Wednesday 9th July 2025
Blog Page 1950

Nothing rhymes with ‘polio’

Dave Mcleod
-
0
Nothing rhymes with ‘polio’

Don’t mention Polio. It’s the dirty word on the empty streets and playgrounds of Weequahic, Newark. The fathers and brothers and eldest sons are on the battlefields of occupied France in the summer of 1944, and the Keep Calm And Carry On mentality is having to deal with the outbreak of an illness that puts the under-15s at just as much risk. So don’t mention any of it – try not to think about it.
This is the strategy of the classically manly, Don-Draper-esque Bucky Cantor, the only man in the suburb, and surrogate father to the children who use the playground he watches over. He works out. He throws javelin. All the kids want to grow up into his broad chest and wide shoulders. He referees baseball games, stops the boys from getting in the way of girls playing jump rope, takes them to the malt shop to escape the midday sun, tries to stop them drinking out of each others soda bottles, and definitely, definitely, doesn’t say anything about- well, you know.

The theme of Philip Roth’s Nemesis is power and responsibility – what is power, what do we do with it, what can we do with it, what can’t we do with it, why does this scare us, what does that make us? The titles of the books in the series tell a story. Everyman. Indignation. The Humbling. Nemesis. Personal battles, personal motivations, personal defeat. It’s the war novel for the war at home. The same fear, the same resilience, the same inadequacy against something bigger than you, tougher than you, something that’s killing the people around you, and that you don’t know how to stop.

So the scale of the book matches the scale of the conflict. A single summer, a single problem, a single man. A community of a few dozen Jews, their lives structured around their 2.5 kid families, in a section of a suburb small enough for quarantine to be the whispered eventual outcome. The threat is ever-present, inescapable, and stifling.

Everyone is afraid. They’re afraid for the children. The outbreak is targeting the sort-of-young – those on the cusp of adolescence and about to be forced to grow up more quickly than any 12 year old should have to.

Bucky’s here because he knows, clearly, what he should do, what he thinks he has to do. He’s here, in Weequahig, fighting a disease that nobody understands, where his broad chest and wide shoulders can’t do anything. His best efforts are trying to keep the kids outside and active, and even this he isn’t sure is a good thing, and not just helping the outbreak continue. The parents lose their faith in him over time, and the numbers dwindle until there’s barely enough to field teams for baseball games anymore. It’s the unwinnable fight. And Bucky has to try not to think about the sweetheart safe in the countryside, about how easy it would be to quit and leave, how the draft can’t touch him, how nobody could stop him from walking away, from leaving the sick and the dying and the soon-to-be-dead in these suburban trenches.

This deliberation forms the spiritual body of the novel. 240 pages, with German autobahns for margins, so there isn’t much room for anything else except his contemplation. It’s a meditation. The archetype of the hero and the shadow of responsibility. I can’t remember the last time I read anything that didn’t involve vampires or boy wizards wherea protagonist actually acted completely selflessly with confidence, but the ideal is still out there. It’s the ideal he has to, at least, be seen to embody, for the sake of those depending on him, regardless of how he feels inside.

Is it selfish to walk away from a fight you can’t win? Is it selfish not to want to watch children get sick and paralyzed when they shouldn’t even be dealing with this in the first place? The parents get by propped up by the twin crutches of God and Family – things that Bucky finds it impossible to fall back on. All he has is responsibility, and the gut feeling that somehow, though he can’t sign on himself, Weequahic has become his personal France.

Time, Gentlemen. So. It’s good – great even. A serious consideration of the burden of responsibility in a fight you don’t stand a chance of winning maybe isn’t the best thing to pick up if you feel as pessimistic about Finals as I do. On the other hand, maybe it is. The closing chapters tie a ribbon around the themes and messages, providing more than enough to think about. But then – £16 for 240 pages. The rest of the series is available in paperback. Which might be what you’d call a more sound investment. And actually, novellas that feel like the book equivalent of 2-act plays are a decent format for the Oxford lifestyle. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon before the week of work. Go on. Be a man. Read him.

In the closet

Archive
-
0
In the closet

As one reads more and more in fashion magazines and style guides, so many distinct voices begin to form a chorus, highly pitched and sanctimonious, the outlines of the programme discernible before the latest repertory has been fully formed. The advice takes the form of ritual chant, as surprising in its variety as the four seasons, the ‘must haves’ for fall as predictable as the floral prints that bloom so reliably every spring.

So it is that one reads how to expand the wardrobe, with precious economy, by pairing more colourful shirts with a staid (and presumably smaller) stable of jackets. While some truth is plainly lurking here, the appeal to thrift puts one immediately on guard, for what is practical is rarely fashionable, therein lying not only the rub but also the pinch, nip, tuck, and even girdle.

The real economy comes from attending to the small parts of the shirt on continuous display, not the bulk kept hidden behind two or three jacket buttons. (Do see our column in Naught Week for questions of fit, the sartorial back stage, or what you might whisper to your tailor before the curtain calls.) Of these the collar is most prominent, where in addition to spread, consider also the width of the collar band, the bit of the shirt that fastens ’round your neck. A deep band accommodates a greater variety of tie fabrics and knots, the most cumbersome of which will protrude above the collar if the band is too narrow, a discomfort that is also unsightly, even worse than merely practical. Otherwise, wider spreads typically look more dashing, especially when the tie is loosened or removed, but fail utterly without the support of collar stays, which your dry cleaner should provide gratis.

Then there are the cuffs, where the choice is typically between French or barrel (the latter close with buttons, not links), but a compromise is available in the ‘cocktail’ cuff, which folds back like the French but over a button closure. French cuffs are generally preferred (they do look more elegant), but three-button barrels are a delightful exception, as is just about anything that bucks a City trend.
Chris Graham

Creaming Spires

Archive
-
0
Creaming Spires

All I’ve done since the start of this term is work and get fucked. And unfortunately, I am not referring to the venereal meaning of ‘fucked’. I mean I’ve been reading like a biatch, then drinking A LOT and making strangers listen to me talk crap. Sometimes even forcing strangers to watch me crap. Well, I only made her watch me wee, I add quickly, before your filthy, finalist, sex starved brains conjure up a Salvatore Dali-esque image of scatological horror. And this communal wee was, in fairness, intended in some kind of inebriatedly logical world, to be an intimate, sisterly, ‘friend making activity’. Oh, and the fact I only realised half way through that I was pretty much naked, because going for a piss in a onesie doesn’t leave much to the imagination. ANYWAY, my point is, that my ordinarily daily dose of hide the salami/slap and tickle/insert insertion euphemism here has depleted. I was probably, in retrospect, subconsciously flashing my tits and vag to this innocent girl as a kind of primal come on. This makes her swift exit all the more embarrassing.

Is this what it’s like being a finalist? Is this why they all looked so stressed last year? Is all that’s left to me until Trinity term the ambivalent thrill of the danger wank, as I lustily wait for my scout’s visiting hour? Or another chance encounter with a vulnerable stranger in a house party toilet? Sigh. Surely not. The other day, me and the boyf were discussing the dubious honour of being Deaned for excessive porn consumption in college rooms. ‘You’ve maxed out your download limit! AND THEN,’ voice filled with horror, ‘YOU SHAMELESSLY MOVED ON TO MEGAVIDEO.’ There would be some kind of exhibitionist bravado to it, we reasoned; to look into the Dean’s face, knowing that he knows that you like, say, albino dwarf porn.

But these are the thrills sought by the celibate, those who can’t just get fucked, like that terrifying man with breasts who keeps turning up at the Cellar’s virtually empty indie nights (has anyone else seen him?) or the girls you see buying two Hassans on the way home. Grim. I’m quite happy just getting a good seeing to now and then, no scatology, no porn, no non-consensual genital presentation, nothing but good old fashioned coitus. It’s going to have to happen soon, before my dubiously hilarious summons to the Dean’s office for any of the above.

In praise of folly

Chris Graham
-
0
In praise of folly

Most interviews with Lewis Lapham employ a standard biographical sketch, reciting the well-known chorus of his first-class education (the Hotchkiss School, Yale, Cambridge), patrician bearing and manners (he never travels outside of his jacket, tie and pocket square), sterling silver prose (with which he has ‘carried home U.S. National Magazine awards in a wheelbarrow’), and, most especially, his estimable knowledge of the history of Western civilization, which he deploys reflexively and with staggering acuity. The portrait is so refined and appears so consistently as to be self-sustaining, the source of its own truth; except that it sits uncomfortably next to Lapham’s own description of the journalistic ideal, which bears little resemblance to the goods advertised on the press box:

‘[The press is necessary] precisely because it is an afflication, by reason of its ugliness rather than its imagined beauty… for exactly those reasons that require of it little understanding and less compassion, no sense of aesthetics, and the gall of a coroner.’ (Mandate From Heaven, 1973)

The man who greets me in the offices of Lapham’s Quarterly, the historical anthology Lapham founded in 2007 after thirty years as editor of Harper’s Magazine, is a happy composite of these two ideals. He is endlessly polite, and speaks in the congenial growl befitting a man who once told a reporter ‘Cigarettes are life itself’. He edits the Quarterly from a tiny office suite teeming with books and papers (most of which display historical interest), three interns tucked against one wall, three cubicles pressed against the other. Lapham’s office is enclosed by a glass partition at the end of the room (behind which he sifts through still more literary detritus), and while waiting in the lounge across the hall (in the offices of The Nation, a sister publication to the Quarterly), I marvel at the egalitarian spirit captured by a note affixed to the sink: ‘You’re going to help save the world…and you can’t even wash your own dirty dishes?’

Wither verisimilitude? Not on Lapham’s watch, which has been continuous since 1957 when he took-up as a reporter with the San Francisco Examiner. Lapham moved to the New York Herald Tribune in 1960, and remained in the city as a contract writer for various publications before becoming editor of Harper’s in 1976. His experience over the past fifty years, combined with his appreciation for the historical perspective – ‘I wouldn’t know how to make sense of the newspapers unless I had a sense of history’ – is such that it takes nearly thirty seconds for Lapham to manage a response to, ‘When was the last time you were surprised by something you read in the newspaper?’ He finally offers, deadpan, ‘Well, I get surprised all the time’, referencing a number of recent political scandals (Eliot Spitzer’s adventures in prostitution, a Chicago governor auctioning a senate seat) before summarizing, ‘I’m constanly surprised by the outlandishness of American politics. In praise of folly, so to speak.’
‘In praise of folly’ might be the most apt summary of Lapham’s view of the American experience, which he has likened to living in ‘the land in which money never dies’, amongst post-war generations born to such immense prosperity that they have come to treat liberty as a trust fund, an inheritance best preserved by limited use of the invested capital. Lapham’s essays have been collected in fourteen books over the past twenty-five years, a suite of variations on the theme of ‘United States as spendthrift heir’, a country that long ago exchanged its history books for full-length mirrors. Lapham’s ‘praise’ thus commonly assumes the satirical form, such as when he concludes at one part of the interview that ‘The two great American literary forms are the sermon and the sales pitch.’

The American obsession with self-promotion – Lapham had a field day when American scholar Francis Fukuyama declared ‘the end of history’ – is also why Lapham’s influence has remained comparatively slight. (A reporter once observed that Lapham had ‘some difficulty [making] a list of who in America pays attention to him.’) Lapham knows exactly why he’s not more popular in the editorial columns or the talk show circuit. ‘I’m not apt to know what I’m going to say, and they need people they can rely on. Your opinions have to be a commodity that can be trusted to measure up to the contents named on the box. You know what Rush Limbaugh’s going to say, you know what Paul Krugman’s going to say, and so on. God help them if they should change their minds.’

Lapham’s approach to journalism is determinedly, even romantically different. ‘I write slowly’, he says, ‘I write with a pen.’ His preferred format is now the essay, which he begins without any real idea of where he will finish. ‘I really don’t know where it’s going, or in which sense it’s coming from, until I see the words show up on the page.’ He works through six or seven drafts, and finishes somewhere less than where his accolades suggest. ‘The best that I hoped for was a manuscript that required not only the shifting around of a few paragraphs but also the abandonment of its postulates and premise.’
Speaking of essays, Lapham retains vivid memories of his first tutorial at Cambridge. ‘I’m wearing a gown, there’s tea, it’s a damp day in October’, when his tutor begins, ‘Perhaps you could spare a few minutes for the twelfth century?’ In response to Lapham’s ‘few large-minded generalizations’, his tutor posed a number of very specific questions – How many forms of coinage then circulating in Europe? How long to travel by sea from Dover to Marseille? – to which Lapham had, ‘of course, no answers at all’.

It was at this point that the tutor delivered unto Lapham the most polite critique he had ever received. ‘You know, it’s wonderful. You Americans have a truly enviable, a magnificent grasp of the large abstraction, the grand simplification. It’s a talent that we endlessly admire; however, in England, it’s tiresome, but before climbing to the heights of understanding, we try to pack at least a few facts.’
At this Lapham laughs heartily, in praise of folly, even his own.

The website for Lapham’s Quarterly is: www.laphamsquarterly.org

Jesus, it’s so boring round here

James Gibson
-
0
Jesus, it’s so boring round here

Students at Jesus College have been mourning the “death of fun” at their college this week.

Dissatisfied JCR members have been wearing black armbands to protest against the “academic clampdown” which they believe has been imposed by College authorities.

A motion passed in last week’s JCR meeting accused Dr Alexandra Lumbers, Jesus’s Senior Tutor, of using “scare tactics” to raise academic standards.

The motion suggested “that all members wear black armbands” in remembrance of fun, and was passed with one abstention and no votes against it.

An email from JCR President Alex Mohan explained that while the students’ actions were a “light hearted and tongue-in-cheek mourning of fun,” they were also “a serious protest against the changing attitude of the senior members of staff in the college towards what is expected of students.”

He added, “It is felt that the tone of this year’s Freshers’ Week and the increased use of special and penal collections over the past year are detrimental to this healthy balance, pushing the emphasis too far towards work at the expense of welfare and enjoyment of the university experience.”

A student at the college said, “It is a sad day for Jesus when its students aren’t experiencing Oxford to the full.

“Everyone realises that work is important, but we don’t want these to be the three most boring years of our lives. Everyone is in the library the whole time: it’s all part of their ‘drive for five’.”

The ‘drive for five’ is a term which has been coined by Jesus students to refer to the College’s perceived academic push to gain a spot in the top 5 in the Norrington Table.

When asked about the protests, Dr Lumbers, the Senior Tutor, claimed that there had been no change in College policy and that no decisions had yet been made.

The dispute reportedly began when ‘Babies’ Weekend,’ a Jesus tradition whereby sixth-formers with offers of places at the college visit Jesus for a ‘weekend of fun’, was cancelled by senior management. The annual event was reinstated in a reduced form after a petition was organised by students.

The college’s changes have created what another Jesus student described as a “climate of fear”.The ‘Turl Street Dash’ has also been banned by College authorities, and students are facing tougher penalties on special and penal collections.

One JCR official said that the number of novice rowing teams has fallen from 7 to 3 in a year, highlighting the dramatic fall in extra-curricular participation.

Ben Ruddle, a second year at the college, wore the armband while the television drama ‘Lewis’ was being filmed at the college, to add weight to the protest.

The Senior Tutor said, “There are ongoing discussions with students, who are now represented on the college governing body.” She also expressed surprise about being singled out in the JCR motion, pointing out that academic policies were set collectively by the senior staff at the college.
She added that there was an ongoing strategic review concerned with all aspects of College, including “ensuring that the College’s disciplinary measures – both academic and non-academic – are fair and transparent, in line with University guidelines.”

View from the (Cam)bridge: week two

Avantika Chilkoti
-
0
View from the (Cam)bridge: week two

Well, this week I’m offended. No, not “offended”. Cut that. I’m just plain pissed off. I usually fall asleep on the train. It takes a waft of Cornish pasty and a pre-requested nudge from the new, confused acquaintance on the seat opposite (they tend to think it some twisted chat-up line) to wake me up on the London-Cambridge sojourn. But this weekend a lethal conspiracy between caffeine and excitement meant I remained awake for the full forty-five minutes. And pulling up at Cambridge station – my station – a travesty was to be had. For the first time in 2 years, I was greeted by a sign that can only be explained as a sick joke involving sarcasm, or condescension…or condescending sarcasm…or sarcastic condescension. It read: “Cambridge, home of Anglia Ruskin University”. I mean, really? It’s like saying Freddie Ljunberg’s an underwear model. That Britney is Jamie-Lynn’s sister. That Arnie’s the Governor of California. That the UL is somewhere people go to work. My inner pikey was awakened as I started itching for a spray-can and the veil of dusk.

—

And what else is the ‘Bridge offering up these days? You may have heard about this already. Here’s hoping you haven’t. But a couple of Cantabs have fallen just short of creating their very own world. Like, well, God or something. We’re that good down these ends. It’s like an extended version of Geography GCSE. You know what I’m talking about? That last question on every paper. Twelve marks for a case study, usually a rural example and always about a “dormitory settlement”. No one bothered finding the textbook, so everyone made up a village and gave it an economic crisis, a failing bus connection and an evil plague of escaping stockbrokers infesting its best properties. Now, where was I? Yes, these two Light Blues have taken that ol’ exam scam further. The Paddlesworth Press
(http://www.varsity.co.uk/arts/2578) is an online paper with “news and views” about the eponymous village. From “Global Hand Washing Day” to protest marches, the site is kept up-to-date with terrifying realism. An article in The Guardian about the “fictitious” community sparked outrage. The website’s headline read: “Paddlesworth villagers have met The Guardian newspaper’s “Plot off the Press” article with widespread ridicule and derision”.

As far as the internet is concerned, Paddlesworth is a fully fledged settlement. They’ve taken it so far that those mentioned even have their own Facebook and Twitter accounts – Major Fitzroy-Howard’s one for your next Sunday Evening Stalk Session. Humour aside, it’s a telling investigation into the power of the internet. Given that most journalists in this country see their job description as “Google Summariser”, I’m just waiting for the day when Paddlesworth is covered on BBC Weather. And for those who question when this internet-age Leviathon will quiver to a halt as these Cambridge chaps run out of fodder for their pages, fret not. The Apocalypse is neigh. So you must log on before Doomsday comes, if only for inspiration. A racist selling dolls’ houses? Now there’s your niche, a gap in the “real world” market just waiting to make you millions.

Full-frontal fright for freshers

Cherwell News Team
-
0
Full-frontal fright for freshers

Naked Christ Church second years disrupted the college matriculation photograph on Saturday morning for the second year in a row.
One pair of balaclava-clad male students were seen leapfrogging around the quad where the photo was taking place, while others held a nude picnic on the grass. The picnickers reportedly used just a kettle and a toaster to preserve their modesty.

Female students stripped off at an upstairs window in the quad, with the word ‘SMILE’ written across their torsos.

Such distractions during the matriculation photograph have been a tradition at Christ Church for many years, although wholesale nudity was only introduced last year.

The photographer, from the well-established firm Gillman and Soame, was reportedly considerably angered by the naked students. He was heard to shout “We’re trying to take a picture here!” at the leapfrogging men.

The majority of freshers are said to have enjoyed watching the spectacle. However, one first year graduate student said that he had found the experience “scarring”.

Although the stunts were observed by porters, custodians and college staff, those involved are not thought to be facing disciplinary action.
The Christ Church Junior Censor, Dr Ian Watson, has yet to contact students about the incident.

The college’s ‘Blue Book’, which contains details of its rules and regulations, makes no mention of protocols regarding nudity in over 26,000 words.

The spectacle is rumoured to have been orchestrated by a member of the JCR Committee. However the JCR President, Matt Barrett, denied any prior knowledge of events.

The committee released a statement saying, “Saturday morning was just one of those bizarre moments when a group of people spontaneously decide to strip off.

“There was absolutely no previous agreement or consensus to that effect, although it did liven up what is otherwise quite a tedious morning.”

A third year medic said, “The best part of the experience was seeing the smiles on the old Deans’ faces.”

None of those involved in the nudity were available for comment. The identity of the leapfroggers is still uncertain, despite the fact that one of their balaclavas became dislodged during their tour of the quad.
At last year’s photograph, a masked nudist somersaulted into Mercury, the famous Christ Church fountain.

The relocation of the photograph to Peckwater Quad this year was thought to be designed to prevent such incidents .

Nice Rack

Holly Graham
-
0
Nice Rack

There are lots of adjustments to be made when you move out of home. The hardest of all is probably the realisation that absolutely everything costs money. In the kitchen, all those things that line the cupboards – the extra virgin Spanish olive oil, the three different types of balsamic vinegar, even the bloody salt and pepper – are actually sourced and paid for by someone. And now, that someone is you.

Some people get round this by making a ‘big shop’ part of the termly parental drop off. Others just raid their houses, presumably leaving their parents distressed at their new mother-hubbard status. And some – although a straw poll of my friends indicate that this number may be very low – actually go and stock their store cupboard themselves.

Whatever method you choose, whether you have to beg, borrow, or even buy – my recommendation is to get some spices. It will cost under a tenner for all the essentials (cumin, coriander, ginger, turmeric, paprika although see below for a couple of jazzy extras) and they can transform 3-for-£1 chick peas or chewy looking ‘casserole meat’ with just a magical sprinkle.

See below for my first cheap and easy recipes to get your spices flowing.

Chick pea curry

Serves 4, approx 95p per serving

So cheap and so, so delicious – used creamed coconut mixed with water if coconut milk seems too indulgent (both are available in ‘World Foods’ section of most Oxford supermarkets)

1 x 400g can chick peas

1 onion


2 large cloves of garlic


olive oil


a large thumb-sized lump of ginger


2 tsps crushed, dried chillies

1 tbsp ground coriander


2 tsps ground turmeric


1.5kg squash


8 cardamom pods


400ml can of coconut milk

Peel and slice the onion into thin strips. Put two tablespoons of olive oil in a pan in, and add the onion along with the peeled and sliced garlic cloves (add them to cold oil so the garlic doesn’t burn). Cook on a low heat for about 15 minutes until the onion is soft – stirring it sometimes so it doesn’t burn. Peel the ginger and cut into thin strips – add to the onion with the dried chillies, coriander, and turmeric. Cook the spices for a couple of minutes. Pour over half a litre of water and allow to heat until boiling. Add the squash (peeled and chopped into chunks).
Cover with a lid or some tin-foil and leave simmering (slow boil) for 20 minutes. Check that the squash is tender. Remove the black seeds from the green outer casing of cardamom pods and crush them a little. Add these into the mix, along with coconut and the can of chick peas. Season with salt and pepper and leave to cook for another fifteen minutes.

This curry can be served at this stage, but if you have time, turn off the heat and let it sit – it will be more tasty if allowed to mix. Serve with boiled rice (it’s great with brown if you like it) or wrapped into a roti.

Beef tagine

Serves 5, approx £1.75 a portion

Tagine is a bit more complicated than the other recipes here. The meat will need an hour or so in the spices and then almost three hours cooking. But it just gets left alone so its not very taxing. This recipe uses the Moroccan spice mix Ras-El-Hanout. Its available at most supermarkets and costs about £2.49 from Oxford’s Tesco Metros. Its available for cheaper (about £1.80) from Maroc Deli on Cowley Road. It’s worth the effort – but if you can’t be bothered, take it out and use 1 ½ tbsps of cumin and ginger instead of just one.

Spice mix:

salt and pepper

1 tbsp ras el hanout

1 tbsp cumin

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

1 tbsp ground ginger

1 tbsp paprika

Other ingredients:

600g casserole beef (this is about the cheapest cut of meat, but is absolutely amazing when cooked for this long)

olive oil

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 x 400g tin of chickpeas

1 x 400g tin of plum tomatoes

1 litre vegetable stock

Mix all the spices in a bowl, add the beef (chopped into small chunks if it doesn’t come like that) and rub with the spice mix. Cover with clingfilm and put into the fridge for at least an hour so the spices can mix with the meat.

When its adequately melded, heat a (preferable heavy-bottomed) pan and fry the spicy meat on a medium heat for 5 minutes. Add your chopped onion, and fry for another 5 minutes. Tip in the chickpeas (drained) and tomatoes, then pour in half the stock and give it a stir. Once it has reached boiling, stir it again and put the lid on the pan (use foil if you’re lidless). Reduce to a low-medium heat and leave for 1½ hours. Give it a stir every now and again if possible – so it doesn’t burn at the bottom.

At this point – add the second 500ml of stock and cook for another 1½ hours. After this, take off the lid – add some water if its got too dry, leave to simmer on a high heat if there’s too much liquid. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with cous cous or rice (and maybe a scattering of coriander leaves if you’re cooking for someone special).

Fajitas!

This is just the recipe for a home-made fajita seasoning, which can be added to chicken or any other meat and left for a bit (an hour is great, five minutes will do) before frying. If nothing else, it’s more authentically Mexican than Old El Paso. Omit cayenne pepper if you don’t have it – but try and use hot chilli powder for some warmth.
I haven’t included any other fajita instructions – you’re a student, it’s fajitas, you’ve made it before.

1 garlic clove, crushed or finely chopped

1½ tsp cumin

1½ tsp paprika

1½ tsp chilli powder

½ tsp oregano

½ tsp cayenne pepper

½ tsp sugar

salt and pepper

oil

Mix together the garlic and spices. Add a generous glug of oil, mix again and pour over the chicken. Leave to penetrate the chicken (ooh-er) for 20 minutes or more if you can.

Wayne’s underworld

Scott Mody
-
0
Wayne’s underworld

A few months ago, I wrote about the heroic potential that awaited a pre-World Cup Wayne Rooney: the sporting globe was his to conquer, and his outstanding form seemed every inch prepared to deliver. Fortunes rise and fall speedily in the realm of football, but this is tragedy at terminal velocity: fast-forward a dismal summer, and the striker’s star has utterly imploded, both on and off the pitch. Remember that Nike advert, the one we all hoped presciently prophetic, with Rooney adulated and knighted? Well, it was spot on. Pity, though, because it is the satanic, post-apocalyptic and fiery version of the future that has careered and melded so seamlessly into the player’s nightmarish present.

Truth is, Rooney’s stunning decision to quit United is even more astonishing than his decision to patronize that Bolton call-girl. Like it or not, the modern footballer is an amoral animal, often revelling more in his playboy vices than in his playing victories: we fans can stomach a scandal or two, so long as the goals and wins keep coming, of course. Look at Terry and Cole and Gerrard, as leading examples, among countless other cases of unscrupulous, uncivil behaviour. Rooney, though, seems to have emerged from his embarrassing, self-created crisis by lashing out in the most illogical, counterintuitive manner: he’s bitten off the hand that feeds him, and he’s swallowed it down whole.

His temerity to cross the Old Trafford Godfather is as nonsensical as it is idiotic: Ferguson has never tolerated insubordination or misconduct, but even he is willing to grant absolution to Rooney’s enormous talent. We do not yet know for sure why exactly the player wants to leave: for one thing, a heinous hop across town to City hardly alleviates the problem of media intrusion, does it? And Chelsea is a no-go, with Rooney allegedly (and peculiarly provincially) suggesting that ‘the London lifestyle’, whatever this means, is not for him. Forget the Spanish clubs, too, which all require new recruits to learn their language: you can barely imagine philologists running for their textbooks (and earmuffs, probably) at the sound of some Scouse-Catalan pidgin, can you?

Ferguson’s powerful rhetoric has now placed the ball firmly in Rooney’s penalty area: does he evince himself the shallow, callous, greedy and vapid character that he has, often unfairly, been intimated to be? Or can he restore a shred of dignity, and re-rail his life and career: there can surely be no better club, or manager, to provide the pastoral guidance that Rooney so badly needs. The coming months are a pivotal fulcrum of his history as a professional footballer- the wrong choice now will cripple him forever, and I fear that a United exit, evermore likely, will represent a moment of harrowing remorse when all the dust eventually settles.

Rooney’s fatal flaws have never been so prevalent: he is immature, unthinking, and has far too much money for a man of his age. But tragedy might yet be averted: to remain at Old Trafford could rescue Rooney from the brink of personal and professional meltdown, because you gravely sense that his erratic soul is teetering on the precipice of some very dark places. For the sake of football fans everywhere, we should hope that the fragmented jigsaw of his inestimable ability has not been dissembled beyond repair.

United offers a sanctuary that Rooney simply cannot afford to depart: only as a Red Devil can he chase away all those demons.

Review: ‘I Don’t Want To See You Like This’

Matt Walsh
-
0
Review: ‘I Don’t Want To See You Like This’

In a chat to Cherwell this week, The Joy Formidable’s guitarist Rhydian Dafydd highlighted the Welsh trio’s old-fashioned way of gaining popularity: ‘I think people can see through new bands’ bullshit now. We certainly haven’t relied on the hype machine. We’ve been gigging and gigging all around the country and our fanbase has grown from that.’

It’s been working for them, and with debut LP The Big Roar now set to be released in January, Welsh noise-rockers The Joy Formidable have released ‘I Don’t Want To See You Like This’. It’s a solid example of the band’s sound – Ritzy Bryan’s waiflike, ethereal vocals against a backdrop of reverberating guitar-mashing. It graces you with a few moments of tranquillity, before cruelly assaulting your aural neurones with ear-splitting hooks.

On this track, however, the overall effect can sound quite stop-start, with lines of verse sung too quietly and too quickly. Combined with two good but rather curtailed bridges, the overall effect is at times jarring. However, it certainly shows promise from a group who, after nearly three years together, are finally enjoying a rise in popularity on these shores and across the Atlantic.

1...1,9491,9501,951...2,515Page 1,950 of 2,515

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by James Ashley