It’s never a good idea to let the newspapers make your decisions for you. If you were to believe everything you read in the daily of your choice, the country would be divided into some pretty interesting little groups. Telegraph readers wouldbe convinced that the Tories, under Boris Johnson,  were about to win the next election, Daily Mail readers would be sure that their Great Little Island was being overrun by a plague of illegal immigrants, and Sun readers – well, the people who look at its pictures, anyway – would know for sure that the England were going to win Euro 2004 and the next World Cup to boot. And as the public repsonse to Robert Kilroy-Silk’s recent gratuitous anti-Arab rant in the Daily Express has shown, most agree that Muslims are a universally dangerous people hell-bent on destroying the West.While the rabid opinions of the majority of the papers can be more or less ignored, the repercussions
 of September 11th and the subsequent rise in terrorist incidents around the globe directed at "Western” targets are having an effect on independent travellers. Bookings are down, flights are being delayed or cancelled while security checks are carried out, armed police are keeping watch at
UK airports, travellers in America are being finger-printed and photographed for security reasons, and western targets abroad – embassies, expensive hotels and nightclubs popular with westerners are being deliberately targeted by al-Qaeda and its constituent lunatics. You can’t go abroad, it seems, without either being blown up, shot at, or having your plane vapourised by some crackpot with a pound of Semtex stuffed inside his Hush Puppies. You might be safer going on holiday to Greenland for a few years, or even spending the time hiding under your kitchen table with your fingers in your ears. Fewer risks, you see.These risks are probably not as great as people think. The vast majority of the world is almost devoid of any threat whatsoever, and the level of threat in much of the rest of the world is rarely more than low. The terrible bombings in Istanbul last year did change the picture, however. Turkey is on the borders of Europe and soon to become part of the continent, and one of the targets was the HSBC bank; for the first time a British target had been deliberately picked out.But setting aside for a moment all the media hype and the sinister videos of bin Laden encouraging
Muslims across the world to rise up and destroy the West, has the outlook for travellers actually changed much since September 11th? It would seem not. As the recent controversy over BA flight 223 to Washington showed, thes security services are listening to terrorist plans and are usually aware ofvany major plans before they can be carried out. Armed flight marshals are already being used on American airliners and will shortly be employed on British planes as well, so in fact our aeroplanes are probably even safer than they were before September 11th.Only a few countries are genuinely “off the map” for independent travellers. Even countries like Syria  and Iran that continually refuse to bow to American demands for their immediate disarmament aren’t regarded as dangerous to the solo traveller, and reports from people who have been there are almost universally favourable; some people even recall watching public demonstrations against America and Britain and then being warmly welcomed by the people who, minutes before, had been screaming their hatred of the country they had just come from. The impact of terrorism on individual countries is much worse. Third World countries like Kenya and Tanzania which rely so heavily on safari-going tourists to bring in much-needed funds are suffering heavily as terrorist threats and flight cancellations abound. While opportunists would say that the inevitable price-slashing merely gives tourists a better deal, it also means that operators are more likely to cut corners to maximise their profits, which, in countries where countless fragile ecosystems are under threat from exploitative tourism, is never a good thing.With careful planning and sensible precautions, the individual traveller should have few problems, in spite of the impression that the media may give you. Look at it like this: are you really going to let a bearded lunatic with dodgy personal hygiene and a penchant for hiding in Afghan caves ruin your trip of a lifetime? Thought not…
Archive: oth week HT 2004

It seems extremism in all shapes and forms is permeating so many aspects of our lives these days; aside from the everyday worries of horrendous working hours and fanatical dieting, it has also got something of a stranglehold on entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for one minute your pipe-and-slippers type, but forgive me for thinking that watching pranksters throwing themselves down flights of concrete steps on snowboards and people voluntarily hoisting themselves into small glass boxes and starving themselves for weeks is getting just a little bit wearying. The latest addition to the ranks of those who will seemingly do anything to get on television is the cast of yet another reality show, Channel 4’s Shattered. Bereft of the brain-splattering possibilities of Derren Brown’s Russian Roulette set-piece, the producers obviously thought they still had a cunning gimmick to save this one from mediocrity. Not only were the contestants the usual mixed bag of urban innocents and serial killers in-the-making we have come to expect from such shows, they were also prohibited from sleep for eight days and seven nights. But what could have been an intriguing and informative psychological documentary was dumbed-down into a second-rate game show. As if the likes of Big Brother hadn’t sent us into enough of a stupor, we now got to watch a few lacklustre Joe Publics yawning at each other every night. Hardly extreme enough to grab an audience.Then again, what would? Obvious ethical barriers prevent human subjects from participating in the kinds of experiments conducted on animals that would provide the high-risk hit we're assumed to crave. One test by scientists from the University of Chicago deprived rats of sleep by placing them on a wheel above a pool of water; if they tried to rat-nap, the wheel was turned and they would have to walk in order to stay on it. After two weeks, the sleep-famished rats mysteriously died. Although two episodes of Shattered later, I felt like doing the same – surely just a strange coincidence. The issue here, though, is not that the multiplying breed of programmes centred on extreme stamina and crazy feats needs to be made more intense to draw audiences; they need to be completely replaced. The format thrives on its ability to offer something unusual, but there has been such a flock to shock in the media recently that people are simply becoming numb to it. As a novelty, people doing crazy stunts for exorbitant cash wasn’t a bad idea; natural human curiosity (or was it voyeurism?) made sure the first batch of these offerings succeeded. But we’ve already seen how the ratings dropped when Big Brotherdecided to cash-in with yet another series, and how badly Jackass: The Movie flopped – the more we see people trying to reach those elusive “extremes,” the more it becomes run-of-the-mill. And for many of us, Fear Factor’s idea of making people hurl themselves between speedboats at full pelt before force-feeding them maggots is hardly great entertainment. Hopefully, plummeting interest in most other TV-endorsed extreme stunts should persuade the hyperactive commissioning bods to can the tedium and take a valium. Would you be content with watching a blue movie instead of doing the real thing? Thought not. So why watch others having all the fun? Snowboarding, parachuting, bungee-jumping; whatever takes your fancy, get the rush firsthand. But better, if you can’t join them, beat them. My award goes to the punter who, having obviously heard of nothing more ridiculous than starving yourself in a box over the Thames, hovered a remote-controlled helicopter/Big Mac combination outside Blaine’s box. In a truly British welcome, our favourite mad magician was made to endure not only this airborne temptation but also the usual projectile eggs, tomatoes, Paul McCartney insults and the lure of a burger van parked directly beneath him, replete with the smell of freshlycooked hotdogs.His girlfriend complained that the New York public “gave Blaine peace” when he pulled a similar stunt in the
States. What can I say? They also lap up Jackass…Archive: 0th week HT 2004

The problem with extreme sex is that I’m not entirely convinced such a thing exists. If anything, it conjures ludicrous images of overweight women dressed as ponies, pasty businessmen rolling around ecstatically beneath stiletto heels and that old favourite: nails being hammered into penises. I, for one, have never hammered a nail into a penis, although to be fair, I’ve never hammered a nail into anything. I’m not really into DIY.It soon becomes clear that there are no markers by which extremity can actually be determined, whether in sexual terms or any other. You might say pony play, being stood on a leatherbound dominatrix and having someone hang a nice watercolour from your dick is pretty extreme but, if you asked me, I’d say it was pretty silly. But extremity is not necessarily dictated by the weirdness of an act so much as the intensity of the experience.For example, I have a friend who seems to have recently undergone a bit of a Sandra Dee transformation. From a cute, exceptionally devout Christian, she’s now a bi-curious beguiler with a penchant for corsetry – and we say amen to that. Recently she regaled us with the story of the time she went down on a guy while he was driving. Not so very extreme, nevertheless, she was flushed and giggly and obviously thrilled to bits with her own audacity. But this is what it’s all about. Daring to do something that your own hang-ups or boundaries would normally prevent you experiencing, I have a long string of Catholic lovers behind me (what can I say? It’s the guilt thing, makes me horny) and, without fail, their ultimate dirty thrill is always Doing It somewhere in a church, preferably the very church where they sing in the choir on a Sunday. The altar, of course, for those with real courage of conviction. I’ve never been struck by lightning, but then again, I am an atheist. It’s hellish on the knees, though, all those hard surfaces.Of course, deliberately venturing beyond what the Americans would term “your comfort zones” is bound to carry a certain amount of risk. Of course, all the best things do, within reason. I would hope that, as well as the urge to try and copulate interestingly with as many people as possible, preferably simultaneously, some of us were at least granted a modicum of common sense. But herein, I suspect, lies part of the appeal of, for lack of a better term, what you might call kink. BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism) offers an opportunity to explore and, perhaps even travel beyond, your boundaries in what should hopefully be a safe environment.Like almost everything else in the world, BDSM represents a spectrum of experience, from owning a fully equipped bondage dungeon to an inclination for making your lover beg for fulfilment. And, again, it can allow you to discover, on an individual level, what, for you, is a sexual extreme. For some this may be no more than lying still beneath a lover’s caresses, for others it may be the dark austerity of pain, for some the heady self- abandonment of complete immobilisation, for some the sexual drama, for others the prickling of uncertainty or the whisper of fear that comes even when, rationally, you know there’s nothing to be afraid of… and all this without the risk of motoring accidents.Archive: 0th week HT 2004

This nefarious exploration of all things savage is a deliberately perverse piece, to such an extent that to grasp either where it’s coming from or what it’s meant to say is analagous to an exercise in enigmatic code-cracking. Ian and Cate enter a minimalist set, and before a word is spoken, we are struck by his brashness and her meekness, a combination which promotes fear from the start. Their sordid relationship is exposed, the play then skirting over bigotry, disabilites, terminal illness, and vicious sex, before a sudden shift to a crude examination of the effects of civil war. Through repeated rape, violence, and sickening imagery, playwright Sarah Kane attempts to expose modern civilisation. The acting of the three cast members is of a very high standard, and the directing by John Walton is strong. The body language of Charlotte Covel (Cate) is particularly effective for revealing the personality of her character. Her exploration of the hotel room and thumb-sucking reveal Cate’s child-like side. Andy King maintains a powerfully versatile portrayal of gun-brandishing Ian’s mood swings. But Ian is always more threatening when he puts the gun down and menacingly undresses in front of the unwilling Cate. The ceremonial undressing and redressing, which Ian uses in an attempt to entice Cate, seems to replace and animalise their colloquial discourse. The violence in the play, both shown and recollected, is unmitigated. We feel the sexual acts Ian forces on Cate are only a prelude to the entrance of the brutal soldier (Devesh Patel). Kane seeks a raw realism through nudity and violence, but the unrelenting surge of emotions is first stomach- turning and then tedious. However, the lack of relief from brutality does give the audience a feeling of what the constant fear of war is like. Whether thegraphic nastiness constantly shown and spoken of in the play is needed is another question. The description of events is even more upsetting than the events themselves. However, all the sex and blood utilised by Blasted does not succeed in highlighting anything new of relevance to an audience. We need not be personally introduced to fictional debauchery and bestiality to understand the horror of real occurrences. Our imagination, like the playwright’s, can create something far more horrifying than anything produced on stage.The play has the germ of a laudable concept, but the script is infected by a lack of substance. The audience is witness to death, rape, necrophilia, and the cannibalisation of a baby , all without clearly expressed meaning. The play does not even merit the dubious dignity of being branded sensationalist; it is not shocking but plainly absurd, rather a curious mixture of Sex And The City meets the Slater sisters.Archive: 0th HT 2004

The mother of Edmund Sutton, an Oxford student killed in a car crash last year, has expressed her anger and grief after the Cambridge student responsible was fined just £250. Georgia Sutton told Cherwell that the outcome of the hearing was “a disgrace to Edmund’s name” and said that the family was “shocked and devastated.”

Edmund Sutton, ex-President of the Oxford University Conservative Association(OUCA) and Magdalen Classics finalist, died after the car in which he was travelling came off the road and hit a tree last New Year. He was twenty-one. The driver, Andrew Ring, was initially charged with causing death by dangerous driving, but last Friday the charge was dropped. Instead Ring pleaded guilty to the lesser crime of careless driving. He was fined £250, with £83 costs and banned from driving for a year.

Mrs. Sutton said that the fact the initial charges had been dropped due to lack of evidence was “ridiculous.” She said “Andrew admitted that he asked Edmund and his girlfriend to sing to keep him awake. They saw he was sleepy and told him to stop and have coffee, but he didn’t.” “I blame the parents,” she added. “It is wrong to give children cars until they have had enough experience of driving on the motorway. They have a lot to answer for.”

Ring was driving home from a New Year’s Eve party and had complained of tiredness when he clipped the road’s central reservation and lost control of the car as it spun across the carriageway. The three others in the vehicle, including Sutton’s girlfriend Miranda, walked away from the crash unhurt, but Sutton was killed instantly.

Ring accepted responsibility for causing the death by a “momentary lapse of concentration.” Mrs. Sutton said that her son was “a very modest person who took his time to talk to people. We have lost a son who had a great future before him.” Friend Anatole Pang said it was not useful to blame any individual for the accident, paying tribute to a “dear friend who  always had time to listen and whose support was faultlessly genuine even in social circles that were not.” Another friend Marc Stoneham said that Sutton was “trustworthy, talented, kind and generous” and “very much missed by all who knew him.” Barrister Tom Kirk said, “Ring has enormous regret for the pain and suffering he has caused Edmund’s family.”Sutton was a chorister, footballer, debater and was described as a “rising star” of the Conservative Party by ex-leader, Iain Duncan Smith.ARCHIVE: 0th Week HT 2004

Left turn Oriel JCR is considering the use of legal force against College bursars. Oriel looks set to take the Estate Bursars Committee to the Monopolies Commission over price-fixing in College. However, some students seemed doubtful about the protest, saying, “This is likely to lead to short shrift from the College,” said one member of the JCR, “as our provost chairs the Commission.”Time bomb A time capsule containing controversial items is to be buried in the building site at St. Anne’s College. Future generations of students will be able to marvel at artefacts representing College life circa 2003. Amongst the JCR list of items are a bottle of Pimm’s, an “inflammatory Cherwell article or two” regarding the building project and a fresher’s week T-shirt.Boob rep Attempts to place the female figure at the front of LMH’s image failed at the weekend when Catrin Llewelyn deemed herself unworthy of the title “Boob Rep,” despite being universally considered to have “a pert and luscious pair”. The ensuing debate collapsed when it was realised that no fair judgement could be made without the comparative viewing of all female breasts in the room in order to find any hidden beauties with a claim to the title.Shell-shocked Balliol amateur detectives have been set on the trail to find the thieves of their pet tortoise Rosa. One fresher was convinced that she could not possibly have wandered off. “We’d have soon found her, she’s not that speedy,” he said. Attention has turned to arch-rivals Trinity and tortoise-racing foes Corpus Christi. Tortoise shell, when powdered, is a highly potent aphrodisiac, a clue that leads many students to suspect their sex-starved Broad Street neighbours. Speaking to Cherwell Kate Sagovsky fumed “I am very disappointed that Rosa was stolen by those ruffians.” “Trinity ruffians,” interjected another furious fresher.ARCHIVE: 1st Week MT2003 

Top college chiefs are pushing the University towards privatisation in a blow to both government tuition-fee plans and the student campaign against top-up fees. Speaking at a major educational conference, Lord Butler of Brockwell, Master of University College, asserted that students with the ability to pay the realistic cost of their education and accomodation charges must be charged in full. In conversation with Cherwell Lord Butler stated that the government proposals “fall between two stools. £3 000 per student would not solve Oxford’s problems, and the charges would act as a dissinsentive to those from poorer families.” He made no qualms over highlighting his College’s financial woes, suggesting that student and government payments contrribute only 53% of the actual costs. “Many students would be able and willing to pay more,” he added, “Such a move would also solve the current problems over increasing rent charges.” However Butler made it clear that this was not a case of the rich subsidising the poor as fees would be limited according to the cost of their course. He added, “No-one would be more delighted than me if costs were paid through taxation, but education funding is understandably spent at more electorally popular levels.” The plan proposed by Butler, a former head of the Civil Service, has been supported by other wardens, principals and masters. In an unpublished paper, prompted by current debate, David Palfreyman, New College bursar, divides students into three groups according to their parents combined annual income. Students from “Rich England” whose parents earned £150 000 per year would be expected to pay up to £15 000 in annual tution fees, “Middle England” (earnings £75 000+ pro annum) would pay up to £10 000 whilst those earning between £30 000 – £50 000 would pay £1 500 – £3 500+. Families earning less than £25 000 would pay nothing. Dame Jessica Rawson, Warden of Merton, believes the shortfall of funding is even greater, arguing that the government is unable to provide for Oxford’s unique style of teaching. “The current [Government’s] proposals would not benefit colleges at all”, she claimed. Academic inclinations towards the private setting of charges comes in light of the increasing likelihood that the government proposals to charge students a potential £3 000 a year will suffer defeat at the hands of rebellious Labour back benchers. Alan Ryan, warden of New College said that he was in favour of Oxford charging higher fees than other universities because of the long term benefits of a prestigious degree. Proposals such as these would put Oxford on par wth the Ivy League universities, charging up to £18 000. The lure of doubled salaries, job security and reasearch grants has resulted in a growing exodus of academics to America. Recent Nobel prize winner Sir John Sulston was educated at Oxford but produced his breakthrough research at Illinois University whilst ex-Oxford historian Niall Ferguson has also crossed the Atlantic to continue his research. OUSU President Helena Puig Larrauri doubted the credibility of these proposals. In this weeks Funding and Finance Campaign, she told members that “the plans are not only wrong, they are unfeasable”. However David Palfreyman had a chilling warning for both students and the government alike, “If fees are not brought in, Oxford will run itself into the ground. The rich kids a will go to America and we will become like the grotty European universities”.ARCHIVE: 1st Week MT2003 

Oxford students were portrayed as molly-coddled and spoon-fed by the national press last week in the wake of foiled plans by the Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) to ferry freshers a mere 500 metres by bus “in case they got lost.” The plan was intended to make the “trip to OUSU offices part of the freshers’ fair experience,” as well as to alert freshers to the new location of the offices in Bonn Square. But the project had to be cancelled just a day before the event after it emerged that Stagecoach Oxford had overlooked Oxford City Council’s stringent environmental regulations and “forgot” to ask the Council’s permission to drive through the city centre. The debacle provoked ridicule in the national press, with both The Daily Telegraph and the Oxford Mail stressing OUSU’s lack of confidence in their students. Student Union representatives have emphatically denied that they underestimated freshers’ intelligence and have accused The Daily Telegraph of misquoting OUSU President Helena Puig Larrauri’s fears that freshers would be unable to find their way. Nicola Johns, a fresher at Keble College, declared herself “insulted” by the plans, saying, “I’m sure that if they provided freshers with a map we could find our way around.” Fellow fresher Natalie Cobden said, “Everyone here should be intelligent enough to find their own way.” The project’s failure has left many freshers without the annual Oxford Handbook, which OUSU had planned to distribute as part of the bus scheme. When asked why no contingency plans had been made to replace the buses, OUSU said that it had considered a walking tour but had rejected the idea as “too labour intensive.” Although OUSU guides were stationed along the High Street, it is feared that the collapse of the scheme has compromised freshers’ overall awareness of OUSU’s location and function. No new plans have been made to distribute the handbooks and freshers are being asked to find the organisation’s new offices to collect it for themselves. David Whitley, Stagecoach manager, has accepted responsibility for the mistake, saying that the company should have been “more sensible.” However, he went on to say that the issue was “not a matter of blame” and implied that media hype had been the real reason behind the Council’s ban. The situation has also provoked an attack on OUSU’s environmental policies. Paul Sargent, City Councillor for Carfax, emphasised the high rate of pollution in the city and said that “OUSU needed to think more carefully” about their potential solutions. Due to Oxford’s complex one-way systems, the proposed bus route would have been over three times the length of the pedestrian route, raising fears over congestion. “We try to preserve the city centre by licensing only local buses to drive through the city centre,” he said. “This scheme does not comply with our regulations.” The oversight has attracted criticism from within OUSU’s own ranks. James Blackburn, Co-chair of the Environmental Committee, said that they had not been consulted about the issue and called the scheme a “bizarre use of resources.” “This is definitely not in the best interests of the environment,” he told Cherwell. “OUSU will have to plan more carefully next year.”ARCHIVE: 1st Week MT2003