Not for the faint of heart, this season’s dresses are as glamorous as they come, clinging like beautiful crocodilian skins and sparkling like diamonds, and if you don’t embrace it you’re going to feel seriously underdressed. All dresses by Posh frocks.

Stylist: Kate Shouesmith
Models: Sonia Szamocki and Nicki Lynch
Photographer: Derek Tan

Today I caught a butterfly with my bare hands. Searching for it among scraps of paper, I came across a veritable jungle of origami: lions, roses, dragons, elephants and scorpions tumbled out of Sara Adams’ cardboard box, to crouch on the grass of Wadham gardens.

Sara Adams is head of the Oxford Origami Society, and a student at Exeter College reading Computer Sciences. An origami virgin when she came to Oxford University, Sara quickly learned to love the crease. She now leads paper-folding sessions every Thursday afternoon at Exeter, and really enjoyed displaying the society’s origami at Lincoln college last term. ‘I don’t display the origami in my room, because my  room is really small.’

This amiable, auburn-haired graduate is carrying a box spilling over with colourful models. Sara is just the right person to introduce Cherwell’s culture editors to the art of origami. During twenty minutes of painstaking paper folding, Sara taught Michael and myself how to create a butterfly from a single square sheet.

‘Origami helps me relax, it helps me energise,’ she says. After our very relaxing afternoon, spent turning paper features into origami creatures, I would definitely agree. I found origami very soothing and rewarding: a great way to relieve exam stress. Let’s face it, revision would be a lot more fun if my notes were in the form of paper dragons.

Sara Adams agrees that origami is a great way to relax, away from academic work: ‘with research you don’t see results quickly, do you? But when you start folding paper, you can create something really quickly.’

It is this act of creation, of playing God with mini paper creatures, which makes origami so attractive. ‘You can make things which you think are impossible,’ Sara enthuses, showing us a model with three weirdly intertwining rectangles. It looks like something out of Escher.

Origami is not your average, do-it-in-your-bedroom-when-you’re-bored kind of activity, however. It relies heavily on mathematics and its techniques are used in areas of engineering such as satellites and space travel. For example, the airbags in cars are designed using origami methods of folding to fit into a really small space and expand rapidly when necessary.

Origami can also be exceptionally complicated; according to Sara, ‘models can have five hundred or a thousand steps and involve several hours of folding.’ Physicist and origami theorist Robert J. Lang has written a computer program, dubbed TreeProgram, which will design an origami model and its crease pattern to fit a personal specification.

It is this fusion of mathematical foundation and creative spirit which makes origami so unique. Bridging the gap between art and science, and easy to engage in anywhere, origami is one of the most democratic, inoffensive hobbies around. The word origami originally comes from Japanese: ori meaning paper and gami meaning folding. The art is practised around the world, although it was particularly popularised by Japan.  As Sara tells me: ‘in Japan they take it really seriously. They have televised competitions of who’s the best at origami.’

Origami is a seriously versatile hobby, and more popular than you might think. Folding paper is a natural instinct in people; think of children making paper boats and hats and students rolling cigarettes and sweet papers. 

Origami works with a lot of different materials: wrapping paper, newspaper, special origami paper and even aluminium foil. It can also be tailored to fit individual interests: for example, smokers might enjoy the model of a packet with individual cigarettes made from a single sheet of paper.

And let’s face it, everybody has their favourites. I was particularly enthused by a model of a Welsh dragon, whilst Michael liked a piece of origami which rotates, ‘because you can play with it.’ Sara’s favourite model was one of a scorpion, and she prefers to fold  complicated models from single sheets of paper.

After admiring the convolute of colourful creations which lay in a heap at Sara’s feet, it was time to get started on our own origami experience. Michael and I try to carefully fold and crease, performing every instruction with a zen-like state of concentration. Even so, I still manage to mess up my model, so that Sara has to adapt her instructions to fit my hybrid creation.

‘Do people swear when they’re doing origami?’ I ask, frustrated. Michael smirks when I lose my way, and I am reduced to biting my tongue as I make mistake after ugly mistake.

It’s not looking pretty. Soon my paper has become a heap of quivering shapes. It does not, by any stretch of the imagination, look like a butterfly. Even the photographer, Hector Durham, smirks: ‘You should stop bossing everyone about and focus on the origami, the true art.’ I pull a face, which he unfortunately catches on camera. I think I’ll stick to writing; folding paper is too much like hard work.

However, in spite of my amateur errors, by the end my butterfly looks significantly better than Michael’s. Mine is elegant, floating, a regal golden king of a creature. Michael’s on the other hand is a pink, lurid puff of a butterfly. Now it’s my turn to smirk.

Hi, I’m Peter Bowden. The one in that picture above. I’m a human. This may not be quite clear from the picture, which might as well just be an ugly potato in a hairstorm; but I am human, and if anyone doubts this, I have certificates. If you poison me, I presumably die, and if you prick me, it’s genuinely quite messy. As a human – a bit like you, except I’m probably the only person to hate me more than my readership do – I make mistakes. 

You’re shocked; most of you are thinking, “But you’re Peter Bowden! A student columnist! You shatter worlds with a well-placed keystroke!” No: I fail, just like you. I forget the names of half my friends, and the faces of the rest. I use the word “gay” twenty-six times in a single column, and expect it to get printed. Where you have emotional intimacy, I have Virtua Tennis 2. And failure hurts; that’s the point of it. But without failure, everything else is pointless. Without failure, Cool Runnings would be a rubbish film. Without failure, Larkin would have nothing to write about, and would scour townside gutters for mislaid pennies. He couldn’t fail there, obviously, so he’d make a decent living, but that’s not the point. He’d be wasted.

This term, for the first time, every Cherwell article’s gone online, open to the anonymous commentary of every passing malcontent with a ground axe to fling. Imagine an army of blank-faced ghosts standing outside your house to yell “twat” whenever a window opens; that’s the Internet. So I’ve been forced to accept a little failure in everything I write; but most importantly, I’ve learned to embrace it. We’ll always fail a little, because, as I now realise, it’s impossible to please everyone. 

In Oxford journalism, write about Oxford, and you can barely avoid being a compendium of punting-spires clichés; write about the outside world, and you’re “irrelevant”. Keep things locked on the formal logic, and you’re a lecturer; slip off slightly, and you’re a “shite journalist”. An analogy: it’s like a tightrope. But one surrounded by razorblades, so if you even so much as stifle a wobble, you’ve accidentally sliced off your shins. And it happens in everything: no matter who you are or what you do, on some level, you’re going to fail. 

But if only we listened to every snagging doubt on the way, we’d never do anything. Just listen to my mental monologue: “Were the razorblades necessary? Why did we do this at all? This is all far too introverted for student papers. Should’ve stuck with the Killing Tories piece, that might’ve had jokes. Why am I here? Let’s run to Edinburgh and grow a beard.” Yet, learning to fail liberates us. Let’s all stop caring. Prepare to fail, and you’ve prepared for anything.

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Like any production, backstage at a ball is where the real drama takes place. Brainstorming, bitching, bonding – the months and meetings that form the foundations of a ball are equally as action-packed as the minutes that make up the night.

On an evening like last Saturday, when Oxford witnessed six competing balls, the pressure on a ball committee to perform is immense.

The team needs attractions booked, entertainments lined up, sponsors involved, launch parties organised, alcohol licensed – all this months in advance.

In the immediate run up to the ball, ticket sales become the priority. Pidges and bike baskets are littered with flyers. Ball t-shirts and hoodies appear all over Oxford.

Facebook is a great tool for free advertising – posters replace profile pictures, status updates count down the days, and event groups send out messages updating you on the limited number of tickets available.

There’s a fine line between promotion and overkill though; some balls have been known to be that little bit too keen, causing people to leave their event in frustration at the ten messages, spamming their inbox daily.

When it comes to the actual night, the committee faces its biggest task yet– creating an atmosphere. A ball without an atmosphere is as enjoyable as a film without a plot.

It is not enough to have flash entertainments or spectacular décor, creating a mood that people can lose themselves in is vital.

That’s not to regulate the kind of tone that would work; some balls are known as gateways to old Oxford glamour, others for a night of all things drunk and debauched courtesy of unlimited free cocktails, several are little more than an exercise in networking (albeit often under the guise of a fundraiser).

Whichever type you opt for, though, it’s the atmosphere or lack thereof that can make or break a ball. Ultimately a ball, like so many other Oxford pastimes, is based on a premise of escapism. It’s a night that whisks you away to another time and place, takes you on a journey.

Just as adverts for big brands like Nokia, Smirnoff and Honda are following the trend of evolutionary voyages in the marketing world, so it seems the Oxford ball has evolved into an holiday package, taking you ‘Around the world in 80  days’ or transporting you back in time to ‘Moulin Rouge’ and the days of excess of the ‘Silk Road Exhibition’.

The people that come to a ball are the biggest contributors to its atmosphere. It is not uncommon for winners of free tickets in raffle draws to be strategically chosen for their social pulling power, nor is it unheard of for ball committees to target groups of people for ticket sales – blues rowers, union hacks, thesps and so on.

The category a ball falls under will play a part in attracting various groups of people. Moreover guests’ conceptions of a ball, resulting from the type of ball it is, will play a significant role in conditioning the ambiance on the night. Commemoration balls are the classic Trinity occasion, a ninth week tradition that has lasted for decades.

Over the past few years the classic commemoration balls of Magdalen and New have been great successes, but this year there are four big balls: Christ Church, Trinity, Worcester and St John’s.

Some would argue that St Johns is not historically a commemoration ball and so should be treated as no more than a grand-scale college ball. Either way, the ticket prices alone elevate John’s ball into the league of the big-players.

College balls such as the five held last Saturday tend to be more understated affairs, with a large number of ticket sales guaranteed by the College’s own contingent and their guests. There are less calls for major entertainment acts, and more for a night of good fun with lots of smaller attractions to keep people diverted throughout the night.

Charity balls have had a strong showing this term, with Hands Up for Dafurs evening in First Week gaining a lot of exposure. Societies often host annual balls that are marketed as charity events, all profits going to a related organization. The Majlis ‘Spice Ball’, a non-college ball of last Saturday, was one such ball.

Continuing in the Asian society’s tradition of hosting an annual ball, an evening was put on at the Town Hall, all profits going to TravelAid Nepal and Zindigi India.

Entz are often touted as the major selling point of a ball. At some college balls where it’s easy to get lost from your friends with little effort the emphasis has turned to providing people with fun distractions.

The advantage is that it avoids the awkward need to and mill around having the same conversation over and over (How was your vac? Enjoying term? What are your plans for the summer?).

Still, for a ball committee there is always a debate over the balance to strike between a couple of ‘big entz’ and a host of ‘smaller ents’.

Whilst commemoration balls have license to play their cards close to their chests, aware that their historical pulling power holds great  appeal when selling tickets, there appear to be come differences in their approaches for this year’s Commemoration Week.

The Trinity ‘Illusion’ Ball will host laser quest and dodgems as two big attractions that will certainly attract big crowds throughout the night, in addition to promising a headlining stadium act.

St John’s, on the other hand, has this year adopted a different approach to the current trends for journey balls. Entitled simply The Ball 2008, their 9th week sell-out extravaganza has been cleverly marketed to make an impact, but is there really anything new and entertaining about henna artists, tarot card readers and magicians?

The novelty soon wears off, even when you are being provided with unlimited alcohol from dusk till dawn.

Thankfully St Johns, like all the commemoration balls, has the power to attract big sponsors and to sell tickets with prices in the hundreds, allowing for greater financial resources to splash out on bigger entertainments and promises of international acts to give their guests a spectacular evening.

With Worcester and Christ Church also competing for the commemoration crown, all four of the big commemoration balls are guaranteed sell-outs. Promising headlining acts against a backdrop of decadence, luxury and class, it is at this stage a close call for which will be the best.

It is, though, certain that – more so than for any other kind of ball – for a commemoration ball it will be the atmosphere on the night that determines its success.

 

To the uninitiatied, Simon Yates is your average Yorkshireman; he has no airs or graces, he has a young family and he’s most concerned with when he can next get out of doors. But to both the international climbing community and those who have read the bestselling ‘Touching the Void’, this unprepossessing Northerner becomes not just a well known figure, but an inspiration and an icon.

Joe Simpson’s 1989 book, and Kevin MacDonald’s highly acclaimed 2003 film of the same name, both document Yates’ ill-fated expedition to climb the 6,344 metre Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes with Simpson. Despite initial success on the route, once the pair had reached the summit their expedition took a tragic turn when Simpson broke his leg in the descent. The two men endeavoured to complete the descent with Yates lowering Simpson down the remainder of the mountain. The moment around which the story revolves is when the pair run out of rope half way down a section, leaving Simpson hanging dangerously high above the next safe stopping point, and Yates bearing his entire weight and being slowly pulled from his position above.

 

Yates’ decision to cut the rope was one motivated by self preservation and has always been supported by Simpson, who managed to survive the fall and crawl back to the base camp before Yates and their support partner, Richard, pictured. It is a truly thrilling story of courage and human endeavour and one that has inspired a generation of mountaineers.

And, yet, despite this epic ordeal, when I speak to him, Yates is remarkably unfazed by the experience. He asserts that this was just one episode in a lifetime of successful expeditions, and claims he was too young for it to affect him too deeply at the time. He describes himself at that time in the same way any young climber would; driven by adrenaline to the point of recklessness and claims that it was only when he entered his thirties that his attitude to risk and danger changed sufficiently to alter the pattern of life he had created for himself.

 

He does admit, however, that his experience on the Siula Grande made him acutely aware of unnecessary risk, and while all climbers are aware of the inherent risks involved on the mountain, Yates says that it undoubtedly takes a first hand experience for a climber to genuinely acknowledge these risks.

I ask if his attitude towards there inherent risks has changed at all since he had children five years ago. His gruff Yorkshire accent softens slightly as he replies that he started taking fewer uncalculated risks when he grew up in his late twenties, but that it is time he is more aware of now, rather than risk. As a climber in his mid-forties, all risks taken are only ever going to be necessary, calculated risks, but as a father he is aware that any time spent climbing is time spent away from his children, and he therefore tries to strike a balance between being at home as a father and being away as a climber.

While it may seem a somewhat irrelevant, or obvious, question I ask what it is that inspires him to climb. The climbing community is peppered with mountaineers who climb for the fulfilment of ambition and sense of achievement at conquering nature but there are equal numbers who climb for the all round experience, for the mental and physical challenge the sport offers. Yates falls into the latter category, enjoying climbing for the experience of reconnecting with the natural world; he finds mountains uplifting places to be.

I ask about the often discussed connection between mountaineering and environmentalism, and he describes himself as one of many climbers who is not a great consumer of material things, with the exception of kerosene on craggy hillsides, and asserts that climbers can actively contribute to environmental issues, especially the protection of natural areas.

 

Yates talks passionately about individuals being able to make a genuine difference if they truly love certain natural places, as this raises the public’s awareness of such places, and their importance. He cites the example of the 1930s organised mass trespasses in the Lake District to alert the authorities to the importance of these places in the lives of ordinary people’s lives.

 

Later on in our interview Yates talks proudly of the British climbing tradition of passion and modesty for their activities. He says that, in contrast to the showmanship of many continental climbers, their British counterparts are understated and honest in their endeavours that makes them a pleasure to climb with and learn from. He is excited by the current popularity of the sport and its growing fan base, which he attributes to mountaineers, such as Sir Chris Bonnington, Joe Simpson and, I’m sure, himself, who have written books and given speeches passionately extolling the virtues of their chosen sport.

Yates has now written two books of his mountaineering experiences and gives regular lectures and speeches on the motivational aspects of the sport. He says he has never seen the appeal of a ‘normal’ job, and despite working as an access worker in his twenties it was always done as a means to fund his climbing trips. His lectures are also part of an income that now needs to satisfy not just his own adventures, but also a young family, although they do place him an the favourable position of being able to talk about the thing he loves in the name of work and he hopes that his talks spread the joy he feels for what he does.

 

Talking to Yates, his obvious passion and enjoyment for climbing is infectious and, as one of the most accomplished British climbers of his generation, his obvious skill is formidable yet he conveys it all in with characteristic honesty and modesty. While his experience on the Siula Grande was debilitating, within two months he was back in the Alps and back on the way to a lifetime of good experiences in the mountains he loves.

Simon Yates’ ‘Beyond the Void’ will be at the Oxford Playhouse on Friday 9 May.