Friday 11th July 2025
Blog Page 1933

National Treasure

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You won’t find it on any of the maps, but there’s a room full of treasure in the Ashmolean. Ask to see the Print Room at the information desk and they whisk you off to a staff-only wing of the museum, lined with paintings and curios off-limits to other visitors.
After ringing a bell to be let in and descending a flight of stairs, you enter a huge room lined with hundreds of drawers, each filled with watercolours, etchings and drawings by artists from the 15th century to today. There’s a leaflet listing just some of the many names collected here: Degas, Dürer, Piper, Poussin… even – and I still wonder if it can be this good – ‘Leonardo’.

I had asked to see something by Turner, and watched in awe as the curator set out box after box of his Italian travel sketches on a baize-topped table. She opened up the first one, revealing a neat pile of mounted watercolours, and with a grumpily obliging expression handed me a catalogue with descriptions of each. The best bit, though, was when she asked if I wanted to ‘handle the drawings’. I put on a pair of white gloves, slid out a flat surface from the desk for a prop, and suddenly I was leafing through beautiful paintings and ink-sketches of Venice.

I was the only visitor there, and it felt like if I’d wanted to I could have stayed all morning, gazing at these unframed jewels a few inches from my eyes. It’s not often you can count the brushstrokes that make up a boat against the horizon, or trace the finest of ink lines around the contours of a figure. Do go and see for yourself – anyone can and it’s completely free. Lastly, if you’re stuck for what to ask for, Turner’s ‘Grand Canal 1940’ is an amazing start.

An Elegynt Spectacle

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The director of Peer Gynt, Radoslav Lolov, says in his notes to the preview that ‘it was the show’s alleged unstageability that first grabbed him.’

Unfortunately, as is so often the case with press previews, we have no real sense of whether he will succeed in overcoming the aforementioned unstageability. In 6th week a three-tiered scaffolding and – a full symphony orchestra will descend on the Keble O’Reilly and it is only then that we will see whether it all comes together. In the preview it was just the actors, with no costume, a table and chairs for scaffolding and tinny music from a computer in place of the orchestra.

Even so, it was clear what a difference the music could make. By far the most poignant moment was when Peer Gynt (Tim Kiely) took his mother, Aase (Margherita Philipp) in his arms, telling her stories as she slowly faded from life. Kiely’s delivery was transformed by the support of Grieg’s beautiful piece Aase’s Death and the final whispered lines of the scene had real emotive power.
There is, however, still more work to be done on the characterisation of these two actors. Both have a particularly difficult job; Kiely is expected to age by 40 years during the production and Philipp has to swap between the roles of the young bride and the aged mother. These changes and contrasts will be marked by costume but the characters themselves need to be much more delineated so that we get a real sense of movement throughout the play.

The main actors were ably supported by a strong chorus, who bring out the aspects of folk-lore which are so central to Ibsen’s work. Changing from trolls to monkeys to old women, they brought a real energy to the performance which will be even greater when allowed the freedom of the O’Reilly and the full extent of the scaffold. Jordan Waller also put in a fun cameo towards the end as two contrasting devils who tell Peer that he will neither go to heaven nor hell because he is too boringly mediocre and Jamie MacDonagh’s Mountain King watched the action unfolding beneath him with a chilling malevolence.

This should be a fantastic spectacle when it all comes together; the actors just need to strive to overcome the wonder of the music and set so that they are the standout feature of the show.

Cherwell Stage: why bother?

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Take a look at the review below, if you haven’t already. It’s good, no? Jamie Randall turned up to a preview of an Icarianly ambitious Peer Gynt. They asked him to imagine the fully orchestrated epic on the basis of nothing more than the tinny sound issuing from their laptop speakers. He did. And he was impressed. Impressed enough to say that the real thing will be well worth attending.

There would be a similar preview of A Streetcar Named Desire in this box. Really, we would have loved to have sent our reviewer along to some obscure lecture theatre at the back end of Oriel to watch a vignette of not-quite-ready scenes. But the team behind Streetcar has decided that press previews are a waste of time. They’ve already sold nine out of every ten of their tickets, so why would they need the publicity? A press preview would only be an unnecessary hassle for the actors. They need to spend their valuable time on more important things, like dressing up in tight black t-shirts and denim dresses to pout at the OxStu fashion photographers.

Instead, the cast treated Cherwell Stage to an interview in which they revealed all sorts of things that would make our readers gasp. Apparently it’s quite difficult to learn to speak in a New Orleans accent, and they’ve already sold out their first three performances. Director Anna Hextall thinks her cast ‘have got to have the confidence to be fearless on stage.’ Lead actress Ruby Thomas is ‘really nervous’ about playing Blanche DuBois. Did they mention they’ve already sold out their first three performances? Then they performed an excerpt of the play that lasted a whole three minutes.

This is not an isolated incident. Something like one in three productions cannot be bothered to arrange a press preview. ‘It’s such a fag,’ says Generic Producer. ‘It causes such disruption to our rehearsal schedule, my love, and it’s just so stressful for the actors. Let’s just concentrate on making up an unprecedentedly absurd flavour of ice cream for G&Ds and send out daily Facebook messages with more kisses than words, shall we? Cranberry and Amaretto, do you think?’

So let’s face up to the big question: who needs press previews? Or, at the bottom of it all, who needs theatre critics? Well, productions do, for starters. Even the biggest ones.

The reason is feedback. A student critic from Cherwell or OxStu is obviously not going to be a professional. Sometimes, the performance they see will be little more than an ugly larva of the final play. But when you read a theatre preview in the student papers, you are reading the considered judgement of somebody who knows and cares a lot about the stage, somebody who is outside the closed circle of the cast. Somebody who, unlike the Oxford Theatre Review writer, has had more than a couple of hours to think about your play.

But the Cherwell and OxStu Stage sections are not your private army. We’re not here to gratify marketing managers, or ourselves. Well, occasionally ourselves. But mostly we’re here to tell readers about plays. It’s our job to make sure that Oxford theatre is accessible to anybody, and to prevent it from becoming one massive pretentious gaggle of hyenas cackling at OUDS in-jokes. Hopefully on the basis of Jamie Randall’s review people will go and watch Peer Gynt who would ordinarily never have considered going to see an opera.

So here’s our message to play producers who care about more than selling out in every sense of the phrase: give us previews. It doesn’t matter if the actors don’t know all the lines yet, or if the set falls over. Reviewers are there to see what your cast can do and to get a feel for the play, not to niggle over technical issues. If you want to get a feel for your audience and a measure of your production, trust us.

To everybody else, I can only quote my fellow gentleman of the stage press, Jonny Sims: ‘Oi! Wankers! Yank your gobs off each other’s phalluses…’

Creaming Spires

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So, according to Stephen Fry, women don’t like sex. ‘Sex is the price they’re willing to pay for a relationship,’ he boldly asserted in Attitude magazine, probably with that wise twinkle in his eye we’ve all come to love, you know the one – he normally reserves it for Alan Davies’s ceaseless idiocy. ‘Do they go around having it the way gay men do?’ he asks, adding that ‘if women liked sex as much as men there would be straight cruising areas’, ‘Women would hang around in churchyards thinking: “God I’ve got to get my fucking rocks off”.’ I’ll allow a moment’s pause to imagine the venerable Fry uttering that last line. The idea of a national treasure getting his ‘fucking rocks off’ is more than a little disturbing, I think you’ll agree.

Naturally the nation’s feminists have gone mental talking about how much they love shagging. Can the feminine subaltern speak, Spivak asked. Apparently she doesn’t bladdy shut up when her enjoyment of a good fuck is in question, eh lads? Cue manly guffaws and testicle repositioning. This literally is not worth getting our collective panties in a twist over. A gay man talking about women’s lack of enthusiasm for sex is like a Christ Church student complaining because his membership to the Labour Party was rejected. Don’t read that analogy too closely, I’m not enitrely sure it holds up. Sounds good though. Women obviously like sex as much – if not more – than men do. It’s so much less fraught for the fannied among us, there’s no worry of flying half mast when essay stress hits, and while boys can shark around for weeks without a sniff of labia, a girl has got to be seriously facially-challenged if she manages not to get groped/come on to/cum on to in Bridge on a Thursday night. Maybe that’s why men are so strident about their enjoyment of it. Women don’t need to be. When you see a Rugby Blue in Wahoo on the wrong side of an initiation ceremony, topless, desperately rutting against the leg of the nearest female, do you immediately think ‘Now he is a sexually awakened, virile young man’? No. You think, ‘I bet you’re going to go home, begin indulging in the onanistic impulse, then remember you’ve got labs early tomorrow, and go to bed’. Plus on the practical side, if I wanted to go dogging (which I might, mightn’t I?) then I genuinely have no idea where to go. Where is Oxford’s prime dogging spot? Queen’s College perhaps? More guffaws. In the end though, this whole argument is pointless. How can a man who looks like a spoon talk about getting more sex than me? It beggars belief. Or maybe it buggers it.

The softer side of science

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When you stumble bleary eyed out of bed in the morning and into the shower, you’d be forgiven for not realising that the super-shine, ultra fruity hair cleansing product you reach for is in fact a form of soft matter. At 7 am such thoughts rarely go through anybody’s head. The shampoo you liberally lather into your hair, like most detergent based products, is in fact made up of molecules called surface-active agents (or surfactants) which have a very distinctive composition. They tend to have a ‘head’ which is has a partial or full electronic charge and which is ‘hydrophilic’ or water-loving. This is attached to a ‘hydrophobic’ or water-hating ‘tail’ often made up of a long hydrocarbon chain. These surfactant molecules are a form of soft matter- the way they interact with each other and with solvents dictates the properties of the material.

Surfactants clean your hair and dishes by removal of ‘greasy’ dirt particles. When mixed with water and applied to a surface, the tails of the surfactant molecules head straight for the dirt. This is because both the tails and the dirt are ‘water hating’, so sticking together means that neither has to come into contact with water. The surfactant molecules thereby coat the surface of the material and, since the interactions between the surfactant and the dirt are more favourable than between the dirt and the water, the dirt is loosened from the surface. Once this occurs the surfactant can wrap right around the dirt and hold it in a suspension in the water with the tails interacting with the dirt and the water-loving heads happily surrounded by water so that when the water is thrown away the dirt goes with it. Hey Presto! Shiny hair and squeaky clean plates!

Surfactants also have uses in paints, dyes and printing inks due to their ability to reduce surface tension. Imagine a drop of water on a piece of plastic; it forms a dome shape rather than spreading out. This is because the water and the plastic do not interact favourably. Why? Well, the water is ‘polar’ i.e. the electrons in the molecule are not evenly spread out but gather more on the oxygen than the hydrogen. Plastic on the other hand, is composed of long hydrocarbon chains with fairly even electron distribution. As a result water molecules would rather interact with other water molecules as the slightly positive parts of one molecule are attracted to the slightly negative parts of another. This sort of electrostatic interaction cannot happen with the non-polar plastic and so interactions between water and plastic are not very favourable, forcing the water to try to reduce its contact with the plastic as much as possible.

If a surfactant is added the droplet spreads out and ‘wets’ the surface. How? Well, remember the Jekyll and Hyde personality of surfactants! The hydrophobic tails point down towards the plastic whilst the polar hydrophilic heads interact with the water by electrostatic interactions. This generates a sort of buffer layer between the water and the plastic, reducing the surface tension and allowing the water to spread out.

Somewhat surprisingly detergents aren’t the only form of soft matter you come into contact with on a regular basis; colloidal systems frequently encountered in daily life too. A colloid is a system made up of two different types of matter, or phases, where one is finely divided and dispersed in the continuous medium of the other. Sounds a bit foggy? Well, it should do! Fog is made up of water droplets that are dispersed in the continuous medium of air. In fact, this makes fog a liquid aerosol! What’s more, the white fluid you pour on your cereal is also a colloidal system. Yup, milk is soft matter as is blood believe it or not! Here the ‘continuous medium’ is a liquid called blood plasma which has microscopic solid particles, such as red blood cells and minerals, dispersed in it.

So next time you reach for your shampoo bottle, eat your breakfast and head out on a misty November morning, bear in mind that you have just had a close encounter with the softer side of science.

A Congregation of American Tongues

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At times in Oxford, I get a little homesick because the constant babble of voices around me contain no familiar accents. As an undergraduate here, my circle of close friends consists almost entirely of British students, with a couple of exceptions; I’m sure this isn’t very different to what many other international students experience.

 

Walking down the street, whenever I do hear another American voice, whether it’s a tourist (likely), a grad student (slightly less likely, but still possible), an American college junior here on a study abroad year (highly probable) or a full-time undergraduate like myself (rare), my attention is momentarily riveted in the direction of the speaker. And then I’ll continue on my way, off to meet my British-accented friends.

 

Occasionally, a tutor will begin a lecture and I’ll be caught off-guard by an American accent originating from the podium in an Exam Schools room. And as I’m taking American history as one of my modules this term, it’s been a pleasant surprise to hear several compatriots in those particular lectures.

 

But over the past few terms, I’ve realized that there is one place I can go where I’m guaranteed to hear other American tongues, and fairly frequently in fact. What is this place, you might ask? Is it the Rothmere American Institute or Vere Harmsworth Library? Or Rhodes House, perhaps?

 

The answer is: none of the above. The one place I’m guaranteed to hear other Americans is the Oxford Union on a night when an American politician is coming to speak. Throughout my first year, I caught on to this occurrence, which was manifested again in full force this past Tuesday when Senator Jim Risch of Idaho spoke in the Gladstone Room.

 

After summarizing his political experience for the assembled group of around thirty students, Senator Risch spoke for several minutes on topics ranging from the relationship between the United States and Britain, to the state of the economy, and the future of US politics. Throughout his discourse, I saw other heads in the room nodding in agreement or quietly shaking in dissatisfaction. While it seemed as though the majority of the listeners had some grasp on the senator’s main points, it wasn’t until the time came to take questions from the floor that the full force of the American tongues came to light. One raised hand after another brought a query in a distinctly American accent. The senator himself commented on this, asking jovially after the fourth time this occurred if please, for the next question, a resident of the country we were currently in could take the floor. He was willingly obliged in his request, but afterwards the floor continued to be dominated by American tongues. Oxford itself, at least at undergraduate level, is not much more than ten percent international, and perhaps only ten percent of those students are North American. However, fully two-thirds of the students in that room hailed from across the pond.

 

And in a way, whilst some may find it amusing, and others may think it sad, it’s nice to be able to count on this sort of occasion. Even on this side of the Atlantic, there’s always a place to go (at least on the subject of politics. On all other accounts, it’s the luck of the draw…)

Wake me up when it gets interesting

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This week’s Manchester derby was given the usual overblown build up by the media, and created a sense of excitement which I became inevitably caught up in. This excitement lasted right up until I heard how the two teams were going to line up. Both employed the same formation to mirror the other side, with one recognised striker a piece – in other words to cancel each other out so that no excitement, chances or entertaining football was possible. It was going to end nil-nil unless someone on the pitch produced one piece of unbelievable quality, or a poor defensive error. In reality this didn’t happen and the game ended scoreless, but even if it hadn’t you still couldn’t have called it entertaining. Sitting through 90 minutes of watching centre backs pass to each other, with the potential for one moment of incident, isn’t overly enthralling.

The problem was most clearly highlighted in the City vs. United game, but arguably plagues the whole of the league. Out of the 20 Premier League teams to play in the latest round of fixtures, only 5 started with two recognised strikers. Many would argue that the fashionable 4-3-3 / 4-5-1 formation employed by many sides in the division does deliver entertaining football, but I would argue that far too often the emphasis is more on packing the midfield rather than releasing wingers to be all-out attackers. The fear of losing is too great, and the huge number of average players in the Premier League can be used effectively to disrupt the few truly quality players and destroy attacking play.

There are exceptions, most notably Blackpool manager Ian Holloway, whose teams do go out to win games. His was one of the sides that played two strikers this week – and his positivity was rewarded by his side scoring two goals. Unfortunately for him (and football purists), this approach did lead to Blackpool conceding three goals and losing the match. A similar thing happened earlier in the season when Blackpool went all out for a victory in the closing minutes against Blackburn only to be hit on the break and come away with nothing. That appears to be the problem; the negative tactic (as employed by Blackburn) is far too effective.

The inspiration behind this blog is a quote from former Tottenham captain Danny Blanchflower – “Football is about glory. Going out there and beating the other team, not waiting for them to die of boredom.” Unfortunately the current footballing climate appears to favour waiting for the other team to die of boredom, or failing that at least ensuring that any spectator does. The question is, if it continues like this will there be anyone left watching?

From the player’s mouth

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JCR Rugby First Division

Teddy Hall 33

St Catz 17

On Tuesday afternoon, amongst the freezing winds of uni parks, Teddy Hall stormed to a Premiership title unbeaten. Despite some refereeing controversy, Hall stormed out of the blocks, scoring 2 tries in quick succession. With players barely able to feel their fingers, and some apparent 5th week blues affecting many on the pitch, the rugby was scrappy and by no means the spectacle Hall fans have come to expect this term.

It could be argued that this term has been so successful for SEHRFC due to a perfect balance of experienced heads and highly talented freshers. This was most apparent as Oscar Vallance skipped through Catz twice and star flanker Rich Collins also touched down in a high scoring opening.

The real twist of the knife came though when the ever-present Roland McFall, fresh from bursting into the College’s XV on Sunday (staking a sound claim for a call-up to Twickenham), found himself on the shoulder of another Collins break and touched down under the posts. Eames was exceptionally consistent with the boot and Hall found themselves 28-0 up, bonus point and therefore the league already in the bag before half-time. This led to a sharp dip in commitment, and Catz’s strong full back went over for his first to show they weren’t going down without a fight.

Collins almost immediately scored again, to put the half-time score at 33-5. Following many changes the second half took on a slower, less interested atmosphere as the minutes ticked by. Hall number 10 Charlie Millar controlled midfield pretty much at his ease, and the game produced very little interesting rugby for the remaining 40 minutes, aside from Tom Clark spinning his way through much of Catz’s pack like he was a fully-fledged member of OUDC. Catz ran hard, and coupled with poor tackling in the middle from Hall, their 15 and 10 each touched down. However, there was no coming back and Hall left the field proudly led by Captain Tom Sanders and old boy Ben Tucker as the new Premiership champions of college rugby.

Henry Dunn

JCR Football Premier Division

Wadham 3

St Hugh’s 2

Both teams began the day in the relegation zone, after reaching fifth week with neither team having any victories to speak of. St Hugh’s lined up in a conventional 4-4-2 whilst Wadham defected to a Fifa/Real Madrid inspired 4-2-3-1 in an inspired break from ex Captain Frodo Baggins’ rigid 4-5-1 tactical regime. The breakthrough came in the seventeenth minute when Wadham switched the play to the right and winger Tim Poole(y) found the far top corner with a miss-hit cross from the corner of the 18-yard box.

Wadham pressed on for the next half an hour, and were rewarded when the diminutive Elliott Miley (of teapot pose fame on last week’s Cherwell back page) was hauled down in the penalty area. Poole doubled his tally with a blasted penalty down the middle, as the Hugh’s keeper David Hinton dived out the way half an hour too early.

Wadham’s defence looked typically solid from open play, however (at the risk of exposing our weakness) looked positively shocking from set-pieces. Just before half time Hugh’s scraped one back from a deep cross after yet another poorly defended corner, Mark Jamison controlling skilfully and shooting past the helpless Cowboy Jenkins to make the score 2-1 at the break.

Wadham extended their lead shortly after the break from a corner as Wright headed onto his own arm before finding the net. In an interesting interpretation of the rules of football, referee Alex Bunn said “it definitely hit his hand but I’m not giving it.”

Michael Edwards

JCR Football Premier Division

Jesus 3

Queen’s 2

The clash of the titans! Tickets sold out 3 weeks before the game as Queen’s recorded their highest attendance of the season of 23,781. The grandstands were brimming with anticipation as the teams took the field and kick off had to be delayed because of a succession of flares and bog-rolls hurled onto the field by the over-enthusiastic fans. After the stewards restored order the match could finally get underway, Queen’s winning the toss and boldly attacking with the wind in the first half.

It was Jesus who started the brighter of the two teams, camping on the edge of the Queen’s box for prolonged periods. A clumsy challenge by the scrambling Queen’s defence gave Jesus an opportunity to test the keeper inside the 5 minute mark. Perennial underachiever Maximilian Gordon-Brown, still sulking after losing the election, used the wind to his advantage to tamely float the ball onto the bar. Amid the chaos caused by this somewhat mediocre free-kick, hard-man Aussie centre-back Mike Murphy was on hand to open the scoring.

The score was doubled 5 minutes later as Italian import Tomaso Barker, astutely nicknamed “The Praying Mantis” by his adoring fans back home, showed his predatory instincts to volley the ball home from 20 yards out. The rest of the half was dominated by Queen’s however, the revival being led by the bullish striker Alex “Not as good as Ross” McDonald, and it was fitting that just before half time he levelled the scores with an easy tap-in after some silky Queen’s passing.

After the break the quality of football deteriorated as route one was too often chosen by both teams until finally a long ball from Jesus captain Shark Jeeves found Barker in space and he proceeded to slot home what would eventually be the winner. Queen’s can consider themselves unlucky not to have won the game after laying siege to the Jesus goal for the last 20 minutes, however it was to be Jesus who march on to the next round, leaving Queen’s to lick their wounds and rue missed opportunities.

David Rowley

Review: Mansfield Open Mic Night

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Manfield – a small and oft-overlooked college – has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. Its enormous JCR was buzzing on Saturday night with what appeared to be almost the entire student body, gathered together to watch three hours of homegrown comic and musical talent.

The image of Anna Turskaya elegantly playing the harp among the arcade machines set the tone for the evening, which showcased remarkable talent in a low-key and informal atmosphere. All of the comedians got laughs, and even the least confident possessed some imaginative material.

The musical acts were all enjoyable and a few performers really stood out. Singer-songwriter Alice Codner charmed with her powerful but delicate voice and witty lyrics. Duo Ben Featherstone and Joe Chrisp gave an understated but compelling performance, combining rich vocals with bluesy guitar. At the end of the night, the organisers confirmed that this was the biggest ever Mansfield Open Mic Night; let’s hope it continues to grow, as the college knows how to put on a good show.