Traces of the potentially deadly Legionnaires’ disease have been discovered at St Hugh’s during routine annual testing for the bacterium.Legionnaires’ disease is a form of pneumonia that is carried through the air in fine droplets of water. It has an incubation period of two to ten days and has a fatality rate of between five and ten percent. The disease is particularly dangerous for the elderly.The outbreak at St Hugh’s occurred in the Rachel Tricket Building (RTB) which contains the JCR as well as student accommodation.Mary Kerr, St Hugh’s College Bursar, said that the College had followed expert advice in dealing with the outbreak.She said, “Following advice from the College’s specialist environmental contractor, the water system was immediately treated with chemicals to kill the bacteria.“As an added safeguard the College has installed replacement shower heads with integral legionella filters,” she added.Nikita Malik, JCR Vice-President, said that no students are believed to have caught the virus.
Malik said, “We’ve given lots of warnings about symptoms and how people should respond if they suspect they’re infected.”She said that changing the shower heads has caused disgruntlement among students in the college.She said, “We’ve had lots of complaints people have been irritated by college putting special filters on shower heads to keep out the bacteria.“The water pressure on the second and third floors is practically non-existent.” “College has offered alternative accommodation for people who want better facilities, but the bedrooms they’re offering aren’t en suite,” he added.But Kerr said that there was no animosity between students and the College. She said, “The College has remained in close contact with the JCR Committee and the individual students occupying the affected rooms.“They have fully understood the situation and we are extremely grateful for their co-operation.”

When you are a drug smuggler, looking inconspicuous is a blessing; when you are a restaurant, it is not. Why is it that I have lived in East Oxford since the start of the year, and have only just acknowledged the existence of Door 74? The answer is probably a combination of its darkly painted exterior, modest size, and the fact that I didn’t expect to find a restaurant serving food of this kind, this good, at this price on Cowley Road. However, now Door 74 is firmly on my radar, I’m not letting it escape.

The restaurant itself is a relatively small space, so I was concerned about the degree of privacy we would have. Nothing induces self-consciousness more than entering a restaurant in which the noise level peaks at ‘loud whisper’, and the sound of repositioning your wine glass causes other diners to glance over. Luckily, despite our visit being a mid-week dinner, each chunky wooden table was full (mainly of hip young couples and pairs of women), so the atmosphere felt intimate as opposed to oppressive. The lighting is just right: spotlights, fairy lights and candles, and the table cacti, mosaic-topped bar, dark wooden carved ornaments and chalked-out board menu ensure that the interior looks trendy but feels relaxed. My companion, as if formulating a Door 74 tagline, cringingly remarked, ‘This is the kind of place you can come on a date and be sexy!’ And I’m afraid, embarrassing as it is to admit, he is absolutely right.

The menu, comprising half a dozen starters (around £4 – £6) and seven mains (£8 – £14), ticks all the main buzz-word boxes; ‘organic’, ‘free range’, and ‘local’ all make strategic appearances, and dishes come and go according to what is in season. The red onion tart tatin with mixed leaves (£5.95) set us off to a good start; the pastry was thin, crisp and herb-flecked. The whole king prawns with chilli, garlic, and parsley (£6.25) were also excellent, and the griddled crostini was a welcome touch. My main, a parmesan and herb-crusted chicken breast served with aioli, salad and garlic roast new potatoes (10.95) was the obvious winner, with the aioli (homemade garlic mayonnaise with the slightest hint of saffron) tying the dish together well. Unfortunately, the beef burger with onion marmalade and chunky salad (£7.95), although perfectly cooked, was served in an overly-charred bun, which we thought was a bit of an oversight. Portions were surprisingly generous, but left just enough room for the dark chocolate semifreddo with vanilla ice-cream (£3.95). Our superhuman waiter Jack was attentive, friendly, and accommodating, despite being the only front of house staff member, and I am convinced his presence added to the laid-back ambience.

Door 74 also does weekend brunches from 11-3, plus weekday lunch specials (£5.95 inc. a drink) which they unfortunately don’t advertise. Therefore I am taking it upon myself to spread the word: your radar would be all the more stylish if Door 74 was on it.

Costume is an integral, if not essential, part of any piece of drama – be it stage, film, or serialisation. It would certainly be a shock if actors entered the stage sans costume, that is to say stark naked. In the case of many prestigious actors – Judi Dench, Richard Griffiths, Patrick Stewart – the sensation would be an entirely unwelcome one. Some productions might be fittingly performed without clothes on, however. Pinter’s Birthday Party, for example, would be absurd if the actors performed in their birthday suits.It is taken for granted in most forms of theatre that costume is a part of the illusion of reality on stage used to create suspension of disbelief. It is easy to bring to mind period dramas where every element of costume is painstakingly reproduced to an incredible degree of accuracy. There was even a fad in the nineteenth century called ‘archaeological realism’ in which costumes and sets were historically accurate to the point of having actual functioning war engines on stage during siege scenes. However, this is an extraordinary length to go to in order to establish suspension of disbelief – too far, in fact, were the siege engines to go off accidentally.Consider a school nativity play: a horse costume does not have to look exactly like a horse in order to tell the audience of beaming parents that the character actually is a horse and to capture their attention (however, small children may attempt to authenticate this by urinating on stage). In fact, the real function a costume serves is to tell the audience something about the character wearing it. In some modern theatre, the actors will simply wear neutral, black clothes; they can change character easily, the spectacle of the costume doesn’t detract from the action on stage, and any individual detail of costume employed stands out much more.Sometimes, the idea of costume at all is a hindrance. Some performances of forum theatre are conducted in a public space, without making it known that the drama is a fiction; the actors then try to get any spectators of the action involved. The whole idea, in this instance, is to appear inconspicuous – the actors do not want to alert the public to the fact that a performance, as such, is happening. Costume becomes ‘anti-costume’: it attempts to show that the character is not a character at all.So, thesps: dress up, dress down, or take a leaf out of Daniel Radcliffe’s book and undress. Avoid horses, though. There are laws about that. Whatever you do, you’re showing us a part of your character.By Ryan Hocking 

The long night of the soul is a wellworn theme. Yet Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana has a far from familiar feel. In the claustrophobic heat of Mexico, the play portrays a night of despair as Shannon (Sam Aldred) battles his ghosts. Shannon is a defrocked priest, clinging desperately to his job as a tour guide.
The play opens as he arrives at a hotel, tour group in tow. As the play progresses, Shannon hovers on the edge of emotional collapse, while the tourists grow ever more mutinous. Shannon must battle the emotional blackmail of Charlotte, a sixteen-year-old musical prodigy who he has rather unwisely slept with, and the attacks of her ‘butch vocal coach’, Miss Fellowes. In the midst of this an unlikely bond springs up between Shannon and Hannah (Thea Warren), a spinster staying in the hotel. The play sparkles with wit and insight, and the odd bleakly comic line eases the emotional tension.
Sam Aldred steals the show as Shannon. He dominates the stage, and captures the distracted air of a man haunted by the figures of his own mind. His performance is vehement enough to be unsettling, yet skilfully avoids tipping over into melodrama. Arabella Lawson seems to make a sufficiently frantic, if slightly screechy, Charlotte. Yet the initial scene between Shannon and Hannah could have been more credible and intimate. Without a strong bond between Shannon and old spinster Hannah, there is nothing to relieve the play’s introspection. The exploration of Shannon’s demons is perceptive, and Aldred brings it to life. Despite its over-intensity, the play left me itching to read the rest of it, and brought back half-remembered lines of Tennessee Williams that A-level had not quite managed to ruin. Well worth seeing, but not for the emotionally unstable.
By Elizabeth Bennett

When I first heard the comments of the Archbishop of Canterbury on Radio 4’s Today Programme, I was pleasantly surprised. Here was someone who’d studied what the Sharia means to Muslims, and had taken the misleading popular media images of it out of the equation. As someone who has been studying Islamic Law for several years as part of my degree, my reaction to the recent storm generated in the media, and in particular the tabloids, over Dr Rowan William’s comments about Sharia has been much like the Archbishop’s himself — one of shock.When he first spoke of the introduction of civil courts that would deal with marital disputes, and perhaps financial transactions, I thought it was about time that these interactions finally gained some state recognition, having been taking place among Muslims in British society for many years, so that, for instance, a couple who have gotten married under the auspices of an Islamic court do not have to register separately at a registry office for their union to be recognised by the state.The extraordinarily negative public response made me realise that this would not be easy to achieve. The main problem for Muslims who would like to see the introduction of such bodies is one of the public perception of the Sharia, or Islamic Law. Originally referring to a ‘path to water’, the term Sharia evokes very negative images of degrading public floggings and the like in the popular consciousness.
Undoubtedly these aspects did make up the penal code in classical formulations of the Sharia, but to focus on them exclusively, as is popular even in the more responsible media outlets, is to misrepresent. For instance, in one classical textbook on Islamic Law, out of a thousand pages, only forty are devoted to the penal code. In any case, neither the Archbishop, nor any of the leading Muslim intellectuals supporting him, like Oxford Theologian Tariq Ramadan, are for a moment advocating the patently absurd suggestion that those aspects of the Sharia be introduced into British society.In all of this, it is worth stepping back for a moment, and asking: ‘what exactly does Sharia mean to Muslims?’ As Tariq Ramadan stated on Newsnight last week — and he is certainly representative of the attitudes of large swathes of Muslims living in the West — among the aims and principles of the Sharia is achieving justice, and with the current legal system fulfilling that, Muslims can be content to live under a system that conforms with the norms of the Sharia. The same is taught by Oxford’s other Islamic Theologian, Yahya Michot.Other aspects of Sharia include a Muslim’s personal relationship with God, and so entails things like praying five times a day, not eating pork, and avoiding alcohol: things that are perfectly possible to be fulfilled by Muslims in this country. As for the penal code, as UCLA Law Professor, and expert on Islamic Law, Khaled Abou El Fadl points out in a very brief article of his, the penal code is frequently designed, as in the case for severe traditional punishments for sexual misdemeanours, to make a moral point rather than for implementation, and as such, it is almost impossible to carry out, given the burden of proof required. According to Akram Nadwi, of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, yet another local intellectual colossus on the subject, we do not have any records in history (until modern times) of anyone being punished for adultery due to the virtual impossibility of fulfilling the demands of proof required of the Sharia. A clip of the sort of help British Sharia courts are providing women in more conservative Muslim communities in the North can be found on www.bbcnews.com, in the article, ‘The view from inside a Sharia court.’Usaama al-Azami is the President of the Islamic Society.

A second year Worcester student was hospitalised on Saturday after injuring herself on a spike while scaling railings by Magdalen.he accident took place last Saturday during the traditional ‘midway’ celebrations at Worcester. After being denied entry to Magdalen by its porters, the student and her friends decided to seek an alternative route into the college, and she was being helped over railings on Longwall Street when she slipped and slashed her thigh on a large spike. She was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital by ambulance and given stitches.Sam Pritchard, a Magdalen student, witnessed the aftermath of the accident. He said, “There were all these people in costumes making a lot of noise. There’s a slightly lower fence or gate entrance to Magdalen with spikes on it that they were flooding over.“Inside Magdalen, under an archway at the entrance to my stairway there was a girl slouched, screaming, with blood on her skirt.”The Worcester midway celebrations take the form of an afternoon pub crawl in fancy dress with intermittent attempts to enter other colleges, and a formal dinner in the evening. Students dressed up in groups according to where they live in College, and costumes included characters from The Wizard of Oz, sheep, Power Rangers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.Worcester JCR President, Maanus Jain, said, “We go around Oxford drinking in pubs in fancy dress. Occasionally we do go into other colleges but the porters are normally very good-natured. We’d been to New and the porters had asked us to leave. We never meant to cause a disturbance.“When we got to Magdalen the porters weren’t very keen on letting us in. Some people did run at them and a small group of people did try to get in another way. That’s when a girl got injured on a spike and an ambulance was called. After that we carried on.”Jain emphasised, “This was an isolated incident in what was a pretty good-humoured day.” Worcester is threatening fines for anyone who is identified as having been part of the scaling incident. Magdalen College has refused to comment.OUSU Welfare Officer, Louise Randall, said, “Most people will find that their judgement becomes worse when they are drunk …Drink in moderation and make sure accidents don’t ruin your night or put your safety at risk.”

I found myself at the centre of a minor media maelstrom the week before last when a colleague and I published the findings of a small research study on the teaching of patriotism in schools. We argued in the report that teachers should not promote patriotism in the classroom, but should present the desirability of loving one’s country as an open question or controversial issue. Despite the deep offence this suggestion appears to have caused in some quarters of the Fourth Estate, I still think it’s right.I take patriotism to be love of one’s country, and thus a species of emotion or sentiment. Being a patriot does not entail any normative beliefs about how one’s country should be governed or what duties one might have to it. In this respect patriotism differs from nationalism, which is the belief that one’s nation should be, or should remain, an independent sovereign state. To promote patriotism, then, is to induce and nurture a particular emotional attachment. The attempt to shape students’ emotions in the classroom is not objectionable per se, but it does oblige us to draw a distinction between rational and non-rational ways of bringing such influence to bear. To influence a person’s emotions rationally is to offer her good reasons for moderating or redirecting her emotional responses, to help her see why the reasons are good. To influence her emotions non-rationally is to deploy methods of psychological manipulation to alter her emotional responses directly, without reference to her capacities for rational choice. Only the first of these is properly described as educational and justifiably brought to bear in schools.If this is right, our question can be reframed as follows: are there good reasons, that we can and should offer to students, for loving one’s country? This immediately raises the broader question of how we should delimit the class of appropriate or fitting objects of love.It seems fair to say that this class will be very wide: human beings are powerfully drawn to all sorts of things, and in most cases we regard the presence of powerful attraction as reason enough to love. But there are limits, and one of these is set by the idea that loving certain things is bad for us, in the sense of being directly or indirectly damaging to our mental or physical health. Loving what is morally vicious or corrupt is liable to be detrimental to one’s character and self-respect. There is no doubt that it is logically and psychologically possible for us to love things of which (or people of whom) we morally disapprove; but there is a reasonable doubt that we can do this without harm to ourselves. To love what is corrupt is itself corrupting, not least because it inclines us to ignore, forget, forgive or excuse the corruption.And there’s the rub for patriotism. Countries are morally ambiguous entities: they are what they are by virtue of their histories, and it is hard to think of a national history free from the blights of war-mongering, tyranny, slavery and subjugation, or a national identity forged without recourse to exclusionary and xenophobic stereotypes. It is therefore not implausible to regard countries as precisely the sort of objects whose moral failings make them inappropriate objects of love. I do not mean to suggest that assessing the moral rectitude of nations is a straightforward business. On the contrary, the question of how to weigh up the various kinds of vice and virtue exhibited by countries is clearly a vexed one. And just how corrupt does something need to be before it becomes inappropriate to love it? These questions are matters of reasonable disagreement among reasonable people. And this implies that the desirability of patriotic sentiment is properly construed, and therefore properly taught, as a controversial issue.Dr Michael Hand is from the Institue of Education, University of London.

‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore is brimming with sexual violence: the dominance of men over women. The play charts the story of Giovanni’s incestuous lust-fuelled seduction of his sister Annabella and her subsequent marriage. Using techniques such as televised porn, director Sam Pritchard has tried to move the Jacobean play into the modern day, and updated it to reflect our society’s ongoing obsession with sex and scandal.Set in an upper- middle class household, the play aims to confront society’s view of women as sex objects. On stage, in the action, it succeeds. Matt Orton’s Giovanni is electrifying. His passion, rage and sexual energy is revealed as much by the intensity of his silences as by the intense violence in grasping his sister’s face in his hands and growling the declaration of his perverse love. Annabella, played by Charlotte Bayley, is the perfect portrait of a woman whose dignity, as well as her body, has been defiled by her brother’s sexual aggression. She seems to give herself willingly to him, but her tremor of fear as Giovanni touches her reveals her terror, a terror as much at her own submission as at her brother’s assault. The directing is at its best here too; Pritchard lets us dwell on Annabella, alone in her bed, her face buried in her hands, her body racked by sobs. The aftermath is revealed to be as important as the act.With this sensitivity revealed in the acting itself, the flashes of pornography that bridge the scenes are strikingly gratuitous. It is almost as if the director fears that we won’t understand the play’s point. Yet making it explicit in the grainy shots of sex acts detracts and distracts. Also bizarre was the decision to make the sinister Friar into a religious talk- show host. It detracted from the power of the play, and skewed the focus of criticism. Is the play attacking the moral hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, or of chatshow hosts? Either is a fair target, but by conflating the two, the concentration is lost, and the intensity blurred.The acting remains top-notch though. Will Cudmore puts in a fantastic, sinuous, dangerous performance as Vasques, and Charlotte Norris’ Putana reveals that woman’s complicity in sexual violence is just as demeaning as man’s sexual aggression. ‘Tis pity that the production sometimes submits to the desire to shock the audience – not just that she’s a whore.By Timothy Sherwin