Andrew Smith, MP for Oxford East, attacked the Conservative Party for encouraging an investigation into Professor McLean without proper consideration. "This is the politics of smear and innuendo," he said. "It shows how desperate the Tories are to try and undermine Gordon Brown. Their attempt to drag Professor McLean’s name through the mud is utterly contemptible and they should apologise to him. This will do the Tories nothing but harm among fair-minded students and academics in Oxford."
A spokesperson for the Cabinet Office said they were unable to confirm whether an investigation would be officially launched.

Worried that your cheap summer flights are choking the environment? Ed Parker on getting around the green way.The prospect of over three months without lectures, tutorials, or any other commitments to speak of is certainly an enticing one. Whilst the eager anticipation of reading all seven Harry Potter books back to back may be enough of a thrill for some, the first thing that springs to mind for most of us is that glamorous vision of setting off on a plane to some far off corner of the world with nothing but a backpack and a small pot of marmite. It is an idea, no doubt, which many students will be considering and who would blame them? But in a world in which the welfare of the environment is coming to weigh ever more heavily on our consciences, perhaps there is an alternative approach: one which doesn’t involve flying from place to place without thought for the consequences.Flying seems so cheap and convenient nowadays that it would be easy to ignore the wealth of rewarding travel opportunities right on our doorstep. Perhaps “travelling green” has just as much to offer as jet-setting off to lands afar, not to mention giving you a clean conscience in the process. And even if the idea of “eco-tourism” makes you turn green in an all too literal sense, there is still something to be said for the old-fashioned romance of the Journey. I am not about to suggest that you spend your summer on a rocky beach in Wales. Quite the opposite in fact. Given a moment’s consideration, the range of possible travel experiences that don’t require getting on a plane is simply staggering. From Brighton Pier to the Egyptian Pyramids, there really are no limits to the adventures which you could end up on given half the chance. So why not try something different this summer? Why not replace the artificial gloss of the plane cabin with the charm of a dusty old train carriage? Why not put a green stamp in your passport for a change?So, what to do next. You are ready to take a righteous step towards global welfare, but without the help of budget flights at the click of a button, you find yourself at a loose end. The opportunities are simply endless, but for those who still refuse to take some initiative, here are a few bundles of summer fun that might be worthy of consideration… The Grand Tour  When it comes to traversing the diverse and quirky landscape of Europe, there are plenty of ways you can get around. You could windsurf to Calais, then hitchhike to the Southern coast of Spain and back again. You could regurgitate an old bop costume and pretend to be an attendant on a passenger ferry to Iceland or, like the rest of the world, you could catch the train. The initial cost of getting across the channel isn’t an appealing one however. Even booking well in advance, a return ticket to Paris on the Eurostar will set you back £49 (www.raileurope.co.uk). As a consolation, the carbon dioxide emissions of flying the same distance would be more than ten times as great and, as of 2007, Eurostar have even committed to offsetting the emissions for passengers free of charge, effectively making the journey entirely carbon neutral.Once you arrive on the continent though, things get a whole lot easier. Global Inter-Rail passes start at £115 (www.railpassshop.com) for 5 days of travelling in 10, while £288 will give you a month-long pass. Meanwhile, single country passes start as low as £24, so that with just a minimal planning effort, you could sort out an affordable tour of some of Europe’s finest destinations. Within Italy alone, a single pass could take you through the likes of Venice, Florence, Rome, and Verona without even stopping for breath, and the broad montage of cultural nuggets on offer is simply staggering. From the Rossini Opera festival in Pesaro in August, to the renowned Umbria Jazz festival in Perugia in July, there is something for everyone’s taste. And for any of you not so culturally inclined, the elegant grandeur of the ancient cities, or at the very least the quality of the pizzas, should be enough of an appeal.For those who feel that InterRailing is a little bit too conventional, there is no reason to restrict yourself to the train carriage, comfortable though it may be. You could get a long way in Europe with nothing but a bicycle as your trusty steed, as long as you have the patience and perseverance to spend a lot of time on the open road. France, in particular, is well known for its cycle routes, with an extensive network of secondary road systems taking you past plenty of eccentric villages and a plethora of scenic landscapes. The Loire Valley is a notoriously spectacular cultural vista, with its many historic towns and villages, its opulent chatauex, and an excess of fine wines for the more refined student travellers. If biking isn’t your thing and you are still keen to keep expenditure to a minimum, you don’t need to give up on flightless travel quite yet. Eco-tourism has budget alternatives which rival even the most ludicrous low-cost airline prices. One of the more impressive offers is a single ticket to Holland for only £25 (www.dutchflyer.co.uk). So the green passport stamp doesn’t have to come at too objectionable a cost, even though it does require a couple of trains, a long ferry ride, and the best part of a day for the trouble. Horizons Near and Far  The more thought you give it, the more it becomes apparent that the limits of environmentally friendly tourism are nigh on boundless. Considering the length of the summer holiday, the potential horizons of your travelling experience extend as far as you dare to indulge them. At the most ambitious end of the spectrum, you could book yourself a seat on the Trans-Siberian Railway (www.seat61.com) which, provided you can sustain a train journey extending over an entire week, will take you from Moscow to the heart of China. And having made it that far, why not go the extra yard: Tokyo, Cambodia, Vietnam, and even Singapore are then but a hop skip and a jump away. It would certainly be a story to remember, and a worthy competitor to the most extravagant summer tales recounted by your peers next term.Meanwhile, much closer to home, a rewarding alternative which avoids the extended mileage of a trip to China and back, comes in the form of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A glorious assortment of cultural variety, the festival offers a feasible and affordable destination to students looking for a less formidable, though equally fulfilling, summer experience. Running from the 5th to the 27th of August, the Fringe features more than 28,000 performances of over 1800 shows, including the pinnacle of the world’s comedy, music, and theatrical scenes. At only a £12.50 train fare away, the festival is yet another contender to add to the ever growing list of potential candidates for your prospective agenda this summer. So before you jump at the idea of a cheap and convenient flight to the other side of the planet, take a moment to consider what you really want from your summer. Perhaps you are fed up of tiresome airport lounges and fancy taking a different and more wholesome approach to travelling. Perhaps you might care to indulge in the steps of a journey rather than just the destination. Perhaps your conscience has taken an environmental turn. Perhaps you might try taking the road less travelled by. And perhaps, just perhaps, it will make all the difference. 
 

Tom started out as a guitar-strumming, harmonica-tooting folkie in the Woody Guthrie vein, but has since morphed into a stand-up comedy monster of Godzilla-esqe proportions. His recent performance at The Empty Space, ‘Corcoranism’, was well-received. "It’s like political satire without the politics," he tells me. Part of the performance was his recital of a poem outlining his ideology. "It’s a series of invocations," he says. "Like: let us liberate the homosexuals from the mighty cock of Magdalen, or let us experiment on the animal protesters for our own personal amusement. Or: let us tempt the college chaplains with naked catamites and let us tempt the Catholics with foetal sandwiches. That was quite controversial."
Part of the challenge of The Empty Space is the acts you have to follow. Tom’s performance was preceded by a contemporary dance piece put on by two Ruskin students, which saw the two young women cover each other and the stage in flour, polenta and peaches. "I don’t think they were lesbians," says Tom. "They were just two girls rolling around eating stuff and spitting it out and making… caveman noises. When they left they just crawled out. I was sitting near the entrance and I was worried they were going to throw all this shit on me." Just an occupational hazard.

The Swedish journalist who exposed human rights atrocities to the world talks to Iona Bergius about torture, terrorism and life undercover

Monica Zak first travelled to Latin America in 1965 on an old fishing boat. Since then she has travelled extensively across the continent, reporting, writing novels, and producing films about the child soldiers, genocide, drugs cartels, and racism which have blighted much of Latin America’s history. She has risked her life on more than one occasion while researching for her work, convinced of the power the pen can have in making a positive difference in the world.

Of the fifty novels Zak has written to date, one of the best-known deals with the 36-year Guatemalan civil war. The novel centres around the true story of a young girl’s search to find her brother, who was kidnapped by government soldiers for supporting the guerrilla movement. Zak tells me about the long and dangerous journey which led her to write The Puma’s Daughter. In the early 1980s she met Marianela García Villas, a lawyer from El Salvador forced into exile after her defence for human rights had led to her attempted murder. Zak befriended Villas and the two decided to travel to El Salvador – then in the midst of a bitter twelve year civil war – to write a book about the government’s abuse of human rights.

Zak is reluctant to talk about exactly what happened when she first arrived in El Salvador, and skims over the details. "I arrived in the capital and then Marianela and I met up in the countryside. But there was an army invasion and we lost contact. She was captured and tortured to death. I was never able to write the book because all the material was stolen – I returned only with my life." She was forced to flee the country because when the military had captured Villas, she had had a photo and a taped interview with Zak on her person. "I was accused of being an international terrorist with plans to destroy the country. It took me several months to get out of El Salvador under false papers."

Eventually Zak succeeded in escaping from El Salvador and crossed the border into Guatemala. Fearing for her life, she was forced to hide out in the Swedish Embassy. It was there that she learnt about the repression of the indigenous population taking place in the countryside. She tells me her greatest motivation for writing about Guatemala was the dearth of coverage of the people's plight. "The world had no interest in Guatemala. No one wanted to go there. So I felt I had to write about it. I wanted to write this book because no one cared about the horrible things that were happening there. I wanted to tell people what it was like. The purpose of my writing is to try and make a difference," she explains.

Zak returned to Guatemala on two more occasions to research her novel, spending much of her time interviewing survivors of the government-led repression. She explains that some of the things they described were so terrible that she felt they could not be included in the novel, because no one would want to read about such atrocities. "The violence described in my book is all true. For example, the massacre of the villagers of San Francisco took place on 17 July 1982 and is told just as I heard it from the mouths of the survivors, except that I had to leave out some things, because if I had explicitly described the way in which many children were murdered, I think most people would have stopped reading the book."

Her research was fraught with difficulties and dangers. "I wanted to get to the Mayan village of Yalam, but the military forbade anyone from going in. Two American journalists had tried and then they had disappeared. A few years later their bodies were found – they’d been beheaded. I could get in thanks to a letter from my editor in Sweden which claimed I was writing a book on Mayan culture and wanted to look at the Mayan ruins of Yalam. At that time, there were no roads to the village so I had to walk for three days to get there, and to the neighbouring village of San Francisco, where the massacre had taken place." On another occasion, she befriended some Guatemalan nuns who lent her a habit so that she could enter a Mayan village occupied by the military, in order to gather testimonies from the indigenous people. Zak denies that she acted bravely, simply stating, "There’s a magic to not being afraid. I never imagine the bad things that could happen to me."

The Puma’s Daughter was finally published in 1986. The book was well-received in Sweden and abroad, wining several prizes for its commitment to a humanitarian cause. In 1991, Zak returned to Central America to help have her book made into a film. As the war in Guatemala was ongoing, filming had to be done in Mexico. Even so, Monica tells me it was a highly dangerous project. "We expected sabotage from the military in Guatemala because they didn’t want the story to be told. The military had come into Mexico from Guatemala to murder Guatemalan refugees before, so that was a danger. The project was kept very secret and every time a scene was completed, the roll of film was immediately sent away to Denmark."

Since then, the incredible risks taken by Monica and many others in completing the novel and film seem to have paid off. In response to the novel, an organisation called Colchaj Nac Luum (A rough translation from the Mayan language would be ‘Saved by land and freedom’) was set up in Sweden to raise money for the Mayan community Zak had written about. Almost all the money collected by the charity has been raised by Swedish school children, and has been spent on new homes, a secondary school and land for the Mayan community. The profits of every copy of The Puma’s Daughter sold in Guatemala also go towards the organisation.

The novel has now become part of the Swedish syllabus and secondary school students across the country study both the novel and the film adaptation. In fact, though her works are read by children and adults alike, the majority of Zak’s novels are aimed more specifically at children and young adults. She explains that she likes to write for younger age groups because they have been so passionate in getting involved in the causes her work deals with. "If you write for grown-ups, it just doesn’t have the same impact," she argues.

Zak is also convinced of the enduring power of novels to effect change. And as far as her own work is concerned, she seems to have a strong case for her argument. In response to her novels, a student organisation called Elevorganisationen (Organisation of the Pupils) was established, which on the 6th of May each year organises Operation Dagsverke (Operation Day-Work). Pupils take the day off school to work, and the money raised is donated to a charity in a different country each year. Zak tells me that with the money they raised for El Salvador, three dozen new schools were built.

Zak is keen to emphasise that despite the often very bleak issues she tackles in her writing, she and her works ultimately remain positive. She recalls in particular the hope she found in the children and young adults she met during her visit to El Salvador, some of whom were child soldiers, others political prisoners at just 11 years old, others orphaned by the war. "I was struck by their tragic and unbelievable lives, but also by their spark, their strength, their humour, their intelligence and their desire to live. They will never leave my memory," she tells me. "I met a boy of fourteen who’d just been let out of prison. He told me about the terrible torture he’d suffered there, and then of his dreams of a future of peace, without torture, or children in prison.

"I’ve written about war and torture, but it will always have some positive twist – it’s not completely black. I’ve found a lot of fantastic people and hope in the world, and I remain an optimistic person." With authors like Monica Zak working to make a difference it seems that this hope is gradually being made reality.

A spokesperson for the University said, "The University of Oxford is committed to the principle of free speech and appreciates that everyone has the right to express their views and participate in lawful and peaceful protests. At the same time, people must be able to go about their everyday business in Oxford’s city centre without feeling intimidated or harassed by protesters."
He stated that the University had not been criticised by the judge during the trial. "It’s an operational matter for the police. It’s not something that we need to comment on. There was no suggestion by the judge of any dodgy dealings."

"This is a misrepresentation when the rest of my sentence, ‘unless the message of the gospel is brought to them’, is excluded," he said.

Homosexuality is also widespread. There are male ostriches that only court ostriches of the same gender, pairs of male flamingos that build nests, mate and even foster unwanted chicks, and same-sex chinstrap penguins who form long-term partnerships. Homosexual contact can also serve a bonding function. According to Mr Soeli, organiser of a recent exhibition on homosexuality in the animal kingdom at Oslo Natural History Museum, male big horn sheep will have sex with other males just to be accepted. The social relationships they form will later allow them closer access to the females of the flock. Closer to home, the bonobo ape, which shares 99% of our genetic makeup, will often choose same-sex action over offers from the opposite sex. Research suggests that 75% of bonobo sex is non-reproductive and that nearly all bonobos are bisexual. Devotees of sexual experimentation, these primates will use sex as way to relieve stress, regardless of prejudices or gender barriers. Perhaps slightly more worryingly, they will also attempt to mate with sexually immature apes, as will smaller seal bulls who have haven’t had much luck with the more well developed ladies.
Though the home truths brought out by scientific research into sexuality have provoked widespread controversy, they represent an important step towards the realisation that, in the animal kingdom at least, almost anything goes. The taboos that pervade human society just don’t seem to matter. Whether you’re male, female, gay, straight, faithful, promiscuous, it’s all good, and it’s certainly all natural. Perhaps my early learning with Pat Benatar was wrong after all. It’s society’s expectations and conceptions of sexuality that are the real battlefield. Love? Well, that’s another story.

Professor Barton said, "We’ve recently confirmed the date of these very ancient objects. The jewellery is 40,000 years older than the earliest examples of jewellery previously uncovered in Europe.

Still, let’s be fair and give our toilets their dues. They’re not all modernized and boring. In the Turf you still have to trek to an outhouse to relieve yourself. It’s a charming design feature I’m sure, but in my opinion it just goes to show how much we would really appreciate it if we did still have historic toilets to match our historic surroundings. I personally refused to pee in the Turf until desperation drove me to it on the third visit. That may just have been me. Nonetheless, it is perhaps better for us all that Oxford’s toilets have remained unimportant in history and thus unimportant to conservation projects.
The real truth is that Oxford’s toilets have been marginalized, not because they are unimportant (any social anthropologist will tell you that human patterns of waste disposal are integral to an understanding of their way of life) but because although the British love a good poo joke, they quickly lose their sense of humour when the joke is on them. Oxford’s toilets may have seen the buttocks of many a great man and woman, but few want their activities in these lowly outhouses recorded. Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford during the reign of Elizabeth I, exiled himself for seven years out of sheer embarrassment after he farted in front of the queen. Imagine his chagrin had he been caught with his trousers down on the loo. So Oxford’s toilets are the victim of a very different British character trait: the struggle for propriety. Some things just shouldn’t be mentioned.

The collection of biographies is available throughout June and July, alongside around 56,000 articles on influential figures in British history.