Oxford 1Royal Navy 0Blue was the colour as Oxford met the Navy at Iffley Road on Monday. Only the sky, a pale grey pall, failed to turn a matching shade, as swirling rain and a breezy wind joined force to inhibit Oxford’s passing game, though the home side eventually triumphed with a 1-0 win.Just five days earlier, the season opener against Loughborough III had fallen decidedly flat as the game was abandoned after five minutes. If expectation and hope were the predominant emotions for the Blues at the start of the Loughborough match then these were soon replaced with expectation and hope of a very different kind with players crossing their fingers for their injured team mate, James Perkins. As the ball broke outside the area, Perkins stretched for the first real tackle of the game. It seemed an innocuous tussle and play continued as a Loughborough attacker lashed a sumptuous drive which inched the wrong side of the post for a goal kick. But that goal kick was never taken as, immediately, both team benches jumped up and hollered for an ambulance. Perkins had broken his leg in what was a morose ending to a promising match. Rustiness turned to well-oiled, lamb to lion as the Oxford beast was woken from its slumber. Aided by the gale, Simon Jalie curled a well-worked free kick over the bar, and then bulleted a shot against the opposing keeper when put through one-on-one. Routine balls over the top were turned into lethal opportunities as the soddened turf favoured the mental and physical speed of the home attack. One might have thought that the Navy would be adept at watery situations. Yet they were more barnacle than good ship as they just about managed to hold out until the break. But on 47 minutes their defence was breached. A break down the left saw Luther Sullivan slide through a simple cross for the onrushing Vince Vitale, who evaded the all-at-sea defence and slotted into the empty net. A simple goal, almost matched seconds later when the omnipresent Vitale crossed for Joel Lazarus, who thrashed a fierce drive wide. Oxford were looking comfortable, the defence in particular excelling. The wiry James Doree ranged up and down the left flank, Owen Price was superb in the air, and the team was well marshalled at the back by the pairing of Captain Jack Hazzard and Paul Rainford. The five coaches of the mariners decided to make a change, bringing on the aptly named duo of Major and Salt. With the wind in their favour they pushed back the Oxford defensive line, and only a lack of polish on their final ball stopped them from getting back into the game. Referee Taylor turned down what seemed a legitimate penalty as the Navy’s Hirst was felled after a corner. A closer escape was to follow for Oxford as their opponents had a goal ruled out when Navy captain Thomas needlessly nodded in a goalbound shot from an offside position. Oxford clung on for a win that was, on balance, deserved. With their naval foe dispatched and Perkins’ injury partly exorcised, the Blues can look forward to the rest of the season with confidence and relish.After the match, Hazzard said he was “pleased with the result more than the performance.” But, he added, “conditions were tough and I know we can play better. We just needed to get our first win of the season. Hopefully the performances will come off that.” Of Perkins’ injury, Hazzard said it was too early to comment. Cherwell would like to wish him a speedy recovery.After an execrable opening period some observers might have wished that Referee Bruce Taylor would also swiftly end the match against the Royal Navy. The Oxford machine mirrored the rusty leaves falling from the trees. The only highlight, if one can call it that, was a facial injury to a Navy player who returned to the pitch with his face plastered with tape, looking like Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. But it was Oxford who played like silent lambs until, on 25 minutes, from out of the grey, Matt Rigby bolted a 40-yard drive which cannoned back off the bar.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

Pornography is a diverse beast. The umbrella term is used to include anything from X-rated videos to vacantly grinning blondes in The Sun. Whether we choose the loaded term “porn” or the rather literary “erotica” to describe explicit material, it is safe to say men are the main consumers, while women rarely do more than titter over the occasional Levi jeans hunk.Still, the age-old stereotype of pornography perusal is changing. Human-kind has seen many ages of the porn enthusiast, from the gentleman appreciating erotic sketches in his study, to the haggard old man clutching paper bags full of magazines, to Page Three oglers and men who watch women peeing via a webcam.The female fan of erotica has not assumed as many forms, at least not overtly. Common cultural beliefs suggest that women neither have such a demanding libido nor do they seek to satisfy it through visual stimuli, instead requiring factors such as security and love for sensual fulfilment. despite this perpetuation of the tedious stereotype that women just want to be cuddled and men will spurt over anything leggy, statistics suggest that these beliefs are just plain wrong. According to a new study on sexual behaviour, conducted by Gert Martin Hald, a danish psychologist from Århus University, 80% of women aged 18- 30, from a representative sample of 688, had viewed porn, and half of that number did so at least once a month – and this figure only represents the ones who admit to it.Although these numbers fall well short of the corresponding ones for men, it is clear that women are coming out into the open about their appreciation of the erotic potential of images, film, and writing. ‘Pornography’ originally comes from the Greek words meaning “writings about whores”, and if this is taken literally then no wonder pornography is the domain of the male. Few women will swoon over the male-originated fantasy versions of themselves that we see in Playboy: always accommodating and willing to do anything to please their men, the pin-ups in these magazines are interviewed about their wildest sex acts, with anything else about them being ignored or edited out. They are portrayed, for the pleasure of the male reader, as walking, talking, shagging dolls.The men starring in pornographic videos also cater for a male fantasy: short, moustached and aggressive, they sell the dream that even the salivating Sid Sexists who consume this kind of porn can possess a busty nymphomaniac.No wonder, then, that so many women feel alienated by mainstream porn. They cannot relate to ludicrous caricatures, such as the cheerleader desperate to be banged by the whole football team. Worse still, the silicone-enhanced blonde porn commonplace is even more damaging; some women are led to consider it a universal ideal among men, another blow to their already cowering self-esteem. If mainstream porn culture is generally alienating to women, where would we find what the modern day woman is looking at in their boudoirs? The internet has a plethora of ‘alternative’ porn sites, such as BurningAngel.com and SuicideGirls.com where the tattooed, pierced, small-breasted, big-hipped and unusually striking woman is celebrated, as is the punkish, cheeky man.You can also look at BellaVendetta.com, which celebrates every fetish you never realised you had: menstrual art, zombie fetishes, feet – the list is endless. Bella, the brain behind the site, laughingly describes it as “a unique micro niche fetish site that is out to prove that art is everywhere, you just have to know where to look”.Interestingly, one third of the subscribers to BellaVendetta are female. Bella explains: “Some women do it purely because they appreciate the sensuality and beauty of the photos, some do it because they covet what they don’t have.” These sites show women in a number of different forms; all beautiful, but not according to any defining aesthetic principle. They have been praised as trailblazers who not only show a variety of ‘real women’ – SuicideGirls boasts “the most crush-worthy women on the planet” – but are often directed and controlled by women.Contrary to the attack of feminist figures like Andrea dworkin, who claim that all pornography is debasing for thefemale sex, women are setting their own limits. “I don’t believe any authority should tell a woman what is and isn’t degrading to her,” says Bella. Although she agrees that a lot of pornography can be interpreted as demeaning, this need not necessarily be the case: “On the flipside, there is lots of pornography that empowers women, because it’s women making their own choices and expressions about their sexuality.” Having women at the helm is the most obvious step. SuicideGirls was considered to function under the jurisdiction of “Missy Suicide”, a vampy businesswoman, with Sean “Spooky” Suhl as her mysterious sidekick. However, the site has been damaged by recent allegations that SG is not about empowering women at all. Like every other porn site, it is all about money, and like much of the industry, it is about misogyny.Forty out of more than eight hundred of the site’s models walked out as a protest against the treatment of a fellow model, who was removed from the site after complaining about her payment in her online journal, also maintained by SG.Much of the dispute now centres on the fact that although the girls’ access to the site and their online journals have been terminated, the nude pictures of them are still on the site. SG had, prior to this scandal, ensured that a detailed profile and web journal expressed the characters of the models, so that viewers could not view them merely as flesh.Now, however, the expelled models have no personality on the site while their scantily clad images remain. A plethora of accusations followed: that the site sometimes fails to pay the girls, and sends threatening letters to perceived ‘alt-porn’ rivals; that Suhl, as well as being a secret dictator behind the scenes, has also used terms such as “whore” and “ugly” to refer to the models.There are many such testimonials on Gloomdolls.com, a site that claims to set the record straight about the dark side of SG. Ex-model Jennifer Caravella was quoted in Wired News warning that “females who are 18 years old and want to be a SuicideGirl need to understand who they’re representing. It’s certainly not a group of women who are working together for this”. Cynics maintain that original claims about the feminist aspirations of SuicideGirls should have been denounced from the start, since any business that is about money is going to put that first. This begs the question of whether there is any way to remove the money problem from porn in order to make it about power rather than exploitation.BellaVendetta is the only erotic website I found where the models volunteer to do shoots, rather than get paid, and are happy to do so while the project finds its feet. I asked a writer at BV, “Onyx”, if this impacts the nature of the website. She replied, “I strongly feel that BV is truly unique. It is women and men doing what they love, what they feel passionately for and it is their decision.” She added that “the models aren’t jack-off material because they get off in the photo shoots themselves”. Onyx tells me that her experience with the site has given her a feeling of power, something she describes as “truly sexy”. Her involvement with the site, she says, “empowered [her] to take control and write even though [she] was criticized, to explore [her] sexuality and to learn new things.” Unfortunately, just as women are struggling towards a more open-minded, feminist-compatible kind of erotica, George W Bush and the extreme right in the US are declaring a war on porn. The Chinese government has already adopted a similar policy, and so far closed 1800 adult sites. Western governments are following suit. US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has deemed porn to be “a threat to families and children”. He does not make it clear how this is true, as this top-priority initiative is directed not towards paedophilic websites but rather erotica made by adults, starring adults, for the viewing of other adults. BV, with its controversial variety of kinks, will undoubtedly be targeted.A glance at the website reveals many sadomasochistic images of women in bondage, which could easily be labelled as obscene. However, Bella tells me that “maybe some people consider being submissive to be degrading, but many submissive woman are in loving sadomasochistic relationships and treated with the utmost respect”.This progressive view of alternative lifestyles undoubtedly won’t wash with Bush, but although protecting our right to porn is not the easiest protest to stand by, we need to realise that the move towards destruction of erotic culture is a significant and worrying erosion of our freedom of speech.  ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

At the end of last month six students at the University of Lancaster were found guilty, in a magistrates’ court, of taking part in a peaceful demonstration against companies linked to the arms trade who held a conference on the campus in late 2004. The University decided to press charges of aggravated trespass against their own students.The George Fox Six, as the arrested students have become known, were exercising their right to free speech just as generations of students have done for decades across the country. If the case of the Lancaster students, whose seemingly harmless crime was to hand out leaflets and hold up banners, is to be taken as a precedent, the rights of students throughout Britain to protest could be in jeopardy.This is particularly the case in Oxford where the University owns so much land. One of the Lancaster student protesters commented on his university’s situation: “The University has a duty to allow and even facilitate the expression of views opposing unethical companies and the University’s involvement with them.It is wrong, and in the long term counter-productive, for an academic institution to ignore such concerns, let alone to prosecute those who raise them.” In the wake of a New Labour convention which attempted to set limits on democracy and freedom of speech, and in an age in which the public is banned from protesting within a kilometre of parliament, as students we must ask whether our voice is been taken away from us. And if it is, do we really care? Other universities do seem to protest better than Oxford.While only a small number of Oxford students protested earlier in the year against Reed Elsevier’s connection with the arms trade, the action which took place at Lancaster has galvanised their student body into protest. Perhaps we simply need a few student heroes in Oxford in order to avoid the extinction of student activism.Yet with less than half a per cent of Oxford’s considerable student body turning up to Examination Schools to protest against the introduction of top-up fees, they seem unlikely to emerge. At least those who did protest in 2004 managed to get the University to cancel lectures on the day of the march and the contingent of Oxford students who joined the Stop the War march succeeded in keeping the words ‘Oxford student’ and ‘protest’ in the same sentence in the local press.Yet other universities sent much bigger groups than Oxford. The question to be asked is whether Oxford students still feel that they have the power to make a difference, or even whether they care enough to protest about social issues affecting them. Oxford today is synonymous with animal rather than human rights issues and the student population seems curiously detached from the world around them.Student campaigning does not have to be limited to ‘student issues’, but has traditionally related immediate concerns to wider issues of human rights and international solidarity. This seems to have been forgotten in the present student political climate. Is the age of student protest coming to an end? Have students become dulled into deference? Without doubt, the glory days of student protest in Britain were in the sixties and then again in the eighties.The real beginning could perhaps be dated to 1965 when the birth of the new polytechnics and universities saw student numbers increase to about 300,000. Britain was suddenly overwhelmed with a new wave of students who had voices, and these students wanted universities and governments to listen to them.They were angry, and they were determined to get their concerns addressed and protect their freedom. This period saw the formation of the Radical Student Alliance (RSA) and then an organisation called the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign which organised student protest throughout the country seemingly far more effectively than the more recent Stop the War campaign. University sit-ins were commonplace at universities all over the country. Our parents’ generation looks nostalgically back to these sixties demonstrations and the mark they made. If they were in Grosvenor Square in 1967 they will wax lyrical about the part they played in stopping the Vietnam War.But perhaps they had an advantage: they were helped by a groundswell of student protest across Europe and more importantly across the United States. British students were protesting in the sixties at a time when the rest of the world was also demanding to be listened to. The Vietnam protests coincided with student support for the Civil Rights Movement and protests about freedom of information in many UK universities.The fact that Jack Straw and Charles Clarke were probably marching around at the same time chanting “Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” is pretty disillusioning given their recent role in invading Iraq. But in 1968 students all over the world were protesting and having a real effect on governments. These students certainly weren’t as apathetic as our generation.President Lyndon Johnson was so shocked by the wave of student protests in his country that he told a friend, “I felt that I was been chased on all sides by a giant stampede. I was being forced over the edge by ration blacks, demonstrating students, marching welfare mothers, squawking professors and hysterical reporters.”1968 was the year when the scent of student revolution could be smelt all over the world. Not just the university system but the government itself was rocked in France when students in Paris took to the barricades and were joined by striking workers.In Germany student radicalism spawned the Baader-Meinhof group, the most feared terrorist cell in mainland Europe. In Britain the days of student marching, protesting, demonstrating and campaigning reoccurred in the eighties at Greenham Common with demonstrations, particularly by women, against nuclear warheads in the UK.Later, in 1989, there were huge marches against the poll tax. These were the years in which most of us were born. Perhaps we have some vague childhood memories of chants of “Maggie Maggie Maggie out out out!” and remember that although the poll tax went, the Conservative government certainly did not. Student grants were cut and replaced by student loans.Students were just not important any more. They didn’t even bother to vote. Recently, the National Union of Students and, more specifically, their president, Kat Fletcher, have faced huge criticism for an apparent lack of interest in student activism and for backing down over the issue of top- up fees.The NUS has lost the will to campaign and perhaps to even exist, as was aptly illustrated by the postponement of the annual conference this year. When the conference finally did meet it was cut from four to three days – not a great demonstration of a union bursting with energy and anger on behalf of students.In addition the NUS is currently £700,000 in debt. Debt may have become part of the student experience but for the NUS it reflects a declining membership, ironic when student numbers are rising. Recently Fletcher has joined a government information campaign to promote the policy of top-up fees and has pledged to “build an effective opposition to the student left”.This stance might come as a surprise to many students who see the NUS as a left-wing representational body for students across the country. What other union backs the government in worsening the conditions of its members? Frustrated by these proceedings by the NUS, daniel Randall has founded an alternative platform for student activism called Education Not For Sale. On the subject of Fletcher and the NUS, Randall commented, “Since [the creation of the new group], she has made numerous attacks on democracy and accountability within NUS, slashing funding for National Executive members, reducing the size of annual National Conference and cutting it to less than three days.She and the clique around her, many of them former left-wingers, have done nothing to restore a campaigning link between the NUS structures and the students they are supposed to represent. They have refused to organise a fight to repair the years of damage inflicted by right-wing government policy.” If the NUS executive have become apologists for a government which has inflicted top-up fees on students and cannot organise effective campaigning is it any wonder that students throughout the UK feel frustrated? While it is certain that protest does still exist in Oxford, Oxford students are nevertheless right to feel politically impotent.The government and many leading members of the cabinet who were themselves at the forefront of student politics seem to utterly ignore the concerns of today’s student population. Perhaps we cannot make a difference but at least some Oxford students still try to concern themselves with other things than the bar prices across town. There was for instance an anti-capitalist protest outside the Said Business School in August with a handful of protesters.In July protesters were outside Tesco on Cowley Road on behalf of Polish workers in Ireland. A contingent of Oxford students were in Scotland over the summer for the G8 summit, although once again other universities sent greater numbers. A small number of students protested about animal rights outside Thomas Cook in September while others joined the much larger protests against the University.Last week Oxford CNd were urging students to join the downing Street Peace Camp formed by mothers of soldiers killed in Iraq as a sad sequel to that Stop the War march to which Oxford students contributed only a handfull of students to in 2003. Perhaps Oxford relies on the Oxford Union as its voice of protest. Indeed the Union says on its web pages that it is at the cutting edge of controversy, however it then cites the last time it made a national impact as 1975 – before most of us here were born.Some of the debates held at the Union do certainly seem to stir up controversy, and even in the past month protesting students have had to be removed from an address by President Mogae of Botswana who is accused of persecuting the Bushmen of Botswana. Oxford students do, however, seem to petition more effectively than protest: over 2000 signatures were gathered from students and dons to protest against the decision to go to war with Iraq. Similarly the petition against Margaret Thatcher following her decision to cut academic funding for universities resulted in her being the only post-war Oxford educated Prime Minister not to receive an honourary degree.But these petitions seem to pale into insignificance when compared to the mass protests of the sixties. If you feel it is about time you became a student protester then the opportunities arecertainly waiting for you in the University. The Oxford Student Activist network and the Oxford Action Resource centre on Cowley Road will tell you what you can protest about, where to go and what to do. Forthcoming events include a Campaign Against Climate Change demonstration in London on 3 december.A hundred people have attended the first Oxford planning meeting, and the protest is to include a bicycle ride through London. It will be interesting to see how successful the event is. If the London demonstration and other future protests fail, and the mindsets of students do not change soon then universities, and indeed Britain, will have lost a very potent campaigning political voice.Our apathy means that not only will the issues which students are concerned with continue to be ignored, but that the glory days and direct action of the sixties will recede further into the past.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

Hillary Clinton enters the reception area outside her office in Washington where my photographer and I are waiting, suddenly rather nervous. dressed in her trademark dark suit she is expressionless, but there is an air of supreme confidence and importance about her.I instantly get the feeling that she isn’t the kind of person given to taking bullshit from people, particularly not from 19 year old student reporters. Surrounded by a small crowd of advisors, press secretaries, assistants and other associated handlers, she issues a few whispered instructions plainly relating to significant matters of national security, but then calmly brushes them aside while she sizes us both up.For one or two seconds she stares at us with her huge and rather unnerving eyes. I start to stammer something vaguely along the lines of “Good Afternoon” when suddenly her face breaks into a smile. Relieved to see that she appears to be less intimidating than she is sometimes portrayed in the American press, I stand up and shake her hand.She welcomes us and leads us from the reception area into her office, showering us with cordiality and superficial compliments: “Thank you so much for coming down to see us”, “All the Clintons, Bill, Chelsea and myself, just love Oxford, you know.” Still nervous, I sit down opposite Clinton and we begin to talk about politics.Her experience in the field is broad to say the least. While doing some research I was interested to discover that during her campaign for the Senate she had voiced strong support for the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that not one single Senator voted for when it was presented to Congress.So I decide to start by asking her about Kyoto and the general American attitude to climate change. “Well,” she answers, “although the Kyoto Treaty is still a moot point for us, ie. in the Senate, because President Bush won’t present it for ratification, I am deeply concerned by the effects of climate change. Still, since I don’t like wasting my time on futile efforts, I don’t see any point in talking about Kyoto from an American perspective so long as there is a Republican majority in Congress and a Republican in the White House.She continues, What I wish the President had done, if he was not going to support Kyoto, was to create another process. The Senators’ claim as to why they wouldn’t support Kyoto was that it left China, India and other developing countries out. Well, fine! Let’s have a different process, then. The irony today is that China and India are moving ahead to deal with the impact of their contributions to greenhouse gases more vigorously than the United States.”She does drop in a hint of optimism though: “At the time the vote was held, the energy industry in America had a tremendous hold over the political leadership and they didn’t want the treaty ratified. They had enough control and influence to be able to sway a lot of votes.However, that is beginning to change. Some of the more enlightened gas and oil companies are calling for conservation measures and other kinds of action to deal with the long term impact of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”Pausing for a moment, I glance around the room. The Senator’s office looks like a photograph from an interior-design magazine. It’s amazingly well-lit and immaculately neat. Everything seems to be very carefully placed, making it a bit difficult for me to imagine someone drawing up complex pieces of legislation here.Looking over at the corner to my right, I find Clinton’s press secretary sitting quietly at a small table, listening intently to my questions. He seems to be ready to jump in and tell me off if I ask anything unsuitable.Vaulting around the room like a grasshopper is my photographer who is determined to take a number of brilliant pictures of Clinton from various angles during our 20-minute interview, even if that means standing on top of an armchair to take a shot. I decide to move on, and ask her about England and America. “You know,” she says, “the Blair government is doing some things that I wish America would follow in. I think it’s very important for Britain to have an agenda that is an example for the United States because we have such a close relationship. There is such a sense of comradeship between our two countries that it is very helpful for someone like me in the Senate to be able to say, ‘Well look at what Tony Blair is trying to do about energy’. Look at what he’s doing about Kyoto. Look at what he wants to do with debt relief. Look at what he’s willing to do about contributions to alleviate poverty. Still, it’s difficult because this administration is not very willing to give much back to anyone, including our close allies. It’s their way or no way. They don’t want to be inconvenienced by discussions of climate change or development aid, which are not part of their ideological framework. They are more than willing to accept Britain’s help, to use Tony Blair as a spokesman, a more articulate defender of their policies in Iraq than their own President can be. But they’re not going to go the extra step and actually form a partnership on some of these other very important international issues.”Her mention of the difference in the oratorical skills possessed by Bush and the Prime Minister makes me wonder why Blair had so much more difficulty making the case for the war. Her reply is fairly blunt: “You weren’t attacked. We were, and that changes everything. It’s similar to World War II: Churchill didn’t have any trouble convincing the British to fight, but Franklin Roosevelt did; again, until we were attacked. That is the difference in the perspectives of the two countries.” Obviously and understandably, the experience of September 11 changed the way Americans think about the world, but I can’t help thinking that there’s something more to it than this. I ask whether she thinks that America is perhaps an inherently more right-wing state than the rest of the world. “I think there is an element of that,” she replies. “Our politics grow out of different traditions. We had a frontiermentality which put a premium on rugged individualism to settle the west and that’s remained part of our culture. We’re a much younger country, we haven’t been around as long as European countries and we haven’t had the intense pressures that Europe has faced for centuries. There’s a feeling of invulnerability on the part of many Americans. It’s based on experience. But at the moment we’re fighting over what the proper role of government should be in today’s world, and there’s a big philosophical divide over this issue.”That there is “a big philosophical divide” in American politics is hardly breaking news, but Clinton’s assessment of it does appear rather unique. While most politicians and pundits seem to blame the strength of an opposing ideology (from evangelical Christianity to neoconservatism and multiculturalism to secularism, depending on who you ask) for the political wars in the States, Clinton looks at the problem from a historical perspective. Unlike many other left-wing leaders and writers in America and around the world who, rather condescendingly, classify the 62 million people who voted for George W Bush as religious fanatics, ignorant rednecks or jingoistic warhawks, she seems willing to believe that there is a rational reason why many Americans are so conservative compared to the rest of the world.If she does, as current speculation has it, run for President in 2008, this kind of approach to the voters in ‘red states’ will be vital. A column in July’s American political magazine, Washington Monthly, cautioned that Clinton was unelectable because too many Americans have already decided they don’t like her. She’s allegedly seen as being out of touch, pushy and self-righteous. That said, if she is willing to try and understand why people have that impression, there’s no reason why she can’t change their opinions.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

I work in Mehdi’s kebab van which is on the High Street between Oriel College and Turl Street. I’ve worked in the same van on the same spot since I came to England in 1994. Before I took over the business my father did the same for 12 years.We’re very famous in Oxford and my van has even been voted the best. When the students are in Oxford I work seven days – well, seven nights – a week. You can’t take a single day off because customers start asking about you!I finish at around three o’clock every morning and get three or four hours of sleep. When I wake up I usually visit my brother-in-law at his café on Broad Street, go shopping and watch some TV. Then I try to get about four more hours of sleep before starting work again each evening at five o’clock.My van has to be on the High Street ready to serve by half past six. It might seem like a lot but I don’t think the work is too hard and I’m used to it. But it does mean I don’t get much chance to spend time with my family during term time. That’s why I take long holidays, for two or three weeks, whenever the students go back home.In the summer I go away for four or five weeks, usually to Morocco where I was born. This year I went to Marrakech where my sister lives. I’m 35 now, but I moved to England from Tangier at the age of 24 to be with my wife – I met her in Morocco but she herself was already living in England. When I go back to Morocco now I don’t know how I cope with the heat, I’m so used to living in England.In Marrakech it’s 45°C in August at least, and I can’t breathe! I’m a Muslim so obviously I can’t drink but dealing with drunk students every night doesn’t bother me in the slightest. If other people want to drink that’s fine with me. Everyone has their own ideas and their own feelings and beliefs. At the moment working nights actually suits my religious beliefs as I’m currently fasting for Ramadan and can’t even accept an offer of coffee during the day! Since I work at night sometimes I do get trouble from drunken customers. Last night for instance one man was determined to argue about his order. I just stayed calm and gave him his money back. But it’s not a massive problem because I’m used to dealing with drunk customers.I know the mentality and I know how to deal with it. If they want to argue with you, you don’t argue back. If they start swearing at you, you don’t start swearing back. You just have to get on with your job and make them happy. I actually think my work has made me quite diplomatic. One of the best parts about my job is that you meet people from all over the world.Every night you meet different people from different countries and different cultures. In the summer especially there are tourists in Oxford from Europe, America – in fact, everywhere. But at the same time you get to know a lot of regular customers very well; some people have been coming to my van for 15 to 20 years.What’s my opinion of Oxford students? Well, they’re normal. And generally very nice. Sometimes in the morning when I’m not working I come across regular customers on the street and they’re very happy to see me. Like lots of other businesses in Oxford, my business depends on students. I need them to survive. Without students, Oxford is nothing.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

TRY ASKING for an Archer’s Aqua at a college bar. At worst, you’ll be jeered right out of the
quad; at best, pointed derisively to the Carlsberg tap. Beer is in, ladies and gentleman,
and alcopops are out. Ladette culture has finally reached us in the seclusion of the Oxford
college, and a girl just can’t hold her head up like a man until she’s swigging Guinness
from a plastic cup.It all began so promisingly. The introduction of the RTd (Ready To drink, in marketing
terms) to Britain began with Hooch in 1995, and caused a consumption revolution.
Alcoholic lemonade – such a simple idea – appealed to young and old with its quaint
American style, bright colours and sweet taste. Since then, the alcopop has undergone a
transformation.The updated version, Smirnoff Ice, and teenybopper substitute, Bacardi
Breezer, hit the bars and became a late-nineties landmark. But now all that sweetness and
light has darkened and gone sour. Over 150 labels have muscled in on the market and the
novice drinker doesn’t know which way to turn. Spirits are desperately trying to claw back up
the market with such revolting inventions as the ‘Vodka Mudshake’ (isn’t it a long-
established fact that chocolate and vodka don’t mix?).Smirnoff Ice is sullied by the creation
of the Turboshandy
– a half-and-half mix with lager. Who killed the alcopop? It’s fair to say that teenage girls
and their harmless Saturday night excesses have done nothing but put money in the
pockets of the delighted vodka guys and, admittedly, litter suburban streets with their vomit.With bars and clubs responding to government pressure concerning underage entrance,
the poor teens and pre-teens haven’t got a chance.But the downward spiral began, of course, with some desperate journalist and the
controversy he mixed up.An American website, alcoholfreechildren. org, screams “Alcohol
is the #1 drug of choice among our Nation’s youth!” The FCUK attempt to branch out into
alcopops came to a sweet and sticky end when the Portman group deemed them to be
targeting underage drinkers. Hysterical mothers have conspired with the media to bring
about the slow but sure demise of this well-loved rite of passage.Let’s take a moment to
give them their due: alcopops have been more than just a way to get pissed. What you
order at the bar sends an important message – particularly for women: while a Jd on the
rocks shows admirable independence of spirit, a girl with a Reef is dependably fun and
approachable.But a middle way dawns with the revival of the cocktail. After a distressing
brush with the law, happy hour is still going strong, God be praised, and man and woman
alike are enjoying cheap cocktails by the bucket. Incidentally, according to Cocktail:UK, Hard
Sex on the Babysitter’s Bathroom Floor is in Britain’s top ten this year. I think we’re justified
in questioning their sources. At least we’ve found something to drink at the funeral of the
alcopop. A more sophisticated option by far than the Breezer, and yet kind to the delicate
tastebud, cocktails are the way of the future.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

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