I have always had a soft spot for cats, having three of my own at home. It might not, therefore, come as much of a surprise that this week, I want to once again introduce one of Oxford’s college cats. This week, it is only right to follow on from looking at Simpkin, Hertford’s college cat, to his nemesis, Walter of Exeter College, though I will return to their feud later. Amy Gregg, former DPhil student and Junior Dean at Exeter, as well as Walter’s ‘human’, was kind enough to answer some questions for me on this piece from her own perspective.
Walter, named for the college’s founder, Walter de Stapledon, came to Exeter in 2020, during the first COVID-19 lockdown, when the college was largely deserted. Missing her pets at home, and after a failed attempt to pet Simpkin, Amy approached college to ask if she could get a cat to keep her company. By coincidence, the college had been considering getting a cat for some time, and so Walter, as a kitten, came to live in Exeter. Though he’s now well at home in the college, even having his own pidge slot in the mail room, he spent his first evening hiding behind kitchen cupboards and had to be lured out with YouTube videos of cats.
Pets have been around the college for some time unofficially, with the Head Porter’s cat often seen wandering around the Porters’ Lodge. It’s no doubt, though, that Walter is one of Oxford’s most iconic pets, even having his own Instagram account and, alongside Simpkin, being one of Cherwell’s Top 40 BNOCs. Though he can sometimes be very affectionate, he is described aptly in three words as ‘On his terms’, as he alone decides who can pet him and when, in typical cat fashion. I remember, back in Trinity of my first year, coming across him late in the evening and attempting to pet him, only to be completely blanked. Thankfully, he has been much more receptive to others.
When he’s not sleeping in the college library, to the joy of students in essay crises, he’s prowling around the grounds, and even warding off invaders. The famous Simpkin v. Walter saga of February 2022 saw Simpkin frequently invade the college library and even fight with Walter. Stealing Walter’s food and water, it is no wonder why Simpkin was banned from Exeter’s college library, though this was defied many times. Walter, however, came out as the people’s cat, winning an Instagram poll and with many even on Mumsnet declaring themselves #TeamWalter. Justice was, therefore, eventually served for Walter.
Walter is another example of how truly beneficial it can be to have a pet around college. From keeping students company during the lockdown, to being a library study buddy, or even just being around for students who miss their pets back at home, he is certainly a core part of the Exeter community. With an Instagram now maintained by current students and being cared for by the Porters’ Lodge, Walter will be at the college for years to come, playing an important welfare role in such a stressful academic environment like Oxford. Like his counterparts at other colleges, therefore, Walter once again shows the clear benefits of having furry friends around at Oxford’s colleges.
Time passes differently here in Oxford. It is something that I am not sure I will ever get my head around. As I rushed back from a lecture this morning in the rain, hurried into the kitchen, gulped down my soup and then quickly began to pack my rucksack for an afternoon study session with a friend, I suddenly found myself thinking, when did things become so much of a blur?
Stopping what I was doing for a moment, I sat down in my chair, and forced myself to do absolutely nothing for a few minutes. Nothing but sit, looking out of the window and listening to distant doors slamming shut on my staircase, echoes of voices from the kitchen and the mumble of a bike crunching along the gravel below. It was an odd moment, but a much needed pause in an otherwise hectic day.
I have experienced a heightened awareness of the busy rush of Oxford life this week, since last Thursday a flock of sheep were unleashed onto the fields that my accommodation looks out across, and so every morning I open my blinds to find a scene of pastoral idyl, which never loses its surprising and remarkable effect. The flock, made up of perhaps twenty or thirty sheep, is there morning, noon and night. As I write essays, there they are chewing on the grass; I returned from entz at three am on Saturday morning, decorated in neon glow sticks for the theme of ‘school disco’, and their white bodies shone supernaturally in the moonlight. Their pace of life is gentle, unhurried. They follow their natural instincts, seeming to do little else apart from eat and go to the toilet where and whenever is most convenient.
Often this week I have found myself comparing my life here in Oxford with theirs. All of the demands that drive my day: dodging the half term crowds on Broad Street, writing a JCR motion, scribbling down notes during a lecture and always getting left behind. All week I have been meaning to catch up with a friend who is in France on his year abroad: why haven’t I got around to it yet? What has been so very pressing that I’ve pushed aside small tasks like picking up the phone and hitting FaceTime?
And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. As the microwave pinged and I took out my bowl of mushroom soup, a flatmate pointed to the window, and we watched as a sheepdog rounded up the bundles of white, and they disappeared in a van. Now, as I look out onto the meadow, it is hard to believe that they were there at all. Sheep, in the middle of Oxford? I suppose there are cows in Christchurch Meadow. But still – sheep, outside my window? I can already see myself reminiscing in years to come, comparing nostalgic university memories with future friends, and them not quite believing that my bedroom looked out onto a field of sheep, like something from The Railway Children.
Nevertheless, I think that the sheep have taught me a lesson that a tutorial never could. They have reminded me that it is okay to stop once in a while, to chew the grass and to stare into space, and to not do much else. Sometimes, it is okay to be just another one of the flock.
And here is a reassuring thought if you are longing for the simple existence of a sheep, as given to me by a family member: that sheep have mint sauce to contend with ultimately. (Perhaps reassuring was the wrong word…)
However, it seems that we all – each and every one of us – have our challenges to face. Perhaps that makes those overwhelming days that little bit less monstrous, and reminds us not to take our niggling thoughts as seriously as we might otherwise be inclined to do.
Students in Iran are in an existential fight for freedom. At academic institutions such as Sharif University of Technology and Khajeh-Nasir Toosi University of Technology, Engineering and Science majors take to the streets calling for the end of the Islamic Republic and confront the Iranian military’s bullets and batons. While the campus and street protests may have been sparked by the Morality Police’s murder of Mahsa Jhina Amini for defying hijab law, they have expanded to a demand for the end of a system that perpetuates political and social oppression. Arian Amini declares, “Freedom in Iran begins with women and will be achieved by women.”
Iran has a history of political protest – the most recent of which in 2019 was instigated by economic mismanagement, tax cuts for elites, and rising gas prices – but all three Iranian Oxford undergraduates who spoke to Cherwell emphasize that this time is different. “Sanctions did not beat Mahsa (Jhina) Amini to death for ‘improper’ hijab,” says Arian, “The United States did not kill Sarina Esmailzadeh for enacting her right to protest. It was not the foreign powers of the West that slaughtered the protestors of Zahedan. This is the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic.”
Anger over the death of Mahsa Jhina Amini has broadened to reflect ordinary Iranians’ outrage over declines in living conditions after Western economic sanctions, widespread political corruption, and economic mismanagement. The Oxford female undergraduate states, “I was not shocked by her death in the slightest.” Even the woman’s name represents the suppression of diversity perpetuated by the Islamic Republic: the Iranian state denies Kurdish people the right to use Kurdish names; Jhina went by Mahsa officially. The identification Iranian women feel with Jhina drives their activism: “When you hear Iranian female students shouting, ‘Death to the dictator,’ it’s because to them they might as well already be dead…. They are on a second life, if you will. The morality police didn’t kill me then, let them kill me now – but before they kill me, let me have my voice heard.”
But it is not just female students who clamor for the fall of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The current protests racking the Islamic Republic span generations, social classes, and geographies of Iran. Oxford student Ali Khosravi relates the recognition by all Iranians of the precarious state of women’s rights in Iran to the wave of activism after the death of Sarah Everard in the United Kingdom. “Many women and men realized it could be them or their loved one. The usual trip in the van to the Morality Police office could be the end of us.” One of Ali’s female relatives of an older generation at home in Iran, who considers herself a devout Muslim, looks at the Ayatollahs (holy men) and is convinced that they are corrupt. He laughs recalling, “she says may God get rid of them in her religious way.”
The sentiment of Ali’s relative is shared by citizens who live in deeply religious cities such as Qom and Mashhad where women rip off their head scarves and burn them in street bonfires. Men and women across the nation shout, “Women, life, freedom,” as a rallying cry.
While all three Iranian Oxford undergraduates whole-heartedly endorse the nation-wide protests, they express the new fear with which they must contend every day that a loved one might inadvertently be caught in the crosshairs of state authority. As of October 21, the Guardian reports that military organizations have killed 250 people and arrested almost 12,500 since the street protests began. The female undergraduate cites a list of names on social media of people the military has murdered in the protests: “As much as you feel sadness about seeing that list grow, you also hope to God that you don’t recognize any of those names.”
The fight at universities across Iran is ongoing. This past Monday, October 24, students at Khaje-Nasir Toosi University of Technology booed Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi and prevented him from delivering his speech. They chanted, “We don’t want a corrupt system, we don’t want a murderous guest.” At Hamadan University, students held a gathering in honor of their classmate Negin Abdolmaleki, 21, who was beaten to death by security forces on October 12.
The most violent of the university raids by the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) occurred at Tehran’s prestigious Sharif University of Technology. On October 2, the Basij, a student-based paramilitary volunteer militia overseen by the IRGC, opened fire on protesters with rubber bullets and paintballs, critically wounding students. Ali explains the Basij “are hard-minded religious students with a branch at every university. They live in the dorms and function as an ideological arm of the state. Imagine, just for the sake of analogy, that Britain was a Catholic theocracy and the Catholic society at Oxford was the Basij.” At Sharif, there was blood on the ground, tear gas in the air, bullets flying, and shrieking cries for help, according to The New York Times. Professors approached the Basij to attempt a negotiation of a secure exit for students, and the paramilitary group brutally beat them. Sharif protesters continue to call for the release of Mohammad Nejad, a student of aerospace engineering currently held at a prison outside Tehran.
Watching the unrest her family and friends grapple with at home, the female undergraduate says, “I often feel as though I have done nothing to deserve my fate, nothing to deserve the privilege of sitting within my college walls or in cute coffee shops and complaining about how much work I have. My Iranian brothers and sisters are refusing to go to university and refusing to go to school. They are joining protests and screaming in the faces of revolutionary guards. What bravery. What astounding bravery.”
Protest also takes the form of male and female students lunching together at the university’s canteen counters, in open defiance of gender segregation rules. Two of Ali’s friends were invited to an “open conversation” with the cleric who is the representative of the Supreme Leader at academic institutions. The students were courageous enough to express their classmates’ grievances as well as criticize the Islamic republic’s suppression of human rights. The next day, Ali’s friends received threatening messages from the Ministry of Intelligence. “Clerics lure students into implicating themselves into a seditious act by expressing their desire for change… The Supreme Leader’s totalitarian regime won’t make any concessions of power. He won’t relax any restrictions because they feel that any concession will be the downfall of the regime.”
Yet, the Iranians’ fight for freedom transcends borders. The Oxford female undergraduate affirms that the Iranian students shout “because they want you to hear them. And they want to hear you.” She explains that an act as simple as posting an infographic can have damning consequences for Iranian students living abroad. “I stand to lose absolutely everything – to lose my ability to ever see my family again in Iran – by posting a single infographic on my story.”
The stark reality of this was made clear by a photo (featured below) taken by Donya Rad that Ali cites as being simultaneously a powerful symbol of the new normal and a shocking instance of the Islamic Republic’s repression of freedom. Rad’s image saw wide circulation on social media for the chord it strikes with Iranians of a casual instance of exceptional bravery; however, Rad has since been imprisoned for posting the image of her and a female friend eating breakfast in a café without hijabs.
But non-Iranian Oxford students can post infographics. They can display photos and videos on their social media of Iranian protesters’ ongoing struggle. They can write the list of names of the courageous Iranian students who have lost their lives in the fight for freedom.
Oxford students can also send motions to their Junior Common Rooms (JCR) and Middle Common Rooms (MCR) demanding that the governing bodies of their colleges release statements condemning the IRGC and Basji for attacking university administrators and students. Furthermore, if the JCRs and MCRs have a charity fund, they can donate to organizations such as Iranian & Kurdish Women’s Rights (IKWRO) and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center that bring public attention to human rights abuses in Iran.
There are also material political actions that British students can take to support the Iranian students’ cause. Arian advocates that voters write letters to their local MPs asking them to take a stand against the Iranian regime. The female undergraduate laments: “It is utterly disgraceful that the UK government, Liz Truss, the foreign secretary James Cleverly, have said nothing about the Iranian protesters. They have not even tried to demonstrate an illusion that they care. How dare the British government say nothing. Truly hurtful. This is not a partisan issue. This is human rights. Ask the leaders of your party why are you saying nothing? I’ll beg them on my knees for their fake thoughts and prayers rather than silence.” In London, there is an Islamic center funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran run by a cleric appointed by the Supreme Leader. Ali argues, “We must close that down. There is no need for a brutal dictator to have a representative in this country.”
All three Iranian Oxford undergraduates maintain that their family and friends in Iran fight for the heart of their nation. An act as simple as a male student having lunch with a female student is a subversion of the political and social system in place for almost a quarter of a century. The privilege to learn in a free and inclusive environment that Oxford students take for granted is at the heart of the urgent struggle in Iran. On the frontlines of a battle for human rights, this army of Iranian citizens is young and old, rich and poor, liberal and conservative. Arian makes it clear: “This is an Iran where women and men are willing to die to give their brothers and sisters freedom.”
Do alpacas even like to be touched? Experts claim that these stars of Oxford welfare weeks don’t like the constant attention.
Alpacas have been warmly welcomed at Oxford as paragons of tranquility. Student welfare events featuring these fluffy, adorable animals have graced at least a dozen colleges in recent years. Sam Glossop told Cherwell that their appearance at Balliol College last Trinity created a “very upbeat atmosphere” and was “probably the most popular [event] of the year.” Although “stroking an alpaca isn’t going to solve anything serious,” Sam contends that “it fits in as a fun front to the more major welfare support provided by the college systems.”
However, new concerns are arising about the ethics behind bringing in alpacas. If you search “Do alpacas like to be petted?” on Google, you will find a near consensus among alpaca farmers that alpacas in fact do not like to be petted or hugged, especially by strangers. While it may be soothing for us, it is quite stressful for the alpacas even if they do not show it.
Several staff from local alpaca farms expressed disapproval with this popular Oxford event. Philippa Wills, the proprietor of Great House Alpacas in Oxfordshire, strongly believes that petting alpacas is “a bad idea”. Having handled and bred alpacas for the past 29 years, Wills told Cherwell: “There are two types of animals, the hunted and those that hunt… alpacas belong to the hunted class and can only defend themselves by backing off or flight.” Unlike predator animals such as dogs or cats, which are also brought in for student welfare purposes, alpacas have a completely different, fear-based relationship to human interaction.
Owner of Fairytale Farm, Nick Laister, also believes that the furry critters dislike human contact. Laister told Cherwell: “The only thing we do… on occasional days, and with limited numbers, is walking with alpacas. Here, there is no direct contact, and they seem to be happy doing it.”
However, Laister also believes that with time, the animals can acclimatize themselves with humans. “Our alpacas are growing friendly with our visitors, so (they) now actually voluntarily go up to visitors who are standing by their enclosures, which is something they would never have done 10 years ago,” he stated. According to Laister, this behavioral tendency was gradually exhibited without any coaxing.
Lea Moutault, who organized last year’s alpaca event at Balliol College as the JCR welfare representative, told Cherwell that the alpacas were handled very delicately and let to wander on their own. In addition, they were reassured by Pennybridge Farm that the alpacas were comfortable with humans. However, Lea told Cherwell: “I personally think in terms of a balance between human and animal welfare, human welfare should not supersede animal welfare.” If she could organize the event again, she says that she would’ve done further research to ensure the wellbeing of the alpacas involved.
It seems like alpaca petting has made its way into the canon of ongoing animal ethics debates, alongside zoos, animal testing, and whale watching. So, when midterm blues strike, maybe let these gentle creatures be and opt for a relaxing walk with a friend or tutor’s dog, give some lettuce to your college tortoise or attempt to befriend the local cat.
When I was seventeen, I moved over three hundred miles from Edinburgh to Oxford. I expected there to be more Scottish students. I pottered around my new home, noticing how flat the earth is here and the tap water’s different taste. I was surrounded by English accents I’d never heard before and my Scottish money was rejected. Being Scottish quickly became a talking point and in turn a personality trait. My very mild accent was deemed ‘remarkably Scottish’. Yet in fresher’s week I was asked twice where in Ireland I was from. One of my tutors once tried to tell me I was a northerner and peers suggested I went along to northerner’s society events. I’m not a northerner, I’m Scottish, I insisted, as they bragged the furthest north they’ve been is Durham. When I first visited Oxford after receiving my offer it felt like stepping into a foreign country with June’s sweltering heat, and yet the English still complain about college turning off heating in Trinity term.
It was thrilling to bring out the summer clothes I could only wear a couple times a year in Edinburgh. I arrived in Michaelmas without a hat or gloves and was surprised to see snow fall after our Christmas dinner. To my bitter disappointment, the Burns Supper was cancelled and many of my new friends asked what Hogmanay was after I wished them a happy Hoggers on New Year’s Eve.
During the vacs it is very hard to meet up with anyone. Justifiably nobody really fancies a terribly expensive train journey.
The Oxford Scottish society has been a wonderful way to meet fellow Scots at uni. Our first meet up was at The Swan and castle. Squashed together at a sticky table, we quickly formed a committee. A random thirty-five-year-old man, without a connection to Scotland or the university turned up at our table. He then proceeded to send lots of messages promising that he ‘a gentleman fully’. ‘OxScotSoc’ has really taken off this term. Last week we had a welcome drinks at New College bar. After finding the bar – New College is a maze of dark tunnels and turrets – we gathered to get to know each other and have a drink. No Tenants in sight unfortunately. Then I ended up at a New College karaoke event at the mad hatter and sang This Is The Life.
This week we had a Celtic pub crawl in collaboration with the Welsh and Irish societies. The Welsh students came fully geared out with Welsh hats. We poured into The Crown, Chequers, The Swan and Castle, The Cow and Creek and Four Candles. Then the remaining Celtic clan went on to Atik. I had a 9am, one-on-one tutorial and was not led into temptation. I managed to make the sensible decision to return to my chambers after the final pub. We went to McDonalds – a dystopian reality late at night, full of tipsy and tenacious students clinging on to their tickets like gold dust.
Running the social media for Scottish society has been so much fun. I’ve downloaded Canva and enjoyed documenting events such as the pub crawl. Being Scottish at Oxford was more of a big deal then I thought it would be. Sometimes when I’m sat on a delayed train clinging onto my suitcase, jam packed with books, I wish the uni was not so very far away. At least being Scottish at Oxford has given me a talking point. I often approach people in tartan trews or kilts only to discover they’re in fact American, so I’m looking forward to meeting more fellow Scots at our next event.
Researchers from Oxford University have found that a teenage meningitis vaccine programme drives herd immunity across all ages.
This week, Oxford scientists have reported findings from a large-scale study which investigated the impact of the UK’s MenACWY vaccination programme on the infection rate of meningitis bacteria, which is spread in the throats of teenagers. The results demonstrated that the vaccination programme drives herd immunity, protecting people of all age groups.
The researchers took throat swabs to assess the prevalence of meningitis causing bacteria before and after the introduction of the vaccination programme. The study, which was published by Clinical Microbiology and Infection, used two cross-sectional studies conducted just under four years apart. The vaccine was found to reduce the carriage of the W and Y meningococcal groups, whilst also maintaining low levels of the C group. The two studies used were the UKMenCar4 study, conducted September 2014 to March 2015 before the MenACWY vaccine was introduced, and the Be on the TEAM study, conducted March 2018 to November 2018 after the vaccine was introduced. Data from 24,062 students aged 15 to 19 were included: 10,624 from UKMenCar4 and 13,428 from Be on the TEAM. The researchers concluded:
• C, W, and Y meningococcal carriage decreased from 2.03% to 0.71%; • carriage of the W group decreased from 0.34% to 0.09%; • carriage of the Y group decreased from 1.6% to 0.5%; and • carriage of the C group remained rare (0.07% to 0.13%).
Prior to 2009, the UK used a vaccine targeting only the C group of Meningitis. However, responding to rising rates of meningitis cases driven by the W and Y strains in 2015, they introduced the quadrivalent MenACWY vaccines. The vaccination programme was enrolled to teenagers aged 14 to 19, where transmission of the meningitis bacteria is highest, in the hopes of driving herd immunity effects.
Matthew Snape, a Professor in Paediatrics and Vaccinology at the Oxford Vaccine Group and a lead author of this study, said: “These studies report the results of throat swabs taken from over 24,000 teenagers in more than 170 secondary schools across the country, showing yet again the fantastic enthusiasm of the UK public for taking part in research.
“The results show us that by immunising teenagers with MenACWY vaccines we not only protect them directly, but also reduce the risk of all others in the community suffering from meningitis and sepsis due to these bacteria.
“Immunising teenagers rather than infants means we get more benefit out of each dose given. These two studies therefore provide invaluable data to help us use these vaccines effectively, both in the UK and internationally.”
The findings from the study match with UK data showing that the incidence of MenW disease has fallen since the teenage MenACWY vaccine campaign was launched; not just in teenagers themselves but across all age groups. This study provides further evidence for the importance of targeting age groups with high rates of meningococcal transmission to make the most effective use of vaccines by encouraging herd immunity as opposed to immunising other age groups via vaccination.
Martin Maiden, Professor of Molecular Epidemiology at the Department of Biology, University of Oxford, said: “We have been systematically investigating meningococcal vaccination and its effects on carriage in Oxford since 1999. These studies have been crucial in enabling the most effective use of meningococcal vaccines around the world.
“In combination with our work with colleagues at Public Health England (now HSA) that characterized the MenW epidemic variant at the genomic level, this work helped to interrupt an epidemic that would likely have affected thousands of individuals. This demonstrates the importance of long-term studies that permit the anticipation of epidemics and pandemics and enables them to be curtailed before they impact the population too severely.”
There are so many pizza restaurants around and flourishing as an independent is notoriously difficult. Sartorelli’s does it with apparent ease. Bursting with personality and great-tasting food in the Covered Market, right in the heart of Oxford, the seemingly endless queues are well worth the wait.
Head Chef and co-owner Magnus was kind enough to invite us along on Monday, the only day when the shutters are usually down, in order to try a huge variety of what Sartorelli’s has on offer. It certainly didn’t disappoint.
We opened with the nibble board, made up of black and green olives and pepperoni. The kalamata olives were halved and balanced with olive oil and chilli to produce a really well-rounded snack whereas the green were satisfyingly meaty and offered that trademark ‘olive’ flavour. It was the pepperoni that really stole the show here though and was the first example of the triumphs of simplicity at Sartorelli’s. The meat, sourced locally, is baked in the oven on its own in a pan, releasing the oils and brilliantly spicy flavour that come with them.
Next up was bruschetta, Magnus style. Instead of the conventional toasted bread dish, the chef here uses his conventional pizza base with sliced garlic and garlic oil before topping with heritage tomatoes and basil from the greengrocers next door. Alongside the anchovy, garlic, and red pepper ‘Sardella’ dip, it is impossible not to just keep going back for more bites. In all honesty, you could quite easily visit this pizzeria and be satisfied before getting anywhere near the pizzas themselves!
But when the pizzas do arrive, they undoubtedly steal the show. We tried the Luciana, the Jack the Ripper, and the Big John calzone. The first was a simple combination of capers, anchovies, black olives and rocket on a tomato base with a touch of garlic. The lack of cheese means that the salty and intense flavour of the anchovies and capers really punches through. The Jack the Ripper does bring the cheese (lots of it!) as well as red peppers and triple pepperoni. The spicy pepperoni is countered by the cheese and the result is a hefty pizza that could definitely feed two for lunch.
Big John’s calzone was my personal favourite. Despite its crispy and thin top, it maintains its structure beautifully. That also means that the cheese, olive and tomatoes inside retain so much more of their flavour than on top of a conventional base. The twist here is the placing of the pepperoni on the outside so that its flavour is released properly, much like when Magnus serves it as a nibble.
The pizza bases themselves are made from the restaurant’s own sourdough starter named Sarah (everything here has a personality-enhancing name) and made with the highest quality white flour grains. To make these hugely well-sized pizzas even more appealing, they start at just £6.95, with the bruschetta coming in at less than £5.
What makes Sartorelli’s so special, and what I suspect keeps people coming back time and time again, is the true passion and uniqueness of the place. This is no Pizza Express. Every base is lovingly decorated with care and flare. As much as the flavour partnerships on the menu are superb, Magnus is also keen to stress that he is happy to accommodate all tastes. “If you want pineapple, bring it in and I’ll cook it”, he jokes. Here, your dough can be rolled as thin or fat as you like it, topped with whatever you want, and cooked as long as desire. It’s like a pizza science lab where you are given full control but an expert is always on hand to point you in the right direction.
Ultimately, Sartorelli’s is so good because it focuses on doing the simple things perfectly. It is filled with character and passion, stocked full of top-quality local ingredients, and manned by one of the friendliest, funniest, and most accommodating chefs you’ll ever meet. Next time you are in the Covered Market, grab a glass of wine from Teardrop (the wine bar next door owned by Magnus’ partner), pull up a stool at the hatch, and chat the hours away with pizza and plenty of Sardella dip!
Oxford terms are frequently described as fever dreams, digestible only through Instagram photo dumps and Facetime debriefs. The first time I came home from Oxford – after a lockdown-heavy, hazy eight weeks – I experienced a culture shock like I never quite had before. Transitioning from my small East Kent hometown to Oxford was strange enough, but somehow the reverse was even weirder.
Oxford, and where I call home, are radically different places. If I could place them on a scale, they would be polar opposites. It doesn’t mean I prefer one to the other, but rather that I feel like two different people in either place. Oxford is busy, stimulating, challenging, exciting, and social, but also unwelcoming in places. I can navigate my hometown with my eyes closed; its comforts and mundanity embrace me after weeks of rushing to meet deadlines and not stopping to look after myself. Despite this, I don’t know who I am between the two places – I don’t necessarily feel torn between the two, rather stuck somewhere in the middle.
Morrissey once compared being a teenager to the feeling of waiting for a bus that never comes. This is what going home is like, for me. Long summers, though spent with my loving family and the school friends I grew up with, are a plateau of lack of aspiration and feeling disconnected to everyone around me. Maybe this is an Oxford-produced superiority complex, but I don’t quite fit there anymore – when I get my hair cut at home, I lie about the University I go to, as it starts a conversation I would rather just not have. I should be proud to say I go to Oxford, but it isn’t quite as simple as that. In Oxford, however, I’m not waiting for a bus. I’m falling into it, half-drunk, in an essay crisis flurry, probably crying over a boy who hasn’t thought twice about me. Though chaotic, I’m challenged and stretched, and someone who has been lucky to have an opportunity that most people simply don’t have where I am from.
Yet, Oxford is still adapting to become truly accessible. This does show through the assumptions that come through in language, and baffling tradition – so I don’t truly fit here either.
Not necessarily a concrete, or frequently articulated, problem, I don’t think there is equally a clear solution. Often, students from backgrounds and towns like mine shy away from discussing where they are from, our words often lost among conversation of tube lines and second homes. It’s easier said than done, but we need to challenge ourselves to speak openly about our hometowns – whatever complex feeling this may cause internally. University-wide, this is facilitated by the developing field of ‘increach’, providing support to students who struggle in Oxford because of their background. This has real potential to start a conversation that most of the time is not heard: by students who almost fit, but also, almost don’t.
‘Breakwater’ is an upcoming feature-length film, produced by Oxford-based Nocturne Productions, and the first film by Oxford University students since Privileged in 1982. The film follows the relationship between Otto, a university student, and John, a retired angler who lives on the coast. Their lives collide and fuse irreversibly over the shared trauma of losing a loved one. However, their tentative romance develops into something more sinister after the past exhumes itself in the form of guilt, grief and ghosts to devastating effect.
What sort of precedent did Privileged (1982) set, and would you like to follow in that precedent or innovate?
Max: We’re working with the people who did Privileged as a team, and they’re helping us with production and with script a great deal as well. It’s a really well shot film, and Andy (Paterson) has been telling us loads of stories about how they did it. Every night they would shoot a roll of film then drive in the evening to the studio to get it processed, then they’d drive back and do another day of shooting, so it was just this constant cycle. When they first came and met with us, they said they were listening to Bruce Springsteen, just as they did when they were on their way to drop the film off at the studio when they were shooting. But before we properly started the project, we knew that ‘Privileged’ was a very Oxford-centric project about this elite group of people. It’s such a cool film, but we were hoping to make Breakwater a bit more independent of Oxford, and differentiate it from quite a lot of student films in a sense by having it pay homage to Oxford, but also to portray Oxford in a slightly different light as well. The film has more depth not only by having the entire second location on the Suffolk coast, where the bulk of the film is set, but also by portraying a relationship between two very different people with varying backgrounds. Production-wise, Privileged started so many careers, Hugh Grant etc, so it would be really cool to know that we’ve given people their first opportunity to get involved in film. But I think in terms of precedent we want to make a good film first, I guess, and see what happens afterwards and hopefully have fun with it.
Jemima: I think also we’re really lucky; their advice guided us through this whole process as well, because I think when we first got into it we were thinking ‘We just need a £5k budget, we just need this etc’, and it’s been rising and rising and rising and that covers having people in the industry helping professionally. What we’re taking on here is a two year project, it’s going to be massive. It’s not your ordinary student film by any means.
My next question, which I think you may have already answered, pertains to important the previous cast and crew of Privileged have been in the inspiration for Breakwater?
Jemima: Andy and Mike (Hoffman) have been absolutely invaluable with the script. They came to this meeting that we had with them with so many notes and it was really cool to hear how they worked. Mike was a Master’s student at Oxford, specialising in Shakespeare, so the whole time we were talking through the script he’d frame it with a Shakespearean reference. And he’d have diagrams and was like ‘This is what happens at this point in Twelfth Night. How does that connect to Breakwater?’. It was really amazing for them to care so much and have so many notes. It was hours of us just chatting with them. At the start they were very intense. They asked Max some hard-hitting questions and he did really well. They were like ‘Describe this film in five words. Give me an example where two people’s narratives in a film together has ever worked.’ It was basically baptism by fire but by the end of it, it was really fun.
Max: The film has definitely become a lot better because of what they did. And we’re constantly sending updates to them as well, so they’re still reading it which is amazing considering how busy they are.
You’ve written an exciting summary of your film on the Indiegogo website, but what do you want the style of the film to achieve?
Max: I think when we originally described it on the Facebook call out for crew, we described it as like Mark Jenkins’ ‘Bait’, set in Cornwall and shot on film, it’s about this fisherman’s struggle against gentrification, and losing a fishing boat. It’s highly stylistic, black and white, and visually I think that’s something we’re aiming for. But in terms of plot, maybe something slightly more psychological. Psychological drama and horror are the sort of genres we’re aiming for. And obviously with Oxford and Suffolk we’re shooting in two visually stunning locations, it’s about the clashing of those two; the smoothness of the golden sandstone and something a bit grittier, salt-encrusted and darker. I think the film is one of self-discovery as you descend into darkness, collapsing into something more sinister as their relationship develops.
Jemima: We’re trying to move way from the whole ‘Oxford’ style because I think a lot of student films like to capitalise on the happiness, romanticism and hedonism of Oxford. This is very much taking quite a stark difference, though at the same time what we’re quite aware of is that we’ve kind of done a really perverse Brideshead. We’ve taken this Brideshead format of our main character becoming a bit of a ‘Charles’ and we’ve just wrecked the idea of what Sebastian is. That, in my opinion, is what the new script is looking like. So we’re paying homage to these Oxford traditions but at the same time mixing them in with some dark stuff.
Again I think you’ve already half-answered this, but very simply what have been your creative influences?
Max: I really like the plays of Robert Holman because he writes about the coast loads. And there’s a play it’s loosely based on called ‘Jonah and Otto’. But I don’t know, because when we first started talking about doing this, it was various groupings of images and developing a plot out of it with massive shifts between what happens. This is really random, but the band ‘Jockstrap’ were a massive influence. I saw a ‘Jockstrap’ concert, and I thought it would interesting to write about the relationship between experimental music and someone radically outside of that and outside of the Oxford sphere. I live close to where we’re filming so I have a lot of memories there, and I think that’s partly something to do with it and something to do with the fact that we can film in Oxford. Knowing the area where we’re going to be shooting helps too. That’s something we’re having to grapple with when we make this, because obviously we have a limited budget and not necessarily limited technical capabilities. But we’re still students and we’re working around ‘Who’s going to stay where? How many air mattresses do we need? How are we going to get extras for this scene?’. It’s thinking about how we’re going to move forward with the film whilst bearing stuff like budget and what’s technically feasible in mind. For example, ‘How are we going to light this scene?’, and ‘Where are we going to shoot it?’ has an impact on writing. Recently, our primary filming location burnt down.
Jemima: Two floors just gone! It was our prime location, and it was ‘John’s’ house.
Max: Yeah we were going to stay in my friend’s house and shoot downstairs. It was so antiquated that it wasn’t fireproof and burnt down. Fortunately, we’ve found alternatives but we’re still working with that.
You have your launch coming up on the 27th of October at OXO Bar. What can we expect from that? Jemima: It’s a way for everyone to meet our cast and crew, and in particular our crew from London. We’ve got our gaffer now so you’ll meet him and our DoP. There’s thirty people in our team so they’ll all be able to meet each other which is amazing. And more importantly everyone from Oxford can come and meet them because we everyone to get to know the crew, especially because we’re going to try and get casting really soon. We obviously want people who are interested in casting to come, we’re going to have ‘Breakwater’ themed drinks like ‘Otto’s drink’, and we’ve got some really exciting raffle prizes from some amazing sponsors. G&D’s is giving us vouchers for Sunday ice cream and we’ve got ball tickets. The raffle, importantly, is going to be an online thing that people can be part of, if they can’t make it to the drinks. It’s completely free to come, we just want everyone to see what the vibe is. We also have merch by our amazing graphics designer Freddie, who also did the poster. It’s really exciting.
BMW is preparing to end production of the electric Mini U.K., sparking fears about the future of the Cowley-based Mini factory Plant Oxford.
Located on the outskirts of the city, the factory builds 40,000 electric Minis a year, and is the largest industrial employer in Oxfordshire. BMW, through a partnership with Chinese manufacturers Great Wall Motors, plans to move production offshore to an unspecified location in China from 2024, in a move likely to jeopardize plans for the future of zero- emission vehicle (ZEV) manufacturing in Britain.
This partnership will see the production of BMW’s electric hatchback and small SUV models move to China, along with the pioneering zero-emission Mini Aceman. Furthermore, the company’s largest electric model, the Countryman, will be produced in Leipzig from 2023 onwards.
There are no dates or timeframe on when Mini production might return to Oxford, and the company plans to remove ZEV production and assembly lines from the Cowley factory as part of a general renovation, citing inefficiencies in the manufacturing process.
BMW maintains that Oxford “will remain at the heart of Mini production”, and that the move will not result in any redundancies or job losses in Oxford. BMW still intends to build models with internal combustion engines at Plant Oxford, with no intention to halt production until the 2030s.
Nonetheless, the company intends to ensure all Mini products are ZEVs in the same timeframe, and it is not yet clear how exactly their Oxford operations fit into this plan.
Council Leader Susan Brown of Oxford City Council expressed concerns over the move, stating that she was “disturbed to see reports about […] the future of the BMW Mini plant in Oxford”, which she described as an integral part of the city’s “strong manufacturing heritage”. However, having sought “reassurances” from BMW about their future plans for the Mini range, she confirmed that the company retains an “ongoing commitment to the city”, citing “significant investments” in the Cowley site in recent years.
Brown also expressed pride in City Council’s “shared commitment” with BMW to the target of a “zero-carbon Oxford by 2040”, and suggested that the council’s partnership with the company remains likely to continue in the future.
The offshoring of Mini ZEV production, which further imperils hopes for Britain’s future as a green manufacturing hub, is the latest in a number of setbacks to the U.K. automotive industry. Earlier this year, Honda’s plant in Swindon closed, taking 3,500 jobs with it.
Some have linked these closures to post-Brexit supply and trade problems, but BMW denies any link between these issues and their decision to cease electric Mini production.
Image Credit: [Lobster1]/[CC BY-SA 3.0] via [Wikimedia Commons]
