Monday 28th July 2025
Blog Page 312

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image Credits: Via Oxford University Basketball Club.

How my Hot Girl Summer landed me in therapy

Ben Jureidini
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How my Hot Girl Summer landed me in therapy

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

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

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

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

Play about elitist Balliol society to launch in London

Isaac Ettinghausen
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Play about elitist Balliol society to launch in London

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hysterical Histories: Great Escapes

Antonio Pattori
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Hysterical Histories: Great Escapes

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

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

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

Image Credit: Zoe Rhoades

Auntythetical: Grieving from afar

Amal Salar-Hashmi
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Auntythetical: Grieving from afar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Dada ji’s was Tahir.

America: The Exhibition? The Resounding Banality of the 2021 Met Gala

Mila Ottevanger
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America: The Exhibition? The Resounding Banality of the 2021 Met Gala
Mila Ottevanger explores the less than triumphal return about the Oscars of fashion, and what the lackluster exhibition and red carpet say about the fashion industry today.

Picture Christmas morning. You clatter down the stairs with all the grace and decorum of a reversing dump truck with no tyres on, and rip open the biggest box under the tree. Inside is…

‘In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.’

‘What?’ you demand, in your best Dudley Dursley impression.* ‘I got this in 1974 and 1975 and also sort of in 2001 and definitely 2010 and also again kind of in 2014? How much more,’ you yell at your parents (one of whom is refusing to remove her giant black sunglasses), ‘can you wring out of this tired old rag? What am I getting next year?’ you ask, as your parents divert their gaze (so far as you can tell, given those huge glasses) and mutter, shamefacedly, ‘In America: An Anthology of Fashion.’

Surely American Women: Fashioning a National Identity and Charles James: Beyond Fashion covered this? Even Jackie Kennedy: The White House Years was only 20 years ago. It wasn’t the (admittedly tiresome) American focus that put me off, but rather the unconquerable breadth of the assignment. It’s certainly due time for a retrospective of Patrick Kelly, or even an exhibit on the school of Modernist-Grunge Asian American design, but when I think of American fashion as a single entity, I draw a blank – not because of a dearth of inspiration, but rather the sheer landslide of it.

I suppose I’ll start with what I consider this year’s thematic wins, those which combined the theme of the exhibit with ingenuity and invention:

– Quannah Chasinghorse in that gold lamé stunner with traditional Navajo jewellery (wearing a Peter Dundas dress and turquoise lent from a former Miss Navajo Nation, Jocelyn-Billy Upshaw)
– Gemma Chan, paying tribute to Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American Hollywood star, in Prabal Gurung
– Lupita Nyong’o, in a denim gown by Versace inspired by 90s Americana and Western Films
– Jeremy Pope, in a look dedicated to the cotton garments worn by enslaved African Americans on plantations by the Australian designer Dion Lee.
– Barbie Ferreira, in a Jonathan Simkhai pearl-draped hedonistic 1920s dream a la Rihanna in 2018 (i.e. the best Met Gala Year)
– Nikki DeJager, in a vibrant dress honouring American hero Marsha P. Johnson by Dutch designer Edwin Oudshoorn
– Yara Shahidi as Josephine Baker in Dior with glittering diamonds by Cartier, the French designers playing homage to the Black American Jazz and Modernist icons who lived and worked in Paris

There were other wonderful designs of course: Iris van Herpen’s look for Grimes was otherworldly, regardless of the wearer’s affiliation to a certain emerald-mine owning part-time richest man on earth (same for Tessa Thompson and Gabrielle Union, minus the reservations about El*n Musk). Anok Yai was wearing possibly the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen in my life. Lil Nas X was radiant in gold. Hunter Schafer was ethereal in that spidery headpiece and contacts. And Channing Tatum, of course, showing up in a black suit that was, apparently, an homage to JFK. Go girl, give us nothing! How were any of these part of the American lexicon? Perhaps Carey Mulligan in Barbie Pink (à la Anya Taylor Joy at Cannes) was a nod to both consumerism’s hold on our lives and rampant girlbossery? Anok Yai was part of NASA? Hunter Schafer gave us a glimpse into the future of robotics? I feel a cramp coming on trying to stretch that far.

My reservations about this year’s Gala stem from the wide-open theme that left people both without a solid place to hang their hats but an illusion of freedom that I, self-proclaimed deputy postmaster general / Galactic Overlord of the Met Gala, intrinsically disliked. There were definitely places the theme could have gone – user @jimmygirl on Tumblr, in a post that made it round the social media houses, wrote ‘not a noir detective in sight. no club kid drag. no bruce springsteen fits. no cowboys. no 2000s disney channel girl protags. no baseball uniforms. no 80s crop top jocks. no 50s and 60s retrofuturism.’ But nobody seemed to have the guts to go into these Americana niches. Even the political statements (Cara Delevigne, and, in an even more hotly debated outfit, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) have been critiqued as performative and irrelevant. Just because the theme is about the ‘freest country in the world’ (here I insert the textual equivalent of aggressive side-eye) and wildly open to interpretation does not mean you are free to disregard it and just wear a pretty dress. So says I (this is primarily directed at the people who neither made an effort to do the theme or serve anything approaching a look)! And obviously I am always right about everything.


And now onto the wider implications that I think made this year’s Gala, not to mention NYFW, a yawnfest. I was absolutely rabid about this gala (did anyone else watch those girls on TikTok theorise what people were going to wear by making a giant Post-It display on their wall?) because I’d been starved of Met content since 2019. Since 2018, really, since that was the last time people actually understood the assignment. So, I admit, my expectations were relatively high (though I was still down about the theme). But the pandemic has also pressed accelerate on an already rapid trend cycle. RIP to the 30 or even 20 year rule – trends can last just weeks now. Shein, Zara, Urban Outfitters (the list goes on) steal from independent designers and drop literally thousands of new styles a day. Crucially, everyone was bored, stuck at home, doing fashion shows in bathrobes at 2am, devouring fashion history videos at the speed of light and, in my case, chronically online and convincing myself I’m qualified to write this article. We are a fashion-educated, if rabid mass, and we’re learning more every day. Last year we were cowering before the return of Y2K and low-rise jeans, now I watch as 13 year olds don the Twilight henleys and hoodies I was wearing at their age (admittedly, still wearing them in 2014 was a bit of a loser move, but my point stands). Fashion is moving at light-speed.

To clarify, my problem is specifically with overconsumption, fast fashion, and hauls, not with people finally having some time to figure out the clothes that make them happy and comfortable. I’ve always loved seeing people wear the clothes that make them feel at home in their bodies – personal style over trends forever! But with every trend existing at once, it’s difficult to do something new. The age of the runway is over: cerulean (read in Miranda Priestley’s voice) doesn’t cascade from high to low. The driving factor with the Met Gala’s fault is the same problem with fashion culture at large: the current oversaturation of trends (further emphasized by the lack of standout trends from any recent designer, including last week’s NYFW) suggests that there’s too much going on. In fact, the Met is not only failing because of, but feeding in the larger issues with its broad theming. Everything’s happening, and a body, like the Met, has to be responsible for clearing out space in fashion now.

*No parents were ungratefully yelled at in the making of this author.



    Day 2 – Swiss Dreams are Made of This

    Libby Bull
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    Day 2 – Swiss Dreams are Made of This

    I feel too awkward pulling out my journal and turning the light on to write so I guess this one’s gonna be written on the eternally-chaotic notes app phone (resting alongside the other 1000 notes which read like Rupi Kaur poems: Mug Tree, The Last Mattress, Angela and Gary, Kotthu chicken, veggie/cheese, vegan x2….Rio Rumble).

    Zurich to Ljubljana: The ‘sleep’ in ‘sleeper train’ is the cruelest joke I’ve heard in a while.

    Night train. You think glamour, romance, genteel murder (à la Murder on the Orient Express). Reality: Travelodge but on wheels with even less floor space, no bathroom, and you really really don’t want to look at any surface under blue light – or to be honest, daylight. We arrived at our train cabin and immediately realised it barely had space for one of us standing up, never mind four – already warning signs. After moving one seat up we managed to make room to eat – a whole cucumber and a pretzel – and chat – seething group tensions – as the anticipation rose for the entrance of our roommates (aka new best friends) which the empty middle bunks promised.

    In Zurich train station, A and I had bought some Kirsch and Swiss tonic in order to complete our Swiss food mission. What can I say, we’re cultural gastronomers (is that a word? Like astronomer? It’s 2 am, ok, it should be). First, I made the mistake of shaking the tonic bottle to mix in the spirit and spilled it all over myself, and then A, as the most loyal and utterly brainless of friends, followed suit only minutes later. Think that slapstick scene where the idiot character looks down the hose pipe in confusion and gets a jet of water to the face. Our cabin was of course smelling of the excessively alcoholic Kirsch – my only thought: what would our new friends think?!

    We prepared for bed and eagerly awaited their arrival, yet our hopes were dashed when a middle-aged couple, stern-faced and clearly not keen on us hesitated at the door, grimaced, and came in. No new friends or serendipitous love interests there then. Although C has joked that I finally get to sleep under a man (giving the ‘sleep’ in ‘sleeper train’ joke a run for its money cruelty-wise). I, of course, refrained from replying that ‘thank god the bed under him wasn’t memory foam, cause the rut of her imprint would surely make for an uncomfortable night’s rest’ – I’m classier than that, and also I only just thought of it and also now thinking of it, it doesn’t actually make sense – again 2 am ok!

    So now as I write this I’m crammed into the bottom bunk with the sounds of the train, the man above me snoring, and the occasional wandering corridor whistle and chat, forming a sort of ambient soundscape to my attempts at sleep. Although for a moment now I can see through a crack in the window blinds the dark and unrecognisable landscape outside as our train chugs further east, a lonely beacon in the rural darkness of transient flickering hamlets – And I’m pretty sure the man above has just woken himself up with his own snoring. Perhaps Sleeping Beauty would have had only a catnap if she’d had sleep apnoea? I guess there’s still hope for a murder tonight if this keeps up. And it certainly won’t be genteel.

    Oxford “committed” to holding in-person graduations for all eligible students

    Maurício Alencar
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    Oxford “committed” to holding in-person graduations for all eligible students

    A University spokesperson has told Cherwell that the University of Oxford is “committed” to holding degree ceremonies for all students who may have missed out on theirs due to the pandemic. Several students who graduated in 2020 and in 2021 have been unable to have in-person graduations thus far due to various national government restrictions and other travel restrictions. 

    The spokesperson also told Cherwell that the University “took the difficult decisions to postpone degree ceremonies between May 2020 and August 2021”. As there is now a backlog of students waiting for their graduations, the University will hold 46 graduation ceremonies between September 2021 and June 2022 for Oxford alumni. This number is a 50% increase on a normal academic year. 

    University graduation ceremonies normally take place before Michaelmas term of the new academic year. One of the University’s objectives is to be “as flexible as possible” with regard to graduation ceremonies.

     Given the changing international restrictions on travel and other uncertainties regarding the pandemic, the University spokesperson stated that the University has also waived the rule that students who withdraw within 60 days of an event have their degrees conferred in absentia. This gives students more freedom to book and confirm their graduation ceremonies. 

    However, the University website states that colleges may ask for permission from the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors to allow students who are required to withdraw from their degree ceremony within the 60-day non-cancellation period to rebook their graduations. The University adds that this will only apply in “exceptional circumstances” which do not include work commitments or the unavailability of guests. 

    The University spokesperson informed Cherwell that students who did not wish to wait for a ceremony could have their degrees conferred in absentia at their own request. 

    They added that “all eligible graduands were invited to  attend an in-person ceremony between September and November 2021”, and that “this included students finishing the studies in 2021 as well as those who finished in 2020 and whose ceremonies were postponed.” 

    In a student announcement seen by Cherwell, Trinity College acknowledged that they “realise it is disappointing not to be able to register to attend a ceremony in person at present”. However, Trinity insisted that the “University is doing everything it can” to make sure students get the opportunity to have a graduation.

    The degree ceremony consists of several traditional rites and rituals, including statements read out in Latin, all graduates’ names read out by, and bows from the graduates in the Sheldonian Theatre. Specialised gowns are also worn by graduands during the ceremony. The day is also a pleasant opportunity for friends and families to reconnect in Oxford. 

    Students doing BA or BFA courses are eligible to receive an MA 7 years after the date of their matriculation. This gives students the opportunity to have a second in-person graduation, provided that they pay the costs (£40) of taking an MA and the costs of hiring a BA gown and hood and an MA gown and hood for the ceremony. 

    Graduands are offered the opportunity to book their graduation ceremony dates on online services such as eVision, depending on each college’s graduation guidelines.  

    Image: Clare MacNeill via Geograph/ CC BY-SA 2.0

    In Conversation with Rachel Sennott

    William Foxton
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    In Conversation with Rachel Sennott

    Rachel Sennott isn’t afraid of mess. Over the course of her ambitious career, it’s become a staple of her work.

    There’s her chaotic stand-up persona, a self-obsessed and self-deluded lens through which Sennott satirises modern, millennial culture. Her sets chart various romantic and sexual failures, offering up a compelling portrayal of a woman on the verge of a nervous break-down, on a mission to laugh away the pain. Sennott talks bad dates, bad boyfriends and very bad sex. No joke is off-limits, no story too graphic to be told. 

    Then there are her sketches, short videos uploaded to her YouTube channel, in which Sennott poses the question – what if a seemingly ordinary concept (Instagram Influencers, yummy mummies, Hollister) became the most disturbing thing you could imagine? Each sketch is as glorious as it is deranged, tackling profound themes of maternal anxiety, corporate greed and the intoxicating power of an Instagram filter.

    She is perhaps best known for her tweets, a carefully curated stream of consciousness that have proved enormously popular with Sennott’s predominantly millennial audience. They range from the satirical (“Moving to LA to get the lobotomy of my dreams”) to the oddly specific (“I don’t want a baby but I do want my boyfriend wearing a little hoodie and looking sort of tired holding a baby that is biologically mine”).

    Her most recent creative venture is her role in Emma Seligman’s hit 2020 film Shiva Baby. Sennott plays Danielle, a soon-to-be graduate moonlighting as a sugar baby, who attends the shiva of a distant relative, where she finds herself at the mercy of a family that might just love her to death. Throw in the arrival of her ex-girlfriend, her sugar daddy and his “girl-boss” wife, and Shiva Baby is an hour of nail-biting, cringe-inducing chaos.

    With an eye for cultural commentary and a knack for voicing the relatable (and sometimes the unthinkable), there really isn’t much Sennott won’t say. And now with 170 thousand hungry followers, a spot on Time Out New York’s list of top comedians of the year and a critically lauded performance in a feature film, Sennott is getting the opportunity to say it.

    As we begin our call, Sennott has just received her Deliveroo order – a bowl of soup. “Honestly [having] soup in the summer, I feel like you’re really challenging yourself…and the air seems colder because you have something hot” she says wisely.

    We begin by discussing Shiva Baby’s break-out success. “I’m so happy that it’s finally out everywhere because it takes so long. It’s just this whole year I was like…will anyone ever see the movie?,” she tells me.

    Shiva Baby started life as a short film, written by Seligman while at  NYU. Following huge success at a series of film festivals, Seligman decided to adapt her senior thesis into a feature-length.

    It takes inspiration from an uncomfortable time in Seligman and Sennott’s life.“Between the short and the feature we would go on endless walks where we would talk and talk about where we were in our lives and the types of relationships we were in, not feeling satisfied or in control with any aspect of our lives,” she tells me, “I feel like that’s part of why it resonated with a lot of young people, especially young women, because there’s that chunk of life where you’re getting out of school and you can’t find validation in relationships or in your career and your parents are just like…what’s going on?”

    This is felt strongly in the piece as Danielle is pushed, pulled, pinched and prodded by various relatives, who take pleasure in dissecting her weight, her lack of career, her sex life. She is equally powerless in her romantic relationships, reverting back to brattish antagonism around ex-girlfriend Maya and teenage angst with sugar daddy Max. Her frustration is palpable as she loses battle after battle.

    Sennott recalls how agonising it felt to be that age: “I was crying publicly…all the time. I was always upset. Now, looking back, it probably wasn’t even that bad. But when you’re in that time of your life, you feel no control.”

    It was during this period, a time she now affectionately refers to as the “Shiva Baby chunk”, that Sennott was introduced to the world of stand-up comedy. Initially unappreciated at the traditional venues she was performing at, Sennott recalls the disconcerting experience of performing sets about being fingered in Ubers to crowds of middle aged men.

    “Everyone was like…who’s this little whore?,” she tells me, “I was so miserable.”

    It was the intervention of comedians Catherine Cohen, Patti Harrison and Mitra Jouhari, who booked Sennott on their show, It’s a Guy Thing, and advised her which clubs to perform at, that granted Sennott access to an audience who could fully appreciate her work.

    “Being in a scene like that where you’re performing for people who are your age, who are experiencing similar things to you, it allows you to grow. I feel like it allowed me to expand my voice,” she tells me.

    At the same time her Twitter took off. Sennott would tweet numerous jokes a day, hoping one of them might land. And many of them did. Her intensely personal and highly relatable brand of humour resonated with her growing audience. For Sennott, the effect was cathartic.

    “It felt really good because I was in a place where I felt not in control of my life at all. So if I was really miserable but I could make a joke about it then I felt okay…at least there’s a reason that I’m suffering. It also felt good that a lot of women related to me. I would write [about feeling] very degraded or unhappy and then 100 girls would be like…that happened to me too!”

    The sensation of instant validation, she tells me, was addictive. “When I was first tweeting, being on Twitter all day got me through the day. I would be like… time to have another humiliating experience so that I can write a joke about it!”

    And yet, as her follower count grew and the online landscape evolved, blurring the line between the personal and the public became less satisfying. Viral tweets invited unwelcome comments from Internet trolls. The effect was grating: “I don’t want to share something really personal if people are gonna be like… you should die, bitch!” To return to that relationship with the Internet would only bring her back to that place, she tells me. It’s something she wishes to avoid.

    But can she ever leave it behind altogether? Can an “online comedian”, known for sharing her deepest, darkest secrets on the Internet ever truly go offline?

    “I think I’ll always have a little bit of the personal in it, but I hope that I can make the transition where maybe I don’t have to be 35 and telling everybody everything that happened to me. I always want to keep a little bit of that personal self but I’m like….what’s the day that I delete my account and it doesn’t even matter? I don’t know. I think it’ll be a gradual transition. But hopefully people can get that and see me in a variety of different ways.”

    Our conversation turns to her comedy stylings. Sennott is known for her relatable and insightful observations (“sexting is just calling different body parts big or small”, “I need a boyfriend because I miss smoking weed”, “every guy who works at Vice looks like a police sketch drawing of another guy who works at Vice.”) She has found her comedic voice – one part neurosis, two parts self-obsession – but where did this come from?

     “I don’t want to be like…it comes from being self-obsessed,” she jokes, “I think it’s something that’s grown as I have. I want to say the Internet has also been a part of that because you say your joke, you say whatever you’re feeling, and you instantly see the way that people respond to it, especially when I was first tweeting very deeply personal things. I feel like I could see in real time the way people responded to what I was saying and that gave me this heightened self-awareness.”

    There are echoes of her contemporaries in her comedic voice, but there’s also something uniquely hers. Sennott pushes through the familiar territory of millennial self-obsession to something altogether more extreme in her sketches. 

    There’s Baby Cult, a five minute fever dream about three women who work at a baby clothes shop and will do anything to get pregnant. The video’s climax shows the trio engaging in raunchy sex acts with extras from Sesame Street while Rhianna’s S&M plays in the background. It’s a testament to Sennott’s innovative and disturbing storytelling. She always keeps her audience second-guessing, never quite sure where or how far she’ll take the joke.  

    Her other sketch Three Instagram Models Have a Picnic is just as deranged. It shows Sennott, alongside friends Annabel and Sabina Meschke, dressed in low-cut vintage tops, picnicking on a glorious summer day. As the girls communicate in squeals and barks, highlight copies of Little Women and prance around to Enya’s Orinoco Flow, I feel as though I’ve joined a cult. And it’s one I have no desire to leave. Though, in typical Sennott style, it takes a horrific turn as the trio end up devouring a hiker who strays too far from the path, before posing for a photo with his corpse. Sennott is attracted to the disturbing because it “pushes the boundaries a little.” Her sketches, just like Shiva Baby, showcase “how being a woman is a horror movie.”

    I’m struck by the overtly sexualised and, at times, disconcerting way Sennott captures herself in her sketches. One shot in particular interests me. We see Sennott’s leg smeared with jam. She looks directly into the camera, proclaiming, “I’m a little biscuit…” It’s both arousing and repulsive. It’s an intentional effect, she tells me. “People want women to be sexual, but not by their choosing. They want to look at an image of you and make it sexual. But in Three Instagram Models Have a Picnic, we’re making out with,” she pauses, “I just realised that in two of my sketches we make out with stuffed animals… that’s something I will talk to my therapist about. In both pieces, I’m choosing to be like…this is horny. And then it’s almost like the creator is in control as opposed to the viewer.”

    This branch of her comedy feels distinct from her stand-up. Though Sennott assures me they’re closer than they seem.  “I guess the connecting cord between all of my things is messy female characters,” she tells me, “I think so often in comedy, women are supposed to be really good. I think you can only get so much humour out of someone who’s good. I think humour comes from flaws too.”

    The world is looking closely at what Sennott will create next. Both fans and critics have seen what she can do and now they want more. But what does she want?

    “Oh my god, how dare you! I’m kidding. I don’t know. I think I want…it’s actually hard to tell because I always think that I know what it is, but when I achieve it I’m like…that’s not the thing. I guess I just want to be able to make things that I think are funny and good with my friends. And then like… have a little dog. But it never feels like enough. My astrology app told me that I would never be happy and so did a psychic recently. So…” she trails off, considering her next words carefully, “but I stick by what I said. I want to make movies with my friends.”

    “In general, in my work, I want to explore being a woman who is flawed and messy. In general, I want to make comedies for women that are as funny and as fucked up as it is to be a woman,” she tells me.

    As our conversation draws to a close, Sennott tucks into her soup, not the usual stand-up comedian’s liquid lunch. 

    “Sometimes you have to go for something else,” she says wisely. She’s right, of course. Rachel Sennott has made a career out of going for “something else.”

    Image Credit: Sela Shiloni

    Updated trans athlete guidance: Unnuanced and exclusionary

    Kylie MacFarquharson
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    Updated trans athlete guidance: Unnuanced and exclusionary

    CW: Mention of transphobia

    Unlike most of the members of my team, I didn’t start sailing seriously until my second year of university, and it was a slow start. But I quickly fell in love with the simple principle of sport: you put the work in, you get better. So I put the work in, and I got better. It was in my 4th year as an undergraduate that, invited by my incredible captain, I first sailed in the women’s team. I discovered there that much more important than winning is the camaraderie and solidarity among the team. Six women working together for a common goal, achievable only through hard work and training. Sailing is how I made friends, how I got out of the city, how I stayed sane throughout four years of Oxford. It gave me something to strive for, to work at, to value.

    If the new SCEG guidance was implemented, I could have been prevented from sailing on this team.

    This week the Sports Councils’ Equality Group released a short document of guidance on how and where trans people (particularly trans women) can be included in sport. As a trans woman and Blues sailor, this caught my eye. The topic is much discussed in the media, often taking it as given that it would be unfair for trans women to compete in women’s sport, and arguing from there. I had hoped for a more thorough look past these assumptions, into the nuance of the topic. That’s not what I found.

    The new SCEG guidance draws a distinction between sports which are “gender-affected” and others. It defines this as including any sport dependent on strength, physique, or stamina. This language, taken straight from the sport exception in the 2010 Equality Act, draws a line between sports where discrimination against trans women would be lawful and unlawful. The guidance proposes two policies: “female and open category” for gender-affected sport, and “prioritise transgender inclusion” for others. It also suggests a third policy of removing all gendered categories for sports where that may work.

    The more lenient of these policies, prioritising trans inclusion, suggests regular blood tests for trans women, to prove that testosterone has been suppressed. This is already much more stringent than the current British University and Collegiate Sport (BUCS) policy, which simply requires that testosterone-suppressing treatment has been undertaken for at least a year (REG 4.3.3.2). It seems likely that in already underfunded women’s sports, these blood tests would be unworkable. Remember that the vast majority of sport played in the UK is at a casual level. How many sailing clubs do you think have staff that could interpret a blood test result? And how many more people will I be expected to out myself to, just to compete? The benefit of these blood tests too is unclear, if the sport has been decided not to be “gender-affected”.

    The second, more stringent policy, is simply not to allow trans women to compete in women’s sport. This is independent of if the woman in question has been on testosterone suppression for one year, for five years, or for ten years. This is recommended for any sport where any advantage is gained from strength, stamina, or physique, and so would include sailing. To me, this seems bizarre. You’d be hard-pressed to convince me, the fourth-best sailor on my team of six, that I have some incredible physical advantage over the other competitors.

    My views here may be shaded by the fact that sailing events are generally mixed-gender, and women regularly out-compete men, especially at the university level. The SCEG suggests that trans women should be excluded from any sport they legally can be, by assuming that they hold some unfair physical advantage. The policy is overbroad and lacks nuance. The guidance does make one point I do agree with, that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is folly, and the only people that can really make this judgment are specific sporting bodies themselves. It would be a mistake, in my view, to rob trans women of the incredible adventure of competitive sport because of an assumption of advantage. Women’s sports are not overrun with trans women; in fact, trans athletes are underrepresented in sport at all levels.

    We, in sport, should focus on getting more people invested in the sports we care about, not put barriers in their way. We should continue to use extant BUCS policies on trans inclusion in sport, except where a particular sport may need additional rules. Where this does occur we should try and focus on making the sport as accessible as possible, for instance using weight classes in place of excluding trans women. Any athlete will tell you how much they love their sport, and as sportspeople, we should understand how much we would be taking away if we implemented these policies.

    Image Credit: Kylie MacFarquharson

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