The message of Green Economics is one which, in these harsh times, is particularly welcome, looking beyond mere money and profit and putting more emphasis on social, environmental, and political impacts of policy upon many of the problems that face the world. Here, Cherwell talks to one of its Founders about the institute’s ideas and projects.
Blog Page 2122
Oxford stays with Labour
Oxford has bucked national and county trends by more than doubling its Labour councillors in Thursday’s local elections.
Nine of the city’s sixteen wards are now controlled by Britain’s governing party, as opposed to just four before the elections. Oxford’s City Council, for which elections will be held next year, has long been dominated by Labour.
OULC president Jacob Turner said he felt that the result was a consequence of “a very great effort from the local party including Labour Club members. We’ve been going out, meeting people, and asking them not to vote for us, but just how our councillors can help them. We’ve built up a relationship with residents which is ultimately expressed in voting.”
In central areas of Oxford, Labour advanced at the expense of the Greens. West Central Oxford abandoned its Green councillor to elect Labourite Susanna Pressel, while East Oxford ended its unusual status as an all-Green ward by electing Labour’s Saj Malik.
The Conservatives once again failed to win any council representation in Oxford, receiving less than 10% of the vote in many areas.
The results stand in stark contrast to the pattern on the national level. Across all the wards up for election in this round of voting, Labour lost the majority of its sitting councillors and all three of its councils.
This was reflected more obviously in rural areas of Oxfordshire, where the party received an overall vote share of just 15%, leaving it with no wards left in the county outside Oxford itself. However, its success in the capital means that it has made an overall net gain of one seat on the county council.
Turner said he accepted that national issues were having a negative effect on Labour’s performance in council elections. However, he added that he felt Oxford provided a good example of the party at its best.
“Regardless of the state of the cabinet, or how politicians are being portrayed in the media, our basic principles are correct – we’re the party that cares about the people and what the state can do for the people. As long as we keep this in mind we can keep being very strong in Oxford.”
The Conservative Party benefited most from the swing in rural support towards Labour, and now dominates the county council with 52 of its 74 seats. A weak showing in both rural and urban areas by the Liberal Democrats saw them lose five seats, although they remain the largest opposition group.
Review: Paperweight
Paperweight, another first rate piece of alternative and inventive theatre at Summertown’s North Wall, is a play in which not very much happens. In fact, for the first five minutes or so, the audience is made to look at a unused stage – a generic office space with computers, files and nick-nacks – with no characters, bathed in half light. We grew a bit nervous and some people began to laugh nervously. My companion, ever the optimist, turns to me, deciding, “it’s going to be one of those plays, isn’t it?”. Well, yes, it is one of those plays, if these plays denoted as “those” are plays which challenge, entertain, surprise, shock and move. If those plays are the plays that make you see life in a totally different light, then this Edinburgh Fringe-first winning production is certainly one of those that will be talked about for a long time to come.
The company describes Paperweight as a near-silent comedy and the play depicts a day in the life of two men, Harry and Anthony, whose dead-end jobs in the Resource Department of an electrical appliance retailer simultaneously wear them down, and yet force them to look for alternative ways to occupy themselves. For a lot of the time the script is done away with and the action is key: whether it emphasised slow-motion eye rolling while watching a kettle boil, a hilariously elaborate mouse-trap like contraption that ends up popping a balloon, practical jokes or the never ending shifting of paper.
The humour in such situations ranges from the slapstick, to a dark and brooding irony, to the out and out bizarre. This is a frustrating show – and so it should be. The nullifying boredom of our two characters’ lives takes over audience members as yet another extended sequence of repetition begins, and their desperation to fill the day, to make something or simply to exercise their existence as thinking human beings, parallels our intense desire to see something happen. A touching equilibrium of co-dependency is set up between actors and observers, building our sympathy for them. The fact that the whole seventy minute piece is so beautifully acted only adds to this relationship we begin to feel we have with these two stifled eccentrics.
What also motivates our empathy is the inescapable knowledge that the world goes on around them. They are not Estragon and Vladimir, stuck in a timeless and motionless arena of expectant nothingness: they inhabit the real world, haunted by real aspirations and worries. One character’s father is soon to be put in a home, while the other frets about asking a colleague out on a date. Yet these real life details rest on the periphery of this deeply human play as most of the action concerns them, in this office, and what they do to pass the time. At times surreal (the description of a female co-worker’s escapades behind a filing cabinet with a dog and another colleague is marvellously absurd) and at times profoundly touching, we watch as their human instincts are crushed by work.
Work, it seems, robs us of our animal free-spiritedness, as well as our capacity for fun. In the final moments of the play (and I won’t spoil it for you, in case you should come across this play at some point in the future) we see a reversion to the primitive that might seem positive, but due to the overarching oblivion of the piece looks like a submission to life and, as is semi-confirmed by Harold, to death.
I could go on to mention the brilliant way in which music and tape recordings are used to both create humour and to suggest the passing by of the outside world. I could also wax lyrical about the physical stamina of the actors and the commendable focus and great skill of their performances. But I won’t. Instead, I will conclude by saying simply telling you that this is a show I will not forget, will look out for in the future, and one which in my opinion should become a classic and confirms North Wall’s credentials as a centre of pioneering theatre.
55 years and four minutes ago
You read the interview with Roger Banister in Cherwell, now hear for yourself what the athletics legend had to say!
Sound and Vision
Isn’t music amazing? The things it can do to people, the way it influences and shapes pretty much everything we see and experience throughout our lives? Think about it, imagine it, spot it the next time you’re out. See the girl everyone’s watching as she clicks her heels across a dance-floor; hear the roar as ‘Mr Brightside’ first chimes through the room; feel yourself lose it pulling shameless shapes to raise a smile from the angel across the room. You might call it a kind of magic. One man knows what you mean.
I’m outside Euston station to meet Kieron Gillen, author of graphic novel and under-underground cult sensation Phonogram, currently half-way through it’s second sell-out series. The premise is a world identical to our own (to Bristol, if you’re being technical) where this musical magic is pushed to just the other side of literal, to be manipulated by people with enough musical sensitivity. It’s used for plenty of ends, whether it’s getting you onto the guest-list at exclusive cubs, helping you pull at the end of the night, or staging a nation-wide comeback of the guitar-driven Britpop that made Oasis and Blur household names.
Still not quite getting it? You will. As we sit down at a nearby pub, we get a nice illustration of one of the most accessible concepts in Phonogram; curse songs. Think of an old loved one. Does a specific song leap to mind? Some film score maybe, or a track that for some reason you just can’t do anything but associate with them? How does it feel to listen to it again? Painful, right? That’s a curse song.
As we sit down, a song (which will mercifully go unnamed) comes on that’s one of Gillens. The relevance is that the latest issue of Phonogram explored this same concept. ‘Curse songs’ in the Phonogram universe literally invoke these memories, forcing you to relive them with crushing vivacity. It’s the same reason I can never watch Amelie again, or listen to Lady Gaga’s ‘Just Dance’. You’re probably thinking of a song yourself right now too.
I put to Kieron the idea that the appeal of Phonogram is that, as much as it’s a fantasy, it’s a very real one, something very easy to identify with. ‘It’s the idea that these things which are very, very normal, are actually magic, and it’s the kind of fantasy it is to me. It’s a kind of manifesto, and it’s also my way of re-imagining reality. Its like Parkour. I love Parkour because you see these guys living in big tower blocks in Paris, and saying ‘This is designed as a prison, but this is actually a playground. Or graffiti artists like Banksy.’
Manifesto is a fair summary. One of the joys of Phonogram is the back-matter included with each issue. The current series, The Singles Club, draws its name from the structure of the narrative. Each of the 7 issues, the ‘singles’, comes with a main plot line, a glossary of the not-too-exclusive musical references, a short essay, and two ‘b-sides’; two to three page comics illustrated by a guest artist. Each single stands alone as a statement about some insight in some way familiar to anyone who’s ever listened to the same song 50 times in a row because it was that good.
It’s the inclusion of these features which helps outsiders understand part of the reason Gillen has gone for comics as a medium over any other. With each single, the opportunity is there to do something unique and deliberate. ‘Comics are very much about the structure of the thing. Something like Phonogram has me thinking hard about panel layout, about specific angles, about how things should be done on a page. It’s like poetry; things like Meter, Stanzas.’
The amount of thought that goes into every detail is staggering. ‘With every script I do for an artist that’s not Jamie [Mckelvie, Phonogram head artist and Gillen’s collaborator], I write heavy scripts. I like heavy scripts because I want to make sure there’s a solution, but I’m happy to say ‘You’ve got a much better visual eye than I do, and if there’s something you think could be done better, please do’. Heavy script means that for an issue of Phonogram, which might contain up to 1000 words of dialogue, the script that goes to an artist will be 10,000 words. ‘Most comic scripts are 4000.
‘And then, some people are like ‘Alan Moore [creator of Watchmen] writes scripts that are 22,000 words long, I know! I’ll write scripts that are 22,000 words!’ without really seeing the point. If you read an Alan Moore script you see he’s doing that for a reason.’
Gillen gives you the impression that what he’s trying to do couldn’t succeed in any other medium, for several reasons. For example, the issue of getting away with it in a financial sense. Running away with his self-described ‘wanky’ tendencies, he describes this writing for a particular group of hardcore music lovers as ‘memic engineering’.
‘It’s easier to do that kind of memic engineering in a comic because the risk is so low. Me and Jamie are playing the same game as other comic writer and artist teams because it comes down to the same playing field. Whatever one man can draw versus whatever one man can draw. However, an indie film maker isn’t playing on the same field as someone with a multi-million budget.’ A Phonogram movie, as he puts it, ‘wouldn’t be Phonogram’, because the idea just wouldn’t have enough mainstream buoyancy.
The other is the array of tricks he can accomplish with comics as a form that convey so effectively his ‘music is magic’ motif. Even details like the number of panels to a page. ‘I quite like the shape of an 8 panel page; it’s like how the human eye sees the world. As opposed to the 9 panel, which is strangely claustrophobic’. There are something’s on a script that have to be done just so; something he’s noticed on other scripts is how writers highlight details that might seem arbitrary that have to be included. ‘You might see, ‘There’s a red door in the background’; ‘red door’ is marked out.’ While he allows the artist freedom, he’ll stick to his guns where necessary.
With the very sensory-focussed visual influence that comics have on the reader, Gillen writes to control the pace of the narrative. He makes the comparison between song and narrative structure. ‘Issue 7 [of The Singles Club] will be about me translating [the two]; it’ll have that long intro, and then it kicks in, and it pounds. Then you’ve got a couple of choruses, and the bridge, the bridge absolutely melts, and it kicks back it. And that’s the structure of the issue.’
I ask about the method he goes through when sitting down to write something so personal like Phonogram. ‘Drunk!’, he replies instantly. Because of what he describes as the ‘emotional warmness’ of the books, he finds that there are various tricks he can use to settle into the mood for a particular character. One recent experiment has involved ‘method drinking’. ‘I’m often thinking, ‘I want to write something now’, will sit down, open a bottle of wine and have a play with it. But edit sober!…I’ve thought, ‘I know, I’ll drink what the character would be drinking in the club, so I can be closer to the character.’
‘The first one I wrote with drinking was issue 5. So I went and got the cheapest own-brand Vodka, I think it said ‘such-and-such makes the happy vodka’ on the label. [For another] I drank alcopops…Didn’t realize they were caffeinated!’-this exclamation is accompanied with furious fist pumps by means of illustration. Hearing rumours that a particularly respected visiting philosopher was spotted drinking vodka while giving a groundbreaking seminar, this is definitely a method that might deserve some exploration…
Phonogram is definitely worth reading. As someone not a naturally massive fan of comic books, I was pleasantly surprised when I was pushed onto it. Gillen as a writer has a gift for making very complicated, very difficult to explain ideas from an abstract medium like music, understandable to anyone.
He’s described Phonogram in the past as a particular kind of music criticism; this seems more than fair. It’s a manifesto of music being something more than just listened to, but experienced. Phonogram, basically, goes a long way towards paying music the respect it deserves.
Nip to Amazon and pick up a copy of Rue Britannia-you won’t regret it.
Heard it on the grapevine
The most expensive case of wine ever sold cost over £3000 per bottle. That’s paying the same amount for a year’s tuition at Oxford as for 750ml of grape juice. Old grape juice. Though the world of wine is evidently crazy, it is also massively compelling. Given how much most of us enjoy drinking wine, if you learn a little more about it you can choose bottles that are unusual, exciting and damn good to drink.
Getting hold of wine you can be passionate about is easier when you understand and can communicate what you like about different wines. This is where technical tasting is useful. ‘Tasting’ is simply assessing how the wine looks, smells and tastes. Anyone who tries to kid you that this is tricky clearly can’t remember a three step list so shouldn’t be taken seriously. First, look at your wine, notice its colour, any tints or shades and if it is the same colour throughout. Now swirl the wine to let the air open its aromas and stick your nose in. The smells that present themselves range from luscious tropical fruits of Australian Chardonnay to the complex barnyard characteristics of Burgundy’s Pinot Noirs. As you can tell, being unconventional is acceptable, and more fun, so spend some time sniffing and see what stands out to you.
You have now been holding your glass of wine for a couple of minutes without drinking. Congratulations on your self-discipline. We can now move on to the most exciting part of wine, drinking it. You have six things to look out for as you taste.
The first four are the structural elements of wine: sweetness, acidity (the backbone of most whites), tannin (the backbone of most reds) and alcohol. You can objectively assess how much of these are present in each wine and how well they integrate and balance together. Gauging the level of each and your response to the combination will demonstrate the styles of wine you like. Sweetness and acidity are easy to notice and you will recognise the warming sensation alcohol provides at the back of the palate. Tannin is obvious but harder to understand. It is the astringency of red wine you also get from drinking cold tea. (Swill red wine around your mouth for a while and feel your teeth sticking to your gums to get the idea.)
Finally, consider the flavours of the wine. Like smelling, flavours are perceived differently by everyone, so get involved and start trying to articulate what’s going on in your glass. To start off it may be helpful to look past specific tastes to general flavour profiles in wines like herbaceous or fruity, spicy or mineral, earthy or floral. Read recommendations and bottle labels and try and pick out what they find.
One particular flavour is very important: Oak. Oak is used in the treatment of wine to give it weight in the mouth and different, more complex flavours. The amount of oak used is as good or bad as the winemaker is skilful. However, if you are getting toasty, woody, butterscotch or vanilla notes in a wine it is probably coming from the oak rather than the grapes.
So you are aware, this is the point at which you can get carried away in a wine-fuelled fervour. For me this involves ruminating on the joys of German Riesling with a crisp citrus structure, supporting overtone of minerals (and petrol) and an irresistible touch of sweetness on the finish. I love to quench my thirst with New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, with its huge acidity and green, grassy flavours ideally complemented by sweeter fruits like raspberry, passion fruit or blackcurrant. I lose myself in red Burgundy (made with Pinot Noir) for though it is a light red wine with little tannin and some oak this is allied with red fruit flavours and earthy aspects ranging from the powerful echo of a farmyard to the musk of mushrooms in a shaded wood, all perfectly evoking the French countryside. I indulge unashamedly in the powerful dark fruits and seductive spice of Australian Shiraz (a.k.a. Syrah, grown in the Rhone) with its clench of powerful tannin and huge body. I also crave the excitement of trying new, unusual wines that take your palate in unexpected directions.
Now we have cleared up the unending attractions of good wine, we’d better talk money. The price of wine varies hugely and does tend to correlate with quality. The average spend on wine in the UK is about £4.10 a bottle, however, after you remove duty, VAT and retailing costs, a maximum of 50p is spent on making the wine. So, though there are some good wines sub-£5, if you are willing to spend a couple of pounds more the jump in quality is pronounced. Also, know that at low prices wine is of two distinct styles. Some is great value stuff made by low cost producers who make simpler versions of other wines but still express some characteristics of the grapes used and where they were grown. On the other hand there is an increasing trend of wine being mass produced to appeal to a broad market. This wine tends to lack interest, flavours and structure. If these bottles get you going, fine, but I find it hard to get passionate about wine that has been produced with as much thought, artistry and care as Coca Cola.
Now you have a little knowledge, start approaching wine confidently. There is so much to enjoy, and a large number of oenophiles more than happy to despatch advice. So, think about what styles of wine you enjoy and start purchasing. For inspiration, try my recommendations to carry you through summer:
Clear your palate and quench your thirst with a bottle of Quadro Sei Gavi 2007 (M&S, £4.99) from Piedmont, Italy. The Cortese grape makes whites with high acidity, like the more common Sauvignon Blanc. However, it has lovely clean citrus fruits on the palate and floral notes prevent the wine seeming too brittle in the mouth.
If you enjoy whites that aren’t too dry and have clear fruit flavours go straight for La Difference’s French Viognier-Muscat 2007 (Tesco, £4.92). The Viognier grape gives a vivid drive of apricots (and currently is a very cool white grape) and Muscat adds a perfumed grapey edge. This creates a sumptuous balance between off-dry, un-cloying fruit flavours and a light-mid weight body. Drink when the heat is still lingering and the sun is on its way down before dinner is ready.
Chardonnay. Change your perspective on a grape you may think you already know (and save some money) by heading for Chile’s Errazuriz 2007 Chardonnay at Sainsbury’s whilst it’s on offer (£4.99 from £7.99, or Oddbins, £6.99). This is fairly traditional Chardonnay (think peaches, melons and some oak) with good complexity and a refined structural balance. A rounder white wine, it will work well with lighter foods.
Though at least one of your friends will claim to detest red wine, show them this very light example to change their mind. Sainsbury’s own Beaujolais (£3.99) is a great example of what Beaujolais excels at: well priced, light bodied red wine with almost no tannin and bright red summer fruit flavours. This wine is great when the sun is out and accompanies serious salads really well. If you want to totally break with wine snobbery, and I unreservedly encourage you to, stick it in the fridge for 30 minutes before drinking to perk up the flavours.
Chianti is a perfect red to enjoy with food, especially Italian food, because it has mid-weight tannin and relatively high acidity without a large, overpowering body. Piccini tend to get their Chianti right at the moment, so try either the Piccini 2007 Chianti (Sainsbury’s, £5.99) or take advantage of the special offer on the Picinni 2005 Chianti Riserva, a noticeably better wine (Sainsbury’s, £6.99 from £9.99). Both show typical cherry fruit, moderate oak and savoury finish and are worth getting stuck in to.
Waitrose have an excellent wine selection (and there are also rumours of 25% off offers looming) so invest in the sublime Zalze Shiraz, Mouvedre, Viognier 2007 blend from South Africa (£5.99). These classic grapes of the Rhone create a rich wine of blackberry and raspberry fruit and gentle dark spice. The Viognier (a white grape) adds an attractive lift to the large body and heavy tannins of its companions. This impressive wine will suit meals of robust red meat excellently.
These wines all express a character that indicates the grapes they are made with and place they are made in. These differences make for interesting, diverse and exciting wines. This is the wine I am passionate about. Start tasting, ask questions and figure out what wines you enjoy and revel in drinking them. You’ve nothing to lose except your inhibitions and you may discover a passion too.
News Roundup: Week 6
Marta and Antonia discuss the findings of Cherwell’s sex survey, with some sad news for scientists, look at the research Oxford University have just published on ducks’ water preferences and tell you why you should vote in the local elections.
Summer Book Club
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
The Devil’s Paintbrush by Jake Arnott
The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
An insecure Union?
Fears about security at the Oxford Union have intensified after a series of incidents including the theft of money and claims of assault on the premises.
Staff and committee members have also complained that they have been placed in dangerous and unpleasant confrontations with intruders due to a lax entrance policy.
President-Elect James Dray raised the issue of security in last week’s committee meeting, stating that there is “a huge security problem with numerous thefts from the gardens and the buildings, which makes the buildings unpleasant to be in during the day.”
This week, the debating society’s standing committee was told that recent thefts included Bodleain cards, membership cards, and money belonging to treasurer Nouri Verghese.
When asked why the Society’s sophisticated card scanners were not being used to screen those entering Union buildings, President Corey Dixon was forced to admit that they had been stolen.
One member of staff at the Union, who wished to remain anonymous, said that although security has improved in the last year, progress had been slow. He said that a major worry for Union staff is a homeless drop-in centre, the Gatehouse, almost opposite to the entrance. “We often have to turf out alcoholics during the day; I can only imagine it would be worse at night.”
Secretary Laura Winwood admitted she had also been forced into an unpleasant confrontation with intruders in Union buildings. She reported to the Standing Committee an incident in which she had tried to apprehend two men she believed to be potential thieves in the courtyard, saying “They grabbed me by the arm and threw me back. They were quite big and thuggish. There really is a problem”.
Other staff members said they had felt threatened by homeless individuals who entered the building during the holidays. During the committee meeting it emerged that there is only one full time security guard at the Union, despite the premises having two main entrances.
Bursar Lindsay Warne said “standing committee approved a £9,000 reduction in our security budget, which as we pointed out at the time meant we had to fire somebody.”
Dixon said he was “very happy to pass a motion to hire another door staff”, but no decision has yet been taken. Last week he proposed a poll of Union members to gauge response to their money being spent on security measures
Staff, however, criticized his decision not to consult them on any possible changes.
An employee of the Union said “It seems obvious to consult the staff about security, after all, we are the ones most affected.”
Union members seem surprised at the lack of security around the buildings and the level of crime reported, with one commenting “for the fee that we’re paying, you’d expect that they’d at least be able to look after my bag. There might be an open gate policy, but at the end of the day it’s a private building. It should be safer.”
Several of the thefts occurred during Presidential Drinks. There are concerns that non-members are often allowed to attend the weekly invitation-only event, with librarian Stuart Cullen admitting that he knew some who had been allowed to stay.
Dray told standing committee members that he had looked into the possibility of an automatically operated gate with an attached scanner able to read Union membership card barcodes. He added that the Cambridge Union operated a similar system, and claimed to have spoken to a company who believed they would be able to make such a system worked.
However, when asked for details, he stated that he was unsure of the specifics of the plan. “This isn’t something I’ve looked into or investigated properly,” he said.
Dray also said that he felt Union members might oppose such plans, saying “a number of members have said in emails to me that they opposed any gate”.
There have also been concerns over uncontrolled admission of members of other societies during joint events at Frewin Court, and the Union’s difficulties in controlling their behaviour. Bursar Warne said she felt that a proposed Oxford University Conservative Association event on the premises was likely to be particularly troubling.
“On past experience, they will cause trouble, and they will throw up everywhere”, she told committee members.
Students strip off for charity calendar
Oxford-based student charity TravelAid has produced a naked calendar with the aim of raising money for projects in the developing world.
Oxford Undressed features shots of naked students with their modesty preserved by typical Oxonian adornments such as books and mortar boards.
The calendar features classic images such as punting on the Cherwell, string quartet in the Holywell music room and trashing on New College Lane, and will be on sale for £10.
Catherine Little, the charity coordinator said, “TravelAid is expanding both in the developing world and out to different universities across the UK, and this calendar is part of our fund-raising ethic which promotes development through enterprise.” The initiative follows a similar calendar that raised over £2000 to buy a school bus in Nepal two years ago.
A second-year student at Trinity who participated in the calendar recounted, “Doing the calendar shots was quite a giggle; never before (and never again, I expect) had I sat naked in a punt at 5.30 am in the rain! I’m going to spend the summer vacation teaching in rural China.”
One Hertford student, who has previously posed for a naked calendar added, “What an excellent cause – you get to help a charity and support people by stripping off at the same time. Win win.”
Recent years have seen a number of naked calendars produced in Oxford. In 2006, St Catz undergraduates stripped for a calendar in memory of a student killed in a cycling accident; in the same year members of St Anne’s, including porters, bared all in aid of the homeless.
Naked calendars have not always been greeted with a warm reception, illustrated in 2003 when ten LMH students were given a dressing-down for posing naked in the fellows’ garden without permission.
Portia Roelefs, OUSU’s part-time women’s officer, commented positively on the charity’s efforts. She said, “Whilst I personally cannot imagine actually choosing to hang it on my wall, I admire the creativity of Travelaid’s fund-raising.”
TravelAid partners with local charities and communities to alleviate poverty and build social capacity in the developing world.
Students are offered the opportunity to travel to project destinations during the summer, including China, Ecuador, India, Kenya and Nepal.