A former Balliol student who was
arrested and detained in custody for a night after calling a police horse “gay”
is now to face court. Sam Brown, who graduated with an English
degree from Oxford this year, is to appear
before a City Magistrate’s Court in London
next month after he failed to pay his fixed penalty notice of £80. He has been charged with “threatening,
abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour within the
hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment or distress” under
the Public Order Act. On the night of the incident
Brown and his friends left the Cellar bar and came across two mounted
policemen. Brown asked one of the policemen, “How do you feel about your horse
being gay?” and was arrested after repeated comments about the sexuality of the
police officer’s horse. Brown’s offer of an apology had
been rejected. He told Cherwell that he didn’t
pay his fine because at the time he had just graduated, “I had no money, had
just finished my Finals and I was skint. It wasn’t all about principle or about
the police being stupid: basically I didn’t think I should be fined.” He received his summons around
two weeks ago when he returned to Oxford
to visit friends and found that it had been left in the pigeon hole of a first
year at Balliol, also called Sam Brown. “I didn’t know it was coming, I thought
they might have dropped the charges.” Brown described the situation as “pedantic
and ridiculous” and said that the police were “relying on the point that could
have offended any passers-by at 2am on a Sunday morning. We pretty much had the
street to ourselves.” Brown said that he plans to plead not guilty. Brown said, “feel very strongly
about it, don’t want a criminal record.” said he said that he has obtained
legal advice from a barrister who feels he has a “solid” case. Daniel Konrad-Cooper,
former JCR President at Balliol who was with Brown at the time of the incident,
said, “It’s pretty ridiculous. It’ll be interesting to see how it bears up. I didn’t
think it warranted him being arrested, didn’t think it warranted six police
officers and I didn’t think it warranted a night in the cells.” The current JCR of Balliol, Triona
Giblin, agreed, “I think it’s a bit of a shame that something so obviously a
joke which was not meant to be offensive was taken out of all proportion.”ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

Students from St Hilda’s College
have this week reacted angrily after Cherwell’s Passé Notes last week contained irreverent comments
about the College.The article, written by Simon Akam,
Cherwell Features Editor, described the
college as perennially placed “in the Vauxhall conference of the Oxford academic league”
due to the fact that “they just haven’t got any boys to get Firsts for them.”The article also stated that “few
of the beasts grazing the banks of the Cherwell are particularly leggy or
graceful, unless they happen to be an errant deer from Magdalen.” Akam’s
comments have provoked a barrage of letters to the Cherwell editors. In a joint letter Sophie
Brighouse and Sophie Griffiths, both students at St Hilda’s, described the
article as “superficial, sexist and utterly pointless.”They added: “would like to
suggest that an Oxford
University college is
perhaps more than an institution in which to find the ‘particularly leggy’. I would
even go so far as to claim that lumping people together by sexuality may not be
the most mature or politically correct thing to do.”Alice Ramsay, another student at
said: “Last year, in Literature alone, seven people from got a First in their
Finals. So, it seems that students at St Hilda’s don’t need ‘boys to get Firsts
for them’ after all.” Georgie Edwards and Tamsin Chislett, Entz Reps, added “Obviously,
we generally wish to avoid being hypocritical about expressing stereotypes, but
the author may wish to ask LMH what it feels like to be at the bottom of the
Norrington Table, because frankly, we Hildabeasts wouldn’t know.”Akam also informed his readers
that “contrary to popular belief, and the pictures in the alternative prospectus
of drunken girl-on-girl twister action, not all students are lesbians. With
such a foreign legion present many of them are bi…lingual.”To this, Edwards and Chislett
retorted: “is it our fault that we enjoy the occasional naked pillow fight?! If
we didn’t feel that such activities were met with the current level of
negativity within the University, we’d invite more of you to join in.”Simon Akam said “is unfortunate that
the students of are perhaps not taking the column in the manner in which it was
intended. I, however, have absolutely no desire to get involved in further
discussions.”Cherwell editors, Luke Alexander and
George Davies, defended their decision to print last week’s Notes, saying in a
joint statement: “Clearly the piece itself was just a bit of banter. All
colleges suffer some form of stereotyping, for example Jesus as ‘sheepshaggers’,
St Hugh’s for its close proximity to Birmingham, but apparently some take these
things more seriously than others. We hope that at some point in the future,
the good women of St Hilda’s will find it in their hearts to forgive us.”ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

The Oxford City NHS Primary Care Trust
(PCT) is looking to create a unified health centre in Oxford
by 2012 to replace GP practices around Oxford.The PCT is a health trust that
works on cases outside hospitals. It is currently in talks with the local
community to decide upon the best site for a local health centre. The OUSU Vice
President (Welfare and Equal Opportunities), Aidan Randle-Conde, has been
requested to find out where students wish to have the central health centre
located. Aidan has sent an email to all JCR
Presidents and college Welfare Officers asking them to discuss the PCT plans at
their next JCR meetings. He wrote, “The plans are to move local GP practices
from across Oxford (Jericho, Beaumont Street etc) to a central site on
the Radcliffe Infirmary site.” There are currently four plans
under consideration: to move all facilities to a) the Radcliffe Infirmary (RI)
site; b) to the RI site and the Wellington Square site; c) to the site and the Tidmarsh
Lane site; or d) to renovate existing facilities. The PCT hopes to use feedback
from the local community, including students, whom they feel should be integral
to their decision making process, to decide between one of these four options. Melanie Proudfoot, Communications
Manager for the PCT, said, “Many current GP practices are in old buildings
which need to be replaced.” The PCT is “planning to put them onto the Radcliffe
Infirmary site or onto another site so that we can develop their facilities and
allow other facilities to expand.” This will also prevent students
and patients from having to “travel around different locations,” and will
provide “many different health services in one complex.” She added that
therapies, such as psychotherapy, currently provided in Churchill or Headington,
and X-rays provided by the John Radcliffe, would be on one site and so save
people an extra journey. The closer health care facilities
will be welcomed by many Oxford
students who currently have to travel long distances to get to their GP. Laura Callaghan-Pace,
a second year at St Hilda’s, said that the Oxford health care system was “horrendous”
after she spent much of last term trying to cope with illness. “I had to trek
all the way to the Radcliffe Infirmary and then up Banbury Road to see my GP, and then to Headington.”
Laura thinks it would be “beneficial and very useful to have everything on the
same site”. However, Adam Kelly, Welfare Representative
of St Anne’s College said, “believe students are quite happy with the current
system as our local health centre is a one minute walk away from the College.”The JCR President of St Peter’s College
Omar Shekwini, said he was pleased that the health care trust was consulting
students “if this is a genuine means of determining what students think.” Oxford students will have
to wait to see whether their opinions do affect the PCT’s decision.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

The Duke of Edinburgh visited St Catherine’s college last Friday to of­ficially open the new buildings. On his tour, The Duke met groups of students and staff as well as alumni and those who had contributed to the construc­tion project.On his tour, the Duke arrived, accompanied by the Master of the College, at the bedroom planned for him to visit, which had been cleaned a painted for theoccasion. The door was found to be locked, forcing the com­pany to take a detour to a neighbouring room belonging to Faizal Patel.Patel told Cherwell “My room was messy and it smelt of smoke from a shi­sha session from the night before. The Duke asked me where I’m from and what I do. He was very friendly and laid back.” He continued, “He then looked at my shisha pipe and asked, ’I hope you’re not involved in this sort of activity, are you?’ I think he thought it was some sort of bong so replied, ’Na, don’t worry, it’s not for weed: it’s shisha, an Arab flavoured smoking tradition.’ One of the Duke’s entourage said, ’Oh yes, I believe they call it hubbly-bubbly?’ to which I answered in the affirmative.“The Duke, then said to the Master, ’So, you allow students to do this sort of
thing?’ and the Master responded with, ’I guess we’ll have to take his word he
uses it for what he says he does.’” Patel said of his encounter with royalty, “The Duke was pretty cool. It was a pretty funny situation. My biggest regret is that didn’t offer him a toke of the shisha!”Professor Roger Ainsworth, Master of Catz said, "it was a great pleasure to have our visitor His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh come to open our new buildings." JCR president, David Craddock, said “The Duke was on good form, and seemed to be thor­oughly enjoying himself. He was quick, witty and direct, and appreciated those who responded in the same fashion.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

A Senior Tribunal has overruled the “students for
students” refer­endum, proposed by Charlie Steel two weeks ago, which was due
to be put to the student vote at the same time as Thursday’s OUSU election. The
referendum asked for the OUSU constitution to be amended to prevent OUSU from
having policies “on issues which do not directly affect Oxford students”. The
OUSU president, Emma Nor­ris, stated that OUSU “officers have been subject to…
late night phone calls, threats of legal action against individuals, slander
and childish public insults” as part of the contro­versy surrounding the
referendum. As
a result, the tribunal (com­posed of senior members of the University)
pronounced on Mon­day that it is preventing the ref­erendum from going ahead. 500
signatures of University stu­dents needed to be presented to OUSU before 12pm a
fortnight be­fore the elections to ratify the motion. OUSU dismissed the
petition, which had 511 signatories, because it was handed in one hour and
forty min­utes after the deadline. A junior tri­bunal later overruled the
decision of the Returning Officer, and the details of the referendum were
published, along with adverts for the Yes and No campaigns, in last week’s
OxStu. Controversy
followed as there were claims that the wording of the referendum, which can be
altered at the discretion of the president and Returning Officer, changed its
substance. Charlie steel, the referendum’s organiser and a member of OUSU’s
part-time exec, said, “it was outrageous. It completely reversed the point of
the referendum in the first place.” Steel
submitted an amendment to OUSU council last Friday, but it was “shot down”. The
Yes campaign team, including and those who submitted the motion, then decided
that because the referendum had been so “perverted”, they would actively
campaign against its being passed. The
OUSU Returning Officer, Daryl Leeworthy, then took the case to Senior Tribunal which
up­held the original complaint that the motion had been submitted af­ter the
deadline and cancelled the referendum. The Senior Tribunal ruled on Monday that
“the Return­ing Officer was right to apply to the referendum the noon
deadline”. Norris
told Cherwell, “am bring­ing a motion to OUSU Council in 7th Week asking
for the referen­dum to be held next term. It is a discussion which ought to be
had.” She believes that the referendum will “help the Student Union en­gage in
discussion about its aims”. She
added, “The way certain indi­viduals have behaved throughout the election
period has been deplorable. Gossip forums and papers have been rife with
misleading information.“I’m
not interested in fighting and name-calling: running cam­paigns and services
that matter to students is achieved through discussion and commitment, not
self-important showdowns.” Steel
said he was not consider­ing appealing the decision of the Senior Tribunal although
he was “disappointed” by it. He claims that the handling of the issue was not
“fair” or “democratic” and that he was “hindered at every possible corner in
tabling this referendum.” He further told Cherwell that the event “shows
how much OUSU resists change and won’t even let change be discussed.” He described
OUSU as projecting a “very insu­lar” image, battling for “its own agenda.” But
he concluded that sup­port among students for the refer­endum was strong
(having obtained 511 signatures in support) and that the “war will be won” next
term.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

The majority of Oxford students are in favour of the University
carrying out research on animals. A Cherwell opinion poll consulted students
from a range of subjects and colleges across the University. Almost 86% were in
favour of the using animals for research, 11.4% were not and 2.9% said they did
not know. Student opinion on the animal research facility on South Parks Road showed a similar pattern
of results: 84.8% said that the building should be completed, 10.4% that it
should not and 4.8% that they did not know. A spokeswoman said that the University
welcomed the findings of the survey “as a demonstration that students are
thinking carefully about the issue of animal research.” She added, “While there
was no directconsultation with students on the
[animal research] policy, many of those involved in drawing up the policy
teach, and research alongside, student members. Surveys and articles in the
student media are one way of the University continuing a dialogue on this
important issue with its student members.”The survey has prompted reactions
from both sides of the animal research debate. Adolfo Sansolini, the Chief Executive
of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection said, “We are
disappointed to see that the brightest stars of tomorrow, students at Oxford University,
according to this poll are still wedded to the animal model despite evidence
that it is failing, irrelevant and outmoded.” Edward Higbee, a student at St Edmund
Hall, told Cherwell, “Of course the University should
continue to carry out animal research. First, because it is essential for
medical progress, and second, because we cannot allow ourselves to be
threatened by the terrorists who burnt the boathouses and damaged University property.”Of 1,100 students contacted by Cherwell, 210 took part in the survey.
This is the first time that Oxford
University students have
had the opportunity for their views on the University’s animal research policy
to be heard. Just over one in ten students said they were against animal
research at Oxford Matthew Treece, a student at Keble, said, “I for one do not
believe for a second that most animal experiments are anywhere near to being
necessary… The University is up its own arse, and thinks it can dictate to its
lowly undergraduates what they will and will not think, which is really rather
shocking.” A spokeswoman for the Research Defence
Society, Barbara Davies, said, “Oxford University has a proud tradition in
medical research which spans the development of penicillin in 1940 right up to
the surgical technique of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease sixty
years later: both these developments depended crucially on animals. The new
research centre will not only further such research, but will provide top class
facilities for the animals, an aspect that the animal rights extremists
apparently choose to ignore.”The University predicts that 98%
of the animals housed in the new animal research facility on South Parks Road will be rodents and
fish. In addition, there may also be some amphibians, ferrets, rabbits and,
most controversially, primates. The new building will bring about the closure
of several animal facilities currently dispersed throughout the science area. At
the moment the construction of the biomedical research building has stalled
because of the activities of animal rights protesters. A University spokeswoman
said, “The University remains totally committed to this project, but for
security reasons we are unable to discuss when work will resume.”Responses to the survey varied
widely. Some were flippant: “All animals die. So what?” Others were philosophical:
“Kantianism for human beings – Utilitarianism for animals!”One respondent commented that the
questions used in the survey were worded too narrowly. Though the survey
contained no mention of them, a large proportion of students responded with
strong views about animal rights extremists. Many said that the arson of the
Longbridges boathouses by the Animal Liberation Front had only served to
increase their support for the University’s animal research policy.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

Exeter
College became the love capi­tal of Oxford on Saturday
morning when a number of the college’s Freshers got married to one another.The
ceremony was conducted by ‘Father’ Chris Beaumont and ‘Father’ Henry Taysom,
both of whom are priests of the Universal Life Church of California, as well as
being stu­dents at the College.They
received their calling into the priesthood via the ‘instant ordi­nation’ link
on the church’s website just under two weeks ago. Saturday’s wedding service,
which saw more than thirty couples tie the knot, is their first since joining
the ‘clergy’. Each couple will receive a certificate which officially registers
their mar­riage in the church. Father
Beaumont said, “If we had been in California
all we would need to do is to obtain the consent of the state senator, and the
marriage would have actually been legally binding!”The
University Life Church of California is well established in the USA. The church
is said to take a lib­eral stance on such issues as same sex marriages and
bigamy.However,
while the exchanged matrimonial vows might be legally binding in the newly
wedded Exonians are only bound to remain together as college parents to their
college children – that is, the Freshers arriving next year.Father Taysom stated, “The honey­moon starts now. I should
therefore expect all husbands to be fulfilling their matrimonial duty of
playing with their wives. ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

Jeremy Paxman, veteran
presenter of BBC’s Newsnight and an eminent, if abrasive, character among the
media’s great and good, has warned Oxford
students away from a media career in the introduction to the latest univer­sity
career guide.In
his email to the publication, Paxman branded the media as “un­derpaid and
oversubscribed” and ad­vised those thinking about a career in the industry to
do something “worth­while” with their lives. He warns that otherwise, they may
find they have “no career prospects beyond the age of forty.”The
guide, written by both Ox­ford and Cambridge student unions,
asked Paxman to contribute to its section on careers in the media. His
vitriolic response said that he could see “absolutely no point at all” in a
handbook that gives any prominence to a career in the media. He claimed that
television is dominated by “su­perannuated Marxists” and that “some newspapers
are no better”. “For
heaven’s sake,” the graduate and honorary Fellow of Oxford’s St Edmund Hall
contin­ued, “steer the students of Oxbridge away from the media: there are far
too many people clamouring to get in. If they’re successful, most will find
themselves producing garbage for cynics who think the only way to advance is to
pander to the lowest common denominator.”Paxman’s
comments then appeared in the foreword of the twenty-sixth annual edition of
the publication, which was distributed to undergradu­ates last week.The
guide’s editors, Katrina Beech­ley and James Pallister, said that the aim of
the handbook is to provide “a broad overview of each of the sectors” for
students who may be “insecure and anxious about the future”. Mark Calvert,
editor of Five News, re­sponded to his comments, saying, “you are good at what
you do, you can have a long and fulfilling career.” He also pointed out that
“it’s a bit rich that he said there were no career pros­pects beyond the age of
forty – here’s a man in his fifties still at the top of his game.” A
number of Oxford
graduates pursue careers in the media, with lat­est figures showing that 3%
enter the media as their first destination after graduation, and many more
entering the industry after some form of fur­ther study. Jonathon
Theodore, Cherwell Dep­uty Editor, who is considering a career in media,
commented “it is a shame that this single opinion has become representative for
an entire publica­tion. Whilst a student interested in the media like myself
appreciates the frank honesty of a highly informed source like Jeremy I really
hope it won’t put people off.”When
asked whether he had been perturbed by the foreward, he re­sponded “if anything,
it has made me want it even more as now realise just how hard will have to
fight to beat off the competition, and that will have to be prepared to take
the rough with the smooth in this career.”The
foreword to last year’s guide was written by Prime Minister, and Oxford graduate, Tony
Blair. The guide is produced in association with the careers departments of
both Universities, as well as the Student Unions.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

Magdalen
Bridge faces closure on May Day next
year after mounting pressure by Thames
Valley police to prevent
a repeat occurrence of this year’s celebra­tions, when forty people were
injured. Some
eight thousand people gathered on Magdalen
Bridge on May eve and
more than a hundred people jumped 25ft from the bridge into the river, which
was less than 3ft deep in some places. Talks have been taking place between the
police, the university and other local authorities to help avoid a repeat of
these injuries. A
motion brought before the county council in June was defeated by 41 votes to
22, however documents released to The times this week have shown that a series
of debates are ongoing between local authorities, with the police sup­porting
closure. The chief constable of police, peter Neyroud, said he “would rather
answer angry letters about clo­sure than face a court proceeding after the
incident.” Superintendent
Jim Trotman, area Commander for Oxford,
told Cherwell "We want everyone to have a safe event but the
jumping conflicts with [that]. I cannot see any other safe course of action
than to shut the bridge." He added, "we don’t want to be killjoys but
it’s about public safety and last year was unacceptable." Trotman noted
the "impact of fifty or sixty injuries on the emergency services’ ability
to deal with other incidents in the county." A
spokesperson from Oxfordshire county council said, “The county Council has
powers to close a bridge if it is assessed that there would be a dangerous
crush or if too many people were on the bridge. However there needs to be a
common view on the way forward." Matt
Sellwood, a Green party Councillor for Holywell ward, which includes Magdalen Bridge, said, “I do not believe that the
bridge should be closed on May Day. I would certainly encourage all students
not to jump… but I think that it is perfectly possible to preserve this
traditional ceremony while still preventing people from jumping.” A
spokesperson for Oxford
University said, “There
have been no decisions at this point about next year. The issue is under
discussion with all representatives from the police, council, university,
Magdalen college, security, ambulance and fire services.”ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005