Alex Sheppard, Wadham

Alex’s Fashion Statement: I don’t really think about fashion deeply, but I don’t want to blend in – I like standing out. It’s often part of who you are. If you spend the money, you should spend it on something you like. It’s all about your interests.

A realm often left to the catwalks and shows of Paris and Milan, men’s fashion has often lacked in the enthusiasm and glamour that womenswear brings. Yet with icons such as Tom Ford – model, designer and a very good-looking man – proves that you can have it all – and always in style. From choosing a well-tailored coat to a scuffed pair of military boots, the stereotypical outfit of hoodie-jeans-trainers can be left for those ‘essay-crisis’ days spent in the library. Instead, branch out – from Topman to Zara Men, a bit of knitwear (particularly striped nu

mbers) can go a long way, whilst well-placed accessories such as watches and scarves can add an eclectic feel to any shirt/skinny jean combo.

The LMH fraudulent fresher’s coaching, state school students closing the gap in admissions and the safety bus… alongside some in-depth analysis of Fit College and Blind Date.

What is this American actress trying to get across?

Performed by Anna Popplewell

Name: Zoe Hallam

Course: PPE, St John’s, Second Year

Spare Time: Campaigner for Muscular Dystrophy

Zoe Hallam and I quickly establish that we have several important things in common: both disorganised second year PPEists, both have already racked up an impressive array of last minute all-night essays this term and both regularly indulge in our guilty love of Glee, the US TV series based on an all-singing all-dancing high school choir.

However, while I wile away my free hours checking spellings in Cherwell‘s charming offices, Hallam spends her time as regional ambassador for ‘Trailblazers’ the youth branch of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, planning campaigns, co-ordinating information gathering and presenting the findings to Parliament, where last December she delivered a speech for the 18 month anniversary of the campaign.

While the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign is heavily geared towards fund-raising, Trailblazers focuses on campaigning for issues relevant to the 14-25s, explains Hallam. Since its establishment in July 2008, the organisation has run three broad information gathering campaigns on Higher Education, transport and leisure activities, and are now in the process of using the information collected to tackle the specific problems raised and propose solutions.

I ask how she balances the workload attached to her role with Oxford-centred activities. ‘It’s busier during the campaigns’, says Hallam, ‘publicity work and dealing with the press takes up time, and it can be up to twenty-five hours a week, but I’m in a bit of a lull at the moment.’ She explains that, for her, the most important part of the campaign is getting organisations to think harder about the practical details of provisions for the disabled: there tends to be a ‘shallow conception’ of accessibility, where people think that installing a ramp is enough. Often, she says, organisations claim to be accessible, but in fact the facilities haven’t been tested or thought through properly.

The transport campaign revealed the cost implications for disabled travellers: in London, for example, the Tube is inaccessible for wheelchair users, and while taxis are expensive, subsidies are only available for those living inside London. Other problems include inadequate training for the correct use of ramps on public transport and the varied quality of staff assistance – Hallam smiles ironically as she points out that while train staff are often there to help with getting on at the start of the journey, ‘they sometimes forget you also need to get off’.

The main concern with Higher Education, says Hallam, is the difficulties associated with entering the clearing procedure for those with additional requirements. Checking the University you are going to has everything you need is a pain for everyone, but approaching the clearing process with a disability means you are ‘severely disadvantaged’, Hallam explains, ‘there is a lot of information to find out in such a short amount of time’. Hallam manned a Trailblazers helpline on A-Level results day to offer advice and guidance to those going through clearing.

Raising awareness and getting people to pay more attention to detail is a key element of the campaign, for many people with disabilities practical considerations mean that extra organisation and planning is required for every outing. In the café, she points out the difference little things can make. ‘The height of the counter when you want to get your change, the space between tables’, things owners often don’t think twice about.

Hallam is due to attend the Annual General Meeting of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) in February, where she will consider the changes that companies have been making over the last year, and suggest improvements for the future. She emphasises the difference between the transport campaign and the investigation into leisure activities: Trailblazers can influence services by presenting their findings to bodies such as ATOC, but since most businesses are not accountable to a higher body, there is a limit to the direct impact the campaign can have. That the campaign can, however, encourage individuals to approach the organisations is important in itself, argues Hallam. ‘We want to give people the confidence to actually go out and talk to people about their concerns – part of what we do is supposed to be empowering.’

Name: Josh Lospinoso

Course: PRS in Statistics, Magdalen, Graduate

Spare time: Military Intelligence Officer

It’s not every day you get to meet a military intelligence officer who works for the National Security Agency (NSA), a cryptologic intelligence bureau of the US Department of Defense. Needless to say I was rather excited and intrigued to meet Joshua Lospinoso, a visiting American DPhil student from New Jersey who is studying statistics, specifically analysing actor-orientated social networks, in order to enhance his military intelligence work.

Lospinoso is far from the sinister and elusive government spy official that films and novels would have us believe. Warm, friendly and very open to my numerous questions, he chats with enthusiasm about his chosen career path. He explains that he was driven to join the army by the national crisis that America experienced as a result of the September 11 bombings.’I saw the army as a potential way to serve my country and do my duty.’ After a year’s worth of training with the National Guard, he enlisted in the army at the age of seventeen and since then has never looked back.

I ask him how he managed to choose between physical combat and the more technical military intelligence work. He smiles as he acknowledges that this decision is an ‘internal fissure’ for many army recruits. He explains how military intelligence was an opportunity for him to combine his two passions: academia and the army. He says, ‘I joined as a rifle man and it definitely appealed to me as seventeen-year-old coming out of high school with full energy. However, as I got more engaged with broader academia, engaged in understanding concepts and numbers and worked for the NSA and the military intelligence agencies, I realised that this was probably a better way to apply myself.’

With mention of the NSA, I press him for further details on what exactly his work for the agency involves. Here he pauses for a moment, saying that he needs a bit of thinking time before he answers as he has to be careful about NSA privacy concerns. At this point, I suddenly remember that I am talking to an intelligence officer privy to a wealth of top secret information that the ordinary citizen will never have access to, let alone even be aware of. He explains that his research on social network analysis is ‘very related’ to the work he does for the NSA. ‘If you think about the most pertinent issues a soldier is facing in Afghanistan or Iraq right now, what’s causing casualties, what’s causing major destruction and instability in the region – those problems are the ones we’re tackling.’ He highlights the importance of analysing social network data in order to help the army improve strategies. He explains that it is crucial for army leaders to know with whom to communicate when they enter a new region, especially in a country like Afghanistan where there is a huge amount of tribalism and thus enormous cultural differences from region to region. He says, ‘We’d like to be able to know when we go into an area how to quickly assess social relationships and ideologies so that we can understand who the powerbrokers are.’

However, Lospinoso, who won the prestigious Rhodes scholarship enabling him to study at Oxford, is using his time here to experience a very different lifestyle to that of a military intelligence officer. He is full of enthusiasm for the University, describing it as ‘a wonderful contrast to being in the army’ and ‘a bit of a culture shock’. Indeed, he explains that while one of the best things about the army is the structure, which ‘cuts a lot of clutter out of your life’, it does also ‘make it difficult to be creative and innovative.’

As he tells me about his plans to take his first trip to Afghanistan to train division analysts, it becomes clear that passion for military intelligence and loyalty to the army are the key forces driving the life of this far from ordinary twenty-three-year-old student.