Curtailing bop banter is not exactly a new trick among the old dogs of Oxford officialdom – while defacation is hardly the most original of pranks – yet this week these two titans found themselves up for debate in that most intellectual of hot-houses, St John’s College.Whoever did the deed just isn’t very funny, or very clever, but the hilarity of the college’s response can hardly be lost on many. Surely this is the kind of incident which should be swept quietly under the carpet, yet instead the richest college in the university has decided to penalise the entire student body for the actions of one idiot.To impose a levy to pay for the cleaning up of some poo is silly, but to do it as the institution which makes the wealth of colleges such as Lady Margaret Hall and St Hugh’s pale into insignificance is hardly a mature response. The undergraduates of St John’s can hardly be eager to pay just to clear this smear on their illustrious name.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

The staff of Oxford’s two student newspapers occasionally forget that the majority of the University’s population have little interest in the inner workings of either publication. Indeed, those who read the papers rarely have reason to concern themselves with what goes into their creation. Yet even those with the most peripheral interest in these matters will have noticed that The Oxford Student was not delivered to JCRs last week. The rivalry between The Oxford Student and Cherwell since the former’s creation in 1992 has, we believe, been one of healthy competition and respect. The immediate reaction of Cherwell to this news was, as in similar situations in the past, a combination of sympathy and interest.Yet while Cherwell condones its competitor for their continued desire to print probing and challenging news, it would seem in this case that mistakes were made.When a university interferes with a student paper it is always the former which has the most to lose. The freedom of the press is rightly a treasured principle, and one of the cornerstones of modern democracy. So when the University uses the threat of a legal injunction to suppress information it is unlikely to endear itself to the student body, and it would be safe to conclude that the stakes have been raised more than a notch.Confidentiality agreements and the general culture of caution surrounding the increasingly litigious sphere of student media mean that the full details of the shredding of The Oxford Student will never be fully revealed. But there is more to this story than the precise details of the case.It is a question of responsibility. In such a case, a newspaper has an obligation to report the truth, a university to protect its students.The extent to which both sides fight so fervently is encouraging, and leads Cherwell to note that both parties, regardless of personal cost or loss, have done exactly what, in the circumstances, they were supposed to do.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

People often describe Hollywood as a strange beast, by which they tend to mean it has a closed, glazed expression, piercing eyes, and a vast, sore-infested underbelly.In fact an elderly Marlon Brando would be a perfect cast, and, if still alive, he was an extra of choice for director David Lynch, an auteur exiled and virtually alienated by the studios for trying to bring art back into the business – and almost bankrupting a fair portion of it – who in 2001’s Mulholland Drive produced some thinly veiled allusions towards the “execs” who spin the web of intrigue in those dusty corners of Hollywood that the cameras never reach.The result was that the industry cut him loose to the point that even the French shunned their beloved muse. Now, if you want the best in web TV, Lynch is your man.So, anomalies like this aside, and no doubt thanks to the wilful self-distortions it drip-feeds its consumers on personal rose-tinted voyages through its past, Hollywood is normally only seen from the neck up. But currently blowing is a landmark legal case that threatens to expose the whole hideous bodyshot.This is courtesy of Anthony Pellicano, self-professed “private investigator to the stars”, who has dug up dirt for clients as diverse as Hilary Clinton, Steven Seagal and Michael Jackson. The detective’s sordid exploits are too numerous to recount here – imagine a particularly lurid Raymond Chandler novel and you get the picture.But now, despite a spate of prison spells to deter him, Pellicano has gone a bridge too far. A botched blackmail by Pellicano of a journalist getting too close to all his secrets culminated in the FBI raiding his office and uncovering almost two billion pages of phone tap transcripts.The resultant grand jury investigation is now about to indict the industry figures they believe knowingly instigated wiretapping and witness tampering. And we’re not talking Joey extras. Managers, actors, businessmen and lawyers are being questioned, and in some cases subpoenaed, by the federal government in a widening grand jury investigation of suspected illegal wiretapping that has moved beyond Los Angeles and as far as New York.Those being investigated and hoping not to receive the call include former Disney President Michael Ovitz, Paramount Chairman Brad Grey, Universal President Ron Meyer and legendary entertainment attorney Bert Fields. All your basic dream merchants bathing in the same swamp of corruption, blackmail and corporate greed. It turns out that if you sell people a dream, you are probably the stuff of nightmares.Lavish and fantastical as his imaginings were, David Lynch never came close to rivalling this. So it seems that life – and a good sprinkling of investigative journalism – triumphs over art any day. But as we will probably now suffer a thousand preachy Michael Moor-esque documentaries, maybe gazing down at all the corpulent rot was a bad idea. It will only be reflected in the films we see.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

When scientists look back on this period in our history, one has to wonder what they’re going to think of recent years.In the last twelve months alone, we’ve had a tsunami that has wiped out an entire generation, a hurricane that brought a superpower to its knees, an earthquake that has devastated one of the poorest parts of the world and now Europe itself is faced with the prospect of a flu pandemic (avian or otherwise) that our Chief Medical officer believes to be “inevitable”.Such a confluence of events does seem to suggest that something is going awry. I can’t claim any in-depth knowledge of climatology, but I think I speak for most people when I say that it’s beginning to get more than just a bit scary. The world is turning against us, and we seem to be looking the other way.There may be no direct link between the natural disasters of the last twelve months and the climate crisis currently gripping our planet, but it goes far enough to show us the true, devastating, terrifying force of nature when it is unleashed.What we seem to be doing to ourselves at the moment, with our continued disregard for the environment, is bringing on a huge catastrophe one degree at a time.The global warming threat is an epidemic in the same way that bird flu may end up in the comingmonths. It is an epidemic that is induced by individuals. The potentially catastrophic effects of bird flu, however, will come and go – the steady, gradual creep of climate change will not be so rapid.So, what is the solution? It seems pretty straightforward to say that international consensus is required before we move any further.The Kyoto Protocol was an attempt to reach that consensus, but has since failed spectacularly; failing to sign up the US, India and China, who between them create 50% of the world’s harmful emissions. Back at home in the UK, we not only ratified Kyoto but also set a 20% reduction target for CO2 emissions.It’s easy to set the targets and reaffirm them time and time again, but they have to be met with delivery and, as Dieter Helm and may other environmental economists have been pointing out, the UK is failing to deliver.Further worrying signs came from the Prime Minister at the end of September when he said both at the launch of Bill Clinton’s ‘Global Initiative’ and in at the Labour Party Conference that “no country is going to cut its growth” to achieve the Kyoto targets.True, perhaps, but this kind of defeatist attitude will get us nowhere. The sad thing about Kyoto is that it’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’re going to get for the foreseeable future. It does not help the cause however, if the UK begins to backtrack on its commitment to pushing Kyoto worldwide.Supporting it at home is one thing, but our long term interests are only going to be met by a sustained global effort. To hear Blair suggest on the one hand that Kyoto is bound for failure on the world stage and, on the other, that Britain remains committed to the Kyoto pledges sends out mixed messages to say the least.If we are to address this problem with the seriousness it deserves, we shouldn’t be backing down, despite our reservations over the commitment of nations such as the US or China, we should be pushing the climate change agenda not for our own interests, but for the global interest.For those among you lucky enough to be lectured by Dieter Helm in environmental economics,you’ll have heard him talk about “future people”, namely, our sons, daughters, grandchildrenand beyond.In essence, it is their interests that we’re trying to protect. It’s unlikely that we’re going to feel the worst effects of global warming, but they will. Climate change is not a temporaryissue: it shouldn’t be allowed to simply slip off the agenda.‘Alarmism’ is a criticism often levelled at environmentalists who attempt to bring these issues into the public eye. I’m sure that some will criticise this article as alarmist. Climate change, however, is something we should be alarmed about. Unlike the natural disasters we have witnessed recently, we have plenty of warnings about this latest threat and we do have the power to avert it.Our leaders cannot stick their fingers in their ears for much longer – either we act now or the next generation will face a worse and even more dangerous natural disaster.Martin McCluskey is Co-Chair of Oxford University Labour ClubARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

The Real Insp. Hound, dir Sarah Markiewicz1 – 5 November, Moser: A classic English country housemurder mystery. Two boredtheatre critics who alternatebetween pretentiousness and pragmatism,artistic originality and tired clichés.In The Real Inspector Hound,Stoppard makes these two scenarioscollide in a surreal one-act farce thatmanages to send both of them up savagely.The play looks back ironically to thepopular whodunits of the inter-waryears. A rather uninspired specimen ofthe genre is being put on, in which amildly eccentric upper class family enduretheir maid’s foibles and wonderwho the murderer in their midst is.Reviewing it are Moon, given to posturingand flights of artistic fancy, andthe more urbane Birdboot, not averseto swapping special favours from attractiveactresses for a complimentarynotice. After answering a telephoneleft ringing on stage they suddenly findthemselves involved in the drama.Stoppard’s snappy writing and generalzaniness are a gift to any director,but what marks Markiewicz’s productionout is unfailing energy and pace.Characterisation, both physical andverbal, is consistently good, with EdwardDonati and Joanna Keith carryingoff their sharply delineated comicroles with aplomb. Michael Evans andSimon Kantor’s portrayals of the criticsMoon and Birdboot are vigorous andcapture the interplay between the twopersonalities well. Charmaine Lazenby’sperformance as Inspector Houndis slightly less assured, the role of acantankerous upper class gent requiringa measure of gusto she does notquite provide, and though Markiewiczoffers convincing reasons for her decisionto cross-cast, its success in practiceis doubtful. That said, the cast workwell as an ensemble and, by confidentlyfreezing the action where necessaryand using simple spot-lighting effects,effectively maintain the initial dividebetween performers and critics.Attention to costumes and props isinvaluable in maintaining the almostexaggeratedly period feel of the production,and the set achieves a fine balancebetween clutter and excessive minimalism.It is the obvious enthusiasmand commitment of the cast, though,which mark this production out. Actualevents on stage may often perplex:at one point Moon asks “does this playknow where it’s going?” Whatever theanswer, it is clear that Markiewicz andher team are in control.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

Counting the Ways, dir Will Robertson, 1 – 5 November, Burton Taylor: Edward Albee’s Counting theWays is an unsentimental studyof love and grief in a modernAmerican marriage. Composed ofa series of short scenes, on occasionas brief as one sentence, it offers anabstract, dislocated view of middle-America’s disillusionment with loveand married life. The play presents theaudience with two generic caricaturesknown simply as ‘He’ (Sam Thomas)and ‘She’ (Poppy Burton-Morgan).He and She have been married for sixor seven years, but their life as presentedin the play has become one ofperpetual self-doubt. Love and sex becomeinterchangeable in their equallylacklustre nature and ambiguity. Sodisengaged have they become fromtheir emotional life that grieving isviewed in light of its protocol.In Robertson’s production, thecomplexities of naturalistic theatrehave been stripped right back, withminimal props and stark on-off lightingduring the scene changes. By stagingthe play in traverse any theatricalillusions are removed so that, as Albeeexplores human nature onstage, theaudience become necessarily involvedin the process. Face to face with fellowaudience members, reality and conceptare broken down so that the distinctionbetween audience and play isunclear. Robertson offers an invitationto address your own nature. Thiswouldn’t, however, be possible withoutthe actors’ naturally compellingstyle, which centres our attention onthe stage. This transcendental qualityreaches its apex when suddenly midwaythrough the play the actors slipout of character and you are treatedto their biographies.The play has been marketed as apowerful two-hander between two ofOxford’s heavyweights, and it lives upto its billing, with the actors exhibitinga rich array of acting ability. Burton-Morgan brilliantly captures the bitterconviction of a married woman fallingout of love, while Thomas makesthe sullen irritability of He his own.For a script founded on an introspectiveattack on emotions, it is a shamethat the interpretation did not invitemore contemplative acting. Robertson’sstress on the comic elements ofthe script means the characters neverdevelop beyond the level of caricature,and their relationship as a resultnever really rings true. Nevertheless,as a thoughtful piece of drama, theplay is well worth making time for.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005