Oxford University dismissed talk of an influx of foreign
students this week, following Saturday’s admission of ten
new states to the European Union. The number of students wishing to study in the UK from one of
those states, Cyprus, doubled in 2004 to 1,458. As EU students,
they will not be eligible for maintenance grants or loans. A
spokesperson for the University, told Cherwell that, “Oxford
is not expecting a massive influx,” and praised the
diversity and tolerance of the student body. There are currently
4,600 non-UK students at Oxford, but only 106 are from the new EU
states. Foreign students are estimated to pay £31.5 billion a year in
fees, and contribute £33 billion to the economy. Although
students from the EU pay lower fees than those from elsewhere,
they are expected to cover their own living costs. As a result,
Ana Perez de Ayala, a Spanish second year Physics student,
believes “the main difficulties for foreign students are
financial ones.” The University, which claims to have “rigorous methods of
distinguishing between very able candidates”, also quashed
suggestions that they would introduce a lottery system for
oversubscribed courses. Both Leeds Metropolitan and Huddersfield
University operate the scheme for physiology, which receives
twenty applications for every place.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

Harry’s the business Said Business
School hired a man from East London to pose as Harry Potter for
the day, brightening up luncheon at Christ Church. Tourists also
claimed to have greatly enjoyed the spectacle. Patten for President Chris Patten, the
current Chancellor of Oxford University may become the British
candidate for the presidency of the European Commission. Mr
Patten, alumnus of Balliol College, has given assurances that he
intends to continue serving in his post at the university even if
his presidential ambitions are fulfilled. By Debbie Moss. Showercam scam Following a report by
Cherwell, St John’s College has informed Police of a webcam
found in a shower in graduate accommodation. The culprit has
still not been identified, but the police enquiry is ongoing. Greenfield out Oxford Professor, Baroness
Susan Greenfield, has not been shortlisted for Fellowship of the
highly prestigious Royal Society. Her omission rekindles the
debate that she is being discriminated against because of her
comments on sexism within the scientific field, and her celebrity
status. By Harriet Mancey-Barratt. Motion squashed The controversial motion
tabled at last Friday’s OUSU Council meeting to ignore the
result of the recent referendum on higher education funding has
been withdrawn. OUSU President Helena Puig Larrauri said she was
“pleased that the council rejected the motion and remained
committed to campaigning according to the wishes of Oxford
Students.” By Alasdair Henderson. Internet Professor The University has named
Helen Margetts as its first Professor of Society and the
Internet. Margetts will begin work at the Oxford Internet
Institute and take up her Fellowship at Mansfield College in
October. By Mark Hobel Queuing for cash Wealthy businessmen seeking
flats in highly sought-after new developments across the UK are
paying students hundreds of pounds to queue for them. By Alasdair
Henderson. Lastminute accident Martha Lane Fox, Oxford
graduate and co-founder of lastminute.com, has been involved in a
serious car accident on holiday in Morocco. Her father is a
professor at New College. By Sonalini Gunasekera. Student sleeps in An impoverished American
student at New York University spent seven months living in the
library because he could not afford to pay rent. His university
has now offered him free accommodation for the remainder of the
year. By Rachel Von Simson. Odds on poetry Ladbrokes are offering odds of
5/1 on postgraduate Marcus Walker being made Oxford’s
Professor of Poetry. There are only five candidates in the
election. Walker told Cherwell he was “surprised and
flattered” but wasn’t going to be put any money on
himself. By Thomas Pursey.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

If yet another malicious union tribunal wasn’t enough to
further disillusion the ordinary student from the pathetic
self-important joke that is Oxford student politics over the
vacation, the latest shenanigans regarding fees probably did. Not only do further childish and futile campaigns that
don’t represent the student body at large continue to go on,
but the NUS posse seems hell-bent on screwing over the economy
for the sake of 100% equality of opportunity. “No to tuition fees, no to topup fees, no to graduate
tax, yes to a non-means-tested living grant for every student in
further and higher education”: these are the wishes of
incoming president Kat Fletcher. That means yes to an escalating
surplus of unneeded graduates, yes to further depriving the
economy of essential vocationally skilled workers, and yes to
every degree student leaving with an even more worthless
qualification. The democratic result of the recent OUSU referendum, to solve
the funding crisis by decreasing student numbers, is spot on.
Restoring the value of an academic degree by making intelligence
a factor again whilst promoting ‘accessibility to all’
is surely reasonable. After all, everyone deserves the
opportunity to attend university – provided they’re
good enough, that is. That excludes a large chunk of predominantly arts students in
institutions at the lower end of the league tables. Such
candiadates are likely to be better off in the world of relevant
vocational courses or apprenticeships than becoming yet another
‘spare’ graduate. As for tuition fees, it is baffling that many who complain of
being skint spend the vacations voluntarily dossing instead of
productively earning; only to while away the term whining
constantly about their overdraft limit whilst treating themselves
to a night on the town every other day. Higher education is a privilege for those who deserve it, not
a right for all.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

There are so many great things about this stalwart of student
alcoholism that it’s hard not to be too gushing in
one’s praise. Drinks are cheap, especially if you have a
Maxwell’s club card, which gets you cocktails for £3.95
anytime you want. Sometimes, with sufficient cajoling and
flirting, it’s possible to pick up a life membership card,
allowing you the privilege of inexpensive drunkenness for the
rest of your student career. You’ll want to chuck the card
after that, for Maxwell’s is not a place for the
over-25’s. Of course that just makes it all the better for
those of us who are still under 21. Maxwell’s is fun and funky. Entry is free before 10 pm
– or free all night with a membership card. Tip: don’t
get there too late since it’s invariably packed out.
You’ll want to get your place by the bar early (upstairs is
usually quieter than downstairs), find a friendly barman and
start ordering your cocktails. This should ensure you a good
night’s boozing. Otherwise you’ll spend most of the
night trying to order your drink rather than drinking it. That of
course is the flip side of a great bar – everyone has joined
you there. The choice on the Maxwell’s cocktail menu is
good. They do the old classics and a whole bunch of new ones too.
My absolute favourites are the Apple Bomb, Sex on the Beach and
Long Island Iced Tea. At £3.95 a pop you can certainly get
significantly merry for under twenty quid. The atmosphere in Maxwell’s is fantastic. Although it can
get a little crowded, the ceilings are high enough that it never
feels claustrophobic, and it is often possible to get a seat,
with turnover fairly high. The music is fun: contemporary chart
stuff, nothing heavy and not too loud to deafen. Maxwell’s
has the added bonus of being a restaurant and bar in one. So, if
you feel a little peckish at the end of the night, you could
splurge on their delicious chicken fajitas instead of the kebab
that normally finishes a night’s drinking.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

In a parallel universe, the sun is shining on Oxford, and the
clever students are donning hats for a number of reasons. Not
only do hats stop those harmful rays burning your skin and act as
the ever-present disguise of the bad hair day, but they also make
you stand out in the crowd. However, to make sure the occupants
of rainy, dreary Oxford do not commit any fashion faux pas, there
are a few rules to observe. Obviously beanies and woolly hats are
out, unless you are planning an ode to Shrek the sheep, or are
looking for a greasy skater-boy style (in which case, this column
cannot help you). But, apart from that, let your hair go (under
that hat) and feel the wintry breeze. Boys: Caps are good, especially if your hair
is all tousled and mid length-ish. Caps are basically foolproof
(again exceptions to prove the rules), however, visors are not on
the agenda and never should be, whatever anyone else says. Flat
caps are also not for now. Yes they keep the sun off your face,
let the odd bits of tousled hair appear underneath, but no; they
are for winter, and last winter at that. Straw hats are
definitely appearing around Oxford, and as it is Oxfordia, these
shall be forgiven, but don’t return home (unless you live
here, in Cambridge, or Henley) with them still attached. Girls: Any hat will do but remember the
colours. No blacks, unless you are a Goth (in which case go for
it). No whites – they are impractical and reflect the light
into other peoples’ eyes, and can only make you look pasty
(unless you are tanned, in which case just be a little wary).
Make those hats work for their money; more is definitely more. Go
for colourful hats, floral hats, retro hats, but don’t make
them small. Caps look good on some girls, I am assured, but I
have not seen any yet. There are only two more important things to bear in mind about
hats this summer. Firstly, in the coming months, hats are not
simply accessories. Don’t use them just to decorate your
outfit. Use them to hide your hair by all means, but remember,
like the garden, hair is an important part of the house/temple
that is your body. Respect it, glam it up, take care of it, and
it will nurture you back. Secondly, be original. Don’t see someone with a hat and
decide you want the same. Don’t go into a shop and pick up
the obvious style that you know suits you. Be different, try a
new style, experiment. The summer is the most forgiving of
months, (look at all the tourists) so use that to your advantage.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

It is so refreshing to find a restaurant in Oxford that is truly authentic; you won’t find the modern British twist on the spring roll or the ‘chinese’ pie and chips here. When you walk into Liaison, untouched by the hoards of Saturday shoppers, you see Chinese people of all generations. They may be talking loudly, eating with their mouths open and waving their chopsticks wildly, but this is a good sign. My companion and I have turned up for dim sum, the brunchtime/lunchtime Chinese
equivalent of tapas. Ignoring the English menu, I somehow get away with impressing my companion, a quadrilingual blonde Dane who also reads Latin and Greek, with my (faltering) order in Chinese. A delightful start. My childhood favourite, char siu bau, are white fluffy buns filled with pork and sweet char siu sauce. This dish is a brilliant way to break someone new into dim sum; so inoffensive yet so moreish. The prawn dumplings wrapped in rice flour paper, and the pork dumplings too, vanish as soon as they arrive. The next bamboo container houses lotus leaves that parcel glutinous rice with long slices of chicken bursting with steam and flavour. Try the Vietnamese spring roll if you fancy a change from the traditional. Crispier, with different skin, it is rather interesting. I don’t let my companion leave without trying the customary chickens’ feet in black bean sauce. She displays her adventurous spirit by knocking back not just one but two feet. We end with Chinese egg custard tart, not too sweet, and very, very light. Socially, this is top draw; food for sharing with lots of mess and fun. This charming venue is packed with friendly staff who bustle about refilling the teapot whenever the lid is half open. The dim sum is simply superb. And there is always the doggy bag when one realises just what it is that one has ordered.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

A new book out this week: Fifty Facts That Should Change the
World by Jessica Williams, charts a series of horrifying
statistics that gives one a rather depressing insight into the
global psyche. It reveals people en masse to be ignorant and
superficial and the world in which we live to have its priorities
desperately out of whack. A selection of these facts is a
sobering read indeed. Brazil has more Avon ladies than members of its armed
services. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about this one. On
the one hand the superficiality this attests to is significantly
disgusting, especially given the level of poverty in Brazil. It
is after all one of the nations with the biggest discrepancies
between rich and poor in the world. On the other hand a nation
less obsessed with military prowess than Bush can’t be a bad
thing. I’d be highly surprised if America’s defense
budget wasn’t significantly higher than the money it invests
in health and education. There are 67,000 people employed in the lobbying industry in
Washington DC – 125 for each elected member of Congress. This
further attests to the level of corruption in American politics,
where lobbying plays a stronger role in the US than in any other
‘free’ country in the world. With lobbyists influencing
the stances taken by politicians it is hardly surprising that
America’s priorities are so twisted. As Michael Moore (
Dude, Where’s My Country) will tell you, Bush knew of the
threats posed to the US by terrorist sections in Saudi Arabia, he
just never delved into it too deeply because of the importance of
oil to the American market. Even the Clinton presidency had
strong ties with the Bin Laden family. In American politics money
certainly comes before ethics. Hardly surprising in a place where
Bush became president through the faults of a fouled-up electoral
system and a corrupted means of resolution. Every cow in the EU is subsidised by $2.50 a day: a higher
income than that of 75% of Africans. Shocking as this statistic
is, it isn’t the most extreme example of cows (or rather
farmers) being put before people. According to the World Bank,
Japanese cows receive a whopping $7.50 every day. The Catholic
aid agency Cafod calculates that for the money the EU spends
protecting its farmers, each of the EU’s 21 million cows
could go on a round-the-world trip once a year. I think the
majority of starving Africans would settle for clean water and a
sturdy meal. More people can identify the golden arches of McDonald’s
than the Christian cross. This shocker was garnered from a survey
of 7,000 people in six different countries. 88% recognised the
arches while only 54% correctly identified the cross. I’m
not so bothered about what this says about levels of religiosity:
for one thing there are more Hindus and Muslims in the world than
Christians. For another, people strangely seem to find it rather difficult
to reconcile the teachings of love and acceptance with their
desire to kill others who don’t share their religious views. However it further testifies to the astonishing level of
ignorance among the masses. And, more terrifyingly, their
susceptibility to advertising. If Ronald McDonald came on TV and
suggested that vegetarians were evil and flouting the sacred
Maccy D’s laws that demand maximum consumption of dubious
meat burgers then no doubt a mass genocide of the veggie-eaters
would swiftly follow. After twenty minutes soaked in these depressing numbers I was
readily prepared for the most shocking of all: more people voted
in the Pop Idol contest between Gareth Gates and Will Young than
voted in the last general election. To be precise: fewer than 26
million attempted to effect the future of their country, while
over 32 million attempted to effect the future of Top of the
Pops. The very lamentable fact of the nation’s interest in two
talentless youngsters strangely makes their politcal apathy less
lamentable. This may be a slightly controversial point to make,
since it is essentially un-democratic, but I for one am glad that
voting isn’t somehow enforced. Politicians (those few of an idealistic bent) complain that
people are too apathetic. They mourn that a quick shower of rain
stops people coming to the polls. But such commentators
don’t stop to think that perhaps needing to put a little
effort into the voting process is something of a good thing.
Imagine if we could vote online, or through our digital-cable
boxes, or in a telephone poll. I can see it now: a Saturday night on ITV, Ant and Dec
presenting, Blair and the Tory opponent of the week sitting
across from each other in hot seats, Celine Dion belting out of
few numbers to keep us amused: place your votes please! It’d
be a bloody nightmare. If most of the nation bothered to vote,
Will Young would currently be residing at No 10. Perhaps
that’s a little harsh; surely people wouldn’t apply the
same criteria to a pop contest that they would to a political
one? Maybe not. But what criteria would they apply? Given the level
of knowledge of the vast majority of the population possess, it
is as likely that they’d be voting on the colour of Tony
Blair’s tie as much as his stance on Europe. Anyone trivial enough to vote in a pop contest should have
their name taken off the electoral roll. If this book shows us
anything it’s that most people do not have enough knowledge
or interest in their country – let alone the wider world
– to qualify for a say in how it should be run. What Britain needs is a good, old-fashioned dictatorship.
Someone get Ronald McDonald on the phone. No wait, we don’t
need him. Let’s not forget our problems closer to home when
we point out everybody else’s: we already have Mr Blair.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

The prestigious halo of academia which surrounds Oxford means
that it is not often described as the central hub of student
style and innovation. On 14 May, however, a group of the
forward-thinking members of this university will be presenting a
fashion show of student-designed clothing and lingerie at the
Oxford Union, and encouraging the fashion world to rethink this
hackneyed attitude. Everyone enjoys the annual University fashion show, and this
year will certainly be no exception, but at this inaugural event
the emphasis will be on something new, something fresh; something
a little bit daring. The show is being organised by a company called UFO, or
‘Unique Fashionable Objects’ – a name which
certainly conjures up some lively, zany images. And so it should,
because the company is a product of the most ambitious of Oxford
societies: the Oxford Entrepreneurs. So what exactly can the audience expect on the night of 14
May? There will be three main ingredients: firstly, the artists.
The designers are an international group of students making their
debut at this show. Their aim is to create beautiful and exotic
clothes, fusing old and new ideas, delicate and abrasive
materials, gentle and harsh silhouettes; mixing together a
kaleidoscope of colours. Secondly, there are the muses, a
selection of Oxford’s most beautiful student models. Beware,
however, of seeing them merely as clothes-horses. These models
have been chosen to reflect and enhance the tone of each
individual collection. Finally, the marquee after-party will
provide an opportunity to bring a touch of personal glamour to
the evening, while enjoying complimentary Cobra beer and General
Bilimori wines to summer sounds mixed by guest DJs. It is a much repeated adage that beauty and brains create the
most exquisite cocktail imaginable in man: why not come and enjoy
this heady sensation for yourself? For more information go to
www.ufo-oxford.co.uk.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

The ranger sat back in his chair, his hands clasped
comfortably behind his head. He gazed around at the collection of
English gap-year students that surrounded him, hanging on his
every word. A bonfire blazed merrily away in the middle of the
circle of people, sending a plume of sparks and smoke up into the
African night sky. Most of the people in the group were hanging
on his every word, waiting for him to tell yet another anecdote
about being charged by an angry elephant or attacked by a hippo
or bitten by a snake. He cleared his throat and his audience
leaned forwards, eager to catch what he had to say:“And you
know what the best thing about working here is?” He let the question hang in the air for a few seconds to allow
the suspense to build up slightly, before going on:
“It’s the most romantic place in the world. Seriously,
there’s nothing like the sound of hippos shagging in the
background for getting women into bed. Trust me on this
one.” He looked around him with a smug, arrogant smirk stamped alll
over his fat, ugly face, and I suddenly had an inexplicable urge
to stamp on it a bit more. But I didn’t. It would have made
things awkward. We were in the Ruaha National Park in central Tanzania. This
is not a particularly famous place, mainly because getting there
involves eight hours spent in an African bus and another two
hours in a Land Rover. It is worth making the effort though,
mainly because the difficulties of getting there mean that it
tends to be almost empty. It is also ridiculously large –
roughly the size of Wales, in fact, and while we were there the
total guest count was 21. Try to imagine an area the size of
Wales, completely devoid of anything remotely civilised. Anyway,
it is one big open space, full of pretty much any sort of
wildlife you care to mention. The wildlife tend to be unconcerned about the presence of
humans. On arriving at our lodge, we all got out of the Land
Rovers to stretch our legs, and were greeted by the sight of a
full size African elephant strolling across the car park, about
20 feet away from us. I don’t know if you have seen an
elephant that close before – it certainly doesn’t
happen much in Basingstoke – but it does make you pay
attention. The pachyderm in question paused for a second, looked
in our direction, snorted contemptuously, took a monumentally
large crap, and walked off into the bush. As statements go, it
was a good one. All the Western self-importance and confidence
that you bring to the place takes one look at the array of teeth,
claws and sodding large animals that surround you and exits stage
left. You suddenly feel very, very small indeed. On a game drive the next day we had ample opportunity to
increase our feeling of total inadequacy. After parking next to
what I thought was a tree, we gazed around as our guide pointed
out a herd of elephants in the distance, a few vultures hovering
over a carcass a few miles away and what we were actually next to
– a giraffe. As if on cue, the “tree” moved
slightly. The giraffe gazed downwards at us with a stupidly
benign expression on its face and slowly stalked away, balanced
on its implausibly spindly legs. The guide looked at us with our
jaws hanging down and giggled to himself. A bit later we stopped by the side of a river for a drinks
break. We sat in the Land Rover drinking warm beer from the
bottle and basking in the glorious sunshine when a herd of water
buffalo stepped out of the bush one by one – this took a
while – to drink at the river. The head bull of the herd, an
immense beast seemingly carved from black granite, strutted a few
paces towards us, sniffed a couple of times, and proceeded to let
fly a stream of urine from what I had previously assumed was one
of its legs. Talk about making a bloke feel inadequate. When we returned to the lodge for the evening we were met by a
burly South African who proceeded to blather on about all the
amazing things he had seen and done during his time working in
the park. As I sat by the fire with the others, thinking about
how nice it would be to knock him out and feed him to a passing
lion, I began to feel a little bit jealous. The Ruaha National
Park is the most jaw-droppingly beautiful place I have ever been
to, and this guy got paid to be there. He may have been arrogant
and self-obsessed, but you had to hand it to him: he did have the
best job in the world. The bastard.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

Tony Rogers is cheerful – and well he might be. The
Charlatans are about to release their eighth album, Up at the
Lake, which marks fifteen years of Brit-rock ascendancy. The
band’s longevity is phenomenal, given the fickle nature of
the music industry and of the listening public, but their new
album proves that they find no difficulty in creating music that
sounds fresh and original, even after fifteen years. “We don’t do history”, remarks Rogers, and you
can see what he means. Each Charlatans album retains its own
identity, thanks to the fact that the music they write reflects
exactly their circumstances at the time of production. For
example, “There are a couple of sad songs on this album,
which I wrote because I had just lost someone close to me. In
general, though, I think that the album sounds very English,
because it was recorded here and that’s influenced it.”
So what exactly makes the album sound ‘English’? Rogers
thinks that it’s the mellow truthfulness of the words, the
way that it talks about love and loss and life without flinching.
“It’s pretty realistic about things like that,” he
says. “Basically, the album does exactly what is says on the
tin.” Their previous album, Live it Like You Love it, bears little
relation to the relaxed and melodic stylings of Up at the Lake.
Rogers points out that “it’s got a sunny, upbeat kind
of sound, which is probably because we recorded it in California.
It definitely sounds Californian, and I think that tradition
influenced us – you know, The Beach Boys and that kind of
thing.” Fair enough then – it’s clear that The
Charlatans’ sound is defined by what they experience. But who, exactly, are The Charlatans? Rogers describes the
band as “just four other blokes who are on exactly the same
wave-length as me.” And what wave-length might that be?
“We don’t want to change the world. We just want to
make better records,” he enthuses. “We just want to
rock and roll, and anyone who wants to join us – well,
please do!” He needn’t ask; it seems that plenty of
people have already joined in the fun. Interestingly, a large proportion of the band’s fanbase
seems to be fairly young – that is to say, it consists of
people who were tripping up in the primary school playground when
the band were just starting to make it big. “The people who
started out with us in ‘89 have gone off to get married and
have kids. They’re still with us, but they don’t really
come to gigs anymore, so it’s nice to have a younger
generation of fans as well.” It’s not hard to see why – for a band that’s
been around so long that, in musical years, they should be
resting on Fender zimmerframes when performing live gigs, the
ability to produce a record as contemporary as Up at the Lake is
no mean feat, and one that’s calculated to raise the
interest of even the most jaded teen suffering from Pop Idol
ennui. Some might say, about bloody time too – Up at the Lake
comes nearly two years after their previous release. In the music
industry, such a break would have shot a lesser band into the
apocalyptic oblivion of daytime TV interviews and the bargain
shelf in HMV. But not so The Charlatans. “We just had to
recharge our batteries, to find a new direction,” Rogers
explains, “but it was worth it – I love the new album,
I actually think that it’s the best one we’ve ever
done.” During the hiatus, the band embarked on various solo
production projects, but mostly they just rested from the
gruelling schedule of gigging and recording that had been their
lot for the last decade. The Charlatans are lucky, in comparison
to most bands, in that they have the luxury of taking a break
when they like – having assumed control of much of their own
recording and production, the whims of ‘evil corporate
giant’ record companies don’t play much part in the
band’s life. “Get a day job!” is the advice that Rogers would
give to anyone thinking of following in the band’s
footsteps. “Record companies aren’t interested in you
or in your music, they’re only interested in the money it
makes them. They’re all looking for the new Bright Young
Things. It sounds clichéd, but you have to do what you want, not
what they want.” Perhaps that’s all to easy for a member of one of
Britain’s top indie bands to say, but Tony Rogers says it
like he means it. His devotion to creating quality music is
obvious, and is representative of the rest of the band. “We
don’t have a message to get across; we’re not
political. To be honest, all we want to do is have fun and to
make lots and lots of great music – that’s what The
Charlatans are about.” He gives the impression that The Charlatans exist as a musical
entity, rather than a collection of individual musicians.
“It’s more important to carry on the name of the band
– the name itself implies that. In fact, there are only two
founding members from ’89 still in the band – I
didn’t join until 1997. What we’d all love is for The
Charlatans to be playing in 50 or 100 years time, without us of
course, but still a group of musicians keeping the flag flying,
so to speak.” So what is the best thing about being a member of this open
musical collective, as it seems to be? “Waking up in the
morning and knowing that I can do whatever the hell I want,”
he chuckles. And the worst? He pauses – there can’t be
much wrong with being a member of The Charlatans. Finally,
“Probably the fact that I’m still single!” he
says, bursting into laughter so infectious I can’t help but
join in. A charlatan by name, maybe, but a gentleman by nature.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004