Monday, May 12, 2025
Blog Page 259

JCReviews: Cocaine and pin-machines, Worcester and New College

Conrad Moe
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JCReviews: Cocaine and pin-machines, Worcester and New College

The colleges of this ancient place are numerous, and so are the common rooms which accompany them. Whilst most of us will never get a glimpse of the civility that lurks inside the SCR – so attractively portrayed by William Rothenstein on canvas – we undergraduates are free to enjoy the range of pleasures that its somewhat more vulgar younger cousins, the JCRs, have on offer. From stained sofas and scattered junk, paintings and photographs, not least the people who populate them, here follows a lively and much needed dissection of the sheer range of quirks and oddities that make up the unparalleled experience that is the JCRs. 

Worcester

The gate to Worcester is magnificent. Whilst most colleges tend to settle for more of a quiet entrance, Worcester’s main gate imposes itself on the onlooker, making him almost nauseous about the distant potential for the whole structure to collapse on one’s head. No other college, as far as I can tell, feel the need to have a clock above their main entrance. It is a particularly beautiful place at night when lights highlight the façade, but I am visiting at the unforgiving light of the mid-afternoon, accompanied by Dan Harrison, a second year HisPol student who tells of how Worcester ended up as his home by accident, after the turbulent government mishandling of the class of 2020´s examination results. 

The JCR is conveniently located on the left-hand side of the main quad in one of their six medieval cottages, overlooking the perfectly kept lawn which forms the stereotypical image of Worcester. 

An ancient looking staircase takes us up to the JCR situated on the first floor. Opening the door is like being hugged by a jaunty white light, and upon entering one is immediately struck by the vaulted ceiling, where wooden beams are interspersed among a devoutly white background, the contrast between the oak and the white canvas emphasised by wall-mounted lights. Instinctively, you get the sense of a space which has witnessed the passage of time, but whose flavour has been altered with refurbishments made in recent memory. The room has cleverly been divided into two sections; a seating area at the back followed by a kitchen, and a more adaptable beginning and middle phase where a ping-pong table forms the centre of attention. The contrast between the whiteness of the walls and the light yellow and green sofas gives the room the quasi appearance of a waiting room at a specialist clinic, just without the risk of a positive chlamydia test. Lining the walls are JCR photographs, both silly “midway” ones and official matriculation photos, making the room feel haunted with the presence of previous students.  

Oxford is a place where a great diversity of characters co-exists. A quick scan of Worcester JCR prove they are a college of no exception. According to an untampered whiteboard where students have written down happy experiences from the Christmas vac, students at Worcester entertain a variety of interests. Whilst some have enjoyed a good Netflix binge others have seen loved ones and reunited with grandparents. Another student writes of the fun times she has had doing cocaine. According to Dan, the whiteboard is from a recent welfare session, which are frequently hosted in the JCR. 

If an alien civilization where to write a history of humankind based on the things they found in Worcester JCR, the sheer diversity of junk would strike them. Uncollected puffers and a set of poker chips occupies diverging corners of the room, whilst a pink hula-hoop hoovers over a blow-dryer and two small buckets, one red and one blue. An English standard version of the New Testament is the only current testimony to the time when the space was used as a Benedictine monastery. It seems to be the genius of Worcester JCR to fit cluttered smaller segments into a natural, albeit disordered, whole.

New College

New College´s JCR has the longest pedigree of all the junior common rooms, able to trace its origins as far back as the 1680s, a fact their students no doubt relish in. The early history of the JCR is that of drinking and debauchery, its function primarily a private members club until college authorities forced through reform in the middle of the nineteenth century, paving the way for the development of the JCRs as they function today. 

Worcester and New’s JCRs are architecturally not unlike, but the atmosphere attached to each decor could not be more different. Whilst Worcester’s settles for respectability but ends up being a bit sterile, New has all the cosy and characterful ambiance of an American college common room at the turn of the century. The feel is Oxbridge meets American Pie; scruffy but not unclassy, a place where both copies of Homer and kegs full of beer accompanied with red-plastic cups seem equally appropriate. In terms of character, we have clearly moved up a step from Worcester. 

It is a rather old space, which carries itself with a light but dignified level of respect, with sofas ripe for change (no, seriously!) and a decisively authoritative looking fire-place marking out the separation of the JCR into two different wings. The walls are lined with modern abstract artworks which all seem completely out of place, a photographed red toothbrush with a blue background is a personal favourite. This confusion of old and new seems appropriate for a fourteenth century college which still lingers onto a paradoxical understanding of what it means for something to be ‘New’. 

Yet, the walls seem to exude stories of ages past, and even if the sofas are a bit grim, the space possess the imaginative quality of bringing old students back to life; visualising a young Hugh Grant occupying the same sofas at a time when they were once brand new, is not far-fetched. It is clearly a place where manners have been in the making for a long time. 

Scattered Junk, as with Worcester, is a natural addition to the landscape, so natural in fact that I would struggle to imagine the room without it. For weird objects, New triumphs. It must be the only JCR where a pin-maker is a casual instalment. Surely the making of pins could be more productively done elsewhere. 


Worcester and New both possess JCR´s which demand attention. Whilst I would pin Worcester as reliable and respectable, New triumphs when it comes to character and atmosphere. If you are looking for a predictable and cosy evening, Worcester is your bet, but if you want to be surrounded by walls that appear seasoned by the passage of time, and are unafraid of grim seating, New’s JCR is the one for you. 

Image Credit: ‘Dessert in the Senior Common Room’ by William Rothenstein (1872 – 1945), Worcester College (used with permission).

Europe Underground: Journalism on the edge

Jacob Grech
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Europe Underground: Journalism on the edge

Amidst the Ukraine crisis that has dominated European politics for the last several weeks, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán travelled to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin – a trip Orbán described as a “peace mission” but one that, whilst not surprising, nevertheless gave his fellow EU leaders cause for additional concern. Orbán may be almost alone in trumpeting his close personal relationship with the Russian president at this moment of confrontation, but as Hungarian investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi stresses, the brand of politics he has fostered is anything but marginal. 

If anything, Hungary has become a “laboratory” for right-wing movements trumpeting a particular brand of exclusionary, civilisational discourse. One way this has manifested, with particularly troubling consequences, is in relation to the national press. 

I interviewed Panyi, who covers foreign policy and national security at the non-profit investigative journalism centre Direkt36, a few months ago, and began by asking him how Hungary’s media landscape has evolved since the fall of the communist regime in 1989. One prominent analysis of Eastern Europe traces its contemporary political divergence from the continent’s western half – its rejection of liberalism and cosmopolitanism – to the false hopes generated by the promises of the 1990s. 

Broadly in line with this view, Panyi remembers the ‘90s as a “very wild but free time” that saw a proliferation of diverse forms of journalism in tandem with the flow of foreign capital into the country. There emerged genuine investigative reporting alongside more colourful, satirical projects. This media landscape had its dark side, characterised by the emergence of the first oligarchs. 

By the mid-2000s, Hungary possessed a small number of national dailies and corporately-owned TV channels, but had become a trailblazer in online-only media operations – some with rather poppy names like Index and Origo, both of which boasted upwards of a million unique hits per day in a country of ten million. There also began, however, a definitive shift onwards from this era of experimentation, with the media forced into a closer embrace with the two main political parties – the Socialist Party and Fidesz, initially a liberal-conservative party but increasingly drifting rightwards. Panyi pinpoints the origin point of a collapse in public trust in the media in this decade that has only worsened since Orbán returned to power in 2010. 

Winning a supermajority, Orbán’s Fidesz government in the National Assembly swiftly proceeded to draft a new constitution. Subsequently, state-owned banks began granting cheap loans to businessmen with ties to the government, allowing them to buy up media outlets and alter their editorial lines. Declining advertising revenues in journalism facilitated acquisitions of this nature, because government-backed entities who considered media not a business investment but a political tool were often the only serious bidders. 

The mainly foreign owners of Hungarian publications were more than happy to sell up their assets in this way, fully aware not only of the declining returns on their investments but also the consequences of these sales for the media landscape in Hungary. Profit trumped political responsibility. That the Hungarian government is the biggest spender on ads has only produced further distortion, given that they only advertise in politically-aligned media outlets. This financial-induced rollback in media pluralism has been identified by the UN and other agencies as a serious cause for concern. 

Panyi’s colleagues at large newspapers were increasingly pushed out of their jobs – either fired outright or resigning in the face of editorial pressure. He tells me that, on average, when he broke a story in 2015, 20 or so outlets would report on it. Nowadays, that number is down to six or seven. 

Low trust in the press is another issue, and one that predated the Orbán era. What is new in the last decade is a concerted smear campaign against independent journalists, often questioning their loyalties and motives – they’ve been labelled foreign agents, stooges for George Soros. Journalists have had their faces plastered on government-supporting news sites and TV channels. 

The recent revelation that various domestic critics of the Orbán government, including Panyi himself, were subject to surveillance on their mobile phones using the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware has threatened to have an even greater chilling effect on investigative reporting by discouraging sources from coming forward. 

Once you are pushed into this corner, how do you respond? How do you retain a commitment to impartiality and evidence when you know that certain actors in the political arena fundamentally have no respect for your profession, would gladly see you stop reporting? “You cannot fight back with the same tools, for that would be to step out of your role as a journalist and become a political activist,” Panyi says. It’s an ongoing debate in the Hungarian journalistic community whether employees of pro-government outlets should be treated as colleagues or political operatives. Panyi tends towards the latter view, and it’s a dilemma whenever he is asked to sit down with them for a public debate.

In this climate, it’s worth asking who’d want to become a journalist. A generation has grown up in Hungary – but this is hardly unique to the country – with a dysfunctional media landscape in which polarisation and attacks on reporters are the norm. Young people increasingly choose to move abroad (mainly to Western Europe) and stay there; the battles back home are just not worth fighting.  

Despite all this, Panyi ended our conversation with a note of optimism. He referenced the collaborative projects he’s involved in with journalists from across Central and Eastern Europe, who face common obstacles in their line of work, such as government harassment, but also shared priorities. “Hungary has historically been the rival of Romania and Slovakia, so it is exciting to work increasingly closely with Romanian and Slovakian journalists on investigations of mutual relevance” – related to oligarchy, nepotism, state surveillance, organised crime, to name but a few. 

Size is the foremost contributor to the appeal of this internationalism. If British newspapers increasingly put up paywalls or solicit regular contributions from readers, the financial situation is even more precarious for their counterparts in the smaller states of Europe, where national language barriers impose limitations on the potential market size and, with English increasingly widespread, international news is the choice for many. 

All this threatens the depressing conclusion that journalism is a dying profession – this is one that countries large and small have an imperative to resist. However, as Szabolcs highlights, there are sources of inspiration, solutions to agitate for. One is the Bellingcat model of open-source intelligence sharing; another is the Dutch model of state financial support for investigative journalism, but also local and regional legacy media. But, more fundamentally, what is needed is education – to train a new generation of reporters in the region, but also to encourage citizens to think critically – and independently – about the news they consume. Panyi, who originally trained to teach literature, hopes one day to open the first dedicated journalism school in Hungary. 

The east-west divide is one of Europe’s deepest and most consequential. There is no magic formula to overcome it. However, questioning what reporting is and could be appears as good a starting point as any. 

Image Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0 1.0

Observing Oxford: The Radcliffe Camera

Kaya Gadhia
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Observing Oxford: The Radcliffe Camera

It is a truth universally acknowledged that no one has ever gone to the Radcliffe Camera to actually do work, and if you do, you’re lying. The truth is that the Rad Cam is the perfect place to show other people that you are doing work when in fact the opposite is the case more frequently than we would like to admit. 

Strutting down the limestone path of the library, head held high and bod card in hand, entering the Rad Cam is an ordeal in itself. Knowing that everyone is watching you as you duck between groups of tourists is the guaranteed ego boost you need to start your day off on the right foot. Of course, the façade of the dreaming spires soon fades away as soon as the card is scanned and the realm of pretending to work to pass the time is entered. 

No one seems to notice that you’re not actually working in the Rad Cam (apart from me, obviously, for the purposes of this article), because they’re all perfectly preoccupied with doing the same. The harmonious whirring of rows of laptops and students anxiously tapping away at their keyboards whilst drinking coffee out of their keep-cups presents an image of academic bliss. Yet, the harsh reality is that the Wi-Fi NEVER works, and I’m unconvinced that it ever has, the library itself operates in a microclimate where it is simultaneously too cold and too stuffy to think about anything else, and everyone is too busy posting photos of on their story to actually get anything done. 

The Rad Cam represents everything about oxford that is quintessential. Students sleeping at their desks, crying in the bathroom because of how much you hate your degree, and smoking outside after being specifically told you are not allowed to. Rule breaking in the mildest sense. 

That has been my experience of the Rad Cam so far. Storming through Brasenose Lane with every intention of doing work and the threat of a looming deadline, only to find myself leaving half an hour later after: a) not getting the Wi-Fi to work that I became so frustrated that I b) cried in the bathroom because of how stressed I was about my degree, resulting in c) running outside to smoke only to get told off for doing so, packing up my things and going home. 

The promise of a new day and the start of 2nd week inspired me to take myself on a date to the rad cam on Monday. Sitting near the main entrance on the ground floor, I witnessed a boy walk in with all the confidence in the world in a ski jacket, and a hat, scarf, and gloves. Yet this was directly offset by the fact that he was also wearing shorts and sliders. Toes out and all. As anyone would, I stared at him for an uncomfortably long amount of time until I received a weird sort of glare/grimace hybrid, but I was perplexed. Either he had mastered Rad Cam appropriate attire, striking the perfect balance between warmth, ventilation, and style, or maybe he just lacked the ability to regulate his internal body temperature. Regardless, it was an active decision, and this was confirmed by the fact that the hat, scarf, and glove set was matching (and baby blue at that), and by the fact that hat had an unironic bobble. 

That afternoon I met up with a friend to continue my Rad Cam adventure with the desperate plea to get some work done. Sitting in the upper library we proceeded to move around twice after being caught next to loud-breathing, loud-typing postgrads with a completely unnecessary amount of tech for the simple act of reading. We alternated between performative work, provoking each other into laughing and spotting people that we knew. Taking to Facebook like a live action version of ‘Guess Who’, we put names to faces, analysed mutual friends and recounted stories of awkward interactions in Bridge and Park End that we could only pray they didn’t remember. 

The Rad Cam is the centre of the Oxford universe, and we are unwittingly stuck in its orbit for three years. Photos of it, in front of it, and time spent in it, punctuate our degree from matriculation to graduation. There are a huge number of other libraries that are probably more conducive to doing work, yet we somehow always end up here. Tinged with an element of narcissism, we go to the Rad Cam to be seen by others. Wearing outfits that scream trying a little bit too hard, we hope for an Oxlove or a forbidden glance in the tunnel of the Gladstone Link. Work is always the intention, yet it never really comes to fruition. 

Image Credit: Tejvan Pettinger, CC BY 2.0

La Vie en Rose: Babysitting the strawberries

Maddy Bellucci
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La Vie en Rose: Babysitting the strawberries

Nowadays there’s a lot of ‘main character’ talk. One woman who has not only understood the assignment, but puts to shame all other competing candidates – is Strawberry. That is not her real name (to avoid defamatory claims) but it is close enough in nature. Strawberry is tall, stone-like (giving deceptive illusions of elegance and grandeur) and resides in a two-floor castle apartment in front of the Eiffel tower. And much like a strawberry, she entices you in only to leave you with a more-often-than-not bitter after-taste. I somehow ended up in this castle, sweating profusely, explaining to Givenchy-draped Strawberry that I will make sure her children don’t die and, with equal urgency, that they both consume their specific apple compotes straight after school, after washing their hands with the blue – not the vanilla Chanel one (because it’s hers) – soap. 

A couple months ago, when I got to Paris, I saw all the Parisian girls wearing suede New Balance trainers. I had no taste for these revoltingly (and gratuitously) suede creps – why suede? So unnecessary. But with the same mindset I imagine I had two years ago, when purchasing flared leggings I had just spent a month condemning, a week ago I decided that I too needed the abhorrent suede New Balance trainers. I’d like them soon enough. Just like three years ago I’d like coffee if I force fed it to myself every morning without fail. Just a matter of faking it in order to make it. (I now have it as a calming, nocturnal beverage to ease my insomnia). After a long and surprising conversation with Babbo Bank, in which he informed me that I was a spoilt privileged brat who needs to get off her arse because (heavy Italian accent) “I-a am no longer going-a to fund-a your consumeristic-a and capitalistic-a tendencies” and some similar utterances that to me just equated to the vivid image of suede New Balance trainers with a big red cross plastered atop them – I realised that I was somehow going to have to conjure up my own dosh. Also, because these trainers weren’t the only things on the list of abhorrent items  that I needed. (A miniscule cartoonesque designer bag is very much in the running).

So, I was egregiously forced into the coaxing arms of English-speaking-girl-hunting Strawberry. And she made me realise a few things. One of them being that there are two expressions that to some people extend beyond mere dictions, but rather are realities: as far as they are concerned, the world does actually physically revolve around their frame. And these people also do genuinely have their heads stuck so far up their buttoxes that they are unaware there is a whole weird and wonderful world out there, with oxygen, flowers and other sentient beings.  I would not be surprised if Mademoiselle Channel 5 Strawberry watched the Truman show, banged her head and then believed she was Jim Carrey on set for the film. As far as she’s concerned all of the other humans on planet earth were plopped onto it as props to ease her little life, and her odious – to put it nicely – children’s. If dad thought I was spoilt he should meet the baby Strawberries. (She also definitely thinks the Eiffel tower was plopped at her doorstep as a fun little amuse-bouche).  

I then embarked on the soul-destroying journey of galloping from one after-school accomplished-child activity to the next (concluded by the meticulously counted, rounded-down coins she took an eternity to abandon – as I watched the pain flash through her eyes each time), all the while under Sisyphus’ boulder of a pink Frozen backpack. I am so brave, truly. And feeling very much like the Common People girl who wanted to live like common people and wanted to see what common people see – only, the kind of common people who do not get spat on by 8-year-olds – I wondered at certain points why I found myself genuinely trying to explain to pudding-bowl haired 10-year-old Hippolyte (again, close enough to his actual name) that I haven’t a clue why one of my eyebrows is higher than the other, followed by some more questions of the sort. Although, I am not sure adding “why” before a demonstration of distaste about one’s features qualifies as a question. Who’d have known that something so small and snotty could make me so insecure. 

At the school gate the demographic was: exasperated Philippine nanny (usually above the age of 40), suede-shoe needing 20-year-old– recently disowned by the Bank of Dad, and a few more Strawberries ranging in shape and size (who finished their Pilates so had some extra time to come and anoint the green gate with a lipsticked grimace I imagine they think is a smile). They stand there and discuss the benefits of having “an English one” rather than “a Philippino” because they can’t teach their kids English. But then again, the young English ones are so careless and are very unwilling to change their university schedule to fit their kids’ judo time slot, which is very unideal and inconvenient. I think you can imagine the awkwardness in the eye contact department between me and the Philippine nanny as we were being examined and reviewed en plein air like zoo animals. 

I’ve just realised how negatively I am coming across. She must have really grated on me, this Strawberry. I am not usually this unforgiving. But when a kid draws penises all over her note book and then runs to her dad screaming “Papa! Papa! Maddy à dessiné ça. C’est quoi?!” (“Daddy! Daddy! Maddy drew this. What is it?”) because yes, the dad stays home, and watches me watch his children for the full four hours. This was followed by  Strawberry coming home and giving me a speech on how “we heard you speak some French and that is not what we are paying you for”, when I tried to communicate basic information to the kids. I would then then receive another speech about how inconvenient my time table was for them and if I could try to find them another babysitter, maybe one of my friends, (followed by a ridiculous amount of messages, chasing me up to find them a full-time English speaking girl who will give up her French degree for Hyppolite to perfect his backstroke) – the cute babysitting work experience begins no longer being so cute.

Ultimately, I genuinely do feel bad for the people who live in these bubbles, because as fun as it may be to live as an alien that floats about above the cosmos, it must be jarring to never get to even touch planet earth (the flowers, the oxygen). Every spaceman in a spaceship needs to come home and I don’t envy the poor Givenchy-draped Major Toms.

Image Credit: Pixabay

The Demolished School

Noah Wild
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The Demolished School

Block A was the first to go.

The claw of a digger smashed through the rectangular arch

of doorways, tearing down the wooden ceiling, rotten

from years of leaking drains, eroded cladding.

Carpets ripped from floorboards, exposing wood

on which footprints, preserved,

almost rested in stasis, toe bending to heel,

where students once pulsed together,

rushing to lessons, or

dawdling, taking the longer route

with detours down past history,

up to food tech, then disappearing.

In those geography rooms I had spent hours,

head down in textbooks, staring at Sarah Lee,

in the row next to me,

her foundation cracked around the nose,

studded earrings, hair like bronzed ember,

cut at the shoulders, skirt too short for Sir,

but it was all she could afford, passed down

from her sister, who was shorter.

Next, the toilets dismantled,

sinks to be recycled, scrubbed

into new basins, to hold more tears

after failed mocks and sudden

dumpings; like Chloe (who Max had left

for Yasmin, more attractive,

funnier). She sobbed, reassured by friends

hiding from the snap of teachers

too busy for love worn woes,

though Miss Green had cried in the very same cubicle

ten years prior. Spending years of loneliness

sitting on that toilet seat, a haven

from slow lunch times with no friends, I knew the peeling paint

as if it were my own palm, cream cracking, exposing

the avocado green of the seventies. 

Two builders chucked the piston and pipes

into a skip at the nearest tip.

The toilet bowl cracked down the middle,

a shibboleth. No thought for a ceramic

that had seen Maria’s first period.

Reading ‘The Waste Land’ 100 years on

Jacky Chan
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Reading ‘The Waste Land’ 100 years on

As the centenary of perhaps the two towering works of literary modernism, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and James Joyce’s Ulysses, 2022 appears a natural time to reflect on the present day significance of these texts. Such an impulse can only be furthered by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused many to use literary works as a means of processing, alleviating, or escaping from present reality.

Given this connection, The Waste Land is the perfect work for our times. Fragmented into many voices with bits and pieces of allusion, the poem is clichédly read as dramatising the condition of post-WW1 Europe. Eliot’s work begins by painting a world with only “a little life”: even the poem’s form itself is barely hanging on, with the lines held together by faint half-rhymes. As The Waste Land progresses, however, the possibility of regeneration and redemption becomes stronger and stronger. A “damp gust” is “bringing rain” to the “arid plain”, which is “behind me”; there is the hope that the land will be set “in order”. Reading The Waste Land in 2022 thus seems to offer not just consolation and peace of mind, but also give voice to the present urge to move forward and put the traumatic past behind us.

Do we need, though, to desperately move on whatever the cost? As I write, the frankly bullish ‘live with the virus’ ideology that is now governing the UK is causing a sense of profound unease, prompting me to turn back to The Waste Land. For the poem seems to me, in fact, to actually revolt against simplistic trajectories of hope and progress. Right from the beginning, the poem seems to suggest that suffering originates from unfounded hope. It is not entirely clear why “April is the cruellest month” because memory is mixed with desire and “dull roots” are stirred by spring rain: I think what Eliot is getting at, is that there is pain in trying to rejuvenate what is already dead (the dull roots), in trying to instil a desire for the future when past memories and traumas have not been fully processed. You can’t just mindlessly charge ahead.

As someone who doesn’t believe reasonable precautions (mask-wearing, self-isolating) should be thrown into the wind just for normalcy’s sake (whose normal, anyways?), reading The Waste Land and its thwarting of hope thus becomes strangely comforting. Think the rain at the end of the poem signals rebirth? Well, water actually seems quite deadly. The reader is told to ‘Fear death by water’, and when the veteran in the poem’s second section remembers his fallen comrade through an excerpt of verse from Shakespeare’s Tempest – “Those are the pearls that were his eyes” – water suddenly becomes much closer to the “green sea” of wartime poison gas that Wilfred Owen famously described in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. Does the fragmented poem ultimately cohere? Actually, we are told that the fragments are shored against rather than shore up the ruins; the tiny prepositional change crumbles hopefulness into limp helplessness. It is as if Eliot sets up the possibility of a redemption arc only to then deconstruct it from within the poem, reminding the reader that a much more nuanced post-crisis view is necessary. Living in the wake of any crisis, whether WW1 or the COVID-19 pandemic, does not mean forgetting the crisis altogether. Instead, The Waste Land reminds us, it’s much more about giving ourselves space to recollect, reflect, and recuperate, to emerge out of the crisis on our own terms. If Eliot’s poem is in many ways resistant to abrasive discourses of hope and progress, then, is it finally also against the very idea of centennialism? As Harris Feinsod puts it, centenaries are “empty occasions of calendrical time impos[ing] their false coherence on us”. Feinsod’s argument is sound: endlessly parading how applicable The Waste Land is to our modern day living feels suspiciously like stirring dull roots with spring rain, to use the poem’s own image. But I also don’t think there’s necessarily anything bad about using centenaries as motivation to revisit old works, and 2022 just happens to be a great year in which to read The Waste Land. For me, the experience of reading the poem will certainly serve to guide me as I navigate the uncertain days ahead, and I hope it will be the same for you.

Image Credit: Shakespearesmonkey // CC BY 2.O via Flickr

Hertford cat defies Exeter Library ban

Charlie Hancock
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Hertford cat defies Exeter Library ban

There appear to be no signs of a détente between Simpkin IV of Hertford College and Walter of Exeter College, as Simpkin has been spotted in the Exeter Library two weeks after he was banned from the premises.

Cherwell has been shown photographs which show that Simpkin has not only continued to find his way into the library, but has even started stealing food from Walter’s bowl.

Simpkin stealing Walter’s food. Image: Khusrau Islam

Walter told Cherwell: “I would like to remind Simpkin IV that he has plenty of food in his own College! If he has a particular penchant for my IAMS chicken dry food, I suggest he passes this on to the Hertford chef.”

Simpkin has a history of sneaking into Exeter College. In Hilary Term 2021, he was locked in the Exeter Library overnight. He has also been seen leaving the basement of the Clarendon Building, in what the Bodleian Libraries’ twitter account described as a “campaign for library domination”.

Hertford’s Principal, Tom Fletcher, tweeted in response that Simpkin’s visits to libraries were to “liberate, not to conquer”.

Simpkin had been withdrawn for discussions about appropriate sanctions against Exeter after his initial ban. The Rt Hon Alastair Burt, former Minister of State for Middle East and North Africa, volunteered his assistance for the deliberations, saying: “Hello. I have some years of experience in the disputes of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as within the Conservative Party. Whilst this is not perhaps a strong enough background for mediation between Oxford Colleges, it might give you paws for thought if I can assist?”

The sign banning Simpkin from the Exeter Library was found torn up on the ground. A photograph of it was shared on the anonymous confessions page Oxfess with the caption #JusticeForSimpkin. Cherwell was unable to confirm who was behind this.

The story also made it to parenting forum Mumsnet, where most commentators declared themselves #TeamWalter.

Simpkin’s representatives have been approached for comment.

Image Credit: Khusrau Islam

New writing in Oxford: An interview with Shaw Worth and Kirsty Miles

Cherwell Stage
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New writing in Oxford: An interview with Shaw Worth and Kirsty Miles

In Week 4 of this term, the Burton Taylor Studio will welcome a double bill of new student plays from Love Song Productions: Wednesday, Death Meditation by Shaw Worth, and She Felt Fear by Kirsty Miles. Ahead of the plays’ opening nights next week, Cherwell Stage spoke to the two writer/directors about Tibet, Taylor Swift, and the process of bringing your own writing to the stage.

What made you want to write this play?

Shaw: I’ve been doing yoga seriously for about two years now, and that entire world has more or less kept me going through the whole pandemic. The range has been from sinister MLM wellness promoters to ascetic nuns in Tibet zooming me on their three months a year off from solitary retreat. At first I was just interested in their specific language, but then as I stayed on we became very close in the various yoga/meditation groups, and in a philosophy that’s all about facing pain head-on we had a lot to work through together in 2020. There’s a funny safety in the uncomfortability of the mat. They taught me a lot. So I wanted to write a play for them out of gratitude about that trust, what happens when it’s broken, and what a yogic approach might look like when things fall apart.

Kirsty: I had wanted to write a play for a long time and when it came down to what I would actually write, I pieced together my interests. Having played the clarinet and saxophone for many years, the soundscape of plays has always been important to me and inspired me to get a composer and live musician on board. The central plot is a simple love story, because I think there is nothing more compelling! Most of my creative writing is done in the form of poetry and songs, so I made the writing and exchange of those crafts the fulcrum of the love story. 

What other pieces of media would you cite as inspiration and why?

Shaw: Writing-wise, Annie Baker’s recent plays, especially Circle Mirror Transformation and The Antipodes; she plays with technical sets of vocabulary very beautifully. Brian Friel’s Faith Healer as well. As for the staging, and the reason I wanted to try essentially static yoga on stage, definitely William Forsythe’s ballet In The Middle, Somewhat Elevated as well as Amina Cain’s novel Indelicacy, which is about a woman sweeping an art gallery over and over.

Kirsty: Sooo many! I think to write a play you’ve got to be constantly re-inspired. It requires so many exchanges between characters and demands inhabiting so many different psyches. It’s not like writing a poem where you can be carried along by a certain emotion you’re feeling. For much of the writing process, I was watching the National Theatre’s Hedda Gabler on Drama Online and very much liked the idea of having a central female character who is incredible but also hard to like. I like it when we are afforded that complexity!

How has it been directing your own writing?

Shaw: I knew it would be a challenge. This is my first time directing, and outside of writing and then handing over plays I don’t have a lot of theatrical experience. It’s very weird having to translate yourself to other people. In a way, we’ve had a tight blueprint, since all the yoga is written into the script, but investing those poses with meaning and making them accessible to speak and act in has been something we’ve had to develop. Honestly I feel like it’s been communally directed – our amazing Assistant Director Mina Moniri as well as all the actors have been so helpful in pulling an entire vision out of the page. 

Kirsty: Both incredible and scary! It feels amazing having so much creative control over something but it can also be nerve-wracking as so much of it comes from you. You just hope that people around you tell you if you have a bad idea! At first it felt so vulnerable having my script read out loud, writing feels so personal and suddenly all these people are reading it and forming an opinion of it in their heads. It feels really special though having really built something from the ground up. ‘Written and directed by me’ also sounds like it would make Taylor Swift proud, which is all I strive to do.

Any memorable rehearsal stories?

Shaw: Too flatulent to name names. What happens in the Teddy Hall music room/dungeon stays in the music room/dungeon. Gillian Konko’s non-human levels of flexibility.

Kirsty: We had a very chaotic rehearsal trying to stage our party scene. We hadn’t yet chosen the music for it and so ended up playing a ‘Filthy Drum n Bass’ playlist on spotify. Everyone also somehow forgot what it looked like to have a party so we had an impromptu dance to ‘Classic’ by MKTO. 

What has your favourite part of the process been so far?

Shaw: I wrote the play very visually, so to see it with real-life bodies in real time has been amazing. Having such a physical orientation as well has been really fun in rehearsals. Child’s pose is like the ultimate therapy for line-learning stress. 

Kirsty: I think I’m just so excited to have learnt that writing a play and directing is something I enjoy. It feels like I’ve found another limb. I love being in rehearsals and being around a new group of people consistently. 

What has been the most challenging part of the process so far?

Shaw: I think finding the right balance between silence/stillness and movement/dialogue. Because all those problems are embedded in the script – how can you give a character a physical language when they’re supposed to be in a (stunning) Warrior II? How does a play work when four out of five characters are anchored in place for around 80% of the scene? And finding rehearsal rooms. We’ve had some close shaves with several Porters.

Kirsty: Ooh I think energy levels! The urge is to throw myself completely into making the play, but it’s been hard to remember to preserve energy for academic work and that I should have boundaries with my time even with my own creation (I say this, typing at 1.30am. Still learning).

What do you think makes your project unique?

Shaw: The yoga element is definitely the most salient feature; it brings the first half of the play closer to performance art or dance than a traditional stage play (although there’s plenty of dialogue throughout). The poses are sort of their own voice in the class. Probably the only play  this term to reference Pennywise the Dancing Clown and a 12th-century Tibetan ascetic practice in the same line.

Kirsty: I think the integrated live music, the way poetic language seeps into it and the collision of the two!

Give us a quick synopsis of your show!

Shaw: Sandra, a yoga teacher in a small studio, takes a class on a Wednesday night around the theme of impermanence. It comes out (for better or for worse) over the course of the class that her husband, Doug, also a meditation teacher, is very sick, and due for a total laryngectomy the next day; in other words he’ll never speak again. That night, Sandra goes home to Doug to talk. When he leaves for the hospital, she finds herself alone on stage to reckon with everything that’s happened.

Kirsty: In the words of Bethan Draycott playing the rebellious Lily: “a classic story of boy meets girl and girl falls for me instead.”

Describe the show in three words.

Shaw: Ow! (hamstring, grief)

Kirsty: Enchanting, lyrical, romance (all words taken from Max Morgan, our Assistant Director: he seems to be able to describe it much better than I can).

Why should people see your play?

Shaw: When I describe it to my friends all I can talk about is the genuinely amazing cohort of actors we have. They are so good. Rehearsals have been quite weepy. Otherwise I think it’ll be something a little different from what you might expect of a normal night at the theatre. Come find out what that means?

Kirsty: Some truly virtuosic performances from our actors. We’ll take you from extreme silliness to intense grappling with the human experience. So many creative ideas from our cast and crew distilled into just one hour. Or, in the words of our welfare rep, Jack, “because Oxford students need a lesson in emotional intelligence”. 

Both plays run at the BT Studio from 8-12 February: tickets for Wednesday, Death Meditation, at 7.30pm, are available here, and tickets for She Felt Fear, at 9.30pm, are available here.

Image Credit: Katie Kirkpatrick

The Matrix Resurrections: “Déjà-vu and yet it’s obviously all wrong”

Hayley Chow
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The Matrix Resurrections: “Déjà-vu and yet it’s obviously all wrong”

Right now, you believe you are reading this review in Cherwell. This is your reality. Yet in the world of the Matrix films, that could not be further from the truth.

Although Resurrections was one of the most eagerly anticipated films of 2021, fears that it would disappoint fans and ruin the trilogy’s legacy were pervasive. Lilly Wachowski does not return as co-director, leaving only her sister Lana, and neither Laurence Fishburne nor Hugo Weaving reprise their roles as Morpheus and Agent Smith respectively. Resurrections confusingly morphs elements of these two principal characters into the single figure of Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), shedding the distinctiveness of each. Rendering Morpheus a program also contradicts his role in the trilogy as the leader of a decisively human crew in the war against the machines. Similarly, the attempt to reinvent the character of Smith (Jonathan Groff) as a smooth-talking business partner does not succeed in creating the menace characteristic of Agent Smith in the trilogy. Whilst Resurrections occasionally produces interesting characters and dialogue worthy of profound contemplation, at other points it lacks the tight cohesion of the original film.

As Morpheus remarks, ‘nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia’, and Lana Wachowski takes this to heart. Resurrections pays homage to the trilogy with parallel shots and flashbacks, particularly in its largely faithful recreation of the opening scene of The Matrix. That is not to say, however, that Resurrections has not evolved with the times. Humans now use portals rather than landlines to travel in and out of the Matrix. Furthermore, the way in which Resurrections addresses contemporary digital culture differs from the original. The latter is grounded in how the Internet and hacking were more of an underground subculture in the 90s, whereas in this film Thomas Anderson works as a game designer in the mainstream spotlight, emphasising the significant extent to which technology now permeates our personal lives, especially in our interactions with others. Our increased dependence on technology diminishes our capacity to discern reality from simulation, a phenomenon seen in the growth of virtual reality, for instance. Resurrections not only resurrects Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), but also the franchise itself. ‘That’s the thing about stories’, Smith points out. ‘They never really end, do they?’ Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that we cannot let them end: we cannot let go of past stories and we continually seek to resurrect them.

Unfortunately, resurrection does not necessarily constitute innovation. The grand visual effects make Resurrections worth watching in the cinema, yet to expect something as groundbreaking as Bullet-Time was in The Matrix is to expect too much. Similarly, the action sequences struggle to be as original as those in the trilogy, and the fight scenes are staged in an unclear way. Resurrections eschews the distinctive green and blue tints employed in The Matrix to distinguish simulation from reality, favouring sunlight instead for the most part. Paradoxically, this radiant natural lighting enhances the semblance of artificiality because, as Smith notes off-handedly, ‘it’s so perfect, it’s gotta be fake’: a meta nod to the simulation of the Matrix.

All four Matrix films focus on choice, for instance that between a simulated world and the real world, but Resurrections diverges from the trilogy because it examines how subjects do not possess choice. On one hand, whilst Trinity’s body can be freed, her mind must leave the Matrix of her own accord, suggesting her power to choose. On the other hand, Bugs (Jessica Henwick) states to Morpheus that ‘the choice is an illusion. You already know what you have to do’, implying the absence of free will. In contrast to The Matrix, Neo exhibits an initial reluctance to take the red pill; in fact, his therapist prescribes him copious amounts of blue pills to manage his supposed breakdowns. Resurrections depicts just how difficult it is to let go of what one thinks is their reality: the comfortable existence one has always known. The film speaks to broader ideas about the nature of choice and reality by suggesting that reality is not something we can choose; rather, our choice lies in how we confront the truth about reality.

Choice features just as prominently in our interpretation of the films as viewers. Resurrections is playfully meta, especially in the scene where a group of characters discuss their interpretations of what The Matrix is about, because the beauty of that film lies in the absence of a single definitive interpretation. Yet the self-referentiality also gestures to broader questions about technology in society. For example, Neo’s memories, which formed the events of the trilogy, are buried in the Matrix video game he designs. Not only does this reference the films themselves as he is tasked by Warner Bros. (the studio behind the Matrix films) with designing a sequel to the trilogy, but it also investigates ‘the power of technology to trap or limit our subjective reality’, as Lana Wachowski reflected in an interview. Indeed, Resurrections explores contemporary concerns about technology and reality, including the way in which technology trivialises human emotion and experience. If the trilogy contested the nature of reality by contrasting the dream-world and the real-world, Resurrections complicates this by throwing memory and fiction into the mix. ‘Are memories turned into fiction any less real? Is reality based in memory nothing but fiction?’ These questions posed by Morpheus remain unanswered.

Despite the philosophical themes in Resurrections, emotion is at its heart. Neo is no longer just the stoic messiah figure; he is shown to be in psychological turmoil and yearns for what he does not have. Where Resurrections truly succeeds is in developing the character of Trinity. Fierce in her own right, she becomes Neo’s equal in this film: he may be the One, but they are only formidable together. Moss delivers the perfect blend of toughness and vulnerability with a commendable nuance. The film’s emotional core is built around Neo and Trinity’s love for each other, and it is a journey of rediscovery where their love triumphs, despite the machines erasing their memories in order to create artificial lives. Their love gives them the power to remake the Matrix as they see fit, to transcend its rules and controls, borders and boundaries: to free the minds of those imprisoned within the simulation and to reveal reality.


Lana Wachowski dedicated Resurrections to the memory of her parents, and said at the premiere that she wrote the film because she ‘needed something to help me with the grief’ and ‘inventing a story where two people come back to life was healing and comforting’. ‘Love is the genesis of everything’: the credits state at the film’s end, and it is ultimately a love story. In a world of simulation where the nature of reality is constantly challenged, perhaps what is real is love.

Artwork by Wang Sum Luk. Image Credit: Elchinator//Pixabay, Comfreak//Pixabay, Tobias_ET//Pixabay

‘Rebel against the flesh and bone’ – Love, Gender, and Bodies in Titane

Lucy Vickers
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‘Rebel against the flesh and bone’ – Love, Gender, and Bodies in Titane

There is a moment that comes an hour into Titane’s (2021) runtime that perfectly encapsulates Julia Ducourau’s stunning second feature-film. Our main characters – Alexia/Adrien (Agathe Rouselle) and Vincent (Vincent Lindon) – are sat on the bathroom floor, Vincent slumped in a steroid-induced haze upon Adrien’s lap, and both look visibly unhappy. Yet they remain in close proximity, clinging to this early moment of intimacy between two still unfamiliar characters. Unhappy at the world, at each other, and at themselves, yet content in each other’s arms.

Awarded the Palme D’or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, Titane tells the story of a father reuniting with a long lost son, and the trials and tribulations the pair go through in an attempt to find a connection. The film is directed by Julia Ducournau, notable for her horrifically excellent coming-of-age debut feature Raw (2016) which is similar in its reliance on the cinematic institution of body horror. However, off the back of Raw’s success, Titane had a much larger budget available, reflected in the much larger scale of the project. The film also develops Ducournau’s directorial style, which she stated was inspired by her wish to challenge herself to talk about love. Ducournau’s masterful direction and storycrafting is enhanced by a handful of superb, distinctively physical, performances – Agathe Rouselle (an acting debut) is haunting and brilliant as Alexia/Adrien, and Vincent Lindon (a well-respected French actor) is painfully real in his portrayal of Vincent. Titane’s soundtrack is similarly impeccable: ‘Doing It to Death’ by The Kills as Alexia performs seductively atop a Cadillac, ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ by 16 Horsepower over the opening sequence, and then again during the firetruck dancing scene, and, best of all, a section of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion over the finale, featuring self-immolation, graphic scenes of birth, and a cacophony of crossed boundaries. 

In the bleak setting of an isolated French fire station, Titane explores the beauty and hideousness of the human body, of being trapped within fleshy walls that are assigned determinate (gendered) characteristics by virtue of their specific gender presentation, just as Alexa/Adrien is trapped at the station. Visually, the film is grotesque and bizarre – littered with shots of bones breaking, skin ripping, cartilage crunching – all gut-wrenchingly realistic, and all speaking to the question of what it means to be meat, and what it means to be a machine. Alexia/Adrien has a strangely intimate relationship with cars as a result of a childhood accident shown in the opening sequence of the film. Yet, within the first twenty minutes, this relationship is queered even further; she gets impregnated by a Cadillac, penetrated by a machine to become a machine – a machine for producing children. As such, Ducournau has much to say about the way society reduces pregnant women to the biological and the mechanical. Ultimately, though, Titane wants us as an audience to marvel at the horrific mutations of Alexia/Adrien’s body, all depicted intensely realistically by the special effects team. The film then uses that rapture to critically interrogate the themes of love, gender, and sexuality. It is Ducournau’s experimentation with these themes that makes Titane a masterpiece.  

Despite the shocking nature of Titane’s body horror, what lingers with you on viewing are the tender moments, the value of human compassion and the overwhelming sense that it is a tale of love and of family. An ode to Cronenberg’s Crash (1996) it may be, yet Titane takes the strange premise that there is a connection between sexuality and cars, and crafts it into a work that explores an extreme form of love without words. Ducournau asks: how far are we willing to go to achieve a meaningful (familial) connection, to love somebody, and where might this kind of love take us? We learn of Alexia/Adrien’s daddy issues early on, and see the character start to deal with them as she learns to bond with Vincent in a fatherly way, as opposed to dealing with her trauma through sex and violence. Vincent, on the other hand, uses Alexia/Adrien to fill the gap left by his missing son, beginning to resolve an issue he had never been able to get over (interestingly set up against the cold attitude of his estranged wife). They bond through increasingly tender moments of intimacy, and through a shared love for dancing, culminating at the climax of the piece – in a finale Ducournau curiously describes as ‘a very happy ending’, though I would personally describe it as biblical, and a little insane.

Working within and across the theme of love, in the world of Titane, gender becomes almost meaningless. Ducournau harnesses a Judith Butler-esque vision of gender as performative, and as a social construction resulting from a society restricted by the need to see ourselves through our differences to others. The journey followed by Alexia as she becomes Adrien is physical, emotional, and mental – and all underpinned by an interrogation of the necessity of gender. Ducournau describes her narrative structures as having no definitive beginning or end  – ‘I prefer the idea of shedding skins, and movements, in order to get to the truth’. This is never more explicit than in Titane: in almost every scene Alexia/Adrien sheds a physical aspect of female self – hair, clothes, voice. It is a total and complete deconstruction of gender, dismissing it as a useful frame of reference, and celebrating the moments when gender is queered and the borders of masculinity/femininity become porous. 

Titane is risky, confrontational and unrelenting, fraught with elemental flashes of metal and glass, the visceral crunching sounds of bodily mutilation, and highly uncomfortable scenes of intimacy between father and son. On my first viewing at the 2021 London Film Festival, the experience was memorable for the frequent gasps from every single audience member, and the way my friend and I clung to each other through the particularly nasty scenes. Yet it is a vital contemporary story of tender familial love and the futility of binary gender expression. You may want to watch it again as soon as the credits roll, and you may never want to see it again, or maybe both? But what is undeniable is that Ducournau is a novel and exciting storyteller, and I cannot wait to see what she does next. 

Artwork by Wang Sum Luk. Image credit: phtorxp//Pixabay

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