Friday 15th May 2026
Blog Page 319

Elizabeth the Last: What next for the monarchy?

Jack Twyman
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Elizabeth the Last: What next for the monarchy?

As the Jubilee celebrations fade away and the bunting is taken down, the tables and chairs put back inside, and the last of the cake eaten, a new era will come upon us and the British monarchy. The Platinum Jubilee celebrations are the seeming crescendo to centuries of monarchy on these isles. It is unlikely we will come together as a country to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II again, apart from at her funeral. There is no questioning the legacy she has garnered over the course of her public life. She has single-handedly sustained the royal family through arguably the longest period of social reconfiguration ever seen in this country. One BBC article even named her ‘the Comforter-in Chief’. 

Times are certainly changing regarding public opinion on the monarchy, as YouGov highlighted in a 2021 analysis titled ‘Young Britons are turning their backs on the monarchy’. The growing discontent depicted in the report of young people – primarily 18-24 year olds – with the monarchy represents a stark change to years past. Additionally, the entire country seems divided over Prince Charles’ imminent take over of the throne –  as of the 28th April 2022 an equal 32% of people think he would do a bad or good job as King, with the rest undecided. Most dialogue regarding the future of the royal family seemingly centres around the ‘wait until the Queen is gone’ narrative. Many Republicans see her as the pinnacle of the monarchy: Graham Smith, speaking for the monarchy abolition campaign Republic, claimed “The Queen is the monarchy, the monarchy is the Queen and it’s the Queen who continues to sustain support for the monarchy.” A recent poll found support for the monarchy has declined by 13 points over the last decade. 

The way in which Elizabeth has fulfilled her role as Queen – one who has, according to many, led a life of distinguished public service, and has performed her role dutifully, even as her Prime Minister partied on the same day she sat alone at her husband’s funeral – has led her to be presented as a somewhat welcome relief to the parade politics seemingly in vogue today. Indeed, any debate around the future of the monarchy requires the country to ask itself: Would I prefer Boris Johnson or the Queen as my head of state and representative to the world? The seeming abandonment of any remote sense of decency by our elected government has let the Queen stand out as a supposed role model, and the last bastion of integrity in public life. 

However, whether this is entirely representative or a fair conclusion is contentious.  Shielded by a loyal press that makes her seemingly invincible, the Queen has made numerous questionable decisions. The list is remarkable. For one, she has overseen negotiations to implement a clause in the Equality Act that exempt her from accountability for preventing race and sex discrimination. The Queen’s lawyers also secretly lobbied Scottish ministers to exempt her private land from legislation aimed at cutting carbon emissions – seemingly at odds with the initiatives of Charles and William. In 2010 she even attempted to use the state poverty fund to cover the cost of heating Buckingham Palace. 

In fact, even the Royal family’s finances has been regarded as a ‘shady’ area. Documents recently revealed that the Queen lobbied for a law in 1970 to to conceal her “embarrassing” private wealth from the public. The estate of the monarchy is thought to be valued in the hundreds of millions – making it difficult to see why the taxpayer continues to foot the bill of much royal expenditure and security. One of the most controversial decisions in recent years has been the Queen’s decision to fund Prince Andrew’s legal bill after he was accused of sexual assault and agreement to contribute to the settlement sum – money that could be better used elsewhere in the public purse. The Queen’s yearly Sovereign Grant payment from the government was £85.9m for 2020/21 – the equivalent of £1.29 per person in the UK. The scandal around Prince Andrew has been an embarrassment for the monarchy, and the Queen’s eagerness to steer the legal case towards a settlement is perhaps emblematic of her approach to safeguarding the establishment’s public image – especially in the run up to the Jubilee. It was explicitly a clause of the settlement that Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre is not allowed to talk about the case during the Jubilee year. While many believe the Queen’s position is symbolic, her actions prove otherwise, and she is actively involved in government. 

Why the royal family is held in such an unjustifiably high regard, despite all these exposés, is an interesting question. The poisonous cultural wars that those who seek to divide the country and resist social progress are perpetuating in the country today have filtered their way into the royal debate. It is now ‘anti-British’ to be against the monarchy – senseless when negating the need to hold public figures, especially the head of state, to account. The reaction to the anti-monarchist organisation Republic’s billboard advertising campaign during the Jubilee has been divisive: one Conservative councillor called it “disgraceful”. Indeed, support from the monarchy, like other topics of contention,  is split largely over demographic lines – 80% of Conservative voters and three-quarters of Britons aged 65 and older (74%) see the monarchy as being good for Britain, compared to 44% of Labour voters and just 24% of 18 to 24-year-olds. Jeremy Corbyn reaped the wrath of the conservative press when he chose not to sing the national anthem ‘God Save the Queen’. But he has a point. Is it right that our national anthem reveres nothing but our monarch? Is there not far more to our country than that?

The main reason the Queen is so beloved by her people is because her public image is so carefully curated and managed. The recent comedy skit of the Queen having tea with Paddington Bear is an example. The Queen is portrayed as a relatable, loveable old lady seeking to do good and make us laugh. Yet her private actions and dealings show that she acts cynically above the law. The choice of Paddington Bear was an unusual one as the bear is a refugee from Peru and arrived in London with a tag saying “please look after this bear”. This feels particularly ironic given the treatment of refugees in the UK today, our failure to look after each other, and the Queen’s apparent involvement in upholding discriminatory practice. 

Prince Charles has been the longest heir apparent to the British throne in history. Consequently, he has had a lifetime to start public initiatives in a pioneering way. His work on projects concerning climate change have been greatly welcomed by many in the sector. A quick look at the initiatives page on his website shows he is involved in many social justice programmes such as Mosaic and A4S. While his role gives him the potential to do great things, the irony of his simultaneous position in the highest tier of aristocracy cannot be ignored. Perhaps the disillusionment with the royal family felt by many  is in part due to this: as an old white rich man, is he really representative of the country today?  Often it is only with economic privilege that one is able to live sustainably, as it is not always the cheapest option. Charles’ Duchy Originals Home Farm supposedly uses pioneering agricultural techniques to produce organic food in an eco-friendly way, but produce is reserved primarily for sale by Waitrose and Partners, and expensive. Given that the climate crisis necessitates mass change, true sustainability needs to mean sustainability for all, not just those that can afford it. This means that while trying to do good the monarchy can come across as out of touch, especially given their extraordinary financial circumstances. Charles has even dabbled in parliamentary intervention, like his mother, using a ‘secretive procedure’ to vet three parliamentary acts to prevent private residents on his estate from buying their own homes for decades. 

Young royals are trying to be more in touch with the youth and at the forefront of this are William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Their taboo-breaking work around mental health has given the topic it welcome and needed exposure at a time when it is still a stigmatised issue. One only needs to glance at the press coverage surrounding Prince Louis at the Jubilee to see the public culture of admiration for this younger family. The contrasting treatment given to Harry and Meghan, on the other hand, suggests a continuing reluctance by the establishment  to embrace a modern royal family; this should be seen as a source of national shame. It is telling that the conventional posh white family who conform to tradition – with their children dressed like they are from the 1950s – is well-received, but an interracial, only half aristocratic family were forced to break with the monarch and leave the country after being berated and harassed by people up and down the country, including the press and – allegedly – the rest of the royal family. The almost gleeful commentary of the Jubilee Thanksgiving Service announcing “Harry and Meghan are now very much second row royals” is evidence that this attitude is still pervasive today. The monarchy is inherently exclusionary; the royals can only preserve their high status by keeping it exclusive. And as of present there is seemingly no desire to engage with more diversity, and seemingly no room for an heir to be, for example, gay and accepted by the public.  The idealistic view presented in the novel Red, White and Royal Blue of a queer relationship in the royal family will unfortunately remain fiction for the foreseeable, even as it is made into a film. 

The Kensingtons’ recent royal tour of the Caribbean, labelled a disaster and tone-deaf, is perhaps the best example of how even those young royals are seemingly archaic – the monarchy seems to romanticise its colonial past in a disturbingly nostalgic manner. When Barbados became a republic last year, its Prime Minister described the move as a “seminal moment” which will see Barbados fully leave its colonial past behind. Prince Charles attended the ceremony and spoke of the “appalling atrocity of slavery” which he said “forever stains our history”,stopping short of a sought-after apology. The continued reluctance of the monarchy to take accountability for the institutional role it played in this atrocious exploitation is an embarrassment – especially when the Queen is still head of state in many countries where the descendants of victims continue to suffer as a result.

The debate surrounding the monarchy in the UK is emblematic of the wider issues with our government. The whole system of government in the UK is in dire need of reform. Is it right that a government elected by a minority can rule without any meaningful checks and balances? Is it right that some votes are weighted more than others (the Green Party received 2.7% of all votes cast but no seats)? Proportional representation may offer a solution, even if it potentially allows fringe extremism to gain an elected voice. But a more blatant issue is the House of Lords. Life peerages? Inherited titles? Its similarity with the monarchy is unquestionable, even in its very name – is it a coincidence the Queen’s speech is read there as opposed to in the House of Commons? Even the grandiose setting of parliament has been said to leave politicians seemingly out of touch with the people.

Any decision surrounding the monarchy must be a democratic decision. It is important that the people choose who rules them, not the other way round. Yet this premise is incompatible with the idea of monarchy and the divine right to rule. Navigating the reconciliation of the fundamentally undemocratic institution of the monarchy with more modern ideals poses a challenge. Unfortunately this has the capacity to divide the country into opposing factions  – much like the Brexit vote. A rotating presidential head of state – even if only symbolic – would make possible fairer representation with our values presented abroad in a more appropriate and credible manner. Perhaps, to appease hardliners, the Monarchy could remain but only symbolically and not as heads of state; our government would no longer be ‘Her Majesty’s’ but rather ‘The People’s’.

Image credit: Unknown / Library and Archives Canada / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The life-sucking vampire: exams and the logic of capitalism

Elena Rotzokou
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The life-sucking vampire: exams and the logic of capitalism

CW: suicide, mental illness

There is good reason to believe that Mared Foulkes was going to enjoy her life as a pharmacist. At 21, she was a devoted pharmacy student at the University of Cardiff who was pursuing her career aspirations doggedly by also working part-time as a chemist. It all came to a halt on 8th July 2020. On that day, an automated email popped into her inbox folder, bearing no tidings other than that she had failed a practical exam with a score of 39%. Failing at an exam that she had re-sat in April 2020 did not simply compound her devastation, but shattered her outlook on the future ahead of her; the automated email read like a death warrant, indicating that she had failed the second year of her degree and would be unable to proceed to the third year. And a death warrant of sorts it was, as in the same evening that she received it, she voluntarily fell off Brittania Bridge, near the Welsh island of Anglesey, from where she hailed. It turned out that the fateful email did not include the re-sit mark, which was a perfectly decent 62%.

The incident generated considerable shock across several news outlets, raising what by now appear to be perennial questions regarding students’ mental health and universities’ responsibility toward that, the failings of institutional administration, and, of course, the tremendous pressure overwhelming students as soon as exams rear their ugly heads on the horizon. Speaking of Mared’s suicide to Cosmopolitan, Marwah El-Murad, Programme Manager for Children and Young People at the Mental Health Foundation, assessed the situation as follows: “The pressures put on students to achieve academically can lead to experiences of perfectionism. Worrying about either your own expectations of yourself or expectations others have of you can lead to feelings of panic and anxiety.”

The issue of administrative incompetence vis-à-vis students’ mental wellbeing is grave, but equally (if not more) terrifying is one exam’s enormous power over the life of a young, hard-working, ambitious woman. This one exam overshadowed every other source of joy in Mared’s life that many of us would have seen as sufficient to make her go on: her family, friends, hobbies… And yet, infuriatingly absurd as the thought of it is, it is far from implausible that a single number should have decided on whether Mared clung to life or not, determining as it potentially did whether she’d retain her job at the pharmacy and embark, in the long run, on a career that’d enable her to make ends meet and feel fulfilled. “Love and work… work and love, that’s all there is,” as Freud once said (to put myself on the line by using a cliché, not that clichés aren’t often just enough). Love depends on self-respect; self-respect stems from self-actualisation; self-actualisation is perhaps first and foremost tied to work and achievement. The chain makes up life’s linchpins and, should one link snap, the remnant may as well be of no use, beyond repair. This is no abstract syllogism but reflective of an alarming social reality: 29% of the 201 people aged between 10 and 19 who killed themselves in 2014 in the UK were facing exams or exam results, according to a study by the University of Manchester, while the University of the West of England Bristol released a report demonstrating that half of the suicides committed by young people studying there between 2010 and 2018 occurred between January and April, an exam preparation period.

Exams are no innocent societal instrument – merely a handy tool through which to quantify knowledge and, ultimately, filter out individuals of questionable competency from the top echelons of the labour market. They are that; but, precisely because they are that, they have also come to be a matter of life and death.

Dramatic as this may sound, it addresses a profoundly troubling logic intrinsic to exams, which, non-coincidentally, is also the logic of neoliberal capitalism. Capitalism functions as a multi-powered mechanism converting time, energy, and life quality into quantities: 95,000 Volkswagens produced in six months, 16 customised business psychology training courses offered in two days, 300 emails sent out in 15 hours, 20,000 Philip Morris cigarettes churned out in the space of a minute. Time and volume have come to evolve into neoliberal spectres, the mainstay of a bastardised value system, whereby the greater the volume produced within the shortest time possible, the more valuable a person’s service to society is and the worthier of remuneration they are. One data analyst in telecommunications may be no less skilled, intelligent, and motivated than her colleague in an adjacent cubicle, but, unlike her, she winds up failing to progress to a higher-paying role in the company because her manager’s evaluation report is not as positive as the one on her colleague’s performance. Her father’s recent illness has taken a heavy emotional toll on her that has impinged on her productivity levels by causing her concentration capacity to fluctuate: for seven consecutive minutes she can focus on cleaning an entire data set, while for the next five minutes thoughts of her family overwhelm her, stress and sadness gnaw at her stomach, and she gives up on her goal to interpret one more set compared to the day before. Through an unfortunate convergence of circumstances, her manager happens to drop by her cubicle for an update on that particular day rather than the previous one, and it is by another stroke of sheer bad luck that he decides to whip up that evaluation report that’s been somewhat overdue that same evening. Perhaps he had a bad day too? It doesn’t matter, really.

Productivity is not a metaphysical formula according to which a set of skills, once acquired, are ever retrievable at will in order to yield a predictable value. Productivity  is rooted in time, space, and sensation, and therefore prey to mood and mental wellbeing. A capitalist economy’s venerated equation of ‘minimal input (maximal effort squeezed into a minimal time span) = maximal output = highest-valued performance’ clashes jarringly with but cannot afford to take stock of factors beyond people’s control that interfere with their productivity capacity. If it did take account of those in practice, the system would end up malfunctioning.

Exams are founded on a similar value-driven logic that rewards maximal results generated in compact timeframes and whereby performativity factors separated from students’ volition such as emotion, health, luck (and even the weather), are subservient to the paramount need to ace the test on a particular day and at a particular time. You’ve been grinding away preparing for your Calculus II end-of-year examination for weeks, sacrificing sleep, rest, sociability, and other healthy sources of happiness because your ability to survive on your own in the future without depending on your parents is at stake with this one exam. A week before the test, you receive a text from your significant other saying they think it’s better you two have a break for a while following not a few rough patches recently. A week’s time is enough to assuage some of the initial pain, but with issues such as this, who can estimate how much time is enough to nurse a broken heart? The day before the exam, you’ve treated yourself to a salted caramel sundae, practiced some yoga exercises you found on YouTube that are reputed to do miracles, and dandled your best friend’s adorably chipper puppy; on the day, forty minutes before the exam, you spend some time browsing through goofy videos featuring critters whilst chomping on a chocolate bar (isn’t chocolate a joy stimulant by common wisdom?). To cut to the chase, all your tentative mood remedies prove unavailing at 11 a.m., when memories flitting before your mind’s eye are muddled up with dread over what’s in store for you next week and envisaged paintings of pitch-blackness (with a single white dot rotating in the middle) that are beyond bizarre – an explosive concoction chipping away at your brain at the most inopportune time. Needless to say, you flunk your calculus exam because you simply cannot crank up your brainpower to the fullest for a sustained period of an hour and a half on that particular day. You are acutely aware of your ‘failure’ and in absolute shame. You no longer know what to do with your life. And yet, despite the worst day of your young life happening to be an exam day, the highly intricate machine that is society has to go on functioning by recruiting talent to quantify it and produce mass services to meet people’s needs. Educational institutions are inevitably, of course, at the labour market’s own service, as the transcripts they yield are often the officially unacknowledged green passes authenticating which individuals are qualified professional candidates and for which career grades. The filtering and quantification strategies commencing with the simplest primary school English test and evolving into a multi-level executive leadership assessment used to identify suitability for C-suite level roles makes up one single process aimed at maximising output whilst wedging maximal effort into minimal time spans (e.g. solving thirty equations in under two hours; sending out nineteen customised emails to clients within an hour and twenty minutes).

The parallelism between the workings of capitalism and exams in education strikes one as less of a startling epiphany with the help of some historical brushing up. While it was ancient China that kicked off the world’s most popular mode of assessment, known at the time as the imperial examination set up by the Sui Dynasty in 605 AD and abolished in 1905, it wasn’t until the advent of industrialisation proper in the western world that exams came eventually to dominate education. In 1806, the midst of the Industrial Revolution, England adopted an examination system modelled on the Chinese imperial exam that was geared towards recruiting candidates for roles in Her Majesty’s Civil Service. This system was later co-opted by the educational system and had been standardised, by the end of the two World Wars, across the world. Exams gained traction as capitalism took over the West, one life-sucking “vampire” (in Karl Marx’s words) breeding another.

Alarming as the logic underpinning exams is, the question of their disposability hinges on how viable alternative methods of assessment are. Rather than through, say, six high-stakes tests at the end of the academic year, students could instead be evaluated via twelve smaller-scale projects or assignments over the course of nine months. Rutgers University’s Information Technology hub has come up with several alternative assessment types in lieu of proctored exams, including open-book, take-home questions, professional presentations, fact sheets, as well as peer- and self-reviewed weighted tests – each one a looming behemoth to be tamed. Having to tackle double as many, yet individually less weighted, assignments throughout an extended time period rather than in a compact timeline feels more manageable and is therefore better for your mental health. Your life does not seem as irrepressibly miserable. Stress being (literally) lethal, happier people should make for more productive students (and professionals).

More humane as non-traditional assessment methods may be in comparison to timed exams, they are not necessarily more conducive to long-term professional success nowadays. There is, perhaps, a semi-ethical question to be teased out of the matter: given that the recruitment procedure and job market are what they are these days, operating via a process of massive filtering out and generating voluminous output in increasingly fractional time spans, would educational institutions (especially universities) be justified in preparing the young adults they educate to face something other than this reality? Don’t exams simulate a job application process that is becoming more and more automated and stress-inducing? Major companies have begun migrating from interpersonal interviewing to automated video interview software such as HireVue, which expedite the hiring process by relying on assessment-scoring algorithms and special AI that analyse candidates’ tone of voice, mannerisms, and facial movements – “a profoundly disturbing development,” according to the co-founder of an AI research centre in New York. Formatted around rigid timing, very much as an exam is, HireVue provides the interviewee with thirty seconds in which to prepare for each question, alongside three minutes to answer each. It also gives candidates access to practice questions prior to the interview proper, in the same way that students often have the opportunity to accustom themselves to examination mode by working on practice or past tests. Alternative assessment methods would not, of course, detract from the kind or level of rigour with which professionals are evaluated in a given role during their career; consistent independent or collaborative projects hewed to deadlines are, after all, bread and butter as far as most jobs are concerned.

This does not, nevertheless, change the fact that contemporary employment is structured around a system that valorises speed and quantity, distinguishes (even discriminates in favour of) individuals that persevere through enormous stress as somehow ethically formidable, and which thrives on opposites (the more the input and the lesser the timeframe, the worthier the performance). Inuring young people in this process from their early formative years in education may be a blessing as much as it is a curse to mental wellbeing. Health, I see you’re about to object, should always trump success, career, and achievement. No doubt; a large portion of happiness, though, depends on employment. A stress-free life that is also devoid of fulfilling, remuneratively viable employment is a contradiction. Getting to enjoy the benefits of a job you’ve been through thick and thin to secure feels as gratifying as the mental and emotional state you get to dwell in after giving yourself fully to a hard and stressful exam. The more gruelling the conditions, the more viscerally fulfilling the eventual reward, and the greater the self-actualisation: the dangerously deceptive cornerstone of capitalism camouflaged as a well-meaning cliché and unmistakably wise life tenet, but also an often truthful observation.

As long as altering specific social functions (e.g. the current hiring process) remains impractical and even deleterious within the context of how societies operate, we might as well make do with certain contradictions, more so than with others. People have died as a result of exams, but so have people owing  to heartbreak, and I’ve yet to come across a magazine relationships columnist encouraging people to cease dating and turn to exclusively solo activities to fill the void of companionship. The logic of exams may infuriate you as degrading and humiliating (as a Guardian columnist suggests indirectly), but it is not quite as inhumane as corporal punishment. Heartbreak may well be harder.

This is a harsh response, however. Rather than justifying the educational assessment method in place on the grounds that it benefits students by programming them to survive in a professional world that depends on similar structures, it is in the name of human life and the value of human wellbeing that reform is an ethical imperative. I do not advocate for discarding exams altogether because, given how professional environments operate, they remain a system that facilitates social adaptation – for better or worse. What I do endorse is lessening the impact of exams on a student’s overall mark for a given class or course by putting greater weight on some of the non-traditional methods I referred to. Thankfully, there are existent such examples to be inspired by, and one needs look nowhere further afield than Oxford. The final mark for Oxford’s MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy emerges cumulatively out of three assessment components: two exams (25% each), a dissertation (25%), and two papers (12.5% each). In this structure, exams sensibly account for 50% of a student’s final mark, giving candidates who may be unsuited to the psychology of exams the opportunity to demonstrate their potential in different ways. Moreover, the university runs the so-called Student Support Plan, which provides certain students with adjustments in relation to how their course is evaluated or the conditions under which exams take place. The plan focuses primarily on modifying the ways in which exams are conducted to suit the needs of particular students (by presenting, for example, certain materials in enlarged formats, offering extra rest or writing time during an exam, etc.), but it does permit implementing an alternative method of assessment to unseen written examinations (e.g., extended essays, take-home papers) in certain cases. It is regrettable that qualifying for the Plan is a matter of extremely mitigating circumstances: the support is geared primarily towards students with disabilities. It responds, therefore, to a non-negotiable health imperative (certain people simply cannot sit an exam) rather than recognising the equally important issue of students’ mental wellbeing.

Still, that even a university like Oxford provides room for alternative assessment methods is a source of hope to those of us who have grown impatient (physically, emotionally, and ideologically) with exams’ frenziedly neoliberal ethic of productivity. One is left wondering about the potential correlation between particular governments and the assessment methods in place in a given national context; or, in the case of increasingly privatised educational institutions, that between the political leanings of an institution’s governing body and the greater or lesser prominence it gives to exams. It may ultimately be the case that clamouring for change in the ways in which students are assessed is inextricable from advocating change in the way in which institutions are governed.

Image credit: l2ho7p / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

(Endowment) Size Matters: Examining College disparities

Izzie Alexandrou
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(Endowment) Size Matters: Examining College disparities

A Cherwell investigation reveals the vast disparities in rent prices across Oxford colleges, with a 50% difference in modal weekly rent between Keble, the cheapest college, and Pembroke, the most expensive. Whilst a Pembroke undergraduate could expect to pay £232.74, the most common weekly charge for a student at Keble was £155.61.

Whilst an Oxford student may expect annual living costs to be lower due to the 8-week terms, the affordability of city life is highly dependent on college. Cherwell finds that, based on average weekly rent for short lease periods, wealthier colleges tended to charge the lowest amount of rent, with the large disparities in college wealth dramatically affecting student life.

Amongst the 10 wealthiest colleges, assessed by net assets, seven of these were among the colleges ranking the lowest average rent, including St Johns, Magdalen, and Queens. By contrast, among the 10 least wealthy colleges, five of these fall within the highest 10 average rent prices, with colleges such as Pembroke, Mansfield, and Lady Margaret Hall at the top of the list.

Magdalen college, the third richest college, provides the fourth cheapest average accommodation costs amongst Oxford colleges. By contrast, Lady Margaret Hall is the second poorest college and equally the second most expensive college accommodation, following Pembroke. 

Furthermore, inflation is set to see rent prices increase further, amplifying the gaps between colleges. St Catherine’s College has proposed an increase of 11.8% in rent and hall prices, in line with the average 9% inflation rate of the UK.

Currently, the termly rent at Pembroke, the most expensive college, varies between £1153 and £2245 termly, with an additional £432 annual utility charge. The college has just announced its price increases for the next academic year, with an 8.68% increase on rent, and a 22.5% increase in utility charges. 

However, as the seventh-poorest college by net assets, Pembroke often has had little choice.  In 2002, a tape obtained by the Sunday Times caught a senior fellow, Reverend John Platt, admitting that the college offered places for money because they were ‘poor as shit’.  

The most common pricing band for on-site accommodation currently stands at £1776, but from next year will be upped to £2010.13 (excluding the utility charge). The rooms in the highest price brackets will reach up to £43.02 a night, with an eye watering total of £7614.54 a year.

St Johns, on the other hand, notoriously the wealthiest Oxford college, has managed to keep the cost of living down. Rent prices at St Johns are one of the cheapest across Oxford – the prices range from £987.74 to £1161.74 per term, with an additional £232 termly charge for services. 

Among the disparities between colleges, this highlights the starkest one. There is over a 71% difference between the highest price bands of St Johns, the wealthiest, and Pembroke, the seventh poorest.

This “college lottery” can vastly affect student life and academic performance. A second-year student from Pembroke told Cherwell: “At Pembroke, I am constantly reluctant to spend much extra money in the knowledge that my rent and obligatory (very expensive) hall meal costs have already subsumed much of my student loan.

This can be stressful because it means extensively planning money-saving options for food and other necessities I need to buy in Oxford, as well as extras like social events, in an intense environment that doesn’t give much free time for such planning.”

Pembroke told Cherwell: “We are aware of the difficulties facing many of our students … and will be launching an enhanced student financial support fund next week in response to these challenges.”

The college disparities do not just affect the extent of support that students receive for housing. A Magdalen undergraduate told Cherwell about the abundance of financial support available: “From the first day on arriving at Magdalen I was struck by the generosity of the financial support offer.  This began with a universal book grant of £150, an explanation of the incredibly generous travel grant and student support fund, as well as individual support.  After experiencing health problems in my first year, the college has paid for taxis from doctors’ appointments that have finished in the evenings in London without me even asking, and even covered the cost of other private healthcare.”

The disparities in cost-of-living expenses are further exacerbated by utility charges or the cost of eating in hall. Pembroke, Mansfield and Harris Manchester are amongst colleges in which hall pre-payment is compulsory. In Pembroke for example, a termly £344.76 charge is taken out for first year for undergraduates which provides only one meal token a day.

This translates into over £1000 over the course of the year, with no ability for credit to be carried over to the following term for tokens which have not been redeemed.

There is also evidence to suggest that colleges with the lowest cost of living also admit fewer state school students. Queens, a college nearly 12 times wealthier than Mansfield, has a state school intake of 63.6%, whereas Mansfield has a whopping 94% of students coming from state schools for entry in 2022.

Mansfield accommodation stands at a uniform fee of £1599 a term, plus a compulsory £140 meal deposit. On the contrary, Queens college charges a standard rate of £1396 per term – a compulsory charge of 20% more per term.

A first year undergraduate from Mansfield told Cherwell: “I am really concerned by the amount of colleges that have announced significant rent hikes and worry what me and my friends will do if this happens at Mansfield. We have already noticed increased difficulty affording living in Oxford, especially throughout this term. Money worries are a constant source of additional and unnecessary stress for us.”

It has been previously mentioned to us by staff that the reason why, despite taking the most percentage of state school students and a higher proportion of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, Mansfield have higher than average rents is because richer colleges that subsidise them dictate as conditions of funding that rent must be charged at such high rates.”

Christ Church, the second wealthiest college, has the second-lowest percentage of state school admissions, with the figure standing at 55.9%. Whilst the average rent at Christ Church is not within the lowest third, the financial help available is much more generous than the average college. For students with a household income under £16,000, rent is decreased by 50%, whereas students from a household income under £42,875 have their rent decreased by 25%. With a 25% reduction in average rent prices, this leaves Christ Church with by far the cheapest rent of any Oxford colleges.  

A rent reduction scheme as the one in Christ Church would largely benefit students from lower-income backgrounds, who more often than not will come from state schools.  This indicates how the unequal distribution of wealth across colleges affects the extent to which colleges may provide their students with financial support. 

A recent Cherwell report highlighted the link between the wealth of colleges and the performance of students in exams, highlighted in the Norrington Table. The five highest-performing Oxford colleges are also some of the oldest and wealthiest, whereas the colleges at the bottom of the table are considered some of the poorer colleges.

President of the SU, Anvee Bhutani, told Cherwell: “The University does operate JRAM (joint resource allocation mechanism) as a great equaliser to redistribute college wealth but far greater care can be given to ensuring that basic living provisions and costs are similar across colleges.”

Despite the reallocation, it is clear that the college affects every aspect of the student experience. For some, college means access to a rich history, generous financial support and high-level academic support. For others, limited college resources mean rent and hall are just another barrier to an accessible University. 

Image Credit: Izzie Alexandrou

“Unafraid to poke fun at the elite” – Review: The Corn is Green

Neily Raymond
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“Unafraid to poke fun at the elite” – Review: The Corn is Green

When the coal-faced son of a Welsh mining town, Morgan Evans, meets the schoolteacher Miss Moffat, he asks her for a kiss. Instead, she gives him a nasty whack on the bum.

So begins the relationship at the core of The Corn is Green, Emlyn Williams’ 1938 semi-autobiographical drama, directed by Dominic Cook and running at the National Theatre until 11th June. Miss Moffat plucks Morgan Evans out of the mines, trains him to speak like a gentleman, and stuffs his head with Adam Smith and Voltaire. It’s like My Fair Lady, but gender-swapped and very, very Welsh. 

The central conceit: a playwright (presumably Emlyn Williams), haunted by the ghosts of his past, sits down at his typewriter  to honour their memory. The ghosts of the past are, in the National Theatre’s staging, literal – a chorus of Welsh miners, dirty to the tips of their hair, crowds the corners of the stage to witness the action. They never speak, but sing traditional Welsh songs in rich harmony.

It would be painfully sappy if Williams’ story didn’t demand, well, sap. Miss Moffat (Nicola Walker) arrives in an impoverished mining town in early 19th-century Wales, having inherited an estate from her late uncle. She brings only her servant Mrs Watty (Jo McInnes) and Mrs Watty’s illegitimate daughter Bessie (in a biting performance by Saffron Coomber). Miss Moffat is determined to found a school for miners’ children, despite the protestations of the local squire (Rufus Wright), who insists Miss Moffat has no business ‘puttin ’em up to read English . . . and giving ’em ideas’.

When Miss Moffat meets the orphaned boy Morgan Evans (Iwan Davies), one thing is clear: the two are fated to either love or hate each other. Ultimately, we get both. For an assignment, Evans turns in a poetic reflection on his life in the mines, and Miss Moffat sees the gifted youth hidden beneath the grease and irreverence. She becomes Evans’ teacher, and he her most prized student.

Meanwhile, a variety of local characters step in to help run the school. Alice Orr-Ewing is delightfully vapid as the gentlewoman Miss Moffat; and Richard Lynch gives a likeable performance in the role of handyman John Goronwy Jones. It seems that Morgan Evans has the whole world at his back, willing him to succeed. He’s on the brink of winning a scholarship to Oxford. But life gets in the way, as it does, and Miss Moffat has to learn how far she’s willing to go to help Morgan win a better life.

Walker and Davies give a fine portrayal of the antagonism that can arise between teacher and student, especially when the teacher is a prickly middle-aged Englishwoman and the student is an angry and occasionally drunk Welsh miner. Walker is all hard edges and clipped consonants, with perpetually raised eyebrows. Every human interaction seems to disappoint her. Davies, on the other hand, operates with his brow constantly drawn low – that is, until Miss Moffat gets him to look her in the eye.

In this 160-minute play, the character of the playwright Williams (Gareth David-Lloyd) remains onstage the whole time. He’s orchestrating the thing, after all. Cook emphasises the role of the writer in the creation of the playworld by having David-Lloyd mouth many of the characters’ lines alongside them, read stage directions, and, in one memorable moment, stop the play to revise the narrative in real time. It works. If The Corn is Green is a memory play, the memories belong to the playwright; he deserves to be recognised as their container. 

The set is initially simple, with characters swarming out of Williams’ mind and onto a bare stage. But as Williams fleshes out the world of his childhood, the set becomes more intricate, the shabby schoolroom of Act Two transforming into a proper place of learning by Act Three, wallpaper and carven armrests and all. There’s nothing quite as pretty as a National Theatre production.

But if the stage is a pretty thing, the true glory of The Corn is Green is in its deference to the good people on that stage. My working theory is that someone at the National Theatre sat down and said, “Let’s stage a play about the indomitable human spirit”. After all, Morgan Evans’ emergence from the dirt into the light is a straightforward metaphorl. The play gives credit to the downtrodden Welsh miners of its chorus, and is unafraid to poke fun at the educated elite. When, talking incessantly, Morgan Evans returns from his tour of Oxford talking incessantly, Miss Moffat wonders, ‘If three days at Oxford can do that to you, what would you be like at the end of three years?’

As an Oxford student, I should be abashed. Instead, I’m as delighted as if Morgan Evans pointed at me from the stage and shouted “You!” I guess I’m a sucker for the redemptive quality of learning, and the places where we do it. Although Morgan Evans’ background is vastly different from mine, we both come to Oxford for the same reason: self-improvement.

I think that’s the ultimate sentiment of The Corn is Green – the right teacher, with the right student, and the right books, can change many lives for the better. Oxlove to that.

Image credit: Elliott Brown / CC BY-SA.

Cherwell Town Hall: Anvee Bhutani and Charlie Mackintosh in their own words

Cherwell News
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<strong data-src=Cherwell Town Hall: Anvee Bhutani and Charlie Mackintosh in their own words" title="Cherwell Town Hall: Anvee Bhutani and Charlie Mackintosh in their own words" />

With Union members going to the polls tomorrow, Cherwell speaks with the candidates for the presidency. They were given the opportunity to comment on everything from the highs and lows of their time at the Union to their favourite musical artists. The interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Charlie Mackintosh

Philosophy, Politics and Economics

New College

Briefly, describe yourself before Oxford

I’m Charlie. I’m from Worcestershire. My dad’s a teacher, and my mum used to work at the BBC. She’s now a self-employed historian. I go to Oxford on an army scholarship, which means I’ll go to Sandhurst after finishing Oxford, and then serve in the army.

Why did you get involved in the Union?

I did debating at school and went to the Oxford Schools Debating Finals. I’d watch YouTube videos – a classic sort of experience of the Union. I spoke with someone who was involved and realised the Union was something I’d love to get involved with. But I maintained very strongly from what I’ve heard from everyone, I didn’t want to get involved with student elections. I thought they were horrible. I thought they weren’t really for me. So I applied for Appointed [Committee] and really, really enjoyed it.  But I sort of realised beyond committee that like, much as you may hate the electoral side of things, you can’t actually do anything. 

Why are you running for president?

Everyone talks about change at the Union in a very short-term manner. The same five pledges are made in every election. That annoys me because if you take a more realistic approach to what you can do, you have the possibility to actually do something. The way you do that is by identifying the barriers to us lowering the membership fee, putting a lift in, and getting a larger budget for access,

What are some highs and lows of the Union experience?

On a personal note, I’ll look back at the photos from the last two years and realise I’m incredibly grateful for the friendships I’ve made. An ex-hack told me that the Union becomes ‘like a second college’, and I’ve found that to be very true. I had my first relationship in the Union, and made some of my best friends here.

On the professional side, my first paper speech was a special moment when I realised how glad I was that I got to do this. My best friend bought membership in the queue so she could come and watch. Also the no confidence debate at the start of the academic year, which was the first debate with full capacity: Jacob Rees-Mogg got booed as he walked in. The atmosphere was electric, and I thought ‘this is what everyone says the Union can be like at its best’.

One thing that’s disappointed me is that the Union has not hosted a panel on the Uyghur genocide. I think it’s an issue that gets nowhere near enough coverage, and the Union has a fantastic opportunity to discuss this matter.

What is a musical artist you can’t get enough of?

Billy Joel. I am in Billy Joel’s top 0.01% of global listeners, and he’s been to the Union twice. He’s the big one for me. I have a BIlly Joel break-up playlist, a Billy Joel Best Old playlist, a Billy Joel happy playlist…

If you could invite three speakers, who would you invite?

  1. Roger Federer
  2. Michael Sandel
  3. Angela Merkel

What is your favourite non-Union event in Oxford?

My college. I named my slate after it. I originally wanted #verb, as I think slate names are incredibly vapid – but my officers vetoed it. 

What’s next for Charlie Mackintosh?

I’ll serve in the army, but it’s important to me that I’m able to have a family and provide my kids with an upbringing similar to the one I’ve had. A lot of the jobs that sort of appealed to me, or a lot of my friends are considering doing aren’t remotely compatible with that. I’ll either train as a teacher or go to law school. I’ll probably end up being a  country barrister, or a history teacher in a secondary school somewhere.

If you had one message for voters, what would it be?

It’s a trope, but actions speak louder than words. Student politics becomes very self-obsessed, self-absorbed. But at the end of the day, people in the Union want good speaker events, fun debates, meaningful change, and a space where they can enjoy themselves and study. The best opportunities for that is by having the people who care most about the institution for its own sake, rather than for what it brings to them. And who know the most about it and the best ways to implement that change. And I think that’s me.

Anvee Bhutani

Human Sciences

Magdalen College

Briefly, describe yourself before Oxford

I was born and raised in the United States, near Silicon Valley in California. Oxford was never really on the cards. On an off chance at 3am online I found a guide for Americans applying to Oxford. I’d never thought of it as an attainable thing. My parents emigrated to America from India in the late 90s for better opportunities for themselves, my sister and me.

Why did you get involved in the Union?
It meant a lot to me to be able to get involved with the Union from the start. I did debating at school and watched Union debates online. After joining in first week, I went to debating workshops every Sunday, and went to Thursday debates as a guest. 

I applied for Appointed Committee at the end of Michaelmas Term of my first year – I was a keen bean! I got rejected. I then worked for four terms at The Oxford Blue. I ended up getting involved in Appointed Committee, but quit at the end of Michaelmas of my second year.

Why are you running for president?
I’ve been involved in a lot of student campaign groups. The most important things for me are things like workers justice and material issues like the living wage. I thought that the SU would be the best forum through which to enact those changes and affect policies which affect students. The SU and Union presidencies are seen as two hugely important student leadership roles. But they’re actually quite different; as SU President, your job is policy making and to represent students. I got re-involved at the Union because I had friends there. And then in Hilary Term (2022) I ran for Secretary because of the people I was running alongside.

What are some highs and lows of the Union experience?

Interviewing Zhou Fengsuo was a big highlight. Such a cool guy. I’d say interviewing Chomsky, as well. That was a bit of a life highlight. I align with Chomsky on a lot of things politically; the guy has opinions and he’s not afraid to show them. Someone like that, with a backbone and strong voice, I really admire.

Low points: in Michaelmas of my first year (2019), I was in the chamber when Ebeneezer Azamati was dragged out of the chamber. I can never shake that off. I was in the chamber when Candace Owens was being protested. That’s something I can never shake off. The Union is for its members, and the fact that members are treated like that is unacceptable. 

There was also a woman who made accessibility requests to people at the Union because her wheelchair needs to be accommodated. Her emails were bounced around, and nobody got back to her. This term she was finally invited in for a meeting and several people spoke to her. I witnessed it happen, and it was horrible. She’s a paying member of the society. Those kinds of moments leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

What is a musical artist you can’t get enough of?

Kendrick Lamar. He released an album last month in May after years of hiatus. I literally haven’t listened to anything like it since. He’s a lyrical genius. He’s a poet. He’s an artist. He’s everything!

If you could invite three speakers, who would you invite?

  1. Angela Davis
  2. Narendra Modi
  3. Kendrick Lamar

What is your favourite non-Union event in Oxford?

I love May Day. Maybe it’s because I go to Magdalen. I stayed up for the past two May Days. The novelty of ‘mundane’ Oxford experiences like going to formals with my friends still hasn’t worn off. In the past year I’ve gone to formals at several colleges. Sure, at Oxford it’s normal and day-to-day. But I think it’s kind of cool.

What’s next for Anvee Bhutani?

At the moment, I think journalism is where I see myself. I enjoy the hustle and bustle of politics, and spectating and commentating on it. Student journalism has been a very fruitful experience, and it’s something I deeply miss.

If you had one message for voters, what would it be?

Pick someone who’s done it before, knows what they’re doing, and knows the job. Anyone can create a good termcard. I’ve done it for five terms. Not everyone can make leadership and governance decisions.

Oh Well apologises for telling the truth

Oh Well
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Oh Well apologises for telling the truth

After the Union Union article went totally viral because Oh Well is the best, Oh Well sends out its most uncaring apologies to all the Non-Player-Character fools that believed us. This was in fact a great judgement on the part of Oh Well, and we hope this happens again and again and again.  

We are now  taking active steps to address the OEC (Oxford Entitlement Complex). This complex describes the phenomenon of the average Oxford student believing that, because they are privileged enough to attend the University of Oxford, which is RANKED NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD, which all your friends at home who didn’t get into Oxford also know as you talk about it all the time, which they absolutely despise you for, which you laugh off with the weird obsession that an Oxford 2:1 is better than a first from every other university, which gives you flashbacks to the terrible fifth week blues you experienced, which you tell your siblings and family who didn’t go to Oxford about, which they don’t quite understand because they didn’t go to Oxford, which you get frustrated with because you actually have the power to make a difference in people’s lives with your Oxford degree, which leads to the sad realisation that you are lonely and have no friends, they are better than everyone else. 

Disciplinary actions have been taken. The writers have been rewarded with vouchers to a tonne of formals where they can show themselves off on their Instagram and Snapchat stories about how amazing it is to be at such an old university, a bunch of carnations to prove that no other place has such pretty traditions as Oxford, a load of VKs to at least show that Oxford students do go out at least a bit, and a couple of butlers to clean up after the mess they leave at Christ Church meadows.

Oh Well sincerely hopes that Oxford students will stop thinking they are way more important than they actually are in the future. Although we don’t hold out much hope. Oh well.

President Zelensky to address Oxford students

Charlie Hancock
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President Zelensky to address Oxford students

Students at Oxford University will be among those able to attend a virtual address by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on June 10th.

The event has been organised as part of an initiative by the Ukrainian Student Union, supported by the Ukrainian Embassy in London. President Zelensky will be addressing the students of eight British universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, and will take questions from their respective Ukrainian Societies. The Oxford University Ukrainian Society will be hosting the Oxford event with the support of the Oxford University International Relations Society.

A former actor and comedian who rose to fame playing a history teacher who became President of Ukraine in the comedy series Servant of the People, President Zelensky has drawn international praise for his leadership after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The address will be held in the Oxford Union at 16:30. Prospective attendees are encouraged to register to guarantee entry, as the organisers expect demand for place to be high.

Outcry over Law Foundation Year cancellation

Maggie Wilcox
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<strong data-src=Outcry over Law Foundation Year cancellation" title="Outcry over Law Foundation Year cancellation" />

Conflicting accounts from LMH and an applicant over the Law Foundation Year cancellation have led to public outcry.

A Facebook post from Monday, June 6 revealed that an applicant to the Lady Margaret Hall Law Foundation Year was refused a place due to staffing changes. The author of the post, Sahil Thapa, a second-year St Catz law student, had been mentoring the applicant. LMH claims to induce “legitimate expectations in students of the chance to try and secure a world-class education”; the subsequent failure of LMH to follow through on their commitments incited Thapa to write the post. 

LMH denies that law tutor resignations played a role in the suspension of this Foundation Year course. In an email to Cherwell, a spokesperson for the college wrote that law tutors “did not feel that any of those short-listed could be supported to the required level to progress to the undergraduate law degree” and for this reason, the programme would not run. 

However, LMH did not tell the applicant concerned of this reasoning until June 6, after which some number of emails had been exchanged between Foundation Year staff, college tutors and members of the Law Faculty. The official decision email from LMH, sent to the applicant on April 22 states that this decision of their unsuccessful application was “no reflection on [their] ability or potential”. Rather, the choice to suspend law as a subject was due to “an unexpected change of staffing” around their Law tutor availability.

Following this email, the applicant sought further clarification from staff involved in the Foundation Year and LMH in general. During these interactions, they were never given an alternative reason for them not being offered a place and were assured that a committee would give her case its deserving consideration. During this time in early May the applicant also began to talk to current Oxford students and seek out alternative methods of instruction from postgraduate tutors at other colleges. 

The Foundation Year wrote to the applicant on May 31st that such arrangements would not be feasible and their time would be best spent revising for their A-Levels and focusing on other university offers. In this email, an administrator for the Foundation Year suggested that the applicant may have misunderstood some conversations she had with other college staff, including the Principal. They also made clear that no change to the admissions decision can be made, despite a lengthy process of consultation.

At that time, the applicant contacted the Law Faculty and discussed the cancellation of the Foundation Year. After being directed to another member of staff, the applicant then received a call on June 6 informing them that had the cancellation of the Foundation year been solely a LMH staffing issue, then the Law Faculty could have helped. Apparently, this was not the case and LMH was instead suspending the program because it could not find any suitable candidates. This interaction is the first point in time in which the academic ability of candidates came up, according to the applicant’s email and call history.

Since Monday June 6, this incident has become a large issue on Oxford students’ social media feeds, especially Facebook. On Oxfess, an Oxford-geared gossip and discussion platform on the social media site, multiple posts were put up. They led to a more detailed discussion on this rejection. An online petition to reinstate the Law Foundation Year for 2022-23 was also created by Thapa. 

It remains unclear whether it is possible that the applicant will end up receiving a place, as is the true reasoning behind why the Foundation Year course in Law was cancelled.

Lady Margaret Hall’s full statement reads

“LMH law tutors interviewed a small number of Law candidates for a potential place on the Foundation Year 2022/23.  In their academic judgement they did not feel that any of those short-listed could be supported to the required level to progress to the undergraduate law degree.  For that reason, there will be no Foundation Year in Law in the coming academic year. At no point were any offers made to any of the applicants.  [Emphasis in original] LMH communicated this decision to candidates as soon as possible and regrets any disappointment caused. “

Image Credit: University of Oxford

Vessel: In conversation with Grace Olusola

Katerina Lygaki
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Vessel: In conversation with Grace Olusola

TW: fatphobia, eating disorders, self-harm.

Vessel, the new theatrical anthology from Dawn Productions, examines our relationship with the body and food through episodic fragments. Inspired from 128 survey responses from Oxford students, Grace Olusola wrote and directed this quasi-verbatim play to bring forth discussions surrounding these topics.

Talk to me a little bit about the title of Vessel. How did it come about?  

It’s gone through a lot of changes actually, this show. The title always did stay the same actually, apart from the very beginning, but the format was a bit weird. At first it was going to be a one person show, but then I was like “How far is one person going to represent so many voices?”. I’m very aware that I’m speaking to an Oxford, mostly student, audience. That’s when the whole issue of diversity came in. “Okay, this can’t just be about one person”. We need more voices, more opinions, more thoughts in the conversation.

It was just very important to me that the title wasn’t didactic. I don’t want to tell the audience how to feel or think. So, ‘vessel’ is a noun that holds things. It also speaks to that idea that it’s amorphous, the idea that it’s about bodies and it’s about the things that carry us through your life, like our bodies as vessels and morphing from vessel to vessel.

You say that you are aware that you’re speaking to an Oxford audience. What does that mean to you?

It’s very important to me. I think it’s easy to forget that, especially with local theatre, you are speaking to an audience of people who might be your peers, or you are speaking to people in a very specific context, and theatre is kind of uniquely powerful because you can speak to them quite directly. I think that’s such an opportunity that we can’t miss, especially because it’s Oxford.

Oxford unfortunately has quite a high number of people with eating disorders. And I think even beyond that, people sort of find their relationships with food difficult, just because it’s such a high-pressure environment. Like, during the crazy terms, you kind of come to the end and you wonder, “Oh, when did I take any time for myself?”


What prompted you to conduct these surveys and then write a play about them?


I was Women’s Welfare Rep at St Catherine’s College, and it was in the midst of lockdown, so we wanted people to let us know how they’re doing. And so, we just sent a survey and surprisingly, people just kind of poured their hearts out. Giving them a little box and saying, “I want to listen to you, I want to read what you have to say”. That for some reason, got people very confessional. I think they just needed to get it out.

In my time as Welfare Rep, I also witnessed a lot of people struggling, especially with food and body image. Also, within myself, I witnessed weird food and body stuff rising. I think it just felt more urgent than it ever has been because of the pandemic.

[Then I wondered] what if it’s not just my story, but we can get people to contribute, looking more into verbatim stuff, and it kind of all spiralled from there.

You said that you’re going to look at the relationship between food and body image post-lockdown. How has that relationship changed?

I think for me, it started out with the idea of being alone with your brain, what that does to you, and the proximity of food in isolation, just kind of being always there, and the idea that everyone was saying that routine is the best way to keep yourself sane in the pandemic. What I was seeing around me and in myself was the habit of making food part of that routine in not such a healthy way. And I think we haven’t really recovered from that post lockdown. I can see how easy it is for people to transfer habits and rituals, I guess ways of feeling safe, that maybe they didn’t really find pre-lockdown.

I definitely think that we’re kind of coming out of a period where it’s time to assess, and I think that’s up to the individual. Like just assessing where you are at with food. Unfortunately, some eating disorder cases skyrocketed during the pandemic as well. I think people weren’t really connected to their support systems. Talking to one of the BEAT ambassadors (BEAT is the charity to which we are donating 5% of each ticket’s sale) and she was saying that calls to the helpline went up by, like, 300%. It just made it feel even more like we’re kind of reaching a bit of a peak here.

Do you think the relationship between your body and food changes with circumstance?

I grew up in a context where we always had food. My mom was quite a nice cook. But I was always very aware of my shape and size and how I was always quite a bit bigger than people around me. I think, especially if you come from sort of low-income backgrounds, food becomes a bit more of a concern because the price of food, what you’re eating and the perceived healthiness of that food all come into question. And so, I guess food became this precious thing because I know that my mom worked very hard to make sure that food was available to us and she always did. And I’m just very grateful for that. She worked hard in general, including to put good food on the table and it wasn’t always easy. She taught us to appreciate and finish off food. And then coming to Oxford where everything’s so busy, sometimes I find that I don’t eat until dinner. I have to take time and carve out a space to eat mindfully or I have to just grab something on my way and not enjoy it properly.

So it definitely changes. I haven’t quite figured out what my version of health is – I was thinking about what healthy eating looks like to me in different contexts. So, when I go back home, what that’s like compared to when I’m back here. Just trying to fit it into different contexts, I guess, because it’s not always going to be a blanket thing you can add to.

Vessel runs from Friday 10th to Saturday 11th June at the Old Fire Station. Tickets are available online here. Visit Dawn Productions on Instagram @dawnproductions_.

Image credit: Dawn Productions.

Leader: BeReal has the potential to change student social media usage for the better

Clementine Scott
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Leader: BeReal has the potential to change student social media usage for the better

If there’s anything that defined my teenage years and early adulthood, it’s Instagram. I try as hard as I can to resist the shallow stereotypes associated with people and especially women who avidly use social media, but when the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook coincided neatly with my entry into secondary school, it’s difficult to deny the influence it’s had over the last decade of my life.

We experienced in real time the development of Instagram from place where Year Sevens deposited photos as mundane as a blurry shot of their Starbucks, to the home of the circa-2018 incessant Boomerangs of people’s first legal drinks, to the glorified flea market-with-a-messaging-function it’s become today. For a while, I thought this app would continue to be a protagonist in my life indefinitely, and that I would continue to ask myself whether a given moment worked better as a grid post or a story, but somehow this past term has changed my attitude. I still use social media, but  instead of meticulously planning Instagram story content, I merely wait for the BeReal notification.

On paper, BeReal doesn’t sound particularly revolutionary. There’s the central gimmick of the daily notification at a randomised time (in my experience, anywhere between 10am and 10pm), but beyond that it has the potential to become as homogeneous as Instagram, just in a different way. Instead of posed pre-bop pictures in student kitchens, we get hundreds of pictures of people’s essay crises in the Rad Cam from different angles. 

But the randomly timed notification, at least for me, makes all the difference. BeReal, along with Wordle and other late-pandemic phenomena, only happens once a day and thus has an inherent mechanism to control addictive behaviours, but it is not only parents scaremongering about phone addictions to whom this feature might appeal. When one only feels obligated to post one photo per day, the pressure to document every single second partially disappears and my brain can more easily switch off content-hunting mode. 

Conversely, BeReal places a healthy amount of pressure on that one crucial picture, which deters me from wasting time far better than an impending essay deadline ever could – the app has taught me to be conscious of whatever I’m doing at the present moment just in case that notification happens to strike, and also to see value in smaller moments that aren’t conventionally ‘Instagrammable’. We can also live peacefully in the knowledge that the potential for data breaches is low; the data an app can accumulate from random daily snapshots is surely less than Instagram’s highly curated, consistent displays of its users’ interests.

As well as taking the pressure off of social media, BeReal also helps us have a more healthy relationship with external validation. Even though one can ‘like’ (or rather ‘react to’) a post on BeReal much as they would on Instagram, I understand from the outset that my picture of my laptop screen as I research flights for my summer holiday is not particularly exciting, so my expectations are low and I don’t mind that the only people who regularly react are my boyfriend, parents and a couple of friends. The concept of taking a picture of whatever’s in front of you is worlds away from the agonising process of selecting what to post from an Instagram photoshoot; when the bar is already on the ground for how interesting the content needs to be or how attractive you need to look, then the expectation for people’s effusive reactions are equally low.

Time will tell whether the lessons to be learned from BeReal will stick, or whether it will be remembered as Trinity 2022’s passing fad. But in the meantime, each day I will stay healthily detached from social media until the notification strikes. 

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