Sunday 30th November 2025
Blog Page 23

One book, 500 years of art: The History of Art in One Sentence

Maxim Vorobev
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One book, 500 years of art: The History of Art in One Sentence

★★★★☆

Former Wadhamite Verity Babbs has created a practical guide to the history of art – breaking away from the traditionally dense Oxford academic style. Comedian, writer, performer, and all-round free spirit, Verity has produced a beautiful book to deal with your anxieties around discussing art. It provides a unique voice filled with quips and jokes that prepare you to discuss art with anyone – be it your tutor, your friends, or a date. 

In its extensive coverage of 50 artistic movements, each is given three to five pages that describe their features, basic historical facts, and key artists and paintings of the movement. In total you learn of about ten new names, five or so paintings, and a couple of ideas. The question-answer format of the book provides ample opportunity for bizarre facts that you can utilise yourself. It opens with traditional discussions of early modern Italy, and eventually branches out into the experimental German and British art of the 20th century. It was a little jarring, even if welcome, to go so quickly from learning of Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro, to the parties of the Bauhaus.

An example of Caravaggio’s use of Chiaroscuro – Image Credit: Public Domain from Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caravaggio_-_Sette_opere_di_Misericordia.jpg)

Despite her comedic origins, though, this book remains informative. It is ultimately an art history book that has cast aside its academic trappings. The formal language, tone, layout, and visuals are all cut. For Verity, art is about stories. The book revolves around the wacky and bizarre. This is where Alexandra Ramirez’s illustrations come into play. Verity’s unique voice and witty humor are accompanied by an extensive set of cartoon-like illustrations. Famous artwork is reworked in this style, notably a two-page spread of Dürer’s Rhinoceros. It makes for an engaging read, that allows you to focus on the particularly striking features of art history.

This approach, however, is not without limitations. The illustrations are a striking addition to Verity’s jokes. Yet, it is difficult to introduce the precise differences between art movements, or techniques, or the use of colour, without at least one example of the art. Bold introduction pages which feature blocks of colour could’ve instead featured a photo of key works. Conveying the sublime in the art of the romantics is difficult through the medium of words and cartoon depictions. The book is best when it is not taken seriously – when not every sentence is read, but rather the curious mind seeks out what sparks interest.

When read in this way, I did have a considerable amount of success. The section on drowning guests in rose petals (in reference to The Roses of Heliogabalus by Lawrence Alba-Tadema) led me to further research. I sent a photo of the painting to my friends, and started to discuss it alongside others of the same style. Verity’s fun fact on Alba-Tadema importing roses from France every week to produce the work, was a launchpad for my curiosity as to the aesthetic features of the art, and the uniqueness of the artwork’s production. It is these ‘magpie’ style interactions that Verity wants to encourage with the work. It is an opportunity for curious minds to discover more about art history, without a daunting reading list attached.

A photo of the Roses of Heligabalus, as rose petals crush the guests of roman emperor Elagabalus
Image Credit: By Lawrence Alma-Tadema – Superb magazine, The Désirs & Volupté exhibition at the Musée Jacquemart-André, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=755081

When asked what she would recommend to those interested in art, rather surprisingly Verity told Cherwell to stay away from the galleries. Memorising the contents of the Christ Church Picture Gallery, or attempting to learn every obscure philosophical take on art, are anathema to Verity. This view is reflected in this book. Art is not a subject that is to be learnt by rote to impress your tutors, it is expression. To Verity, this comes through adding art to her existing interests. This is the brilliance of the book – it bridges the gaps of knowledge that prompt you to start experimenting with art and art history, rather than memorising theory. 

Oxford students stand to learn a lot from both this book, and the approach that Verity has taken. Oxford, and art history, are not places to simply memorise, regurgitate, and have polite conversation with tutors about age-old debates. Rather, it is the best opportunity in life to develop your own unique perspective, approach, or angle on things. This is what Verity did at her time at Wadham. Rather than attempting to participate in the academic race to the top, she discovered a love of comedy, drama, and how art plays a role in this. Oxford is a set of induced identity and academic crises that should force you to become a more unique and interesting individual.

Verity is holding a talk in Blackwell Bookshop on the 16th of October with tickets on Eventbrite, so take the opportunity to listen to her talk, meet her, and get your signed copy.

Outreach shouldn’t stop at Hadrian’s Wall

Guus Wijnne
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Outreach shouldn’t stop at Hadrian’s Wall

I never expected to go to Oxford. As a S4 (Year 11) Scottish state school student, the University sprung to mind as a place for the English upper class, not somewhere I could even aspire to. I had assumed I’d go to Glasgow or Edinburgh, or St Andrews if I was lucky. When the time came to choose, my friend suggested applying to Oxford. A decision made partly as a joke eventually transformed into an entrance test, then an interview, then an offer. By the time I arrived at my college, after a 600-mile journey, the first thing I noticed was how rare my Scottishness was. 

During the entirety of Freshers’ Week, I met a grand total of four Scottish students. This, although low, is actually a high proportion of the entire group at the University. A Cherwell investigation found that only 19 Scottish state schoolers received offers to study at Oxford in 2018; 13 English private schools each sent more than that in the same year. This indicates a massive failure on the part of the University. An Oxford degree can launch one’s career far faster than most Scottish universities can, especially in the humanities. Oxford also receives funding from Westminster, which the Scottish taxpayer contributes to. The best Scottish students fundamentally have a right to study at top universities in England, just as their English counterparts easily can in Scotland. 

So why are there so few Scots at this world class university? Beyond the obvious financial disincentive for applying (unlike their English and Welsh counterparts, Scottish universities do not charge for students’ first undergraduate degrees), the reason boils down to a problem of perception. Many Scots feel Oxford to be a distant, unaffordable, and isolating place. Many of these concerns are legitimate: living a five hour (or more) train journey away from one’s university can be tiring. Relationships are harder to maintain, seeing university friends during holidays is near impossible, and, during term, students are an entire country away from their parents. There is no recourse to a weekend at home, which can be especially difficult in an environment as stressful as Oxford.

Yet much can be done to alleviate these concerns. Scholarships would certainly help tackle the barrier tuition fees represent, as the University has previously attempted in the past. Access to international storage (which many colleges open to their Scottish students) prevents the torturous experience of lugging all of one’s belongings through Birmingham New Street. The three-term system also allows students to return home frequently, and the internet means that parents are only ever a video call away. Life is certainly more uncomfortable, but, besides my little nap on a bench in Crewe after my train was cancelled, it’s not too back-breaking. 

Clearly, then, Oxford tries to alleviate the concerns of Scottish students. But the issue is one of communication; Scottish preconceptions of Oxford go unchallenged because outreach remains minimal. Unlike every region in England, Scotland has no link colleges and little-to-no outreach programmes. My own admissions process was largely self-driven, apart from some needed advice from Michael McGrade, Brasenose alumnus and founder of the Clydeside Project. Active from 2019-2021, the initiative provided mentoring from Scottish Oxbridge students to potential applicants. With the project no longer accepting applications, there are now even fewer Scotland specific outreach programmes. Within Scottish schools, help for those applying is lacking. I found myself relying on various teachers’ personal effort as the structural support simply did not exist. 

In a Britain that claims to be a “United” Kingdom, having only around two-dozen Scottish state schoolers at one of its most prestigious and influential universities does much to foster division. Oxford ends up being one of many institutions that is supposedly British, but is really only populated by England’s middle and upper class. The University and its colleges ought to do more: commitments to outreach programmes, link colleges, and scholarships would do much to alleviate many of the problems faced by prospective Scottish applicants. It would open the door for those, like my 17-year-old self, who would have otherwise never considered Oxford as an option.

The Librarians (2025) at the Bodleian: reviewed

Abigail Lakeland
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The Librarians (2025) at the Bodleian: reviewed

Kim A. Snyder’s The Librarians (2025) draws the audience into a pernicious web of censorship, repression, and culture-war collisions. 

Embroiled in a fierce, sombre, and at times failing fight for free speech, the film balances its heavy themes with moments of light-hearted humour, principally in the fashion of hilarious one-liners from the high school librarians that act as the documentary film’s heroic, and immensely empathetic, underdogs. The crowd gathered for the private screening at Weston Library in Oxford – only the second screening of the film, which premiered last week – oscillated between the laughter of disbelief and shaking heads.

The film follows the librarians who found themselves at the vanguard of the battle against censorship in U.S school libraries. Their collections were targeted by white Christian nationalists, in an organised movement led by Moms for Liberty. These perhaps unlikely heroes rise to the occasion, becoming – as Amanda Jones, one of the featured librarians, phrased it in the panel discussion – accidental activists.

Beautifully crafted, the film interweaves archival footage of Nazi book burnings, interviews, literary quotes, school board meeting footage and even discursive TikToks into a network of corresponding ideas that are visually pleasing, contemplative, and poignant.

It’s hard to ignore the fact that all of the eponymous protagonists are women persecuted on the basis of their profession. Amongst the panellists for tonight’s screening are Amanda Jones and Julie Miller, two librarians who’ve dealt first-hand with the professional and personal impact of the so-called ‘Krause List’, a 2021 document of 850 titles compiled by then Texas-state representative Matt Krause deemed to contain inappropriate and/or illicit content. 

“You never think it’s going to happen to you or your community”, says Jones, a school librarian and anti-censorship activist based in Louisiana. “It’s very scary. They do it so quietly. You don’t realise it’s happened until it’s already happened.”

“I know about censorship. Here it is in the handbook. I’m ready for this”, ironizes Miller, an ex-librarian who was ousted from her post in Clay County, Florida, after vocalising her opposition to new state regulations on school reading material. “I was not ready.”

Miller maintains that her personal politics have never had any bearing on what titles she chooses to add to the school collection; she believes her locale was identified as a fruitful site to propagate pro-censorship ideals. “I didn’t realise that the community I was in was being specifically targeted”, Miller says.

When asked if censorship mania is exclusive to the south, the panellists concur on its ubiquity.“There’s a certain flavour of it [in the south]”, Snyder concedes. “[But] it’s everywhere. It’s metastasising.”

Speaking to Cherwell, Snyder, an Oscar-nominee for her documentary Death By Numbers (2024), indulged that ‘documentarian’ was her favourite way to be described. The best thing about the job? That she is able to be “perpetually a student”. She loves being able to “open up a whole new world, to start all over again”.

Richard Ovenden OBE, Bodley’s Librarian, received the Royal Society for Literature’s Benson medal prior to the film screening. “We need to be alert to the dangers we face”, said Ovenden, invoking the significance of the Public Libraries Act 1850 in his acceptance speech. “We take these things for granted at our peril.”

Later, Ovenden is seated on the panel beside a surprise panellist, Dame Mary Beard. Politely declining the opportunity to discuss Roman book burnings, Beard half-jokingly describes her own experience of censorship, at the hands of her mother.“Sixty-five years ago, my mum didn’t let me read Enid Blyton [books]. Because they were far too posh and conservative.” Beard uses the anecdote to wrestle with the fact that censorship can be – and is – a tool used at both ends of the political spectrum: “It’s hard to feel that anyone is innocent”.

Snyder compares her team to “canaries in the coal mine” when they started filming. Her compulsion was “we have to tell this story; it’s about us”. Today, Snyder says, invoking the escalation of events since the dismissal of Carla Hayden in May 2025, it’s “everyone’s story”. This was only the second screening of the film, which premiered with Macmillan Publishers last week. “Some of those people at the top”, says Snyder. “They’re brave.” Very ominous, indeed.

Snyder reiterates Beard’s suggestion of self-directed suspicion, but this time on the topic of making art. “Am I not going towards that because of fear?” she asks herself when pursuing new projects.

The film highlights how incredibly well-organised these proponents of censorship are, but it’s not a one-sided arms race. In 2022, Jones co-founded the Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, as well as founding the Livingston Parish Library Alliance. Meanwhile, Miller signposts the Florida Freedom to Read Project.

“The calvary’s not coming”, says Jones, her voice ringing out in the Weston Library foyer. “We have to save ourselves.”

The incandescent and the immovable

Ava Doherty
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The incandescent and the immovable

I went to Ometepe in search of a view, but found something closer to a memory.

The island floats inside Lake Nicaragua, its twin volcanoes rising like ancient lungs out of the water. The air was still, but the lake moved, breathing slowly. It’s not the sea in name, but it carries that same unfathomable pulse. I stood at the edge where the sand blackens underfoot, watching the tide lick the shore with old, deliberate gestures.

The water was dark, mineral-rich, quiet, and yet it spoke. Not in words, but in weight. In reminder. Saltwater – here and elsewhere – is always a force of return, not just to places, but to feeling. It doesn’t heal exactly, but it erodes, shapes, and strips things back to essence. On Ometepe, I felt that more clearly than anywhere else.

The sea, in all its forms, is incandescent and immovable. It refuses us. Refuses to be mapped, mastered, or owned, even in myth. Caligula once tried, lashing the ocean with whips, demanding tribute. His soldiers collected seashells in defeat. The absurdity of it still stings, because we haven’t stopped. We drill, dump, and dredge. We chart it, name it, and exploit its beauty. But the sea remains as it was. Brilliant. Dangerous. Unmoved.

Something stirred in me that day on Ometepe. Not quite peace, not quite fear. A deep awareness of time. Of the self as a soft thing up against something vast. I thought of my beginnings, of white-linen childhoods on other shores, and how even those bright memories now feel marbled with oil, with grief, with a kind of unnamed loss.

I think of Scotland, too, where the sea is grey and often brutal, but still worshipped. Where black-rotted rocks rise like bruises, and yet beauty is formed there – the coast as a kind of scripture.

Central America, like Scotland, is shaped by water. Bordered by it, threatened by it, defined by it. Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica – each written in tide, in flood and flow. Identity here doesn’t stand apart from water. It comes from it.

And always, behind this geography, there’s mythology. We eulogise the sea. We make it a metaphor. But perhaps it doesn’t need our myth-making. It generates its own. It carried the first missionaries to these shores – Ninian, Columba – and with them, a new language of God. Easter tide, Pentecostal wind. Christianity itself was carried in the rhythm of waves. But the sea is older than any religion.

Keats called it the sublime: a beauty so vast it terrifies. Iris Murdoch wrote of love as the painful realisation that something other than ourselves is real. The sea offers that realness in full. It’s a confrontation, not with death, but with limit. A recognition that some things cannot be solved, only witnessed.

We project onto it – our sorrow, our longing, our rage – and still, it resists us. It does not mirror us. It swallows us. Everything returns to water. Memory. Nation. Faith. Ruin. Even language breaks apart against the shoreline.

And the sea, incandescent and immovable, keeps on.

Sometimes, all we can do is stand on the sand – student, traveller, wanderer – and listen.

“Have you heard the new Laufey album?”

Beatrix Arnold
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“Have you heard the new Laufey album?”

We all know the type, or at least the meme. The tote-bag sporting, wired-headphone wearing, matcha latte drinking, so-called ‘performative’ men flooding our social media feeds, and even threatening to infiltrate our social circles. Such men are defined by the careful curation of clothes, taste, and aesthetic to attract clout – and implicitly women – rather than as an act of earnest self-expression. The issue lies in their affectation. The performative male parades his own worthiness, his emotional availability, his uniquely feminist perspective, but does not practise it, resulting in a clumsy caricature of what appeals to the female gaze. His theatrics are unconvincing – it’s doubtful that he knows the first thing about the feminist authors he loves to vaunt. 

While this is a discernible phenomenon in the real world (see how many you can spot around Oxford), the online component is built on a degree of self-awareness. The formula is exaggerated and skewered, either to deride or to self-deprecate. The whole trend is dripping with irony; parody layers upon parody, as every participant is determined to prove themselves to be in on the joke. Such self-awareness does not ultimately free us from the performance, but merely adds another layer to it. The satire in itself becomes another form of performativity: an in-group of men emerges, who reassure their female audience that they get it, that they can recognise and make fun of these performative men, because they themselves are different. In this way, they quickly deflate the aims of the performative male: once it has been named, the device becomes ineffectual. 

In fact, almost every permutation of masculinity manifests itself as a kind of performance. Heterosexual men, most noticeably in the online sphere, seem to market themselves according to a self-purported idea of what constitutes female taste. The same impetus can be seen behind the ideology of the manosphere, whose “pick-up artists” structure an entire lifestyle around female attraction. The pressure to perform a brand of masculinity seems to dominate homosocial relationships to the same extent. Is there not a similar element of performativity driving on those men who force themselves to like Guinness, listen to Kanye, and aspire to be “one of the lads”?

Judith Butler argued that all gender is performance: perhaps the online sphere, with its proliferation of social media trends rooted in aspects of masculinity or femininity, is the perfect gallery for this phenomenon. The trad wife movement can, in many ways, be seen as a counterpart to the performative male trend, inasmuch as femininity is restaged in a hyper-stylised manner, curated to appeal to a perceived notion of male desire. The man who professes his difference from the norm, evidenced by his Clairo listening stats, is similarly aware of this need to present, to showcase the expedient gendered persona.

Amongst all these performances, the feminist-literature reading one appears relatively benign. His vapidity is widely recognised, but at least he’s not advocating the violent brand of misogyny that goes hand-in-hand with other ‘masculine’ online discourse. Yet it’s clear how parody can backfire. The instant labeling of these behaviours as aberrant, as a type of specifically female-oriented, and therefore not genuine, masculinity, only serves to reinforce the idea that it is the traditional ‘macho’ masculinity that represents the real deal, the default definition of a socially accepted form of manhood. Once this hierarchy is implicitly established, any deviation is labelled as a farce. In that too familiar way, the trend has become yet another opportunity for men to make fun of other men for a perceived failure of masculinity; their behaviour, and its association with a traditionally feminine aesthetic, is deemed ridiculous. As we irony-poison ourselves to death, we fail to unsubscribe from strictly policed behavioural binaries. Not everything should be so ruthlessly taxonomised.

The problem with the performative male is not his masculinity, but his pretentiousness, his calculated simulation of allyship. Casting the issue in terms of gender is more harmful than humorous.

Or perhaps the trend shouldn’t be taken so seriously. Perhaps gentle mockery is the way to dismantle vacuous virtue-signaling. Or perhaps our only solace is to hope that such men may, in between flashing the front cover of their Angela Davis or bell hooks at passersby, pick up a thing or two. 

Be brave, Oxford: Let’s put creativity back in the creative arts

Mair Andrews
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Be brave, Oxford: Let’s put creativity back in the creative arts

Welcome back, Oxford. While you were away preparing for the next academic year, or busy attending the Edinburgh Fringe, the facebook Oxford University Drama Society (OUDS) portal was readying for your return. However, amidst all the Supplementary Cast Calls and promises for location bids, some things stayed the same: conspicuously, the same titles, writers and genres still dominate the listings. As far as first impressions go, this stagnant Oxford drama scene probably offers Freshers exactly what they’d expect. My expectations, however, as an incoming third-year, have changed. Having noticed that this term’s promised programme seems to be stuck in a creative equivalent of Groundhog Day, one must ask: why has student drama lost its creativity?

Courtesy of the controversial book-to-screen productions recently teased this summer, ‘adaptation’ has been a hot topic. While Emerald Fennell appears to be offering gothic erotica in her version of the classic Wuthering Heights, Jamie Lloyd’s inventive and youthful Evita, starring Rachel Zegler, made the pavement outside the London Palladium the place to be. Given the comparative monotony of student drama, can any of the productions truly be classed as ‘adaptations’? How can a student budget imitate the creativity of professional productions, which sometimes still miss the mark themselves?

The shortcut way to adapt a story, in any form, is to give it direct political resonance. But explicitly aligning oneself with a political stance is not always worth the risk. Politicised art has been plastered all over our newsfeeds this summer; or, rather, the censorship of this creative activism has. 

Earlier this summer, a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Manchester was cancelled, with the Royal Exchange was forced to scrap its entire five-week run of a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s play, in a dispute over references to the Israel-Gaza war and trans rights. If this is what professionals in the creative industries face, how is student drama to manage taking a stance? 

As a literature student, I incline towards a controversial performance. Last spring, I recall my frustration at a student production of The Merchant of Venice: while the show had enough courtesy to warn audience members about the antisemitism within the play through posters leading towards the auditorium, the production itself failed to expand on that central issue. With the backdrop of ongoing conflict in Gaza, it was almost uncomfortable that the show pretended it had no contextual relevance.

The Israel-Gaza war has been a budding platform for artists to perform their politics, and for activists to literally take to the stage. Yet, on the small stages of the Pilch or Keble O’Reilly, students are reluctant to take creative risks and adapt plays in the same politicised way that other professionals are willing to.

It takes a lot for a student drama to adapt itself in this way and address politics. In Oxford and the creative arts at large, imposter syndrome is never far away. Even still, student drama depends on all participants – from actors, musicians, costume designers and audience members – to view it as a worthwhile and legitimate cause. For a whole university’s creative community to caveat and curtail their voices because their stage is ‘too small’ a platform, or their pen ‘too insignificant’ a tool, would be a tragedy, indeed.  

It takes a lot of nerve to write your own plays. In recent OUDS memory, the success of entirely student produced shows has been fleeting. The Mollys, a production company which facilitated original scripts for comedies, garden plays, and musicals, was created as a remedy for this issue. A similar student-founded company, Lovelock Productions, debuted their new play BLANDY at the Fringe in August, and promises to tell both new and old stories. Though, seeing as the student founders of these two companies are soon to graduate, there is no natural successor to carry the baton of student originality.

Even still, why are student writers, and political themes, so scarce within the Oxford drama scene? Well, unfortunately, money does make the world go around. A show is a product to sell. While personal insecurity and fear of censorship are significant players, they are not isolated as factors from the word loathed by every creative: finance. 

Last year Cherwell reported on the challenges that hinder the creativity of student drama. Finances accrued through simple technology like microphones and lighting are huge investments, and sacrifices, that productions must make. More foundational decisions are also impacted by budget, such as which shows are put on at all. Shakespeare is a staple name on college posters – last term saw the influx of garden plays, and already in Michaelmas we have promises for Twelfth Night, Love Labour’s Lost, and Richard III. 

It’s therefore no surprise that the most popular names are the most basic. There is a strong financial incentive for these plays because they are in the public domain and  have no rights to purchase. When many essay writing subjects reward originality, but assign a plethora of secondary reading, it is understandably daunting to go with your gut and create an original interpretation. But in the drama world, when the finance, casting, and reputation of your production are also on the line? It’s terrifying.

Oxford’s drama scene needs, therefore, to be braver, but this involves not just the dramatists. I believe that the biggest blocker to fresh and thoughtful productions is the audience’s own ego: they fear not understanding the adaptation, that it’ll be too complex, or that they aren’t well-informed enough about the cultural or political subtext. But the risk of being disappointed or misunderstanding a production is meant to be part of the chance that a viewer puts in a show, and a show cannot thrive unless it has that trust from its audience.

Hope, however, is not lost for the future of Oxford student drama. Amongst the overdone Shakespeare is a new adaptation – truly deserving of the term – with Love’s Labour’s Lost reworked as a musical and scheduled for the T S Eliot Theatre in eighth week. It also promises in its OUDS announcement that they will commit to a diverse cast, and encourage Freshers to participate. This adaptational success shows that a production does not need to be loud or controversial to be thoughtful and value originality – it is through basic decisions like this that you keep drama fresh. 

So come on, Oxford, I dare you. Whether you will be in the audience, in the wings or on the stage this term, it’s time that we proved that student drama can put on a real show.

Hundreds march in pro-Palestine protest through Oxford

Cherwell News
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Hundreds march in pro-Palestine protest through Oxford

Around 500 people joined a pro-Palestine protest starting at Manzil Way earlier this evening. The crowd marched through the city centre to Bonn Square, in front of Westgate Oxford, blocking traffic and forcing it to a standstill. 

Protesters marched through Oxford, chanting and carrying banners criticising Oxford University and the UK government. One of the banners read: “Oxford University, pick a side. Justice for genocide.” Several banners also called out Prime Minister Keir Starmer and former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak specifically.

One Oxford student participating in the protest told Cherwell: “We cannot rest. Students have to get organised.” He continued to state that through tuition money and attending the University, students’ existence “comes with a level of complicity”. Another student emphasised the atmosphere at the protest was “very positive”.

A speaker from Oxford Jewish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign addressed protesters at the start of the march, saying: “Of course [we] welcome the prospect of a ceasefire, but how can we trust a ceasefire broken by Israel within hours.”

The protest was organised by the Oxford branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), a national grassroots movement working to achieve “peace, equality, and justice” in the face of “racism, occupation, and colonisation”.

Members of Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) were also in attendance alongside other student and national campaigns. OA4P have been advertising the protest outside the Oxford University’s Student Union Freshers’ Fair this week. Members of OA4P stood outside the entrance to Examination Schools on High Street, handing out flyers with information and encouraging people to attend.

OA4P told Cherwell it “welcomes the energy and organising experience that incoming students are bringing to campus, and looks forward to building with them in the months ahead”.

At the protest, the organisers specifically thanked students who “came from Freshers’ Fair”. Flyers were distributed urging people to join “Palestine organising in Oxford” and to “organise in your colleges & departments”. 

The protest was attended by the members of the Socialist Worker, the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, as well as Student Action for Refugees (STAR) Oxford. Oxford University and College Union (UCU), a trade union representing academics and academic-staff at the University, were also among protesters and carried a poster entitled “knowledge is power”. 

The police were present and pulled aside a counter-protester, carrying St George’s flag, asking him to avoid provoking the pro-Palestine protesters.

The University of Oxford and Thames Valley Police have been contacted for comment.

England batter Canada to claim the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup

Tod Manners
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England batter Canada to claim the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup

After consecutive final defeats in 2017 and 2022, England have finally claimed a third Women’s Rugby World Cup title in front of the biggest crowd ever in women’s rugby. Beating Canada 33–13 at Twickenham, England completed their dominance of the sport.

This was not a heroic underdog story. England have been utterly dominant over the last three years:they have not lost a game since that 2022 World Cup final, they have more female players than anyone else in the world, and they also have the only professional women’s league that has completed a full season. They had won every single game by multiple tries – their narrowest margin was an 18-point trouncing of France in the semi-final. And though all of that was true last time round – including having not lost a game since the previous World Cup final – the odds this time were definitely stacked in England’s favour.

England have put together a brilliant team over the course of the last three years. Captained by Zoe Aldcroft and coached by John Mitchell, England built the best side in rugby around a core of an excellent kicking game and a powerful pack, complemented by a talented range of options in the backs. Although a few teams have run them close – including Canada last year – Mitchell still hasn’t lost a game as England manager. Not only that, but this is an England team that has managed this unbeaten run without necessarily being the most tactically innovative or subversive side in the game. They are, at a basic level, Better At Rugby than everyone else. On home soil, and in electric form, this was England’s game to lose. 

Despite all of that, it was the Canadians that struck first, when Asia Hogan-Rochester touched down in the 5th minute after a chaotic, fast–paced counter–attack. Kevin Rouet’s side have played with extraordinary pace in this tournament, and England initially looked to be floundering in the face of a team that had dismantled New Zealand in the semi-final with the fastest ruck speed of any World Cup side, male or female – a frightening 2.45 seconds per ruck. But although the Red Roses appeared briefly to be on the ropes, this would prove to be the high-water mark for the Canadians. Only a few minutes after Canada had taken the lead, they lost it again as Ellie Kildunne danced her way through the Canadian defensive line, skirting past five Canadian defenders before tearing away to score under the posts in a genuinely staggering solo try. Particularly, however, England dominated up front. The current England pack is both metaphorically and literally immense, and they made their dominance count. 

England picked up one try directly from a mall, another from a scrum, and two more from close-range pick and gos. On multiple occasions when faced with the England pack’s drive, the Canadian scrum simply folded – literally. England made their physicality apparent in other ways too, most importantly in shutting down Canada’s record–breaking ruck speed. Rather than focus on slowing down the ruck, to which Canada have remained broadly impervious throughout the tournament, England instead slowed down the tackle, regularly bringing their opposition to the ground both powerfully and painfully slowly. In doing so, they thus sidestepped Canada’s most potent attacking weapon and were able to make their physical mark on the match.

In the kicking game, England again took the upper hand. Canada’s back three had looked wobbly under the high ball all tournament and England shifted their tactics to target that, kicking a veritable barrage of bombs and spiral kicks that often left Canada out of position and let the Red Roses put pressure on Canada in spite of having less territory and less possession than the North Americans. England’s backs, whilst mostly on the backburner, also contributed in their own way, putting in an excellent defensive performance to smother Canada’s attacking output. England had brought an all-court game to Twickenham, and used it to crush their opposition under heel. 

Canada, for their part, looked to run the ball, offload, and play at pace – tactics that had worked against the Black Ferns the previous weekend but that, when up against the might of this England side, seemed completely impotent. By the time Asia Hogan-Rochester went over for her second try in the 53rd minute, it already felt more like a consolation than a fightback, and though the Canadians never looked to have given up, they also never really looked like threatening the Red Roses’ lead. For Kevin Rouet and his side, it will certainly have been a disappointing performance, but it is also a marker simply of how vast the gulf is between England and any of their rivals at the moment.

The tournament also served as a marker of how far women’s rugby has come as a whole in the past couple of decades. When the Women’s Rugby World Cup was last in England, in 2010, around 30,000 people attended across 30 games. This time round, more than 42,000 people packed into the Stadium of Light for the opener alone. The total attendance for the tournament was more than 440,000 – three times what it was just three years ago. The final, played in front of a sold-out Twickenham, had more people attend than all but one men’s World Cup final. Women’s rugby has come an extraordinarily long way in the last 15 years. More women are playing the game than ever, and more people are watching. The prospects for the 2029 World Cup – to be held in Australia – look more exciting than ever. That is, as long as someone can figure out how to beat the Red Roses in the meantime.

Proposal for Europe’s largest solar farm set to be examined in Oxford

Grace Kyoko Wong
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Proposal for Europe’s largest solar farm set to be examined in Oxford

Plans for Botley West, which is set to become Europe’s largest solar farm, will be examined in a public hearing held by the Planning Inspectorate this week. If the project is approved, Botley West would span an area of around 1400 hectares across the West Oxfordshire, Cherwell, and Vale of White Horse districts in Oxfordshire. 

A spokesperson for Photovolt Development Partners (PVDP), the developer of the site, told Cherwell: “Botley West will deliver 840 MW of clean, affordable, homegrown, secure power – enough to power 330,000 homes – the equivalent of every home in Oxfordshire. This project represents a £1 billion investment in Oxfordshire’s electricity network and a significant greening of its power grid, currently one of the most carbon-intensive in the country.”

Botley West is considered a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP), and must therefore be examined and approved by the UK government rather than local councils.

However, objections have been raised to the project due to its potential impact on local communities and wildlife. Alex Rogers, Chair of the Stop Botley West Campaign, a community group, told Cherwell: “We are seeking a sustainable renewables project which is smaller and less damaging to our heritage, landscape, green belt, productive arable farmland and to the visual and health benefits residents in the area currently enjoy. 

“Our reading of [PVDP’s] Environmental Statement and associated documents has revealed many errors, shortcomings and misleading approaches to the analyses presented…they have demonstrated a blatant disregard to the concerns and needs of the estimated 11,000 people living within 1.5km of the proposed Botley West Solar Power Station.”

Natural England, a non-departmental government body, has expressed concerns about Botley West’s effect on local endangered bat populations. In a letter to the Planning Inspectorate, Natural England cited concerns on “potentially insufficient survey effort, methodology and interpretation…so the most important areas for bats have not been identified”, “insufficient detail on avoidance and mitigation measures”, and the “lack of detail on post-consent management and monitoring” of bat populations.

In response, PVDP told Cherwell: “The project has been calculated by independent experts to produce a minimum 70% biodiversity net gain on the site. The introduction of new hedgerows and community growing projects will also protect pollinators across the site and will help to protect and restore wildlife habitats. The temporary leasing of the land for the development will allow the land to recover from intensive farming, restoring soil quality and fauna on the site.”

The Environment Agency was contacted for comment.

The maddening art of procrastination

Abigail Christie
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The maddening art of procrastination

In delaying and avoiding writing this piece, I am succumbing to exactly what many university students are guilty of: procrastination. Though not among the seven deadly sins, procrastination is certainly pernicious enough to merit the place of runner-up. If you often find yourself deliberately racing against the clock – maybe in the midst of a frenzied last-minute laundry cycle, or perhaps composing your first and final essay draft in an adrenaline-fuelled scrawl – you’re in good company. 

So, why do we procrastinate? And why do we seem to hate it? Despite the speed of our increasingly digitised age, most of us seem to harbour some unrelenting desire to slow things down. To put tasks off until the very last minute. To stall. To dither. It is curious. 

For some, it is the urge to perfect everything to such an unattainable degree, that it feels ludicrous to even attempt to start. For others, it can be the pure dread of needing to tackle a task you just really do not want to do. Whatever the reason, procrastination seems to be a mental chore in itself. A staple in the forsaken name of productivity. Of course, we know we are – often painstakingly – only delaying the inevitable. 

From the intensive eight week bursts of term, coupled with the general pressures of university life, Oxford certainly provides the right environment for procrastination to thrive. For me, although procrastination would bare its teeth during term time, rebelling against relentless academic pressure, it didn’t quite leave me once term was over. Though essays and reading lists still loomed, the shadowy silhouette of a deadline at the end of the long vacation felt like a lifetime away. 

So I put it off. Pushed my to-do list to the furthest recesses of my mind. Tried to forget. Yet, this feeling of unproductivity gnawed at me endlessly. One of those itches that relaxation couldn’t quite scratch. But then I found if I opened my library-issued textbook, propped it out on the desk, with a pen and notebook placed strategically next to it, whilst I daydreamed out of the window right in front of it, I could hit that sweet spot of procrastination. I could exist on this liminal plane, simultaneously doing and not doing work, but feeling deceptively better for it. Reassured in my doing nothing, that I was doing something. 

It can take some mental fortitude to resist the perilous temptations of procrastination, to avoid spiralling into competition with time itself. I sincerely applaud those who can and do. But perhaps procrastination doesn’t have to be so awful, after all. Its dubious redemption comes to me in the form of temporary escapism. When my work is in front of me, and it is the last thing in the world I want to do, to abandon ship feels like waving the white flag. So those minutes that slowly tick over into hours move in a kind of golden haze, allowing my mind to drift to realms far beyond, without ever having to move an inch. Seems like an ideal resolution, for now. 

Both a luxury retreat for the overworked student brain and also a whirlpool into which productivity takes a nosedive, procrastination has both its merits and downfalls. Am I suggesting we embrace this age-old habit? Certainly not. But I am proposing that we cut it some slack. Before we skyrocket into the nihilism of procrastination and all its evils, we should pause. Perhaps the transient comfort of procrastination has been lost on us, after all. 

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