Oxford’s Canadian prop Kevin ‘T-Bone’ Tkachuk speaks exclusively to Cherwell about his ambitions for the forthcoming Rugby World Cup… “It is every sportsman’s goal to represent his country at the pinnacle of his chosen sport and to be living that dream over the next month seems right now too exciting to put into words. The feeling is simply incredible. My personal goals for the Rugby World Cup will be to enjoy every moment and live every experience to the full. “Regardless of our results, as long as we play to the best of our ability we will have achieved a sense of satisfaction. The competition for Canada, a largely amateur nation as far as rugby is concerned, will be very tough against Wales and New Zealand, but we do believe that if we play our best rugby we can advance to the quarter-final stage where we would meet England.” Canada face Wales in their first match of the championships on 12 October in Melbourne. Kickoff is at 0900 BST. New Zealand, Italy and Tonga are drawn within the same pool. Former Blue Simon Danielli, now of Bath, has been named in the Scotland squad for the tournament.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

VARSITY CRICKET Oxford 162-1 beat Cambridge 190 by 73 runs on D/L Method A swashbuckling innings from captain Jamie Dalrymple was enough to secure yet another Varsity triumph. The Middlesex all-rounder surged to an impressive 105 from 104 deliveries as deteriorating conditions saw the Dark Blues awarded a comfortable 73-run victory by means of the Duckworth-Lewis method. This one-day feat followed on from the innings success in the four-day equivalent earlier in the summer, a match in which Dalrymple had scored an unbeaten 236 much to the chagrin of the Light Blue pacemen. Such brilliance with the bat had come in addition to a five-wicket haul. The Cambridge performance at Lord’s was not without promise. Captain Adrian Shankar survived an early scare as he nudged beyond the slips from the bowling of Stephen Daley in the second over to construct a dangerous half-century stand with fellow opener Duncan Heath. Dalrymple shrewdly introduced the medium in-swing of Neil Millar and this variation proved decisive, slowing the run-rate to force the batsmen onto the front foot. Shankar was the first to stumble, clubbing a drive to Australian Clinton Free down at mid on. Millar added a second in quick succession, clean-bowling Heath to halt the score at 78-2. Two catches soon followed, with the wickets of Simon Marshall and Richard Mann, but fifth batsman Rudi Singh proved an altogether different proposition. Singh, demonstrating the poise and technique which had so eluded his team-mates, at least bridged the gulf in quality between the two sides.His first partner deserted him, but the second, Vikram Kumar, doggedly held his ground to the mild irritation of the Oxford attack. Still, such resistance could not be sustained and Kumar’s fine six over bowler Steve Hawinkels sparked the untimely removal of his treasured leg-stump before the end of the same over. Patrick Evans whipped off the bails to put an end to Singh for 35, as Cambridge stuttered to a disappointing 190, despite a useful knock of 26 from tail-ender John Heath. With Millar the pick of the bowlers, his 5-23 was reinforced by the stifling off-spin of Wadham’s Paul McMahon and the two wickets of youngster Mike Munday. The dismissal of Hawinkels for 6 did little to help the Tabs, thrusting the match-winning Oxford captain out of the pavilion and into the limelight. Joe Sayers stood back as the St Peter’s player took every opportunity to lash out at the Light Blue bowling. Daniel McGrath and David Noble toiled hard to no avail. He sauntered to 50, before completing the century from a further 33 balls. Sayers sucked out 36, but it was Dalrymple who stole the show, with his four sixes and nine fours, before light rain brought the piece to a close. “It is an incredibly satisfying result for the team,” the Oxford skipper told Cherwell. “We reinforced the dominance that we showed at Fenner’s (in the four-day match) and provided a good spectacle for the supporters. The only regret was that the weather denied us the pleasure of hitting the winning runs out in the middle.”

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BLUES HOCKEY Oxford 3 Purley Walcountians 1 The Blues commenced their latest Premiership campaign with a comprehensive 3-1 drubbing of a combative Purley outfit. Dan Solomon edged in the third, but it was debutant Mark Little who caught the eye with two extraordinary strikes. Purley, who finished two places higher than the Blues last season, had no answer to the flair and tenacity of the magnificent home side. Oxford had experienced the worst possible start when fresher Dave Cresswell limped off after a promising fourteen minutes. Much to their credit, his teammates maintained the initiative, Dan Fox surging from midfield at every opportunity. It was Fox himself who nearly opened the scoring on twenty minutes. His fiercesome hit from a short corner was well-blocked by Gareth Dunn. Former skipper Rob Woodhead also came close before the interval, spraying a shot just over the bar. The second half proved a full-blooded affair. Once Jesus’ Richard Blackburn scythed down a sprinting Nick Champness there was little doubting the intent and urgency in the Blues performance. Dave Close stepped forward with assurance from the back, with Andrew Armitage offering width and considerable threat out on the right. Little subbed on for Tom Bullock on fifty-one minutes, Kal El Wahab stung the ball left and there was the replacement to lash a splendid reverse-stick strike beneath the body of the Purley stopper. Still, the waspish visitors fought back and were rewarded with a sudden equaliser. Former England U21 international Nick Hayes executed the calm finish following a chopped cross from Mark Hardy. Oxford retook the lead within three minutes. Woodhead found space on the left, shooting across the face of the goal only for a remarkable lunge from Little to deflect the ball home. With Dunn drawn out of position, the two-goal striker turned provider to gift Solomon the third. The Christ Church player rolled the ball into the net to wrap up the three points for the Blues.

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There can be no doubt that Pascal Khoo Thwe’s From the Land of Green Ghosts (Flamingo, £7.99) is a good read. The plot is direct and interesting: village boy (from the rather obscure Burmese Padaung tribe) goes to the big city to study English, forges a friendship with a charmingly befuddled Cambridge don, boldly rebels against the brutal and autocratic government, flees into the jungle to escape persecution, then is rescued by the aforementioned charming Cambridge don and whisked off to England where he makes good as an English student. Compared to other memoirs of this kind, which belong in a genre largely dominated by Chinese women authors like Jung Chang and Xinran Xue with novels like Wild Swans and The Good Women of China, From the Land of Green Ghosts most certainly doesn’t lack the oomph factor in terms of eventfulness. In fact, the relatively unexplored territory in which this odyssey is set adds much to its charm. Its flaws though are flaws that can be seen to belong to the entire genre, the main one being a slight degree of artificiality in response to the political climate of the homeland.
We must give Pascal Khoo Thwe credit though – the idyllic childhood he describes, spent in Phekhon, provokes a veritable sensory overload. He speaks of a typical Burmese summer, where the “monotonous song of the lonely cuckoo terrorised the horizon” and “cicadas joined the cuckoo in the maddening chorus that was the hot season”. The language is beautiful and the prose sensitive. The quaint Burmese stories and tales his grandma Mu Wye only tells after being sufficiently massaged also provide the additional mystique of a culture where ghosts are a given a role and incorporated into the trivia of everyday life.
The author’s consciousness, which can be described as essentially Padaung, is composed of an interesting and quite unique blend of Catholic notions and animistic symbolism, a combination that comes through best when he responds to familiar and local climes. I was actually most moved and impressed by his evocation of his mundane existence in Phekhon – there seemed to be genuine feeling and experience behind his words. In fact, Pascal Khoo Thwe, overall, seems quite like a Burmese Ben Okri in his sophisticated portrayal of the symbolic mindset which sees the added concurrent dimension to daily events.
Once Pascal leaves Phekhon for Mandalay, the jungle, and then England though, his Padaung mentality and perspective undergoes a change in the new environment of the big city and the political turmoil; he falters, both as a character within the novel, and overall, as the author. His descriptions of political repression, for example, seem totally incongruous. In the rest of the novel he loses his signature Padaung mindset, seeming to respond exactly as any Western person would, and losing, thus, some of his authenticity. It is here, then, that the novel fails to captivate completely, even though its energetic plot and autobiographical tone make it truly impressive.
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If you had the power to save someone’s life, would you let them die? The pharmaceutical industry is the most powerful and profitable business on earth yet it is effectively denying millions of people access to the drugs that could save them. Twelve-year old Jairo is one of many who die of AIDS-related illnesses in the developing world, but unlike them, he will not go unnoticed. Jairo’s last weeks are captured on Dying for Drugs, a documentary by Brian Woods, the maker of the Emmy award winning The Dying Rooms. The film is the result of a two-year investigation into how far drugs companies will go to get their drugs approved and obtain the prices they want. It shows the human cost of corporate greed in stark and harrowing detail. The film begins in Kano, a town in Nigeria, where the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer carried out experiments for a new meningitis drug on children, without the knowledge or consent of their parents. In Canada, it recounts the experiences of Dr Nancy Olivieri, a leading expert at the University of Toronto on the blood disease thalassemia. Olivieri spotted flaws in L1, the drug produced by the company Apotex; when she raised her fears she was removed from the programme by the drugs company and legally gagged. In South Korea, Woods highlights the cases of leukaemia patients who were the test subjects for Glivec, produced by the Swiss-based company Novartis. Following the successful trial the drug was introduced at a price of 19 dollars a pill – around 55 000 for a year’s treatment. One patient, Yung, can only afford Glivec for a few more months, and can’t bring himself to tell his wife. And in Honduras, Woods meets Jairo whose family could not afford the drugs to ease his suffering. As Woods points out, “It’s very easy for people in Europe and the US to read about people in the developing world suffering because they can’t afford drugs, but these changes are going to affect the price of medicine here.” In fact, the power of the pharmaceutical companies is all pervasive; Woods first became aware of the issue in the research for his last film on Slavery in the Ivory Coast. “Once you start looking at the pharmaceutical industry, once you start digging, then you realise that all sorts of bogeys start coming out of the woodwork.” With the first half of the programme he therefore aims to open our eyes to these practices – “What we were seeking to do by demonstrating the way unethical practices have been followed in the past in Nigeria and Canada is to make it more difficult for companies to undertake unethical trials in the future. The only reason people do these things is because they think they’ve got away with it and if they’re aware that they probably won’t get away with it then they probably won’t do it, so the film has an important preventative role.” The implications of Yung’s and Jairo’s stories are potentially even more threatening. At present, companies like Pfizer and Novartis have patents on their products in most jurisdictions which means that the only hope for patients of finding drugs at a lower price is to obtain a generic drug – one that is effectively the same as the expensive drug but produced using different methods. India is currently the source of many of these generic drugs which are sometimes sold for less than one dollar a pill, in the case of Glivec, one twentieth of the cost of Novertis’ product, but the World Trade Organisation, under pressure from the pharmaceuticals, has decided that India must introduce full patent protection from the end of next year. Dr Drummond Rennie of the Journal of the American Medical Association regards the patenting measures that the big companies are seeking, as the “worst possible future,” that they are “pushing life or death.” This is nowhere more evident than Woods’ portrayal of Jairo’s final days. “Filming Jairo was the hardest piece I’ve ever done. When we met him, although he was terribly ill and desperately thin, you think, well he’s going to die probably, but maybe he’s going to die within a few months. In the week or so we were in Honduras he went dramatically downhill but before he did, he was up and about, he was making jokes. There’s a bit in the film when Mercedes, his grandmother says “Oh Brian speaks Spanish” – I can’t really speak Spanish – so I say “How are you?” and he just looks at me for about ten seconds and then says, “Is that it?” We established a relationship with him and therefore to literally see him dying in front of me… I was in the back of the pick up and he was in front in the cabin and his uncle just banged on the window and that was it, he was dead… it was very tough.” Dying for Drugs was watched on the night by a million people. Since then Woods says that Oxfam and Medecins Sans Frontieres have been inundated with calls. The day after the programme aired, GlaxoSmithKline announced a huge cut in the price of its AIDS drugs in the developing world, “I can’t believe that that was a coincidence. I’m sure they didn’t do it immediately, but I’m equally sure that the timing was influenced by the film…I’m sure that this film made a difference.” The film-makers have not escaped the legal threats that Olivieri encountered. The day after it aired, True Vision, the production company, received a letter from Apotex’s lawyers stating that if the film was shown again, as it was scheduled to be, then it would be regarded as malicious and would be reflected in any subsequent damages from legal prosecution. Woods however, stresses the importance of media exposure of these issues, “The turning point was The Dying Rooms because that really has transformed the situation in orphanages in China.” Woods believes that under increasing pressure from the media and the public, the patenting system that the drugs companies are lobbying for cannot continue. The British government is currently drawing up a parallel pricing policy with the British based pharmaceuticals that makes drugs available under different names and lower prices in the developing world. Even in the US, where George Bush’s cabinet includes several ex-CEOs of pharmaceutical companies, there have been recent concessions over the price of drugs because so many senior citizens cannot afford the medicine. These recent developments reflect the fact that the pricing and patenting practices of the pharmaceuticals are a global problem; as Woods says “this is so important that I’m sure it will have to change.” Like so many people, Woods says that he had “always wanted to do something ‘important’, but didn’t really know what that was going to mean, what that was going to be, but then I started to make documentaries and realised that you could actually, with the right kind of film, make a difference.”
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Silent hall’ protests were staged across the University yesterday in response to colleges’ attempts to impose coordinated inflation-busting rent increases. The remarkable act of solidarity was intended to show that the student body will not allow individual JCRs to be treated harshly by their colleges. Trinity, Pembroke, Jesus, St Hugh’s and St Hilda’s staged silent halls with some students tying grey helium balloons to their wrists to represent the “ball and chain” of higher charges. Up to six other colleges aim to sport the balloons in show of support for those colleges that have or are planning to go ahead with protests, while Keble students boycotted hall altogether. Sarojini Mckenna, Trinity JCR President, told Cherwell “If, as appears, colleges go ahead with these rent increases then it is great that OUSU and JCRs are fighting back. I’m impressed with the level of coordination.” Rent rises proposed to date include 58% at Trinity, 37% LMH and 54% at St Hilda’s. While the increases in each case are over a number of years the rises still far exceed the 2.4% by which student loans are set to rise in the next year. Ryan McGhee, Pembroke’s President, said “It’s about time we got together to protest against a dangerous precedent in rent setting.” The cooperation between JCR Presidents followed a motion of support that was passed at last Friday’s Student Union council. Student anger has particularly followed from fears that colleges are acting in concert to raise rents across the University at a time when losses may be blamed on the stock market. Conspiracy theories have been fuelled by evidence that the committee of college bursars has commissioned a report into rent levels but has refused to make its findings public. At present students do not have representation on the committee or on the Council of Colleges, leading to fears that these bodies could be used to discuss coordinated rent rises. At LMH, where students plan to cap on the quad, JCR President Euan Fitzpatrick said, “This is an opportunity for JCRs to hit back. Unified support is what we need.” Omar Salem, a Funding and Finance Campaign’s co-chair thinks that there are grounds to suspect collaboration between domestic bursars. He said, “we expect the report will say that the Bursars will increase rent on the grounds that students are being given some kind of subsidy. All we know for certain is that they seem to be going ahead without consulting us.” However, Rupert Abbott President at Greyfiars told Cherwell “I’m a little sceptical of silent hall protests. A university-wide protest would be better since then it would not look as if we are targeting our SCR individually.” Abigail Green, Wadham President said “Wadamites do feel sympathy toward Trinity, but it has to be a legitimate protest. I must be able to carry my constituents with me. It’s easier to protest if your JCR is ‘at war’ with its SCR. Wadham enjoys exceptionally good relations with its SCR”.
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Students and former tutors from Oxford University are to blame for encouraging essay plagiarism by contributing high-quality material to cheating websites. The revelation comes in the light of a report which found that plagiarism has become a serious problem among students at UK universities, and Oxford is no exception to the rule. Cheating is rapidly on the increase nationwide and is becoming increasingly difficult to detect, according to a recently published paper in the Journal of Further and Higher Education. It blames the pressure to succeed for forcing many students turn to lucrative essay websites for their studies. According to students, the internet is the best place to find untraceable material. There are over 100,000 essay websites to choose from with ready-made essays on almost all subjects taught at Oxford. Some sites, such as essayfinder.com will turn out a customised essay four days for £60. A spokesman for degreeessays. com said, “many of our essays are written by students and ex-tutors from Oxford and Cambridge.” One English student at St Anne’s said “a lot of my friends swap material on the essay websites. I have used some of the stuff off the free ones. You just need to be careful: cut and paste some of it and rewrite the rest yourself.” Students have also admitted to plagiarising one another’s work. Chemistry student said, “we tend to do it on at least 50% of our tute sheets, and so far have only been caught out once or twice. As far as I can tell, in the sciences it seems to be the standard technique to copy other peoples’ work.” The University takes a hard line on plagiarism in exams, and employs software such as Copycat to detect copied work in wordprocessed exam scripts and coursework. Dr. Nicolas Shrimpton, an English don at Lady Margaret Hall said, “It’s a piece of complete idiocy and a waste of everyone’s time. I’ve seen it happen as a finals examiner; it is taken very seriously. Occasionally one finds oneself plagiarised.”
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The opening of an Ann Summers outlet in the centre of Oxford causing excitement among some the more adventurous Oxford students. The sex-based shop is due launch its venture on 5 June, meaning students will no longer have don macs, paper bags and red faces upon covertly entering one Cowley Road’s many adult establishments. However some residents are upset that the sex toys and lingerie chain will be part of the Clarendon Centre, claiming that such a central venue is unsuitable for such a “racy” shop. It would appear that the popularity of Ann Summers, which sells everything from lingerie to leather whips, dildos to “Debbie Does Dallas,” is evidence that Oxford’s reputation for adhering to a ‘No sex please, we’re British’ attitude is a remnant of the past. Primarily aimed at women, the sex merchant announced a Viagra-like surge in sales last year, with profits of £9.5m, more than double the previous year’s figure. To Chief Executive Jacqueline Gold, these figures are enough proof “that the British people just can’t get enough of sex.” Ann Summers is already a hit with college Women’s Officers, with many having organised parties to promote its vast catalogue of sexual paraphernalia, and there has been little student condemnation of the recent plans. A titillating Ann Summers event is already being planned for the ladies of Lady Margaret Hall by next year’s social secretaries, which students hope will remain ‘tasteful but exciting.’ One anonymous first-year claimed to eagerly anticipate the “chance for sexual experimentation away from parents’ prying eyes.” Yet only last Friday the Government banned the company from advertising vacancies in Job Centres, classifying them as ‘sex industry jobs’. For now at least, vacancies are instead being advertised in the Oxford Mail.
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Modern history undergraduates have been left stunned after learning that over a fifth of their tutorials are to be axed. No students were consulted about the controversial measures, provoking an angry response from historians whose degree courses will be directly affected. Under the proposed changes, modern history students will now receive an average of less than one tutorial a week over a three-year degree course. Jonathan Edwards, the President of the Undergraduate Joint Consultative Committee for history, said, “The UJCC sees the tutorial as the foundation of the history course at Oxford, and opposes any move away from course based on tutorial teaching.” The History Faculty made the decision to cut tutorials in order to free up time for academics. Dr. Chris Haigh, chairman of the History Faculty board said, “Under current arrangements, history tutors are seriously overworked, and we have to address issues of job-satisfaction, while maintaining the quality of the student educational experience.” The news comes after the University’s History Faculty recently lost its status as the country’s leading history department. It slipped to fourth in The Times league table after losing its 5* rating for teaching and research, placing it behind city rival Oxford Brookes. It is known that at least four tutors are planning to leave the faculty this year sparking fears some of Oxford’s finest academics may be poached by other universities. Professor Niall Ferguson, who presented the television series Empire, is cutting down on his time at Oxford this year and told Cherwell, “The Oxford system of tutorial teaching is indeed quite laborious in comparison with nearly all other universities.” His main employment is now at New York University, though he retains his post at Jesus. Seven of the fourteen cuts in tutorials have already been made, most significantly as the result of the introduction of a compulsory thesis. However, it appears that further changes, which will reduce the total number of tutorials from 81 to 67, have been put into effect without liaison with the current or previous UJCC. Linsey Cole, a UJCC member said, “The whole point of a UJCC is to ensure students are consulted and adequately represented when such fundamental changes to teaching are being proposed and in this situation, this clearly did not occur.” The History faculty claims that its proposals have been underway for some time and are in no way expected to jeopardise students’ degrees. One Professor of history told Cherwell that it was time for change. “Undergraduate tutorial teaching at Oxford is a pedagogical fetish which should be rethought and cut back. What the Faculty doing is right and long overdue.” However, students have raised concern that no details of replacement teaching have been given. Sian Grieve, Wadham’s history representative said, “A change to classes rather than tutorials would not be acceptable if Oxford is to maintain its status as a leading university.” The History Faculty denies that the move is ‘resource-driven’.
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