Friday 11th July 2025
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Eagleton: The Dawkins Delusion

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Unlike his former fellow Trotskyite, Christopher Hitchens, Terry Eagleton is by his own admission, “fixed in the groove of my adolescent beliefs, clinging to my leftism like a toddler to his blanket.”  Marxism has become unfashionable, but that doesn’t stop Eagleton from next year releasing a book, “mildly and unprovocatively titled” Why Marx Was Right. When he was Warton professor of English at Oxford, Eagleton styled himself “a barbarian inside the citadel”, but, he interrupts, “that was just to annoy the Daily Telegraph”. 

This resistance to convention and academic expectation at times seems wilfully perverse.  While Richard Dawkins incited controversy with what Eagleton calls his “inverted Evangelical” atheism – “he’s as obsessed with religion as puritans are with sex” – Eagleton defied expectation yet further by defending religion.  Dawkins’s attacks are so crude and ignorant, he claims, as to “make a first-year theology student wince”, yet Eagleton himself admits that Dawkins’ plan to arrest the pope for crimes against humanity is a “seductive” suggestion.
What Eagleton objects to in the argument of Dawkins, he explains, is its laziness; he has, Eagleton claims, “bought his unbelief on the cheap, he has rejected a version of religion that nobody in their right mind would accept”. It is, Eagleton insists, “a matter of intellectual justice to confront your opponent at his or her best, otherwise you just set up a straw target and knock it over, and get a thrill out of doing so”.   

In Eagleton’s talk at the Union and our follow up interview, there emerges his unwillingness to buy any notion “on the cheap”, even if it means he must embrace indecision, he will do so in the stead of dubious judgement.  What shall we do, someone asks in the audience, in the face of fundamental Islamic terrorism, if not condemn it?  “Attempt to understand it”, is Eagleton’s answer, “do not reduce it to caricature”. But, he admits, “it may be too late for that now”.
Eagleton’s entire life, however, seems to be informed by contradiction. He was described by Elizabeth Jane Howard (Kingsley Amis’ widow) as “a lethal combination of a Roman Catholic and a Marxist”; he is a liberal who detests “mushy liberals”; his professed Marxism infuriates critics who point out his ownership of three houses as well as his apparent longstanding regret at having turned down a job at the Open University despite his legendary Oxbridge careerism.

When I worked on the Wadham telethon and spoke to former students of his, the memories they expressed were as ardent as they were bipolar. Even his talk that I watched at the Union on Monday night, punctuated as it was by erudite and apparently ad hoc witticisms, can be seen to be repeated almost verbatim on an interview available on Youtube. 

‘Whether I believe in God or not, it certainly fed a lot into my work’

There is something irresistibly theoretical about this point of repetition; seeing the king of theory enact and repeat a ‘performative gesture’ of ‘self-formation’, one is tempted to see ‘Terry Eagleton’ as more of a role the he plays: the character of renegade academic, the throwback Marxist. But to do so would truly be to set up a straw target and knock it over.  Eagleton’s views are above all – and by his own admission – complex.  Yet, as he points out, so is the world.  “Religion has been responsible for some horrendous crimes, probably more so than most social institutions; it’s been peculiarly cruel and obnoxious and dogmatic”. What he doesn’t agree with, though, is the prototypical Dawkins “blanket rejection of religion on the basis of caricature, which would be the equivalent of someone saying to Dawkins, ‘Oh Darwin, it’s just about how we’re all monkeys really’.”

In 2007 Eagleton prompted a media furore by accusing Martin Amis of Islamophobia.  Amis had commented that he felt a “definite urge” to make the lives of ordinary Muslims uncomfortable until Islam “gets its house in order”; he suggested strip-searching anyone who looked like they came from Pakistan or the Middle East and deportation, “not letting them travel”.  Amis has since distanced himself from the comments, which Christopher Hitchens defended as “a thought experiment, or a mood experiment”.  I nervously ask Eagleton what he would say to this, unsure of his willingness to discuss Amis. Surprisingly, he reasons openly: “I think it’s outrageous”, he says immediately, “what strikes me about that is the fact that Amis has refused to apologise for the disgusting things he said. He offended a lot of people, he should have the moral courage to come out and say so.” 

Did he have the right to say it though, I wonder; does everyone have the right to voice their opinion, however unsavoury? The answer from Eagleton is, predictably, complex.  “Almost”, he says with a smile, “I think liberalism is almost right.  I don’t think people have the right legally or ethically to voice opinions that are racially insulting, and I think it’s quite proper that the law should take account of that. On the other hand, in no sense do I want to censor Amis. What I admire about him and Hitchens is that they’re both good liberals that have grown conservative. They’re right tilting liberals, it’s the cliché of old age, from radical to conservative; Hitchens who detests a cliché should realise he’s one himself and become more ironic about it.” 

Despite this, he acknowledges that any religious leanings in later life are also clichéd. “It’s probably a sign of age. I’m getting nearer heaven or whatever that other place is called”, he says. But this isn’t just the desperate godliness of an old theorist. His theology is of a kind of Christianity “that is politically radical and ethically engaged. And whether I believe in it or not, it certainly fed a lot into my work”. Interestingly, he never explicitly reveals whether or not he does believe in God. I suppose that would be too simple.

The world, he says, is split into two groups of people. Those that believe too much, and those that believe too little, and “each keeps feeding the other”. Western scepticism, he jokes, has got to the point where even ‘It’s 9 o’clock’ sounds dogmatic; “It’s like ‘9 o’clock’ is so much more indeterminate, it’s very postmodern”.

The point for Eagleton though is that whatever he believes in, he does so wholeheartedly. “What I believe now is pretty much what I believed at the age of fifteen”, he says, “I don’t think consistency is itself a virtue, if things change, one should change. But I haven’t changed because I see no sign that, fundamentally, the system I oppose has changed.” Eagleton will accept complexity, but never compromise.

Israel-Palestine Conflict: The Two-State Solution

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So what exactly is the big problem?

In 1993, Israel agreed to withdraw from the Palestinian territories of the West Bank – an area about a quarter of the size of Israel between the River Jordan and East Jerusalem – and Gaza, a smaller region by the Egyptian border. This division between Israeli and Palestinian land has been called the ‘two-state solution.’ It is recognised as a promising basis for peace, but in recent years the ascendance of Hamas and the movement of Israeli settlers into the West Bank have threatened to jeopardise it.

There are further fundamental difficulties: should Jerusalem be an undivided capital for the Israeli state, or shared between Israel and Palestine? What will happen to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees outside Palestine? How will absolute consensus on borders ever be achieved? ‘The biggest problem,” says Rogan, “is getting both the Israelis and the Palestinians to recognise that they need to broker the two-state solution immediately, that the status quo is untenable for both sides. Ironically, democracy is the main impediment: the Knesset usually returns weak coalition governments reliant on minor parties and incapable of decisive action.”

What can the international community do?

“We need to work within established legal parameters. It confuses an already confused situation when countries try to reopen questions like borders or refugee rights. The international community “should recognise the two-state solution along the lines of UN Security Council Resolution 242. Drafted over Israel’s overwhelming defeat of the Arab States in the Six-Day War in 1967, this resolution pioneered the ‘Land for Peace’ agreement. According to this deal, Israel would return land she had occupied during the war – such as Sinai in Egypt and the Golan Heights in Syria – in exchange for her first ever peace treaty with the Arab states. “If you recognise the bounds of resolution 242, issues like settlement are put in their correct legal context, which is to say that the settlers are putting buildings on the sovereign state land of another country, and should be treated as expatriates.”

What can other Middle Eastern states do to help?

“The Arab states have made a major contribution, when in 2002 they made a plan pledging full normalisation of relations in return for all territory occupied by Israel in 1967. The thing about that plan is that the best way forward is to recognise the international legal positions on boundaries. The UN and the EU should encourage Arab initiatives, and Israel should work with them – there would be no better way to demonstrate Israel’s full acceptance into the Middle East. All West Bank territory should be returned to the Palestinian Authority, the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria, the Shebaa farms to Lebanon. The demands for the restoration of territory are the absolute condition of the Arab peace effort.”

What can be done to promote this solution in Israel and Palestine?

“I think the only way for Israel to move forward would be an election on the specific agenda of the two-state solution. It would take a period of negotiations producing terms of peace that would satisfy Palestinian demands, and also Syrian demands. You need to come up with a Plan that the PA would be able to agree to with US support, and then put that plan to the electorate.
There is enough will in Israel. Polls taken in 2007 showed that the majority of the Israeli people still want the two-state solution. Also, if current population trends continue, it is thought that there will be more Palestinians than Israelis in Israel within a decade.”

And Palestine? “Hamas and Fatah must reconcile their differences and agree to work together under the structures of the Palestinian Authority. Divided, the Palestinians will never be able to negotiate a two-state solution with the Israelis. They owe this to the Palestinian people, who want to build their lives; they want economic stability and freedom of movement; they want peace.”

Dr Eugene Rogan is Director of the Oxford Centre for Middle Eastern Studies and University lecturer in the Modern History of the Middle East.

Oxford Summer VIIIs

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Fancy yourself as a photographer?

Want your photographs from around and about Oxford seen by the thousands of people who visit the Cherwell website every day?

If so, why not send a few of your snaps into photo@cherwell.?org

 

 

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Pembroke W1 Blades – Ollie Ford

 

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PMB Blades Celebration – Ollie Ford

 

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Worcester cheers – Ursa Mali

 

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LMH W1 – Ursa Mali

 

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Older rowing fans – Ursa Mali

 

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Young Rowing Fan – Ursa Mali

 

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G&D’s – Sonali Campion

 

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Rainbow Boat – Sonali Campion

 

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Wadham stripes – Sonali Campion

 

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By the boat houses – Sonali Campion

 

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Hertford W1 – Rachel Chew

 

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Bump – Rachel Chew

 

 

Photo Blog – 6th Week

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Fancy yourself as a photographer?

Want your photographs from around and about Oxford seen by the thousands of people who visit the Cherwell website every day?

If so, why not send a few of your snaps into photo@cherwell.?org

 

 

 

Saturday – Self Portrait – Ollie Ford

 

Friday – Filming at the Bod – Jeremy Wynne

 

Thursday – Summer Rain Flower – Sara Reguilon

 

Wednesday – Closet Land, 6th Week at the BT – Sonali Campion

 

Tuesday – ChCh Skip – Will Granger

 

Monday – Oxford HUMSoc celebrate Holi – Sonali Campion

 

 

Sunday – ‘Twins’ – Lauri Saksa

What to do on Friday of 6th?

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In the 5th week edition of the Cherwell, we falsely gave the title of this piece as “What to do on Saturday of 6th?” when it should have been “What to do on Friday of 6th?”. This is because the Varsity Twenty20 match will happen on Friday the 4th of June at the University Parks and the Varsity one day match is on Sunday the 4th of July at Lords.

Think Friday 6th week at 4pm, coloured clothing, pink balls, big hitting, beer, Pimms, picnics, strawberries and cream, and watching cricket’s most modern and arguably exciting form of the game in one of the most picturesque venues in Oxford.

On Friday the 4th of June, Oxford University Cricket Club Blues take on their Cambridge rivals at the University Parks in the first of three Varsity matches, Twenty20. This short format was first introduced to the Varsity schedule 2 years ago and was used as an experiment to see whether it would be approved by the masses and to trial the pink ball.

To those who are not huge cricket lovers, a 20 over cricket match lasts for just under three hours but it is stuffed full of excitement with batsmen and bowlers needing to be crafty and shrewd in order to outthink each other.

In the Varsity match, each captain has named a squad of 16, which will be whittled down to a 12 on the day. As well as the obviously strong rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge, there are some more personal rivalries within the squads themselves. As The Perse School, Cambridge, has produced 3 players for each of the Light and Dark Blue sides. In the Oxford side there is also a brotherly rivalry with Rajiv Sharma, the Oxford captain, being joined by his wise older brother, Avinash, for the 2010 season. On top of this both squads have been bolstered by returning Blues who will have a history of Varsity matches behind them.

After poor weather resulted in an abandoning of the match in Cambridge last year, OUCC is using the opportunity to really make its mark on the event. There will be a bar (in partnership with the Cricketers Arms, Iffley Road) serving Pimms and beer, and also stalls around the ground selling strawberries, snacks and soft drinks. Music will be used around the ground and each batsman has the opportunity to pick their own song for when they walk out to bat. One interesting choice so far is John Lodwick’s request for J-Lo’s Jenny from the block.

If this wasn’t enough of an incentive to go down and watch the Twenty 20; the Varsity Match will also be preceded by the Cuppers Final, which will be a strongly contested battle between Univ and Oriel.

These are not the powerhouses of college cricket that the majority of people expected to see in the final this year but the Cuppers competition has been full of surprises with New College and Christ Church (both division one sides) being dumped out in the early rounds. The greatest shock however, was Baliol beating Worcester in the quarter finals, a historically strong side that can currently boast 5 Blues players when at full strength. This final of the underdogs between Oriel and Univ starts in the Parks at 9:30 am and will run until approximately 3pm.

The day promises to be thoroughly entertaining and prayers to the weather gods have already begun. Come down to support your Blues and Colleges and help ensure that Oxford can secure their maiden victory in the Charles Russell Twenty20 Varsity Match.

 

What Makes A Classic: Magnolia

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“Things fall down, people look up, and when it rains, it pours”. Paul Thomas Anderson’s third film is unashamed in working with a wide canvas and tragic, overwhelming emotions. Weaving several interconnected storylines over three hours, it follows disparate residents of LA’s San Fernando Valley over a single night as they stumble towards catharsis. The large ensemble cast is superb – even Tom Cruise is scarily effective as a misogynistic seduction guru – and Anderson pitches perfectly the resulting complex web of relationships. Particularly well-executed is the awkward, touching courtship between a warm-hearted cop (John C Reilly) and a fragile, drug-addled young woman (Melora Walters), eventually flashing brightly in what must be one of cinema’s best kisses. Magnolia is a film with full of all kinds of sadness but the balance struck with a quiet joy and even a vein of offbeat humour stops the pathos from overwhelming.

It is not merely the story and characterizations which make Magnolia so memorable. Its production is pulled off with often breathtaking flair, and Anderson has the ability – impressive in such a long, sprawling film – to hone in on realistic details which become visually striking as a result. The dynamic editing helps here, as does Robert Elswit’s beautiful, fluid cinematography: he and Anderson use the camera to veer, peer, swoop and zoom onto whatever catches their eye in propelling each scene forward. Jon Brion’s rich yet subtle orchestral score and several songs by Aimee Mann all play key roles too, yet Anderson is careful not to overuse even features as strong as these – the moving emotional centre of the film is intensely quiet, culminating in a long meditation on regret by Robards on his deathbed.

Less well received than either of Anderson’s breakthrough projects, Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood, Magnolia may reside in the popular consciousness as ‘that film with the raining frogs’, but so far through its running-time is that plot device introduced, and so successfully has Anderson built up the action, that it comes across as more of a revelation than a gimmick; most revealingly, it is its impact on the characters which is so compelling. This is fitting for such a grand, artful but ultimately very human film, concerned as it is with what binds people together despite their flaws; be it their regrets, their pasts or simply their love.

 

No more fitties: Fitfinder founder fined

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FitFinder founder Rich Martell has pulled the plug on his website, after facing disciplinary action from UCL, who have accused him of “bringing the university into disrepute”.

Since its launch on 24 April 2010, FitFinder has received over five million hits from students across 50 different universities. But now Martell, the 21 year old creator of the site, has come under pressure from University authorities to take the site down for good.

Martell revealed that UCL had summoned him multiple times for meetings with “very senior members of the University”. Martell was fined £300, the maximum allowed under UCL rules. University bosses told him that “we want you to take the fine now” and that the university would “take disciplinary action” if he did not cooperate with the university discipline.

“My degree could be put in doubt if the site remains up” said the worried computer scientist. “This could be taken to a disciplinary hearing – if it is, then my degree is withheld until the result of that hearing. A punishment such has expulsion would not be out of the question”

When Cherwell asked Martell which UCL don was threatening him he answered “I really don’t want to wind them up further by them knowing I’ve given their name.”

Cherwell has seen a letter sent to Mr Martell by Ruth Siddall, UCL’s Dean for Students.

It reads “A potential charge UCL can bring against you is ‘bringing the College into disrepute’ by setting up this website…it could be taken as inciting internet stalking and sexual harrassment…There is very strong feeling from senior colleagues here at UCL and also in the complaint from LSE that we should take action against you… Richard – do you have a lawyer? If not I suggest that you get one!”

Martell said that he has been left penniless by the fine and unable to afford legal advice of his own, forcing him to take the site down.

UCL’s disciplinary code states “Misconduct which may be the subject of disciplinary procedures under this Code is defined as…behaviour which brings UCL into disrepute.”

Martell wrote on theFitfinder.co.uk about the “increasing pressure to take the website offline by Universities”. Speaking to Cherwell, he said “I think the main reason UCL were taking action was because they received complaints from other universities such as LSE.”

Last week the London School of Economics told The Times: “We’re against the site and we’ve asked people not to use it. First of all we had some complaints from students who found it insulting and secondly if you’re in the library you’re there to study.”

UCL’s Press Office said in a statement that “UCL does not approve of or condone this site” and admitted that the Dean of Students took “disciplinary action against the student for bringing the college into disrepute”. UCL said, “We gave him a fine and that was the end of the matter.”

A UCL spokesman said that an academic hearing was discussed internally but it was concluded that this would be “heavy handed” and decided not to take it further. He added that there was “no question” that Mr Martell’s degree would be withheld.

Martell assured Cherwell readers that “When I’m sure my degree is safe in my hand, then what we’re going to do is improve the site…we will be coming back with a more developed website as soon as possible. We are also looking to bring FitFinder to people via apps on mobile devices and across music festivals over the summer.”

Protest against the loss of Fitfinder has been coordinated online, where one petition gained over 3000 signatures in the first 24 hours.

A Facebook group set up by Scott Bryan of York University defended the site, saying that the “great majority of messages are friendly jokes and compliments…if it does look a little bit crude sometimes it because we are young and us young people are sexually frustrated.”

Oxford students’ reactions to the loss of the website were mixed. Some were outraged, seeing UCL’s approach as draconian, and condemned what they saw as the university’s vendetta against one of its own students. History student Greg Manuel said that UCL were “unreasonable to ask [Martell] to close the site as it just opens the way for [other companies] to do the same thing.”

But not all comments have been so supportive. One poster on Fitfinder’s Facebook page condemned Mr Martell’s decision as cowardly. Oliver Warren said “YOU have caved in to their pressure. Getting people to waste their time filling out surveys is ridiculous and unnecessary…just re-open the site…get some balls – try looking to the pirate bay for inspiration if you really lack a spine.”

Oxford Women in Politics president Krisztina Csortea thought the site should stay. She said “I haven’t noticed any increase in misogyny since the appearance of Fitfinder. As far as I am aware, it mentioned both men and women, and I don’t think it had significantly more adverse consequences than gossip columns or ‘fit’ contests.”

Other students were concerned about how they would while away long library hours without the site. One Exeter lawyer concluded that “Not only is FitFinder a laugh and a light hearted way to break up revision, practically speaking it’s also effectively a sat-nav for clunge.”

FitFinder courted controversy from its opening. One week after launching, the Joint Academic network, the UK’s education and research network, blocked FitFinder from UK university networks over the perceived level of distraction offered by the site. However, the ban was lifted within 24 hours following floods of complaints from students.

 

Finally! When exams finish…

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Did it all kick off at the English trashings? We find out to the sweet sounds of generic rock (naturally).

Presented by Naomi Richman

Filmed by Evan Whittal-Williams

Edited by Luke Bacigalupo

Last orders: Hertford bar to be privatised

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Hertford students were left outraged on Thursday as they learned that the SCR had voted to put the JCR bar under college management.

The bar was managed and financed by the JCR. Housed in a cellar of the college, it was renowned throughout Oxford and won awards for ‘Best College Bar’.

The status of the bar had been the subject of an emergency JCR meeting earlier in the week, in which members voted unanimously to oppose any effort to privatise the bar. A report compiled by the JCR also found that 96% of JCR members and 94% of MCR members oppose any replacement of student management with professional management.

The decision of the SCR, which sources say was a unanimous one, was made at a council meeting on Tuesday afternoon. Hertford JCR President, Mak Bavcic, was allowed to attend the meeting on behalf of the students, and presented members of the SCR with the report’s findings. Bavcic was told the SCR’s decision at a meeting yesterday afternoon.

As well as being under the management of the college, the bar will now be moved to the room occupied by the JCR, which is above ground in the Holywell quad. The new bar will house a coffee shop for use during the day. The cellar which housed the bar, described by one Hertford second year as “a brightly painted cellar with dry rot and one subterranean window”, will be converted to a JCR. Work is expected to take place over the Long Vacation.

There is uncertainty as to why college authorities have taken the decision, and students have as yet received no official communication from the SCR regarding either a decision or reasons for it.

However, there are suspicions among some Hertford students that last term’s Penguin fiasco – where several members of a drinking soceity were rusticated – may have played a part in the SCR passing the motion.

The decision making process has received harsh criticism from many members of the JCR.
JCR Treasurer, Alex Whitehead, expressed anger at the lack of JCR involvement in the decision-making process. The motion to privatise the bar was put in a section of the meeting named “Reserved Business”, a space normally used for sensitive issues, and one from which students are barred from taking part.

Whitehead said “It has been clear for some time that members of the SCR are militantly against the bar existing in its current form and what might be perceived as the ‘drinking culture’ of Hertford.
“They perceive a negative link between the social side of the college and academic results. Yet this is clearly wrong. Hertford is in the top half of the Norrington table; it manages to balance the academic and social sides very well.”

Over the past few terms Hertford has seen a rise in rent costs, and a scaling back of annual Freshers’ Week activities.

Others are angry about the way senior authorities have conducted themselves. Anaar Patel, the JCR Secretary, said that “by putting the motion in the Reserved Business section of the meeting, the JCR was actively excluded from a debate that affects all of its members.”

The Hertford bar is well-loved at the college. Whitehead commented that students “did not want bar to be privatised for ideological reasons. The bar and its student-run aspect personify Hertford – it is friendly and welcoming, open and cheap.”

Now that the motion has passed, some students are even considering leaving the college in protest.

“The bar was the reason I chose to go to Hertford” said Second Year PPEist Celia Carr. “Now there is nothing keeping me here.

“I am going to apply to move to Balliol where there is a better bar. At least ten people are also planning to do so,” she said.

Yet some are not so dismissive of the proposals. Hannah Pollard, a Second Year commented, “We shouldn’t dismiss it without considering the plans, though I’m not happy with the way the decision process was carried out without the consultation of the JCR. It was all done on the quiet.”

When contacted by a Cherwell reporter, the Dean of Hertford hung up the phone. The Principal was also not available for comment.

A funny type of attraction

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Last week, I went to see Flight of the Conchords live and I had a little epiphany. Afterwards, I found myself saying over and over again- in slightly shocked tones- “They’re…they’re really attractive.” “Yes,” said my female (and a few male) friends. “They are.” Possibly I’m just late to the party on this one- after all, guys with guitars have always been attractive and these are two guys with guitars – but I’d never really bought into their perceived sex appeal. One live show and I’m under the spell of those Kiwi charms: it’s that deadpan lack of charisma, the way they kind of can’t be bothered to speak. Except apply those qualities to any actual person, and I’d run a mile.

The other day, I jokingly (read ‘tipsily’) announced to a crowd of friends a long-held secret belief of mine: that I was going to marry comedian, columnist, writer, actor and ubiquitous panel show personality David Mitchell. “What,” said one of them frowning and holding up a picture of him on his iPhone, “him? Really?” Yes, I declared staunchly. He is erudite, laconic and has nice eyes. However, he is also apparently full of self-loathing, has a fairly nasal voice and, let’s face it, is not exactly an Adonis. Again, put him in the real world and I probably wouldn’t look twice.

So why are these three men so attractive? Well, there’s one fairly obvious factor I’ve yet to mention- the funny. It’s common knowledge that women like funny men: often the first thing women say they look for in a partner is the ability to make them laugh. But this is getting silly- I know women who have admitted to crushes on Hugh Laurie (think Blackadder not House), Eddie Izzard, Stephen Fry, Chris Morris, Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey. Bill Bailey looks like your mad uncle. Chris Morris resembles the kind of teacher who stood a little too close to you in the corridor. And yet fancy them we do, in droves.

I don’t claim to speak for womankind on this matter but I’m certainly not alone in it. I suspect there are several explanations. First: intellect. There’s nothing interesting about fancying Brad Pitt: look at him. You do or don’t find him attractive. But fancying comedians is a statement- it’s a badge of honour, irrevocable proof that we prize intellect and wit over looks, engaging the neurons not the saliva glands. Comedians are the Thinking Woman’s Crumpet.

Second: power. A lot of male comedians play on awkwardness, shyness and social ineptness; a lot of women find this puppyish naivety appealing. Combine it with a razor-sharp wit underneath and voila: a smart guy who can make you laugh but, crucially, won’t make you feel inadequate or talk down to you in conversation- who highlights, in fact, your superior social skills. To quote that Bible of female wisdom, Bridget Jones’s Diary, ding-dong.

And there’s a third reason, one which we must whisper: could it be, perhaps, because they are on TV? After all, fame does have a certain glamour about it. Women are supposedly attracted to men with power and what power could be greater today than dominating the airwaves? Comedy is just opinions, after all, and we invite our comedians to give theirs over and over again- on panels, in columns, on the radio, onstage. And we think they are right because they are funny. Sometimes they are- but comedy is also acting, and if you’re not a little bit convinced by the end of the set then they haven’t done their job right.

Agree with them and it’s easy to like them, even love them: after all, one only appreciates Brass Eye’s ‘Paedageddon’ episode if one agrees that the media’s handling of sexual abuse scandals causes more problems than solutions. Oh, that Chris Morris, he’s ever so clever, gosh, I think I fancy him, etc etc.
Despite this, I would like to think that were I to meet David Mitchell at a party, and he wasn’t famous, but he was as funny and engaging and unpretentious and concerned about the world we live in as he is on TV, then, yes, I’d like to think I’d still be attracted to him. Fortunately for me, I’ll never have to find out. See you at the wedding.