Wednesday 13th August 2025
Blog Page 306

Money Talk: An Oxford DPhil student

Cherwell Money Diaries
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Money Talk: An Oxford DPhil student

It’s that time of the year again when final year students who have an appetite for research begin applying to PhD programs. This is a self-selected group of scholars who most likely succeeded academically and see value in dedicating at least 3-4 years to becoming world-class specialists in a niche field. They love learning, but ultimately their goal is to make a small contribution to a vast ocean of knowledge. 

The choice of pursuing a PhD, the journey itself, and earning the title of ‘Dr.’ does come with its costs—some apparent, others not. 

For any form of education, the most pertinent cost items that come to mind are tuition and living expenses. For most PhD students, tuition is typically not a factor as it is usually funded by research bodies, government agencies or university scholarships. These financial awards also allow for a living stipend, ranging between the equivalent of £15-25 K per annum. For context, in the 2021-22 academic year Clarendon Scholars are expected to receive £15,609, while Rhodes Scholars will receive £17,310 per annum.

The use of the living stipend varies between individuals. In major cities, like Boston, New York and London, students frequently cite housing as their largest expense item. Even for PhD students living outside of major cities, their expenditures on necessities rarely go past £20 per day on average.

As for me, here in Oxford, I have my own set of life hacks. I take a 20 minute scenic walk to my lab at 9am every day, thereby eliminating transport costs. I rent one room in a four-person house share, the cost of which ranges from £700-1000 per month, and my landlord covers all household bills (electric, Wi-Fi, water and gas). This arrangement is a rare find and most students who rent out of college often have to split their household bills with housemates. 

It’s only after being here a while that I realize how much students communicate over WhatsApp or Messenger, so my year long contract with O2 of £14 a month probably wasn’t a good idea. As someone who cooks for six days and would eat out for one day a week, my groceries amount to £120 a month. I have a pre-set menu of meals for every day of the week. I don’t have to think about what’s for dinner and purchase ingredients in bulk. Organizers of department-wide seminars tend to order more food for catering than needed and the leftovers are often enough to serve as filling meals for many students.

I don’t have time to binge Netflix and I have never played video games in my life. The college gym is good enough for me and so I have zero subscription costs. Plus, nine to twelve hour workdays don’t offer the time to enjoy such luxuries.

If you find yourself short on funds, Oxford is hardly short of opportunities for individuals to make small amounts of disposable income. In the sciences, students are often paid at least £10-20 an hour or per session to demonstrate experiments, take notes or invigilate exams. Some colleges also offer opportunities to lead tutorials or serve as junior deans, which come with a stipend, free meals in hall and on-site accommodation. 

This life of austerity is the reality for most PhD candidates. One of the largest hidden costs of doing a PhD is maintaining sound mental health. Times Higher Education found that 4 in 10 UK doctoral students are at high risk of suicide “due to loneliness and intellectual insecurity.” From my experience, problems arise often as a function of one’s perception of research progress and frictions in the supervisor-student relationship.

Another major cost is the narrowing job prospects you might face after defending your thesis. The academic job market is dismal with more applicants than spots. Racking up postdoctoral experience (2-3 years each) may no longer be enough. 

Others realise near the end that academia is not for them and because they committed all their time to research, they may find themselves lacking requisite skills to transition into other fields. PhD students are often viewed as too specialized, overqualified and expensive-to-hire for some attractive entry-level roles. However, some consulting firms, banks and research functions hire exclusively for PhDs in related areas. 

This piece was not written to be a horror story bumped out of the Halloween issue, and I hope you’re not about to discard your application. Rather, I hope you still submit your application and think before you commit. A PhD will open some doors and close others. At the end of the day, you have to be content with the combination of open and shut doors in front of you. 

On the right to privacy

Kylie MacFarquharson
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On the right to privacy

When I was asked to write this piece I initially refused. I refused because now, five years since my first Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) appointment, I feel like I don’t have much to say. Strangers don’t know I’m trans and some friends don’t either.

But that wasn’t always true.

The most challenging part of my transition was the period after my social transition, when I changed my name and how I dressed, but well before I was seen by a doctor. Here, to someone walking down the street, I was not a woman, not even a man, but a ‘trans’ woman. And this, I have since realised, is a worse thing to be seen as than either. In this time, I had men, and it was always men, call me slurs in front of my six-year-old brother. I had a man shout sexual comments at me in a crowded pub on New Year’s Eve. On one of the first occasions I wore a dress to an event, a man decided to follow me back to college in the middle of the night. None of these occurrences are unique to me, or trans women. But it’s been my experience that as my transition has continued, and hormones have had their glacial effect, the frequency and severity of these have decreased significantly.

My wait to see a GIC was fifteen months. Hormones started having a transformative effect after another eighteen at least. I count myself lucky this was as short as it was. But the waiting list at the same clinic is now forty-six months, nearly four years, and is not nearly the worst in the country. To subject trans people to the danger and fear that I experienced for longer than the length of an entire degree is barbaric. I will go even further and argue that it amounts to a violation of their right to privacy, something not achievable for most without treatment.

It’s a little known fact that the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA), the legislation that introduced the ability to change the sex on your birth certificate in the UK, was a response to a human rights case that the UK government lost. The court found that a law allowing this change was needed to protect a trans person’s rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the “right to respect for private and family life”. In essence, the court found that a trans person has a human right to keep the fact that they are trans private, and that their identity is a sphere in which the state should not tread.

This is a right that I have, and if I decided to, I could keep my trans status secret from everyone for the rest of my life. But in those early years, this right to privacy was on paper only. I had no ability to keep the fact I was trans hidden, it was evident to anyone who saw me.

Despite the imperfect and bureaucratic nature of the GRA, I am glad that I was able to put my twenty-four-page application together because of the privacy it affords. It’s no coincidence that many of the legislative attacks on trans people are attacks on our right to privacy. Attempts at GRA repeal, bathroom bills, and identity card proposals all hope to make us out ourselves to strangers. This is done often from a position of suspicion of trans people, who are seen by some as an inherent threat. Other times it is done to push a particular, often transmedicalist, view of trans identities, drawing a line between those “transitioning properly” and others. Both accounts fail to recognise the humanity of those they will affect, and threaten to worsen the welfare of all of the trans people who just want to go about our lives without undue impediment. To remove our right to privacy is to degrade the control we have over our own lives. These attacks are often framed as a defence of the status quo, but the reality is that trans people have been using the spaces they do today for your entire life. We have been legally protected doing so since 1999, and those protections were last strengthened in 2010.

The thing I alway say to younger trans people is ‘it gets better’. A major benefit of medical transition is that it gives back some control as to how you are seen. Visibility can be a positive thing, but only on our terms. But some gender clinics, at their current rate of seeing new patients, will take more than a decade to clear their waiting list. This amounts to preventing trans people from exercising their human right to privacy. It’s clear now that the GIC model has failed. Treatment should be prescribed to adults by GPs, without the years-long waits that currently exist.

Because awareness sounds great in the abstract, but what trans people need now is privacy.

Because we still do not have equal rights in marriage, in family, in healthcare.

Because what we need is not visibility, it’s liberation.

Image Credit: Ted Eytan / CC BY-SA 4.0

Christ Church students condemn Dean for comparing his experience to the Holocaust

Charlie Hancock
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Christ Church students condemn Dean for comparing his experience to the Holocaust

CW: The Holocaust, antisemitism, sexual harassent and assault.

The Junior and Graduate Common Rooms of Christ Church have condemned the College’s suspended Dean – the Very Reverend Martyn Percy – for a blog post in which he invoked imagery from the Holocaust when describing the criticism he has received.

The blog post has since been removed, but Cherwell has seen a downloaded copy. Titled The Red Triangle, the post’s contents describe Percy’s feelings of alienation and the lack of support he feels he received over the course of his dispute with Christ Church. He repeatedly invokes imagery of the deportation of victims of the Holocaust, and the symbols they were forced to wear in concentration camps.

The embattled Dean has been at the centre of a protracted dispute with the College since 2018. Starting after he questioned the College’s pay structure after finding out he earned less than other heads of colleges, the disputes have led to Christ Church being described as “virtually ungovernable”. Percy was suspended in 2018.

He was also accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the cathedral sacristy by stroking her hair while they were alone. The former police officer the College appointed to investigate the complaint described the complainant as “credible”. However, Thames Valley Police decided that there were no charges to be brought against Percy. The Church of England also said it would be “entirely disproportionate” for the case to be brought before a church tribunal.

Supporters of Percy have said that he was the victim of a “black ops” campaign, and was being victimised for his efforts to reform the College. In The Red Triangle, Percy says that since 2018 he has been subjected to a “public impugning of [his] reputation, and personal attacks resulting in severe trauma and life-changing injury”. He continued: “I am expected to live and act as though I am a convicted sex-offender, and subjected to draconian restrictions that would have raised eyebrows had I been a paedophile on bail.”

In his post, Percy appeared to draw parallels between his situation and the system of coloured shapes the Nazis used to categorise and identify prisoners in concentration camps. 

Percy said his experience has “given [him] a tiny taste of what it may have been like to be forced to wear the red triangle that the Nazis made political prisoners wear on the streets, and later in the camps”. He went on to say that his “persecutors” wanted him to wear a “red triangle of the inside [sic] of [his] jacket” so that “[he] can always know [he is] sub-human”. 

‘Sub-human’ is the English translation of the German word ‘untermensch’, which the Nazis used to refer to non-Aryan people whom they considered to be inferior. The word predates this usage, but was repeatedly used in speeches and writings by high profile Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels. Alongside Jewish people, the word was used to refer to Slavic people, Roma people, people who had physical and mental disabilities, and people of colour, who were targeted for extermination during the Holocaust.

When describing what he claims is a lack of support from the Bishop of Oxford, Percy appears to have compared the Bishop to a German citizen who did nothing to stop his neighbours being persecuted. He wrote that he “wondered what such a Bishop would have done when political enemies of the government were being hounded, harassed, victimised and stigmatised by his Nazi neighbours, going onto say that as “the train wagons are being loaded up with all of the Bishop’s recently evicted neighbours”, the Bishop would promise to keep in touch, but would not get “curious” about why he did not receive any letters from “the camps abroad”.

Railway networks across Europe were used by the Nazis to deport Jews and other victims of the Holocaust to concentration, extermination, and forced labour camps across the continent. The journey was often fatal: train carriages were overcrowded, and neither food nor water were supplied.

Percy says that he was “not comparing himself to a victim of Auschwitz” before referencing Nazi classification systems and methods used to deport victims of the Holocause. The JCR and GCR disputed Percy’s claim, saying: “it is clear that by invoking the Holocaust in reference to himself, there is some intention to draw a parallel”.

A joint statement from the two common rooms said: “The JCR and GCR are both adamant defenders of the natural rights of freedom of thought and speech, and these impart the right to condemn actions which we find to be offensive. As a JCR and GCR, we find this rhetoric abhorrent. 

“Attempting to draw a parallel between the Holocaust and the investigation regarding the Dean trivialises the suffering of victims of Nazi persecution. Martyn Percy’s essay is deeply offensive to all groups targeted by Nazi persecution, including the Jewish community, the Polish community, people with disabilities, people of colour, and the LGBTQ+ community, groups to which the Dean refers in his essay. 

“We condemn the Dean’s rhetoric in this essay in the strongest possible terms, as well as any other language on the Dean’s website which marginalises minority groups on the basis of characteristics including neurodivergence. Notwithstanding investigations relating to the Dean, the JCR and GCR explicitly express a view only with regards to the language used in essays by Martyn Percy, especially ‘The Red Triangle’.”

The common rooms encourage students who have been affected by the contents of Percy’s essay to reach out to welfare support. “Our shared goal is to build a community where people of all identities are safe and supported,” they continued.

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Oxford, of which Christ Church Cathedral is part,  told Cherwell: “The article posted on Martyn Percy’s personal website is a misappropriation of the Holocaust and is unacceptable. Whatever his complaints about an investigation of a sexual harassment complaint made against him, the Dean should not compare it to genocide. We fully acknowledge the complexity and pain of the present situation for the Dean and the complainant also. Despite his claims otherwise, significant support continues to be provided for all of those involved. Meanwhile, the ongoing legal processes must be allowed to take their course, and Dean Percy remains suspended from cathedral and college duties. We are glad to see the link to the article has now been removed from his website.”

A spokesperson for Christ Church told Cherwell: “Martyn Percy is currently not carrying out his duties as Dean of Christ Church. Christ Church cannot comment on ongoing disciplinary processes but is keen that they are dealt with as speedily as possible, in fairness to the accused and to the complainant.

“We have been made aware of comments made by the Dean in a recent article, and the subsequent reaction to them, including amongst our student community, whose open letter captures the essence of the problem with Martyn Percy’s text. While Christ Church supports free speech, it strongly condemns any potential breach of the Equality Act, especially where it creates a hostile, alienating or offensive environment for other members of Christ Church, or in the wider University.”

The Very Reverend Martyn Percy, and the Oxford University Jewish Society have been approached for comment.

Resources for learning about the Holocaust can be found online at the Holocaust Educational Trust. 

Oxford Nightline is open 8pm-8am, every night during term time, for anyone who’s struggling to cope and provides a safe space to talk where calls are completely confidential. You can call them on 01865 270 270, or chat at oxfordnighline.org. You can also contact Samaritans 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by calling 166 123 or emailing [email protected].

The Oxford University Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service can be reached by emailing [email protected] and offers free support and advice to any student at the University who has been impacted by sexual harassment or violence.

OSARCC is also available as a free support service which is distinct from the University.

It Happens Here can serve as an unofficial and informal point of contact for students with any concerns about the issues discussed in this article. 

Doctor Who and Sherlock writer Steven Moffat speaks at Oxford Union

Estelle Atkinson and Rosa Chalfen
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Doctor Who and Sherlock writer Steven Moffat speaks at Oxford Union

The Oxford Union welcomed Steven Moffat for the second time since his first visit in 2016. The Doctor Who and Sherlock writer has won an Emmy award, five BAFTA Awards, and four Hugo Awards. His work in television earned him an appointment to the Order of the British Empire for his services to drama. 

Moffat spoke briefly on his current work, which happens to feature two previous doctors. Moffat just wrapped on his show Inside Man featuring David Tennant, and is currently working with Peter Capaldi on a new thriller series called The Devil’s Hour. “I do aftercare,” he joked about working again with the previous Doctor Whos. 

He also discussed the effect of the pandemic on the television and film industry, commenting that “you only really understand something when you look back on it. [The pandemic] is tragic, it’s frightening, and it’s boring.”

He continued: “you’re just stuck in your damned house; there’s nothing to write about. I thought for years that I could write if people stopped interrupting me, and then that happened, and I couldn’t write.”

He also joked that, on expressing this frustration to Sherlock co writer Mark Gatiss, who also plays Mycroft in the hit TV series, Gatiss told Moffat “I do think there’s a difference between sabbatical and a global emergency.” 

Moffat claims he gains creative inspiration from “outside, overhearing a conversation, seeing something through a window,” and struggled to write without this kind of stimulation. However, his thoughts on the future of the industry are bright: ‘‘There’s more television than there has ever been in the past. I used to make Doctor Who stories on an 8mm camera. You have better equipment on your Iphone than we had once a week in the Glasgow University TV studio,” referring to his student days at the University of Glasgow, where he studied English. 

On how his personal life influences his writing, Moffat said ‘‘I don’t think you have a choice as a writer. Sometimes you don’t notice for years- you are writing about what you think. You’re not trying to write for anyone else because you don’t know what anyone else wants. But sometimes that’s pretty tough to bring back to the weeping angels!’ He has previously said that his sitcom Joking Apart was inspired directly by the breakup of his first marriage.

However, Moffat is possibly most famous for writing the beloved BBC series Doctor Who between 2005-2008, and then producing the show between 2009-2017. He commented on the personal sacrifices the job entails: “You screw up every holiday, every dinner, every outing with your kids for how many years you do that job.” 

Discussing the return of previous writer Russel T Davies to Doctor Who, Moffat expressed the sentiment that “there is only a small group of people capable of doing it, and an even smaller band of people who are willing to do it.’” He called Davies the “single best writer in television drama,” markedly enthusiastic for his return.

His time as showrunner also overlapped with writing Sherlock, which he said “drove me a bit mad. [But] I survived, they paid me quite a lot of money, it’s not terrible!” Both shows had enormous and vocal fan bases, with Sherlock in particular garnering up to 10 million viewers per episode, but Moffat was reluctant to listen too much to fans’ opinions: “In the storm of it, it’s really difficult to dissociate from it. 99% of the audience never express their opinion in public, and you’re taking the worst sample of people to listen to. If you’re a fan of something, you never tell the truth. Fans lie.” 

He also refused to be drawn into speculation on who will play the next doctor: “Just surprise me – I want to sit in the audience.”

Image: The Oxford Union

In-person finals: Ready or not, here they come

Rebecca Walker
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In-person finals: Ready or not, here they come

Another year, another cohort of finalists. And the third year that has been affected by the pandemic. University life feels like we might be resuming some sense of normality, with in-person lectures, classes and tutorials and the long-awaited return to the clubs. But despite this, current finalists have still had two years of disrupted learning.

This is why I panicked when the History Faculty announced that our finals would be in-person and closed book at the end of this year.

History announced this a week before term began, unlike the English and Law faculties who informed their students that exams would be online and open book. The independence of the Oxford faculties leads to the potential for these kinds of discrepancies. Modern languages have announced that their literature exams will be online and language exams in-person.

English is to have online exams for all but one of their papers, stating that “a fair mode of assessment needs to be in tune with the educational experience that you have had, including the opportunities that you have had to practice being assessed”. Having Prelims cancelled and online collections throughout the degree were the main drivers behind this decision. Is this not exactly the same situation for History students as well?

I last took an in-person exam at the start of Hilary in my first year, back in January 2020. Since then, my Prelims were cancelled and every other collection I have taken has been online, as well as having restricted library access throughout two terms spent working online at home. The lack of preparation that we are going to have had for in-person finals is a scary prospect. Normally we would have three years to hone the skills required for our finals, and now we are expected to acquire these techniques in only one year.

In their email announcement to the History finalists, the faculty stated that “We have taken into account the exceptional circumstances created by the pandemic up to now and will continue to do so as the situation evolves” and acknowledged all the problems we have faced over the last two years- and yet have made no allowances for these “exceptional circumstances”.

Over the last week or so I have been coming round to the idea of in-person exams. Remembering the stress of thinking I had submitted my coursework exam at the end of Trinity term last year, only to find out that Inspera had not worked properly, is one of the reasons. In-person exams will of course mitigate any of these potential technical problems. And sitting an exam in your room clearly does not have the same adrenaline effect as the real deal in Exam Schools. Sat in my room the other day writing my online collection, it was much harder to focus.

My main concern now is, if exams are going to be in-person, how are they going to support us? The faculty has promised that we will have adequate time and means of preparing for our finals that are now in a different format to the one we have prepared for entire two years we have spent at Oxford. Is this task going to fall on individual tutors at each college? If so, not only is this extra work for them, but students may receive different levels of support and exam practice depending on their college. 

In the faculty’s initial announcement email, they advised that “college organised collections will be a very useful resource for practising in-person examinations and Exams Schools always run valuable practice sessions in Trinity Term.” If this is the extent of the support they will be offering, it is not enough. Even my collection at the start of this term was still online, and from now I will only have the chance to do one more in-person collection in one paper. Will I ever get the chance to practise my other papers in-person or will the first time be in finals? Practice sessions in Trinity are of course welcome, but we will need preparation before this point. Otherwise we are going into finals without any experience beforehand. If they are going to be able to justify having in-person exams, they need to ensure they follow this up with sufficient help to prepare students.

The only reassurance that the History faculty are currently offering is the option of applying for ‘mitigating circumstances’, if you “feel that the pandemic conditions will have an effect on your examination performance”. This is a hollow consolation. As a Cherwell investigation discovered, the University received 3,675 mitigating circumstances applications for the 2020/2021 academic year. Many applicants were left disappointed at their application rejection, including a finalist involved in a traffic accident. This gives me and many others little hope. We have all been affected by the pandemic, and therefore this needs to be taken into account more than merely presenting us with the option to apply for ‘mitigating circumstances’.

Faculties who have still not informed students about the format of their finals should do so to allow maximum preparation time for students. And those who have already chosen to hold their exams in-person, such as History, need to let students know of a comprehensive plan of action in supporting them through their final year.

Image Credit : Maxime Gtn / CC BY-SA 4.0

Willie J Healey: ‘I unashamedly want to take the world over’

Jack Dillon
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Willie J Healey: ‘I unashamedly want to take the world over’

Throughout its long and storied history, the pages of Cherwell have been graced by every Oxford institution under the sun. Far too often have our headlines been grabbed by ‘Bodleian this’ or ‘Christ Church that’ etc, etc. Yet, until now, we hadn’t heard from Oxford’s greatest institution: Willie J Healey.

And, with three (yes, three) sold out shows at the Jericho ahead of him and a cult (yes, an actual cult) of fans behind him, the buzz-garnering singer-songwriter is a veritable Oxford institution. Ahead of the third of those shows, we spoke about navigating an album cycle amid a pandemic, his bromance with Joe Talbot of IDLES, and what we can expect next from Carterton’s musical phenom.

We met upstairs at the Jericho Tavern, Willie having taken some time out from watching the football at a pub down the road. Donning a tiny beanie, a different colour of which he’s worn at each tour date so far, and with a feather earring dangling from his left ear, he bears all the hallmarks of an indie songsmith – albeit, one who doesn’t take themselves too painfully seriously. We sat in a venue which has featured along the upward trajectories of many Oxford musical greats, with stories of Radiohead and Supergrass having been mythologised to no end. However, when asked about his favourite memories of the place, Willie’s response is characterised by a certain irreverence.

“You know what, I don’t really have that many. I haven’t seen that many bands here, I haven’t played here that much. And It’s got a tiny green room, the smallest I’ve ever seen.” Despite his green room grievances, he’s quick to recognise the special place it holds in the scene’s collective consciousness. “It’s one of those places that’s obviously legendary due to the acts that it’s had here, but that was a bit before my time.”

Willie spent much of his time coming up in Oxford playing at other local venues, such as The Port Mahon or The Cellar (sadly now defunct). However, the ravenous reception of the two Jericho crowds he’s played to in the last twenty-four hours are sure to stick in his mind: “I think, actually, this will be my memory of The Jericho”.

That ravenous reception has come as somewhat of a surprise. Willie’s latest album, the masterful Twin Heavy, was released in August of last year – a time when the idea of live music seemed to have entered the twilight zone. Putting out such a summery, lushly arranged body of work during the great lost summer of 2020 would surely have been viewed as a tragedy by many artists. Yet, Willie has no regrets.

“I think there seems to be a lot of music that’s kind of been lost from that period, but I feel like, for whatever reason, that album has fought its way through. And, on a personal level, we couldn’t play – nobody could, obviously – so the thought of putting some music out was really exciting and the thought of sitting on it for another year was really not exciting.”

With sold-out rooms across the country now screaming Willie’s lyrics “more than ever”, it seems that Twin Heavy’s unorthodox release may have been to its benefit. “Having played these shows and the songs having the reception they’ve had, it feels like people have had a chance to live with them. And, I can only speak for myself, but if someone was putting something out, I was listening to it because I didn’t have anything else to do. So, it could have been a blessing in a way – that we put it out in this window of time where everything had kind of stopped.”

Pandemics aside, Twin Heavy sounds like an album that would have found an audience in any era. With Beatlesque harmony and maximalist production, it possesses the best kind of universal appeal. This marks a striking departure from the oft-angular nature of Healey’s past work. A departure, he says, which came about organically in the studio. “I hadn’t thought about production really when I was writing the songs, it just worked out that way.”

Having been dropped by industry goliath Columbia Records in the wake of 2017’s fantastically eclectic People and Their Dogs, Willie became involved with the independent Yala! Records. Through this, he was introduced to producer Loren Humphreys and his penchant for rich, velvety sonics.

“I hadn’t really worked that much with producers before. I’d always ended up doing things myself or with my band, self produced.” In fact, Willie and his band had already tracked Twin Heavy in a local studio called Shonk, which is just off of Iffley Road. However, over the course of 9 days in the studio with Loren, the record became a different beast. “I’ve learnt from previous experiences that you never know what’s gonna happen with the next album. Are you gonna have a budget or not? So, I thought ‘I wanna do it all’ – in terms of production and it being a lot slicker, having 13 guitars playing at once, doing all of that stuff. It definitely felt like a full send.”

Having ‘sent it’ in the studio, the next thing for Willie to tackle was his live set – which, unfortunately, could not feature 13 guitar players. “It was quite daunting in a way”, he says. “A lot of the songs we hadn’t played since recording, and we recorded the album 2 years ago.” Recreating an album of such joyful excess with a four-man band, taking into account the shoddy sound of Britain’s back-alley venues, is an unenviable task.

“Fashun for example, there’s piano on that recording, there’s acoustic guitar, there’s like three electric guitars and backing singers – all this stuff.” However, it came naturally in the end. “What we’ve tried to do is to be a caricature of those recordings. You know, you get an energy from it when you listen to it so, we just match that.”

Whatever they’re doing, it seems to be working. Willie’s intoxicating live presence has earned him not only an ever-growing fan base, but an almost terrifyingly committed one. Calling themselves the ‘Cult of Willie’, their online presence is awe-inspiring. However, Willie’s demeanour changes when questioned on his part-time calling as a cult leader.

“Well, I can’t tell you too much because I don’t know if you’re in the cult”, he says gravely, while gesturing nervously at my tape recorder. “But what I will say is: there is a cult. They keep me grounded.” He then shifts out of his, admittedly convincing, menacing drawl. “But on a serious level, the cult are amazing. The amount of love that’s in that group, of not just me and my music, but general musical love, really kind of moves me.”

As wholesome as this sounds, when asked if the responsibilities of cult-leadership ever feel overwhelming, his voice once again fills with concern – this time of a less affected nature. “I actually feel like I don’t have that much control over them, and maybe one day they’ll be the death of me. But, that’s fine. That’s what a cult is. We’re here to tear shit up.”

With Willie’s core fanbase going strong, he also seems to be gaining another high-profile supporter with every month that passes. Most recently, since his relocation to Bristol a year and a half ago, he’s formed a rapport with Joe Talbot – frontman of the incendiary post-punk group Idles. “We’re just musicians sitting around. If someone wants to go for a bike ride at half eleven in the morning there usually aren’t that many people who aren’t at work, so me and Joe have bonded massively. Sometimes in life you meet people and you think, ‘I think I needed to meet you!’. I feel like that about all of the IDLES guys.”

When asked if he can see that relationship developing into a creative one, Willie seems genuinely hopeful. “I’d love to do some music with them. If they ever get off tour! We’ve been laughing because I’ve been on this tour and Joe’s out in America – IDLES are smashing it out there – and we were on Facetime the other day like ‘aw, I don’t see you anymore’. But yeah, we’ll have to get back on our bike rides and write some tunes.”

Willie spoke of his respect for the work ethic and prolific output of IDLES, being one of Britain’s most rapidly rising acts. In this respect, the Oxford musician should take all the pointers he can get. Having played a run of sold out shows across the country, it seems a certainty that he’ll be going on to bigger and better things. And, with the artistic shift presented by Twin Heavy, it’s clear he possesses the tools for mainstream success. So, musically, what’s next?

“My approach usually is to go with what feels natural. I wouldn’t wanna bank on anything. I wouldn’t wanna write based on an idea of grandeur. But, I have a new bunch of songs and they sound a certain way and I’m hoping to work with Loren again. I wanna smash it! I unashamedly wanna take the world over. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I feel really confident. And, I feel like the music and the recordings have grown. They’ve moved on. They’re quite funky, even, in a way. I think I’ve been writing better than ever before – which is not me being arrogant, because I don’t know if people will like them – but I feel very proud and I’m excited at the prospect of putting out music based on what I’ve got.”

Based on Willie’s performance at Saturday night’s Jericho show, we should all feel very excited too. Despite the four-man band, his songs were far from caricatures of the recordings. With the sort of interplay you’d expect to hear in jazz and a devilishly funky sense of groove, Twin Heavy’s best tracks took on a new life. There was a sense that not only had the crowd had a chance to live with the album, but so had the songwriter.

Crooning its title track, backed by immaculately balanced keys and soaring slide guitar, was an artist fully in control of his powers.

Tracks from People and Their Dogs brought a visceral edge to the proceedings. Love Her was a highlight, unleashing a sonic battering that the Jericho Tavern could hardly contain. Imbued with a swagger that could only have come from wearing a silly hat and pulling it off, Willie led the crowd through cathartic cries of ‘I did my best but it’s not enough.’

Although he and his band would certainly have been better suited to a bigger stage, the set did not suffer as a result. However, utilising the small venue to its apex does beg the question: what heights will he be able to reach in larger ones? Many, I’m sure. And I’m in no doubt – we’ll soon be living in a world where ‘Willie’ is the word on everyone’s lips.

Image credit: H Fernando

What’s all the sub-fusc about?

Zara Arif
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What’s all the sub-fusc about?

‘Sub-fusc’ is one of the topics which blows up freshers’ group chats every year. What is sub-fusc- the gown or the clothes underneath? Can I wear dark blue? What shoes am I allowed to wear? These are just some of the questions we all have when we start at Oxford. 

It’s definitely something that is unique to Oxford and a word that very likely means nothing to most people outside of the university’s bubble. But after a year and a half of online matriculation, exams and teaching, is it really still necessary and do we even still want to wear it? 

In order to unpick this question, perhaps we should understand when and why we wear this academic dress. 

‘Sub fuscus’ comes from Latin, and it means ‘dark brown’. The wearing of formal dress and gowns can be traced back to medieval monks in the early stages of the university. So it’s clear that, as with many traditions at Oxford, sub fusc has been around for a long, long time. Generations of students have paraded around the city in their black and white clothes and a lot more have also probably fallen into the river in said dress in a prosecco related punting accident. 

Some may say that the past year is proof that we don’t really need sub fusc. The large majority of students sat their exams in their rooms in college without putting on their gowns and formal dress. We could say that avoiding the hassle of having to get into a stuffy ‘uniform’ every morning during exam season was a relief. This year we were able to do our exams in clothes that we felt comfortable in and maybe this is what the focus should be on as exam season at Oxford is a period which is stressful enough as it is. 

Aside from its redundancy which has risen due to the pandemic, there are other issues which surround the idea of sub-fusc. In terms of accessibility to the university and breaking stereotypes it probably isn’t doing the best job at projecting a welcoming image of Oxford. Even though once we arrive here as freshers we find out that a lot of the stereotypes aren’t true, to prospective applicants the idea of everyone parading around in suits and gowns might be off-putting and project an image which not everyone would associate with an environment that is open to people of all backgrounds. 

Another issue relating to accessibility is the cost associated with sub fusc. Although £25 is not too hefty of a price to pay when you first arrive in freshers’ week, you also need to buy formal clothes like a suit and smart shoes to go with it. Not to mention, that when the inevitable trashing happens at the end of the year, most of these clothes will be ruined and unable to be worn again so another set has to be purchased. Perhaps this is something the university should think about when enforcing a certain clothing on all students. 

Despite these issues, sub fusc is one of those things, which despite being odd, is what makes Oxford what it is. Even though first years did prelims in our rooms this year, a large majority of us changed into our sub-fusc after our last exam and took part in trashing. This is clear proof that sub-fusc is part of a tradition that as students we love and look forward to. As long as it is done responsibly and considerately to the environment and local residents, getting trashed in your sub-fusc is a much-needed release and celebration with friends at the end of exams. For many people, it is the highlight of the Trinity term. This celebration just wouldn’t be the same without if we weren’t trashing the famous black and white outfits which in normal years we would have worn for all formal and academic occasions. Exam season this year goes to show that no matter the circumstances, sub-fusc is an important part of our academic years in Oxford. We start and finish the year wearing the same outfit and maybe this is why we should continue to wear it. It is something that shows how hard everyone has worked academically and also on themselves throughout a high-pressure and stressful academic year. 

So, although sub-fusc has been something that has been less present in the lives of Oxford students this past year, there is no doubt that it is still a cherished part of life here. There is something about seeing all your friends in their gowns at matriculation or a formal that is indescribable. Sub-fusc brings everyone together and unites us as students here. Oxford just wouldn’t be the same without it.

Photo Credit: Mike Knell / CC BY-SA 2.0

Pens, Paper, and Panic: On OCD and perfectionism at University

Ciara Rushton
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Pens, Paper, and Panic: On OCD and perfectionism at University

CW: anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)

Living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, perfectionism has become a centre point in my life. Everything I have ever done has had to be to the absolute highest standard it can be, or it isn’t good enough. To an extent, this has been a good thing. I attribute a lot of my high achievement to the immensely high standards I set for myself. However, there comes a point at which it becomes counterproductive. Instead of these high standards motivating me to work harder, I get into a loop of worrying immensely about what happens if I don’t do well enough. 

This self-sabotage is something that’s really intensified, along with a lot of my other OCD symptoms, since coming to university. I could stare for hours at a blank screen out of pure worry that what I’m writing wouldn’t be a masterpiece. This is the point at which the compulsions kick in – tapping on my head five times for good luck is my most common one. Any mix-up in how I do it and I’ve got bad luck for the rest of the day.

Having to tackle such obsessions and compulsions, largely on my own, has certainly made for a difficult first few weeks at university. The anxiety I develop around submitting essays, especially if I’m not completely happy with the outcome, can at times become deeply troubling for me. I’ve never been satisfied with work that’s anything less than the absolute best and, having succumbed to the dreaded freshers flu, I’ve had to really work to create a balance between my perfectionism and not overworking myself, as I’ve been prone to in the past. In an environment that is incredibly difficult to control like university, OCD can spiral and worsen because there isn’t that anchor. 

A lot of people I know, with and without OCD, have spoken about their perfectionism and the stress they’re under. Compulsions, in a rather irrational way, can be comforting in dealing with these and, in relation to that aforementioned desire for control that is intrinsic, at least for me, to my condition. I will think to myself that, if I do not carry out this compulsion, something dreadful will happen. A recent development in this is that, as I mentioned my good luck compulsion, I have to do it before starting an essay or else it’ll be a bad one. 

Contamination OCD, linked to germophobia and manifesting as increased hand washing and other rituals, is something I have particularly struggled with since arriving at university. My previous obsessive cleaning has shown itself again, both related to the pandemic and the general change I’ve experienced in moving to a city. Staying conscious of the changes I have experienced in compulsions related to this, especially increased hand washing, has helped me overall in recognising when I may need help and therefore in helping to control these compulsions.

Without a doubt, the first few weeks of university have significantly impacted my OCD and how I cope with it, and I’ve seen many of my peers struggle with the stress of the situation. Such a vast change in my life has put me in unfamiliar situations and with unfamiliar people, intensifying my condition significantly. But, thankfully, being around excellent people and reaching out for help when I’ve needed it has made it much easier to understand my condition and to cope with it. Life at university with OCD, as I have found, is a constant work in progress, but one that is certainly improving.

Brain Freeze: Reflections on the Girl I see in the mirror

Debora Krut
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Brain Freeze: Reflections on the Girl I see in the mirror

I look at the girl in the mirror and I wonder if she is me. It is hard to connect with my body now. I wonder if I see it differently now that they had a good fumble inside my brain.

Why is my hair so frizzy? Do my hips really dip like that? Was I always this short? Maybe they cut some connection in there that distorts how I view myself because I swear, I wasn’t always this short. My eyes go to my forehead, where the little horseshoe-shaped scar hides under my curls. I got it from two drains that I had in my skull. “No one can see it,” says my mum. “It’s just you that notices.” Maybe she’s right. She’s probably right. But I know it’s there; that’s what matters. I know that it’s there because now that winter is creeping up on us, it stings on cold days. And it sometimes makes an appearance if I rush to do my hair up and I pull it too tight. I feel weird about having to pilot my body, because my mind is full of these endless possibilities – my thoughts are so expansive, so creative. I could do so much with my mind. But it’s trapped inside a body which hurts, which doesn’t work properly, which has let me down so badly in the past.

I close my eyes and imagine what the doctors saw in those 14-hour neurosurgeries while they were chipping away at the lump of cancer cells via an endoscope. I bet their minds wandered at points and they thought about what will be on TV that night. It’s only natural, I suppose – if you do brain surgeries for a living it must become a mechanical process at some point. It almost makes me jealous that I was just another brain to them. In the normal, healthy world I’m special and stand out like a sore thumb when people find out. But to this bunch of neurosurgeons, I was simply another case.

I can’t believe I have imposter syndrome about having had cancer.

After stepping away from the mirror and finishing my routine of morning self-scrutiny, I get my phone out. A Snapchat memory pops up. Two years ago. It’s from my matriculation, which was a week or two before I got diagnosed. She is definitely not me – she is so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Then I think about her, and she really wasn’t. She was in pain every day, with a tumour smushing her brain down, making her see double and plunging her emotions to unbelievable lows. I hate Snapchat memories because it shows pre-diagnosis Debora, and it’s like watching the second season of Game of Thrones and knowing that the Red Wedding is coming. So happy that it’s going well for them but my god Robb Stark, the signs are so obvious when you look back! Retrospect is such a bitch. I want to scream at the Debora in the photo. To shake her. “Make that Specsavers appointment now! The pressure in your brain is at a dangerous point!”

I lock my phone. That’s enough of that.

I pass the mirror again on my way out of my room. I see legs that worked so hard to get out of the hospital bed and walk after surgery. A neck that’s been torn to shreds with scalpels and still works hard to hold my head up as I write. Arms that used to be covered in bruises from all the blood draws and cannulas. And my mouth, which still tells my stories despite having had to swallow mountains of pills to keep me going. The girl in the mirror isn’t so bad after all.

OUBbC: Swishes and switch-offs mark a day of the weird and the mundane

Calum Isaacs
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OUBbC: Swishes and switch-offs mark a day of the weird and the mundane

Oxford 101-50 Lincoln

Free throws in basketball are a closed skill. A closed skill is a skill that when used, there is nothing dynamic, nothing new you need to respond to. You get fouled and the referee blows his whistle, and then you’re alone. It’s just you and the ball and the hoop. This is something that can be practised, again and again and again. And the only difference when it comes to using it in a match is the pressure.

The thing is, last Wednesday’s match against Lincoln did not really put the mens’ Oxford Blues under much pressure (have a peek at the scoreline), and yet their free throw success rate was abysmal. They missed nine out of eighteen attempts. What was even weirder is that this 50% success rate was lower than their success rate at shooting threes—shots from far out and under duress. Their 55% three rate was exceptional.

The theory I’d like to put forward is that it was about pressure, but in the other causal direction. That is, I believe the Blues’ success at free throws might be inversely related to the pressure they’re under. Lincoln were not a proper match. Oxford’s superiority was clear from the first couple of minutes. So, when Oxford were stepping up for free throws, it just didn’t matter. They were going to win anyway. And what does scoring a free throw prove? Conversely, scoring a three proves everything.

Take one instance when Alex, the high-IQ star player you met last week, was leading one of the attacks. He looked both ways, saw Lincoln desperately covering the available passing options, and then did this subtle cock of the head like ‘ok, alright then, fine’. He hit a perfect shot over the guy in front of him and through the middle of the hoop without it touching the rim—what is fittingly known as a ‘swish’.

In this way, shooting a three can be like pulling the ripcord on an attack, just going for it. In particular, Karl Baddeley, who to be fair is a shooting guard, scored six threes out of nine attempts. These high-value shots maintained the Blues’ momentum throughout the game, so that there was never any real point where they faltered, so that Lincoln were never allowed to hope.

So, scoring threes is a way to show how good you are. And this game, in a nutshell, was Oxford showing how good they can be. They may not have shown the absurd dominance of the women’s Blues, who this week won their respective league match 113-17 (what??), but it was still an overpowering performance. Josh S hit 25 points, including 13 rebounds. Alex hit 20 points. Orin, the captain, got 15 points, 10 rebounds, and 6 steals. That’s only 4 steals away from a ‘triple double’, i.e. hitting double digits in all three metrics.

Josh Soifer (Image Credit: Mansoor Ahmed).

The fact he got close to this is pretty demonstrative of Lincoln’s sloppiness. They were easily pickpocketed in possession far too many times, and, in consequence, it felt like Oxford were just constantly on the attack. It felt that way to me. Imagine what it felt like to the Lincoln players who had to constantly be turning back, demoralised, to defend yet another offensive. Not a fun afternoon.

My afternoon was also not the best. What is certainly not a closed skill but is still one repeated enough times for mastery to be possible is the talent of negotiating an Oxford term. And, by my fourth term here, I very much have not mastered it. Consequently, I watched this game in a state of unnecessary hunger and tiredness. And therefore, it was hard for me, sitting there in what seemed like a freezing cold sports hall, in that hazy, not-maximally-conscious condition that it seems most of us experience life through by this point in term, to diagnose whether my detachedness as the match went on was really related to the game state.

But either way, around midway through the third quarter, I made the note, “I’ve stopped keeping track of the score”. Oxford had a forty-point lead and counting, and what happened next didn’t seem to matter very much. Then, as if the world wanted to test whether I really believed what I’d just written, my next note reads, “there is some problem with the scoreboard?”.

There are two courts at Iffley Road. One is in the Acer Nethercott Hall, which is only a couple of years old, and with its crisp wooden walls and general new feeling seems to merit that hackneyed term: ‘state of the art’. The other is in the airy and school-like Main Sports Hall, which this match was moved to (from the Acer Nethercott) at late notice.

Though it was initially built specifically to accommodate Rhodes Scholars’ basketball needs, the hall is now a bit worse for wear—look at the backboard’s shabby blue safety barrier in this article’s header image. Still, you’d expect it to do the job. Yet the reason any of this matters, and the reason I know(/have been complained to) about the late-notice change of venue, is this scoreboard incident. That is, the hall did not do its job.

It turns out the scoreboard is quite important in a basketball match. For the period it was not working, the game had an offbeat, chimerical edge, like it was a training session. It was the same sense of unreality I got from watching lockdown football with fake crowd noise, like a key ingredient that made this whole charade actually mean something was being withheld.

For the harm it caused, the incident certainly got adequate reaction. The referee was really angry. The other team’s coach was really angry. Bill, the Oxford club president, came to me after the match incensed. “This is what we’re up against!”

It had definitely been a distraction, and Oxford will now be subject to a £150 fine (though most of that will be covered by Sports Fed, the body in charge of Oxford sport). Yet you might still ask whether Bill’s anger was a bit over the top. I mean they had just won a game by 50 points.

But it’s easier to understand in context. Bill and Jamie, the coach, have tried everything they can to make Oxford basketball feel official and organised. While Lincoln line up with their no. 2 wearing a no. 12 shirt with the one peeled off, both Oxford players and coaches wear shining new Kappa-branded outfits. While Lincoln warm up in a fairly causal way, Oxford have this system where everybody who goes past each other does a passing high five, which oddly makes it feel very coordinated. While Lincoln stand around informally to get their pre-game team talk, Oxford set up in a proper team talk ‘formation’ with the five starters sitting down and the rest of the players behind, except for Bill who stands next to Jamie’s seat.

With that all in place, with the game going as well as it was, I guess it felt like a kick in the teeth for Bill for one of the few things out of his control to fail. But its significance in that sense shows how everything else is going so right. The team is now 5-0 overall this season—a perfect record, including the three league wins I’ve covered in these articles. It’s the team’s biggest win streak since the 2010-11 season. And for all that was weird about that day. For all the strangeness about the free throws and the threes, for all my hunger and general personal disarray, for all the scoreboard brouhaha: the result itself was thoroughly mundane. Winning is becoming commonplace for the Oxford Blues.

Image Credit: OUBbC.

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