A dimly lit room in Keble in 1st Week and I’m trying hard to remember why exactly I’m here. Simon (star of last term’s SIL3NC3) is walking around my fellow Blithe Spirit cast members, calling upon the ‘spirits’ in a loud and authoritative voice, while I decide whether to laugh my way through this experiment or simply find another topic for this week’s Drama Briefing.
‘I understand rehearsal techniques but isn’t this taking it a little too far?’ my mother had asked tentatively, as I explained about the planned séance. If things don’t go so smoothly, we’ll provide the inspiration for an Oxford-based teen horror film. Right now, I’d gladly swap this for a run-of-the-mill team-building exercise – paintballing, anyone?
The only thing worse would be airing my interpretive dancing skills in front of a panel of New Writing Festival directors at their sadistic audition sessions or preparing to bare all in Equus this week. Acting – it’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.
Cast member Sophie King is blindfolded and attempting some automatic writing – is it a 21 or a 12? Simon leads us to a makeshift Ouija board. The glass moves to spell out the name of one of the suicide victims Simon has been telling us about and suddenly everyone becomes a lot more serious.
We sit at the (unfortunately rectangular) table joining hands in the dark. The mood is a bit lost on me as I am a little too short to reach properly and am practically lying face down on the table. I have also failed to find my neighbour’s foot as instructed. “Are you there, Jane?” Simon asks.
This has got to be the most exciting moment of my week – well, after finding out the new OUDS Jobcentre was finally up and running. There are some loud knocks and a few sharp intakes of breath. Then the lights are on, the cast blinking and our director laughing. ‘And that’s what would happen in a séance’ we are told. ‘Anyone for pizza?’ Our Thursday night drama was an impressively confident experiment in manipulation but I think we’ll all be glad to be the ones performing during our next foray into the occult (that’s 5th week in the O’Reilly if the ghosts of our ex-lovers haven’t claimed us by then).
I can’t sing. There are dying, flea-bitten and rabies-ravaged dogs whimpering away their mortality in god-forsaken council estates somewhere emitting noises that would be a better approximation to the vocals of Stealer’s Wheel’s ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’ than the squalid rendition I’m currently belting out for the (dis)pleasure of my housemates. Gareth Campesinos! can’t sing either. The difference between me and him: he’s worth listening to.
On their third LP, this ex-Cardiff University septet find their frontman continuing to carve out an impeccable name for himself as a lyricist of deftness and daring. Sometimes his choice of phrasing might sound arse-clenchingly dire (vidi: ‘I think we need more post-coital and less post-rock/Feels like the build up takes forever/But you never touch my cock’). But to these ears; it. Just. Works. It has something to do with the conviction with which he delivers his lyrics of love, lust, lies and longing. It also has a lot to do with the six multi-instrumentalists going hell-for-leather behind him.
The band’s tried and tested collision of twee and hardcore credentials has come on leaps and bounds since their 2008 debut and although they haven’t completely done away with their more boisterous tendencies (the ‘bumbah bumbah’ refrain of ‘These Are Listed Buildings’, the full-tilt guitar work and group shout-alongs littered throughout the album keep much of the proceedings’ tone fist-pump friendly) there is a noticeable migration to places much murkier than they’ve been before.
Record highlight ‘The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future’ is a malevolently moody affair – all vocal distortion, death and decay – and sees the band effortlessly fulfill their potential of being something really quite special. The song’s line ‘And all you can hear is the sound of your own heart’ is pretty damn apt – this is heart-racingly good stuff. Plus it means I can’t hear the sound of my own singing either.
You may not be surprised to learn that a band called ‘The Magnetic Fields,’ whose last album was named Distortion, have not always had acoustic pre-occupations. However, singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt consciously decided to take the noise out of his noise-pop, and the results are certainly worth a listen.
Merritt described it as ‘my folk album’, and opener ‘You Must Be Out Of Your Mind’ reflects the best side of this. It is a touching yet catchy song, with plenty of banjo, which is always a plus. It’s a shame that the rest of of the album is not quite as good, but it is a high bar set early.
Some miss that mark by a fair distance, however. ‘We Are Having a Hootenanny’ is as pointless as the title would have you believe, with the band giving you the ‘lowdown on our hoe-down’. No thanks. Other irreverent numbers like ‘The Dolls Tea Party’ work better, and the acoustic/banjo instrumentation is effective, as on the opener. The charm offensive continues onto ‘Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree’, but it rings more false. It is a pretty baffling effort, leaving one wondering where exactly the ‘realism’ enters into this album.
‘Always Already Gone’ is a thankfully received reminder of the band’s potential, with luscious string arrangements and ‘God Only Knows’ vocals, and as the album picks up itself back up towards the end, the closer ‘From a Sinking Boat’ doesn’t tempt fate too much. In ‘The Dada Polka’ Merritt tells his audience to ‘Do something strange’.
This album might have been seriously good, but unfortunately it is at times self-consciously idiosyncratic. This might reflect Merritt’s noise-pop past, but it is better that he went for the genre-switch with conviction and confidence, rather than a timid, clichéd effort. For the least that can be said about Realism is that it is interesting. In the best and worst senses of the word.
The 1995 Mercury Music Prize must go down as having one of the best shortlists in the award’s history. No guilt awards, nothing overbearingly obvious, nothing alienating. Just a string of great albums.
Radiohead’s classic The Bends didn’t even make the list, such was the quality of the field. That Leftism missed out is no embarrassment – Portishead’s equally excellent Dummy ended up winning.
Paul Daley and Neil Barnes concoct an intense sound, with moments of the euphoric (‘Song of Life’), the sinister (‘Storm 3000′) and even the poignant (‘21st Century Poem’).
An unlikely collaborator in John Lydon brings something to this record, powerfully yelping ‘Burn Hollywood burn/Taking down Tinseltown’ on stand-out track ‘Open Up’, before it breaks down into an almost reggae outro. Throughout the record Daley and Barnes successfully combine dub and techno to groundbreaking effect.
‘Sonically we’re in control’ guest vocalist Toni Halliday purrs on ‘Original’, and she isn’t kidding.
Israel is a country where religion cannot be ignored. Among the beautiful classical ruins of Bet Shean and Caesarea Maritima, in the archaeological sites of towns which may or may not have been built by Solomon, at the various places where Jesus may or may not have been, you are constantly aware that what you are seeing has significance beyond its face value. This is a land which has been fought over since anyone can remember. It was part of the empires of the Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans and Byzantines, even before the crusades began and religious claims were brought to the forefront.
As a tourist in Israel, visiting the famous sites and surrounded by tourist groups from all over the world, it is possible to be completely insulated from the current conflict. Millions of pilgrims pass through the country every year in search of ancient holy sites, not modern politics and violence, and their needs are catered for by the numerous tour packages on offer, by air-conditioned coaches and hotels. The tourist industry is one of the staples of the Israeli economy, and the government is keen to protect it. However, if you look around you, it is almost impossible to ignore the signs of tension and ongoing conflict. The formidable West Bank barrier cuts across the landscape, an aggressive symbol of division. Upon visiting Palestinian areas such as Bethlehem and Jericho, one is forced through numerous checkpoints, with armed guards at every turn. Jericho, the location of one of the oldest urban settlements in the world, is under siege, surrounded by Israeli trenches. I visited not long after the Gaza War, and the increased security and suspicion was intimidating even as a tourist.
With this level of segregation across Israel, Jerusalem comes as a pleasant surprise. Jerusalem is a sacred centre for all three Abrahamic faiths. The rock upon which the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock stand, is variously believed to be the site of the creation of Adam, Abraham’s offering of his son Isaac, Jacob’s dream, and Muhammed’s ascension into the heavens during the Miraj. For this reason, you find members of every denomination of every religion jostling for space. Mosques, churches, monasteries and synagogues of every description fill the city. The city is technically divided- the Muslim, Christian, Armenian and Jewish quarters in the old town each have their own character, and yet the hundreds of shopkeepers and stallholders are happy to hawk their wares in every street as the crowds move freely about the city. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is shared by seven different Christian communities, with the closing ceremony requiring members of the Muslim families who have been given responsibility for the key. This arrangement, known as the status quo, is a little fraught, but demonstrates the religious compromise which is possible, and which is so desperately maintained in this most hallowed of cities.
What explains women’s reluctance to write letters to newspapers? The question was raised with anguish recently by the admirably feminist Observer letters editor Stephen Pritchard. I was subsequently invited to discuss the subject on radio 4. Do women still feel excluded by newspapers, and, by extension, public life? Do newspapers fail to cover subjects that interest women?
I have two theories on male dominance in letters pages. The first is to do with male/ female psychology. There is a phrase which I hear often from men, which is: “ If you ask my opinion….” Women do not presume that anyone has asked their opinion, or would. They are historically more comfortable in private rather than public realms.
‘Women are far more tentative and fatally empathetic’
It is not so long ago that women were expected to leave the room at the end of a dinner, so that men could exercise their opinions on affairs of public importance. Men are not necessarily constrained by lack of knowledge or experience of a subject. They are innately confident of their ability to find solutions. Women are far more tentative and fatally empathetic. They are always seeing the sense in their opponent’s argument. They are also peace makers. None of this encourages letter writing in a public domain.
‘The women who do write to newspapers tend to be those who run enterprises or public bodies’
The women who do write to newspapers tend to be those who run enterprises or public bodies. They are therefore talking in a professional capacity. Men will write in any old capacity and on subjects far beyond their specialism. Women who write for personal reasons are usually motivated by shared experience.
In Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph two women wrote in response to the mother who killed her suffering daughter: “As a sufferer from ME for eight years I can understand the late Lynn Gilderdale feeling suicidal..”And, “ I and my son both suffer from ME, are housebound and struggle each day to cope.”
Health issues often trigger letters from women, although this is also related to age.This brings me to my second theory on the curious absence of women in newspaper letters pages.
The most enthusiastic letter writers are the retired. They have the time and are more reflective. They have a historical sweep, so can contrast, for instance, contemporary anxiety about waste, with war time frugality.
‘Pontificating is a low priority’
If women have disappeared from newspaper letters pages between university and grandmotherhood, it is probably because they have multiple demands on their time. Pontificating is a low priority.
‘The female letter is based on observation rather than opinion, so you miss the sharp, amused eye on the world. It is also practical and without pomposity’
However letters pages are duller without women. The female letter is based on observation rather than opinion, so you miss the sharp, amused eye on the world. It is also practical and without pomposity. The following is one of my favourite letters which appeared in the Daily Telegraph: “ Sir – I find labels in sweaters irritating on the neck. The first thing I do on buying a new cashmere jumper is to spend 10 minutes trying to unpick the stitching of the riveted-on itchy label without damaging the knitwear. Couldn’t manufacturers put the labels low on the side seam, where the laundry instructions are? Eva Hancock, Long Itchington, Warwickshire.
Sarah Sands is speaking at the OXWIB/Cherwell ‘Women in Journalism’ forum on Thursday of 3rd Week, at 8pm in Brasenose.
The Pill: invented in 1961 and we’re not looking back. It offers the perfect solution to female fears of being left (literally) holding the baby, renders relationships more equal and provides scope for carefree fun. Apart from some fertility scares and a few potentially nasty side-effects, the pill can do no wrong. Or can it?
Tests are constantly being done about the downsides of this female contraceptive. Are you working out but fail to build up that impressive six pack? The blame may be found within your daily dose of birth control. A 10-week study conducted by researchers at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, and the University of Pittsburgh found that women who did not take oral contraceptives gained 60 percent more muscle mass than those on the pill. Women on the Pill also had reduced levels of the hormone DHEA, which helps with muscle growth. But there has been a much more worrying study, which doesn’t just mean holding on to those extra couple of pounds…
Research from the University of Liverpool has suggested that by interfering with women’s hormones, the Pill also interferes with, wait for it: their sense of smell. And it appears that smell plays a crucial part in determining who we’re attracted to. I can see boys reaching for their aftershave now, but this is not a simple case of preferring Diesel to Ralph Lauren; it’s far more primitive. Odour attraction is one of the primary ways that women find compatible mates, naturally seeking out men who have genes that are unlike, yet complementary, to their own. This is a well-known fact in the animal kingdom, with studies showing that female mammals sniff out males who have MHC genes (those responsible for immune responses) that are different from their own, to increase the chances of their offspring’s survival. However its importance for humans has not been so well recognised, until now. The new study suggests that the Pill turns this evolutionary safety mechanism on its head, causing women to become attracted to men who have the most similar genes to them.
If this attraction is strong enough for the long haul, then problems could start to arise. Should a woman come off the Pill at some point during her marriage, she could suddenly be physically repelled by her erstwhile Prince Charming. Rachel Herz, PhD, author of The Scent of Desire and a faculty member at Brown University, says that marriage counsellors have told her that the number one reason women cite for a lack of sexual interest in their husbands, is that they cannot bear how he smells. Superficial as it may sound, one can see how this would have serious effects on the intimacy of a relationship. The problem goes further: if the woman manages to hold her breath long enough to have children, these are likely to be born with a weaker immune system than their parents – effectively taking a step back in the evolutionary process.
The study itself took the form of a T-shirt sniff test. One hundred men were asked to wear the same T-shirt two nights in a row. These were then shredded, and obviously left unwashed, before being produced for the delectation of one hundred female nostrils. The majority of them was attracted to those tops which smelt of men who had the most dissimilar genes. They then began taking hormonal contraceptives, before smelling the same shirts again. Their responses changed. This time they chose genetically similar genes.
One of the researchers for the study, S. Craig Roberts, PhD, noted that the findings were compatible with an earlier US study, which had discovered that women in genetically similar couples were more likely to be dissatisfied with their sex life, and consequently were looking for new sexual partners. It appears that this really is the kind of thing that could break up a marriage. In terms of a possible cause for this phenomenon, Roberts points out that when female animals are pregnant, they start to prefer the scent of genetically similar males. This may happen because they are seeking a mate to help them protect the baby, and are more likely to trust one which has a familiar smell. The Pill could trigger the same effect in human females, because it works as a contraceptive by duping the body into thinking it is pregnant.
Interesting as this research is, and it may certainly cause a few fiancées out there to try a “Pill-free test period” before the big day, I still cannot quite agree with the rather melodramatic views of Marie Hahnenberg, Director of American Life League’s The Pill Kills project, who seemed glad to have her opinions confirmed by the study. “This is significant data. We’ve known for a long time birth control ruins marriages and leaves families emotionally devastated; now we know there’s apparently a biological reason for it. Birth control is duping women into falling for the wrong men.” Personally, I think that the emotional devastation caused by unwanted pregnancy is still powerful enough to affirm the Pill’s validity in the chemist’s.
Of course, one way to avoid all this palaver would be to meet your man on the internet: if you become attracted to someone without smelling them, you can’t be disappointed when you meet them in the flesh. Unless it turns out that he doesn’t believe in showering. Then you wouldn’t even have to rely on your evolutionary instincts to tell that he just might not be your ideal life partner.
OUSU’s financial situation is perilous. Their reserves are totally wiped out by continuing financial incontinence, their projections are similarly unhealthy and unfortunately their attitude remains unhelpful. We are expecting a vast ‘strategic review’ of OUSU’s operations and how it can best serve its students.Yet before this review has even started consultations, a review which OUSU officers have stripped of any financial oversight, OUSU blunders ahead with a drastic modification to its funding model.
Included in these proposals is another change of premises. When the premises in Bonn Square were first lauded in 2002, it was hoped that they could solve many of the institutional failures of OUSU. Yet, 8 years later and OUSU clamours for ‘better suiting’ premises as the current ones are ‘unfit’. However, such projections are at best qualitative as estimates of rent or moving costs are missing, therefore we cannot properly juge the impact of a move.
The registration of the Student Union with the Charity Commission is a huge undertaking, and will see OUSU as a separate legal entity to the University under direct regulation of the Commission. OUSU should be able to stand on its own two feet, but at present, it is on the verge of bankruptcy. The OUSU Executive presents a case which highlights endemic funding failures, yet in the same breath is happily willing to increase its costs; such a schizophrenic attitude to finances shows a fundamental misunderstanding of their duties as trustees of our Student Union. One wonders why no member of the Executive has considered significant spending cuts, unpalatable as they may be, as OUSU must reign in their out of control spending to address their self-made financial crisis; spending is £20K for each of the six elected Sabbatical officers and a further £170K+ to oil their ineffective bureaucratic machine with other OUSU & OSSL staff.
While there are superficial benefits incurred by the removal of affiliation fees, we cannot rush into this without grasping what effects such a change will incur. OUSU will have to beg for around £1 million total funds for 10/11 which will have to come from our University fees, and there will no longer be any significant student voice in OUSU’s level of funding. Where will the control and input from the student population be drawn from if there is no longer a financial incentive for common rooms to insist their officers attend Council?
A review of funding and the operations of our student union are long overdue. OUSU must change to serve and represent students better within our complex institution, yet rashly proposing a massive funding increase in a similarly massive document with minimal consultation will drastically hurt the students of Oxford in the longer term.
‘Affiliation fees prevent financial stability’
Jason Keen, ex-JCR President, St John’s
Our students’ union is at a crossroads. Facing a funding crisis brought on by a funding model that is not fit for purpose, whilst at the same time preparing to register with the Charity Commission and approaching the end of the lease on our current premises. Never before has the question of what our student union should be, what it should do and how we should pay for it been of greater importance.
The timing could not be more critical: as the University prepares to absorb deep government funding cuts over the next few years, the type of education we all receive at Oxford is at stake. We need a strong students’ union to make sure our voices are heard.
To achieve this we need to move away from the current funding model that leaves our union crippled by debt and we must end the destructive culture that sees us trying to tear down OUSU rather than talking about the problems it was created to try and help solve.
We need to support the OUSU President’s proposal to abolish common room affiliation fees and campaign for the University to properly fund our students’ union.
Our student union was founded in recognition of the fact that students needed representation and support beyond college level, and that a body with the mandate to petition the University on behalf of all Oxford students was far more likely to be successful. That’s why OUSU still works for and provides services to all students today – regardless of whether you belong to an affiliated common room.
With that in mind, it fundamentally does not make sense for OUSU to be funded by contributions from JCRs and MCRs. It also creates a situation where some common rooms will disaffiliate, for financial rather than ideological reasons. Afterall, why pay for affiliation when students will receive representation, access and support regardless? Thus our student union is currently propped up on a funding model that not only doesn’t fit with the makeup of the organisation, but is also inherently unstable. Disaffiliation by a single common room reduces OUSU’s monetary resources, increases its deficit and hinders its ability to provide for you.
Some would argue that OUSU can cut its way out of trouble, but the maths just don’t add up: if OUSU stopped all campaigning, cut all publicity, abolished Oxford’s student radio station, cut its non-commercial publications and training for the Student Advice Service tomorrow, then it would save just £19,000 – less than a third of the deficit for this year. Thousands of pounds worth of savings have already been made this year, yet the organisation is still projected to make a substantial loss – as it has in eight of the last ten years. This is not a spending problem. It is a funding problem.
If we were funded as other student unions are – by University block grant – this would be solved. Russell Group student unions such as UCL and Warwick are given as much as £98 and £91 per student in funding by their institutions. OUSU receives just £11.53 per student. If we could convince the University to increase this to as little as £17.85, then we could set our student union on firm foundations, leaving it more able to cater to your needs and abolish affiliations fees.
Last week the Oxford Academic Tariq RaA £3 million development to house research into causes of infertility and assisted reproduction techniques such as IVF has opened on the Oxford Business Park in Cowley. The new ‘Institute for Reproductive Sciences’ will bring together Oxford’s world-class research in reproductive medicine and the Oxford Fertility Unit, a research-led IVF clinic known for pioneering new treatments. In addition to this it will have new teaching and laboratory space for the University of Oxford’s MSc in Clinical Embryology.
Dr Child, one of two co-directors with Dr McVeigh, has said that ‘All IVF couples are offered the opportunity to become involved in research studies going on at the University’, while Dr McVeigh was enthusiastic about the new Institute, claiming that it ‘concentrates the best research and clinical provision of fertility treatments in one place’.
