the tour, and he thought it was lovely and a great environment but overall he was surprised at what it was like.”

More sausage rolls than rock and roll, if you will.

There is one moment that stands out to Maisie, however, and that’s a rather comical, local story told by an audience member; “It was when we were in Chesterfield and I asked the audience to tell me about their town… they have a famous church, and the couldnt wait to tell me. Apparently it goes back to the time a devil sat on the Spire, and that’s why it’s crooked. Now, they’re waiting for a virgin to sit on it and that will make it straight again. I thought ‘this is the weirdest town I’ve ever been in’, but I think that it sums up UK culture quite well.”

Changing track slightly, I ask if she has any favourite jokes from her set. “There’s definitely routines that I look forward to getting to, because I know that they’re going to get a good reaction. I tend to vary my routine so that they ebb and flow if you like, as I’ve watched stand-up that’s had the same energy joke after joke and it’s really hard to keep your attention all the way through. There is a story about me and my fiancé getting engaged that I always look forward to telling because it’s nice and steady, but builds up really well. It’s one of those jokes where you can do it 20 minutes into a routine, and then have a callback to it 25 minutes later, and people really enjoy it. Without giving too much away, I really do love the ending of my show though. It’s really, really, fun. I love it!

“It’s important to remember that not every audience will react to jokes the same way though; every night is different, and the momentum of the audience is different. Some audiences will go for one bit, and others will go for a different but; it’s all about pacing myself really.”

Selling out almost every date in both the original tour and the extended dates isn’t something that happens overnight. Initially starting out at the Ilkley Fringe in 2016, Adam found success in So You Think You’re Funny at the Edinburgh Fringe, before returning with a solo show, Vague, in 2018. “We started this conversation talking about how you never know where things are going to go, and I think the same can be said now. Not for a second did I plan any of this; I didn’t think at the time that anything could happen from it. I don’t think in comedy, or anything, that you have the foresight to tell the direction things will go in. “I just thought it would be nice to perform again; I still think that now. There isn’t a finish line in my head. I’m trying to avoid a cliche metaphor here, but I would say it’s like driving a car down a motorway; I’m not thinking about how I’m going to pull into the driveway when I get there, I’m thinking about when I can switch lanes right now. I’m only focussing on what’s just ahead of me. I quite like it that way because it means you’re surprised by your own achievements and own success; you can’t also plan too far ahead either, the industry is changing that quickly.

Despite a pandemic, Maisie’s career has skyrocketed, her first solo tour coming fresh from appearances on big-name shows such as Live At The Apollo, Mock the Week, The Last Leg, and A League of Their Own. One particular show on the list stands out to me; that of Mock the Week. I’m of an age where I can’t remember the show beginning, but I’m old enough to remember the times when comedians such as Frankie Boyle, Russell Howard, and Andy Parsons were comedic staples. It seems very much that Maisie shared such fond memories, but understands why it came to an end; “I had mixed emotions about it ending. It’s this massive show that has been a stalwart of comedy for a long time now, and it was one of the shows I used to watch as a kid. It was a dream to get booked on that, and a dream to become a staple of the last few series. But you’ve got to keep changing, we’ve got to keep fresh, and that stands for TV as much as it does with comedians and their material. I just hope that what replaces it is something that also platforms stand-up in the same way; that was what it did so well, platforming new stand-up, and that’s what I think TV should focus on doing when it makes comedy.”

It struck me, even as a young child, how male-dominated the comedic sphere was; at best, they would have two women per series in the earlier shows. Angela Barnes summed up the situation well, when in the last episode ever recorded, she pays tribute to “all the female comics that came before me on this show… thank you, both of you.” Whilst this is undoubtedly comedic hyperbole, it’s nonetheless a valid point: Maisie’s entry into the world of comedy is coming at a critical moment of change in the industry, but Britain’s best-loved shows are still consistently populated by a cast of white men.

“When I think about when I used to watch it as a kid, it was all blokes and not a variety of blokes; and not a variety in terms of the acts. It would just be six middle-aged blokes coming from a very similar angle on things. Thankfully, I feel like by the time I started making appearances on it they had made a conscious decision to feature more women. I still don’t think perhaps enough; it had at least changed in a way that if I’d have been on 10 years earlier, it would have been me or Angela on our lineup. I came at a time where it could have been me and Angela, but I still think there should have been times where it was me and Angela and – heaven forbid! – a third woman. Sometimes I think it let itself down and other times it listened and got better. There’s certainly lots of TV shows that weren’t doing that and still aren’t. So it can be tricky. I feel lucky that I’m at a time where if they’re not doing that it gets called out, which it should. It’s a different age.”

There is one element of being a woman in the public eye that doesn’t seem to change, however. Although getting many positive responses about her shows and stand-up – with The Evening Standard calling her performances “wonderfully witty” – being a woman in the world of comedy does have its pitfalls. “Facebook, I never really read the comments – why go looking for it? – Instagram is nice as you can delete comments and limit things in DMs, but Twitter is the one that can feel like an absolute minefield. It’s not really so much after live shows as only fans come to the shows, but with pre-recorded telly shows you’ll be scrolling through Twitter and suddenly realise that something you recorded a while back is on TV. 99% of people will be lovely, but then there will always be that 1% that will stick in your head. It’s hard, and it’s something that I’m still trying to get used to.

“It’s mad, and it’s so easier said than done. I do talk to my mum or my fiancé about them, but I try not to let them get to me. They are just jealous or unhappy, and I know that when I read through things; but it still doesn’t take away from the fact that someone said a really horrible thing about you on a public platform. I think that wherever you are, however well-known you are, that’s always going to stick.

“I do think being a woman means you get more flack, and I don’t want to say it makes it easier to push it off, but you can’t help but think that they’re just saying this because I’m a woman. You’d say it if I was a female politician, or a female expert being interviewed, or if I was a female sportsperson. It’s nothing to do with what I’m doing; it’s just sexism. It’s not personal to me, it’s just personal to what I am as opposed to who I am or what I’m doing. Sometimes when I get messages from these people, you’ll go on their Twitter and see that they’ve trolled 99 other people that day. Then you realise, it’s not me. It’s just a person who is deeply unhappy and gets a kick out of going for other people.”

“There’s a lot of men out there that should’ve been hugged more by their dads, that’s what I’ll say.”

Joking aside, I wholeheartedly agree; albeit sadly. I would love to sit and ponder the complexity of the world in which we live in, but the time on Zoom is running against us. After we’ve recovered from laughing, I only have time for one more question. I ask if she could describe her show in three words; something she did with a smile; “Uplifting, energetic, a hoot, I think.”

I sat there, nodding and smiling. It appears that her summary of the show played in perfectly to how I would describe my experience interviewing her.

For more information about Maisie’s upcoming tour dates, and to book tickets, please go to www.maisieadam.com for more information.

Image credit: Matt Crockett

Oxford students call for better recorded lecture access

News

Olivia Boyle

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19th February 2023

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Oxford students call for better recorded lecture access

The Oxford SU has launched a campaign to standardise lecture recording, following calls to make sure lectures can be accessed by all students in the ways they are needed. The VP Access & Academic Affairs Jade Calder told Cherwell that the campaign is for “the spread of best practice on lecture accessibility and recording policy across as many university departments as possible.”

In-person lectures were one of the casualties of the pandemic; even after lockdown restrictions lifted in Oxford, they have not been the same. Complaints of quality control, incomplete lecture series, and missing key parts of teaching have pushed the SU’s campaign for the provision of standardised recordings.

Access to recorded lectures for disabled students and those suffering from short-term illness has also been a key motivation for the campaign, which is keen to work closely with the SU’s Disabilities Campaign, DisCam. Currently, students with Student Support Plans (SSPs), personal tuition plans for disabled students, are sometimes granted permission to access lecture recordings. However, one student pointed out that this does not benefit individuals with undiagnosed condition, who do not qualify for an SSP, or those who are temporarily unwell. Moreover, the SSP’s largest caveat means that lecturers can always object to recordings.

The SU campaign, therefore, hopes to fairly standardise lecture recordings for students and lecturers together. Meanwhile, a Cherwell poll clarified that 92% of respondents think lectures should be recorded for all students, irrespective of disability or illness.

Cherwell polled over 300 students about their views on recorded lecture access.

The VP-Academic Affairs, Jade Calder, noted that “now that we know that universal lecture accessibility is possible because of the pandemic”. Students at the campaign’s launch also commented on the University of Oxford’s impressive academic creation, but decried the lack of innovative action on standardisation of lecture recording. One of the launch’s attendees labelled the University’s lack of action “discriminatory” for those who can’t attend due to COVID-19, other illnesses, mental health conditions, and accessibility issues. To not be able to attend lectures can “end the career” of those students who frequently have no choice but to miss lectures or those who have not had access to recordings of them. This is especially problematic when degrees, STEM subjects in particular, rely on lectures to deliver the bulk of their teaching.

The campaign focuses on students but, many would be quick to think of the academic staff and lecturers. That is, for humanities and STEM subjects alike, lectures are the intellectual property of the academic, so to record them would risk compromising ground-breaking discovery and research. Moreover, in times of mass strike action, there are concerns of lecture recordings being used to break strikes. The consideration of the data protection of students has an important role to play as well. Nevertheless, the SU launch proposed a standardised contract for students to sign to control this risk as well as training for staff to better manage recording technology. At the moment, for instance, the welfare of students and staff together has been impacted by missing parts of lecture series, poorly coordinated sound and image, and limited access to past recordings. One Computer Science student told Cherwell that the department had removed access to its archive of lectures, a key part of the course, without prior warning. A poll carried out by Cherwell found that 60% of respondents said their welfare had been impacted by lecture access disparities.

The VP-Academic Affairs told Cherwell that a recent academic survey showed that lectures are among the top of student concerns for academic experience in Oxford. Calder was keen to emphasise the University’s response has been largely cooperative; Oxford wants to see “good practice implemented across departments and effective implementation of their Educational Recordings Policy.” The SU’s campaign is well under way and remains in frequent contact with the relevant bodies to ensure access to lectures is equal for all. Calder said to Cherwell that the most important thing for students to do is to speak to their tutors about added support for lecture recordings.

While Cherwell has found that most students prefer in-person lectures, the figure is closely followed by those who would like to choose. It is the freedom to take control of how you learn that appeals to most. But, the SU campaign will ensure that those who don’t have a choice will still have appropriate access to a satisfactory level of educational resources.

Oxford joins campaign against reopening of “cruel and harmful” Campsfield detention centre

News

Suzanne Antelme

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18th February 2023

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Oxford joins campaign against reopening of “cruel and harmful” Campsfield detention centre

Following a motion passed by Student Council in its 1st Week meeting this term, the Oxford SU has joined the Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed (CKCC). The CKCC is a campaign group calling for the government to scrap plans to reopen an immigration removal centre on the site of the former Campsfield House detention facility in Kidlington, six miles outside of Oxford.

The SU motion, proposed by Hajar Zainuddin and seconded by Juliet van Gyseghem, stipulates that in addition to becoming a named member of the CKCC, the SU will facilitate educational activity for students on the issue and publicise the campaign’s various protests and petitions. The motion also says the SU must push for the campaign’s demands to be added to the agenda of the National Student Union (NUS).

Najar Zainuddin, the motion’s proposer, told Cherwell: “The attitude from student groups so far has been really positive and determined. As Oxford students, we have enormous collective power to drive change. Together, we need to tell the Government that immigration detention is not the answer until it listens.”

Anna-Tina Jashpara, SU VP for Charities and Community, has been assigned to support the campaign and will attend all of the CKCC meetings. She told Cherwell that the SU will launch its formal support for the campaign via social media. They plan to help promote an online petition set up by a previous Campsfield detainee, and to work with the CKCC on an open letter to the government that the campaign wants to disseminate in the coming weeks.

A CKCC spokesperson told Cherwell that they are “delighted to have the support of the Student Union”, as “Oxford students were part of the original 1993-2018 Campaign to Close Campsfield and we are pleased and grateful that this solidarity is continuing”.

This follows an announcement from the Home Office in June that it is planning the development of a new “immigration removal centre” on the site of the old Campsfield centre. Before closing in 2018, the centre had seen a riot and several hunger strikes, one of which involved over 100 detainees. There were at least two incidents where children were accidently detained at the centre, apparently because assessments of their age had taken too long.

The centre was also criticised by an independent monitoring body after it emerged in an annual report that detainees had arrived without their possessions 150 times throughout 2017.

Juliet Van Gyseghem, the motion’s seconder, told Cherwell: “As students, we tend to forget about the wider Oxford community that exists outside the university “bubble”.

It is essential for us to recognise that privilege comes with responsibility. Any student who claims to care about human rights should be appalled by the threat of reopening Campsfield.”

A final inspection of the former Campsfield House in September 2018 found that 41% of detainees felt unsafe, up from 19% in 2014, although the inspection was characterised as positive overall. The Home Office’s decision to close the centre in 2018 overlapped with broader government plans to downsize detention centre provision across the UK following a 2016 report by Stephen Shaw that highlighted the link between detention and “adverse mental health outcomes”, concluding immigrant detention “ought to be reduced”.

Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat MP for Abingdon and Oxford West, was campaigning against Campsfield before it closed in 2018 and gave a speech to Parliament in September 2022 in support of the current campaign. She told Cherwell: “Immigration detention is costly, harmful to detainees, and is not an effective tool for reducing illegal migration. Instead of re-opening Campsfield House, expanding the detention state, and continuing the inhumane practice of indefinite detention, the Government should be using taxpayer money to speed up the processing of asylum claims.”

Moran is “delighted to see that Oxford has joined the CKCC”, as this “demonstrates the strength of feeling across our local community” opposed to this “cruel and wasteful proposal”. She added that “[we] fought hard for 25 years to close Campsfield House, and we are ready to fight to make sure it stays that way”.

The Oxford City Council has also issued a statement declaring that it is “unequivocally opposed to the re-opening of Campsfield House”, noting that the centre saw “hunger strikes, self-harm and even suicide before it closed”.

According to the Home Office, the new centre planned for Campsfield will combine refurbished and newly built accommodation to provide “safe, secure and fit for purpose accommodation for people in detention”. The plans are part of the Home Office’s “ongoing review of detention capacity” and are still at an early stage. The new centre might accommodate as many as 400 male detainees, higher than the 282 beds it had in 2018, and would open in late 2023 at the earliest.

A CKCC spokesperson told Cherwell that going forward they hope to “broaden and deepen support for the campaign in JCRs and MCRs”. They added that “[a]ll societies are welcome to join the [CKCC] and we encourage them to do so”. The campaign meets online on the first Tuesday of every month, has a booth at the Turl Street Art Fair on 18th February, and will also be hosting a panel discussion at University College at 5pm on 24th February. The petition to keep Campsfield closed can be signed at change.org/keepcampsfieldclosed.

Hundreds march through Oxford in traffic protest turned ‘anti-globalist’ demo

News

Maggie Wilcox

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18th February 2023

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Hundreds march through Oxford in traffic protest turned ‘anti-globalist’ demo

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Oxford this Saturday.

Most came to take part in an anti-low traffic neighbourhood demonstration, protesting proposed traffic filters and their restrictions on freedom of movement. The main site of this protest was along Broad Street and swelled to hundreds of people after midday.

The protestors spoke of restrictions to their personal freedom and worried that their ability to travel within Oxford would be impeded by the proposed traffic filters. 4 different groups were protesting, with a number of organisations and individuals criticising government intervention in general. Handouts protesting digital IDs, digital currencies and continued vaccination were circulated.

National far-right groups, like the Patriotic Alternative (PA), were also out on Saturday. Union Jacks, variations on the English flag and banners bearing the libertarian slogan “Don’t tread on me” were seen amongst the crowd on Broad Street.

In opposition to these organisations, a counter-protest was staged at the same time in Bonn Square. Ian McKendrink, from Stand Up to Racism, helped organise this counter-protest in order to show support for minorities and oppose the alleged racist rhetoric of groups present at the main LTN protest. He claims that far-right groups have attempted to hijack the local LTN movement.

There was a strong police presence around the two groups at all times, with one officer stating that several police officers had been brought in from other areas to control the protests. Dozens of officers in helmets on horseback and multiple police vans maintained a border around the Broad Street protest. While no major clashes took place, police separation was required to keep small groups from both protests separate in a few instances.

Magical Friendships

Lifestyle

Phoebe Walls

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18th February 2023

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Phoebe Walls discuses how platonic love might form the most fulfilling relationships of your life..

Falling in love focuses on romantic relationships. We chase the magical moment of a first kiss, the thrill of the first time they take your hand. The ‘L bomb’ lingers on the tip of your tongue, and you’re silently, wistfully waiting for them to feel the same. But what about platonic love? The happiness that can spread through your every cell when a close friend is nearby. Conversations that effortlessly flow for three hours. Many neglect their friendships when they get into a relationship; that special someone can become the only face they see in a crowded room. Oxford is a university with a notorious workload, and many students swearing off relationships to focus on being hopelessly devoted to their love of learning, so time for a relationship of any kind can feel limited.

Some of the greatest love stories of your life will be friendships. That first friend you made on the first day of school on a scratchy carpet will always hold a place in your heart. You think of her often, how you bonded over Jaqueline Wilson and Big Maths Beat That. There are friendships where a quiet pint at the local pub can reconcile two years apart. Oxford friendships can feel particularly magical. Some long-lasting friendships are founded in Freshers week. I remember feeling far away from home, drunk on newfound freedom and vodka drank out of unwashed mugs. The dizzying, dancing way that you feel not just from the eye contact of a love interest but a friend holding your hand as you spin on a sticky floor.

Oxford terms bring a rollercoaster of emotions, and platonic love is the only cure to heartbreak, homesickness or fifth-week blues. There’s a comfort derived from seeing your flatmate in the morning, and a quiet contentment that comes from catch-ups on the way to the college bar. There’s a joy from a cup of tea with a long chat, or raging rants, or gentle gossip. Nothing beats the thrill of a friend telling you they love you. I’d never experienced this before university, an honest declaration of a platonic love that rings in my ears like the favourite songs that we sing together. Love interests will come and go, treated by a friend’s affection.

There is nothing more freeing than feeling like you can fully be yourself around someone, which is harder with a romantic interest. At the beginning of the relationship, people try not to come across too keenly, waiting for the other person to reach out first. Lust is fragile and fleeting. Best friends see all your imperfections and yet still make you feel seen and heard. Friends will talk each other off a cliff edge, listen to dramatic anecdotes intently, and offer solutions to any problem.

This Valentine’s Day, shops are crammed with pink cards and tacky bears. Many singles feel a sense of missing out as colleges organise Valentine’s events from formal dinners to traffic light bops. Love can seem all around and yet so unreachable. Perhaps the people who most deserve a card are in reach. Nothing strengthens a friendship more than confessing how much you appreciate someone.