Three drunken Lady Margaret Hall students jumped into a swollen stream for a naked swim around midnight, Thursday night of first week.

The police arrived at the canal near the Worcester Street car park in Park End Street at about 12:15 am after receiving word that a man was in the waters. Lifebelts were immediately thrown to three men in sight.

Two men grabbed the lifebelts and were promptly pulled out of the stream while one refused to be rescued and started swimming away. The third traveled about 300 yards being swept along by the currents. He passed beneath two bridges and a weir before the police managed to get a hold of him.

The swimmers were each fined £80 for their midnight dip.

PC Paul Philips of Thames Valley Police commented, “These students had clearly been drinking. They were naked and must have thought it would be funny to go swimming, but hadn’t realized the dangers and the strength of the water.”

“Once the students were in the patrol car, they sobered up pretty quickly and became quite apologetic,” he added.

See this week’s Cherwell for more in-depth coverage on the swimmers.

OUSU may cancel the referendum on the controversial No Platform policy, after OUSU Council postponed a vote on the issue last Friday.

This latest twist in the wrangling over No Platform comes after an amendment to the policy was drawn up and proposed at last week’s council by James Lamming, VP for Access and Academic Affairs. However, a vote on this amendment – which will no longer be called ‘No Platform’ – was postponed after it was suggested that most students did not know enough about the details of the policy to make a well-informed decision. At the next OUSU Council meeting, there will be a vote to decide whether to go ahead with the referendum, or to adopt the amended policy instead.

A number of JCRs passed a motion calling for a referendum last term. The No Platform policy has courted controversy in the past. It led OUSU to condemn the Union’s invitations to David Irving and Nick Griffin last term, and to force two Oxide radio presenters to take back their invitation to interview Nick Griffin on their show in Hilary 2007.

Joel Mullan, St Peter’s JCR President, said that OUSU needed to move on. “I personally support the No Platform policy – I do not believe that our student union's resources should be used to assist those who want to incite violence. However, OUSU has got to resolve this issue once and for all, so that it can stop wasting time debating No Platform and get on with the essential work it needs to be doing on things like rent, academic affairs, and welfare,” he said. by Jack Farchy Read this week's Cherwell for more in-depth coverage on this story.

Sangwon Yoon and Jenny Moore provide a mid-week news report . Tune in every week!

The Oxford Union Debating Society organised a memorial debate in honour of the assassinated Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.The event, held last Thursday on January 17th, was attended by former colleagues and friends of the past Union president as well as her son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. The first year Christ Church student did not speak on the occasion.The debate proposition ‘this house believes that the ideal state is a secular state’ was scheduled way before Ms Bhutto’s death but was ideally suited to become a memorial for her, according to a family spokesman.Alan Duncan MP was amongst those who paid tribute, saying: ‘She was amazing, fiery and fun.’by Katherine Hall

With their new single, the wonderfully titled ‘Diamond Hoo Ha Men’, Supergrass remain, as ever, comfortably within the mainstream boundaries the band have always been so fond of. The bass seems like a cheap imitation of The White Stripes’ Blue Orchid, and the lyrics ‘I’ve got to get you in my suitcase’ patently echo the band’s desire to reinvigorate the last chagrins of youth and originality which exist within them. And yet, the song is alluring. The bass has a dirty ring to it, and the chords, although simple, have a familiarity that evokes notions of simple, good rock. This, in a sense, has always been both the dilemma and the art of Supergrass – they are wonderful at imitation, but not so much at innovation.

by Dave Wise

Germany’s widest-read newsmagazine, Focus (think Economist, but guest-edited by the Private Eye team, plus a bit of Stuff thrown in), celebrated its 15th birthday this week with an impressive bumper section — not available online, unfortunately — on the development of the glossy weekly.

One of the special features was an interesting sweep through the history of scoops produced by the magazine (not available online), which included the first report of the 2005 Volkswagen scandal, when VW money was spent on prostitutes and favours for members of the company’s worker’s council.

Shortly after the Erfurt massacre of 2002, when 16 people were killed when a pupil went on the rampage with a gun inside his secondary school, it broke details about the actions of one heroic teacher who locked the gunman in Room 111 to prevent further chaos (not available online).

In the same year it revealed that one of Germany’s regional prime ministers was moving to Berlin to be a big-shot in Gerhard Schröder’s federal government as minister for the economy and jobs. (Sounds dull, I know, but imagine if Gordon Brown decided to appoint Ken Livingstone as Chancellor).

What’s so special about this? Well simply the fact that these were all broken in a weekly magazine, not in the daily press. Der Spiegel , Focus’ rival, also has an impressive reputation as a ‘scooper’. Compare this with the German newspapers, which, you’ll know by now, are largely unoriginal and on the dull side. Unlike in Britain, the news force is in the glossies, not the papers.

So if you’re ever in Germany and want proper news, not just re-writes of press agency stories, buy Focus. It really is good.

But it has one slight fault. As if you hadn't gathered it yet, the website’s pretty stingy.

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