Accurate economic forecasting is almost impossible. JK Galbraith argued that its only purpose was to make astrology look respectable by comparison, while even Alan Greenspan, chair of the Federal Reserve for 19 years, had such little confidence in its use that he preferred to use the Fed’s resources to restore confidence after a market crash than change interest rates based on predictions of future problems.  In this light it is perhaps excusable that politicians failed to pre-empt the run on Northern Rock last year and underestimated the impact of the credit crunch on sub-prime mortgages. The question now is what should be done with the bank, and it seems temporary nationalisation is the answer.The danger of a run on a bank cannot be overstated. In 1929, runs on major banks led to the collapse of the financial system, which in turn led to the most severe recession in America’s history. Clearly the threat in the UK was on a smaller scale, but if the government had not immediately guaranteed the deposits, then the bank may well have collapsed, destroying saver confidence and possibly leading to similar troubles in other high street banks.Nationalisation now will send out the message that the government will not let banks fall or deposits be lost, and such a policy will should prevent runs on banks in the future. This process will undoubtedly cost the taxpayer money in the short term, but if nationalisation is necessary to save our financial system from meltdown and will look after our economic interests, then it is worth the cost.Nationalisation is also the best way to recover as much public funding as possible. Will Hutton, in a detailed analysis, showed that the private sector bids led by a Virgin consortium and the Northern Rock management were totally inadequate in this respect. Both demanded further government subsidy and neither was willing to pay enough money to claw back the funds used to save Northern Rock initially.
Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats seem to be in agreement with the solution that Hutton offers: that the bank should be kept in the public sector until the housing market improves and Northern Rock’s value recovers, so that when it is finally returned to the private sector it may be sold for a higher price than recent offers. Furthermore, there is no question that depositors’ money will be better secured by the move into public ownership, given the government’s promises to that effect and the state’s vast resources. This will be crucial for the restoration of saver-confidence.There are objections to nationalisation. Trade unions fear job losses and shareholders will not be able to make any short term gains. There are fears about the government’s lack of expertise in running a bank. However if job cuts are necessary to improve Northern Rock’s inefficient business model then so be it. Equally, if the government step in to save a company on the brink of collapse (which would have seen an absolute loss in the value of shares), then the shareholders cannot be too angry at the way it has chosen to help their company recover. It was, after all, the fault of shareholders for investing in a badly run company. Finally, the problem of expertise has been overcome by the recruitment of individuals such as Ron Sandler, former head of Lloyds in London, to help run the bank.Nationalisation will quell public fears about the safety of their money and insulate other banks from the threats posed to Northern Rock last year. It also represents the best way to regain taxpayers’ money and secure current deposits. This is clearly the most sound policy, and the ideological objections of the Conservative front bench honestly do not merit consideration.
Alexander Waksman is Treasurer-Elect of OULC.

Joshua Glancy has a whinge about the bingeAsk yourself a question. How many great nights out have you had in Oxford which didn’t involve drinking? By drinking I mean getting drunk, smashed, twatted, having an apocolashtastic time…. you get the idea. Conversely, how many times have you had a really good time at an Oxford club or bop stone-cold sober?What is wrong with us? We spend our days solving fiendish equations or grappling with philosophical constructs amidst classical grandeur. Yet once or twice a week many of us reduce ourselves to slobbering wrecks, stumbling along the sidewalks, vomiting in toilets, being thrown out of clubs, fighting, shouting and generally being obnoxious. All this is achieved via copious amounts of beer, wine and vile tasting tequilas, vodkas and sambucas. It is no coincidence that Law Soc is the most popular society in Oxford. Not many of us are that interested in mooting; it’s the cocktail bins and free champagne supplied by ever-generous law firms that attract the thirsty hordes. It actually seems that the smarter one dresses for an occasion, the higher the likelihood of getting smashed. Black tie events begin with wine and witticisms but end in extreme intoxication. At the college balls we put on our glad rags and pay at least £70 for a ticket, yet once the formalities of dinner are dispensed with the evening takes a familiar turn. The next day is spent reconstructing hilarious drunken anecdotes, feeling sorry for oneself and addressing with great reluctance the inevitable work pile-up as our bodies slowly recover from the substance abuse of the night before. The cost is not just academic but financial – the mysterious disappearance of notes from the wallet, the unintentional £10 minimum drink rounds. How many of us would have genuine budget problems if it weren’t for the £30 or more we spend on alcohol per week? Of course, this generalisation is unfair. There are those who drink in moderation, and many to whom the joys of alcohol-induced mental retardation hold little appeal. Yet amongst the party-going circles in Oxford – the societies, the sports teams and the social clubs – drinking on a night out is expected, non-participation frowned upon. Attempting to go out sober in such environments leads to calls of ‘man the fuck up’ and ‘get it down you’, or my own particular favourite chant of ‘down or gay.’ What is disconcerting for many is the normality with which such behaviour is viewed. We have become immune to our own absurdity. I remember during my own Fresher’s Week being regaled in the JCR by a jaded second year medic with a story of how he had measured his own liver at the end of his first year to gauge the ‘massive’ effects of his drunken antics. No one else appeared distressed by this puerile bombast, so I nodded along. Now of course, I am wiser. I no longer believe drunken medics capable of analysing their own livers.Here we arrive at the issue of what the national press gleefully refers to as ‘Binge Drinking.’ Having established that the lash train has pulled into our station, we must ask ourselves why we feel we must behave in this fashion. What does it say about us? If you take the sound advice of Jeremy Clarkson, ‘Binge drinking is good for you.’ What he loves most is ‘Really getting stuck in. Hosing back the cocktails until the room begins to swim and my legs seem to be on backwards.’ Beneath the inflammatory demagoguery that represents your average Clarkson article, there might be a point here. He highlights the group affinity that stems from a night out together, from being hung-over together. The promise of a big night can act as a motivation to get through the week; the act of getting drunk with your friends a release of tension and frustration – especially at Oxford. With large workloads, smug friends at other universities going out every night, small and unimpressive clubs and a rather ominous 40 years at a desk rapidly approaching, a night of reckless abandon and alcohol consumption is understandable. If anyone has ever tried attending a bop sober they will have noted it looks like a scene by Hieronymus Bosch, and in all likelihood they left fairly quickly. Given that those are the only college parties available, what choice do we have if we wish to attend and enjoy such an evening? Much of what we do here is both diligent and virtuous. Surely there is nothing wrong with setting aside degree and career every once in a while and having some fun?  Cicero tells us ‘Let some allowance be made for a person’s years, let youth be allowed greater freedom. Let not that severe and unbending reason always prevail; let desire and pleasure sometimes triumph over reason.’ I’m with him.Of course, Cicero himself had a strong commitment to virtue and action, and meant such distractions to enhance our everyday lives rather than subsume them. Occasional reckless abandon is justifiable, but let us not become members of the ‘cult of the lash.’ Let us not forget how to communicate with members of the opposite sex without slurring our words, or that friendship is much more than simply getting drunk together. Let us not venerate the vine. Issues such as alcoholism, physical damage and serious financial and academic difficulties are not to be sneered at. So the next time someone shows off to you with a liver damage story, consider how fucking stupid they sound, and you will have gone a long way towards solving your binge-drinking problem.

When we launched our campaign against ultrasonic alarms (more popularly known as ‘mosquito boxes’) we hoped that many people would share our sense of concern that young people could be targeted in this way. Many people did. But looking at the several thousand people who joined in website debates on the BBC and elsewhere, it’s equally clear many people reckon the alarms are an acceptable response to antisocial behaviour. We think that is profoundly wrong – so let me step back and explain.Ultrasonic devices emit an irritating high-pitched sound that is inaudible to most people over the age of 25, but almost unbearable to young ears. They are used to deter young people from ‘hanging around’ shops and businesses because they simply won’t be able to stand the noise.A group of young people from Corby were so concerned about the use of these alarms in their home town that they created their own pressure group: Buzz Off. ‘I’ve never heard a noise like it,’ said Lewis Davison, 17. ‘It’s like a really high-pitched noise and, if anything, it feels like it’s inside your head. Even when you’ve walked away from it, you can sort of still hear it in the back of your head and you don’t know if you’re still hearing the same one or whether another one’s kicked in.’The main aim of Buzz Off’s campaign, which is now being supported by the National Youth Agency, 11 Million (the office of the Children’s Commissioner) and Liberty, is to get all such devices – and there’s reckoned to be some 3,500 of them around – switched off. But most importantly, it’s also about persuading councils and police forces that there are far more effective methods of tackling anti-social behaviour. Given the nature of the alarms, it’s hard to blame the majority of law-abiding young people if they feel discriminated against. It’s not surprising if it leads to further alienation from the community they live in, or if it pushes them into other potentially unsafe areas. But this is not a simplistic ‘we know our rights’ campaign.The whole point is to continue to involve all sections of the community in developing more effective ways of preventing anti-social behaviour – that’s what the Corby group are doing with their local Groundwork project and that’s why we are supporting them. Charmain Warren, 21, is an eloquent spokesperson for the group and she put it like this: ‘We want to make clear that we’re not doing this campaign just because we’re young people and we don’t like the sound of these devices. We’re working towards stopping all forms of anti-social behaviour. Alcohol may be the biggest factor in causing anti-social behaviour and certainly the mosquito devices aren’t going to solve that.‘Also, they have a very limited range so if you’ve got someone intent on crime all they’re going to do is move down the road and do it. We want to work with councils, with the police and with the older generation as well as other young people to tackle all anti-social behaviour. After all, we don’t like going to the shops and being intimidated by troublemakers either.’Yes, these devices are discriminatory. Yes, they are an affront to human rights. But furthermore, we believe that they offer no solutions to the problems they purport to tackle and will ultimately be proven to be counterproductive. We can and must do better.
 
Fiona Blacke is the Chief Executive of the National Youth Agency.

So, two sets of Oxford students have shared the title of this year’s ‘Idea Idol.’ To even hold an annual competition for business innovation, with judges, a set format and patronising cash prizes, seems to be getting this whole entreprenurial thing off on the wrong foot.  The real innovators will be out there scamming pensioners and dodging taxes, rather than wasting their time (and, subsequently, money) on a stuffy competition. The dearth of actual ideas is painfully plain: one of the winning entries seems based on milking a profit from the NHS by selling them an unwieldy substitute for existing hygiene, while the other winner’s business plan beggars belief: “I’m a smart guy. I know other smart guys and I’ll have a good team around me.”Based on the successful pitches, it appears the whole idea is not to identify a need and address it, but to create the false impression of a problem. It may be naive to expect budding businessmen to want to do good, but surely more naive still to assume that the world has no dilemmas left to solve. You can’t even blame the self-serving young ‘entrepreneurs’ – one was criticised by a judge thus: “You think you’ve found a solution, but really you’ve identified a problem.” That student was the only runner-up whose pitch sounded vaguely ethical, or even useful.This blissful western, capitalist belief that good can  be achieved by seeking a profit has surely been debunked often enough. Trickle-down economics? Yet the gap between rich and poor still widens. Entrepreneurs doing enough social good through the job opportunities they create? Then why does Bill Gates feel the need to publicise his charitable donations and celebrity-endorsed ‘good works’? Perhaps the worst thing about this Idea Idol is its blithe indifference to this truth. One runner-up was quite happy to expect punters to pay to join a philanthropic site and run it as a profit-making venture.This competition is, in its way, a crueller thing than the rabid, red-toothed capitalism of American legend. Its very laziness, its assumption that any old idea will do if it gets a half-decent marketing job, is terrifying. Of course, the system’s already there, and Oxford students are free to try to exploit it – but could they not try a little harder? The utter lack of female finalists has been bemoaned in some quarters.  Would the suggestion that this is a good thing – that it shows women have a greater degree of compunction – be too crass a gender generalisation? Or can anything be too crass, in so rapacious a context?

Back from mid-term holiday, 24-ers and back to checking the headlines. Here's my favorite story from the last two weeks:
On February 5th, a tornado struck the South-east U.S., especially Tennessee, where it was election day. Polls stayed open late, but many voters couldn't get to the polls to vote. Normally, natural disasters are news for the weather channel but it being a Super Tuesday state and all, the Tennessee tornado was major news and all the big networks wanted live photographs and video to run with the story.
There's a small uni in Tennessee called Union, and in the storm, they canceled classes and did their best to keep students informed of safe havens. This involved posting information and alerts on the University's Facebook wall, where all the students would see it. Meanwhile, individual students started using the site to post their own photographs of the damage taking place outside their windows.  Alumni who saw the wall from afar sent their good wishes to friends and former classmates. Then, CNN found the images that Uni officials and students had uploaded and used them in their news coverage.
I'm not so shocked to see a University use Facebook in this way: it's about time they realized where their students actually look for information. Nor am I scandalized that CNN credited Facebook, not the Uni or the students, for the photos. This is all legal under Facebook's new application-based platform agreement, where most of what you post belongs to Mark Zuckerberg, not you. Nor I am shocked that Union students let this slide, because (after all), we're the Web 2.0 generation that thinks boundaries are a waste of time, right?
What shocks me is that the University–a bastion of bureaucracy, regulation and resistance to change–didn't press CNN to be credited for information. I've long predicted that the Internet, like any other media change, is not threatening to unravel the fabric of society because eventually, the mainstream develops new rules to make the new technology stable. Is Union's choice to be open source with their footage the first step to making Web 2.0 culture the establishment norm? Is this the beginning of tomorrow?

Unlike their predecessor Henry II, the political elite at Westminster were no doubt positively delighted by the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury last week. No sooner than did the words ‘sharia law’ escape Rowan Williams’s lips, than the knights of the 24-hour media, like their 12^th century counterparts, charge towards the meddlesome priest with their swords drawn. With the news cycle moving away from the turmoil in the financial markets and the Oscar Wilde-inspired and tax payer-funded sartorial habits of an MP’s son, Labour and Conservative parties alike must have heaved a sigh of relief. As pundits and journalists from across the whole political spectrum gathered to lynch the man in the mitre (or as the Sun helpfully put it, to ‘bash the bishop’), the politicians could finally catch their breaths before the next round of – inevitably – bad news.

Obviously, in strict accordance with the Law of the Media Circus, the amount of vitriol and hysteria which is generated by said circus is inversely proportionate to the actual cause for alarm or concern. Since I am not a lawyer or an expert on Islamic jurisprudence, I cannot offer any particularly helpful insight into overall merit of Dr. Williams’s proposals. I am, however, literate and was able to actually read the speech which ignited this controversy.

Unfortunately, this presumption of literacy was not borne out in the case of most of the self-proclaimed defenders of the rule of law and Western civilisation. In recent days, the Archbishop has extended an offer of pax, apologising for any ‘unclarity’ in his speech which might have led some to misunderstand his meaning. But really, unless by ‘misunderstand’ he meant ‘wilfully ignore large chunks of speech which directly and thoughtfully addressed the concerns rabidly paraded in the press’, I am not sure why even this muted apology was justified.

Perhaps journalists these days are too busy defending Enlightenment values or pondering Britney’s downward spiral to read primary sources when these exceed their 150-word attention span limit. I am genuinely puzzled by the charge that Williams was naively unaware of the disadvantaged status of women, the problem of ‘forced marriage’, and the extreme incompatibility of some provisions of sharia with human rights, when these concerns were all dealt with at length and with evident application and research.

So for the Johann Haris, Yasmin Alibhai-Browns and the rest of the muscular liberals and/or secularist paranoiacs, the solution to their nightmares of the coming oppressive theocracy is simply to learn to read. I recommend particularly the sentence (only 44 words!) where Williams insists that ‘If any kind of plural jurisdiction is recognised, it would presumably have to be under the rubric that no “supplementary” jurisdiction could have the power to deny access to the rights granted to other citizens or to punish its members for claiming those rights.’

The remedy for some of the less savoury platoons in the anti-Williams army will unfortunately have to be more radical. The drumbeat they march to is leading the faithful in a grand crusade to save Western Civilisation from what they see as the confessional and demographic threat of Islam. Of course, by no means all of Williams’s critics fall into this category; indeed, thankfully few do. But a distressingly vocal band of the usual suspects has used the controversy surrounding the Archbishop as a screen to advance their, much more sinister, agenda.

Over at the Daily Telegraph for example, Damian Thompson graciously admits that Williams rejects unequivocally such abominations as the stoning of adulterous women. But Thompson points out that Williams’s fault was to find some actually accommodating things to say about sharia (shock! horror!), rather than to take Thompson’s line of comparing Islamic law to Nazism (carefully inserted by referring to the Archbishop’s speech as ‘Vichyite waffle’).

Make no mistake about this: Thompson’s hatred of sharia does not stem from any special love for human rights. His astoundingly reactionary blog features frequent calls for aggressive Catholic proselytising, an end to stem-cell research and the rolling back of equal rights for women and homosexuals. So his venomous opposition to any accommodation of the Muslim community beyond reluctant toleration really comes down, not to a robust defence of liberal democracy, but to Islamophobia.

Don’t take my word for it when you can read Thompson’s own mewling for yourself. Apparently when he yearns for the conversion of Jews to Catholicism, he is merely recognising the ‘universal salvific nature’ of his faith, whereas when a small mosque in East Oxford wants to broadcast the call to prayer once a week, this will ‘strengthen the sense of territorial domination that is central to modern Islamic identity’. All attempts to reach reasonable accommodation with Muslims is labelled ‘dhimmitude’, a term which refers in Islamic jurisprudence to the protected but subordinate status of non-Muslims in an Islamic state, and in Thompson’s writing to the deplorable capitulationism of woolly-minded multi-cultis to the coming Islamic domination.

It is this same irrational fear – the definition, after all, of ‘phobia’ – which has inspired the recent crusade, headed by Oxford historian of science, Dr. Allan Chapman, to prevent the East Oxford mosque from broadcasting the adhan. The bow tie and deerstalker hat-wearing Chapman, who seems to have picked up both his clothes and his views from the 1890s, thinks the mosque’s request represents not an appeal to the freedom of religious expression, but the ‘right to torment the community’, afflicting him with the ‘horrible sound’ of the call to prayer and offending his no doubt legendary ‘sense of neighbourliness’.

Like Thompson and his fellow-traveller Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, Chapman thinks broadcasting a short prayer in classical Arabic constitutes an attempt to ‘dominate’ and ‘Islamify’ the community. Chapman has been joined by the rector of St Aldate’s church, Revd Charlie Cleverly – clearly one of God’s mysterious ways is to give people ironic surnames – who claims the professions of faith contained in the adhan make it an attempt to impose that faith on the community. I hate to break it to Revd Cleverly, but (presumably) unlike him, most Oxford residents are not fluent in classical Arabic. And when it comes to imposing one’s faith on others, frankly St Aldate’s church is hardly the most innocent of the charge.

So as the latest wave of bishop-bashing breaks, spare a thought for Rowan Williams and his increasingly embattled attempt to forge mature and thoughtful debate on a difficult subject. But spare a thought also for the hoary old Islamophobes who have come out of hiding. They seem to be having trouble finding their way to the 21^st century. Please, when you see them, give them a hand.

Caleb Yong is a finalist in Modern History and Politics at Christ Church. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

Holywell Music Room, Sunday 17th February 2008Another full house at the Holywell Music Room, as an expectant audience gathered to see cellist Gemma Rosefield and pianist Michael Dussek play G minor cello sonatas by Beethoven and Chopin.  And it was pleasing to see several students amongst the generally mature audience.

Whilst titled ‘cello sonata’, in both Beethoven’s G minor cello sonata, opus 5  no. 2, and Chopin’s G minor cello sonata, opus 65, the piano certainly shares an equal role. Michael Dussek, described by the BBC Music Magazine as an ‘outstanding artist’, performed with amazing control, especially in the furious passages in the finale of the Chopin sonata and the sections at the end of the first movement of the Beethoven.

Rosefield’s performance, too, was quite enthralling, and she was clearly immersed in the music, playing with her eyes shut almost throughout: she transmitted this love of the music to the audience, who even seemed quietly amused at some points in Beethoven’s humorous rondo.

When writing his cello sonatas, Beethoven was worried about a problem with balance, with the cello overpowering the 18th century fortepiano.  However, with powerful modern pianos the balance problem is often reversed in concerts today: Rosefield and Dussek managed to get this about right, however, and their performance of this piece was reminiscent of the Barenboim-Du Pre recording of the same work.

The Chopin sonata was very well received by the audience, with the juxtaposition of the contemplative largo with the scherzo and finale that surround it particularly effective.  These three movements could have made a complete work in itself, without the allegro first movement: in fact, in Chopin’s first performance of this piece the first movement was omitted, due to its reference to Chopin;s failing love affair at the time.

The concert ended with an encore, Elgar’s ‘Salut d’Amor’, which Rosefield announced as ‘in honour of the recently passed Valentine’s day’.  This was a beautiful end to yet more high order musicianship in the Holywell Music Room coffee concert series.

The next coffee concert at the Holywell music room is next Sunday, February 24th, at 11.15am, and will feature the Sacconi and Navara string quartets performing together, playing a Mendelssohn octet and Brahms sextet (tickets available from Tickets Oxford 01865 305305).

Magdalen Junior Common Room was forced to censor a comment on their JCR message board after a student complained that they found it offensive. The censorship caused some outcry amongst members of the JCR as they suggested that their right to free speech was being threatened.

A student took offence after a request was made for a stripper for a friend’s birthday. The affronted student complained to the JCR welfare representatives which led to the President having to remove the thread.

Jon Wright at Magdalen was drawn into the debate after somebody suggested he apply for the stripper position and suggested that the JCR had overreacted. He said, “As far as I'm concerned, whether or not that sort of thing is suitable for the JCR website should be up to the discretion – and sense of humour – of individuals.”

“Admittedly, as threads go it probably wasn't the best use of JCR web space but to find it offensive would presumably require an almost superhuman degree of thin-skinned humourlessness,” he added. “At any rate, the only person with grounds for a legitimate personal grievance was me, since a friend posted a comment along the lines of "Jon Wright'll do it. I hear he's desperate for money…”, which certainly didn't offend me in the least, though I did almost choke to death on a cup of tea from laughing.”

JCR President, Jon Griffiths, explained that the situation proved difficult due to the conflict of interests faced by the JCR, he said, “Welfare did indeed receive a complaint that someone was uncomfortable with the nature of the post and it was removed. This opens up a bit of a can of worms – welfare officers are mandated to cater to the needs of the JCR, whilst as a student body we have professed our defence of freedom of expression on several occasions in the recent past – but the area where the two meet is very hazy.”

Currently if a student does not wish to appear in Magdalen’s college magazine, the ‘Bogsheet’, then they can make a request to the Welfare representatives who will ensure the removal of their name. Jon Griffiths explained that it was this precedent that had been followed after a student complained about the content of the JCR thread, “a complaint to Welfare leads to removal of the offending comment by the person responsible for the upkeep of the medium used, in this case the Computer Rep. However Welfare, the Computer Rep and I recognise that this raises issues; we are treading on new ground, and policy regarding it requires clarification.”

Those who opposed the decision to remove the thread argued that the JCR was being hypocritical, having passed a motion defending the Union’s invitations to Irving in Michaelmas term in defence of free speech. Gil-Aid Schwartz was against the censorship and said, “There is a fundamental distinction between the interests of a person included in the content of a comment (such as gossip reported in the Bogsheet) and the interests of a third party. For that reason there is a logical flaw in the "Bogsheet precedent" which was applied.”

Since the incident there has been an Equal Opportunities committee meeting which agreed to propose a change to the JCR constitution. The change will propose a clear cut policy defining what is unacceptable on the message board, similar to the codes of conduct that many forum sites already have. Complaints received by Welfare would be dealt with in strictest confidence to decide whether they should be upheld according to this policy, and, if so, the Computer Rep as moderator would edit the offending post alone, explaining why.

President Jon Griffiths admitted that under the new constitution the censorship would not have taken place, but added that to focus on such a detail was to miss the point. He said, “Posts drawing complaints will still put Welfare in a difficult position when not covered in the agreed policy; they have a duty to the JCR to do whatever they can to address their concerns, whilst being powerless to deal directly with things said that are perfectly within one's rights, but equally could offend or intimidate. We will now have clear guidelines to determine if a post should be removed, and if not, Welfare can still act in a personal capacity to address said concerns.

He urged students to use the message board responsibly in the future. “Given the usual content of our message boards, I think this issue has become one of principle rather than genuine concern for a lack of freedom of speech. Hopefully with the matter settled common sense will prevail, and our message boards can return to being a beneficial resource for the whole JCR.”

Holywell Music Room, 16th February 2008Both on the piano and when talking, Tallis Barker is a natural performer. He won the affection of tonight's audience by offering them a running commentary on the deficiency of his piano stool, even obliging us with a few experimental squats to tease out a squeak in evidence. Even his programme notes displayed his personality, inviting the audience to to fill the ample floor space of the Holywell Music Room with our dancing but warning them “not to be surprised if my shoe flies through your airspace.” This line summed up the feeling of tonight's concert, which was one of mesmerising skill combined with Barker's obvious enjoyment, and a freshness which is sometimes missing in the performances of more jaded musicians. This was obvious from the opening bars of the first piece, Haydn's Variations in F minor, where Barker infused the antecedent and consequent phrases with distinctive characters. Whilst maintaining the restraint appropriate for this classical work, he managed to portray the drama contained within it through subtle manipulation of tempo and soft finger work: The shimmering right hand passages were tickled out of the keys and offset by perfectly timed pauses. Barker's nimble touch was taken to dizzying heights in the following piece, Beethoven's Sonata in C major, the “Waldstein” sonata. In the opening movement,  Barker's dexterity, combined with the constant return of the main theme, put  one in mind of a circular roller-coaster ride. Luckily we could take comfort in  the knowledge that we were in the hands of somebody who kept us gripped to the rails, even if we ended up a little white-knuckled in the process. Against the  furious muttering of the accompanying chords, Barker somehow managed to bring  the lyrical melody to the foreground whilst maintaining his light-handed  approach, emphasising its celestial quality. It was in the second half, however, that Barker's passion really took hold.  Chopin's Polonaise in F sharp minor, whose main theme (according to Barker) “asserts itself and all of Poland” was a perfect outlet.  In his rendition, Barker expertly channelled his emotion through the sustenance of phrases and by using the pedal to build up the tones of the key while his hands furiously snaked up and down the entire breadth of the piano. A brief period of calm returned with the Prelude in F sharp major, the Waltz in C sharp minor and the Nocturne in B flat minor. Here we could observe Barker's attention to detail: Each finger was weighted individually, allowing certain notes to be given more prominence than others, contributing to a very expressive performance. He kept the audience riveted by varying his material. Each time the main theme of the waltz was played, its character was varied. The eruption into the final Scherzo in C sharp minor provided a final kick to the system, and one which Barker clearly enjoyed administering. His enthusiasm was infectious and right up until the concluding hammering chords, he kept the audience absolutely spellbound.by Hannah Nepil