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Monday – Endless fields – James Read
Sunday – Quite Odd Cow – James Read
Artistic Director of the National Youth Theatre, prolific director, broadcaster and writer, Paul Roseby, describes his journey in media and challenges students to “tell the truth.”
“Which scene is this?! Shit, am I in it?”
Such was the light-hearted panic I heard behind me as the press preview began. And this serves to nicely illustrate what the Oxford University Light Entertainers (OULES), and what this particular production, are all about. They don’t take themselves too seriously and they have an absolute whale of a time, even regularly managing to churn out plays. The society itself is an all-inclusive casting company, meaning that anyone who auditions, and wants a part, gets one, even if this involves writing in new characters. Moreover, all profits from every production always go to charity (Great Ormond Street in the case of Peter Pan; the Pantomime) and the company take their shows to those who normally have little access to the theatre; nursing homes, primary schools, special needs schools and the like. It is a company that gives confidence to those who may otherwise shy from auditioning for OUDS. Most importantly, it’s for those kids inside all of us that just want to have a laugh, make some friends and throw on a show.
I actually reviewed Worcester’s Peter Pan (Not the Pantomime) last week and so should probably point out that I bloody love Pan. My same point could be made this week; it’s a bunch of people having fun with a great, heart-warming concept. The difference is, as Johnny Simms himself points out (Pirate 7 in Peter Pan-tomime) in The Oxford Student’s nauseating “Thespionage” column, that one has a great array of dramatic talent, and the other, well, doesn’t. So, if I were a cynical Grinch of a bastard, I could happily write a bitchy critique of this play, but this would serve absolutely no purpose, and would undermine the work that OULES do. For what it’s worth, I fully support their ideas about drama and reckon it’s about time that this little troop get the publicity they deserve.
Right, so let’s get the “reviewing” part over. The acting is, generally speaking, what you’d expect but there are some highlights. Marcus Garner-Hatcher’s Smee is fantastic and the comic delight that holds the whole pantomime together (think what the Old Vic’s Aladdin would have been like without Ian McKellen – he’s that awesome). His banter with Hook (Martin Corcoran) is nicely devised and Corcoran himself looks like he’s having the time of his life. Good turns are added by Rory Morrison’s Dame and a sex-pot-secretary-meets-pseudo-gothic-nymphomaniac Tinkerbell, played voluptuously by Asha Hartland. I was also particularly enchanted by a pirate that looked like he’d taken the wrong turn on the way to an Aerosmith concert, clicking his fingers to the music with a manic gesture that made me shiver.
8th week, Moser Theatre, Tuesday to Thursday, what else are you going to do? They strike me as a great bunch, having a laugh and doing some much needed good in the world. So let’s stop sulking about coursework or that end of term cough and all go and have some fucking fun: Light Entertainers Style. Oh and there’s some songs about being happy and not wanting to grow up. I’m there; and I’m bringing my cuddly polar bear toy, too.
Tucked away just past Park End Road, a street frequented by Oxford students probably more than any other, lies a Jam Factory with quite a different reputation. More niche than any other venue this side of the Cowley-Jericho divide, The Jam Factory delivers everything the name suggests; it’s quirky, cool and pretty damn sweet.
But a candied menu isn’t all The Jam Factory has to offer, as the multi-purpose arts centre boasts an eclectic timetable of buzzing bohemian activity. On booking, the manager informs me there will be a life drawing class at 8pm should we wish to join, and a peruse around the site reveals The Jam Factory is a popular haunt for Scrabble players, ‘World Beer’ lovers, photographers and more. What’s more, they have acquired a live music license a mere two weeks ago and are optimistic about the future, in terms of the potential of the venue. It doesn’t even seem to matter that the art itself is pretty poor, being at the Jam Factory makes you feel like you are out on a Berocca day reading Candide and pretending to be from the Continent.
The décor follows this trend: it’s artsy and modern, if a little confused. The spacious warehouse-like structure and potted plants give it a casual feel, but don’t entirely match with the 60s-style plastic furniture. The bar, on the other hand, is a little more upscale whilst the ‘gallery’ dining room has a toned down, day-time feel. The waitress shows us the workshop used for life drawing, undoubtedly the aesthetic highlight of the venue. The room has a high ceiling and light, lofty atmosphere that has an effortlessly cool aura about it.
One question remained, then: could the food pull it off? The menu isn’t exactly as edgy as The Jam Factory’s image, but it is of a high quality. British Gastropub with the occasional European staple tomato or Asian spice seems to be the slightly muddled theme, but to a large extent it works. The whitebait starter was a little spicy for a first course, and the arancini (risotto balls) were cooked well, but a tad bland. The smoked poached haddock was fresh, supple and delicious, served on a bed of a light and creamy mash. Equally the venison was tender and fragrant.
Although the dessert (chocolate brownie with ice cream) was distinctly average, The Jam Factory again rectified itself with some fantastic coffee. Their menu states they are ‘proud’ of their ‘blend of five different fair trade Arabicas and Robusta beans’ and it’s not hard to see why. Yet that’s not all they should be proud of in the beverage realm, as they boast a sophisticated wine list and the bottle recommended by our waitress was exactly to our taste. The Jam Factory even supports the local independent brewery ‘The Cotswald Brewing Company’, a commended producer of lager and beer made in the hamlet of Foscot, Oxfordshire.
Overall The Jam Factory is well worth going to, irrespective of it being slightly out of the way. The restaurant is not on the tip of many Oxford students’ tongues, but it is this unique and secretive aspect to it that deems it Cherwell-fficially cool. It’s not cheap, but equally not overpriced; a three course meal for two with wine and coffee came to a total of around £70-£80. With a little time its slightly confused identity and minor flaws will be ironed out, and it will become the place to be seen or to mention. So get there quick, if you’re anyone whose anyone. And remember, you heard it here first.
Matt and Ben take on the film of the year, yes that’s the one, do we really have to name it?
Worcester 1sts take on Brasenose 1sts for a place in the Football Cuppers quarter finals.
…Then I wouldn’t believe you. It doesn’t matter whether you use a top hat and a wand, or a multi-million pound fMRI scanner: reading thoughts is still far beyond the reach of modern neuroscience, let alone anybody else. Recent years have seen huge advances in brain scanning technology and it is true that scientists can now effectively look inside the active brain and detect activity. But the technology has important limits.
This doesn’t stop ‘brain reading’ from hitting the popular press. The inexorable cycle of newspaper headlines has some recurring themes: politicians do bad stuff; photogenic students get good grades; animals, especially during the summer, get born and lost and found and learn to talk or dance or knit…and, with surprising regularity, “Scientists can read your mind” (or words to that effect). This is not true. At best, it is a gross exaggeration – and, of course, many of these articles will qualify their assertions and eventually even admit that the scientists in question can’t actually read your thoughts, which is what most of us understand ‘mind reading’ to be.
The technique at the bottom of the majority of mind reading stories is fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), which uses a huge magnetic field to quantify blood flow changes in the human brain, and infer brain activity in small pockets of space called ‘voxels’. This imaging technique itself has come under a lot of fire in recent years; there are some doubts about whether those shifts in blood flow necessarily reflect bristling brain activity. Furthermore, two 2009 meta-studies of fMRI papers flagged major concerns about selection bias and ‘voodoo correlations’ based on the way the active voxels are selected and analysed. Finally, a rather Pythonesque study even used poorly-analysed fMRI data to demonstrate brain activity in a dead salmon. Irreverent detractors aside however, it is clear that fMRI can be used to useful effect by scientists who are aware of its limitations; indeed, the (since retitled) ‘voodoo correlations’ paper came from within the lab of Nancy Kanwisher, a world leader in functional imaging who takes a notably ‘bottom-up’, assumption-free approach.
fMRI is good at comparing very specific things. If you happily put yourself into a scanner and were told to either imagine running a marathon or to picture the boy or girl whom you first kissed, the scanner could help scientists guess which one you actually did – if they already had results from other people thinking the same things. The scan would not be able to discover that you were actually thinking about lunch.
What about a simple question like, ‘Is this person lying?’ This is perhaps more likely, because it could be argued that lying and telling the truth do indeed engage different emotional or decision-making processes that might be physically distinguishable in the brain. However, there are very few scientific papers that actually examine deceptive behaviour using fMRI, and most of them have been inconclusive (such as this PNAS paper from September).
It’s remarkable, then, that at least two companies currently peddle fMRI-based lie detection services. In 2009, a Californian father accused of child abuse hired ‘No Lie MRI’ to demonstrate his innocence. The story was broken on March 14th by Emily Murphy in a Stanford blog post and Wired Science wrote it up two days later. Within a fortnight, the application to admit the MRI scan as defence evidence was withdrawn after the child’s lawyers received advice from Stanford’s Center for Law & the Biosciences, where Murphy works. In May this year, evidence from another company made it as far as a New York courtroom but was thankfully rejected.
We must be wary of these developments, but at the same time we should not allow them to detract from the other brilliant things that brain scanning can accomplish. The technology for brain-computer interfaces is progressing rapidly, from tweeting with your brain or silently bossing a robot about to monkeys learning to eat with robotic limbs. In each case, however, the fancy gadgets take quite some mastering, and they are unable to ‘read out’ their instructions directly from a naïve user. Similarly, the amazing experiments that have allowed near-vegetative patients to communicate (see the NY Times report here) rely on a brain-scanning strategy that is calibrated beforehand on healthy individuals.
Used carefully, both in terms of its technicalities and its ethical implications, brain imaging is powerful science – but it can’t read you like a book. And as for magicians and TV tricksters, there is only one that you can trust. Chris Cox, “the mindreader who can’t read minds”, uses body language and other predictable behavioural clues to predict how his volunteers will act in simple games, while openly admitting that any patter about actual mind-reading is “bullshit”. His, then, is the only mindreading show that even a neuroscientist can enjoy. Next time you see a mind-reader who is rather less up-front, or read another lazy headline about ‘mindreading’ scientists, remember Chris and think “He can’t do it – and neither can they!”
James Weston and Declan Clowry ask Martha MacKenzie and Eleanor Brown why turn-out was so low in the recent OUSU election
‘Revolt, rebel, resist!’
We sent our photographers to the Rad Cam takeover on Wednesday and Thursday. Here’s how it went…
‘Oxford’s own spider-man’, a student who free climbed the side of the Rad Cam to unfurl a banner hung from a top floor window – Urska Mali
‘Spider-man’, victorious after having unfurled the banner, which read ‘Fight the cuts’ – Urska Mali
A sound system was taken into the Lower Rad, with students dancing on the tables – Urska Mali
Around 5pm on Wednesday afternoon, anyone left in the library was officially termed a protester by the University proctors, including those who were trying to keep working upstairs. Students began to leave the building of their own accord – Urska Mali
A student tries in vain to keep working in the Lower Rad. Many finalists complained that their coursework had been disrupted by the actions of the protesters – Jessica Goodman
Protesters used megaphones to shout their slogans across Radcliffe square, which could be heard from inside the Bodleian library and Hertford college – Jessica Goodman
‘Spider-man’ on the building, after successfully unfurling the banner – Jessica Goodman
The protest saw a heavy presence of police surveillance, with police photographing and recording protesters throughout the day – Jessica Goodman
The protest was in response to the education cuts proposed by Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s coalition government – Jessica Goodman
A protester climbs a signpost to hold his placard above the crowd – Lauri Saksa
And so it begins – protesters storm the Lower Rad, view from the central staircase – Lauri Saksa
A protester views the scene from inside, after the doors to the library were barricaded from the inside – Joseph Caruana
By nightfall, hungry and tired protesters began to leave the building – Joseph Caruana
As they left, protesters were searched by police, who asked them their names and addresses, though there was no obligation to provide the information – Joseph Caruana
The protest died down by nightfall, as bystanders and police went home. It was reported on Thursday that up to twelve more protesters managed to get in on Wednesday night – Joseph Caruana
Police on Wednesday evening, after the crowds had dispersed – William Granger
Police stormed the building at 4.15pm on Thursday, and removed protesters from the Lower Rad one by one – William Granger
Protesters leaving the building on Thursday after being removed by the police were greeted by massive cheers from the waiting crowd and continued to chant slogans – William Granger
Radical Oxford students were evacuated from the Radcliffe Camera by police this afternoon, after occupying the Lower Camera for over twenty four hours.
Protesters, who had met at Carfax at 1 pm on Wednesday, marched down High Street, before turning into Radcliffe Square. Here, demonstrators halted, before overpowering a thin police cordon and storming the entrance of the Rad Cam.
The students issued a statement online from within the building, saying, “We – students and residents of Oxford – are occupying the Radcliffe Camera because we oppose all public sector cuts. We stand in solidarity with those who are affected by the cuts and those who are resisting them.”
Police were not allowing demonstrators through the gate into the Rad Cam. However, after some students jumped over, many more followed suit, taking a sound system and food in with them, and locking the main door against the police.
One student received a serious head wound in the stampede, after she fell headfirst onto the cobbles, and had to be taken to hospital.
The take over was premeditated, and some students had been stationed within the library since the morning. As the marchers from the protest entered the building, large banners reading “Fight the Cuts” were unfurled from the upper floor of the building. An anonymous student with a megaphone announced “This is now a public library. We are making history here.”
A protestor told Cherwell, “When we got inside there was a group studying. It was announced that the lower section of the building was part of an occupation, and if people wanted to continue working undisturbed, they should move upstairs. Some decided to continue studying downstairs, but the majority moved up. Then we bought the sound system in, started dancing, and the carnival atmosphere really took hold.”
After the initial party died down, students announced the start of a consensus meeting to fix their demands to the University. The meeting continued during the course of the afternoon, as students discussed why they were there, what it was exactly they stood for and what their demands were.
There were also classes and talks, workshops and poetry readings, all on the topic of protests, which carried on throughout the evening. This “teach-in” was part of the Oxford Free University movement. “Let’s reclaim this space for the education we deserve,” said one speaker.
Library staff inside the building tolerated and in some cases helped the occupation. The senior member of staff present, said it was frustrating but not inappropriate.
“It’s a library,” the senior staff member said. “This is stopping students from studying, but I can completely understand why people feel so strongly about it. It’s a really important issue. There isn’t really any anger from the library staff”.
The librarians announced that they would be staying in the Lower Camera, even after the library closed. A student recalled, “The librarians said they were staying there out of love for the library. There was a healthy relationship between librarians and protesters; the librarians were included in our discussions.”
Earlier, a Police Inspector had asked to enter the library to begin negotiations with the protesters, but he was told to wait until the meeting had finished. Meanwhile the police circled the building, chained up the side exits, posted mounted officers in the square and began searching and filming everybody who came out on suspicion of theft.
During the afternoon, police guarding the gate called the situation “ludicrous” and said that the occupation “had ruined it for everybody.”
One student said, “We had grand, lavish feasts inside. There was more food than I’d ever seen. People from outside were passing it through the windows all afternoon.”
There was an attempt at a surge to get more people in just after 7 o’clock, but this was repulsed by the police. A more successful break in took place in the early hours of Thursday morning, at around 1.30am, when a group of students broke police lines and joined the occupation downstairs. Students within the building explained how “at 1.30am there was a big bang at the door and suddenly a group of twelve people burst in to join us. They must have taken the police by surprise.”
The workshops and meetings continued the following morning. A student described the atmosphere overnight. “Everyone was still in with the plan and no one was getting cold feet. Some had to leave to go to their jobs and tutorials. But those that could, stayed.”
On Thursday, occupiers connected via Skype to other universities such as Edinburgh and UCL, who were also occupying buildings in their universities. Staff disconnected the internet, but people connected via USB wireless sticks and phones.
A student said, “We gave Edinburgh a tour of the Rad Cam and we both talked about what each other were doing and plans for the future. Throughout the night and second day the police kept reading out legal statements informing us that our actions were illegal and we were accountable to trespassing. They tried to push documents through the door to make us read them, but we pushed them straight back.”
The occupation of the Lower Camera continued during Thursday, until the police broke in.
“I heard the stack door suddenly being smashed at around 4.30pm. The police started battering down the door and stormed in. We realised there was no point in resisting and so we retreated upstairs as a group.
“The Senior Proctor came in a read out a statement about having to leave. There was a struggle; the police wanted us to leave one by one so they could search us, because of reports of a laptop and books being stolen.
“A lot of people were complaining about bruising to their arms. The police were very strict.”
The occupiers, consisting of Oxford residents and students from Cherwell College as well as Oxford University, also received messages of solidarity from the NUT National Executive and the Oxford Anti-Cuts Alliance. Some academics also declared their full support, including Dr John Parrington, the Senior Tutor in Medicine at Worcester.
“I came to the occupation earlier tonight to deliver a message of support,” he wrote, “but the police were denying entry. I fully support your action against the disgusting attacks on education currently being attempted by the government…students should continue their protests until we beat back these government attacks, and lecturers and other workers should support these protests.”
The reaction from students was more mixed. Carla Neuss, a second year English Master’s student at St Peter’s College, said she was frustrated that her work had been disrupted by the protest.
“All I want to do is read Walter Shilton’s ‘Mixed Life on Devotional Literature’,” she said, “and all I’m reading right now is ‘F**K FEES.'”
The statement which the demonstrators released online stated, “We believe that education should be public and free for all. To this end we demand that the University of Oxford reiterate its opposition to education cuts and commit to not increasing fees for any courses. This library is now open to all members of the public and we invite you to join us.”
A spokesperson from the University Press Office said, “The University of Oxford supports freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest. This naturally includes protest about government spending plans for higher education. However, this was an unlawful occupation and one that caused considerable inconvenience and disruption for students wishing to pursue their studies.”
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