Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Oxford this Saturday.
Most came to take part in an anti-low traffic neighbourhood demonstration, protesting proposed traffic filters and their restrictions on freedom of movement. The main site of this protest was along Broad Street and swelled to hundreds of people after midday.
The protestors spoke of restrictions to their personal freedom and worried that their ability to travel within Oxford would be impeded by the proposed traffic filters. 4 different groups were protesting, with a number of organisations and individuals criticising government intervention in general. Handouts protesting digital IDs, digital currencies and continued vaccination were circulated.
National far-right groups, like the Patriotic Alternative (PA), were also out on Saturday. Union Jacks, variations on the English flag and banners bearing the libertarian slogan “Don’t tread on me” were seen amongst the crowd on Broad Street.
In opposition to these organisations, a counter-protest was staged at the same time in Bonn Square. Ian McKendrink, from Stand Up to Racism, helped organise this counter-protest in order to show support for minorities and oppose the alleged racist rhetoric of groups present at the main LTN protest. He claims that far-right groups have attempted to hijack the local LTN movement.
There was a strong police presence around the two groups at all times, with one officer stating that several police officers had been brought in from other areas to control the protests. Dozens of officers in helmets on horseback and multiple police vans maintained a border around the Broad Street protest. While no major clashes took place, police separation was required to keep small groups from both protests separate in a few instances.
Phoebe Walls discuses how platonic love might form the most fulfilling relationships of your life..
Falling in love focuses on romantic relationships. We chase the magical moment of a first kiss, the thrill of the first time they take your hand. The ‘L bomb’ lingers on the tip of your tongue, and you’re silently, wistfully waiting for them to feel the same. But what about platonic love? The happiness that can spread through your every cell when a close friend is nearby. Conversations that effortlessly flow for three hours. Many neglect their friendships when they get into a relationship; that special someone can become the only face they see in a crowded room. Oxford is a university with a notorious workload, and many students swearing off relationships to focus on being hopelessly devoted to their love of learning, so time for a relationship of any kind can feel limited.
Some of the greatest love stories of your life will be friendships. That first friend you made on the first day of school on a scratchy carpet will always hold a place in your heart. You think of her often, how you bonded over Jaqueline Wilson and Big Maths Beat That. There are friendships where a quiet pint at the local pub can reconcile two years apart. Oxford friendships can feel particularly magical. Some long-lasting friendships are founded in Freshers week. I remember feeling far away from home, drunk on newfound freedom and vodka drank out of unwashed mugs. The dizzying, dancing way that you feel not just from the eye contact of a love interest but a friend holding your hand as you spin on a sticky floor.
Oxford terms bring a rollercoaster of emotions, and platonic love is the only cure to heartbreak, homesickness or fifth-week blues. There’s a comfort derived from seeing your flatmate in the morning, and a quiet contentment that comes from catch-ups on the way to the college bar. There’s a joy from a cup of tea with a long chat, or raging rants, or gentle gossip. Nothing beats the thrill of a friend telling you they love you. I’d never experienced this before university, an honest declaration of a platonic love that rings in my ears like the favourite songs that we sing together. Love interests will come and go, treated by a friend’s affection.
There is nothing more freeing than feeling like you can fully be yourself around someone, which is harder with a romantic interest. At the beginning of the relationship, people try not to come across too keenly, waiting for the other person to reach out first. Lust is fragile and fleeting. Best friends see all your imperfections and yet still make you feel seen and heard. Friends will talk each other off a cliff edge, listen to dramatic anecdotes intently, and offer solutions to any problem.
This Valentine’s Day, shops are crammed with pink cards and tacky bears. Many singles feel a sense of missing out as colleges organise Valentine’s events from formal dinners to traffic light bops. Love can seem all around and yet so unreachable. Perhaps the people who most deserve a card are in reach. Nothing strengthens a friendship more than confessing how much you appreciate someone.
The pets of Oxford colleges do so much for their stressed students. A friendly tail wag, a lively game of fetch between tutes or even an unexpected rodent present at your accommodation door can bring joy or at least a distraction to our days. It’s time the best and the brightest among these loyal animals get the recognition they deserve. So, in the great Oxford tradition of awards and rankings, Cherwell has created this college pet show to decide once and for all which furry friends and scaly supporters are the most distinguished.
The Oldest
First up is the oldest. As with colleges, a few pets can claim ancient status. The controversy does not stop there though! Toby from Trinity college, officially the oldest at about 100 years old, comes from a college accused of tortoise fraud and theft. In 2004, Balliol’s tortoise, Rosa Luxemburg, disappeared one day, and rumour has it Trinity is to blame! Not only is Toby the Oldest Pet, he and his partner in crime Plum (a spritely 90 year old tortoise) also claim the title of No.1 Reptile Rascals- beware!
Most Vengeful
The Trinity-Balliol controversy is not the sole pet-related college feud. As those who were at Oxford last year will remember, Walter from Exeter and Simpkin IV from Hertford began invading eachothers’ colleges. Prompting Oxfess outrage and a library ban, this event , dubbed ‘the Battle for Radcliffe Square’ has put these two archenemies in the (military) history books. So as not to upset either ferocious feline, Cherwell has jointly awarded them.
Most Inspiring
Fortunately, some Oxonian animals inspire emotions other than anger and over zealous college pride. Some are inspiring, full stop. None more so than St Hilda’s cat, Teabag. She turned up at Hilda’s one cold, rainy night, so small and bedraggled that she looked like a used teabag. After the diligent care of several porters, she began to thrive and has grown into a fine college cat. Her presence and name reminds students and staff that in a loving community they can overcome any difficulty.
Biggest Influencer
Other college pets influence the humans surrounding them in different, perhaps more superficial ways. This is the case of our Biggest Influencer, Tortilla. Star of the University insta and boasting 715 followers on his own insta, the Lincoln College tortoise is truly the Kim Kardashian of college pets. Follow him @tortilla_la_tortuga!
Worst Name
The key to celebrity is a catchy name. Unfortunately the next pet’s name is neither catchy, mnor even accurate to its species. Foxe/Fox from Corpus is not a quick, red mammal, but instead a slow, green reptile. Although the name is likely an allusion to the famous theological author John Foxe or college founder Robert Fox, the name still leads to some confusion.
The Hungriest
Professor Biscuit is rather aptly named, as this rotund cat from St Hughs has been named the Hungriest Pet. Known for eating rats, tuna, Dreamies and a whole host of other treats, Biscuit’s ravenous appetite even prompted the college disciplinary team to send out a warning email to students last Michaelmas.
Oxford Uni Mascot
Like his owner, Vice Chancellor Professor Irene Tracey, Geoffrey Biscuit, received a promotion this year. Rising from Merton college pet to the University office, this 3 year-old golden retriever is a young and lively representative of the ancient university. It should be noted that this category was nearly won by an LMH cat named Benny D after “benedictus benedicat”. Not only does his name allude to the Oxford tradition of formal hall graces, but he is also always sporting subfusc!
The Cutest
Now, we come to one of our most contentious categories. The cutest pet was voted online by hundreds of Oxford students. Although an honrouble mention goes to Mansfield cat Ziggy and his adorable missing teeth, in the end the Johns triplet cats won out. At under a year old, Laud, Baylie and Case are true kittens, with the floof and flair to match.
Best in Show
Finally, the premier award of the show. Although many pets are cute, talented, charismatic and popular, only one can truly be the Best in Show. The only pet to submit a CV (and what a stacked one!) and the winner of a vast majority on our online poll, Aristurtle from Peters stands head and shoulders above the rest, even though she is just a small tortoise. She can jump “really high” for an animal of such short limbs, placed second in the college tortoise race last year as a relative rookie of only thirteen years and as a voracious appetite for lettuce. Other purported accomplishments include an upcoming summer analyst internship at Goldman Sachs, an intimate rendez-vous with Timothée Chalamet and winning the BBC’s ‘500 words’ short story competition.
The University and College Union (UCU) has announced that strike action will be paused for two weeks following ‘breakthroughs’ in its negotiations with the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA).
The breakthroughs are said to encompass disputes over pay and pensions. The UCU says it will use the two week pause on strikes to hold “intensive negotiations” and hopefully deliver a final agreement. The decision to suspend the strikes in favour of a “period of calm” is supposed to enable “the most positive environment possible” for the negotiations.
This comes as the UCEA is apparently recommending to its own members that they give it a mandate to end the use of involuntary zero hour contracts. The UCU heralded this as potential progress on “one of the worst forms of insecurity” and a “down payment on real change”.
The UCU acknowledged that members might be wondering if they can trust these developments, but set out to reassure members that “[n]obody at UCU will be fooled” and “[t]his progress is for real and the threat to our employers remains”. The announcement stressed that the aim of the strike action had always been to reach a resolution, and that the UCU did not want members on the picket lines “for a minute longer” than needed.
The UCU stressed that they would resume strike action and be prepared to escalate further if the UCEA did not follow through in the negotiations. On Wednesday, members will be asked to ballot on whether to give the UCU a mandate for another six months in case further action is needed.
The Oxford University Student Union’s VP Women, Ellie Greaves, has resigned from her role this afternoon. She states that she has done so “to prioritise my health and wellbeing” and will officially leave the post on 17th March.
Following the SU’s reshuffle of sabbatical officer roles last year, the position of VP Women will be replaced with VP Liberation and Equalities next academic year. In Michaelmas 2022, Greaves told Cherwell“I think there’s a risk that the removal of VP Women will send the message that “sexism is solved”, when it really isn’t”.
However, she subsequently issued an apology that her comments in the article contributed to a “bio-essentialist, narrow-minded narrative of what being a woman is”.
In her resignation today, Greaves said: “My time as VP Women has been challenging and I have learnt an incredible amount along the way.” She added, “I hope that we continue to see a culture of respect and kindness grow throughout the Oxford student body … I wish nothing but the best for the entire SU team and for the newly elected officers in their upcoming year.”
Last week, Kennedy Aliu was elected to the new role of VP Liberation and Equalities.
This article will be updated as more information about the resignation of VP Women becomes available.
For the second time in a fortnight, I find myself in the Pilch, sat in the round, looking at a stage littered with random, domestic-feeling clutter. This style of play seems to be in vogue at the moment; and it is not without its merits. The effect of this is to very competently reflect the chaotic and troubled relationship between the two characters in Martin Crimp’s Play House, adapted in this production to be centred around two women.
Play House is divided into several scenes, vignettes of the relationship between the two characters, but it was difficult to see what relation they bore to each other, temporally or emotionally. By the end of the play, the actors were producing something like the requisite emotional pitch, but there was little sense of emotional continuity between the scenes. Indeed, one of the final scenes sees Simona speaking about another relationship, and using it as a vehicle to discuss the problems with her own. This is conveyed skilfully and with a startling intensity by Imogen Boxall, although the key flaw remains that none of these problems have been visible to the audience. Very little reason is given in the performance for the characters behaving the way they do: their motives, if they exist at all, are obscure. Nevertheless, the individual scenes themselves were entertaining and intriguing. Good use was made of the set, and the music helped, on the whole, to create atmosphere and delineate scene changes.
Definitely the Bahamas was, on the other hand, a consistently funny and coherent piece of theatre. Strong character choices were made and committed to by both actors – Susie Weidmann’s Frank in particular was an exemplary exercise in physical acting. Undoubtedly it is a stronger script, and the characters are perhaps more caricatures, but nevertheless both the performances and direction were much stronger in this section of the double-billing. One oddity: it was clear that the in-the-round configuration suited Play House (in which the whole stage was used) much better than Definitely the Bahamas. In order to serve the configuration, the actors repeatedly swapped where they were sitting, but there was no internal logic to these movements. However, against the strength of the performances in this half, this was a minor flaw. Unlike in Play House, where the dynamics and narrative of the relationship were obscure and unexplored, Boxall and Weidmann presented them here clearly and compellingly; and not only that, but also the flaws in their own characters. Particularly lifelike was Boxall’s Milly, whose self-importance and narrow-mindedness visibly drove everything she said, underpinning skilfully the dramatic irony in the text.
The problem of changing from one play to the other, without an interval or blackout, was one Lawrence dealt with very competently, by having her actors alter their costumes and behaviour in muted, coloured lighting, on stage. There is some skill in correctly choosing the moments at which to reveal the mechanics of theatre to an audience, and Lawrence has chosen them well. Watching the actors become the second pair of characters contributed to the force and strength those characters had; there was a sense in which the terms of the performance had been defined. The combination of plays together was interesting too, as was the choice to change the male character in Play House to a female one but maintain the original gender of Frank in Definitely the Bahamas: Lawrence’s intentions here were not entirely clear, as far as they relate to the themes of the texts, though no particular harm was done by this choice. Overall, the plays made an entertaining pair; but my lasting impression is that Definitely the Bahamas was definitely the better of the two.
