Tuesday 10th June 2025
Blog Page 22

Why the rise of digital cameras?

Lara Machado
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Why the rise of digital cameras?

I doubt I’m the only person who has recently found their Instagram feed flooded by pictures taken on digital cameras. Low resolution, blurry shots of red-eyed smiling faces, more often than not at night time. 

It seems, at first glance, a strange phenomenon. Nowadays, even the most basic of mobile phones has pretty good camera quality. In fact, technology has improved to the extent that award-winning filmmakers, from Sean Baker to Steven Soderbergh, have shot feature films on phones. When looking through old photo albums, parents and grandparents often lament that the quality of pictures was not what it is now. Why, then, has the digital camera market been steadily increasing, particularly among younger generations? It would seem that high photographic resolution has lost some of its charm.

Some readers will already be rolling their eyes. Many would argue that, the same way retro has become more appealing in sectors such as fashion, filmmaking and gaming, the return of the digital camera reflects nothing more than a romantic attraction to things past – which is not even unique to our own era. In part I agree with this assessment, but I also think it’s more complex and interesting than that. 

Upon first encountering this phenomenon, I was immediately reminded of Susan Sontag’s brilliant essay ‘Regarding the Pain of Others’. The text focuses on war photography as an art form – an entirely different topic to the one at hand – and yet one point that Sontag makes struck me as particularly relevant. She argues that we have come to associate war photography with a certain candidness: uncontrived, spontaneous shots that do not look like they have been pre-arranged or posed for (unlike what we expect from, say, a portrait). If a spontaneous shot looks too clean, we are quick to reject it as posed and dismiss it having been taken ‘in the moment’. Obviously, in the case of war photography, and as Sontag argues, this is related to the ethics of photographing and viewing the pain of others. However, I still think it’s a useful idea to consider alongside the phenomenon of digital cameras. 

We have increasingly become disillusioned with social media and with the overly curated aspect of the images we find on it. We are now suspicious of images that look too good, and moments that seem too perfect. Perhaps it is then, that in its low resolution, we associate digital camera pictures with something more authentic. They give an air of cool unstudiedness, of pictures in which the lack of detail makes it hard for anyone to seem like they are trying to look good. There is an effortless quality to the pictures that seems to send out the message: I am not here to impress. That makes it seem like the goal is to capture a sense of an existing moment of carefree fun rather than to stage it.

Perhaps there is also something to be said about the spontaneity of it all. With film cameras we are overly conscious of the cost of repeating shots to capture the same image multiple times, but with our phones we can confidently do hundreds of takes of any object without looking back – maybe it is that the digital camera lies somewhere in between. Equipped with quite limited storage space, we are unlikely to take too many shots on it in one go. 

I am not trying to say that camera quality has lost all its appeal or that digital camera photos are less staged than any other picture, simply that whatever the reason behind this trend is, it is interesting that there is a tendency towards the unstudied – or at least the appearance of it. 

Split the G: the performative cult of Guinness drinking 

Beatrix Arnold
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Split the G: the performative cult of Guinness drinking 

The golden harp. The ritualistic three-part pour. The bravado of splitting the G. It always baffled me how a drink that is essentially liquid brown bread accumulated such lasting popularity. But in the modern world, branding is everything. 

Guinness manufacturers have ingeniously built up what is almost a cult following around the stout. Not only a staple of pub culture, it has also long occupied an unquestioned position in popular consciousness. My grandmother was advised to drink Guinness while breastfeeding, and even nowadays I’ve heard gym bros extolling it as a source of iron (it’s not really).  

Guinness has enjoyed acclaim as a cultural symbol of Ireland since the 18th century, but has only recently made it big in Britain. Formerly typecast as an old man’s drink, Guinness used to be a left-field choice. Now, swept up in the aesthetic renaissance of the classic British pub, it offers a chance for posh boys to cosplay at being salt of the earth (despite often being the most expensive drink on draught). The drink creates the illusion of an ‘in-club’, cultivating an ‘if-you-know-you-know’ mentality, especially concerning the sacrosanctity of the three-stage pour. It is this very performative aspect of Guinness that leads drinkers to consider themselves qualified to loudly pronounce judgement on a particular pint to an unlucky onlooker. The new cult of Guinness drinking, founded in the name of individuality, has completely obscured the traditional cultural significance of the pint for Irish people, and has subsumed it into an index of ‘laddishness’ for young English men.  

The drink is undeniably gendered. With the online culture around Guinness being inescapably masculine, exemplified in content like the Schooner Scorer, drinking it becomes almost a performance of virility, such that I’ve been told that I “wouldn’t get it”, that I should “stick to my vodka coke”. Obviously, I could never reach the level of masculine vigour required to drink a 4.2% beer.  

If there’s any vitriol in my perspective, it’s probably because of the hours of my life spent nodding noncommittally while men explain the correct ratio of head in their pint, or demonstrate their ability (or failure) to split the G. It’s safe to say that I haven’t had the best experience with Guinness drinkers.  

For the cult followers of the stout, the iconography of the pint becomes almost a status symbol. Their vaunted ability to discriminate between different draughts of the exact same drink is worn like a badge of honour. What strikes me most about the Guinness drinker is their utter loyalty. No matter the range of options on offer, no matter how inappropriate the setting, the Guinness drinker will remain unswervingly devoted, the drink occupying a space somewhere in between their routine and their personality. Some refuse to go to pubs, or force their friends to leave, if the bar is out of their favoured pint. They revel in the theatre of splitting the G, so that the drinking experience becomes almost entirely gamified (you can even get an app that lets you practise the technique in the comfort of your own home). Such people seem to actively cultivate the label ‘Guinness drinker’ as part of their personal brand, a deliberately manufactured personality trait that makes one wonder what exactly they’re compensating for.  

Following a national shortage earlier this year, numerous pubs across the UK began to replace Guinness with Murphy’s, an objectively better tasting stout, but with little success. If it’s not Guinness, Guinness drinkers won’t have it. It seems that the drink itself is of little importance: it’s an aesthetic more than anything else. How can they possibly display their masculinity, their individuality, if not by this competitive beer-chugging ritual? (And no, your date is not impressed.) 

But if the appeal of Guinness for this demographic rests entirely upon external perception, will it maintain its popularity among them once it dominates the market in the US, for example? Now that even Kim Kardashian is posing with the pint, I wonder how long it will take the English lads to find a new, ‘edgy’ drink to rally around. 

But for now, bottom’s up, Guinness drinkers. Maybe you’ll find those missing dregs of personality at the end of the next pint. 

Digital Immunity

Juliette Mcgrath
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Digital Immunity

It is by now firmly established that this digital era has embarked upon an assault on our ability to concentrate. It only takes turning your phone on after a three-hour exam to realise that we receive staggering volumes of content in the span of mere hours. Hit by an open floodgate of missed content notifications, you are met primarily by a diverse flurry of TikToks, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts, interspersed with commercial news announcing new drops, discounts and deals, and bulked out with an ungodly volume of emails and messages – which vary in relevance from painfully extraneous to critically important. The diversity present in the average punter’s notification centre puts most institutions to shame.

It’s no wonder that attention spans are flagging. Numerous studies link short-form content to declining cognitive function. But the problem extends far beyond entertainment. It’s not as if we can simply delete social media and our brains are healed: we are obliged to remain on standby to receive texts from friends and family. We must also stay abreast of all university email correspondences. At the same time, we’re keeping track of recent orders, which were made bleary-eyed after scrolling through endless pages of the same product on Amazon. Just to find clothes you like, you must bravely trawl through blurs of garments you’d never look twice at in shops. Perhaps you find one you like; congratulations! Your success is followed by a lifetime of promotional deluge begging you to avail of a sale. Then you open TikTok to relax a little, and you disappear into your mind for two hours – only becoming physically present again because you’ve moved to prevent a pressure sore.

Evidently, I’m disillusioned with the constant attention my devices demand from me. However, it’s not only that; to my dismay, it coincided with an aversion to the once-enjoyable, meditative, and mind-numbing activity of scrolling (or perusing) on my phone. Regardless of the platform, before long, scrolling renders me unsettled, disinterested, and somewhat overwhelmed by all that I see. It’s most noticeable with TikTok, which surprised me, as I was a regular indulger. Despite sounding like a ‘pick me’, I can promise that – from the sidelines – I appreciate the appeal of an app that can engulf you in its digital sphere, instantly connect you with a cultural touchstone, all while severing you from every trace of real-life concern. It’s absolutely not that I have steely self-control, or that I’ve deleted the app; rather, it’s as though my brain has developed some kind of immunity to it. If I’m on the app, I’ll be scrolling at a sloth’s pace, watching each clip around five to eight times, searching the visual or audio for something new every time. It’s not enough to just watch it once – it feels too brief, and I can only describe it as a sense that I’m simply not ready to move on.

Conducting my own research on this odd phenomenon, I’ve described this experience to others, who often reply that they’ve experienced a similar disillusionment. While most relate to the shopping-induced mental fatigue of online browsing, there are some who identify with the tangible intensity of opening the ‘For You’ page on TikTok. I came to wonder if my slower approach to this unlimited ether of stimuli is potentially my mind belligerently slowing the pace at which I can enjoy short-form content, in an effort to protect my attention span. After all, I exercise concentration too regularly for it to be broken down by the newest dance trend – and when paired with the prospect that I might be sabotaging my chance of surviving a three-hour collection, it means that eroding my attention span is simply not an option. Perhaps, then, what is evolving is merely a compromise between a large workload and remaining culturally in touch.

Are University redevelopments endangering our Common Ground?

Sara Rourke
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Are University redevelopments endangering our Common Ground?

Common Ground, a café and community hub at the heart of Little Clarendon Street, is – as its name suggests – one of the few remaining places in Oxford that brings together both town and gown. Yet its future remains uncertain as Oxford University’s plans to redevelop its administration offices on 25 Wellington Square would mean Common Ground losing the building that it currently calls home. Located behind the offices, in one of the shop units leased by the University, Common Ground moved into a space, formerly a Barclays bank, that had been unoccupied for several years.

Common Ground was founded in 2018 by Jake Bacchus, a visiting senior member of Linacre College and Piotr Drabik, a barista and coffee machine mechanic. Bacchus and Drabik had a vision of creating something Oxford notably lacks – third spaces, away from home and work where people can spend time and socialise for free. 

Primarily a café and co-working space, Common Ground is often bustling with students and locals working on their laptops, surrounded by an eclectic mix of furniture and art. It also houses second-hand clothing, book, and record shops, and plays host to live music, comedy nights, life-drawing, running clubs, student magazine launches, and a range of other events that would take the length of a second article to cover.

The new plan for Wellington Square

The proposed plans for the redevelopment of Wellington Square were first made public by Oxford University Development (OUD) in October 2024, citing the need “to replace a life-expired and poor performing building”. 

Divided into two phases, the first phase would involve the demolition of 25 Wellington Square, a concrete brutalist building that stretches the length of Little Clarendon Street and is home to Common Ground. 25 Wellington Square will then be replaced by “a brand-new state of the art academic facility” which will accommodate “existing university departments that need to be relocated from elsewhere in Oxford”.

Plans for a “publicly accessible café” are included in the design. However, it is not clear if Common Ground will be permitted to occupy this space in the future, or indeed if it will be able to, after having to relocate for three years during the building’s construction, which would begin in 2026. 

The second phase of the redevelopment would consist of the refurbishment of the western terraced houses bordering the square, which would create 100 new rooms of graduate accommodation. 

In December, OUD held its first public consultation on the plans, which gathered responses from the public, showing that nearly two-thirds of respondents felt negatively towards some aspects of the redevelopment. The most popular aspect of the redevelopment was the energy and sustainability of the new building. Over 64% of respondents raised concern about “the risk to Common Ground, viewed as a vital community hub and cultural venue, one of few remaining in the city.”

Images Credit: Oscar Reynolds for Cherwell

(This is a limited sample, likely unrepresentative of the Oxford community).

Common Ground responds

Cherwell spoke with Common Ground’s Managing Director Eddie Whittingham and Operations Manager Alex Chesters about Common Ground’s role in Oxford.

Chesters told Cherwell: “It’s huge that this is a place right now where anyone from any walk of life – students or professionals or even homeless people – can come in and just chat to someone who works here and everyone is treated the same and everyone gets the same coffee and the same level of care. And in a place like Oxford where so much of it is closed off and only students can go in those parts.”

Whittingham agreed, adding: “I think hosting a whole range of different things means that the town and gown can mesh a lot more easily. If a student comes to see their mate play in a band, they might think, ‘well what other gigs have they got on? Oh, there’s this other gig that has been organized by Divine Schism, a local promoter.’ And they come back into the space.”

Chesters told Cherwell: “During the first [OUD] consultation, we were packed for the whole day. And since then, we pretty much at least once a day have someone come up and ask when they get a coffee, what’s going on? Have we heard anything else? It’s very few spaces that people feel so passionately about and are so invested in.”

When focusing on their interactions with the University, Whittingham stressed that University leadership had been receptive to some of their ideas and was hopeful that an agreement between the sides could be reached. They hope to be able to move into a University or college-owned space, and perhaps act as a channel for the University’s community engagement in the long-term.

What began as responses to the OUD’s consultation questionnaire quickly became personal testimonials on the importance of Common Ground to both students and locals alike.

To Daria Tkachenko, who came to Oxford as a refugee from Ukraine three years ago, Common Ground is “a community that accepted me with open arms. It’s a reminder of what home can feel like, even in the most uncertain of times.”

One student told Cherwell: “As someone who grew up in Oxford, I have been going to Common Ground long before I was accepted into the University. It would be a terrible loss; it’s somewhere I go all the time in the vac to study with friends who come back home from other unis and can’t access the libraries here.”

Developments in town vs gown

The divisions between town and gown are a well-documented part of the city’s history, with disputes between townspeople and members of the university leading several scholars to flee Oxford and found that other university in 1209.

In more recent times there have been a series of disagreements between residents and the University over the approach to urban planning. 

In 2016 the University’s sale of its Wolvercote Paper Mill site caused criticism from residents when it rejected a bid by Homes for Oxford, an alliance of community-led housing groups, focused on affordable housing and instead sold it to the highest bidder, a private developer called CALA. 

Another such example was the former Volkswagen garage owned by Wadham College, which was occupied by squatters for two months in 2017, driven by their desperation for shelter and wanting to draw focus to the inequalities in the city. Despite protest action from locals and students, the college evicted the largely homeless group in the middle of winter and proceeded to begin development of student accommodation on the site.

Earlier this year plans for new Magdalene accommodation on its Waynflete site, situated beside the Cowley roundabout, has also garnered complaints from residents.


As by far the largest landlord in Oxford, the University has disproportionate influence over determining the building and future of the city. 

An investigation by the Guardian in 2018 revealed that Oxford and Cambridge colleges combined own more land than the Church of England, making them the largest private landowners in England.   

Developments are always needed, especially in a dynamic and changing city like Oxford – or as the OUD’s Wellington Square redevelopment poster put it: “Modern facilities are essential to attract and retain staff and students in a highly competitive academic world.” New housing developments are especially pressing, given that Oxfordshire is at the centre of Britain’s housing crisis and has fallen badly short of its government-mandated building targets.

The plans for the redevelopment emphasise the increased sustainability and energy efficiency of the new building. For phase two, the 100 new graduate rooms will be important “in helping to reduce pressure on private rentals” and aim to improve housing affordability in the city.

Such tensions show that there is no perfect answer in how to prioritise the needs of different parts of the Oxford community.

With the newly created role of Local and Global Engagement officer in 2023, perhaps the university is beginning to turn a corner in its relationship with Oxford residents. A report published in January, ‘Beyond Town and Gown’, outlines the University’s “plans to support positive social, economic and environmental change in the city”.

Both the city and the University are dependent on one another to function, and are most effective when they work cooperatively. As students we hold a privileged position, although most of us are only in Oxford for half the year, with our Bod cards we have access to much of the city that remains closed off to people who have spent their entire lives here. Unrestricted spaces like Common Ground, where town and gown can meet, are special. A more modern, efficient building with additional housing would be a good thing. But, with the University having outlined a mission to integrate more meaningfully with the local community, its ability to preserve spaces like Common Ground will be a litmus test for that commitment.

Council threatens legal action against ‘erratic’ paragliders after foal death

Archie Johnston
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Council threatens legal action against ‘erratic’ paragliders after foal death

A foal died of its injuries last month after being distressed by a powered paraglider flying low over Port Meadow. Oxford City Council has appealed to the public for information after this and another incident of powered paragliders flying around the meadow. The Council believes that there are three individuals involved in these incidents and is threatening legal action, pending investigation by the Thames Valley Police’s Rural Crime Team.

A powered paraglider was spotted above Port Meadow on 10th April, flying ‘low and erratically’, according to the Council. This caused distress to a group of horses, and a foal was injured. Though it received medical attention, the foal was put down due to its injuries.

On the evening of 20th April, three paragliders were seen ‘swooping low and noisily’ above the meadow, and witnesses reported that horses on Port Meadow were again visibly distressed.

Deputy Chief Executive of the Council Tom Hook said: “These reckless actions have not only caused significant distress to the animals and local residents but have also resulted in the tragic and avoidable loss of a foal.” 

Mr Hook stressed the danger posed to local wildlife and residents, saying: “The safety of the animals, residents, and visitors to Port Meadow is of utmost importance, and we will continue to work closely with the police and community to prevent further incidents.” Cherwell has approached Mr Hook for comment.

Along with the adjacent Wolvercote Common, Port Meadow is a registered Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), due to the many resident species of cattle, horses, and waterfowl. The Council refers to the site as “Oxford’s oldest monument”, as the meadow has remained largely unchanged since its use as a Bronze Age burial ground. The horses on the meadow are “semi-wild”, and the Council website forbids their being disturbed “by any circumstances”. 

Oxford Direct Services, a Council-owned company responsible for waste management, issued a statement after the paragliding incidents saying: “We’d like to remind all residents and visitors: Port Meadow is a vital natural habitat, home to wild ponies, birds, and other wildlife.

“It’s a shared space where animals roam freely – and where our presence must be careful, calm, and respectful.”

In recent years, animals on the site have suffered injuries and intestinal blockages due to an uptick in littering. Since 2022, Port Meadow has been a registered water bathing site, but its water quality has been assessed as ‘poor’ every year since, due to the significant levels of bacteria such as E coli and intestinal enterococci. If water quality at the site does not improve to a standard “fit to swim in” by 2027, the meadow’s status as a bathing site will be rescinded.

The Council has asked that anyone with information about the incidents, or with knowledge of the identity of the individuals involved, to report relevant details to the Police Rural Crime Team by contacting 101.

Please, no more biopics!

David Percival
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Please, no more biopics!

A few weeks ago, Sam Mendes announced his casting for the Beatles biopics he aims to release in 2028. As I recall from conversations among friends and a torrent of angry posts on social media, few were pleased with the announcement. 

With Paul Mescal as McCartney, Harris Dickinson as Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Starr, and Joseph Quinn as Harrison, many seemed to believe Mendes had got the casting wrong. However, should we be asking if Keoghan could be a convincing Ringo, or Mescal do McCartney justice? Perhaps the more important question is whether we need yet another music biopic. 

Biopics, especially those of music stars, are seemingly becoming the latest way the film industry seeks large profits and high turnouts. Much like the comic-book franchises and live-action remakes before it, the music biopic can provide box-office success, without the tiresome task of being all that creative. 

Likely spurred on by the mammoth financial success of Dexter Fletcher and Bryan Singer’s 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, which grossed just short of a billion dollars, the years since have seen numerous music legends immortalised in biopic form. Fletcher had another crack in his 2019 Elton John biopic Rocketman (grossing 195 million USD), and 2022 saw Baz Luhrmann’s equally high grossing biopic Elvis.

If these set the wheels in motion, by last year, Hollywood had gone biopic-crazy. 2024 saw four big releases, following the lives of Amy Winehouse (Back to Black), Bob Marley (One Love), Bob Dylan (A Complete Unknown) and Robbie Williams (Better Man). And who can forget Robbie Williams taking ape form? 

These four releases collectively grossed around 390 million USD. Far from being niche releases, these biopics were a pillar of the film industry last year. With each Beatle set to get their own film’s attention, it seems unlikely that these films will not prove hugely profitable. And if Marley, Dylan or an evolutionarily regressing Robbie Williams can draw in millions, it is unlikely there will be an empty seat in the cinema when these films hit the big screen. 

However, one might question what this biopic-mania spells for the film industry as a whole, or for innovative, original filmmakers. As interesting as the lives of these musicians may have been, the biopic can be hugely restrictive creatively. 

To clarify,  I am not anti-biopic. Oppenheimer, Lawrence of Arabia and The Elephant Man all tell individuals’ stories in a captivating manner. The particular threat that these music biopics pose to creativity, I believe, stems from the fact their stories are already so well known. Audiences likely have a very good impression of these artists’ lives, and people are ‘fans’ of music stars far more so than they are of politicians or scientists. Fans want these stars to be portrayed in a way that aligns with their already formed notions. Such circumstances leave directors with little room for experimentation.

How many knew of Jordan Belfort before Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street was released? Did anyone speak of Władysław Szpilman before Polanksi immortalised his story of defying Nazi capture in The Pianist? These films managed to capture real stories creatively because they did not pick the obvious candidates for exploration. They have room for artistry because they are not bound by the audience’s preconceptions and prejudices, and they tell unknown and novel tales.

Returning to the Beatles, Mendes has the unenviable task of exploring four of the most well known musicians of all time. Their lives, in some cases deaths, and musical endeavours are thoroughly burned into the national conscience, and have already been captured by countless documentaries. Peter Jackson’s documentary series The Beatles: Get Back released in 2021 saw critical success, and with so much media already dedicated to the four-piece, one questions what if anything new Mendes will bring. 

The occasional music biopic would not pose a threat to originality in film. However, as with any trend in filmmaking, the more that are produced within a short space of time certainly risks miring these biopics in cliché and formulaic structure. One must also imagine that the eye-watering profits made from Bohemian Rhapsody will not exactly encourage filmmakers to deviate from a rather conventional structure. 

The biopic craze not only incentivises filmmakers to start sifting through their record collection in search of a story to tell, instead of working on more personal projects, but equally risks crowding out cinemas with masses of biopics, leaving little room for showcasing more exciting and unique works. That the film industry would sacrifice creativity and experimentation for something profitable is doubtless nothing new, but we must ask ourselves if we should be funding these works. 

I love the Beatles. But it is this very adoration I and so many already have that threatens Mendes’ ability to showcase much in the way of personality and innovation. In the midst of biopic-mania, when cinemas seem to be dominated by remakes, franchises, and now music biopics, I feel I must make my plea. No more biopics!

Writers on Writing: Reflections on the 2025 Oxford Literary Festival

Briony Arnott
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Writers on Writing: Reflections on the 2025 Oxford Literary Festival

The Oxford Literary Festival is one of those events I hear about every year, mark out on my calendar, and never end up going to. Sometimes it’s the distance that’s daunting, other times, it’s the difficulty of traversing the Circle line, finding a hotel without taking out a small loan, and spending between £8 and £10 pounds on every talk. None are insurmountable boundaries, but all kept me from the festival until this year. 

A brief background: after hearing a hundred times that volunteering at the festival would be a great way to get involved in the literary world by every careers advisor under the sun, I caved and emailed the lovely volunteer coordinator. The process was surprisingly easy – after signing a document swearing I’d read and understood all the health and safety jargon, I was sent a schedule and a TicketSource login. 

The great advantage of being a volunteer, is that I was able to get free access to any talk, provided I was not: a) on dreaded mic duty or b) stationed 20 minutes away from the centre. This led me to be privy to a great many talks I wouldn’t have otherwise attended: including Alexander Armstrong debuting his new children’s book (my Pointless-watching mother green with envy), Bettany Hughes who almost inspired me to become an archeologist and go crawling under the pyramids (she’s just that good of a speaker), and Abdulrazak Gurnah, discussing his latest novel (a trip to Blackwells thus ensued).

A stand-out was Wendy Cope’s talk – the poet being a favourite of both my sister and my grandmother, the former lucky enough to join me. Or perhaps I should say I was lucky enough to be with my sister. We had planned to go months in advance, and my sister became the first person to show Cope an ‘Orange’-inspired tattoo, and then promptly ordered me to take a picture of the two of them (with Cope’s permission). During the talk and then the follow up Q&A session, Cope presented reading and writing as entwined acts. While this isn’t necessarily a surprise, it’s always something of a revelation to think of one’s favourite author as a hunched-over, insatiable reader. After seeing only the finished products, the shining magnum opuses, it’s always somewhat unsettling to think of drafts and revisions. What writer wants to confront the fact that the first draft is never actually as perfect as hoped.

She told us, when asked what advice to give a young poet, that if you don’t love reading poetry, there’s no point in trying to write it. 

While the advice, ‘if you want to write, read’, is nothing new, I’m always interested in examining how much it is followed. My go-to when faced with writer’s block is usually to take a stroll around the block. This allows me to let my mind free itself from the imaginary blocks I have constructed, or  silence the whispering doubts. I don’t usually pick up a volume of poetry and fish for inspiration – I’m too afraid of plagiarism. 

But similar advice is also given by Armstrong, to a chorus of bouncing children, hands reaching for the sky when he asks: “Who here wants to be a writer?” 

His book Evenfall focused on the art and intricacies of perception, and thinking deeply about the world, it is in many ways a how-to for both reading and experiencing. A level of participation is required; one must prepare oneself to be immersed in a text – to be challenged and troubled. As much as life is pain, so is reading. The best works of literature do exactly this; they unsettle and confound and elude, all the while providing some essential nourishment, some deep teaching unbeknownst to the people we were before we turned the pages. 

Cope enforces this – she tells us (a much more varied crowd in terms of age, than that of Armstrong,) that strong emotions equal true words. For me, that’s the core of poetry. With so few words, each one must count, and how better to pack a poem with evocative power than to mean something when writing it. In a new wave of anti-intellectualism and AI-generated art, we seem to have forgotten that literature is deep and rich in meaning – what we get out of it, what is put into it.

Writing and reading go hand in hand – as we seek out meaning in books and poetry, we fine tune our ability to create it with our own language, channeling emotion into beautiful and evocative words which ring true, and with depth. 

Writing – and reading – for Armstrong and Cope, and even for Bettany Hughes and Abdulrazak Gurnah, is a deep engagement in real life. Something which, while often funny, is deeply serious too. I find this is best demonstrated in ‘The Orange’ where Cope leaves the reader with the poignant ending, “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” 

Cope also ensures she leaves us with the fact that all her poems are serious: that even if they are humorous, or about the more trivial matters in life, they are not light verse. This concept is shown in ‘Some More Light Verse’, which discusses the experience of depression. The message is one of hope: “You have to try.” Hope perseveres throughout Cope’s oeuvres: hope in the small joys and moments of bliss; hope through the difficulties and trials of life. Both are presented by Cope as worthy of equal consideration.

The simple joys are often the best – the warmth of sharing food, of an inside joke, of a sunny morning. These things are serious, too. These things are worthy of poems, of commemoration, of being framed and mounted on an office wall. The act of going to a festival lecture and leaving, reminded me of joy. On the train home, I read my sister’s copy of Two Cures for Love. She borrows Richard II. The sunlight catches on my bracelets. I think, “I love you. I’m glad I exist.”

Inside the women’s boat: Courage on the Tideway

Aishia Simmons
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Inside the women’s boat: Courage on the Tideway


“Both crews get ready please.”

Two boats sit on the Tideway, a flotilla of motorboats behind them, led by the umpire Matthew Pinsent giving orders over the speakers. Annie Anezakis grips her blade tightly as her face flashes up on the screen. This is her third year in the Boat Race—her first as president.

Daniel Orton’s hand shoots up. Oxford is not ready.

“Lilli, hold it.” The two seat squares her blade, and the tide swings the boat minimally to stroke side. “Easy. My hand’s coming down.”

“Oxford… Cambridge…” The umpire’s voice booms across the Thames. Sixteen rowers sit at front-stops, their blades slightly over-squared to stop the boats drifting with the stream. Concentration and ambition are written across their faces. This is it.

“Attention”—the red flag is up. The rowers are on the edge of their seats—”GO!”

The flag comes down. Two boats lurch forward as the rowers take their first strokes. The boat is heavy as seven women follow Heidi Long’s rhythm. One stroke. Two strokes. Three. The boat is moving at 43 strokes per minute—it’s fast, but is it fast enough? Adrenaline surges through their veins. Daniel’s voice sounds strong and clear through the boat’s speaker system.

“Complete, complete!”.

The boat starts to run more freely, fuelled by months of training and a boatload of nerves, but the Light Blue boat begins to pull ahead. Still, nothing is won, nothing is lost—every stroke counts.

There is a sense of urgency in Daniel’s voice, nerves channeled into command, tension reframed as pure motivation. Every call is delivered with precision, not a single word wasted, every one laser-focused. Raucous cheers from the riverbank barely register as thousands of spectators scream out their support for their university. Ambitious young rowers cycle along with the boat, dreaming of one day earning a place among the blues in the boat.

“Believe you can do it!”. The blades dig into the water, every muscle in Annie’s body straining. She’s following Kyra Delray and Heidi—Oxford’s stern pair. The sun shines as the shell glides away from Putney Bridge. The boat feels heavier than it should—heavier than it did during the morning pre-paddle, which had gone surprisingly well.

“It was probably one of the best sessions we’ve ever had”, Daniel will later reflect, “which is quite unusual, for a pre-paddle.”

50 seconds in, the rate has dropped to 39, the sprint is not yet over. Pinsent’s voice booms over the water once more.

“Oxford!”

He warns, as the two boats drift closer together. It’s not the rowers’ concern. They move up and down the slide with aching precision, muscles burning and minds going blank from the pain of the lactate searing through their veins. There’s no time for overthinking today; it’s all instinct, muscle memory, and colossal effort, Daniel notes.

“Oxford!” Pinsent bellows again. Bow-side clutch their blades tightly as the boats come ever closer.

“Stop rowing.” Cambridge has caught a crab.

“Both crews, stop rowing.”

One minute and 25 seconds in, a restart is ordered—an unusual occurrence, to say the least. The last time the Boat Race was stopped was in 2012, when Zoe de Toledo—ironically now sitting in the commentary box—coxed the Blues to a narrow loss. A swimmer’s head had bobbed up in the waves, right in front of the two boats. Fittingly, it was Matthew Pinsent who decided to stop the race then, too.

The boats line up again, Cambridge sits a third of a length ahead of Oxford. Pinsent lowers the red flag once more.

The race is back on.

Eighteen minutes and seven seconds later, it’s all over. The blue boat drifts towards Chiswick Bridge. Elated, exhausted cries echo from the light blue boat, lactic acid and emotion surging through every limb. Though Cambridge won by a margin of two and a half lengths, it was by no means a poor showing from Oxford. Having raced in WEHORR (the Women’s Head of the River Race in London), Cambridge had proven themselves the best university crew in the country. Oxford’s time today, just seven seconds behind, would have placed them right behind Cambridge in the ranking— and that, despite what felt like six months of torrential rain and an unrowable river (at least from a college boat club’s perspective)!

Early October 2024, Iffley Sports Centre, Oxford

The gym is buzzing with an air of anticipation as rowers cluster around the ergs in the Iffley Sports Centre. Annie stands among them, now in her third year with OUBC, this time as president. There are a lot of new faces, a lot of unfamiliar faces, a few girls she recognises—girls who have raced in blue boat, in Osiris, some even at the Olympics.

She stands with a few of the returning girls as they wait for the last few to wander in. “We talked about what mentality we wanted to take into this season,” she says. “What our leadership values were.” There’s a quiet determination to set the tone early—but for now, there’s also laughter, small talk, lightness.

Across the room, among the coxes, is Daniel. This is his first year trialling for Oxford. After many years of coxing at Latymer Upper School and having coxed at his college over the past year, there is still something intoxicating about standing in this room. He watches the rowers move around him, excited and chatty—this time is for getting to know everyone, to soak it all in and to meet the strangers who will soon become friends for life.

The erg screens flash, the machines hum, everyone is eyeing up the splits around them, “trying to suss out where you sit on the team”, Annie explains. But for the moment it’s easy. “No matter what pressures came up,” Daniel says, “having fun being there was the constant.”

The intensity will come, they all know it, the thought of selection hanging quietly in the background, but for the now it disappears, the infective energy making the first session pass by in a flash. The ergs are wiped down, layers put back on, and the ambitious girls leave with a smile on their face.

The first few weeks are about settling in—learning names, getting used to the rhythm of the new line-up of rowers. There’s no leaderboard yet, no divisions between the blue boat and Osiris. Just a group of girls, slowly building up a squad.

But underneath the easy smiles and casual ergs, there’s something stronger at play. Everyone knows the rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge all too well. Everyone feels the underlying pressure in their own way.

For Annie, Cambridge’s recent winning streak isn’t something to be afraid of. It’s fuel. “We spoke about how we had a chance to be the first Oxford women’s boat in a really long time to turn the tide,” she says. “We saw it critically as an opportunity, not a threat.” It never felt like a shadow hanging over them. If anything, it sharpens the sense of purpose: this squad isn’t carrying the past—it’s building something new.

Daniel feels the same. The streak, he says, doesn’t change the daily process. “You can only put your all in every day—you can’t do anything different or anything more because you lost the last year or the last five years.” Instead of weighing them down, the history around them adds momentum. “It feels like a really exciting time in the club,” he says. “The losing streak is motivation to fuel an exciting change.”

The past can’t be rewritten. But these are the people shaping the future—one session, one stroke, one decision at a time.

Late October 2024, Iffley Sports Centre, Oxford

The atmosphere is different today.

Gone is the easy energy of the first few weeks, replaced by a tight tension. It’s 2k day—the first major test of the season—and everyone can feel exactly how much it matters. Seven minutes of intense pain, one flashing screen, all resulting in one score next to your name.

For Annie, the feeling is familiar—but no less nerve-wracking. She’s not a huge fan of the erg. “Some really fast, quick, strong movers come in,” she says. “And I’m always like, oh god—there goes my seat.” No spot is ever guaranteed, not even after crew announcements, she admits.

The pressure today is personal, but it’s not selfish. That’s something Daniel noticed early on at Oxford: the subtle but powerful shift in mindset. “We want all of our boats to beat Cambridge,” he says. “And you really, really hope that the best chance of that involves you getting your seat —but ultimately, the main thing is that you want Oxford coming out on top.”

The erg room hums with the sound of split times ticking upwards, heart rates climbing, coxes and coaches screaming, every stroke more painful than the last. It’s just you and the erg, it’s easy to feel like it’s you against the world.

But it’s not, not here.

Over the past few seasons, Annie’s seen that change first-hand. “It’s not about which boat you’re in,” she says now. “It’s about your boat against Cambridge. About being greater than the sum of your parts.” Even in the sharpest competition, the pack mentality holds. Push each other. Drive each other. Make every crew stronger.

Today, the erg splits will go up on the wall. There will be quiet celebration, and there will be disappointment. There always is. But through it all, something bigger holds steady: 18 rowers, one goal.

When Annie pulls her final stroke and slumps forward, gasping for air, it’s not just about her time. It’s about being part of something that, inch by painful inch, is moving forward together.

January 2025, Cerlac, Spain

The sun beams down on the rowers, sitting on the long, open stretch of water. Even in the middle of Spain, the water feels the same—no flooded boathouses, no cold, grey mornings—and yet, with a blade in hand and miles of river to cover, the girls’ muscle memory and immense effort stays the same.

Clear skies and a smooth river, training camp is beautiful. It’s also serious.

The squads train together, side by side, but the Boat Race is inching closer, right on the heels of the boats gliding across the water. Annie looks around at the faces that are no longer strangers, now some of her best friends. “A great camp”, she says. “Definitely more productive than the Tideway.” In between sessions there are quiz nights and dinners filled by laughter and a deep connection between the rowers. And yet, on the water, the atmosphere is shifting. The boats are closely followed by the launch, every stroke producing watts, every watt a consideration for selection.

This is when it really starts to matter.

Injured athletes have returned, Kyra Delray, who will fill the seven seat in the Blue Boat, for one. Selection pressures permeate the once easy atmosphere, especially in the post-holiday period. It’s not easy to train throughout the holidays, even the Boat Race athletes can attest to that. “When I was at Princeton and even in school,” Annie says, “I hated training across holidays. Christmas Day, I just wanted to chill. I didn’t want to do anything.”

But the Boat Race was different. It sharpened everything. The season was short. The stakes were simple: one race, one opponent, one winner. “You’re a winner or you’re a loser,” Annie says. And there was no hiding from that. No excuses. Not anymore.

“You can’t slack off,” Annie explains. “You have to train every day because you’re going to come back and be put to the test.” Allan’s watching. The coaches are always watching. Christmas is barely behind them, but Annie’s already moved past it. “I remember saying to my mom,” she laughs, “‘My head’s not going to come up from under the water until post-Boat Race.’ I’m under the pump now.” There’s no more time to drift. No more holidays. No more rest days.

It’s around this time, too, that Daniel starts thinking differently about his own role. In previous years, coxing had just been part of showing up—row, race, learn as you go. But this season, he approaches it deliberately. “You can get so far just by putting effort into your own coxing development,” he says. Setting tiny goals for each session, listening back to recordings, asking: How do I want to sound? What can I sharpen, even just a little? “It doesn’t have to be big,” he says. “But if you give yourself clear focuses, you can build so much more than you realise.” Quietly, methodically, he’s stacking up improvements of his own—one session at a time.

The fun of the autumn is still there, somewhere, but it’s buried now under layers of expectation, ambition, and urgency.

There’s only one Boat Race. One shot. And the road to it is built stroke by stroke, here in the Spanish sun.

March 2025, Oxford

The day crew selections are announced doesn’t quite feel real. The energy in the room is almost indescribable—tension, relief, disappointment, the unreal feeling that, somehow, after months of training, the boats are finally real.

Annie has been through it before, but it doesn’t get easier. Outside the squad, there’s endless talk in the media—that Oxford wants it too much, that they don’t want it enough. Winning is everything. And yet it’s not the only thing that matters.

Inside the club, this atmosphere isn’t reflected. Daniel thinks back to those first few months—how easy it had been to focus in showing up and giving every session your all, the Boat Race looming in the distance. Even in the face of selection, the sense of being part of something larger than yourself was an attitude that always stuck.

Daniel had coxed all sorts of crews so far, the men, the women, the blue boats, and the reserves. “You end up coxing a lot of different boats and a lot of different experience levels,” he says. “And that’s actually really good for your coxing as well.” But when he announced to his college boat club that he had made it into the Blue Boat, we all cheered for him, and he beamed back.

By March, the friendships are undeniable. Crew dinners, brunches, endless inside jokes. The late-night trip to London to see Wicked becomes a running theme—even in Tideway Week, the squad can’t stop singing the songs. “It’s just all the little things,” Daniel says. “You have to love the little things. Otherwise it’s too much effort, too much time.”

Somehow, despite the pressure, despite the stakes, the squad feels stronger than ever. They were never just two boats, they were a team, and now they’re ready.

April 4th 2025, London

By the time Tideway Week arrives, everything feels closer. Everything is closer.

The squad moves into a house in Putney, packed together like the world’s fittest Big Brother cast. They eat every meal together, parents take turns cooking for the squad, and they spend evenings talking about the boat race, discussing strategy (though a timekeeper was instated when the rowing talk became too much)—and when they’re not planning for the Boat Race, they’re singing songs from Wicked at the top of their lungs. “It’s so fun,” Annie says. “You don’t get sick of anyone.”

On the water, the atmosphere is just as close. Every day, they train on the Tideway, weaving through the tricky bends of the course they’ll race on. Daniel soaks it in. “It’s the last big eight days of the season,” he says. “You’re living together, training together, getting really close—and you just enjoy it.”

There are stresses—of course there are—but the squad manages it well. “You can’t ignore the tension,” Daniel admits, “but we did a really good job of being there for each other when people got stressed.”

Still, as the week goes on, the outside world starts to creep in.

The BBC wiring goes up along the riverbanks. Crew announcements hit social media. There’s a press conference in the middle of the week where Heidi Long and James Doran field questions from reporters, their faces broadcast to strangers. Watching it, Daniel feels a jolt of reality: “The Boat Race is in five days. It’s exciting. It’s a little terrifying, too.”

For Annie, though, the pressure runs deeper. She’s not just the six seat, she’s the president. After years in the squad, “I just wanted to be able to have a lasting impact,” she says. Shaping the culture, pushing the team forward—it was what had motivated her to give her 150% every day through the season.

But now, with the race just days away, the weight of it catches up. “Boat Race week, it did become a little overwhelming,” she admits. It’s not just about her own performance anymore. It’s about everyone else. “Are we making the most of every day? Is everyone getting the most out of themselves?” The questions linger in the back of her mind as the race draws closer.

It mattered because rowing had always been more than a sport for Annie. She’d found it back in high school—almost by accident, through a PE class. “I was really bad at it at first,” she says, laughing. But somewhere along the way, she fell in love with it. “It helped me find my community,” she says. “Everyone that does rowing is weird in their own way. We’re a special sort of person.”

That was why this team, this Boat Race, meant so much. It wasn’t just about winning. It was about being part of something built by people who understood her, who pushed and carried each other through every hard moment. She had found her people here. Now it was about making sure they found the best version of themselves, too.

Maybe that’s why, inside the house, they find ways to ground themselves. For Annie, that means slipping back into the rhythms of normal life—or something close to it. “When you’re not at the river, you’re probably working,” she says. Exams are still looming, coursework still needs submitting. In a strange way, it helps. “It grounds you,” she reflects. “You remember that you’re just a student at the end of the day, trying to make a boat go fast.”

And so they keep rowing.

They keep studying.

They keep singing Wicked.

(They keep talking about rowing, over and over again.)

And they wait for the moment when they get to prove all of their hard work has paid off.

April 13th, 14:21, The Tideway

The moment has come. There is nothing new to say, no last-minute strategies can save the day. For Daniel, it’s all about instinct when you’re in the boat. “You think when you train. In the race, you know what to do.” Seven months, and years before that, of hard training, to build the reflexes and strength they were trusting in this moment.

It was all about trust. Trust the routine, trust the normal, race day is just another day—or at least that’s what it should feel like. “If you do something really different on race day, it’ll freak you out,” he says. “You just have to trust your normal process and that will allow you to have your best performance .”By the time they sit at the start line, the work is done.

For Annie, this moment, above all, is about taking it all in. Take in the noise of the crowds, the attention of the media (because really, when else do the media care about rowing this much?), and the familiar feeling of the waves shaking the boat. She had let the moment rush past her in earlier races. Not now. In the final moments before the flag drops, she focuses on just one thing: trust the crew.

Around them, the circus of the Boat Race builds: BBC cameras, umpire flags, thousands of spectators. Inside the Oxford boat, none of this matters. What makes these 8 women out is their willingness to push beyond their comfort zones, to keep pushing on and on. They will fight even when behind, even when it hurts. That’s why they are where they are.

Even when the race is stopped, even when chaos could break out—they’ve talked this through, they keep going. Annie feels it in the crew around her—a steadiness, a resilience that didn’t exist seven months ago. When she calls for the ‘Brooke’s start,’ it’s not desperate, it’s familiar.

And she keeps shouting, ‘Yeah, yeah’, every other stroke until she can’t yell anymore. This feels good, this feels better than the first start. And there is hope.

During the race, the pain is predictable. The belief is not.

Annie has rowed this course before, has rowed in boats where the margin defeats the home, in boats where one length down felt like a race lost with miles to go. Not this time. “I believed we could win until the last round,” she says. Every time Daniel calls another ten, every time Annie sees the girls in front of her digging deeper, hope tugs at her again. One more stroke. One more push. One more second of belief.

In the end, it’s not the margin that matters. It’s the fight.

And maybe that’s the real secret of the Boat Race. You don’t win or lose at the finish line.

You win in your relentless determination, when it would have been easier to give up. You win by building resilience in the face of agony.

And even more importantly, you win as a team, even if you lose.

April 13th, 14:55, The Tideway

After the race, everything blurs.

They sit quietly at the finish, the shouts of the crowd echoing across the Tideway, the BBC cameras already moving in. Exhaustion, disappointment, and grief slowly sinking in. Despite a brilliant performance, it just wan’t enough.

Annie stands beside Daniel, waiting for the post-race interview. Something sort of *wicked*, “The fact that you’re about to be shown live on TV after losing something you care so much about.”

At that point, all she has left is raw emotion. “I love this team,” she says. “I love everyone around me. This has been the best season ever—and this one result doesn’t define them.”

There is sadness, yes. There always will be.

But stronger than sadness is pride.

Being part of OUBC isn’t reserved for a 19 minute stretch along the Thames, it’s for life. “It’s so special,” Annie says. “You have this network of just really impressive, amazing people—all of us connected by the same gruelling experience.”

At the Boat Race dinner that night, surrounded by past winners and past losers, Annie feels the weight of that history. “Only people who’ve done it really understand,” she says. “It’s so hard. It’s so raw.”

And in that shared understanding, there’s comfort. A reminder that win or lose, they belong here. That this race—and this year—will never be just a line on a CV.

It will be something they carry with them forever.

April 21st, 16:00, Radcliffe Camera, Oxford

I’m almost late again, as always. As I rush towards the RadCam, I keep an eye out for the face I’ve been following in the Tideway documentary for weeks now. I still can’t quite believe I’m about to have coffee with Annie Anezakis.

As we walk to Blackwell’s, we fall into the usual small talk: How were your holidays? How are you finding being back in Oxford? What college are you at?

Merton, I say. 

“So you know Dan?” she asks, smiling.

I do know Daniel—we’d called a few days earlier. It was during that conversation that I asked him about his plans for the future, what he was thinking about after the Boat Race.

Training will continue into Trinity Term, though with a different energy. “It probably won’t be quite like the lead-up to the Boat Race,” he says. “It’ll be more about enjoying it—getting tons out of it, but less crazy intense.”

Summer will mean regattas—BUCS, Henley Women’s, Henley Royal—with squads mixed and reshuffled depending on eligibility and ambition. Some teammates are chasing GB trials. Others are just racing for the joy of it.

And beyond the summer?

Daniel hasn’t decided yet. “In all honesty, I haven’t given next year any thought,” he says. “I just need to sit down and think about it over the next few weeks.”

For now, there’s time. Time to enjoy the sport, the friendships, the river.

Time to breathe after a season that asked for everything—and gave so much more back.

Annie tells me I’m the first person she’s spoken to about the Boat Race outside of her family and housemates. I feel honoured—and still a little in disbelief that I get to spend the next hour picking her brain on every question I can think of. I ask about trialling, about every niche curiosity I’ve ever had about OUBC—and, of course, about her plans for the future.

BUCS is just two weeks away, and Annie isn’t slowing down. “We always wanted to put more time and effort into summer rowing,” she says, “to keep building the program and come into next season ahead of where we finished.”

Summer racing will be different—more flexible, more balanced around academics—but the fire is still there. Henley and European University Champs are on the horizon.

And after that?

Annie’s first priority is finishing her degree—passing her exams, and then she’s going back home. It will have been seven years since she left home. And yet, the idea of another Boat Race season is already tugging at her. “I’d be very surprised if I didn’t do another one,” she says. “I just love it, you know?”

Not as president next time. And with a little less responsibility. But the river still calls.

Rowing, after all, has never just been a sport for her. It’s a home. And it’s a home to which she will always return.

On being a fringe friend

Ben O'Brien
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On being a fringe friend

The other day when I was scrolling through Facebook I came across something that made me feel sad inside. A friend from back home had invited me to his birthday party. He was a good friend, a close friend, a friend of many years. He promised cake, free alcohol, a small lake to swim in (the party was in a field somewhere), and a DJ. That all sounded great. Only thing was, as it turned out, I wasn’t invited to the real party. ‘Just to let you all know,’ it said at the bottom of the invite, ‘a few of us are going for a meal and drinks earlier that day. For reasons of space, only limited numbers invited.’ This, from the man who used to spread cream over my back all those years ago when I had scabies! Maybe that wasn’t the special bonding moment I thought it was after all. 

Imagine my relief when I found that what happened to me isn’t actually that unusual at all. Apparently, many people who think of themselves as close friends with someone are really no more than ‘fringe friends’. As one study of undergrads shows, whereas most people think their friendships are reciprocal, only about half of them really are. At the same time, another study shows that while the majority of adults are happy with the overall number of friends they have, more than 40% feel those friendships aren’t as close as they’d like. Put these two things together, and things look bleak. We’d already like to have more close friendships, and yet even those apparently ‘close’ friendships might not be that close at all. Reflecting on this, I began to feel better. Gather any random sample of friends together for a party in a field and chances are that most of them don’t really like each other that much. It was reassuring to know that it wasn’t just me. 

I joke, of course, because in reality, the idea that a number of supposedly close friends don’t like me as much as I thought is thoroughly depressing. We all want to be liked, or at least all the humans I’ve met in my life so far do. Just the thought that a certain number of my close friends think of me as merely a fringe friend is enough to wreak havoc in all my relationships. After all, how am I supposed to know who are the good eggs and who are the bad ones, unless they reveal themselves to me through the medium of Facebook invites? Without solid evidence to the contrary, I might just have to assume that everyone hates me.

On the other hand, though, is the idea of fringe friendship really as bad as it seems? As Miriam Kirmayer, a clinical psychologist and friendship expert points out, while close friendships are essential for our mental and even our physical health, they can also bring with them added pressure and expectation. Put simply, close friendships demand time and energy, and they can often leave us feeling guilty or ashamed when we aren’t measuring up to some idealised vision of what the perfect friend would be. We wouldn’t even have enough time for that many close friendships, even if everybody did find time in their own busy schedules. All of which is to say, how many non-fringe friends can any one person manage at one time? 

The principle of the ‘Fringe Friend’ makes a lot of sense to me. The fact is, my first thought on reading the Facebook invite was less how happy I was to be invited to something back home, and more about how I could possibly find an excuse not to go without making myself seem a) boring or b) the person who goes to Oxford and then forgets all the people he used to know back home. Sometimes I feel like my life is a constant struggle of feeling guilty about just wanting to lie on my bed and eat large packets of fizzy Haribos. Now that I’ve found out I was no more than a fringe friend to this particular person, at least I can eat my sweets without feeling too bad about it.

In other words, there’s obviously a balance to strike. Nobody wants to be lonely, and the idea of getting invited to absolutely no pre-field party meals depresses me as much as the next person. But at the same time, imagine what the world would look like if every friendship was a close one. We’d all be so tired and stressed out, we wouldn’t have any time left just to eat Haribos alone in bed.

Your essential guide to the music of May Day

Daniel Burns
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Your essential guide to the music of May Day

May Day: It’s unique, convivial and quintessentially Oxford. Only once a year does the city come together like it, and when that happens, it’s not one to miss out on. So, what can you expect to see on the day? When will it all be happening? And, most importantly (in my unbiased opinion), what is the role that music has to play in the history behind the traditions?

​Officially, the day kicks off on 1st May at 6am with the annual performance of Magdalen College Choir. From Long Wall Street to the Plain Roundabout, crowds gather all along High Street and Magdalen Bridge in their thousands. Given the popularity of the spectacle though, many arrive earlier at Magdalen Tower to enjoy a closer view. So, make sure to get there in plenty of time if you want a good spot!

​One might wonder why the early start: May Day celebrates the arrival of summer, and so welcoming in the sunrise has always been a central part of the celebration. For many students at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University however, the festivities begin even earlier. Nowadays, pulling an all-nighter seems a more appealing option than crawling out of bed in the early hours of the morning. Don’t be surprised to see some even in formal attire, as all-night balls don’t go unheard of.

​After all the build-up, the Hymnus Eucharisticus, sung by Magdalen College Choir, marks the beginning of May Day. Music’s role does not diminish from there – the choir follows up with a cycle of songs, including the Renaissance-derived ballet, Now is the Month of Maying, a sort of traditional madrigal. First sung in 1595, and featuring a good-old ‘fa la la la la’, it never fails to be an uplifting start to the ceremony. From ‘merry lads’ to ‘barley break’, the lyrics send us back to past times while reminding us of the exciting summer ahead.

​After their ten-minute show, the bells of the Great Tower ring for another twenty minutes. Meanwhile, some head to Radcliffe Square while others, mostly students, make for Magdalen Bridge, where jumping into the river has become tradition. This happens despite accidents in recent decades. For example, in 2005 at least ten people ignored warnings from police about low water levels. They were soon rushed to hospital after attempting the plunge. Nevertheless, if safe, it can be a highlight of the day for those who take part.

​If adrenaline rushes aren’t your thing, there’s still plenty to enjoy around the Radcliffe Camera. The entertainment that steals the show is Morris Dancing. Since the first documented time the city celebrated the festival 500 years ago, it has always been a fan-favourite. With folk music reverberating around the square, the Morris Men of Oxford swing their handkerchiefs and jingle their bells as they execute their time-old choreography. If to be believed, the Morris Men are said to bring magic power to wherever they dance. When Radcliffe Square is as busy and bustling as it is on May Day, it is hard to deny there’s something magical in the air.

​As the procession moves up to the city centre, the bagpipes, squeezeboxes and fiddles of the all-in-green Whirly Band can be heard outside Clarendon Building. They never fail to bring the spirit of summer to the city as their viridescent suits symbolise a new leaf. It’s their one gig of the year, and their folk songs dating back to the 13th century like Miri It Is are not one to pass up. 

​Besides this, general revelry and Highland dancing outside All Souls College are some of the events to enjoy. Be sure to keep a look out as well for the Jack-in-the-Green bush – someone dressed up in what looks like a Christmas tree – which also makes its way round the city centre. The phenomenon originates from a milkmaid tradition of carrying flower-decorated milk pails, supposed to show the beauty of spring. Perhaps slightly detached from its previous meaning, the Oxford Jack is now a central part of the procession. With 14,000 people behind him, Jack plays follow-the-leader up the High Street.

May Day is full of peculiarities and eccentricities, all of which put the day high on everyone’s agenda. Music is a key part of this, with the mix of Latin lyrics and folk melodies characterising the day’s unique origins. But it is the camaraderie and togetherness of May Day that make it so special for the city. So, be sure to get up early and not miss out on what is truly an unforgettable day of music and memories.

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