My Blueberry Nights
3/5
22nd FebruaryNora Jones makes her big screen debut in this indie road trip movie directed by China’s Wong Kar-wai, also making his debut in American cinema. She’s soulful, beautiful and unassuming, but unfortunately not much more, except maybe quieter – never a good sign for a singer. Sadly for Jones, she’s starring in a film with a wide variety of consistently superb secondary characters. David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck) is back with a poignant bang, while Natalie Portman is her usual versatile and flawless self. Even Jude Law is watchable, despite his decidedly unsteady attempt at a Manchester accent, and when Rachel Weisz walks into a room, she sets it on fire.The fact that Wong co-wrote the film may have something to do with the script discrepancies – apparently no one explained that what might sound great in a Chinese proverb sounds dangerously like verbal diarrhoea in English. Then there’s the inconclusive plot, with its disjointed narratives that aren’t quite short enough to be episodes, and aren’t quite coherent enough to form a single storyline. The aforementioned acting is one redeeming feature; the cinematography is another. The America of Wong’s imagination is the America of the half-forgotten road trip, of Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train and Percy Adlon’s Baghdad Cafe, and though it may not be relevant, it is captivatingly beautiful at times.The bright colours and intensely personal close-ups are reminiscent of a ‘coffee table’ book of arty photographs, while the movement and flickering light seem to reveal the mind’s registering of detail rather than the camera’s glare. It’s all topped off with Ry Cooder’s brilliant soundtrack, full of funky double bass and soulful songbirds – possibly the film’s greatest strength.My Blueberry Nights leaves one with a feeling of limbo, and the idea that people can’t live with or without each other, forever on the move, but it’s definitely worth a peek if you can forgive its minor faults and major quirks.

Oriel 3 – 6 St. Anne'sThere’s barely room to breathe at the top of the Premiership after the latest results, as St Anne’s recorded a stylish victory over Oriel to pile the pressure upon reigning champions Worcester. Having battled to a win against Brasenose on Monday, Anne’s are doing all they can to take this season down to the wire. This was the return fixture between these teams, Anne’s having beaten Oriel 4-1 at home last week, and the game followed a very similar pattern, as Anne’s once again burst into an unassailable first-half lead. After an attacking opening from both teams, Robbie MacDonald started the scoring with a goal seemingly out of nothing, Border’s perfectly weighted through pass unlocking the defence for the winger to steer the ball past the keeper. A second soon followed, again from Mac- Donald, though this time with more than a touch of good fortune, his angled shot deflecting wickedly past a stranded keeper after a powerful run down the left. Anne’s showed no sign of slowing down, switching the ball around quickly to add a stylish third with twenty minutes gone. Simon Oscroft, not usually known for his attacking prowess, was crucial to this move: his buccaneering run down the left was followed by a slick interchange with Border and then a pass into the feet of George Kynaston, who swivelled onto his left foot before firing home. Ten minutes later, Anne’s added a fourth. Border’s dummy dragged the Oriel defence apart, leaving Kynaston in acres of space to whip the ball across goal towards winger Ben Levy, who coolly played it into the path of the onrushing Border. His finish crashed emphatically home off the underside of the bar, capping a terrific opening half hour for the visitors. Before the break Oriel deservedly pulled one back, Hoare’s crisply chipped pass cutting out the entire Anne’s defence, inch-perfect for Wilson, who made no mistake with a cool low finish one-on-one. At half-time Anne’s led 4-1. The second half began much as the first had, with both sides committed to stylish passing games that made for some very attractive football. After around twenty minutes a clattering tackle left Anne’s midfielder Stu Clark with a possible leg break. The resulting free kick was hacked away for a corner, but Anne’s failed to add another goal. Anne’s then relaxed too soon, and paid the price within seconds as Oriel grabbed one back. Wilson was again the scorer, but this time as a result of shoddy defending after Anne’s failed to clear their lines from a deep freekick. In the ensuing scramble Wilson stabbed home to keep the game alive as a contest at 5-2. Oriel began to apply some real pressure, as a tiring Anne’s became pegged further and further back in their own half. Wilson could have had a third with a volley from a corner, and several St. Anne’s defenders had to put their bodies on the line to make brave blocks as the home side threatened. At last, with ten minutes left, MacDonald made the game completely safe, completing his hat-trick with panache as he curled a 25-yarder over the Oriel keeper and into the top corner. Oriel scored a consolatory third in the dying seconds via a scrappy goal from Thomas Webb. With only two games left, against New College and Teddy Hall, only six points will do for Anne’s, and even then they are reliant upon Worcester dropping at least four points from their last four games. But the pressure is on. Either Worcester or Teddy Hall could still do the double; Anne’s could win the league for the first time in their history. As the business end of the season reaches its climax, it’s hotting up at the top.by George Kynaston

Leaders at Oxford Central Mosque have announced that they are reconsidering their controversial plans to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer.The Cowley mosque found itself at the centre of a national debate over the New Year after having said that they wanted to broadcast the call from loudspeakers across East Oxford.Secretary General Atlaf Hussain has now stated that he will ensure that a proper consultation takes place before any decisions are made. Hussain said, “This [the announcement about the call to prayer] was a decision made on emotions, rather than facts and realities. Proper consultation with our neighbours and the whole of our neighbourhood is necessary to avert anxiety and misunderstandings.“The issue of using loudspeakers is being reviewed and we would like to make it very clear that a proper consultation will be held and only after that will any final decision be made,” he said.
He added that the mosque would not place a time limit on the reconsideration period.The mosque, which is in Manzil Way, Cowley, has also recently elected a new management committee to liaise with local residents and businesses. The Reverend Adam Romanis, Vicar of St Mary and John Church on Cowley Road, said, “I’m not without sympathy for the Muslim call to prayer taking place because we are on opposite sides of Cowley. “Most of the concern that has been expressed locally is from residents living in the immediate vicinity of the area, especially on Divinity Road where the people would hear the broadcasts very clearly. It is not surprising that they have been outspoken about their feelings” he said.Reverend Romanis also expressed his frustration at the way in which the Oxford mosque’s plans have been treated by the national media. He said, “I think the most interesting thing here is the furore that has been created in the national media. This is similarly illustrated by the recent uproar about the Archbishops’ comments on Sharia law. He bravely ventured into an area where there are sensitivities but the way that was represented was in many instances very unhelpful.”However one resident of  Divinity Street, said, “Personally I think they are more than welcome to worship in whatever way they wish as long as they don’t wake me up. “It’s the same as having church bells ringing, so provided it’s not before 8am or after 10pm I don’t mind” they said.
by Rob Pomfret

by Paul Rainford Blues' Football Captain The humbling defeat against Team Bath in the National BUSA knockout competition has certainly given the team much to ponder, not just in terms of what we expect to achieve for the rest of this season but also what might lie in store later. Bath finished runners up in the BUSA Premier South Division this year and they boast a team containing players on scholarships who perform a very high level, both physically and technically. They are one of the flagship football projects that Sport England has spent much time and money cultivating in order to improve the quality of football provision at British universities. If we win our playoff match next week, they will also be a team that we will have to compete with on a regular basis. On Wednesday’s showing that would present a formidable task for the Blues. Granted, we were missing four regular players from our starting line up, but the nature of our first half capitulation will certainly force Martin Keown to seriously assess our squad personnel and tamper with certain aspects of our style. We simply failed to compete in the defensive third and conceded four goals that were almost carbon copies of one another, with lofted crosses to the back post being headed home by one of either the Bath strikers or the wide players making a run inside from the wing. Going forward, we put together a few nice passages of play, and Toogood and De Walden were a constant threat to their somewhat cumbersome centre-halves. But our inability to stem the flow at the other end of the field ensured that the endeavour of our strikers counted for very little, as we went in at half time demoralised and facing up to the prospect of playing only for pride in the second half. To the team’s credit, a much more spirited performance was displayed after half time, but by that time the game was lost. We were fundamentally undone by a lack of structured team shape, a lack of a competitive spirit and a lack of concentration. This performance was totally out of character with the way we have played up until this point in the season and one must not make too many hasty decisions or changes on the basis of one result. However we will certainly be looking for a positive response from our players in training. We will not recover from this and get back to winning ways by wallowing in self pity or crumbling under self-doubt. I know that we are better than we showed today and we have to prove that in our playoff against Exeter next week.

Oxford students have come out in favour of pooling college library resources but librarians across the University have rejected calls for book-sharing.A Cherwell survey has found that 80% of students believed that being able to borrow books from other colleges would be helpful. 45% of surveyed students said that being allowed to borrow books from other college libraries would be “very useful”, and 15% claimed that all the books required for tutorials were only easily available in confined sections of faculty libraries. Despite a 2003 OUSU report recommending that libraries share resources across the university, colleges have not moved beyond providing reference-only access with prior permission.
Several college librarians are worried that the unique nature of a college library would be ruined if they were opened up to the wider community. David Smith, Librarian at St Anne’s, pointed out that the current system encourages colleges to compete with one another to improve their libraries and said, “[To] open up all college libraries to all University members would take away the incentive that colleges currently have to provide good tailored services for their own members, and to compete with other colleges in making this an attractive service for current and potential members.”Our survey also revealed discrepancies in book grants. Pembroke, St Anne’s, St Edmund’s Hall, and St Peter’s provide their students with no book grants, while New College provides  £150 and Oriel College offers £250 and has over 100,000 volumes on its shelves.

Be Kind Rewind
2/5
22nd FebruaryWhat do you do when you need an excuse for some technically impressive visual comedy, around which to base a feature-length film? Equally, what do you do when your childhood chum  appropriates a magnetic field and wipes all the tapes at your video-rental shop? These are the conundrums faced, respectively, by award-winning writer/director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep) and the lead character of his latest film – and it seems they have a common answer: create a series of homages to cinema’s most iconic movies.Be Kind Rewind sees Mike (Mos Def) and Jerry (Jack Black) doing just that and, in the process, becoming unwitting local heroes, managing to turn around the fortunes of their doomed store. Initially, a long-shot attempt to cover up the (somewhat contrived) wiping of all their videos, their attempt to recreate classic movies with nothing but a camcorder and a lateral imagination becomes a business in itself – known (for no apparent reason) as ‘sweding’. Having cut his teeth on music videos, Gondry is unsurprisingly in his element here, with terrific visual creativity and montages as detailed, ingenious and witty as anything he’s previously produced. Those looking for Gondry’s trademark style will not be disappointed.Nor will those looking for a laugh. The film’s visual and physical gags fit nicely with Black’s recognisable but enjoyable stock character, the clumsy layabout with sky-high aspirations. The camera loves him, frequently emphasising his verbal scatting over Def’s straightman performance. The result – though fostering some brilliant and seemingly ad-libbed non-sequiters – inhibits the flow of the story as well as hindering the development of the film’s central relationship. Sadly, Gondry is determined to build his comedy on meaningful, dramatic foundations, and Black and Def simply fail to gel convincingly enough to pass as lifelong pals capable of serving as a compelling fulcrum for this serious angle.Indeed, it is once we step outside the moments of comedy that the work starts to fall apart. Gondry (as writer of the film as well) does not have the necessary skill to weave a coherent narrative, with such devices as the nearby power plant and dry cleaners awkwardly introduced and soon forgotten. It doesn’t help that a large cast of minor characters bring with them such diverse themes as cultural identity and modernisation as well as issues including love, friendship, and truth. Once touched on, these are left to stand alone and find no place in the emerging and unsteady storyline. The resulting film is much like Black and Def’s ‘swedes’ themselves in that, despite its great passion and vision, it never succeeds in being more than a ridiculous but enjoyable piece of fun.by Tom Crawshaw

St. Edmund Hall 54 – 5 St. Peter's Some things never change. Teddy Hall are the most successful side in the history of Cuppers, and this dominant display against a confident St. Peter’s team was a performance that any Hall XV of the last century would have been proud of. In confidently racking up fifty four points, they have also sent a warning to Keble, the young upstarts, that this year might be different. The final, to be played in two weeks time, should be a fantastic game. Hall were in no rush to assert their dominance in this match. In fact, for most of the first fifteen minutes it was St. Peter’s who had the upper hand. They dominated territory and possession, keeping the ball close but unable to find a way through. When Teddy Hall scored the first try of the game, it was a breakout that came against the run of play. However, this unconverted score plus a further penalty settled Hall into the game. Even when they began to put pressure on St. Peter’s, it was not as though Hall completely kept them out of the game. Rather, it was the fact that they were able to soak up any pressure that Peter’s could put on them, easily turn over possession and then break down the scrambling defence in a few simple moves. Hall’s second try was a great example of this, with a period of Peter’s possession breaking down, before being penalised for holding on. The kick to the corner, the simple rolling maul followed by a basic switch between scrum half and number eight saw the big back-rower Chris Davies going over to make the score 13-0. With Will Stevens converting and then adding a further penalty, the lead was stretched to eighteen points and St. Peter’s were beginning to seek a score with some desperation. It was Hall that presented them with the opportunity, with the generally outstanding Sam Humphrey- Baker throwing a poor pass out of contact that was snapped up by Peter’s left wing Dawit Demetri, who ran the length of the field to score. The significant crowd, which included a giant orange cat sporting St. Peter’s green, felt that the away side may have had a chance of pulling themselves back into the game, even after the conversion was missed. Half time followed soon after, and with the score 18-5, Hall were certainly well on top. However, it was a strange and fragmented half of rugby, with no clear pattern to the play, and it was certainly possible that if St. Peter’s could find way to hold Hall off and retain the ball, they had the skills in the backs to make it a close finish. However, it was not to be. St. Peter’s crumbled under some sustained Hall pressure in the opening minutes. Some quick lineout ball sent their burley inside-centre Ben Cossey through the middle of the Peter’s defence. Brought down just short of the line, the second phase of possession saw his centre partner Humphrey-Baker running around the outside to touch down. It was the perfect demonstration of their excellent combination in the heart of the Hall midfield. It was this try that opened the floodgates for Hall, and they scored at will for the rest of the half. The St. Peter’s attack, and their defence, fell apart completely. Even their kicking game fell apart; their hurried and conservative kicks were consistently charged down and proved unable to relieve the pressure. A further try for Chris Davies came from a quickly taken Hall lineout catching the Peter’s defence unaware, and when Ryan Buckingham scampered over after some misplaced Hall passing worked to their advantage. It became a matter of damage control for Peter’s, with Hall running through their replacements bench and keeping up the pressure, and consistently running through tackles, with captain Philip Satterthwaite and outstanding number eight Chris Davies both making memorable runs. Further tries kept the scoreboard moving, and by the final whistle it had reached 54-5. This Hall side have shown in the last two weeks that they are far too good for all but one team in college rugby. This final test will come in two weeks time at Iffley Road.by Jack Marsh

Worcester is to impose fines on students involved in raucous Midway celebrations that took place at the college last week.After traditional celebrations in which the college’s second years celebrated getting half way through their degree, many of the yeargroup went on a drunken rampage through Oxford, breaking into several colleges.As part of the festivities, the second years dressed up in various outfits and attempted “raids” on other colleges. They are now facing collective fines of over £1000 as a punishment for their activities.
In a letter sent out by to all second years, Worcester Dean Peter Darrah asked students to own up to any involvement in the revelry. In the letter he wrote, “Let me clarify who I am penalising, that is anyone who consented to and participated in, a mass organised attempt to enter the grounds of Magdalen and/or Wadham.” The letter established a series of penal ‘bands’ and asked students to categorise themselves according to the level of their involvement in the night’s activities. The fourth band, reserved for the most serious offences, includes pushing past the duty porter at Magdalen, climbing on or over any fences, entering the deer park, damaging a rose bed at Magdalen and running and/or jumping on the main quad lawn at Wadham.The letter goes on to say, “Such reports will be handled in confidence. We will also check that the self-reported bands agree with the CCTV footage. Any cheats will be assigned to the highest band and I will regard them as having committed a separate and more serious disciplinary offence.”Mannas Jain, Worcester JCR president, said, “Most people were happy with how transparent the whole procedure had been.”“The Dean asked the other colleges involved to nominate a charity which will benefit from the revenue accrued by fines, which a group of culpable students are sharing,” he added. Jain was keen to stress that the JCR was not considering any action against the College for imposing the fines. “We are aware that our actions were out of order and we are prepared to take responsibility for them. There is no animosity towards the College authorities,” he said.The day of the Midway celebrations coincided with the memorial service in Worcester for Tsz Fok, a finalist killed while cycling in Oxford in April 2007. Jain maintained that all the second years were respectful of this event but one first year, who wished to remain anonymous, commented, “The second years were pretty rowdy, I could understand if they offended a lot of people in the College”.
Worcester’s Dean and Magdalen’s Bursar both refused to comment.

Keble 26 – 17 PembrokeOn paper this game should have been little more than a formality; it pitted the reigning champions against a side that started the year in Division 3. However, Pembroke came into the match in sparkling form following a double promotion and two comfortable victories. The game was an ideal opportunity to contrast the strongest pack in college rugby against one of its best back lines. After a nervous opening few minutes Keble began to show their class. With some powerful running from centres Max Cole and Euan Sadden, as well as some accurate work from the boot of Peter Bolton, they secured a line out deep in Pembroke territory which gave them an opportunity to exhibit their well disciplined rolling maul. This resulted in a drive-over try which was converted by Bolton. It failed to spark Pembroke into life however, and things went from bad to worse as Butcher was sent to the bin for killing the ball, and Bolton added the resulting penalty. The 14 men of Pembroke then began to regroup and string together some good play, with their midfield pairing of Catling and Horrocks starting to look dangerous. This eventually created an opportunity for winger Richard Haigh to link up with Catling to provide him with a well worked try from inside the Pembroke half. This good work was soon undone by ill discipline from Pembroke, as they strove to turn over the ball, allowing Bolton to score another penalty. Keble then scored from a rolling maul. This meant that Pembroke faced an uphill task in the second half being 20-5 down. Captain Piers Holden has managed to develop a streak of mental toughness in this Pembroke side and this began to show in the second half, good work by forwards Grossmann, Puxley and White as well as scrumhalf Neil Annett allowed Pembroke to get quick, clean ball and gave flyhalf Absalom the opportunity to release Catling and Horrocks for several breaks. This eventually resulted in Catling scoring an impressive try as he crashed past 3 or 4 desperate tacklers. Suddenly there was a shift in momentum and apart from a solitary Bolton penalty, Pembroke were on the front foot. Some elusive running by Etiene Ekpo-Utip created holes in the Keble back line. Yet once again Pembroke were their own worst enemies and just could not finish off the opportunities they created. A lifeline was provided, however, as fly-half Bolton missed a kick to touch and provided Pembroke fullback Adam Taylor with the chance to stretch his legs, eluding the Keble backs and culminating in a chip and chase for a score in the Keble corner. This proved to be false hope though, as Pembroke instantly conceded yet another penalty and Bolton easily made the kick to put the match beyond the men in pink. Despite this Pembroke continued to push for another score, but it proved to be beyond them. Their heroic challenge faltered as the ball was driven into touch. Although Pembroke can be proud of their showing, this was a controlled performance by a Keble side looking to continue their run of Cupper’s success in two weeks time.by Adam Taylor

Roberta Klimt investigates the fickle world of the celebrity and wonders what lies behind the rehab doors and the layers of make-upIn the words of Morrissey himself: to say the least, I was truly disappointed. Having leapt aboard the X90 early on the morning of Friday 25th January, arrived at Camden’s Roundhouse theatre with oh, let’s say, seven hours to spare until the great man was due to take the stage, and been lucky enough to stand fourth from the front of the queue, I could have been forgiven for allowing myself a little elation. Pressed up against the barrier, almost as close to La Moz as a gal can get, I couldn’t help but feel as if the evening was going well – a sentiment I rued when, after completing just three songs, Morrissey’s voice went and then so did he. After my dismay at this turn of events had somewhat died down, along with my astonishment at the announcement of it by the surreal trio of David Walliams, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, I began to reflect upon whether some of my fellow audience members hadn’t been a little precious in their shooting of the messengers relating Morrissey’s desertion. There is an entertaining video on Youtube of Brand being pelted by irate Mozophiles with drinks and foodstuffs and told in no uncertain terms to hie him hence by people indignant at having paid handsome sums of money for a gig which was then cut so short. My behaviour, on the other hand, as my sister lovingly pointed out, bore less of a resemblance to that of these angry folk than that of the forty-something, paunchy men gently weeping into the necks of their girlfriends.Either way, though, the Morrissey throat infection/gig cancellation débacle set me thinking about celebrities and their effect on us. Why had the irate and the beer-bellied and I felt so terribly, personally let down at the Roundhouse by the no-show, or the so-so-show, of someone whose music we enjoy, yes, but whom we have never even met? It appears that ‘fame can play hideous tricks on the brain’ not only of the famous, but of those who have made them so – and to cite from Morrissey’s oeuvre one more time …If we are looking to pinpoint the psychological need bespoken by today’s so-called ‘cult of celebrity’, the first thing to point out is that it is not such a new thing after all. Back in the day it was heartthrobs like Rudolph Valentino over whom the ladies really swooned, but society magazines used also to feature gentrified folk going to balls and country house parties, which – if the 1970s classic Edwardian drama  is anything to go by, and you can be pretty sure it is – servants below stairs in grand Belgravia houses would read as eagerly as some now pore over PerezHilton.com. Clearly there is an aspirational tendency in human beings which makes finding out about the daredevil exploits of the rich and famous attractive to us; there is also an extent to which observing the ‘hot mess’ (as I believe Perez terms it) which, by the law of averages and arguably by virtue of their high-pressure lifestyles, at least some of these celebrities manage to make of their lives, allows us vicariously to experience with all of the drama and none of the trauma some of the more extreme possibilities life has to offer. It is also noticeable that ‘civilians’, as Liz Hurley calls us non-celebs, can become fired up by the achievements or misdemeanours of the famous as they can by little else. We as a nation might be basically good-willed towards celebrities who seem to have done the right thing by a cause or a charity – Brangelina, Bob Geldof, Billy Connolly all get the thumbs-up in that regard – but we do also have a mighty store of wrath to unleash upon those who palpably have not done the right thing. Unfaithful husbands, shrewish ex-wives, no-good, drug-addicted boyfriends come in for a lot of public censure, considering their utter unknownness to most of the people commenting on their actions. Free commuter reading material like the London Lite or The London Paper (superior; it has much better horoscopes) are filled to bursting with pictures of Lily Allen, Paris Hilton, Mischa Barton et al going to clubs or theatres or art openings in London, and at least one member of Girls Aloud stumbling inebriatedly around town. These features allow us to ogle and covet these people’s beautiful clothes, marvel at their hair and make-up, and then sneer, if we’ve a mind to do so, at their more questionable life-choices. The gamut of emotions is provided for us to run. I don’t doubt, either, that this has been the case for as long as there have been social hierarchies of any sort: Henry VIII’s subjects too were probably highly entertained by his marital exploits (though maybe not by the resultant threat of war with Spain), but I’m guessing they were glad to miss out on actually having to live his gout-riddled, winch-dependent life. Considering the fragility of the human ego, the need for bolstering and affirmation, recognition and praise from which even the non-famous among us occasionally suffer, it makes sense that those who receive such plaudits just because of their job will be the object of our envy. It need hardly be said that part of what makes the notion of celebrity so attractive is the removed quality of these people from our everyday lives, which allows for the maintenance of their illusory perfection; there is nothing worse than meeting your favourite celebrity only to find them indifferent or impolite, or simply uninteresting.  To an extent, although this is hardly fair on the celebrities themselves, it holds true that the less we think or them as ordinary people with ordinary frailties (as distinct from extraordinary and somehow glamorous self-destructive proclivities à la Amy Winehouse or Kate Moss), the more curious we are about them.But the crucial difference between the issue of celebrity in our era and in that of, say, the silent movie stars, is one of multiplicity – both in the sense of there being a far greater number of stars for us to worship now than there has ever been, and that there is now a far greater number of ways in which we are exposed to them.  This is not the place to bemoan the fact that now someone can be famous without being talented or even remotely interesting.  But it is worth thinking about the fact that now we can officially be fans, in all the autograph-hunting, mobile-phone-picture-taking modern-day splendour of that term, not only of actors and actresses, but also singers and dancers, writers, photogenic politicians (O David Miliband, when are you coming to speak at the Union?), stand-up comics and reality TV stars.  Celebrity is a bigger business now than it has ever been.  And what I realised with a start at this failed gig was that despite having seen Morrissey live a good six times already, owning all his albums and DVDs and having  instant access to all his recent performances on Youtube, should I desire them, I still wanted more and was crushed when I didn’t get it.  And so were all the other fans, many of whom had an air about them of being an awful lot loonier about Morrissey than I am.  Clearly, celebrities’ availability has not devalued their impact on us. Can this all be the result of the consumerist tenor of these modern times in which we dwell?  Was the admirers’ ire at a few cancelled shows merely the consequence of our living in a society so materialistic that, the internet be damned, we could only look upon a tickle in the throat of the Mancunian miserabilist in terms of what it had cost us to see him appear live?  Does the sheer scale of the media’s intrusion into the world of our favourite stars only make us hungrier, in a rapacious and capitalistic sense, to find out more about them?  Maybe.  But maybe not also.  There is a scene in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall where the Allen character takes a vapid young woman on a date to see the Maharishi in New York City.  She observes breathily that ‘this man is God!  He has millions of followers who’d come from all over the world just to touch the hem of his garment,’ and Allen replies, ‘Really?  It must be a tremendous hem.’  That, I would suggest, is how best to view the proliferation of celebrity-proffering media which currently besets us – as an absurdly tremendous hem surrounding the same essential nucleus of desire and ambition.  The underlying prompt for our adulation of celebrities is not dependent for its existence on how many celebrities there are, or even how often we get to see and hear about them disporting themselves or releasing a new single, exercise DVD or Booky Wook.  These things might and probably do facilitate a tendency towards fandom, but they cannot alone sustain it. 
The bathetic end of the aforementioned scene from Annie Hall offers us the completion of this theory, when we see that the Maharishi has been for a quick bathroom break and Allen deflates his date by observing, ‘Look, there’s God coming out of the men’s room.’  What we really want from a celebrity is a combination of reticence and generosity – a plethora of public appearances, showing up unfailingly for signings, performances, and the like; and a holding back from manifesting the flaws or even just the ordinariness we all too readily glimpse in ourselves.  I suppose this is the real reason for which we Morrissey crazies were all so upset when our hero sore-throatedly flounced offstage in Chalk Farm a month ago, and why anyone is left disheartened by the failings of an idol: rather unfairly, for all our delight in those exploits of theirs which vivify the mundane, we cannot quite take in the fact that these characters, almost immortal to us, are actually human.
Rhian Harris is let down by feminist Shere HiteWhen I found out that Dr Shere Hite was coming to speak at the Oxford Union in January I was really excited. Hite is an outspoken feminist sexologist, who has written many influential books on female sexuality; and I am a keen feminist and was really interested in her research. When Cherwell offered me the opportunity to interview her naturally I was thrilled. I was due to interview and join her for dinner at the Union. I was warned that Hite was being somewhat ‘intense’ and had asked for my list of questions before the interview. Despite having only a day’s notice to do this, I prepared a comprehensive page of questions and e-mailed them to her. In the e-mail I admitted that I had not read her latest book, and said that I hoped it would not be a problem. The reply I received from Hite the next morning, the day I was due to interview her, asked me to buy and read one of her books that day, which I thought was a bit steep.When I arrived at the Oxford Union, Hite, a tiny figure, was perched on an armchair, surrounded by several men who all kept their distance from her – a valuable lesson I was about to learn. The Union member who had arranged the interview took me aside and informed me that there was a problem: Hite no longer wanted to do the interview. He thought that I should try to chat to her anyway, and perhaps then she might change her mind. ‘Chatting’ with Shere Hite hoever, was not a pleasant experience. She told me flatly that the reason she no longer wanted me to interview her was because I ‘had not read all of her books’. She has published at least ten. And besides, I had read a few. Hite said that she was afraid of being misquoted by ‘the media’. But it was she who had been asking for an interview with Cherwell in the first place, and it’s not as if I’m a hard-nosed hack from a tabloid eager for a news splash. From the books that I had read, I had expected her to warm to a female feminist journalist sympathetic to her cause – instead she proceeded to interrogate me on the last century of feminist literature and to belittle me; for example, after a completely incomprehensible monologue, he shrieked ‘did you understand anything I just said?’Hite proved herself to be a true celebrity ‘diva’ on a power trip. She became tetchy even when the coffee she had requested was slightly late arriving. Over dinner and when answering questions after her speech, she showed a complete unwillingness to consider anyone else’s point of view besides her own. Throughout the night there were many pointed references to my not having read all of her books, and I felt like I was being tested. Everyone around Shere Hite has to walk on egg-shells so as not to upset her or even disagree with her. Having been told that I could not interview her, I did not dare write anything down. The next morning, however, I received an e-mail saying that Hite thought my questions were ‘very intelligent’, and that they were happy for an article to be written. However, the article which has now been written is considerably different to the sympathetic article praising her research that I had planned to write. For a feminist, Hite prefers to tell other women what to think and to criticise them, rather than encouraging them to speak out and to achieve. So much for sisterhood.