Collections are over, Oxford’s wetter than the North Sea and the transition from Hollyoaks addict to workaholic is not going smoothly. Time to get out, says Cassie Lester.
You may have only been back a few days – a week, tops – but the dreaming spires may already be looking a little shop-worn and less desirable than when you were safely back at home. And yet you’ve got seven weeks left to go; so treat yourself and take a few breaks. After all, the city’s not going anywhere, except maybe underwater. The easiest break from endless reading lists is the obvious shopping trip, with Bicester village only 15 miles away (and still in the sales!). Buses go every half hour so it’s great for last minute, ‘got to get out of this place’ snap decisions. Unfortunately they don’t accept Bod cards for student discounts so you might just have to press your nose up against shop windows like little orphan children in a Dickensian Christmas. Don’t fancy shopping? Even with your overdraft magically erased by the wonder of the thrice-yearly student loan?One of the good things about Oxford being such a tourist hub is the plethora of ways to get in and out of the city.  You’re probably unlikely to be using Oxford’s airport for your cheapo weekend breaks – only available for private planes, apparently – but there are a handful of bus and coach companies willing to take you down to London for a day trip. From there you can catch the Eurostar and get out of England (returning before Monday lectures, presumably) or just enjoy our glorious capital. Steer clear of all the cultural stuff; you left Oxford to escape that, remember? It’s no sunnier or less wet in London but you can make believe you’re scuba diving in tropical climes at the London Aquarium, try on priceless jewels at New Bond Street’s luxury emporiums, take a night off from Filth and blow your loan on expensive cocktails in new nightclubs. If you’re prepared to spend several hours on a bus  just to get a break from Cornmarket Street, go check out the opposition in Cambridge. Although obviously inferior in every way, Cambridge does have an H&M, not to mention big, open parks – known as ‘pieces’ – that would be nice to sit in, presuming they’ve sent all their bad weather our way.Oxfordshire itself has a lot to offer, albeit in a Midsomer Murders kind of way. We’re incredibly close to the  Cotswolds, and to truly live out the mini-break fantasy, go for a drive to Great Tew (befriend someone with a car first, obviously). This village, which seems to have entirely avoided modernity or change, is a picturesque retreat from Oxford’s often oppressive grandeur. The roads are uneven and free from tarmac, back gardens take the shape of vast rolling fields, and their chickens really are free ranging. There is even a notice board in the centre of the village on which Great Tew’s residents commune with each other – they probably haven’t heard of mobile  phones yet. If embracing nature isn’t your thing, and free ranging chickens don’t turn you on, perhaps eating them will. Great Tew boasts The Falkland Arms; a beautiful sixteenth century building still run as a traditional pub. It has flagstone floors, oak beams and inglenook fireplaces too, and provides the perfect setting for dinner – slow cooked lamb shank with rosemary and garlic served on a bed of mash, for example – and award winning whisky and beer. On a Sunday at eight, traditional folk music adds to the rural experience.One useful piece of advice, however – if you plan to dine, and not just to look at Great Tew – is to book in advance at The Falkland Arms. Certainly the location is beautiful, but I now know rather more about it than I’d anticipated, since my ill-prepared boyfriend tried to restore his romantic credibility with a scenic walk, after finding the pub entirely booked up when we arrived at a prompt 7:30.
There it is, the world on offer; glam up those January blues any way you like. Don’t fancy any of the above? SAD and essay crises sapping you of the ability to move? You can always buy yourself some exotic looking pot plants,  switch on all the lights and pretend your bed is a deck chair somewhere in Barbados. Whatever your route, don’t be afraid to escape.

Changing the law on organ donation to one of presumed consent will mean that we are all organ donors unless we have formally registered an opt-out.Supporters argue that surveys show 80-90% saying that they are willing to donate their organs, while only one in four sign up to the donor register. Therefore, making donation the default position will actually fulfil the wishes of all those who don’t get round to recording them. There are serious question marks here. It may be that many of these people have no intention of donating but simply give a ‘feel good’ answer to a question in the street. A considered decision is a very different matter. The same problems of inertia and forgetfulness that may prevent us the willing from signing up will prevent the unwilling from opting out. The absence of refusal by no means signifies consent.Opting out transforms us from volunteers to conscripts unless we declare ourselves as conscientious objectors, who may well worry that we will suffer discrimination. Enthusiasts extol the example of Spain, with three times as many donated organs as Britain. But ten years after Spain changed the law to presumed consent, the donation rate was the same as ours.

Things only changed when a new head of transplantation changed the system so that Spain has three times the ICU beds and three times the transplant coordinators, as well as three times the donors. No coincidence! Without the necessary infrastructure, we can hardly expect the law to provide a quick fix.
It may instead backfire in a way that will be damaging to the health service. Patients and their relatives may fear that they are more valuable as potential donors than as expensive occupiers of much-needed beds.Organ donation is a gift that should be encouraged and facilitated in every way possible. It is not an obligation and many of us will resent the suggestion that our bodies belong to the state to be plundered for spare parts like used cars.

Joyce Robins is a co-founder of health watchdog Patient Concern

The government has decided that it will no longer fund people seeking to do a higher education course at an equivalent level to a qualification they already have, or a so-called lesser course (an ELQ). In September, it announced that, from 2008, £100m of funding for students wishing to study ELQs is to be withdrawn.The plans to axe funding for a huge swathe of higher education students will cost Oxford University over £4m in lost teaching funding by 2015 and contradict the government’s own lifelong learning agenda.
There was no consultation around the changes and the only supporter of the plans we have found is the chancellor of the UK’s only private university. Trade unions, the Tories, British industry, students and universities have all come out and slammed the proposals. The government has perpetuated the myth that recent graduates wanting to do a second degree will be the ones hit by the changes and the reallocation of funds is to help the widening participation agenda.
Evidence does not support this and if the government is not willfully misrepresenting the situation then it clearly does not understand the proper impact of its proposed funding alterations.Analysis by UCU of the data on the potential financial implications for universities and colleges has revealed that post-92 universities (former polytechnics) and institutions specialising in offering degrees to workers wishing to retrain will be the biggest losers under the new regime. However, Oxford University comes fourth in the ‘hit list’. We are very concerned about the effect the reduction in funding may have on the employment of staff at Oxford, particularly in the Department of Continuing Education, where lecturers tend to work on a part-time basis. We hope that a staged increase in fees for part-time courses will enable us to continue to offer very high quality part-time provision to the benefit of students and the local community. We also have a particular concern about the effect of the policy on Oxford students training for ordination, people taking an ELQ because of life changes resulting from accident or illness, women retraining to re-enter the workforce and the impact for older students on opportunities for life long learning.Whilst contradictory government policy in education is by no means a new phenomenon, these funding alterations fly in the face of government rhetoric about lifelong learning and its importance to the economy and the future prosperity of the country. The cynic in me cannot help but think that the government is more concerned with getting people though university to meet ambitious targets set out by the Leitch report, rather than really giving people another go or a second chance to improve themselves.

The government may prefer to describe these cuts as a reallocation of funding, but the bottom line is that institutions doing the most to try and deliver both the widening participation agenda and the lifelong learning agenda will be hit the hardest. We fully support initiatives to encourage new learners into higher education, but we cannot support doors being slammed in the faces of others who wish to develop their skills.With a review into university funding next year and opposition to the changing of ELQ funding so widespread we hope the government will take the only sensible option available to it and defer any decision to next year’s fees commission.

Sally Hunt is the General Secretary of the University and College Union, the largest trade union of academic staff.

Freddie Parton talks to Jimmy Carr about what's in humour, his love of the controversial, and his upcoming UK tour Channel4’s round-faced comedian Jimmy Carr became a regular feature on our screens after fronting shows such as 8 out of 10 cats and Distraction, as well as a plethora of Top 100 countdowns.
But his real love is for live shows – no bad thing, given that he is currently involved in a twelve month tour. Repeat Offender is being performed in over 140 venues around the UK.Well known to overstep the line at any opportunity, his highly sarcastic and offensive humour is not for everyone. Carr warns, “It’s not for the easily fucking offended… It’s not even for people that are difficult to offend. Essentially it’s for people who are without a moral compass.”Most controversial have been his jokes aimed at the physically disabled, including Steven Hawking. He brushes criticism off lightly, saying, “In terms of taste and decency I think you can say pretty much anything in a comedy show. I think being politically correct is important if you are a doctor or a lawyer or a policeman or you work for social services or any of these important jobs in society where people are relying on you. But as a comic I say rude things and offensive things and it’s not for everyone.”Jimmy describes his hour-and-a-half long show as effectively “a long list of jokes”.
“It’s quite funny, but there’s no real theme to it. There’s no method in my madness. It’s just 45 minutes in the first half, and then 45 minutes to an hour in the second half. It does exactly what it says on the tin for a comedy show, which I quite like.”As with previous tours, Carr began performing Repeat Offender in September with a series of gigs at the Edinburgh Fringe – one of the most important events for the nation’s comics. His television work means that he can only perform on Fridays and Saturdays, but this suits him. “I think it’s the best bit of my job because people like going out on Friday and Saturday. Wherever you are in the country – Weston-Super-Mare on a Tuesday night – it’s difficult to get people out. They are thinking: “Hang on, CSI: Miami is on. What you talking about? I’m not going out.”He continues, “It’s nice to go out when people are out in a good mood on a Friday night. They’ve got out of work they’ve had a few drinks they are going to a show. Saturday is the same. They are really fun days to do it. There are a few Sundays in there, and again Sundays are great. You’ve only got to be funnier than Heartbeat. Nothing to beat on a Sunday night.”After years of performing, Carr feels that he has formed a special relationship with the towns that he performs in – towns that he probably wouldn’t have visited otherwise. He likes to meet his audiences and has even started to recognize some of the regular faces that have been to watch him over the years. “When you meet people after a gig, you often meet the same people two years in a row and bizarrely you kind of remember some of them. It’s like “Oh, hello. Been well?” Or the heckler from last year heckles again. It’s quite a nice thing.”He actually enjoys the heckling and recalls a gig in Belfast where he recived his most bizarre audience response. “I walked on and people said ‘fuck off’. I went: ‘Hang on. You’ve paid to see me. This is crazy’. And they went: ‘Well we’re quite aggressive’. They were a great audience.”As well as his various tours and television shows, Jimmy has also released a new DVD of his work, Comedian, a culmination of his last two tours and some uncensored material that didn’t make it past the television censors, all delivered with his trademark ironic glint in his eye.Carr (perhaps unsurprisingly) is a fan of comedy DVDs, “The best thing you can do with a comedy DVD is invite three or four mates over, get a pizza and some drinks and watch it. It’s a great night. There’s no substitute for having other people around you. It’s weird how social laughter is. You laugh with other people.”Carr has an almost scientific interest in comedy itself, how jokes work and what humour is, an interest that has led him to co-author The Naked Jape, due out in September. He describes his work on the book as “quite a labour of love”. As well as exploring different elements of jokes, their history and anthropology, the book also includes Jimmy’s “perfect list” of jokes.Isn’t there a risk of overanalysing comedy to the point that it is no longer funny? Jimmy agrees, smiling. “There’s a great quote in the book from a French guy, ironically, who said: ‘Analysing comedy is like dissecting a frog. No one is that interested and the frog dies.’”Surely this academic approach doesn’t sit comfortably with comedy’s rock’n’roll image?  “Yeah,” says Jimmy. “I’m like a rock and roll star with a fat face that people laugh at.” He pauses and thinks for a second, “Not that rock and roll.”

It is not immediately obvious that this Walton Street gem is a concept restaurant. Yet with all produce sourced from within a twenty mile radius, owner Max Mason has taken aim at the chain restaurants in Oxford and let rip. The result? The Big Bang. They do bangers and mash, and they do it very well. The Covered Market’s David John and Hedges provide most of the sausages, Hook Norton brewery supplies the ales, and Cotswold Brewing Company the lagers. Mason has succeeded in rejecting the chain-restaurant model of central distribution and menu-setting and given us something new, exciting and, dare I say it, ethical.
The menu lists seven sausage meals, including two vegetarian choices (all £8-£10). These standard sausages (think pork and leek, lamb and mint) are complimented by a changing specials board – highlights included chilli pork, guinea fowl, and curried thai. The meals include two sausages, a choice of six mashed potato concoctions (including spring onion, grain mustard, and rosemary), peas, red cabbage, sautéed onions, and one of three jus: rosemary, red wine, and stilton. For the flusher reader the Big Bang meal (£11.50) comes highly recommended, and allows you to pick any three sausages, including the selection of specials. For the thrifty student the Cheapskate meal (£6), which comes without the trimmings, is not a bad deal. Although the description ‘two of our less delicious sausages’ might not sound particularly appealing, they are in fact just Cumberland sausages cunningly renamed to stop business types from being über-stingy. In addition to this, a Union card knocks 10 percent off.At any rate, the lunch menu – Traditional Oxford, Cumberland, Basil and Vine Tomatoes, or Sausage of the Day with mash and jus – at £4.50 is clearly the superior option, especially as you don’t have to say ‘cheapskate’ in front of all your friends. Having diligently sampled six of the sausages I can firmly vouch for their quality. I’d recommend the Cumberland, Pork and Apple, and Chilli Pork, and steer clear of the Oxford, and Beef and Guinness. The grain mustard mash was delicious, the carrot and swede less so. All of the vegetables were spot on. Apple crumble (£3.25) was probably missable but quite nice nonetheless.The grey, grimy setting and withered plants are not exactly slick but that is precisely the point, as this is very deliberately a neighbourhood restaurant – the antithesis of central Oxford’s shiny, carbon-copy chains. The friendly service was much appreciated and, with a wait of only fifteen minutes from ordering to eating, the whole experience was swift and pleasant. The weekly jazz evening (Tuesdays at 8pm – two courses for £15) is apparently very popular. The downstairs room in which this takes place adds fifty seats to the thirty upstairs and is ideal for larger groups or parties at the weekend.
Whether you’re looking for a fun first date or just some good sausage, this charming local provides a great bang for your buck.

Adam Ross