Students and members of the public protested against the visit of Shimon Peres, president of Israel, to Oxford’s Sheldonian theatre to give a lecture.
Once inside the theatre, Peres was heckled by several audience members.
Full report here.
Blog Page 2194
Queen to visit Magdalen College
Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh are to visit Magdalen College on November 27th to mark the 550th anniversary of the foundation of the college.
The Queen is to have lunch with Fellows and some students and college staff. Students have been invited to put their names in a draw to determine those who will be invited to lunch with the Queen.
Charles Byers, 1st year Music student at Magdalen says “I’m deeply honoured by this event. It’s amazing to have such an opportunity, I’ve already put my slip into the drawing box and I’m very excited.”
Queen Elizabeth II, at 81, became Britain’s oldest-ever monarch on Thursday.
Oxford dropout wins literary award
An author who was thrown out of Oxford University has won a prestigious award for children’s writing. Andy Stanton won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize with ‘Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear’, a book filled with dark humour surrounding the curmudgeonly behaviour of the title character.
The prize, worth £2,500, is designed to draw attention to new children’s writing and encourage young readers to read more books.
Stanton spent twelve years working in odd jobs after leaving the university but found success after writing the series of books to entertain his cousins. His series is now to be made into a Nickelodeon animation.
Pensioner dies after city centre row
A pensioner has died after being knocked to the ground in Oxford city centre. Two women were arguing outside the British Home Stores outlet on Queen Street when they accidentally pushed over the 74-year-old.
The woman was taken to the John Radcliffe infirmary to be treated for head injuries after the incident on Monday afternoon. Her condition deteriorated overnight and she died in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
A 35-year-old woman is being held in police custody in relation to the incident. Police have appealed for anyone who may have witnessed the incident to contact them.
Catz scrape win in marathon match
St Catz registered their third league win in four games to confirm their
credentials as genuine title challengers with a battling 3-2 victory away at
Magdalen. Goals from Sam Donaldson, Alan MacNaughton and Ross Hughes were enough to earn all three points for Catz, but hosts Magdalen could be proud of a hugely spirited performance that belied their position at the foot of the table.
Indeed it was the home side that started the better, and could easily have been two up in the first ten minutes. A terrific through-ball from Alex Canfor-Dumas sent Mervin Kissoon clear with Magdalen’s first real attack, but the lively striker fired wide with only Charlie Hardwick to beat. Hardwick had to be at his best five minutes later when Alex Obradovic sent a low free kick towards the bottom corner, the Catz keeper producing a fine one-handed save.
The awkward playing surface and narrow pitch were only encouraging an
attritional midfield battle, and neither side were able to offer much in the
way of attacking fluency throughout the first half. The only real scare in the
Magdalen defence came when left-back Doug Kelly was forced off with a knee-
injury midway through the half, causing a reshuffle that took the dangerous
Obradovic out of midfield and diminished his attacking influence.
Just when it looked like the two sides would go into half-time level at 0-0, Catz poached a goal out of nothing. A long throw from Peter Jones was allowed to bounce by the new-look Magdalen defence, and Donaldson reacted first to prod home from close range.
Catz came out aggressively in the second half, sensing that with chances at a
premium the next goal would be crucial. Unfortunately for them, it was Magdalen who got it. Substitute Henry Curr did brilliantly to win the ball in midfield before releasing Kissoon, who this time made no mistake, lifting the ball neatly over the onrushing Hardwick for the equaliser. Both sides pressed
forward in search of a second, but neither could produce a final ball to match
the ample determination and midfield aggression that was rapidly becoming the defining feature of the game. It took a late challenge on Efe Ekhaese to spring the contest into life, the tackle causing a mini-melee and interrupting the concentration of the Magdalen back four enough to allow Catz to take the lead.
A long free-kick found its way to Ryan Taylor in the box and, though his shot was brilliantly saved, the rebound fell kindly to MacNaughton who grabbed the goal his performance merited with a neat finish.
Kissoon then came close to levelling matters for a second time, volleying just over from the edge of the box. But with the hosts’ midfield pressing further up the pitch in search of an equaliser, Catz made it 3-1 with a clinical counter-
attack. An exquisite chipped through-ball from Carl Assmundson was latched into by Ross Hughes, and the Catz left-back produced an emphatic finish to cap the move of the match and seemingly make the game safe.
There was to be one final twist in what had developed into an enthralling battle, and it came from an unlikely source. With most of the life having seeped from the contest, the referee’s insistence to keep on playing encouraged Magdalen. With his watch seemingly operating in a different time zone, the hosts poured forward, and Rob Frost produced a thirty-yard screamer to reduce the deficit to just one. With the home side sensing an improbable fightback, however, the referee finally blew, some 60 minutes into the second half, to send the Catz’ fans home happy and leave Magdalen anchored to the bottom of the table.
Undergrads shunted to bottom of room ballot
Outraged Brasenose students studying for a four-year degree have been told they may not be eligible for college accommodation next year.
Third year students applying for their fourth or fifth year of accommodation in College or in the Frewin Annex will now be placed at the bottom of the housing ballot for their final year, below students going into second and third year.
This could result in some fourth year students having to live out of college in the same year that they sit their final examinations.
One student called the rooms in college at the bottom of the ballot “the worst rooms in Brasenose, which have literally no windows”.
Students were sent a message on Monday informing them of procedural changes to the allocation of rooms.
The lateness of this announcement has angered many of the college’s population.
An anonymous Brasenose student explained, “this is the first everyone has heard of it and so many will now have literally a few days to sort out other accommodation for next year since student rooms in Cowley etc are already being rented out”
Due to the late notice of the unexpected procedure, the college has agreed to allow fourth-year scientists to keep their priority in the tenancy ballot for this year. However, this priority will be removed next year.
The college will continue to guarantee all undergraduate students three years of accommodation, either on the main College site or the Frewin Annexe, situated five minutes from the college.
However, this has not satisfied many current third-year students who stated that they were given to believe that they would be offered college accommodation for each year of their studies.
One third-year scientist called the introduction of the new procedures a “disgrace” and spoke of his disbelief at the college’s refusal to provide any warning of the change.
He said, “it’s a disgrace, I can’t believe the college have done this without giving any notice or offering any justification. I’m outraged.”
The current Brasenose website states that the college has “accommodation for later year students on both sites” and:
“In recent years Brasenose has been able to accommodate all undergraduates wanting College accommodation.”
The Bursar of the college was unavailable for comment.
Israeli president shouted down by students
Armed police flanked the Bodleian on Tuesday night as Shimon Peres arrived in Oxford to present a lecture to students and staff at the Sheldonian.
But the heavy security could do little to prevent a verbal assault on Peres as students interrupted his speech with a series of attacks on Israel’s policy on Palestine.
Throughout the course of the talk, entitled ‘the globalisation of peace’, a series of eight students stood up and shouted statements in what they described as a gesture on behalf of the Palestinians.
One student shouted, “I represent the thousands of farmers who’ve had their land stolen illegally to build Israeli settlements.”
Another student, who loudly heckled Peres and called him a war criminal, was escorted out of the building by security guards.
Around 40 students gathered in front of the Sheldonian to protest at Peres’ visit and at one point chants of ‘Free Palestine’ threatened to drown out his voice.
The response of other students to the hecklers was mixed, with some booing and hissing and some clapping in response to those who interrupted the president. At the end of the talk, some students present remained seated while others stood to enthusiastically applaud.
Peres was invited to Oxford by Andrew Graham, Master of Balliol College, in order to inaugurate the first of a series of five lectures on the subject of peace.
Mr Graham said that he was “well aware of the opposition that has been expressed about this invitation” but that “the fundamental purpose of a University which is to hear and discuss and examine all points of view.”
During his speech, Peres hailed the election of Barack Obama as “the end of racism” and “a clear demonstration that we live in a different world.”
He also addressed the problems of peace negotiations and the progress made by Israel in the fields of science, agriculture, alternative energy and medicine.
Watch Cherwell’s video of the protest against Peres’ lecture here
OUSU elections vox pop
As the OUSU elections are postponed and a Cherwell poll shows that most students are unaware of the presidential candidates and their policies, we investigate the students’ mood further.
NB: As stated in the video, St Benet’s Hall is not affiliated with OUSU; however this is not true of all Permanent Private Halls.
Genre Confused
The problem with Anti-Folk is that it’s not really anti anything, and certainly not folk music. Jeffrey Lewis, the prominent Anti-Folk singer and cartoonist, feels this sense of genre confusion too, pronouncing that ‘no-one knows what it means, including me’.
The origins of Anti-Folk are said to have started in Greenwich Village, NYC, in 1984. Lach, a punk-folk troubadour, hitch-hiked up to New Yoik to play his own brand of scuzzy punk-folk, but was kicked out of the legendary, but sadly mainstream club Folk City for being too punk.
Indignant, he moved to the Lower East Side and opened an illegal after-hours club called the Fort, and from there began the first Anti-Folk festival as a backlash against the then corporate folk scene. Anti-Folk has been brewing since then and is now enjoying a resurgence, partly thanks to the release of the 2008 movie Juno, with its predominantly Anti-Folk soundtrack, including The Moldy Peaches’s movie-defining song ‘Anything Else But You’.
Another problem with Anti-Folk is that it has no true defining style: artists that fall under the label, like Regina Spektor, Beck, and The Moldy Peaches, all have seemingly different sounds. Its only central trait is an interest in unconventional song-writing.
Songs tend to focus on ordinary themes of daily life and its mundanity, but portrayed in a defamiliarising way which, if successful, can leave you looking at the world anew. Midtown Dickens’s song ‘Tetris’, for example, from the album Oh Yell!, is an ode to the procrastinative joys of Tetris, combining a childish beat and sing-song style with imagery of playing Tetris in your underwear and socks.
Nursery rhyme beats can be contrasted with references to bowel movements, explicit sexual acts or class A drugs. The Moldy Peaches are at the forefront of this style. Having begun life in 1999, the band released a self-titled album under the Rough Trade label in 2001.
A break followed in 2004, where the two lead singers, Adam Green and Kimya Dawson, went to pursue solo careers, Adam Green under Rough Trade and Kimya Dawson under the phenomenal indie label K Records.
K records, owned and founded by Calvin Johnson, the lead singer of low-fi indie rock band Beat Happening, goes under the motto ‘exploding the teenage underground into passionate revolt against the corporate ogre since 1982′. If there is anything ‘anti’ in the genre, it probably lies in the anti-corporate viewpoint of K records, and its own humorous take on the everyday facts of reality.
Anti-Folk’s genre confusion lies in the fact that it’s just not against or anti folk music, it is folk music, based on the 1960’s movement but with an ironic, self-aware twist perhaps born of its initial reaction to ‘serious folk’. As a genre, it values storytelling, personality, political viewpoints over technical polish.
Raw and experimental sounds may be its hallmark, but the danger of musicians’ low-fi approach is that the label can allow for talentless oiks to get away with technically incompetent music. And that’s about the only anti folk thing about it.
Decemberists Review
I love the Decemberists. This fact makes objectively analysing any new offering from the band much like a parent surveying their child’s cacophonous crap-pile of pasta and glitter and smiling broadly, congratulatory, resisting the urge to delicately ask ‘What is it?’. And so in front of me sits a CD subtitled ‘A Single Series’ and although I know I won’t be able to help myself from loving it, I’m forced to ask ‘What is it?’
As a precursor to their forthcoming fifth full-length Hazards of Love it could be seen as merely marking time until that album’s release. More importantly as three individual singles, with a b-side a piece, it showcases the band to be more than the bombastic, thesaurus bashing balladeers that their last, and yet still brilliant, album The Crane Wife would have you believe. ‘Valerie Plame’ is a bouncy, ukulele-led ditty about the titular one-time CIA operative – a theme which has shades of older song ‘The Bagman’s Gambit’s tale of government informants, but where that ends with a string-led wig-out this climaxes with a joyous ‘Hey Jude’ style la-la-la-along.
Elsewhere ‘O New England’ is a beautiful, if fairly damning, portrayal of the area’s tourist attractions with idiosyncratic vocalist Colin Meloy declaring “I think I’d rather just wait in the car”. The remainder of the tracks are refreshingly simple in form and yet still demonstrate Meloy’s enchanting lyrical dexterity and it’s encouraging that he’s dialled back the florid verboseness he’s prone to – not that previous albums’ audacious rhymes like ‘And above all this falderal/On a bed made of chaparral’ should be something that the band should eradicate completely from their repertoire as it’s all part of their unique charm.
Of the six songs on offer here, only a pointless cover of The Velvet Underground’s ‘I’m Sticking With You’ would sound disappointing on a full-length release. And for this caring parent that’s a great relief – it makes it a lot easier when you don’t have to feign admiration of your loved-ones art.