Police across Oxfordshire are to be issued with cameras which fit into their cycle helmets or can be worn on their shoulders.
After a successful pilot in East Oxford, it is expected that the entire county’s police should be fitted with the Body Worn Video Recording Cameras (BWVCs) by the summer.
According to a report by Thames Valley Police, the cameras are necessary to capture evidence of antisocial behaviour and should therefore lead to increased detections of street crime. It is also possible that the video cameras will lead to more guilty pleas in court and fewer complaints and assaults against officers.
PC Mike Ellis, anti-social behaviour co-ordinator for Thames Valley Police, said "Once they have been delivered to us, we will spend time training officers in their use. We hope to finish this process by summer."
70 cameras will be bought at a cost of more than £1,000 each, 25 of which will be used in Oxfordshire. The total cost of the new equipment will run to £90,000.
A collection of crabs obtained by Darwin on his famous voyage aboard HMS Beagle has been made available online by the Natural History Museum.The new database is part of an ongoing effort to digitize the museum's catalogues, and contains images and details of 40 different taxa.The crustaceans were collected while Darwin was sailing on his five-year journey 1831 – 1836, which led him to develop his theory of natural selection. The crabs were just one type of the vast array of organisms he collected, and upon his return found their way into the collection of the zoologist Thomas Bell. Darwin and Bell became immersed in cataloguing the Galapagos turtles, and the crustaceans were apparently forgotten.The University of Oxford recovered the collection in 1862, which has been kept in the Natural History Museum ever since. The new database of images can now be viewed at http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/database/zoology/darwin.htm Cherwell24 is not responsible for the content of outside links
Mesmerizing and provocative, Henry James’s 1880 novel, The Portrait of a Lady, challenges us to be unmoved by its contents. It is a story about difficult choices: how to make them and how to live by them. Making these choices is Isabel Archer, James’s self-aware and self-assured heroine. Only someone as self-possessed as Isabel could read this story and not be acutely influenced by it. The story’s charming opening line might rival that of de Maurier’s Rebecca or Orwell’s 1984 for the title of “most memorable”, were the book better known: ‘Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea’. This Wildean, Brideshead-esque introduction anticipates a fairy tale conclusion. After the death of her only remaining parent, Isabel is plucked from her modest American home and brought to England by her wealthy Aunt. Isabel’s path seems paved to “happy ever after”, except that James does not write stories of this kind. The world which opens before us, following this cheerful beginning, is one of conflicts: the American vs. the European, the individual vs. society, the individual vs. himself. This is James’s territory. Opportunity after opportunity befalls Isabel. Wealth, marriage, and happiness are never beyond her reach but their cost is high. The offers she receives are all, in part, attempts to possess her. So Isabel is repeatedly faced with the same choice: should she forfeit independence for the chance to be happy or should she deny herself this opportunity to remain in control of herself? For Isabel, temptation comes in diverse forms, from the kind-natured and ailing Ralph to the deliciously mysterious and free-spirited Osmond. Suffice to say that Isabel’s yielding to temptation, when she eventually does, proves cataclysmic. This story is not one in which much happens. The Portrait of a Lady is a psychological study, written by a man whose brother was a psychologist at a time when that science was in its early stages. Isabel travels, but the journey which the story records is primarily one of the mind. James allows us to travel parts of it with her. At times, we are held at a distance and on these occasions Isabel appears confident in her decisions. At others, we enter Isabel’s head and what we find there is struggle and turmoil. At these moments, we feel the story growing dark around us, everything fading save Isabel’s thoughts. Conditioned in this way, we do not balk at the story’s sensational moments. Rather we feel them deeply, for the story’s characters and for ourselves. Isabel is both indisputably of her time and, equally, she belongs here with us. She is an example of “the new woman”, emerging out of the Victorian quagmire and, yet, she remains a potent character still. The questions with which she is faced are timeless. Even now we might ask whether it is possible to remain an autonomous individual and, at the same time, to fulfil the desire to share our experience of the world with someone like us. Even today, for good or bad, we feel the inverse of this desire: the essential primacy of the individual and fear of opening ourselves up to others. by Ceri James
Queen’s 1-4 St. John’s After recent losses to Pembroke and Corpus/Linacre, St. John's ensured that they would stay in the promotion race on Friday, beating The Queen's College 4-1. On a windy day, John's exploited the conditions to score four goals in one nineteen minute first half spell, before holding on against an improved home team. The conditions precluded the flowing football both sides would have rather played. The powerful wind, blowing toward the Queen's goal, prevented keeper Martin Bourne from exerting any control over his area. The flight of balls hit into the box could not be predicted, and it was from such an incident that John's took the lead with the game's first real chance. Jamie Bell's corner from the right was caught by the wind, and delivered past the Queen's’ defence to Mike Newland at the far post, who headed in. After a four month lay off with a knee injury, John's captain Newland has scored in both his games since his return, having never scored before. Five minutes later, however, Newland missed a header from the same source. Queen's' attacks were spearheaded by Will Riley, who succeeded in getting into good positions but not in beating Alex Berend. Minutes after Riley shot wide, John's broke to double their lead. Dave Parsons took possession down the right hand side, getting to the by-line and pulling the ball back to the near post. Tom Froggett's late run was not picked up and he slid in to score.
A similar counter-attack five minutes later saw Joel Gregory release Matt Evans-Young in the left channel, who slotted home his fourteenth of the season. The fourth goal of John's nineteen minute scoring spell followed soon after. Newland's long ball out of defence found Evans-Young, who held the ball up and played to Gregory to slam home from only a few yards out. As with the other goals, Bourne failed to dominate his area and he was replaced by Paul Billingham at the interval. Just as importantly, they brought on Blues midfielder James Kelly, along with the athletic Alfie Enoch upfront and the sprightly Alex Edmiston on the left wing. Kelly impressed in attacking midfield, spotting and making passes in a way that Queen's failed to before his introduction. On the hour mark, Kelly pulled one back for Queen's, picking the ball up in John's half and advancing to twenty yards from goal before curling the ball into the top corner. The final thirty minutes had a strange atmosphere: St John's played like a team with less than a three goal cushion, and only Andy Bottomley's aerial threat looked to pull Queen's back into it. Twice he went close with headers as Queen's gained the advantage John's used so well in the first half. The game slowed down as John's looked increasingly secure, and the silence on the pitch was in stark contrast to the shouts of those watching Torpids just yards behind the pitch. An uneventful conclusion saw St. John's take all three points to climb to second in the league.
I’m sure raiding a private house is a bread-and-butter matter for most police forces.
This week police searched German postal service head Klaus Zumwinkel’s office and house after acquiring evidence that he had hidden billions of pounds in the tax haven of Liechtenstein. Zumwinkel has now resigned from his position.
The novelty, though, was one feature of the raid that marked it out from most. ZDF, one of Germany’s publicly-funded TV stations, covered the operation live, with cameras peaking through the Zumwinkels' now famous green and white garden fence at his Cologne house.
This is a new type of TV reporting. Live sports events or scheduled political events are one thing, but covering a police operation live, as though it were a film scene, raises questions. Couldn’t the suspect benefit from being able to follow the police’s actions live on the telly? Doesn’t this mean the TV station must have been colluding with the police? (We know they were “tipped off”….) And, if they were, isn’t this the definition of biased reporting — siding with one party, thus giving the other less favourable treatment?
ZDF’s editor-in-chief, Nikolaus Brender, defended the network’s actions, saying they would have failed in their duties as a news broadcaster if they had not acted on the tip-off.
A fair thing to say, I guess. But should TV stations be allowed to turn police operations into action movies? Doesn’t this say a lot about our voyeur culture today?
Maybe next Sky News Active will let us flick through live CCTV pictures around the country so we never miss a murder or theft.
Photo: Holiday snaps of Cologne (top) and Liechtenstein. Can you blame Herr Zumwinkel?
Rice and peas politics
Pakistan have managed to sort out a coalition already, but Germany (the country of efficiency, apparently) still can’t do anything as civilised as that. Almost a month after the regional elections here in the state of Hesse, the parties still can’t decide who to work with, so we now have no one officially running this state of six million people. Nonetheless, the clap trap’s quite fun. They have some great terms for different types of coalitions, based on the colours of the different parties. A Christian Democrat/Social Democrat coalition is “black-red” (not very exciting); Social Democrat/Greens is “red-green” (ditto). It gets better though. Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats is a “traffic light coalition” (red, yellow and green). And the best: Christian Democrat, Greens and Free Democrats is a “Jamaica coalition” (black, green and yellow). The Germans are clearly more creative than you thought. Now if only they could stop coming up with names for their government, and actually start forming one…
Just words?
No, this isn’t about Obama. David Cameron got into a spot of bother over a Tory press release describing Labour’s policy of school visits to Auschwitz as a “gimmick”. But one French-speaking Swiss man, Pierre Mirabaud, chairman of the Swiss banking association, has received as much flak — for comparing the German authorities’ methods of acquiring information about Klaus Zumwinkel’s tax affairs to those used by the Gestapo. It seems people are more interesting people’s choice of words than what they actually mean.
A new type of abolitionist
More elections! Hamburgers are voting today. Davids Medienkritik (a blog about the German media, but mostly in English) thinks Social Democrat candidate Michael Naumann said he wanted to “abolish children” in this clip from a TV debate. Any German speakers out there willing to disagree? I think he actually said he wanted to abolish “children fees” (whatever they are…).
Cherwell 24 is not responsible for the content of external links
The Oxfordshire County Council has pledged £100,000 to pay for a study on the feasibility of launching a rent-a-bike scheme to resolve traffic congestion.The study is planned to start in April. If it is deemed plausible, Oxford could soon have its own low-cost, 24-hour rent-a-bike scheme as those already launched in several European cities, most notably in Paris last July; perhaps as soon as before the summer 2009.The scheme will involve setting up a network of bike stations at key points in the city, including the train station, Westgate Centre, park-and-ride sites and city hospitals.Although the plans are at their embryonic stage, council chiefs hope a credit card-payable rent-a-bike scheme would take a significant number of motor vehicles off the city's roads. They say they want to make any scheme cheap and convenient.County council cabinet member for transport Ian Hudspeth said, "Congestion is a difficult area to quantify, but we'd hope it takes a significant number of cars off the road.
"It will also help to declutter the city and enable us to remove some of the bike racks there, which can be quite unsightly. There would have to be a small charge for bike rental but we want to make it as cheap and convenient as possible rather than having something unwieldy that wouldn't work," he added
The Parisian rent-a-bike scheme that was started last July recorded more than seven million bike trips by the end of 2007.Chairman of Oxford cycling campaign group Cyclox James Styring beamed at the possibility of such a scheme. He said, "I think it's great news. I'm certain there would be uptake from both tourists and city residents."
"Even people who own their own bike will probably use them as there are some places in the city where you don't want to leave an expensive bike," he added. "In cities that have introduced these schemes, it's extraordinary how quickly bikes take over the landscape. Some cross-city journeys are complex on a bus because they run on exact routes, but bikes are great for commuters because you can literally go anywhere you want." Last year Oxford University announced its own plans for a bike loan scheme in the city for its staff.
Club: Oxford University Cricket Club Role: Wicketkeeper College: St. John's Degree: 2nd Year Maths
How are preparations for the summer of cricket coming on? Being a summer sport, the training at the moment isn't too strenuous. We have a weekly squad session at the indoor school at Iffley, which is always a good laugh, and the odd individual session as well, but it's not until next term that we'll get onto the Parks.
Are you excited about it? Yeah definitely. There were a couple of well-attended fresher trials in Michaelmas, and it seems like we've got a really good intake this year. Add that to the fact that nearly all of last year's Blues are around again this year, and we look to have a really promising squad for the summer.
What was it like playing at Lord's last summer? Are you hoping to do the same this year?
Without wanting to wheel out a load of cliches, playing at Lord's is something any cricketer wants to do. More than anything, it was just a really good day out! Playing in front of a thousand or so people, or whatever it was, was a little bit different to an old man and his dog, which is usually your standard crowd back home. It was a massive privilege for us to use the sort of facilities you normally only get to see on TV. Obviously it would be great to get the chance to play there again, but, as with everyone in the squad, it's just a case of working hard this term and performing well when the games do come around in Trinity.
What was your best performance in Blues cricket last year?
Well to be honest I didn't really have much to do, so I'd have to say my best performance was polishing off the potato soup, Thai chicken curry, then cheesecake during the lunch interval in the one-day Varsity match at Lord's. Being such a prestigious establishment, we were all hyping up the catering prior to the lunch break, and it certainly didn't disappoint. Either that or, in the words of our coach, "showing a bit of true Yorkshire grit" on my way to scoring a very dull but determined twenty-odd not out in our low scoring first innings in the four day Varsity match in Cambridge.
Do you play much college cricket?
Apparently St John's left the college league a few years ago, and since then have established links with a number of Old Boys and touring sides who have some, usually very tenuous, connection to the college. I think the college team plays about fifteen of these games each season, plus Cuppers, and I played a fair number of those last year. They are a good opportunity to get some practice in a fairly low-pressure environment, and you can usually rely on the Old Boys teams to offer you a few big scores and post-match free formal halls in equal measure.
What level did you play at before university? Are you hoping to carry on afterwards? Before I came to university I'd lived in Yorkshire all my life, so I played all of my junior cricket in the Yorkshire leagues. I played a bit of age-group cricket for a few regional sides and as I got older I played a couple of seasons of open-age league representative cricket, but certainly never got anywhere near Lord's until I came to Oxford! I've played for the same club back home since I was about ten, so after university I'll definitely be turning out every Saturday at Field Lane (Wakefield's more glamorous version of Lord's) for them.
Who's the best cricketer you've ever played with?
Sam Loxton.
Is there a particular player you admire, or would compare yourself to?
Geoffrey Boycott, for being an arrogant, self-centred egotistical Yorkshireman. Do you sledge much on the pitch?
Not so much in Oxford…I'm not sure the more educated types really understand my particular brand of humour, so I tend to leave most of it to the more eloquent and lyrical members of the side.
What's the best piece of sledging you've ever heard in university sport?
What happens on the pitch stays on the pitch!
Who has the best banter on your team?
I don't know about 'best', but for 'scary and distributingly brilliant' banter it's definitely James Macadam. In the Varsity match last year we had a former Test Match umpire in charge: someone you'd think could handle most of the hot air and crap chat that comes with a big game of cricket. Macca was fielding next to him and after about ten minutes of his chat, the umpire walked halfway across the ground, mumbling and grumbling, to watch from a different, safer position.
What does it feel like to see your name in Wisden? Obviously very proud, particularly as it ought to silence my dad's claim to being the only cricketer in his family to get his name in Wisden (but only as one amongst thousands in the school cricket section!). Hopefully there will be a repeat this year!
An Oxford researcher has released a paper arguing that the government is failing to explore the true values of education. The paper criticises the government’s emphasis on economic competitiveness, arguing that it has overshadowed broader educational aims.
Professor Richard Pring is the lead author of a report, published this week by the Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training, and part of a £1 million Nuffield Review project.
Professor Pring explained that the paper asks what counts as an educated person in this day and age and argues that the philosophical and ethical questions surrounding education are no longer being pursued. He believes education is worth more than CV points, he said, “Education is about more than just preparation for the job market. It also promotes values such as social cohesion which are growing in importance in today’s multicultural society”
The paper states that attention to the broader aims of education is necessary. The government speaks of wanting to raise standards but never explains just what these standards are. The paper states, “The pursuit of economic prosperity, for example, could be at the expense of social values, such as greater community cohesion, or of personal values such as those of personal fulfilment and flourishing.” It criticises the government for a lack of deliberation about the values embodied in changes which are taking place in the education world. It cites the declining role of the humanities and the arts and the assessment and grading of citizenship on the basis of written examinations as some examples of changes which do not appear to have any justification. Prof Pring, who received a huge cheer when he spoke at an education conference last week, explained that he was willing to accept changes to the education system but that the government must first explicitly justify their decisions. He said, “They must question what they are trying to achieve with these changes. Changes are currently being decided surreptitiously with no public debate.”
The paper also suggests that the continued selection, and thereby separation, of learners at the age of 11 and at 16 may be a mistake. Professor Pring said, “There is no way one can sort out at age 11 those who are suited to one school and those who are not. There is no supporting evidence.” He condemned the policy, saying that “Many students are excluded from future education which they wish to pursue, simply because they dropped a grade. Schools refuse to accept them because they are more concerned with their position in the league table than in providing an education. There is a lot of unjustified hidden selection in the current education system.”
The paper suggests that one reason for the neglect of public deliberation is the changed language of education – one which recently has come to be dominated by the language of management. The language employed by the government and others to describe the aims of education suggests the management of business rather than the promotion of welfare of young people. The emphasis on the language of management is not unconnected with the fact that businesses are increasingly invited to sponsor, if not to manage, schools and the new academies. The paper argues that the language we use shapes the answers to the question “what is education for?” “If one speaks the language of management, one is in danger of treating young people and their teachers as objects to be managed”, the paper says. “When education is conceived in terms of inputs leading to measurable outputs, or in terms of targets which constitute the performance indicators against which learning can be audited, or when teachers are seen as curriculum deliverers, or when learners are referred to as consumers, or when cuts in resources are referred to as efficiency gains, then education is being conceived very differently from how it was seen only a few decades ago. It is no longer seen as, and thus evaluated in terms of, an engagement between teacher and learner”.
The BBC last week hosted Oxford auditions for Mastermind. Tens of quiz contestant hopefuls pitted themselves against one another at the Randolph Hotel, hoping ultimately to face John Humphrys in the famous black chair.
The BBC is looking for 96 people from around the country take part in the show famous for the catchphrase “I’ve started, so I’ll finish…”
Benjamin Skipp, a Christ Church seventh-year studying music, chose for his specialist subjects Clarissa Dixon Wright, the TV presenter and author, and Walter Hussey, dean of Chichester Cathedral from 1955 to 1977. He explained the challenges each contender faced at the auditions. “The audition just involved two researchers from the BBC asking me 20 general knowledge questions and then an informal chat about various topics which could be my specialist subject…They said they'd let me know in about three weeks if I had been successful.”
BBC researcher and panel-judge Mr Farnell said that there had been many knowledgeable contestants at the auditions. He told the Oxford Times, “We’ve had people booked in for auditions and people walking in off the street.” He admitted that the 20 questions were “a tough set. But we need to know people’s general knowledge is good because we can’t have people struggling on TV.”
More than 30 hopefuls attended the auditions at the hotel on Beaumont Street last Wednesday hoping to emulate 2006 Mastermind winner Geoff Thomas. Each candidate was given a general knowledge test consisting of 20 questions, before discussing potential specialist subjects with a panel featuring BBC researchers Michael Farnell and Fiona Hamilton.
Contestants were told to turn up with at least two specialist subjects, although contenders were told that they might need up to four topics if they managed to work their way through all stages of the competition.
The more interesting the special subject, the better their chances of progressing to the next round, the contestants were informed. Subjects duly ranged from the missionary journeys of St Paul through to Klaus Fuchs, a German spy convicted of giving information to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The results of the auditions are to be announced in the coming weeks. The show is due to be aired on BBC Two from September.by Rob Pomfret
Before Simian I had only seen one genuine dance act live before; Faithless, in front of a crowd of 100,000 at the V Festival. A tough act to follow I’m sure you’ll agree. In fact, despite being an avid fan of Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release I was rather unsure what to expect from SMD. Would their rather creative, quirky, analogue indie dance translate to a live arena at all? Well, a packed and excited crowd certainly seemed to think so and a few crafty shoves and elbows later I was just metres from the stage, confronted by some of the most bizarre technological equipment I had ever seen. Dominating the stage next to the obvious collection of synthesizers and decks stood what appeared to be an enormous switchboard, which later research revealed to be an enormous modular synth. This was going to be no ordinary gig and the immense array of strobe and neon lighting only whet my energetic appetite further.So, rather more impressed than on entry, the crowd eagerly awaited the arrival of the two reputable dance behemoths of Jas Shaw and superstar producer James Ford. Yet what strode on stage to a wall of noise and anticipation was not the uber-cool, removed men you might expect; these two looked like ordinary people. In fact for all his credentials James Ford was more reminiscent of Superbad’s Jonah Hill than an arty disinterested DJ, but I’ll be damned if anyone thinks this is a bad thing. Throughout the gig the pair looked like they were really having a good time and despite an absence of vocal banter the crowd responded in kind. The atmosphere only grew as the music began, with extended mixes of expanded dance stompers backed up by a plethora of strobe flashes and neon bursts to whip the crowd into a raving frenzy. Naturally the big hits stood out, especially the extended version of ‘Hustler’ with its insistent background beats and catchy lead hooks leading an expansive crescendo and the encore opening ‘I Believe’ changing the tone with its swaying, airy melody and old skool synth lead. My only complaint is that it was too short; at most an hour on stage didn’t quite satisfy my dancing appetite. Yet without a doubt this gig exceeded my expectations. To be honest I was rather more looking forward to Justice; now it’s the French duo that has something to match up to. – By Sean Lennon
