Tuesday 27th January 2026
Blog Page 3

Who cares about college politics?

Eve Richardson
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Who cares about college politics?

A self-righteous model citizen since as long as I can remember, it is little surprise that I quickly became attached to the bureaucratic rituals of General Meetings (GMs), committees, and elections when I entered my college community. It is also equally unsurprising that few others seem to share my enthusiasm. I’ve found myself part of a small core of my JCR who still care about JCR politics – those who fulfill a minimum requirement of simply turning up to things. Needless to say, the bar is low. Of this committed few, the majority are existing or prospective members of the committee, with just a handful of non-committee members practising consistent engagement with the business of the JCR, let alone engaging with it at all.

The committed core comprises a group of politically engaged individuals who instinctually feel the gravity of civic duty and positive change through political institutions, even those institutions as seemingly low stakes as a college common room. We joke self-consciously about our own prominence in the political fixtures of the JCR, and uncomfortably reflect that the democracy we purport to be sustaining does not feel very democratic at all. 

I witnessed this crisis of participation, in my JCR’s committee elections for the coming year. There were no candidates for key welfare roles such as international, LGBTQ+, and disabilities officers, leaving us with glaring vacancies in our committee. It is easy to take them for granted, but committee officers perform vital roles for their JCR, frequently tending to issues like housing, sports, access and admissions, reimbursement for health and hygiene products, and organising BOPs – issues and events affecting us all.

Poor attendance of GMs is a second manifestation of the participation crisis, caused by a much broader disengagement across JCRs. Last term, I was shocked when my JCR failed to attract enough attendants to meet quorum for a meeting needed to pass an important motion about housing which would impact the most of the student body. The convenience of online voting means that even GMs with an apparently high turnout have much lower genuine in-person attendance. When only a fraction of those voting are actually present, the purpose of the meetings seems to be eroded: discussions are short and sparse, and the resulting decisions often feel arbitrary.

I will concede that the ordinary business of JCRs is scarcely revolutionary and far from thrilling. GM agendas are usually filled with a predictable mix of funding requests for student plays and JCR amenities, with the odd constitutional tweak on the table, or occasionally a statement to be made online. Admittedly, JCRs have very little de facto power within their own domain, and even less political impact on the wider world. It is not difficult to see why so many students view college politics as a pointless activity, and perhaps it is for this reason that they do not consider it worth their time or energy to get involved.

Political disillusionment is also a phenomenon which is well-documented beyond college walls. The nation seems to be tending towards apathy in unison – arguably the strongest point of consensus in an increasingly divided society. That this sentiment should pervade student politics too is only natural; in a world where many of us feel a lack of agency, politics can begin to seem fruitless on any scale.

In spite of this, the cycle of apathy can be broken. To do so, it is important to recognise the great things which college politics do have the potential to achieve. Search past Cherwell headlines for the word “JCR”, and you will find a plethora of instances of JCRs coming together to challenge controversial University policies and critique the misconduct of college leadership. Whistleblowing powerful institutions is an essential undertaking, and students are in a uniquely advantageous position to hold their college or the University accountable. JCRs also have an exceptional capacity to make tangible improvements to student life as a result of their often close relationships with college administration, from negotiating housing prices down, to advocating for underrepresented individuals, and providing peer welfare support.

So whilst I can easily understand the view that college politics affords little reward for the time it demands, I do not think it is a pointless pursuit. Let’s not pretend that JCR politics is designed to reach far into the politics of the outside world, but instead acknowledge the meaningful impact it can have on a local scale, improving the everyday lives of their students. In summary, allow me to moralise: do not overlook the work our committee officers do for us, nor underestimate the power of a well-argued GM motion. Our active participation is the essential ingredient in breaking the cycle of political apathy, and we owe it to each other to keep looking to the future.

Lighthouse Productions on ‘Lemons’

Abigail Lakeland
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Lighthouse Productions on ‘Lemons’

Alongside producer Grace Yu, the team outlined the vision for their debut production: a political, surrealist, five-night run of Sam Steiner’s Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons (2015) at the Burton Taylor Theatre. “This is really fresh writing,” says Alys. “It’s nice to do contemporary theatre [written] by young people. It brings a certain energy.”

The text is set in a world where language has been limited by a so-called ‘Hush Law’, and everyone is given a daily word limit. When Oliver and Bernadette start a relationship against this background of linguistic and political suppression, it’s not just their conflicting personalities that pose a problem.

“They have their own communication issues, regardless of the law. The law just crystallises an experience that was already there,” says Alys. “It genuinely would resonate with so many people, especially people in relationships,” Grace adds. “Communication issues are so important, and most people don’t even notice they’re there.”

Lemons is a play of two elements. Like a lemon, sliced in half: there’s the opposites-attract love story, and a political commentary on freedom of speech. Lighthouse’s performance homes in on the latter. “[The] different elements seem like they wouldn’t go hand in hand, [but] these exterior motions can leave such a devastating impact on our daily lives,” says Ivana.

“[The Hush Law is] always a shadow over them,” says Alys. The trio selected the play over summer, amidst the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation in June 2025. Alys recalls when Banksy’s mural, Royal Courts of Justice (2025), was immediately scrubbed. “Theatre is a tool of resistance,” she says. For Alys, Lemons is “scarily relevant.”

40 students auditioned for the roles of Oliver and Bernadette. “Call-backs were a nightmare,” the team recalls. “We did a workshop with every possible pairing, since the play depends on chemistry.” The team landed on Kit Rush in his debut performance as Oliver, who Alys describes as “an absolute blinder”, and Caeli Colgan as Bernadette, who Ivana describes as “a powerhouse.” Grace also mentions an exciting original score composed by Oliver Spooner.

Talking to Kit Rush and Caeli Colgan provided some insight into the leads of the two-hander. “On the surface of it, Oliver and Bernadette’s relationship might be described as the classic ‘opposites attract’,” says Colgan. “But actually I think part of the chemistry between the characters comes from their similarity.”

“They balance each other out,” explains Rush. “Oliver is charming and fun; Bernadette is hard-working and reserved. Are they a good match? The jury is out.”

“I think what makes them a good match is that they find each other exciting,” Colgan says. “What the Hush Law does is it transforms that excitement into frustration. Where before they might have enjoyed being challenged by one another, maintaining a relationship in 140 words a day simplifies the types of communication available, which forces everything they say into a kind of total bluntness.”

On the more demanding aspects of the play, Rush and Colgan cite different challenges. “The structure of the play is very fast paced because it is made up of lots of little vignette-like scenes in non-chronological order,” says Colgan. “It’s quite challenging to keep a clear sense of the narrative when it flits between pre and post Hush Law, but I’m hoping this also challenges the audience in an interesting and exciting way.” For Rush? “Actually, doing a two hander – I didn’t realise how many lines there were!”

“The play is rejecting realism,” Ivana describes. “We’re trying to experiment with different mediums.” The team wanted to add many “absurd surrealist elements”. They plan on using a montage, projected onto the walls of the Burton Taylor, which they hope indicates “how the sense of being watched can be traumatic, in a way.”

The Burton Taylor is a recurring topic in my conversation with Lighthouse Productions. “It is a very small space, as we all know,” laughs Grace. “Having acted in the BT, the intimacy is perfect for this play.” In comparison, Grace says that at the similarly-sized Michael Pilch Studio “you still feel a little bit of distance, it’s surprisingly big.” The BT, however, gets it just right.

“The fourth wall is so thin. But we want it to be so thin,” Grace states. Alys adds that they wanted it to feel like Big Brother is watching, with the audience also under the microscope. “They’re being brought into the action as well.”

On inspirations, Alys says she’s fascinated by the ballet based on Lemons. The Limit (2023) was performed for eight nights at the Linbury Theatre, London, in October 2023, starring Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell. In Lighthouse’s Lemons, the team has incorporated movement to illustrate that when language fails, movement supports communication. Present too in the brainstorming was the West End performances, where the actors only wore socks. “You’re in that very intimate, domestic setting,” Alys says, in a sentiment echoed by Rush, who notes: “You’ll feel like you’ve been inside that intimate space of a new relationship. It’s a messy mixture of humour, sadness, and hope.”

When asked how they want audience members to respond to the performance, the co-directors diverged. “I want them to feel all the emotions, to laugh, to cry […] to be distressed. I want them to leave thinking about the current political climate,” says Alys. Ivana’s response was more ominous. “I don’t want to freak people out, but I do want them to leave feeling scared,” Ivana laughs. “[The Hush Law] seems like a very unusual thing, but it could so easily happen to any of us.”

Lighthouse Productions’ Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons shows at the Burton Taylor Studio 27th – 31st January.

Faith in humanity restored: Taste Tibet, reviewed

Nancy Robson
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Faith in humanity restored: Taste Tibet, reviewed

It might have something to do with the freezing January rain outside, but when I arrive at Taste Tibet in East Oxford it seems a lot like paradise. The décor is stripped-back but welcoming: a blackboard with the weekly-changing menu written on it, a counter from which hot food is served, and several long benches designed for communal eating. Julie Kleeman, who, alongside her husband, is the lifeblood of the restaurant, welcomes me in from the rain and suggests we sit down with a cup of chai. This is precisely what the drenched-to-the-skin, cold-to-the-bone me needs, but it is also lovely in its own right, warmly spiced without being overly sweet.

The restaurant, Julie tells me, began over a decade ago as a market stall in Gloucester Green, where her husband – who grew up in the mountains of Tibet – would cook the food of his childhood. At the same time, they organised takeaways out of their own kitchen, eventually opening this restaurant in the middle of a COVID lockdown. During the summer months they still take their food stall to festivals, partly – Julie explains – so that they can share the desperately underrepresented wonders of Tibetan culture and cuisine with a larger audience.

Time and again during our talk she returns to the idea of community, which is central to the restaurant’s ethos and practices. Julie seems genuinely pleased to see everyone who walks in, many of whom are regulars. There are those who linger over a meal, but also those who have braved the biblical storm outside to pick up a takeaway, or one of the meals from the freezer. The latter of these is a revelation to me. Julie explains how they freeze all of their leftovers, meaning that the restaurant creates nearly no food waste and that it is possible to try their food at an even more affordable price.

If you’ve never had Tibetan food before, it is built around hearty, comforting dishes or, as Julie phrases it, food to warm your hands and your stomach. Their menu has an impressive balance of vegan and meat options, so I begin with the dal, which is everything a dal should be – rich, almost creamy, with a subtle complexity of flavour. The two chicken curries I try are just as delicious, although my personal favourite is the wonderfully fresh sesame chicken. Having resigned myself to the wilted, soulless greens served in Hall, the vegetable dishes bring me the most surprising joy. This is how broccoli was born to be served. The real stars of the meal, however, – and there is tough competition – are the momos, the generously sized dumplings which seem to be Tibet’s unofficial national dish. The menu has two varieties, so, since this is not the time for following New Year’s resolutions, I sample both. The beef feels like proper mountain fare – rich and wholesome enough to help you weather a snowstorm –, but it is the ‘Heavenly Vegan’ momos that live up to their name. I can’t exactly describe the flavour, because it tasted like nothing I’d ever eaten before, but I can only urge you with every single inch of my being to try them yourself.

When I eventually – and very reluctantly – leave the restaurant, it is still pouring with rain, but my faith in humanity and in friendly, high-quality neighbourhood restaurants has been restored.

I ate:

  • Meat Feast for One (two dishes + dal + rice + momo) – £17.00
  • Side of Stir-Fried Broccoli with Garlic – £2.50
  • Tibetan Chai Tea – £3.50
  • Vegan momo – £2.50

Criticisms of Oxford slang aren’t really about language

Aaron Butters
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Criticisms of Oxford slang aren’t really about language

Sub fusc, college marriages, BOPs, sconcing, Prelims, the Bod: Oxford boasts a unique catalogue of words and phrases. Some would critique them as elitist and exclusionary. Doing so sadly misdirects such critiques, and fails to see the important role that Oxford’s language plays. It’s a uniquely complex, ever-changing system that we should be proud to call our own. 

The eclectic vocabulary referred to as Oxford’s ‘language’ is a sociolect. This is a distinctive way in which language is used by members of a particular group, which necessarily reflects the social soil from which it sprouts. To use the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s terms, what we have in Oxford’s slang is a series of signs referring to various signifieds. The signs are arbitrary, and no amount of criticism of the sign will do anything to affect what is signified. Even if I manage to weed out the term “sub fusc”, so long as academic dress exists there will always be a new word to spring up and take its place, because the signified concept is still present. If I wanted to eradicate Oxford’s slang, I would have to render it obsolete, by removing what it refers to. We can’t direct our anger at the words themselves. But I don’t think we should be burning sub fusc in any case, because from such traditions comes our Oxford sociolect, and sociolects serve important social functions.  

The most important thing to realise about sociolects is their ubiquity. Oxford has a sociolect; Durham has a sociolect; Southampton has a sociolect; your town and your school have sociolects. Whenever a new social group is formed, a unique sociolect won’t be far behind. We can even see sociolects within sociolects, like college slang. An example from my college, St Peter’s, is the words used to refer to parts of the library. The college library itself is the plib (Peter’s + lib-rary). This pl- prefix appears to have then been used to create plungeon, which is the very bottom level, and pleaven, which is the very top. Sociolects aren’t necessarily elitist or exclusionary, and that we all speak many of them. 

What is unique about Oxford’s sociolect, however, is that it was once spoken exclusively by the upper, ruling classes who were educated here. This is no longer the case. It’s not to say that Oxford no longer produces the ‘ruling classes’ – 75% of judges, 66% of private secretaries, and  54% of MPs were educated here or Cambridge. However, the process that produces this ‘ruling class’ is far more meritocratic today than it ever has been. Oxford is no longer a feudalistically gated university, with over 60% of its UK-domiciled students coming from state-educated backgrounds, and with active efforts made year on year to increase the proportion of underrepresented groups that make up its student body. The memory of Oxford having been exclusionary still persists, but the diversity of people who now speak its sociolect demonstrates that it no longer is. 

Sociolects promote social cohesion and foster a sense of group identity. Oxford’s is no different in this respect. In fact, Oxford’s sociolect is much better equipped to achieve this purpose than others because its greater age and vocabulary size gives us more in common with each other, leading to closer feelings of camaraderie and connection. The unpaired uniqueness of Oxford, rooted in its history and its traditions, is completely capable of existing without classism or elitism. Its language is a sign of not just of those traditions, but also of its proud and enthusiastic student community today. We should feel proud to be Oxford students without descending into some kind of superiority complex. To assume that Oxford’s language is forever going to be exclusionary suggests that we aren’t capable of re-evaluating what it means to be an Oxford student. But we are. 

Sociolects are always changing. This means that new members of Oxford’s social community, be they freshers or international students, are as much capable of influencing its development as anybody else. As Oxford has become more open and representative, those new members have been able to leave their mark in its language when opportunities for new coinages arise: for example, the opening of the new Schwarzman Centre this year. Already it’s been shortened to the Schwarzman, the Schwarz, and even (perhaps rather tongue-in-cheek) the Schwozzy C. As a fresher myself, from a state school, mostly non-university-going background, I do not feel excluded by Oxford’s language. I feel intrigued, and proud that I get to be a player (and rulemaker) in this idiosyncratic language game.

To conclude, to call Oxford’s language ‘exclusionary’ is to misread its place today. It is to allow yourself to be haunted by top-hat wearing, moustache-twiddling, RP-talking ghosts who no longer swarm its streets. When we strip away its antique garbs, we find a sociolect like any other. And, thanks to, not in spite of, those antique garbs, Oxford’s sociolect is uniquely adept at creating a shared group identity, reminding everyone who speaks it that they belong to this University, in which we should all be able to take pride.

Why you should talk to your scout more

Tarana Varma
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Why you should talk to your scout more

Quite apart from our academic work, students at Oxford University lead a life very different to that of students at other institutions, a fact which some of us seem more aware of than others. Porters who are available 24/7, kitchen staff who not only cook but serve food multiple times a day, and scouts who clean your rooms are not regular parts of the university experience, however hard it may be for some to imagine fitting scrubbing the bathroom floor into their daily schedule. For many, both from outside and within the University, this system is just another reason to regard Oxford students with a certain degree of moral distrust, and it’s not hard to see why. Surely, being treated like overprivileged boarding school children will only lead to the production of entitled students lacking in the ability to take responsibility and look after themselves, exacerbating such traits within those who have already been raised in this way. 

Indeed, the system of services provided by the University was embedded exactly for the kind of people such critics would hold in disdain. The Oxford cohort of the 19th and early 20th century was almost entirely made up of men from the landed gentry and clergy; it was therefore necessary that the services provided by the University matched those that these young men had been accustomed to during their childhood. Cultural depictions of Oxford life before the 21st century, such as in Evelyn Waugh’s classic Oxford novel Brideshead Revisited, show these men in all their self-assurance, lording it over the menial labourers who are so clearly seen as belonging to a different world. Luckily, most of us have now moved away from such reprehensible treatment of those who work for our colleges, and from such discreditable attitudes towards class division. Do we then have nothing to learn from the past as regards the university’s workforce? 

While I don’t pretend to harbour much nostalgia for the English culture of previous centuries, I do believe that we miss something when we view our changing treatment of our staff as merely another part of an abstract social progression. The fact is that the standard relationship between the Oxford student and the staff they interact with on a regular basis is still riddled with problems, despite the greater levels of respect, politeness, and appreciation we hopefully hold ourselves to. Fundamentally, this is because there is really no relationship at all. How many of us know the names of the kitchen staff, porters, or scouts of our colleges? And no – knowing the names of the people who run your college bar in an attempt to curry favour does not count. These staff, so deeply integral to the running of our communities, often slip into the cracks of both the everyday and the incidental. A friend who had a slight mishap with her dinner recently after a night out, for example, had to discuss her actions only with the college dean, and did not have to apologise to or even acknowledge those who had to clean up after her, a clear display of the blatant disregard we often show for our responsibilities towards our staff. 

At the same time, not only do we owe something to those who serve us, but we often forget what they can do for us, outside of what we consider to be their jobs. Maybe we shouldn’t think only about the fact that we are provided with people who cook our food, deal with us losing our keys, and tidy our piles of paper, but more about the resource of being surrounded by those who might genuinely understand the specific problems of  every-day Oxford life. These people have truly seen it all, and do not deserve to be treated as outsiders; they might be the biggest insiders around. When it comes to the staff who enter our rooms, I believe we can in fact learn something from stories of old, both the real and the fictional. 

An article published by the University of Cambridge titled ‘The bedders’ story’ interviews Lilian Runham, a veteran ‘bedder’ (the Cambridge equivalent of the Oxford scout) who describes the motherly relationship fostered by the regular visits to a student’s room and by the relaxed rules and regulations that were once a part of the system. For Runham, this consistent contact created a high degree of comfort and intimacy between bedder and student. Bedders would often be the first to notice signs of stress, illness, or homesickness, and the students she helped would often talk to her about their problems. On the other side, 20th Century books such as Brideshead Revisited may not quite depict relationships of affection, but the interactions between students and staff, such as the frankly expressed irritation of Charles’s scout regarding his behaviour and the state of his room, sometimes seem preferable to the culture of boundaries we find ourselves so accustomed to. True, we might object to the idea of institutional moral policing that is betrayed in Lunt’s comments to Charles, but this practise is at the same time suggestive of a culture that admits that the staff around us are enough a part of our community that they might help and guide us just as much as our friends or our family back home. 

I am not suggesting that you befriend those in the practise of talking to their toy bear, fall in love with two siblings, or in any other way emulate Waugh’s Oxonian protagonist, but I am asking that we all question the limited number of interactions beyond pleasantries that we have with the workforce of this university. This is, or should be, a community, but it cannot be until we treat every member of it as if they are truly part of our lives, and learn to remember that we are a part of theirs. 

In defence of the live-action remake

Willow Jopp
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In defence of the live-action remake

There is a particular kind of cultural contempt reserved for the live-action remake. Many film buffs see them as evidence that nothing new is being made in Hollywood, that writers have given up, and that audiences prefer to be spoon-fed reheated stories. But to dismiss live-action remakes entirely is to miss what they reveal about the moment we are currently living through. I held the same distaste for them, but never made the attempt to understand the reasons why these films are made and why they continue to succeed financially.

Maybe it’s time, then, to challenge my past attitude, and attempt to find worth in a film format I previously considered redundant. Live-action remakes, when viewed with an open mind, can be seen as cultural negotiations, as attempts to revitalise and pass down old stories to new eyes and ears. They test which morals we still believe in, and what we feel requires modernisation. They are a first step towards change in a time when change feels frightening. They make up a film category of their own, which deserves to be recognised and respected.

The live-action remake is often accused of simply tracing the outline of something we have already seen and loved. But this is not entirely true. The trend within this genre in the early 2010s was to take the original story and put a darker spin on it. Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland essentially changes the entire plot of the original 1951 film by including Alice’s mission to slay the Jabberwocky, all enacted with Burton’s trademark gothic tone. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Maleficent, and Snow White and the Huntsman, which sit somewhere between remake and adaptation, all add a grittiness absent from their source material. This shift in tone in the early 2010s reflected a cultural seriousness that rewarded tonal darkness and thematic maturity. It was as though the modern audience had become disillusioned with the innocence of the fairy-tale, and so these remakes treat optimism as something to be earned through suffering. The point of these films was not fidelity; instead offering a reframing of familiar narratives, treating fairy-tales as raw material for a different type of film entirely.

Regarding the Disney remakes of its animated musicals, the charge that these films are just lazy cash grabs is harder to dismiss. After all, it’s true that Disney’s most financially successful movies are sequels, adaptations, and remakes. But perhaps that indicates that they are responding to audience trends: after all, we are the ones who continue to watch them. Business rationale explains why these films are commissioned; it doesn’t fully explain why they resonate. The stories are timeless, and their morals and messages still ring true after decades. And since these films cater not only towards the original audience’s nostalgia, but also towards new generations, these messages are thus revived and remastered for a modern audience. 

Also, once budget is factored in, their returns are not as efficient as the originals: Beauty and the Beast (2017) grossed $1.2 billion on a $255 million budget, but the 1991 original grossed $451 million on a mere $25 million budget. These films are gargantuan feats, showing off the advancements in CGI made in the decades elapsed since the release of the original. They require hundreds of crew members and thousands of hours of real labour. It is reductive to call live-action remakes ‘lazy’, when in reality they reveal how much work goes into making familiar stories feel relevant again for a new cultural moment.

Before starting to write this, I was judging live-action remakes by the wrong standard. I wanted them to be at once faithful and original, reverent and surprising, comforting and challenging, but, of course, many adaptations buckle under the weight of these contradictions. The quality of live-action remakes varies greatly, and I am personally not a fan of many of them, but I am by no means against the live-action remake as a concept. And even in their failures, they remain revealing of what ideas have changed in the past few decades, and what we hope to preserve. To defend the live-action remake, then, is not to defend every individual film, but to recognise the genre as an ongoing attempt to translate inherited stories into a present that no longer trusts innocence, but still longs for it.

Livin’ la vida Lidl

Morwenna Stinchcombe
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Livin’ la vida Lidl

Ok, I admit it. I am a food snob. My favourite film is Julie & Julia (2009), in which a put-upon, do-it-all young woman obsesses over Julia Child, who introduced suburban America to French cooking. I have consigned beans on toast to the days when the sertraline just doesn’t hit right, and opted last Christmas to make homemade gravy.

This is not to say, though, that I am too good for a bargain. Though I still have reservations about milk from Lidl – I swear it tastes different – and the eggs from Aldi look to me dull and pale, I can put aside these quibbles as I admit to the allure of a £1 bag of courgettes. All this to say: Oxford’s city centre needs a discount supermarket.

In the period 2022-2024, approximately 90% of the UK admissions to Oxford were from England, whose students receive, at most, £10,544 per year. Most of us do not receive that much. Immediately, we can subtract however many thousand your college charges for rent, and then we are likely left with a meagre sum which barely supports a life of simple pleasures. That is, if we are forced to shop at either Tesco or Sainsbury’s in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

Aldi, Lidl, or ASDA would make a fine addition to Oxford’s supermarkets. It would be nice to walk out of a shop and not feel spiritually drained because good, worthwhile food costs so much; to not have to think, “well, the overdraft is doing its job”. It would be nice to live up to the expectation of students and be a little more cavalier in our spending, able to splash out now and again.  But our budgets are limited and the greatest cost, apart from rent, is food. The options for the median Oxford student are as so: shop and eat well, and commit oneself to a life of moderation, never leaving Oxford during term-time and going out at most once a week, or allow oneself to be hedonistic whilst subsisting on a diet of pot noodle and porridge, backed up with the odd multivitamin. I do not think this fair; university is an escape from the humdrum of home life, the start of adult responsibility (and correspondingly, irresponsibility). We should be permitted a little more fun.

Now, I appreciate that the targets for my ire really should be the government for letting down students from England, as well as the University for pretty consistently leaving those who Theresa May classed as the “Jams” (Just About Managing, i.e. lower-middle class) with the limited support their parents can afford, and very little in the way of scholarships or bursaries. But these are long-term issues which, given cuts to funding for universities and Rachel Reeves’ insistence that difficult decisions are ahead, nobody is really in the mood to deal with. Instead, a discount supermarket could be up and running within the year, if they realised what a cushy profit they could make from the city’s vast student population. 

Why not, though? Why are our nearest Aldis just at the ring road? Consider who, apart from us, uses the city: the odd resident of the city, who in 2024 had a median salary of £41.2k and therefore may opt instead for Tesco or Sainsbury’s; and tourists. Tourists are coming on holiday, to buy the overpriced, gaudy tourist tat. They do not need to buy food with a mind to cooking. Restaurants will do that for them. Oxford is not built to sustain those who gulp when they open their banking app. It’s built for those with a bit more cash to splash. 


What a difference it could make! Instead of relying on cheap loaves of bread which taste like cardboard, we could enjoy the delights of a somewhat high-quality loaf, baked in-store, for less than £3. Getting all the ingredients for a recipe from The Guardian need not lead you to questioning whether you can substitute chilli powder for fresh chilli. For once, we could really indulge. We could snack without interrogating the cost per kilogram of a nice bar of chocolate as a reward for an essay well done (or even just completed). We would not need to go to a formal to delight in something approaching haute cuisine. People think Oxford is the high life, and with a discount supermarket, it could be.

Will running a half-marathon fix you?

Sophi Hayes-Hoyle
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Will running a half-marathon fix you?

“I’ve made my New Year’s resolution”, says my friend Millie. “You’re going to love this”.

“Go on then”, her dad replies, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m going to run a half-marathon in 2026.”

He clears his throat. “Oh really?” He pauses. “Maybe you should tackle some lighter commitments first, love… like, clearing out your inbox?”

The running boom. Park Run, protein bars, carbon plates, garmins, gels. A craze we’ve all seen: “Run a 5k with me” or “Follow me on my running journey”. Matching sets, 6am run clubs, and 9pm bedtimes. Besides a ‘For You’ page full of neon clad run-fluencers finishing their 5ks in bohemian coffee shops, though, it feels like there is something deeper to unearth behind this craze – or, dare I say, zeitgeist. Running has undergone a paradigm shift; no longer a punishment in PE class or your parents’ Sunday morning escape, running is a lifestyle: a personal brand. 

As far as marketing feats go, then, I want to ask how sustainable this lifestyle truly is. Are we all suddenly enjoying running? The voices of my friends bemoaning the umpteenth time I’ve begged them to join me on an early Sunday morning run resound. Or are we buying into a brand – worse, an unattainable self-image – something we want to be? Surely there is more to this than a change of heart: we’re reaching for something to structure our lives. To solve all our problems. 

Unfortunately, mapping out your route on Strava is probably not going to dissolve the listlessness that sits in your stomach on your weekly Tesco shop. Running is no quick fix. Yet it is marketed to us lately like a full coverage concealer – not for your under-eyes, but for your life.

So: you’ve started running. You wonder how far that loop around the block is. You innocently download that app… what’s it called? Strava. You’re in. Collecting trophies, being crowned a local legend on every corner. But wait, stop! You’ve fallen into the stats trap. The subscription conscription. The kudos compulsion. Before you know it, you’re running up and down your street trying to turn your total distance into a whole number – less of a local legend than the local lunatic.

I did it too. Most runners have been there. And I’ll recruit you now to the movement against it. Anti-stats, anti-watch, rawdogging runners know where it’s at. With sky-rocketing numbers taking up the hobby, it feels all the more important that what we consume online – and every part of the running culture that surrounds us – puts us on the right track. Whilst running can work wonders for your physical and mental health, create a sense of community as you plod around suburbs, and forge new friendships, there are also so many ways for a simple sport to become a product for consumption. What has been a sport that springs you from your desk into the middle of the woods on a random weekday now spams the very screens we’re running away from. I’m no scientist, but I’d rather trigger that flight or fight mode as I race the imminent sunset than through another Instagram reel.

Not only are more people running than ever before; more people are entering races. The number of entries for the 2025 London Marathon reached a record-breaking high of 840, 318 that has already been shattered by those for the impending 2026 London Marathon: 1,133,813 people from the UK and across the globe applied in the public ballot for an entry to this year’s edition.

Furthermore, the average marathon time has increased in recent years, meaning that, on the whole, runners are getting slower – or rather that more and more recreational runners are choosing to take up the challenge of entering official races. Calling yourself a runner no longer means running for a university or being part of an official club, but simply lacing up your shoes and getting out the door. 

More people are running. But why? And what kind of running culture is this creating?

Perhaps the answer is quite simple: running is an accessible sport. It’s a cheap, flexible hobby requiring no membership, excessive equipment, or particular terrain. Running is free  – and in this economy, priceless. Anyone can be a runner. All you need are some trainers and a dream. 

Part of this boom lends itself to a post-pandemic health focus. In fact, many people started running during lockdown only to fall in love, sticking with it ever since. And that need to take control back over our own lives – to install that regime and routine that was ripped out from under us (for most readers, some of our most formative teenage years) – is very real. The Global Institute of Sport places students right at the heart of the expanding demographic of long distance runners. Certainly, my lockdown running routine was something I clung to for structure. The motions and rhythms of running: repetitive, grounding, reassuring. For me, running has also been a means of proving something to myself. Yes, I can definitely do hard things. Conquer a hill, train after work, and wake up early when my running friends are intent on dragging me out of bed at 7am (even if they then sleep in). 

It’s been seven years. I’ve made promises and stuck to them. I’ve committed and I’ve followed through. But the truth hits cold and hard: the longest relationship I’ve ever had has been with running. The input:output ratio in this field is, sadly, not transferable. 

I’ve said this, (gently) to Millie, and I’ll say it again. Running a half-marathon will probably not fix your commitment issues, romantic or otherwise. Running will be there for you when no one else will. It’s the answer to your essay crisis, your heartbreak – any kind of sleepless night. Avoidant attachment styles won’t get you anywhere. 

This is not to say that a New Year’s resolution involving big goals like training for a half-marathon won’t teach you some valuable lessons about yourself. We should simply be wary of turning running into another passing trend, or relying on it as a quick solution to problems that really run much deeper.

When the neon trainers fade, will running turn out to be something people are picking up, only to put down again? 

Trump, tennis, and test cricket: Winter’s sporting woes

Arun Lewis
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Trump, tennis, and test cricket: Winter’s sporting woes

The Michaelmas vac was not the finest time to be a sports fan. Whilst, as a Spurs fan, I can take some small succour from the fact that my team has avoided plummeting quite as far down the Premier League table this year, this minor boon can’t compensate for what has been an otherwise humiliating time for English sports. Yet even if you look abroad, the sporting world has little to offer but the sort of headlines that leave a foul taste in the mouth. Not all of these failings and embarrassments are of the same magnitude but, cumulatively, their burdens mean 2025 could definitely be a late contender for the title of sports’ annus horribilis.

Possibly the most infamous incident to occur in the sporting world this year was FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s extraordinary awarding of the inaugural ‘FIFA Peace Prize’ to Donald Trump. Whilst FIFA are no strangers to corruption – Sepp Blatter’s tenure was a particularly debauched period for the organisation, with widespread allegations of vote-buying and blatant cronyism – Infantino’s decision was astounding for a few reasons. 
Firstly, it was a plain and obvious attempt to lobby favour with an administration whose principal made much of his failed hopes to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He ultimately settled for borrowing the medal from the genuine winner of the award, Marina Corina Machado, having abducted Nicolas Maduro to vent his frustrations. Secondly, said-President had done little to merit such an award, even one as demonstrably facetious as this, given he had repeatedly threatened the security and sovereignty of World Cup co-hosts Canada and Mexico and proclaimed he ‘didn’t need international law’.

Few hold FIFA to be an ethical, just organisation. But at least under Sep Blatter there was a tacit acceptance that yes, they were ludicrously corrupt – but what about it? The football wasn’t half bad.  Under Infantino, football’s governing body has instead taken another step down the path to complete moral bankruptcy in its slavish and obscene obsequience to a completely disinterested President.

Infantino’s figurative orange elephant was not the only humiliating event in the sporting calendar over the vac, however. The ‘Battle of the Sexes’ between Nick Kyrgios and Aryna Sabalenka sought to evoke the memory of Billie Jean King’s victory in the previous, much-memorialised match of the same name against Bobby Riggs. The women’s number 1 against the men’s no. 673 played in a flat atmosphere despite all the attempts to manufacture hype, with Kyrgios’ victory failing to make a statement. Rather, it demonstrates the dearth of creativity in sports media. Rather than genuinely advance women’s sports, they sought to reheat the leftovers of contests from decades prior. Neither Kyrgios nor Sabalenka come out of this well: Sabalenka’s loss to Kyrgios does little for her name, and Kyrgios’ foul-mouthed reputation endures.

In the ongoing struggle between Britain and our Antipodean cousins on the cricket field, another humiliation swiftly reared its unpleasant, sun-burnt head. England entered the contest with a great deal of buzz in the papers about how Bazball would lead them to a nirvana of limitless runs and a swift, glorious resolution to the Ashes. Their arrival in the Land Down Under, unfortunately, failed to meet these lofty expectations. Each day brought a new humiliation, from disappointing performances on the field to reports that a significant number of the team were drunk off and during it. Of course, congratulations must go to the Australians for their excellent form – but England have serious questions to answer once they return home, nursing a metaphorical (and, for some of the players, literal) battering.

Wherever you look, sport in all its myriad forms appears to have stumbled into a great mess over the Michaelmas vac. Whatever small positives there have been, such as Lando Norris winning his inaugural F1 World Driver’s Championship, they were outweighed by grievous humiliations and embarrassments. Perhaps worst of all,  demonstrative of the current state of English and British sport, was the crowd’s response to Luke Littler’s – England’s latest darts prodigy –  second PDC world championship win.

It’s easy to forget but, under his prodigious beard, Littler is only a teen, and one who has achieved phenomenal success. But still he was booed, with the English fans unhappy that Luke ‘the Nuke’ was no longer a plucky underdog, now the dominant figure in English darts whom rooting for was not brave, but gauche. England seems trapped in a sporting slump, one which not even the fans want to clamber out of.

From ergs to euphoria: college rowing at Oxford

Arun Lewis
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From ergs to euphoria: college rowing at Oxford

A brief disclaimer before I begin: I’m not on the first team for any sport, so don’t assume the details below are representative for a majority – or even any – of Oxford’s sportspeople.

That being said, my time at Oxford has been the most physically active of my life. I was never a particularly focused child during sports at school. I was decent at rugby because I was – for lack of a better phrase – big as a wall, but I had two left feet when it came to football. To the great shame of my Indian ancestors, any hopes of cricketing skills met an abrupt death when I ran straight into my fellow batsman, taking us both out and losing the match. A prospective Kolkata Knight Rider I was not.

My arrival in OX1 brought with it some sizable changes, particularly as the prospect of whiling away the few free hours in my week hunched over my laptop became unattractive, given that was what most of my working hours consisted of. Amidst the chaos of the university and college fresher’s fairs, I, like many, signed up for too many societies, most of which I remain on the mailing list for. What did it matter that I’d shown no sporting ability in my previous eighteen years – surely, with less sleep, a worse diet and a questionable fitness regimen, I could turn myself into God’s gift to sport.

One of the sports which survived my post-Michaelmas week one cull of commitments was college rowing. It’s a quintessentially Oxonian endeavour: undertrained, overly confident students making a complete pig’s ear out of what can be a beautiful sport. But once you’ve spent the better part of a year attempting to make sure your technique isn’t a complete disgrace (still a work in progress for me), comes the harder, less exciting and glamorous part: actually training, via the equally unappealing weights rack or the erg.

Erging represents the less fun part of training: you sweat like an oaf and move up and down a slide staring at a wall, cumulatively, for hours. The only validation you receive is a slightly improved split on your screen. Whilst lifting might look and feel significantly better if your form is correct, the consequence of a half-decent workout is that you’re left immobilised for the next few days, bed-bound. Whereas the day before you could easily cycle around Oxford, a challenging leg day makes even a flight of stairs daunting.

Getting out onto the water is a rare experience for Michaelmas and Hilary. The Thames has a proclivity for bursting its banks at the slightest indication of rain, and unless you make a top-two boat, you’re unlikely to be rowing elsewhere. But to experience an evening outing in Trinity is to live well. The sun glimmers off the Isis as the boat moves in rhythm; the hull cuts through the water as Oakleys and unisuits dot the banks of the river. College rowing is an exercise in delayed gratification; the suffering of winter morphs into blades come Trinity.

Are most college crews of the standard to challenge a British university crew, let alone those from the multi-million dollar programmes in the US? Unlikely – though as Balliol M3’s shunt into a houseboat in last year’s Eights demonstrates, anything is possible on the water. But rowing’s influence spreads beyond Boathouses Island. Due to the unforgiving and awkward obligations of academia, outings have to be scheduled unseasonably early in the morning. This, in abstract, sounds fine: early to wake, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, etc. A good start to a productive day of work. 
If you got a good night’s sleep before. And regardless of where you live in Oxford, a good 8-9 hours of rest is as hard to come by as a first. This means what could be an otherwise pleasurable start to the day morphs into a Sisyphean challenge of endurance, an unremitting cycle of early wake-ups and late evenings that easily transforms a college rower into a zombie. Despite the valiant efforts of welfare reps to protect the physical, emotional, and psychological wellbeing of the rowers with trips to hotpot restaurants and crewdates, there’s only so much early morning coaching and waiting for hungover friends on the water that a rower can handle before they fall asleep at the oar.

Despite all these highly unappealing assets of rowing, it is a truly fantastic activity, and one that improves as Oxford’s terms move on. Unlike my other sport, rugby, the chance of picking up a serious injury in a rowing boat is slim-to-none if you operate with even the bare minimum of common sense. It’s a fantastic way to avoid the post-tutorial snacks getting to your waistline and a brilliant social activity. Befriending STEM students is a hard task for humanities “students”: our lax schedules and their demanding labs don’t align often, but there is no better source of camaraderie in student life than the bonds forged by a 6am alarm, a frantic cycle to the boathouse and a choppy outing followed by college breakfast.

From the pain of rowing in a poorly set boat on early winter mornings to the euphoria of racing down the Thames in Trinity, bonds of incomparable strength are forged. Rowing might be demanding. But for Oxford, it’s perfect.

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