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Little Amal Syrian refugee puppet to visit Oxford

Joshua Low and Yan Chen
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Little Amal Syrian refugee puppet to visit Oxford

A 3.5-metre Syrian refugee girl in puppet form. An 8,000-kilometre ‘transcontinental odyssey’ from the Syria-Turkey border to Manchester, UK. A unique marriage of public performance art and social justice for the displaced. 

On Tuesday 26th October, Oxford will be the latest stop in the big journey of ‘Little Amal’, the giant puppet nearing the end of her 14-week trek. Little Amal (‘hope’ in Arabic), an unaccompanied 9-year-old refugee in search of her mother, is at the heart of ‘The Walk’, a ‘travelling festival of art and hope in support of refugees’, especially displaced children. 

The Walk is presented by Good Chance Theatre, which builds ‘theatre domes’ for civic and cultural activity in places with high refugee populations. The company is best known for The Jungle, an immersive play (where the character of Amal originated) set in the Calais Jungle refugee and migrant camp, the site of Good Chance’s first dome in 2015. Amal herself was created by the storied South African Handspring Puppet Company, which engineered the puppetry in War Horse at the National Theatre. 

Starting from Gaziantep, a Turkish city near the Syria-Turkey border, Amal has traversed through Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and France, arriving on the shores of the UK on 19th October. 

A map of Amal’s Walk through Oxford. Credit: The Walk. 

Locally-driven events have sprung up with Amal’s arrival at each stop, and her interactions with local people become part of the performance. She has also generated collaborations among local organisations, with the Story Museum, Lead Producer of her visit to Oxford, working with ‘over 24 creative, cultural, and community partners.’

For Amal’s Oxford visit, Syrian author and illustrator Nadine Kadaan, commissioned by the Story Museum, has imagined a meeting between Amal and Alice from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, developing the story together with a group of local Arab women and children. Alice’s Day is celebrated annually in Oxford, where the classic children’s book originated from Carroll’s 1862 boating trip.

A large puppet of a young girl reaches down to shake the hand of Pope Francis.
Little Amal meets Pope Francis in the Vatican. Credit: The Walk

Amal has been welcomed by refugee children with handmade lanterns in Turkey and met the Pope at the Vatican, ​​but points along her journey have also mirrored the hostility and fear frequently thrust upon refugees. Labelled a ‘Muslim doll from Syria’, she was banned from villages near Orthodox monasteries in Meteora, Greece. Local protesters in Larissa, Greece had shouted and thrown rocks as she passed through.

Amal’s voyage represents the daily ebbs and flows of the life-threatening journeys of millions of forcefully displaced children. At the end of 2020, UNHCR estimated that of the 82.4 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, 42%, or 35 million, were children. The message Amal embodies, ‘Don’t Forget About Us’, is a sobering reminder that forced migration’s impact on children can be neglected or overlooked. 

Amal arrives in the UK as the Government is trying to pass the Nationality and Borders Bill, a controversial legislation that aims to deter ‘illegal entry’ to the UK and purportedly deter smuggling networks. Asylum and children rights charities have however argued that the Bill exposes unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) to exploitation and harm.

Under the new Bill, only asylum-seekers who arrive in the UK through ‘safe and legal’ routes are eligible for asylum. These restrictions could withhold necessary asylum protection from a large majority of asylum-seeking children who, according to national charity Refugee Education UK (REUK), are often forced to travel via dangerous or unpermitted routes through the sea or through a third country. 

REUK’s report says that the bill falsely assumes that people escaping persecution can choose where and how to flee. It also overlooks how asylum-seeking children often lack the ability, knowledge, and resources to access formal routes to resettlement. Under the prospective route-based rather than need-based Bill, Little Amal’s asylum route would exclude her from asylum protection.

On 26th October, Little Amal and Alice will meet at Oxford Botanic Garden at 1pm, before journeying through High Street, Weston Library, Broad Street, Cornmarket Street and ending at Merton Fields in Christ Church Meadow at 2:30pm. Anyone is welcome to join the walk along the way. 

The Story Museum told Cherwell: “The Story Museum is delighted to be working with over 24 partners across the city to welcome Little Amal and The Walk to Oxford on Tuesday 26 October. We’re inviting communities from all over city to help us create a memorable and special event for Amal with storytelling, dance, music and a procession. If you’d like to take part in the event there’s still to time to learn the Song of Welcome for Amal or you can also create a special Damascus Rose flower crown or badge from home  to bring to the event.”

Organisers of The Walk encourage donations to The Amal Fund, administered by international refugee charity Choose Love, which helps young, displaced children access education opportunities, via the Walk with Amal website. 

Oxford Nanopore IPO debut: In review

Hung-Jen Wu
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Oxford Nanopore IPO debut: In review

Despite the hard-hitting effects of the pandemic, the London Stock Exchange has hosted 70 initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2021 so far, a 40% increase from the year prior and 94% increase from a record low of 36 in 2019 due to possible uncertainties caused by Brexit and the UK general election. 

However, much of the hype generated amongst investor and biotechnology circles this past week was focused on Oxford Nanopore Technologies (LSE: ONT) and the rapid ascent of its stock price following its London IPO the previous week. Initially set to trade at 425p a share, its value increased 45% in its first hour of trading; it closed at 612p on 30 September 2021. 

This propelled its valuation to approximately £5 billion and raised £350 million for the company. Most major British pharmaceutical and life sciences publicly list their shares on New York’s NASDAQ exchange. London’s last major biotechnology listing was that of the allergy treatment specialist Circassia in 2014. The share price has, on average, remained above 570p in the week following the IPO. According to Refinitiv, this accounts for the eighth biggest listing in London this year and the third largest biotechnology float in the world this year.

Along with Oxford alums Gordon Sanghera and Spike Willcocks, Professor Hagan Bayley, FRS, co-founded Oxford Nanopore in 2005 as a spinout that licensed the stochastic sensing nanopore technology developed by his research group at the Department of Chemistry. “Nanopore”, as the name suggests, are pore-forming proteins or pores fabricated from synthetic materials with an aperture of nanometer scale diameter. Stochastic sensing measures the changes in ionic current to generate sequence readouts as strands of nucleic acids are passed through multiple nanopores embedded on a thin film membrane. The company believed that this method could enable DNA sequencing to become cheaper and more rapid by eliminating the need for multiple reagents and expensive equipment based in a centralized lab, making it also relevant for deployment in low-income countries. As a first step in that direction Nanopore released MinION, the world’s first portable DNA sequencing device, in 2014. The company has since expanded its product line to also include desktop nanopore sequencers and upcoming devices capable of analyzing proteins and small molecules, to varying extents.

In a 2012 interview with the journal, Nanomedicine Bayley mentioned that he spends at most 20% of his time in an advisory capacity at Nanopore. He is not listed on the company’s management board as of 2021, but he still leads an active 25-member research group at the university that considers engineered nanopores amongst its current research themes. In 2014, Bayley founded OxSyBio, another startup which aims to make a synthetic 3D tissue printer for use by surgeons in operating rooms.

Seed funding to develop Nanopore’s technology to a commercially viable state came from the IP Group, which owned a 14.5% stake in the business. Other notable investors include Oxford Sciences Enterprise, American-based Wellington Management, and the Singapore-based Temasek Holdings. Before being ousted from his funds, Neil Woodford also happened to be one of Nanopore’s early investors. Nanopore had raised £613 million in total funding from multiple institutional investors since 2005, prior to its listing.

During the pandemic Nanopore became a provider of rapid COVID-19 tests for the NHS. In October 2020, the Evening Standard reported that Nanopore secured a £112.6 million contract from the Department of Health and Social Care for 450,000 units of its portable LamPORE test, which produces results in 90 minutes. Analysts at Berenberg reported that this contract produced the equivalent of “circa 10 million tests”. In August 2021, the UK government ended this contract early as 90% of UK adults have received their first vaccine shot and the demand for rapid tests is expected to fall in the coming months.

The sustainability of Nanopore’s future growth may depend on how well it expands its revenue streams. Its primary customer base consists of universities and laboratories, but it has yet to generate a profit. Whilst receiving the UK government contract for COVID-19 tests doubled the revenue from the previous year, it is yet to be seen whether there may be similar contracts of comparable value.

Published peer-reviewed papers have shown that this method could be used to accurately study cancer, crop science, and perform environmental analysis, which underscores its credibility in the research community. However, it has not moved into serving all these markets yet. 

In a future phase of its development Nanopore is probably interested in forging inroads into clinical markets, especially given the recent announcement of its partnership with the U.S. database software giant, Oracle. Specifically, Nanopore will add its DNA/RNA sequencing tools and genomic data into Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s suite of life science applications to enable pharmaceutical firms to simply integrate Nanopore sequencing into their workflows.

Image Credit: DataBase Center for Life Science (DBCLS)/CC By 4.0

Two Oxford professors named in investigation into sexual harassment and drunken behaviour

Matilda Gettins and Irene Zhang
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Two Oxford professors named in investigation into sexual harassment and drunken behaviour

CW: sexual harassment, verbal abuse, antisemitism, and offensive language.

Al Jazeera investigations say that two Oxford professors have abused their authority with sexist and drunken conduct, and that relevant University and College institutions were dismissive of the behaviour.

Three women, now respected academics and professors themselves, share stories about Anglo Saxon Professor Andy Orchard. Orchard is now Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford and Fellow at Pembroke College, but the stories date from his time teaching at Cambridge and Toronto Universities as well. 

Fine Arts Professor Catherine Karkov tells Al Jazeera that when at Cambridge, “he was drunk many times for meetings”. She describes his “personal reputation” as that of “an alcoholic and a sexual predator”. English Literature Professor Ananya Kabir says that a fellow PhD student at Cambridge, who was in a sexual relationship with Orchard, was terrified of the consequences if she ended it.  Both Kabir and Karkov say that they reported concerns about Orchard’s drinking and affair to senior academics, but that Cambridge University took no action.

Professor Alex Gillespie, now Vice President at the University of Toronto Mississauga, shares her experience with Orchard from his time in Canada, saying that during one interaction he “seemed very drunk”, “cornered” her on a staircase, and then sexualised the situation by saying “I’m going to fire one last shot of testosterone across your bow”.  

Gillespie believes Orchard was aggressive to her because her work in feminist and queer medieval studies threatened his academic work, telling Al Jazeera that “I remember him saying, ‘You are part of a queer, feminist, (I believe he also said) Jewish conspiracy to overthrow the study of Latin and philology at the University of Toronto, and to destroy my legacy in the study of Old English. But I’m not going to let that happen; I am going to destroy you.'” 

She did not speak out then, but now tells Al Jazeera “I no longer want to be complicit in this damaging silence”.

Orchard has disputed Al Jazeera’s findings when contacted for comment. His lawyers tell Cherwell that Orchard “denies these allegations and will co-operate fully with the university in any enquiry it wishes to make.”

Al Jazeera’s investigation also reports on the behavior of American History Professor Peter Thompson. Thompson is currently Sydney L. Mayer Associate Professor of American History at Oxford and affiliated with St Cross College.

According to the podcast, in 2017 members of the History Faculty complained that Thompson was unfit to teach.  Former student Mia Liyanage, who received tuition from Thompson while studying for her MSt at Oxford, described him as drunk and of being physically inappropriate with female students. Liyanage complained directly to the University and tells Cherwell that its process is “completely unfit for purpose … [and] skewed to discourage survivors from speaking up, and to protect perpetrators.”

In 2020 a group of two students and five members of staff complained again. This time, the University of Oxford upheld the complaints of excessive alcohol consumption and sexual harassment. They did not say what action they were taking in order to protect Thompson’s confidentiality; unofficially, according to university administrators, Thompson’s defense was that as he suffered from a mental condition, drinking was necessary.

Liyanage believes that the measures taken were “piecemeal” and “casual”, telling Cherwell that “preventing Thompson from supervising female students and removing the presence of alcohol from seminars only partly mitigates behaviour. This, in turn, provides a reason for the status quo to be maintained.”

Thompson declined to comment when contacted by Al Jazeera and by Cherwell.

The University of Oxford declined to comment on individual cases, but states that it “​​takes all allegations of sexual harassment or misconduct by staff extremely seriously. The University does not tolerate any form of harassment and is committed to promoting a positive environment where students and staff are treated fairly and with respect. All members of the University are expected to play a role in creating this environment and are always encouraged to raise any concerns or complaints. When concerns are raised, they are carefully and sensitively investigated and the University has a framework of support in place for staff and students who feel they have been subject to harassment. If complaints of sexual harassment or misconduct are upheld, the University will take disciplinary action where appropriate and will put in place steps aimed at ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our staff and students, which is always our first priority.”


The investigation is part of Al Jazeera’s Degrees of Abuse, a two-year investigation examining how top British universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, and Glasgow, deal with “complaints of sexual harassment, sexist, drunken behaviour, and coercive control” concerning members of staff. A podcast and video series depict the outcomes of  the investigation, revealing “how sexual misconduct by university staff and students has extensively affected the lives of women in academia.” More episodes about other cases are to follow.

St Cross College and Pembroke College have been contacted for comment.

Image: Siddarth Bhatia via unsplash.com

Oxford to join nationwide boycott of nightclubs in protest over spiking

Estelle Atkinson
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Oxford to join nationwide boycott of nightclubs in protest over spiking

CW: Sexual assault, spiking

Oxford is joining a number of universities across the UK in having a ‘Girls Night In’,  in which students of all genders are encouraged to boycott nightclubs. The Oxford protest is due to take place on Wednesday the 27th of October, with other universities staging protests from the 25th of October to the 3rd of November.

The Oxford SU Women’s Campaign has posted in support of ‘Girls Night In’, saying “do NOT attend clubs on the 27th – spiking is NEVER acceptable and we have to resist how normalised it has become.” Oxford Feminist Society has also shared information about the protest, echoing the message of the SU Women’s Campaign.

It Happens Here Oxford put out an Open Letter on Spiking addressed to Oxford’s bars and clubs. The letter reads: “[spiking] presents a deep and pervasive threat to people across Oxford, particularly women who are overwhelmingly victims of spiking.”

It goes on to ask what local establishments are doing to help prevent spiking and support victims, specifically:

“What specific measures are you taking as an institution to tackle spiking?”

“Do your staff receive training or information on spiking, helping prevent spiking, or helping those who have been spiked?”

“What is your current policy on supporting, believing, and taking seriously someone who you think may have been spiked?”

“What is your current policy on identifying and responding to those suspected of spiking others?”

The letter addresses the upcoming protest in hope that “this goes some way to demonstrating how important and prevalent this issue is to people in Oxford.” It concludes: “at the very least, we would like a firm commitment from your organization that you are committed to tackling spiking whenever and wherever it occurs. We look forward to hearing back from you as soon as possible.”

The protest follows reports made to the Oxford Mail by an anonymous 18-year old woman who was the victim of a suspected spiking at a bar on George Street. The woman told the Oxford Mail: “I was really enjoying going out. Other friends of mine are turning 18 this week and next week, I was going to go out with them and take them out for the first time. I do not want to do that anymore because of what happened. I do not want it to happen to me or happen to them.”

Detective Chief Inspector James Senior told the Oxford Mail: “Reports of drink spiking in Oxford remain low. Officers continue to work alongside management and staff at venues across the city to educate them on the dangers of drink spiking and how to spot the signs of someone who may be vulnerable to enhance customer safety.” The open letter from It Happens Here Oxford cites “an increase in the number and awareness of spiking instances at nightclubs and bars in Oxford and around the country – including spiking by injection.”

When approached for comment, ATIK nightclub said “We are aware that at the moment there is a lot of concern regarding drink spiking – both locally and nationally. This is something we, at ATIK Oxford, take very seriously and we continue to work closely with Oxfordshire Police who have confirmed that to date there have been no confirmed cases in our venue.”

ATIK is hosting a Park End night, as promoted by Oxford Events, on the night of the boycott. Reggae-pop artist Iyaz is scheduled to do a live show. ATIK said “We are still going ahead with our regular Park End promoter Wednesday night this evening and next week, which features lyaz and would like to reassure those planning to attend that their safety and welfare is our priority, for example, protective drink covers will be freely available to use.”

When asked about specific policies in place to prevent spiking, ATIK responded with the following measures:

“Training: Our teams are fully trained on the issue of drink spiking. They are aware of what to look out for and what to do if someone thinks they have been spiked,

“Policies: We operate our We Care policy and support the Ask Angela scheme. Our We Care policy can be found here but it is about making sure we look after our customers and that everyone who comes to us ends up getting home safely. We will make sure this is more visible in our venues so everyone is aware they can just ask us if they need help.

“Searches: We carry out thorough searches on entry  – which we will be increasing over the coming weeks.

“CCTV/Bodycams: We have extensive CCTV coverage throughout the venue and our security staff also wear bodycams. We will always review these if an allegation is made and we will pass on to the police to help with any investigation.

“Anti-spiking devices: We will start providing anti-spiking bottle stoppers and protective drink covers as soon as we can get more stock in and each bar will have drink testing kits available.

“First Aider: We have a fully qualified first aider on site and a quiet room where we can look after you if you aren’t feeling well or just need a breather. We can call the emergency services for you if we need to.

“Getting home: We will never ask anyone to leave on their own and our staff are able to arrange for a taxi or a friend/family member to collect you.”

Further, ATIK said “We would encourage anyone who sees suspicious behaviour, or suspects they have been a victim of spiking to tell us straight away – either by alerting security, telling a manager or a member of staff. We would also encourage them to contact the police, so that any allegation can be properly investigated and we will support them to do this. Anyone who is suspected of spiking will be detained and handed over to the police.”

“We feel passionately that everyone should feel safe on a night out, and they should feel safe in our club. We work hard to create a welcoming, inclusive and safe environment so that all our customers can enjoy a fun night out and we will do everything we can to make sure that this stays the case.”

A spokesperson from the University of Oxford said: “The University is not currently aware of any recent incidents of this type but are concerned about the reports from across the country.

“If any students have been affected, we would encourage them to report them as soon as possible to the their college, department, or to the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service which provides free, confidential advice for all students. Any incidents will be managed sensitively in accordance with University and college processes.

“Sexual harassment and violence of any form is never acceptable, and we are committed to doing everything we can, alongside the Police and other groups, to making Oxford a safe place for all our students and staff. We would encourage all students to engage with our latest sexual harassment and violence campaign, produced in collaboration with the Student Union, for sources of support – https://www.ox.ac.uk/againstsexualviolence.”

The Oxford University Student Union Women’s Campaign, It Happens Here Oxford, the Oxford Feminist Society, Oxford Events, Bridge Oxford, Plush Oxford, The Bullingdon, Thirst Bar, The O2, and The Varsity Club were all approached for comment.

Image: Krys Amon via unsplash.com

University Race Equality Task Force proposes action for equality, diversity, and inclusion

Maurício Alencar
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University Race Equality Task Force proposes action for equality, diversity, and inclusion

CW: Racism

Following consultation with a number of University members , the University Race Equality Task Force has proposed a full-time senior equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) leadership role be created , as well as a joint University-college committee for EDI matters. The Task Force also proposed the launch of a communications strategy focussed on anti-racism. 

The Task Force also set out its list of proposals for EDI by grouping them in various different areas. These areas include “Staff Diversity”, “Student Diversity and Experience”, “Dealing with Racial Harassment”, “Research and Impact”, and “Responsibility and Accountability”. The measures proposed range from “short term actions to longer term strategies”. 

The University provides some further detail to proposals for each action area. Under the section “Dealing with Racial Harassment”, the University states that measures include “an increased capacity for reporting and responding to instances of harassment”. Under “Culture and Community”, measures include “strengthening training and awareness activities”. 

After another short period of consultation across the University, a more detailed strategy and business plan will be released at the end of the academic year. The action proposals will then need to be approved by the Council for them to go ahead. 

The Race Equality Task Force was created in November 2020 with the aim of addressing “the under-representation at all levels at the University of those from Black and Minority Ethnic groups, and transform[ing] the experience of staff and students”. 

In the 2020/21 academic year, the Task Force held a number of engagement activities with staff, students, and other stakeholders through open events, focus groups, and interviews. Findings from these events were published in a report in September 2021. 

While the Task Force acknowledged that there has been a “significant focus” on race equality in recent years, “progress has been far too slow”. 

Members of the University are still able to take part in the consultation via the Race Equality Task Force website. This consultation will close at 5pm on December 1 2021. 

Co-Chair Martin Williams, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education) of the University, stated: “Making meaningful and sustained change will take some time to achieve – but we are committed to making a difference as soon as possible. Making this kind of change at Oxford requires the support and commitment of the staff and students across the institution, and we are keen to hear the opinions of as many members of the University community as possible.”

Co-Chair Patricia Daley, Professor of the Human Geography of Africa, added: “The Task Force has already listened carefully to staff and students, and the proposals that we’re consulting on are designed to respond to what we heard. These are wide-ranging proposals, and I’m sure our staff and students will provide yet further positive insights over the course of the consultation.”

Image: Betsy Devine/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr

A story brews by the hoops on Iffley Road: The Oxford University Basketball Club

Calum Isaacs
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A story brews by the hoops on Iffley Road: The Oxford University Basketball Club

In the Acer Nethercott sports hall on Iffley Road, there are men bouncing balls and talking about ‘the Blues’. They toss a ball at the hoop and return to talking about ‘the Blues’. They dribble round one, round two, lay it up… for the DUNK… ‘it’s going to be a great season for us Blues’. The unfortunate truth is that barely any of these men are really Blues. Whether they will be is up to them.

To get a Blue in Oxford University men’s basketball, you can’t just show up. That’s all good for your footballers, your rowers, but for these guys, there are strings attached. And yes, that’s partly to do with the status of the game, of a sport that is not in the UK’s top ten. But it’s also the result of the catastrophic failures of recent Blues basketball.

The Oxford University Basketball Club, and this is not an overstatement, is a once-great institution in ruins. This is a club that had markedly one of the best university squads in the country from its official post-war inception until a decade ago. They won championship after championship. They transcended university sport. In the 1960s, they were considered by many to be the best basketball team in the country.

Now, we see the dying embers of that past inferno. In 2018, the men’s Blues were relegated. They weren’t just relegated, they lost every game. Which makes the next part less shocking: in 2019, they were relegated again. Accordingly, as last year’s basketball programme started, and then stopped, and then started again, as lockdowns came and went, the Blues sat, languidly, two tiers below the top flight, wearing kits so wizened and worn-out that they could have been worn by championship-winning sides.

It’s an unfortunate image, though one you probably don’t care very much about. But please bear with me, because there is a story here, a story that we’ll be following throughout this term—something special is happening down at Iffley Road. In June, in a low-key AGM meeting, Bill De La Rosa was elected president of the OUBbC. Bill’s probably the most impressive guy I’ve ever met. He’s both imposing and unimposing—neat lawyerly hair, confident, not very tall for a basketball player, speaks frankly and speaks intently—and his story has been told an uncountable number of times. A well-told personal story and brand is not too unique for foreign students on scholarships in Oxford. If you, say, look up any Rhodes scholar, Google tends to throw a whole archive of heroism at you. But even by these standards, Bill has one of the richer personal arcs.

He was born into a low-income Latino family in South Tucson, Arizona. He played basketball as “an outlet to escape some of the problems I had in my family, in my neighborhood, and do a sport I enjoyed playing”. It was clearly an effective outlet if that’s what it was. Bill continued playing into high school, as a point guard, wearing the number 44. He continued until he couldn’t anymore.

And he couldn’t anymore because his mother was deported back to Mexico, and his father became ill, and his siblings needed looking after. And Bill was 15. At 15, he put aside all extracurriculars, and he cared for a family, and he studied. He got a scholarship to Bowdoin College and then he got a scholarship to Oxford and then got a scholarship to Oxford again. He won awards and made commencement speeches and accepted fellowships. He is currently working for a PhD in criminology, in preparation for Yale Law School, while working on the application process for his mother to finally return to the US (after years of activism).

But of course, there’s one more thing. Last week, Bill says he spent 30-40 hours on work related to Oxford University basketball. At this point, I realised. The man I had been in awe of for the last hour was out of his mind. Why would anyone doing an Oxford PhD (let alone the other things) devote a full-time amount of work to a part-time university sport gig?

Bill admits he needs to start doing a bit more work on his actual academics, but, on the other hand, this is the romance of it. Here is this guy who’s been both incredibly unfortunate and incredibly fortunate. He was forced to raise a family at 15, but he’s also now a Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford. He has reached this point and yet he wants to devote his time to reliving those pre-15 dreams, as he struts the Acer Nethercott hall with the number 44 on his back. As I watch him, I can’t help but feel this remains an outlet for something, for escaping from the large burden that comes from being *the* Bill De La Rosa, or at least, the post-15 Bill De La Rosa.

Either way, his commitment is good for the club. As these hours that Bill has put in have racked up, the club is slowly changing. For one thing, those old kits are gone, replaced by new stash of all kinds, covered in Kappa branding—the same company used by teams in the BBL (the UK top professional league). But the changes go far beyond new gear, and that’s not just thanks to Bill, that’s thanks to a new coach, soon to be announced. I’ll write more about this next week.

For now, let’s remember the stakes. This team is desperate for promotion, to move back to at least the level below the top flight. This is not just for the obvious reasons, but because it is one of the two situations under which the players get their coveted official Blues. The other scenario: a win against Cambridge in the centenary Varsity match. And as a light extra, the players have hopes to win the Midlands Cup and the Oxford Basketball Association Cup. This is all in the context that to get promoted, a team historically has had to win pretty much every league match. And the Blues’ main rivals in their division: Oxford Brookes. So, this team have high expectations to win every match they’re going into, and their main rival is Brookes—the story writes itself.

I watched the players in their preparations this week for this max-stakes season ahead. A highlight was the three-point shootout. Selected players stood behind the three-point line and had a minute to get the ball in the hoop as many times as possible. The players had peculiarly similar experiences in their attempts. The first few shots wouldn’t go in and then they’d get a load in a row, and then have a string of failures again.

The defining element of the exercise was inertia. A player would miss by slightly undershooting, and then they’d do the same slight undershoot five times in a row. Conversely, if they got it in, they’d generally get a few more in straight after. I’m basically new to this sport, but I don’t think it’s horribly misunderstanding to say the whole game is kind of like this—it’s about flow, and if something’s off, that can spiral. In a season where every game is a must-win, I hope the Blues start hitting their threes from the beginning, starting on Wednesday.

Image Credits: Via Oxford University Basketball Club.

How my Hot Girl Summer landed me in therapy

Ben Jureidini
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How my Hot Girl Summer landed me in therapy

I think I pretty much accepted the fact that my summer had been somewhat unhealthy when my mother sat me down and asked me if I’d been “showing myself the respect I deserve recently”. It is never particularly fun to announce to the woman who raised you that, not only have you been a little promiscuous over the past 3 months, you’re also not actually very good at it. No, far from fun, fresh, and free, my attempt at Hot Girl Summer had left my self-esteem (and my liver) on the verge of collapse. 

It is important to stress that not only is this a specific iteration of Hot Girl Summer (and I quote: “I get that rrr and then I rrr, I grab my shit and then I dip”), but also that sexual promiscuity can be great fun and also incredibly empowering. This is not a critique of how individuals express their sexuality, it is account of how I tried — and failed, miserably — to get that rrr, then grab my shit and dip. It’s the latter that did me in. In a world with Tinder, Hinge, or whatever, sex is not particularly hard to come by (no pun intended). Through some horrible oxytocin-based neurological scam, however, I am frankly atrocious at dipping afterwards. Dating apps, and the Instagram or snapchat ‘conversations’ they often lead to, are a double-edged sword: yes, they allow you to connect with hundreds of people, but they also suggest the ability to maintain said connection once the deed is done. Cue me, homeward bound from some personal trainer who tried to teach me about Jungian psychology, desperately refreshing Instagram in the hope of DM on the latter stages of the district line. Was it good? Do you want to do it again? Do you really think that a fear of snakes is an imprint of the collective unconscious, or do you tell that to all the boys who can’t find their way around South Kensington? Cut to this man, getting on with his day, maybe checking Tinder, probably lifting something heavy. In other words, knowing that he signed up for casual sex, and following through with what that entails. Not, like me, suddenly expecting the rules of the contract to change because he craves validation from strangers who very much did not sign up to romantic chats over Tinder. 

This cycle, throughout summer, began to repeat itself: “Sure, casual sex — I’m a cool, casual person who also happens to have sex”, then sex, then “I am definitely not a cool, casual person: why has this other person, who seems very cool and casual, not immediately fallen madly in love with me?”, followed by some very genuine, very uncool anxiety (made infinitely worse by the copious amounts of alcohol being consumed), followed by “I know, to get over the feeling of worthlessness I’m experiencing because of casual sex – more casual sex!” The dopamine hit of (very) temporary sexual validation meant that I was beginning to lose interest in friendships: they were a way to distract myself from checking my phone, which was now the way I was scheduling my day. Rather than cultivating confidence, I had instigated a cycle whereby my entire mood was dependent on strangers’ reply times: strangers who certainly weren’t calling, let alone sending a text. You’d think after maybe two months of wondering why these people who were happy to sleep with me once or twice weren’t happy to immediately confess feelings and enter into a committed relationship (one I wouldn’t even want, I just wanted to know they wanted one), I’d figure out that this whole schtick isn’t for me. But no: like a man on fire who runs from one perfectly good straw house to another and wonders why they keep burning down, I carried on swiping, carried on dating, and carried on feeling shitty all summer. What I’ve been left with is a slow build-up of what feels like rejection, even though it comes from people who (mostly) had no obligation to validate my feelings in the first place. I can’t call these exes, because we were never dating, but I still felt like I’d been dumped. I can’t say I’ve been heartbroken, because that’s too extreme. It’s more like I grazed an area slightly adjacent to my heart, maybe an intercostal muscle of some kind, then, in the name of making it feel better, kept jamming dirt-covered fingers into the wound. So now, instead of the sexually confident Hottie I hoped to be going into Michaelmas, I ended up with some lingering feelings of Instagram-based anxiety and a really, really weird metaphor. Not a heartbreak, but something that was starting to look a little bit like death by a thousand cuts. 

Long story short, a summer of sexual liberation and partying works very well for some people. The problem is, I expected those people to react to summer flings the same way I did, which is unfair on them and unfair on me. Yes, I could tell myself I was casting my pearls before swine, but maybe it’s time I stop being upset when the swine say “thanks very much”, take the pearls, and then go bang some other swine. After a Hot Girl Summer conducted in entirely the wrong way, maybe it’s time to do away with swine metaphors, which reek of jealousy, and sort myself out a little. It’s what my mother, and Megan herself, would want. 

Play about elitist Balliol society to launch in London

Isaac Ettinghausen
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Play about elitist Balliol society to launch in London

Into Battle, a new play by Hugh Salmon focused on a student feud at Balliol College in the years prior to the First World War is set to open in London this month. 

The play focuses on the feud between members of the Annandale Society, and the less privileged members of the College whom they victimised. The Annandale Society, described by The Guardian as “more elitist than Oxford’s Bullingdon Club”, was composed exclusively of Old Etonians.

The thuggish behaviour of members of the ‘Anna’ included wrecking other students’ rooms, setting loose bulldogs on rabbits in the quad, and whipping non-Balliol students out of the College. The play focuses on three particular members: brothers Julian and Billy Grenfell, and club president Patrick Shaw-Stewart. Also prominent are two of their enemies: Keith Rae and future England Rugby Captain Ronald Poulton.

Rae, a home-educated student from Liverpool, was particularly victimised by the Society. Rae was constantly verbally abused, and his belongings were thrown out of his window on numerous occasions. Both Poulton and Rae were committed members of the Balliol Boys Club, set up to help local children from underprivileged backgrounds.

All five of the play’s main characters would be killed in the First World War, with Rae and Billy Grenfell dying while serving in the same regiment in Belgium in July 1915. 

Rae’s father, stockbroker Edward, was aware of his son’s commitment to charity. He founded a trust which continues to this day and is currently chaired by Balliol English Literature professor Seamus Perry.

The play is not the first to focus on the elitism in Oxford’s exclusive clubs. 2014’s The Riot Club depicted the destructive and abusive behaviour of a fictionalised version of the Bullingdon Club. 

Some may feel an unease at the potentially off-putting image of Oxford life these depictions may give to prospective applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds.

However, Balliol’s JCR president Shreya Kirpalani said that media can also “open up a conversation about such issues” and are “rather engaging starting points for discourse around class and access at the university”.

Many more egregious instances of elitism no longer occur. The Annandale society, for instance, was closed in the 1930s by left-leaning Master Sandie Lindsay. 

However, Balliol continues to award a travel grant worth up to £4000 to undergraduates who “have had at least part of their previous education at Eton College”, and members of the University from disadvantaged backgrounds have previously described their struggles against classism from more privileged students. 

Efforts continue to be made to curb this, both on a college and University-wide level. Kirpalani pointed out that over the past year the JCR has ”restructured room rents to make many more rooms a fair bit cheaper”, and “worked closely with College to ensure that all students who needed support due to the impact of COVID on their financial lives did receive it”.

The JCR also cooperates with the College’s Access team to organise tours and encourage prospective applicants from a range of backgrounds, and appoints Class and First Generation officers to address student’s class-related concerns. In 1906, when Into Battle was partly set, Old Etonians comprised 18 of Balliol’s 53 freshers. In 2020, there was only one among 137. 

Dame Helen Ghosh, Balliol’s Master, said that “Oxford and Balliol have changed out of all recognition in the last 100 years, in terms of the diversity of our students, the backgrounds they come from – and how we expect them to behave.”

Into Battle will run between the 13th and the 30th of October at the Greenwich Theatre.

Image credit: Tony Ord/CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons

Hysterical Histories: Great Escapes

Antonio Pattori
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Hysterical Histories: Great Escapes

History is riddled with stories of great escapes against all odds. Whilst some of these stories resulted in successful escapes, others ended up worsening the situation for the condemned criminal. The most famous escape of all, immortalised for posterity by the great 1979 movie starring Clint Eastwood, must be the Escape from the US maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island in 1962. In June of that year, Frank Morris, and Clarence and John Anglin, successfully escaped Alcatraz Island after tucking papier-mâché heads into their beds: these were models of themselves made to sneak out at night, literally like mere sixteen year old teenagers. The three then broke out via an unused corridor, and fled the island aboard improvised inflatable rafts. Their fate, however, remains uncertain. San Francisco Bay is known for having strong currents and the presence of numerous species of sharks, all of which would have made the escapee’s five kilometre swim rather challenging. In December of the same year, John Paul Scott did exactly that, yet was then arrested across the bay suffering from hypothermia and exhaustion. Numerous theories exist about the escape of Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, ranging from their death to a new life in Brazil. The mother of the Anglin brothers continued to receive flowers for Mother’s Day, whilst two very tall women in heavy makeup were sighted at her funeral in 1973. At the father’s funeral, two unknown men with large beards came near the casket, wept, and then left. To this day, the infamous Escape from Alcatraz remains an unsolved mystery. 

History presents a myriad of prison escapes, all with different facets and elements, yet none are more bizarre than Pablo Escobar’s 1992 escape from La Catedral. After ordering the assasination of Colombian Presidential Candidate Luis Carlo Galan, Escobar – the leader of Medellin Drug Cartel – negotiated a surrender with the Colombian authorities. The result was his imprisonment in a new personal prison, equipped with Jacuzzis, swimming pools, a football pitch, and waterfalls. ‘Hotel Escobar’, as it was dubbed, became a luxury resort, and facilitated Escobar’s escape in 1992, once he uncovered plans to move him to a standard prison. Escobar simply walked out of the back gate and disappeared. However, Escobar could not escape forever. His life as an escapee lasted only another sixteen months, prior to being killed by Colombian special units (funded by the US Government) in a 1993 shootout. 

History is full of  many less famous escapes. In 1534, Alice Tankerville was sentenced to death for having stolen the king’s gold (and we all know how much Henry VIII liked money!), and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Tankerville managed to escape and crossed the Thames by seducing a guard who, taken by his new love for her, escaped with her with the help of another gaoler. This romantic story was not to last. The three were arrested, and I will leave to your imagination what fate Henry VIII had planned for them. Escaping the Tower of London could, however, bring great results depending on who the prisoner was… in 1100, the new king Henry I imprisoned his predecessor’s Chief Justiciar, Ranulf Flambard, scapegoating him as the man responsible for the previous regime’s mistakes. Flambard became the first person to ever escape the Tower, by descending out of his cell’s window with a rope smuggled by his allies in a flagon of wine. Flambard then escaped to Normandy, where he worked for Henry I’s brother and rival, Duke Robert, prior to returning to England and resuming his old post as Chief Justiciar. Indeed, Henry had realised that imprisoning a capable administrator was a stupid idea! Unlike Escobar, the Alcatraz escapees, and Tankerville, Flambard played his cards right and succeeded. Hysterically tragic, but true. 

Image Credit: Zoe Rhoades

Auntythetical: Grieving from afar

Amal Salar-Hashmi
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Auntythetical: Grieving from afar

My grandfather, Dada Ji, died in October 2019, but I only learned his name this summer.

As much as I’d like to claim that it was solely my father’s unwillingness to talk about his family that was to blame, I had also never asked.

I would hope that it’s a common phenomenon for Desis; we refer to our relatives in this hierarchical, gendered order of bara to choti, jan to ji, and khala to chacha. My Dada ji is my father’s father, but it feels strange to claim such a close connection to him, when we were never able to express this whilst he was alive. He had Alzheimer’s so didn’t know who we were, but, to some extent, that unawareness went both ways. Once he thought my sister was a goat- I’ve moved past the immediate horror of this to a state of bitter amusement. Bitter, because this dark anecdote is one of the only memories that we made together.

Desi families have some ludicrous stories to tell, often concerning land-grabbing siblings, and the joy my parents get from relating the exploits of their kin truly draws me in, making me feel a part of this long tradition. But no matter how hard they try to include me, needing an intermediary to tell me these stories makes me more aware of my isolation from my heritage. Ultimately, stories didn’t bring Dada ji to life for me as much as they turned him into some distant hero of epic: a fictional character. But I never wanted him to be that. I just wanted a grandfather.

I want to say that I miss him, my Phopha, Bari Phopho, and all the others, but a part of me wonders if I deserve to. I certainly miss the idea of them and the memories that we shared, but this doesn’t necessarily equate to missing them. As with many other desis, we know the stories of our relatives and are glad to do our familial duty for them, knowing that any one of our few, 5-minute Lyca-mobile calls with them a year could be the last. We know their stories and what they used to drink, read, listen to. Their habits are revealed to us slowly during the time we spend at home. Yet I’m frightened that over the years, considering the little I still know, these heuristic delicacies will only disappear till I no longer have access to their personas.

Of course, the question could be posed: why don’t you ask them yourself?

Simply put, there’s a great boundary between my overseas relatives and myself. It just isn’t done. I am grateful, as a 1st generation child, to my mother for speaking Urdu at home and letting me watch hours of Shah Rukh Khan content because without this I might be one step further from knowing who my loved ones are. But the more insidious barrier that I- and others- are confronted with is emotional distance. One of many of Pakistan’s national secrets, aside from dubious nuclear weaponry, is our disdain for anyone (particularly men) who expresses emotions other than those acceptable at weddings or funerals. If it can’t be seen in public then don’t do it- what will people say? Therefore, it feels too uncomfortable and inappropriate of me to try to coerce my family into any kind of emotional vulnerability, even if that is merely asking them about their deceased uncle. It’s just not my place.

When Dada ji died, I didn’t find out until much later when one of my maternal uncles let me know that he had visited the family. Despite this being all I heard, the emotional immaturity shown in abruptly telling me was both ill-received and desperately welcomed. I suppose I crave emotional immediacy with my family- no matter how unexpected- instead of the carefully constructed tactfulness that I receive.

When I eventually got through to my father via phone call, I became livid after finding out that he had been in Karachi for the past week. No one told me Dada ji was ill until he was gone, but who am I really to tell? All his children were there in his last moments- everyone important to him. Although it stings that I cannot claim proximity to him like that, it’s far more distressing to recognise that half my yearning to be there is familial duty and not simply love.

Expectedly, Baba sounded stoic on the phone, while my crying and mourning sounded like it belonged to someone else. It felt tokenistic and self-serving, like I didn’t share the burden of love that would enable me to miss him.

I’ve forgiven my parents since (however, they are likely unaware of my anger, as it’s not my place to express discontent with their silence). But, remaining still are the dregs of resentment towards their decision to bring me and my sister here. As ungrateful as it may be for me to say, by giving us a better material life, they separated us not only from the problems back at home, but the things of importance too. My relationship with the people who should matter most to me isn’t strained but slack and unreliable, a barely-there cable of blood ties and baseless ‘I love you’s.’

I want to pull back and add strain to this tether, making it a certifiable link to those who are left, regardless of the emotional tension that comes with it.

So maybe it starts with me and my jasbati Westernism, even just with a name.

And Dada ji’s was Tahir.

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