A Trinity college graduate student succeeded in her complaint against the North Oxford Property Services (NOPS), after a room in her rented flat failed to meet safety regulations and was declared “unfit for human habitation” by the City Council. Chantelle Staynings was forced to move out of the property after she tripped over one of the raised floorboards, the existence of which had been previously ignored by NOPS. The property listing was consequently changed from being a threebedroom to a two-bedroom flat.
Staynings had been renting 82 The Heyes, Gloucester Green, for £1040 per month with two flatmates – Trinity finalist Sarojini McKenna and another Trinity graduate who wished to remain unnamed. Following months of complaints to NOPS and an assessment of the property by the City Council, the students eventually received monetary compensation for the unusable third room, as well as for other costs accrued from various repair problems.
The tenants first brought their concerns to the attention of NOPS in July 2004. Their letter pointed out that “the oven billowed acrid black smoke for several months” and that it “still sets off the fire alarm every time we use it”. Other complaints included the lengthy and delayed repair of a faulty sink.
NOPS company secretary David Wilding said that, as a rule, company agents “respond very quickly” to concerns and delegate repairs to subcontractors. “We make the assumption that the job has been done properly,” he said. The company also refused to compensate for the students’ travel expenses when they temporarily relocated.
When the students threatened to publicise their complaints against NOPS in the press, a letter was sent by the company’s agent Sally Franklin offering them a “compensatory fee” of £100, “on the basis that you refrain from persisting in your continued threat to release details of this incident.” The students turned down the offer and spoke toCherwell at length, requesting their quotes be kept off the record.
The students first asked for monetary compensation of the month’s rent after a leak from the washing machine buckled the floorboards, making them feel unsafe about living in the flat. A letter to NOPS on 19 January showed that after she tripped over one of the floorboards, Staynings moved out of the flat. Following weeks of negotiations with the company, she received her security deposit and, as of 1 March, no longer had to pay rent for the property.
Despite this, Wilding continued to stand by the claim that the flat was “never uninhabitable”. “I’ve never seen a parquet floor buckle so much that you can’t live on it,” he said.
In March the tenants called in Anne McMahon, a Senior Environmental Health Officer for Oxford City Council, to assess the state of the apartment. Upon visiting it, she found “grounds for unfitness for human habitation” in Staynings’ bedroom, as shown in a letter to NOPS dated 21 March.
According to regulations, openings in inhabitable rooms must be at least one-tenth of the floor area for lighting, one-twentieth of the floor area for ventilation and the room must have a minimum area of 70 square feet. The room in question failed to meet all of these requirements, making it legally uninhabitable for anyone over the age of ten, according to the Housing Act of 1985 and DOE Circular 1796.
Staynings had previously seen the main areas of the flat and all three flatmates “visited several times”, according to a letter sent to NOPS and signed by the prospective tenants. Prior to this, the flat was let for at least three years and NOPS said that they had had no complaints from previous tenants.
Contrary to the aforementioned letter, McKenna insists that she had not seen the property before agreeing to the lease, since it was unavailable on the NOPS open day of property viewing in January 2004. “It was a great location and because it was rented as a three-person flat by NOPS, I assumed it would be alright,” she said.
The original letting agent, Sue Phillips, has now left NOPS to work for Top Lettings and will take charge of letting the property in the future.ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005

Guest dinners in Christ Church were banned indefinitely by college authorities and disciplinary action was taken against two students, following rowdy behaviour at a dinner last term. Second years Gareth Jones and Patrick Timmis were fined a total of £150 each, as well as being threatened with the loss of their college accommodation, after accusations of their involvement were made by JCR President Jo Lee Morrison.
The behaviour reported during the guest dinner included urinating in the kitchen lobby, vomiting in the toilets, drunken speeches, swearing and simulating sex on the high table. The hall staff were upset by the general conduct observed during the dinner. One of the difficulties now facing the JCR is finding kitchen staff who would be willing to work at future guest dinners at Christ Church. Morrison outlined the JCR’s position, saying, “We are disappointed that it had to come to a stage where guest dinners were cancelled, but we understand the action of the college authorities.”
In an email sent out to the JCR mailing list, Morrison named Jones and Timmis as the “worst culprits” for the behaviour that evening. They were subsequently fined £100 each by the Junior Censor, Edwin Simpson.
The JCR Food Rep Charlie Barrow said, “It should have been blindingly obvious that there were going to be consequences for those people’s actions. It’s just tragic that everyone else has to live with them too.”
At the end of term bop the pair approached Morrison to find out why they had been named in her email. Although Jones and Timmis maintain that they were not aggressive in their treatment of Morrison, they were removed from the bop by the porters, following the JCR President’s complaints. Timmis said, “We confronted Jo because we felt fairly aggrieved, rather than complaining through the proper channels.”
They were then threatened with further disciplinary action, namely the loss of college accommodation for the following term. “We received an email from the junior censor saying it was very unlikely that we’d be allowed to live in college. We were really shocked,” said Timmis.
Regarding the allegation that they had urinated and vomited everywhere during the guest dinner, Jones said, “It was nothing to do with us.” Timmis went on to say that it was “completely and utterly untrue. All we did was to piggy back to high table.” Both students felt they had been unfairly treated, but emphasised that they do not want to aggravate the college authorities.
Last Tuesday Timmis and Jones were informed that they would be allowed to continue living in college this term. Following their behaviour towards Morrison at the bop, however, both students have been charged with an additional £50 fine. Timmis and Jones dispute the college’s decision to do this on the grounds that they were simply questioning someone’s actions.
An undergraduate observer at the bop, who wishes to remain unnamed, said that Jones and Timmis had “trapped Jo, who was working at the bar, behind tables”. He added, “They were very close to her and Patrick especially was shouting fairly vitriolic verbal abuse and being threatening in his stance and body language. Jo was very upset and crying after the two had been taken away.”
Morrison said that she did not want to comment about the details of the event, except to say, “I am satisfied that my complaint has been investigated thoroughly and resolved. I just want to forget it ever happened.”ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005

Keble College was found guilty of racism over the dismissal of an Asian head accountant.
In January 2005 Diamond Versi sued Keble College and its Bursar, Roger Boden, on grounds of unfair dismissal, race discrimination, victimisation and breach of contract.
An employment tribunal at Reading Crown Court concluded unanimously that Versi was “unfairly dismissed” and that he was “unlawfully discriminated against” by both Keble College and Boden on the grounds of his race.
Versi now stands to receive over £250,000 from the College and can also demand personal damages from Boden.
The tribunal noted that the relationship between Versi and Boden began to deteriorate around Christmas 2002 when Boden raised concerns about Versi’s ability to access the College’s accounts from home. In a personal note, Boden said, “Diamond seems to have been spending quite a lot of money this year. A few months ago he bought a new BMW. Over the Christmas break he and his wife are going to Sri Lanka for a fortnight’s holiday.”
Keble College said they had contacted auditors Grant Thorntons with these concerns. The auditors suggested that they should “hold the passwords of senior staff as part of their risk management pratices”.
The tribunal, however, found that Boden had conducted a “fraud investigation with no factual background to justify it” and that it was “merely the whim of the Bursar”. The tribunal said Boden had employed a forensic accountant and that consequently, “It was more than a routine investigation: it was in fact a full-blooded fraud investigation.”
Versi toldCherwell, “As soon as Roger arrived, he said he didn’t want me listening in to his conversations. The next thing he said was that he wanted access to my files, which was very unusual. I thought that was an infringement of my privacy.” Versi said that the investigation had “found nothing” and that he was “squeaky clean”.
Averil Cameron, Warden of Keble College, said the College had not instigated a “fraud investigation”, but had taken “prudent measures about security passwords to the finance system which had caused the bursar some concern,” she said. “Diamond was insulted because he thought his personal integrity was being questioned.”
Versi also cited Hien Le in the tribunal, a former assistant Hall Manager, whom he hoped to employ in the accounts department.
“I spotted talent and wanted her to come and work for me,” said Versi. However, Versi said that Boden offered Hien Le £5,000 to continue working in Hall.
Speaking toCherwell, Hien Le agreed that the College had offered her more money to stay in Hall as the conference season had started and more staff were needed to work at that time. But the College also said she could move to the accounts department immediately if she so chose.
“I was working well with the hall manager and I was good at my job,” she said. “But it was always my dream to work in an accounts office as it was a big opportunity for my future.”
Le decided to move to the accounts department and the transfer was made immediately.
She said she was “very disappointed” and “upset” that Versi had cited her in the tribunal.
“I have been here since 1998 and I have never been discriminated against by Roger and I do not think he is a racist,” she said. “He has always been very supportive and kind.” She added, “I have never been treated differently or made to feel foreign.”
The tribunal also noted that in February 2003 Boden refused to sanction a loan to a Pakistani employee of £4,000. Versi said he was authorised to pay a £2,000 loan to anybody after he had “vetted their finances and asked questions as to why they wanted the money”.
“I gave loans to about twenty people and they were all one. This Pakistani woman had come back from Pakistan, and had a large amount of credit card debt.”
Versi said that Boden went to the finance committee to remove his authority to distribute loans, which he believes is because he wanted to provide the Pakistani woman with a loan.
The College said Versi’s distribution of loans were “not part of his job description” and that they did not think distributing loans to consolidate credit card debt was appropriate.
Roger Boden said, “We are considering an appeal in light of which it would be inappropriate to make further comment.”
Averil Cameron, speaking on behalf of the College, said, “I think we can all say that we’re absolutely shocked. I think the finding is unfair.” She said that the College “do not accept” the finding and that she believes “the College’s submission has not been listened to”.
“There were various issues of procedure and Diamond did not like his authority being challenged,” she said. “But this was about the restructuring of the accounts department. He had complaints about matters in 2003. They were nothing to do with race.”
She confirmed that these matters had all been dealt with by the college’s internal grievance procedures.
The Warden contacted all members of the College via email and later held meetings in order to reaffirm the college’s support for Boden.
Speaking toCherwell, Versi said that he was “ecstatic at the outcome of the trial”.
“Every point of racial discrimination that I put to the tribunal has come out trumps,” said Versi. “You haven’t got any idea what this man has put me through.” Versi said it would be “foolhardy” of Boden to consider an appeal and added “they’re just going to bring themselves into more disgrace and more publicity for me”.
JCR President Moshin Zaidi said the judgement was “just ridiculous”.
“I can 100 percent say there was no racism involved. Roger Boden is genuinely one of the nicest people at Keble,” he said. “I know him well enough to know that racism is not what he’s about.”ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005

The Loverdir Charlie HennikerBurton TaylorTues 26 to Sat 30 April
Another term, another Pinter play; Oxford just can’t seem to get enough of those pregnant pauses. They make for characteristically uncomfortable viewing in the opening scene of The Lover, one of Pinter’s earliest one-act plays, as bourgeois village-dwelling Richard engages his bored wife Sarah in inane conversation about the traffic, the crooked blinds – and her lover, and whether or not he liked the hollyhocks. While they fill their evenings wondering about dinner, the pair spend their afternoons in the thrill of dangerous illicit liaisons; she entertaining passers-by with the lure of strawberries and he attacking innocent young women in parks. Such matter-of-factness about the other’s wandering eye and roving hand suggests the acceptability of the ‘open relationship’ in the swinging sixties; the only catch is, they are having affairs with each other.
When they meet as lovers cavorting in various roleplays the scenes are highly erotic. Richard is transformed from a downtrodden commuter to a powerful bongobanging seducer and Sarah into a wheedling enchantress. Yet in their evening meetings together it is clear that their arrangement is tearing them apart. Pinter’s great skill lies in creating a love triangle out of two people: Richard becomes jealous of himself and loathes his wife in her sexual roles. She flatters his choice of witty mistress; to him, she is merely a “functionary whore”, pleasant enough for the moment but not worth hanging onto indefinitely. The palpable tension of Pinter’s writing explores the danger of separating life from sex life, although one feels that in places it is slightly overwritten, underestimating the audience’s ability to keep up with the plot.
Colour plays a vital role in this highly charged production. The red and black room in which they play out their fantasies becomes a sinister boudoir. The formal living room becomes a nest of props in which to fulfil their desires, a shoe takes on a terrible significance. While dressed in white, Sarah is ostensibly a chaste housewife, in red she becomes the lustful Dolores. The two actors convey the multiple personalities of the married couple with great skill and sensitivity. Emma Jenkinson excels as the sweetly smiling wife, always giving the impression she knows a great deal more than her husband and has him irrevocably under her spell. She is equally arresting as a broken woman when the game is up, when not only their sex lives but also their very identities are at stake. Rob Hayward plays the cuckold with great tenderness, unable to look his wife in the eye, and yet also shows the sadness of a husband who has lost his true love, trapped in a perverse fiction.
This production is certainly gripping, and the intimacy of the Burton Taylor can only add to the intensity of the drama. It seems, however, that it is in parts a little über-Pinter. The comedic aspects, particularly in the opening scene, seem to have been played down to darken the play from the outset. While the seriousness of the atmosphere does create a strong air of unease, some juxtaposition of lighthearted playfulness with the dark world they inhabit may have added to the strengths of the play. As it is, it can seem a little self-important. The superlative acting, however, and the chemistry between the two characters make this an excellent piece of theatre. It makes for a good short introduction to Pinter’s work and the dangers of multiplepersonality adultery.ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005

Trinity Term is always an exciting time for Oxford theatre, as the hope of balmy summer evenings in picturesque collegiate settings draws the drama world outside for Pimms and plays on the lawn. When you’re three hours into a Shakespeare tragedy, it’s been drizzling since Act 1 and you’re ready to sell your soul for a patio heater, the idyll of the garden show may seem somewhat soured. However, there are some great incentives to risk the weather this term, including a good smattering of the traditional Shakespeare.
Two productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are on in Queen’s (4th Week) and Merton (7th Week), although if you’ve seen the current RSC production in Stratford, you’ll be wondering how either could beat it. After James Methven’s brilliantly bawdy interpretation of Twelfth Night at Oriel last year, Love’s Labour’s Lost, on there in 7th, promises to be another highlight. For something slightly different, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Christ Church (6th Week) sounds an exciting project. With the imminent release of the film, however, one may suffer from a surfeit of oompa-loompas. In 4th Week the Univ Gardens host Noel Coward’s Nude with Violin, a highly Parisian affair with all the hallmarks of Coward’s darkly comic genius, while Magdalen features The Rover by Aphra Behn, the Restoration dramatist. Several of the garden shows are staged as part of wider college arts festivals and the Brasenose Arts Week in 3rd looks particularly enjoyable, featuring both Shakespeare’s The Tempest in the quad and Hercules Furens by Euripedes in the chapel.
This is not to suggest that the drama in Oxford’s regular venues isn’t up to its usual standard. The team behind many of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society productions is staging Orpheus in the Underworld in 6th Week at the Playhouse, an operatic romp among the gods that includes Offenbach’s ever-popular can-can. The following Monday, the Oxford Revue and the Cambridge Footlights are performing a one-night special of sketches and stand-up. After last term’s success, the Revue keep going from strength to strength, with key performances by Rose Heiney and Will Pooley, and musical input from MofO.
MofO themselves are looking to build on their productions of Godspell and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change with Assassins (OFS 4th Week), the excellent Stephen Sondheim musical that exposes the flipside of the American dream. If you’re a fan of the dark underside of life, you might consider the two Beckett productions on in 7th Week. The same team who produced Waiting for Godot last term now tackle Endgame at the OFS, while over at the Burton Taylor, Krapp’s Last Tape fills the late slot.
The proven track record of Original Sin productions suggests that Philip Pullman’s I Was a Rat! (OFS 3rd Week) will be worth watching, while the casting of Nick Bishop and Charlie Covell in Oleanna will make for absorbing viewing at the BT in 2nd Week. Absolutely! (Perhaps) at the OFS in 2nd Week is worth a mention for its website alone, see www.trapdoor-oxford.blogspot.com for all information and an entertaining diary of an Oxford production. If you found the Burlesk shows too tame, rumour has it that Four Nights in Knaresborough (BT, 3rd Week) features naked men with swords. All of which makes for a summer term that’s set to be a scorcher at least in terms of theatre, offering some great excuses to forget about finals for a while.ARCHIVE: Oth week TT 2005

Glamour model Lucy Pinder was banned from serving drinks at Lincoln College last term after a student won a Daily Star competition that featured her as its prize. Pinder, the page three girl famous for not allowing full-frontal pictures of her 32G breasts, was supposed to visit the winner’s local pub and pour drinks with £500 behind the bar.Second year lawyer Ian Brownhill received a call from the newspaper on 1 March congratulating him on being a possible winner. Since his “local pub” was the Lincoln College bar, he needed approval from the bar manager and college administrators for Pinder to visit. Although bar manager Simon Faulkner agreed, college authorities opposed Pinder’s visit.Brownhill said, “I was obviously completely shocked to have won the contest, and only ever entered for a laugh. At no point did I imagine that the College would end up in a national newspaper.”When authorities refused to allow the event on the grounds that Pinder was not a JCR member, JCR President Alasdair Henderson proposed a motion to have her made an honorary member.In a letter to Pinder inviting her to become an honorary JCR member, Henderson said the model held a “high-profile position in the hearts of Lincoln students, women as well as men”.The College still opposed the event, saying that press attention of this nature would be damaging for both the College and the University. The college authorities refused to comment on the case.Dissatisfied with Lincoln’s refusal to host the event, the Daily Star questioned the Lincoln authorities, the JCR president, OUSU and the University Press Office to find out why Pinder was banned.After receiving no response from the College, two reporters arrived uninvited taking photographs and interviewing undergraduates. Their visit resulted in a two page spread in the 8 March issue of the Daily Star. One student was quoted in the story saying the JCR was “gutted”. The article then called the College “prudish” and said it was full of “dusty professors”. Pinder, the newspaper argued, was “too hot for the College to handle”.They believed that Lincoln saw the competition as sexist and hoped to convince them to accept Pinder. “The dons have not just made fools of themselves and insulted Lucy. They’ve also let down their students. Lucy would have injected some fun and excitement into their lives,” the story said.Lucy Pinder’s mother, Jenny, said, “We did feel that possibly the more, shall we say, old fashioned element, think that Lucy’s career choice makes her an unsuitable visitor to the hallowed halls.” She added that “Lucy was amused and philosophical” about the events and that the model would like to send her thanks to Brownhill for entering the competition.Henderson said that he thought Lincoln right in its decision not to allow the competition to go ahead. He said that the College “didn’t appreciate being put on the spot and having to cover for a misunderstanding over allegations of sexism”.Henderson added that, although it was “a bit of a hassle, the whole thing was very funny indeed”.When asked what he thought of the incident, Brownhill said, “Obviously I got the lads’ hopes up, but sadly it wasn’t meant to be.”ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005

Within the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre lies a tiny chapel built over the spot St Helena identified as the tomb of Christ. The holiest shrine in the Orthodox faith, it is host to the most controversial and divisive ceremony in the Christian world. On the night before Pascha – the Orthodox Easter that is dated as the first Sunday after the Spring Equinox and Jewish Passover – the Patriarch of Jerusalem descends into a tiny aedicule that houses the remains of Jesus’ tomb and returns with a candle lit from heaven as proof of divine endorsement for the Orthodox faith. Quite understandably, the Vatican doesn’t send any representatives.
Holy Fire is Victoria Clark’s third historical pilgrimage into dim and distant areas of the Christian world. Unfolding against the backdrop of the current intifada, it is an account of an area of the world riven with age-old disputes as well as a probing of the strange religious passions that inflame the eastern sects of Christianity. Her attention is drawn to the unending ideological, and occasionally physical, battle waged by various denominations of churchmen for their saviour’s tomb. This conflict was most recently manifested in Easter 2002 when a scuffle between the Patriarch of Jerusalem and an Armenian priest, who apparently tried to “hurry the miracle along” with a cigarette lighter, hit newspaper headlines around the world.
Clark reminds us that there is more to the religious life of Jerusalem than a war between Palestinian and Israeli. It is sacred ground to all three Abrahamic religions, Christianity in its most exotic forms included: in one brief stroll through the Old City, Clark encounters a Franciscan fortified house, the headquarters of the Arab Catholic Scouts and a Palestinian beggar whose dress is reminiscent of a Cardinal’s robes. She uses the ceremony of the Holy Flame as a centrepiece to probe the various religious passions that inflame the eastern sects of Christianity. Furthermore, she perceives the struggle between these sects as a microcosm of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a matter equally political and religious in which every inch of sacred territory is disputed.
It is quite clear where her sympathies lie. She believes the sacred ceremony originated in the ninth century as a means to spite the Muslim rulers of Jerusalem. Holy Fire is not a sacral rite, but a sectarian battle standard and, as she earnestly tries to prove, a fraud. Her mockery of its authenticity and relevance in the modern world is part of a wider critique of the head-on collision between religious movements that often differ in only a hair’s breadth of dogma. This argument is highlighted in a series of entertaining vignettes such as suppertime conversations with chain-smoking Orthodox bishops, a Franciscan Friar from Texas and a learned, rather pompous Armenian historian. However, her point about the destruction and intolerance faith can bring is heavyhanded and unenlightening. Like so many other benign amateurs casting their words of wisdom on the Middle East, her treatment of vast and intractable problems is cursory and avuncular. In the fine tradition of British colonial rule, Clark expresses a desire to bang their heads together in an effort to make them all get along, forgetting that an attitude so blithely benevolent gave us Congo, Rhodesia and Iraq.
But even if her conclusions speak for naught, Clark’s investigative journalism does touch on one very important facet of religious life in Jerusalem; the paranoia and suspicions mask a state of permanent fear. Christians in the Near East fear extinction, a fear which is exacerbated by their diminishing numbers and significance in the Middle East and every encroachment onto their sacred space.
It is a fear felt by all. Since the Shoah, the Holy Land has become a symbol of Jewish survival to Jewry across the globe. Meanwhile, to the Palestinians, it is a symbol of their burgeoing but beleaguered national identity. Aggression, after all, masks a fear that in a turbulent and violent world, faith alone finds difficult to to assuage.ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005

On 25 March 1811, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his close friend, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, walked up and down the quadrangle in University College awaiting the verdict of the college authorities after their publication and circulation of The Necessity of Atheism. If they had been told at this moment that Shelley would be immortalised not only by his literary works but also in the College with his own memorial, both would have surely dismissed the possibility as strongly as they had denied that of God’s existence.
Known as ‘Mad Shelley’ from his time at Eton, he was not liked by his fellow students at University College, nor did he interact with them in the six months that he was there. Instead he remained reclusive, reputedly reading for up to sixteen hours a day, and seems to have regularly associated only with (the also unpopular) Hogg. A contemporary, CJ Ridley, describes the widespread fear of his ‘strange and fantastic pranks’. Among these was the grabbing of an infant that was just a few weeks old from a mother on Magdalen Bridge and repeatedly asking the startled parent, “Will your baby tell us anything about pre-existence, madam?”
Both Shelley and Hogg (who came forward and implicated himself ) were expelled “for contumaciously refusing to answer questions proposed to them, and for also repeatedly declining to disavow” the pamphlet which concluded, ‘Every reflecting mind must allow there is no proof of the existence of a Deity.’ It is doubtful that anyone in Univ missed either of them.
In spite of all this a statue was unveiled in the poet’s memory eightytwo years later in the College that had rejected him. The statue itself, carved by Onslow Ford, is a cause of some controversy in its own right. It was commissioned by Lady Shelley, Percy Shelley’s daughter in law, and was originally destined for the Protestant cemetery in Rome at the request of Shelley’s friend, the author Edward John Trelawney. Having witnessed Shelley’s drowning, Trelawney desired to have a monument of the poet next to his own so that they would be forever connected. Trelawney’s descendants however felt that Ford’s statue was too big and therefore did not fulfil the request. Eventually the memorial found its way to Shelley’s College in Oxford where it is enclosed in a pantheon designed by Basil Champneys.
In the past it has been ridiculed and described as resembling “a slice of turbot laid out on a fisherman’s scale.” Its depiction of Shelley’s drowned and naked body, as he was discovered, has been criticised for being too feminine and too realistic. In 1901 the historian of Univ asserted that while “exquisite in execution… in conception [it is] almost too true to life for the medium of sculptor’s art.”
Francis Haskell has successfully refuted the Victorian point of view and believes it is “the most ambitious and most successful Victorian sculpture in Oxford”. The monument represents a more realistic approach to sculpture than other neo-classical works of the time. Haskell has pointed out that efforts by previous artists provided the inspiration and precedents for such a project and in this sense Ford’s work is not especially novel. There is however originality in the use of different materials. The bronze base is in contrast to the marble statue of Shelley himself. These breaks with artistic tradition are appropriate for a man who broke with the most sacred traditions of his time.
The monument has over the years been worn down by the drunken antics of students who can easily slip through the bars intended to protect the sculpture. While Onslow Ford’s work certainly deserves more respect than to be the victim of pranks, Shelley, as one of Oxford’s most prolific pranksters, would perhaps have endorsed such destructive acts.

This intriguing drama deals with a theme which has never been
more relevant to society, exploring as it does the nature of
terrorism. Inspired specifically by the Moscow theatre siege two
years ago, it offers us a poignant combination of tragedy and
comedy, enabling the audience to feel the personal as well as
universal calamities which arise from such events. Ciarán McConville’s writing can be wonderfully
disjointed; from the beginning, the four characters’
separate monologues are closely intertwined, but with no
connection or flow. This gradually begins to slip into a more
conversational tone, as the three mental asylum patients and
their nurse begin to interact. McConville has trouble portraying
the ‘insane’ characters without cliché; one man
chatters to himself in the corner, while a woman retreats into a
fantasy world of dinners and dances. This can seem predictable,
but is saved from parody by a uniformly convincing cast. Julia
Charnock is particularly touching as the forlorn Barbara. While the movement is unrealistically static in the hospital
scenes, the ‘memory’ sequences are wonderfully
effective. The motionless monotony of the asylum setting
sometimes fails to convey more than a basic conception of
insanity, but a love scene under an umbrella is beautifully
played. Director Jo Britton has undoubtedly achieved her goal to
remind the audience continually of the superficiality of the
theatre through unrealistic staging, and her production is
strikingly imaginative.ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2004 

British Sea Power landed on a stage festooned with foliage and
an assortment of plastic birds. The fresh-faced five have
cultivated a country-life chic image, quintessentially British,
complete with hiking boots, rolled-up trousers and parkas. Keyboards wavered over the live blare; too often the melody
was lost in the fray. The show pounded forward – this was
Pulp meets Coldplay meets Mull Historical Society, all on a
cliff-top, and beaming in the drizzle. The market may be awash with arty-indie ensembles, but the
audience still lapped up BSP’s familiar melancholy. Singer
Yan wailed, “I really feel I’m drowning”, and the
crowd rippled. Baseball-capped Bjork-like Europeans and a
violinist joined in the hearty melancholia, followed shortly by
someone cavorting in a nine-foot bear costume. The drummer, Wood,
then left the stage to prowl around the audience, leaving the
others to uproot the rural scenery. BSP are self-conscious rather than environmentally aware.
Their desperation to be charismatic and get noticed is not
unusual, and it is taking effect. However, the risk is that the
spectacle veils the music. The eerie quality to the songs warrants another listen, but it
is also delicate and stifled by raucous performance. Perhaps
British Sea Power is beter heard from a beach-side condo sipping
cocktails than live on stage.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004