Monday 30th June 2025
Blog Page 380

Oxford residents reminded not to let their guard down as COVID cases remain high

Yihang Fang
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Oxford residents reminded not to let their guard down as COVID cases remain high

Despite a slight decline in the spread of COVID-19 within Oxfordshire, infection rates are still higher than they were in December.

According to figures published by Oxford City Council, for the week ending 22 January, 294.7 cases per 100,000 people were identified in Oxfordshire. This is a decline from 399.5 the previous week. However, this still exceeds the figure of 83.7 per 100,000 on 4 December by more than three times.

“The latest covid figures for Oxford are reducing, but are still higher than when we went into lockdown. It’s really important that everyone, even those who have had the vaccine, sticks to the lockdown rules to keep figures falling,” Councillor Louise Upton, Cabinet Member for Safer, Healthy Oxford said in a press release on the Oxford City Council website. 

While acknowledging the progress of the vaccination programme, Val Messenger, the Deputy Director for Public Health of Oxfordshire County Council, reiterated the importance of abiding by the lockdown restrictions, including for those who have been vaccinated. 

“The vaccination programme continues to make excellent progress in Oxfordshire, and we are on track on schedule [sic] to achieve the government target of the top four priority groups being vaccinated by mid-February.

“However, we must remember that those who have been vaccinated will not have full protection until at least three weeks after they have received their second dose. Moreover, those who have received the vaccine could still pass on the virus to others. So we can’t afford to let our guard down,” Messenger said in a statement published on the Oxford City Council website.

As an additional measure in the fight against COVID-19, community testing will also be introduced in Oxfordshire in early February. “It will allow us to better identify asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19, and so help us more effectively control the virus and stop the spread,” Messenger added.

In the 7 days leading up to 26 January, 229.2 per 100,000 people in Oxfordshire tested positive for coronavirus, according to official UK government data. This is slightly below the national rate of 273.3 within the same period.

Axe-throwing bar to open in Oxford despite safety concerns

Biba Jones
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Axe-throwing bar to open in Oxford despite safety concerns

Axe-throwing will be on the menu at a bar granted license to open in Oxford, despite concerns from police. 

Oxford City Council unanimously granted Boom: Battle Bar’s application to open a branch in Oxford’s Castle Quarter permission, despite concerns over safety.

Thames Valley Police have also suggested the bar could increase alcohol-related crime and disorder to the area. Inspector James Sullivan asked for the council to turn down the licence application, or to approve firmer safety restrictions on the bar.

Oxford City Councillor Michael Gotch said he had been “rather horrified” on reading police evidence that suggested customers might be searched when leaving to prevent people smuggling blades out of the premises.

However, CEO and founder of Boom: Battle Bar Elliot Shuttleworth said that customers would be escorted at all times, and that weapons would be locked away afterwards. The Boom: Battle Bar website also suggests that each 45 minute session will be led by a “specialised instructor”.

Axe-throwing will be just one of many activities available at the 250-capacity bar. Crazy golf, electric darts and shuffle ball are among other activities offered at existing Boom: Battle Bar sites. Hammerschlaagen, a Bavarian game involving knocking nails into a tree stump with a hammer will also be served up. With axes, darts and hammers involved, some have raised concerns over alcohol consumption at this site.

Despite the beer-pong inspired activity the bar also offers, as well as the pints and cocktails it sells, representatives of the company emphasised that selling alcohol was a ‘secondary element’ of the business, and that it was not a “drinks-led business”. 

For participation in axe-throwing the Boom: Battle Bar’s website also asks customers that “no alcohol… be consumed beforehand please”, and alcohol during the axe-throwing session is prohibited. 

Alan Cook, UK head of operations at Boom: Battle Bar has also said that the bar’s target audience spends most of their money on games instead of alcohol, and that the bar attracts “the under 35s” who “don’t drink anymore”.

The council will insist on high-visibility jackets and body-worn cameras for security staff.

Norfolk Police told Cherwell that no incidents had been reported at Boom: Battle Bar’s Norwich branch because the bar was given licence to open on March 26th 2020, after the first national lockdown was imposed. “Due to COVID-19, the bar has not been able to operate properly and there have been no reported incidents relating to the Axe.

“A safety concern was raised by our Licensing Team and was assured a risk assessment would be in place. Once the bar is able to re-open, the Licensing Officer will be contacting the Norwich City Council Health & Safety Team to follow this up.”

Boom: Battle Bar, and South Wales Police have been approached for comment.

Image: Kurt Kaiser/CC0 1.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Oxford study estimates over 60,000 excess deaths during pandemic

Jill Cushen
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Oxford study estimates over 60,000 excess deaths during pandemic

A recently published study by Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science has estimated that there were 62,750 excess deaths from all causes in 2020 resulting in a reduction in life expectancy for both men and women by over one year. 

The study, which looks at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on mortality trends, reported an increase of 15.1% in the number of deaths compared with the expected level for 2020. The researchers described England and Wales as the “worst performers in terms of excess deaths”. It also reveals that despite woman making up a larger proportion of the older population, excess deaths were higher among men, accounting for 55.4% of the total. It is estimated that the 15-44-year-old age group accounted for only 6.2% of the excess deaths while the mortality rate among those under 15 years was not higher than expected. 

The demographic experts found that a number of fatalities in the first 47 weeks of the year may have been wrongly classified as deaths directly linking to Covid-19 and points to deaths indirectly linked to Covid-19 as a cause for the overall increase in the death rate when compared with data from the past ten years. The researchers claimed that the strain on the health system and the fear of contracting the virus deterred many people suffering from severe illnesses from seeking medical attention.

Ridhi Kashyap, one the study’s authors and Associate Professor of Social Demography at Nuffield College, said that “our research provides further understanding of the tragic impact of the pandemic in England and Wales,” adding that “the magnitude of these losses in life expectancy…is truly unprecedented.’

Analysing data from March until November 20, the demographers claimed that life expectancy reduced by what the researchers described as a ‘staggering’ rate. The reduction of life expectancy by 0.9 years for women and 1.2 years for men marks 2020 as the first year in over a decade in which life expectancy has not increased significantly, regressing to 2010 levels. 

Due to the surge in cases throughout late November and December, the researchers now estimate that life expectancy may have dropped to -1.0 years for women and -1.3 for men. 

The research paper sheds further light on the burden of Covid-19 in England and Wales and the wider impact of the pandemic on mortality trends. The study concluded that “Whether mortality will return to—or even fall below—the baseline level remains to be seen as the pandemic continues to unfold and diverse interventions are put in place.” 

Image: Olga Kononenko via unsplash.com

74% of Europeans think EU is not worth having without free movement according to Oxford survey

Anneka Pink
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74% of Europeans think EU is not worth having without free movement according to Oxford survey

In a poll conducted in December 2020 as part of Oxford University’s Europe Stories research project, 74% of participants said the European Union would ‘not be worth having’ without freedom of movement.

The poll, a collaboration with eupinions – which collects and analyses data on the European public’s views on current affairs – invited participants to respond to the following statement: “If it did not offer the freedom to travel, work, study and live in other EU member states, the European Union would not be worth having.” 

All 27 EU member states were polled, as well as the UK, with participants choosing whether to strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree or strongly disagree with the statement.

The researchers found that while responses to this question were similar across demographic groups, there was some difference between countries, with those in Poland most likely to disagree with the statement. 

The importance of freedom of movement to Europeans was further discovered when participants were asked, “What are the most important things the EU has done for you?”. The report found that freedom to travel was in the top three for 61%; opportunities to live, work and study in Europe for 53%; and peace and external security for 38%. 

The results suggest continuity in public opinion since a 2018 Eurobarometer poll, which found four in five Europeans were supportive of free movement in the EU.

Among other findings of the poll was a preference for outcomes rather than for political process. 59% agreed that “as long as the EU delivers effective action, the presence or absence of the European Parliament is of secondary importance”. Notably, three in five of those who previously agreed that it was important to have a European Parliament also agreed with the above statement. This suggests that even for those who believe in the importance of a European Parliament, the effectiveness of its policymaking is still more important than just its existence.

The results of the poll come amidst EU freedom of movement restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic and as a result of Brexit. The UK left the EU on the 1st January 2021 and also signed the Immigration Act on the 11th November 2020, ending freedom of movement for EU citizens within the UK from the 31st December 2020. 

The research project was led by Professor Timothy Garton Ash, who is Professor of European Studies at Oxford, and Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow at St. Antony’s College. Professor Garton Ash said, “The irony is not lost on us, that this freedom is precisely what most British citizens have just lost following the UK’s departure from the EU.” 

University failed to phone all students who tested positive

Daisy Aitchison
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University failed to phone all students who tested positive

Oxford University’s coronavirus Early Alert System (EAS) was unable to telephone all students who tested positive in Michaelmas term after a spike in demand, recently released meeting minutes reveal. 

Notes from the University’s Bronze planning group on the 19th October show that the service experienced “an increase in positive cases”, which meant that “EAS Results Liaison Team (RLT) did not have capacity to make phone calls to the individual students testing positive”. However, students who tested positive were still contacted by email to inform them of their result. 

The minutes go on to note that “colleges were concerned that SPOCs (single points of contact), who are not medical professionals, were having to advise students” as a result of the lack of staffing capacity. At that time, “the Group noted that the issue was being reviewed.” 

In response to the allegations, the University’s Early Alert System said “there were no unexpected staffing shortages in the EAS Results Liaison Team last term – the issue encountered was an unexpectedly high level of positive test results for a short period at the peak of the infection curve. Students are always notified of test results by automated messages as soon as results come through. 

“Colleges provide the first line of support for students, and colleges are supported by the Results Liaison Team which is staffed by experienced health professionals. This system works well as it combines infection control support from the Results Liaison Team with the on the ground knowledge and support which colleges can give. Students will be contacted and supported by a variety of staff depending on their particular circumstances”. 

Notes from a subsequent meeting of the Bronze group on the 28th October reveal that the service had “a reliance on external temporary agencies to supply nursing staff” to ensure demand for medical professionals was met. The group noted that “a range of options are being considered for the service and requirements for recruitment are being developed”. 

The service has since confirmed that “the University continues to use agency nurses to staff the EAS testing pods, which is a practical solution given the on-going variation in numbers of tests required depending on infection/symptom levels”. 

The EAS also refused to specify who the services had been contracted to, saying that “a number of agencies” were used to fill the staffing shortage and that this was “funded by the central university”. There is currently no information regarding the cost to the university.

Asked about the quality of service during Michaelmas Term, the EAS say they believe that the system was “excellent” and that “colleges and departments have indicated that they have found, and continue to find, the speed of testing and the support offered by the Result Liaison Team to be invaluable”.

“Due to the fast changing and unpredictable environment of the Coronavirus pandemic there will inevitably be peaks and troughs in demand for EAS, but the service is prepared to deal with these fluctuations through having a highly committed team, strong university support and growing experience of managing covid cases across the collegiate University”. 

The university’s Early Alert System website currently reads: “remember the University has finite testing capacity, so it is important that we target it where it is most needed. You should only book a test if you have any of the primary symptoms of COVID-19 (fever, persistent cough, loss of taste or smell) or if you have other new symptoms that you suspect may be caused by COVID-19.  

“Please do not book a test unless you have symptoms or have been instructed to do so by public health authorities.” 

“We’re going into a new territory”: interviewing theatre director Sally Cookson

Nia Brown
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“We’re going into a new territory”: interviewing theatre director Sally Cookson

Sally Cookson is a theatre director who has worked on productions for theatres including the Old Vic London, the Bristol Old Vic, the National Theatre, the Duke of York’s and the Rose Theatre Kingston. Most recently she has directed A Monster Calls at The Old Vic, The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe at The Bridge Theatre, and Peter Pan at the National Theatre. The Guardian hailed her production of Jane Eyre as a “bold, tumultuous reimagining” and a “feast for the senses” in its five-star review.

When did you decide that you wanted to pursue a career as a director? 

I never thought about being a theatre director, I was always passionate about wanting to be an actor. That was my path. I absolutely loathed school and I ended up in a youth theatre which turned the lightbulb on and made me realise that there was another way of thinking about the world. Then my mum pulled me out of school and sent me to a sixth form college which has an amazing drama department. That’s where my passion really ignited. I went to LAMDA drama school and then was an actor for about 10 years. When I was about 30 I got a job at the Bristol Old Vic for 8 months with an ensemble company that the artistic director Andy Hay was setting up. I went to Bristol, a bit disillusioned with the acting profession by then because I’d been doing it for 10 years and had realised that I wasn’t getting the parts that I really wanted to play. It wasn’t to do with wanting to play massive, great big parts, it was about wanting to play interesting parts. The work was unsatisfying. When I got to Bristol I realised that I loved working as part of an ensemble and getting to know how the theatre worked and being part of the different departments. We did a lot of outreach work. At the end of the 8 months some of the funding for the education department was taken away and the theatre was in crisis. The whole education department was removed from the building. I was so upset by it, it had such a devastating impact on young people and the community in Bristol that a friend of mine who had been an actor in the ensemble with me, we decided to set up a small summer course of 25 people to continue the work that we thought was important. It was so incredibly enriching that I knew then it was something I wanted to pursue and that’s how I realised directing was something that I was interested in.

What were the female roles like during your career as an actor? 

It started off alright, I played Juliet very early on in my career and Hedvig in The Wild Duck at the Royal Exchange so I played a few nice roles in my early twenties and then it all started to get boring. I was always playing the young, boring, passive ingenue who has no agency and is only there as a love interest. I must have played about five of those. Every rehearsal experience was exactly the same. Run by all male directors, mostly all male writers and it just felt like I wasn’t being stimulated in any way or using my brain. I was just wheeled on in a pretty dress and I just thought “I don’t want to be stuck in this for the rest of my life”. In the plays that were being put on, there were three women to every ten male parts. It was much harder to get a job and it was frustrating. Sadly we just accepted it, but I wasn’t prepared to continue in that way. I didn’t want to remain in an industry that saw women like that. I wanted to have a more interesting career. 

Do you think a lot of your experiences as an actor has informed the way that you direct? 

It’s very important to the work I make. It has informed every aspect of how I am as a director, including the experience of having worked with a pretty sadistic male bully. I’ve worked with a lot of lovely male directors, but I did have one extremely difficult experience in my early career. It was so demoralising and humiliating that when I became a director I vowed that my rehearsal room would be the opposite of how he ran his rehearsal room. 

Do you think it’s difficult being a woman in the theatre industry? 

As an actor I found it extremely challenging and didn’t like how it made me feel. As a director my experience has been very different. Maybe because I didn’t go into directing until I was a bit older. I didn’t become a freelance director until I was in my late thirties and I knew what I wanted to do, so I had a bit more agency in myself at that age. I was very lucky because when I became a freelance director I worked for a fantastic company for 10 years called Travelling Light which was run by women. The artistic producer, the chief executive, the production manager were all female so that felt fantastic and the way they ran the company which was not ego-led. It was very much about the work and collaboration and connection with the audience, so I learnt a lot about how I like to work through that company. But I see the struggle for young emerging artists and when you look around at what’s happening in the profession now, the imbalance and the gender disparity is shocking. I still think that there are still more male playwrights and I think that without thinking they write plays for themselves.

Do you see the gender disparity in theatre has changed in recent years? 

I think there has been a shift. I think the National Theatre Artistic Director Rufus Norris is very aware of that and is working really hard to make sure that there is quality. It feels like right now people are letting it slip. People think there’s not a problem with gender anymore, that we’ll go back to how we did things before. Especially with covid, I’m wondering whether that’s affecting how people think and not wanting to take risks, and I think sometimes female playwrights and female directors are still considered risky. I do think there’s an underlying misogyny in the profession that we constantly need to challenge and not take our feet off the pedal.

What advice would you give to someone hoping to make a start in the theatre industry? 

I think talking to people, trying to get advice, help, and opportunities will help. You’ve just got to keep knocking on that door. You’ve got to be really bold, more so than you used to be, at phoning people up, emailing people, badgering people. I still have that self doubt of “are you good enough to be doing that?” And I notice so many female contemporaries and friends who are in the business who suffer from that. I think a lot of men struggle with that too, but I think it’s stronger with women because we’re used to not having a voice and for the room to be full of men.

Have there been any moments where you’ve felt that a particular creative venture hasn’t quite worked the way you’d planned? 

Always! I don’t think I’ve ever made a production and thought “job done”. I made a big decision with Romeo and Juliet about how much to cut, and I threw it on the stage in a bold way that failed. It was a big, brash, explosion of stuff and some of it wasn’t properly thought through, and that made me be a lot more rigorous about questioning certain decisions I make before I go into rehearsals. I try not to be afraid of failing because that will hold back any creativity. Everyone’s always afraid of making a fool of themselves and getting it wrong. Every single person who is involved in theatre goes into a rehearsal room wanting to make the best possible piece they can. Sometimes the stars are just not aligned and things just don’t quite work. If there was a recipe for how to make the perfect theatre, we’d all be making perfect theatre. It doesn’t happen easily. It’s hard work to get something working properly. I think we have to risk and have to be able to fail. The industry can be very unforgiving and I think we should accept and applaud people who make big mistakes. We’ve got to allow people to fail because it’s only through failing that we learn. So I will always have a very open rehearsal room where we make a lot of mistakes and get it wrong a lot of the time.

What do you think your productions have gained through the process of devising?

Everyone involved feels an enormous sense of ownership over the project and therefore the sense of connection with it is enormous which comes out in how they perform it. There’s nothing like feeling that we all made this together, that egalitarian approach allows everyone to have real agency in the room and when it works it’s brilliant.

How do you feel about the way Covid has impacted the theatre industry?

Although our profession has been hit mightily by Covid, we have had to have difficult conversations and reflect on our industry during this time. That has been a really positive thing, unpacking how the building blocks don’t make it a fair playing ground, not just for women but for BAME communities and people with disabilities. Some of the most interesting conversations I’ve had have been about why theatre is important. It has been a really useful thing to do, and in my own practice has made me question how I want to proceed. We’re in this liminal space on the threshold of this new reality, and if we hold onto the past that’s not going to help us either. We’re going into a new territory where anything can happen, but it has to involve a fairer space and a more equal space which really thinks about the community we’re making theatre with and for.

Image Credit: Manuel Harlan.

Dick Whittington: not quite the win the National was hoping for

James Newbery
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Dick Whittington: not quite the win the National was hoping for

There’s a guilty pleasure in watching a pantomime at the end of January. It’s like playing your Spotify Christmas playlist in the middle of July— you know you shouldn’t, but you can’t help but belt Mariah Carey while the rest of the world are outside having barbecues and enjoying the sun. So when the National Theatre announced that they’d be putting their socially-distanced first ever pantomime since 1983 up on their newly-launched National Theatre at Home service, I was intrigued.

It’s safe to say that the production is a mixed bag. The script (written by Jude Christian and Cariad Lloyd) is an updated revival of the 2018 Lyric Hammersmith version of Dick Whittington. The overall concept is to do away with the clichéd hallmarks of the genre. This version attempts to be the Hamilton of pantomimes, incorporating street dance, rap, pop ballads and frequent references to TikTok trends into an otherwise familiar tale. It is a love letter to London, putting the city’s bustling diversity and vibrancy centre stage. I did enjoy the elements of political satire that the production managed to include, such as the subtle jab at the Tory Government’s free school meals misfire. The mayor of London in this production (who for some reason is a pigeon) even flies in on a zip-wire, sporting a shaggy mop of hair that looked suspiciously similar to that of the current Prime Minister…

Yet I was left with the overwhelming impression that the script tries too hard to be up-to-date and relevant. Apart from a few racy double entendres and allusions to Netflix shows (“It’s like Emily in Paris all over again”), most of the comedy falls flat and the dialogue is mediocre at best. One particularly awful scene involved the villainess, Queen Rat, arriving on stage on a giant-sized evil Henry the Hoover. The wittiest one-liner the script could muster up was “man, hoovers really do suck”. The musical elements of the show provide a welcome relief—I particularly enjoyed the parodic version of Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’ to introduce the villain of the piece. At times the use of pop songs were overused to the extent that Dick Whittington began to feel more like a jukebox musical and less of a pantomime; a rendition of Dua Lipa’s ‘Don’t Start Now felt‘ a bit forced and did little to carry the plot, or indeed provide any sense of comic relief.

One thing, however, that cannot be faulted was the cast. I have rarely seen a cast with such energy and enthusiasm, and they single-handedly carried what was an otherwise very flat script. It must undoubtedly be difficult to perform a pantomime (which as a genre is particularly reliant on audience interaction) in the Olivier Theatre. It is after all the National’s biggest stage, and of course felt especially empty due to distancing requirements. Standouts include Dickie Beau’s gloriously filthy performance as a classic pantomime dame, while Melanie La Barrie stunned the audience with her stage-presence and singing abilities as the fairy-godmother-esque figure Beaux Belles. Lawrence Hodgson-Mullings again impressed us with his singing and dancing abilities but was perhaps not quite a charismatic enough lead to carry the show as Dick. Even just watching it on the screen, you could really get a sense of the camaraderie, both amongst the actors, and also in their relationship with the audience.

It also must be remembered that their run was cut short by the placement of London into tier three after their fourth preview performance. The actors would have had much more time to grow into their roles, and they would have had time to iron out the weaknesses in the script. It must have been hard to keep the morale going, given how aware they were that the curtain was to come crashing down at the point where the run felt like it was just beginning. Georgia Lowe’s set and costume design was another highlight of the production. The costumes felt like a blend between box of Quality Streets and a Tim Burton movie, while minimalist in-the-round set made use of a clock motif, with the hour hands subtly providing distancing guidelines for the actors. Indeed, the end of the production involved the love-interests hugging through plastic sheets—a comic reminder of the difficulties that the cast and crew must have collectively gone through to get this show on its feet.

I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if I had been in the actual theatre itself. Much of what makes pantomimes enjoyable is the interaction between the stage and the audience—something that a filmed version at home, however well-shot simply cannot replicate. I had actually booked to see this production in person, so was sad not to be able to attend when restrictions changed, and we were placed into another national lockdown. The last play I saw pre-corona was actually Our Brilliant Friend in the Olivier itself, this time last year—and I for one can’t wait to be sitting back in that space watching another NT production as soon as restrictions ease.

Image Credit: The Other Richard.

In Contempt of Court: from Death Row to Guantanamo

Jonathan Tevendale
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In Contempt of Court: from Death Row to Guantanamo

CW: Criminal justice, systemic racism, capital punishment, sexual references.

“What is the most despicable thing you’ve ever done, that you’re most ashamed of?”

“I’m not telling you,” I respond with a smirk.

“But you’ve got it in your mind?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Now, the interesting thing about Zoom, Jonathan, is that I can see into your heart, and I’m going to tell you what you’re thinking. What you’re thinking is not a criminal offence. It’s just a really nasty betrayal you did to someone you love that was really painful for them.” He’s right. “Now, I’d like you to answer this question: what’s the worst criminal offence that’s ever been done to you?”  

I tell him a story, laughing, about a time I was punched by a drunk teenager on a night out, hurling thoughtless abuse in every direction.

“And so that’s a criminal offence for which he could go to prison. If he was in Alabama- if you did that twice – life without parole. So – if you put in the balance the harm that you did by your non-criminal, nasty act that we don’t tell your readers about because they’ll all despise you, versus the harm that was done to you by the criminal act, which is worse?”

I’d have liked to say the assault, but I really couldn’t justify it. I’d just been laughing about it, after all.

“Of course it’s yours. It’s far worse. The little punch you took is nothing. So, the question you have to ask yourself in the context of what we call criminal justice, is why you and I are not in prison?” Feeling attacked and exposed, I fudge an answer, stumbling through a sentence about ‘the law.’ “There is no reason,” I eventually come to say. “No rational reason,” he agrees, victorious.

Clive Stafford Smith has dedicated his life to fighting for those subjected to the brutality of the law, especially in countries which retain the right to execute. Though born in Cambridgeshire, he trained as an attorney in America during the eighties. By 2002, he had helped win all but six of the three hundred or so capital appeals he’d worked on. In one three-year period, he managed to fully exonerate 126 of the 171 convicts he defended. In “75% of cases they had the wrong guy, and that’s assuming they got the right guy in the other 25%,” he tells me.

He has also represented eighty Guantanamo Bay detainees. The U.S. prison camp remains open today, holding forty men who have never seen trial.

He went on to become co-founder of Reprieve, an NGO which uncovers and investigates human rights abuses, and challenges them in the courtroom.

Our conversation comes as the Trump administration executes more people at a federal level than at any time since 1896. He tells me about the administration’s now-fulfilled desire to see Lisa Montgomery executed, despite a “litany of mental health disorders stretching pages,” and how, the day before our interview, 20% of death row inmates had tested positive for COVID-19. This happened after the court denied her lawyers’ request for a stay-of-execution, fearing exposure to the virus themselves. Inevitably, they went on to catch the disease.

The judicial system, he believes, is broken at all levels. “It’s a frightening thing to deal with the US Supreme Court … they are just mean-spirited people. Even the liberals – they’re so out of touch with the real world.” Later, he tells me that he’s been put on trial for contempt of court several times. “I’ve always been acquitted. But I sometimes think that perhaps I should just admit that I am pretty contemptuous of the way they deal with human beings, because I don’t think they live on the same planet as the people I represent.”

Stafford Smith’s career had an unconventional beginning, motivated by a deep suspicion of the establishment, and a belief that those with privilege should help those without. “One of the highlights of my life was telling this tweed-jacketed twit at Clare College, Cambridge, that I didn’t want to go to Cambridge to study Natural Sciences. And he said: ‘Oh, that’s the worst decision you’ll ever make in your life, my boy.’ And I said – ‘I bet it’s not.’”

Then, as an “arrogant, stupid, young, privileged English person” he went to America to write a book about capital punishment. “It will never see the light of day because it’s such juvenile rubbish, but in doing it I met all these people on death row. And I discovered that in the richest country on Earth, they don’t have lawyers. And even I could see that it was potentially more useful to them to have a lawyer than to have me write some piece of shit about the death penalty. So, I went off to law school to get a law degree, so I could go and help.”

One of his first cases is documented in the film Fourteen Days in May, which follows the final few days before the execution of Edward Earl Johnson, whose guilt has since been widely contested. “I was 27. I knew nothing. And I’m representing Edward, who’s 27, too. It’s one thing that I’ll take with me to my grave, but if I knew then what I know now he’d be alive. And he’d be free. I don’t beat myself up too much about that, because he actually didn’t have any alternative… It’s a horrible condemnation of a system that all of those brilliant people from Columbia were going off to represent corporate law firms, and the people whose lives were at stake had to put up with someone like me.”

I ask about the roots of our attitudes to criminality – why humans have, in countless societies, allowed justice to be guided by contempt, and coloured by cruelty. “It really is the elevation of us over the other. That, somehow, we feel that if there’s someone that we disparage as being so subhuman, that we should put them on an altar, and ritually sacrifice them to some god of deterrence – that somehow, that makes us better people.”

He also blames a corrupt political class. “They say we’ve got a problem with crime. And, you know, we’re not going to recognise that this thing we call crime is rooted in lack of educational opportunity, lack of funding, disparities in society, drugs, guns, all these things, that would actually be quite complicated to change. And instead, we say, well, it’s just a bunch of young black men who are terrorising our society, so let’s kill them. And, you know, that’s not just disgusting. It is obviously just a lie. And a racist lie and a pernicious one as well.”

He gives no more shocking an example of the corruption which has worked its way through the system than when discussing Crime Stoppers (Crimestoppers in the UK) tips. The organisation gives people the opportunity to anonymously provide information, and anonymously receive rewards if their tip leads to arrest. He discusses the case of the now-exonerated Shareef Cousin, a sixteen-year old on death row.

“The Crime Stoppers tip that tipped he’d done the crime said Shareef Cousin was 5ft3 113lbs. And I’m sitting next to him and he’s 5ft11 and 170lbs. And I’m wondering – where did they get this bullshit from? And then I look in the police file, and he’d only ever been arrested once, aged twelve, for the heinous crime of CINS – child in need of supervision. And on the police report it said 5ft3 113lbs so, you know, a little lightbulb goes off and I say – ‘well I think the crime-stopper tip came from someone who had that police report…’ So I went to do what any person should ever do – and I’m revealing a trade secret here if you want to solve a capital case. What you do is go and talk to the soon-to-be ex-spouse of the lead detective and you learn everything.” She confirmed his suspicions. “When there’s a murder happened, they decide which young black guy they’re going to go and arrest, and they call the Crime Stopper tip in, then they go and arrest him, then they call back and collect the cash… And that’s what they were doing in every case.”

The conversation then turns to his work with Guantanamo Bay inmates.  “When I first went down, I thought – because I was told that ‘these are the worst of the worst terrorists in the world’ – I bet we’re going to have some explaining to do.’ And I get there, and I had a hell of a time coming up with an honest to goodness terrorist. And the reason, it turned out, and it took me a while to figure this out, was that the majority of prisoners in Guantanamo had been sold for bounties.”

“In 2002, Ahmed Rabbani was turned over to the US as the notorious terrorist ‘Hassan Ghul.’ And he insists from day one that’s he’s not Hassan Ghul, he’s a taxi driver. And they won’t believe him. So, they ship him off to the prison – they paid good money for him, right? – where they torture him in truly medieval ways. But then, in 2014, he’s still languishing in Guantanamo. The senate published their report on CIA torture and in it they corroborate everything Ahmed said, right down to the fact that he insisted he wasn’t Hassan Ghul. But what we didn’t know is that when he was in the dark prison the Americans captured [the real] Hassan Ghul and brought him to a dark prison. Now, Hassan Ghul was corroborating, by which I assume they mean he said he was Hassan Ghul. As opposed to Rabbani, who said he wasn’t. So they let Hassan Ghul go, and he returned to Pakistan where he went back to his wicked ways. And he was killed in a drone strike in 2012. In the meantime, they send Rabbani to Guantanamo where today he’s still there, after 18 years. And you know, this is just the shocking shocking reality of those places. And it becomes your job to do something about it.”

He refers to an inmate who informed, in one ninety-minute meeting, on ninety-three others. “This guy said that he was helping the Americans because he really wanted help with a little problem he had. And he needed to go to America if he snitched for them. So the interrogator in this report I’m reading says “Oh yeah, what’s that?” And the guy says, well – ‘I’ve got a really small penis. And I need to go to America to have penis enlargement surgery.’ And there’s a silence, and the informant says, ‘Would you like to look?’ And to my great relief the interrogator says, ‘No, thank you.’ And this guy was just making bullsh*t up about hundreds of prisoners because of that. And it becomes intelligence. And this same guy included one of the first mentions of Sadaam Hussein having WMDs that resulted in the Iraq War. And this is the stuff these people really believe. ‘Cause it gets put into a form that says intelligence on it, and then it gets passed up the chain, and everyone forgets that the real issue at stake here is whether this guy can get a bigger penis. And, you know, I see this every day.” He notes that much of what he knows is classified; that he has to fight to be able to tell the public about this.  

How could something like this – something so barbaric as to appear absurd – happen under the supervision of a country which so consciously fashions itself as a bastion of freedom, and international leader? “You put someone in the office doing CIA work who believes all that paranoid bullsh*t, and who genuinely believes torturing people will make the world a better place, then they’re going to believe what they get out of it because otherwise they couldn’t live with themselves.”

And he is keen to emphasise that we are little better – “I’m always resistant to is the idea that America’s somehow different from England. In many ways, England is vastly worse.” He’d rather be put on trial in Mississippi than in London, he tells me.  

It would be easy to dismiss Stafford Smith’s beliefs as fantastical – representative of his self-confessed privilege, or of a life untouched by crime and terrorism. But after our conversation, no part of me felt his beliefs existed in the abstract and were anything but born of conviction and, above all, experience.

Even when discussing the seven times he was held up at gunpoint while living in America, it is with a breezy calm, which speaks to a man who makes the same gestures of forgiveness in private as he demands of public judicial systems. “It got to the point where I knew that this arsehole is going to pull a gun on me. And I would say to him, I said: ‘Look, I’m a defence lawyer. And it looks to me like you’re gonna need me one day. Why don’t you go mug a fucking prosecutor and leave me alone?’ And I got my wallet back every time, without the money, but you know?” 

“I’ve got fascinating number of innocent clients,” he tells me, “but I don’t really like representing innocent people.” Instead, he prefers to save the guilty from a system whose brutality vastly outweighs their own. “I’ve represented four hundred people on death row. And I count among them some of my very closest friends, because of course, all of us are better than our worst fifteen minutes… Even you, Jonathan… Even me, dare I say.”

Magdalen College JCR releases statement in wake of Cayman Islands news

Cherwell News and Investigations Section Editors
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Magdalen College JCR releases statement in wake of Cayman Islands news

Magdalen College JCR has released a statement after Dinah Rose’s representation of the Cayman Islands in a case regarding gay marriage. The JCR has confirmed that they “unreservedly and unconditionally supports the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the Cayman Islands and around the world, including the right to marriage” and are looking into ways to show this support. They also stated that they recognised the “importance of legal representation for all”. As a result, the JCR has rejected any calls for Rose to resign as President.

The statement follows a JCR meeting which was held on the 31st of January. The meeting lasted approximately four hours and over 120 people were present at the meeting’s peak, although only approximately 100 of these were present for the final vote. 85% of students voted for the final motion while 11% voted against and 4% abstained.

The statement can be read below in full:

“It has recently come to light that Dinah Rose QC, President of Magdalen College, will be appearing on behalf of the government of the Cayman Islands in an upcoming case. She will represent the government’s position that their constitution does not establish a right to same-sex marriage. The unexpected disclosure of Dinah Rose QC’s involvement in this case has caused distress among students at Magdalen and the wider university, and has been a stark reminder of the distance we still need to cover to secure equal rights around the world.

On the 31st of January, a General Meeting of the Magdalen College JCR discussed this news. The JCR unreservedly and unconditionally supports the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the Cayman Islands and around the world, including the right to marriage. The JCR has resolved to look into ways through which it can support the LGBTQ+ community in the Cayman Islands and around the world, and bring these to a vote in future General Meetings.

The JCR recognises the importance of legal representation for all, a key element of which is not conflating the views of lawyers with those of their clients. This is a fundamental principle of justice which the JCR firmly supports. It therefore rejects calls for Dinah Rose QC to resign from her position as President.

The JCR understands that the coverage of this incident in the Oxford, national and global press has caused significant distress and concern to many students at Magdalen, including some who identify as LGBTQ+. It has resolved to work with Magdalen Staff, the MCR, the Equalities Committee, and all those involved in welfare provision at the college to support LGBTQ+ students and any others affected by these recent events.”

The JCR Committee, on behalf of Magdalen College JCR.

This meeting followed a session between Magdalen students and Dinah Rose QC. While the contents of the meeting were confidential, one student tweeted that Dinah Rose QC would “face questions from Magdalen students about the Cayman litigation. I wish her good luck, and knowledge that many students are fully behind her”.

Many leading legal commentators have issued statements of support for Dinah Rose QC after Edwin Cameron’s criticism. Edward Fitzgerald QC, who is acting on behalf of Chantelle Day and Vicki Bush in the Privy Council case in February, stated that “as a barrister, Dinah Rose QC was acting perfectly properly in accepting the brief for the attorney general in the Day and Bush case. It would be a breach of her professional duty to return it now. It is an important constitutional principle that barristers should not be identified with the clients they represent.” While Dr Leo Raznovich, has argued that Dinah Rose QC’s statement regarding the position of civil partnerships in the Cayman Islands was “misleading”, Joshua Rozenberg QC (hon) has also said: “It’s extraordinary that Dinah Rose, of all people, should be accused of supporting homophobia… Crucially, those who are now attacking the Cayman government’s legal team for acting in this case are giving comfort to those in the UK government who attack “leftie lawyers””.

Bodleian Bangers: Dame Helen Ghosh

Matthew Prudham
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Bodleian Bangers: Dame Helen Ghosh

In the second instalment of Music’s Bodleian Bangers series, interviewing key Oxford dons and alumni about what plays into their ears, Matthew Prudham speaks to Dame Helen Ghosh, Master of Balliol College, former civil servant and former Director-General of the National Trust.

MP: So, first of all, what is the one track or song that you can’t stop listening to, at this moment?

HG: Of all the things I’ve chosen… gosh, this is such a great question! People of my age, we all go back to Desert Island Discs. I think this would be the final ‘which of this records would you choose?’ I think, I think it would be Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, because it’s got tremendous get up and go. You can’t listen to it, and not think “right, get on with it.”

Essentially, the pandemic has been really hard work. Bizarrely hard work even for the heads of colleges, you know, with no students or few students you think we could all do nothing. In fact, it’s been it’s harder to run a college with no students in it, than with lots of students in it, I’ve discovered. The particular thing that I miss is being with students, because the real plus of the job is talking to students, getting your energy, getting ideas. You know, learning about other people’s lives. And if students aren’t there, there’s none of that fun.

MP: Could you just tell us a bit more about the reasoning behind Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Do you find it quite motivational?

HG: For me, it’s both motivational and sentimental. Because I first consciously heard Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony when I was a student. I was a student at St. Hugh’s reading History. I went to a concert that some of my friends were playing with the Oxford University Orchestra in the Sheldonian. It was Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, and I was absolutely blown away by it. I think it’s perhaps one of the sort of unfashionable Beethoven Symphonies. People are supposed to like the more sort of tortured ones- and my husband who is a tremendous classical music expert and lover would always go for one of the late quartets, which are fabulous. But, in terms of you know what is so special about Beethoven, it’s that sense of “Right, come on. Pull yourself together! Get going!” Particularly in the the final movement.

MP: So you just touched on that a little bit so what next what’s your most like when you were studying at Oxford. What the music that you listen to when you were at Oxford, alongside your friends? 

HG: Yeah. Two or three things on that. So, of course, we were students in the mid 1970s (a terrible thing to say). So, really, we didn’t sit there, we couldn’t sit there with things in our ears!  

I still find it strange looking at my children who are 30 and 32. But the idea that you can seriously work with music. I can’t work.  I can’t do the two things. I don’t understand how anybody can but clearly students today can. 

So, I suppose, two things. One of my next-door neighbours, who’s still a great friend, in St. Hughs had some tapes of a wonderful pianist who died very young called Dinu Lipatti. These tapes had two things on them: he had lots of Schubert Impromptus and Chopin, various kinds of Etudes, Nocturnes and so on. We listened to a lot of those sorts of things. Remember this was tapes, there was no downloading, there was no Spotify – you just had to listen to what there was. At the same time – so I said I had some friends who were musicians -, there was a flautist in our year, and she was a member of the University Orchestra so that introduced me, by going to hear them play, to a world of classical music I had never heard; I mean, my parents had some classical music in their record collection… my mother also loved musicals. But, true access to classical music – I mean, I remember getting down to a local record shop and the first LP – again, extraordinary – that I bought, the first classical LP that I bought was was someone playing Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and the Moonlight Sonata.

But, of course, at the same time, it was just a fabulous time for “pop” music. Yes, we listen to we were listening to the Rolling Stones – All of those great sixties bands. Even now, if you play ‘Honey-Tonk Woman’, that’s what I would get up and dance to. It could not have been a better time for partying.

MP: I think that they’re still very much enjoyed with the student population. 

HG: I’ve lived in Oxford ever since I was a student, because my husband is a fellow at St. Annes. In fact, we’ve lived in the same house in south Oxford, just south of the river for 30 odd years.  And so, we have lots of neighbours that we know, families our children have grown up with. And when we have neighbourhood parties, like On New Year’s Eve, it’s things like Elton John’s ‘Crocodile Rock’ or the Rolling Stones or ABBA. Everybody gets up – everybody of all ages, dancing. 

MP: I know one of the things that was really popular, back when we could go out and have fun long ago… there was an ABBA night,  and it was sold out every single week in Durham.

HG: Everybody knows them, and everybody can sing along. Therefore, it feels like a real, wonderful community. I know at Balliol balls they have silent discos.  What is the point of a silent disco? The whole point is all to be singing and dancing at the same thing at the same time. Very old idea, a silent disco. 

MP: What’s brilliant is when you, when you actually take off your headphones for a moment, and then you can hear everyone singing totally out of tune, totally discordant.

HG: Is everyone listening to the same song?

MP: No, because there’s usually two or three different tracks on the headphones. So, you might have some ABBA but also some of the people may be listening to some Beyoncé at the same time, while others are listening to say some Metallica. So you hear this really weird mashup

HG: That is part of the fun, I believe. I think of all the local New Year’s Eve party which of course, sadly, we haven’t been able to have. This is just somebody’s sitting room, kitchen, and lots of families dancing. And the fact is we’re all dancing to the same thing, and we’re all singing to the same thing, you know whether it’s “Dancing Queen” or the Rolling Stones, or whatever it is, Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock”. We’re all singing the same thing, and it’s just lovely.

MP: So, if you had to pick the three most important artists, or composers, in your life, are the ones that have really influenced the way that you think about music, who would you choose?

HG:  If I was thinking autobiographically, I think, about my life and what albums, what pieces of music or collections of music would I say? 

I did ballet when I was young, I didn’t learn to play a musical instrument, ballet was what I did. So, one of my picks in my choice, which I thought of for this, was the final scene from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. I would undoubtedly want a piece of ballet music because of all the pleasure I’ve had seeing it and doing it. So I’d say Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, particularly the Royal Ballet version: just the most wonderful combination of music, Kenneth McMillan’s choreography, and design!

In terms of thinking of growing up… I suppose, Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970). I remember my brother was quite into things like Led Zeppelin, actually Cream – that’s not quite like Led Zeppelin. When I said, “Could you give me a lift. I want to go and get this new record” – it was something like it cost something like four pounds, nineteen shillings and eleven pence, just under five pounds – “I want to just get some money out of my savings account, so I can go buy the new Simon and Garfunkel LP”. He said “What was a terrible waste of money” but actually, all of that just lives with me in many ways forever. 

For a song from that album, it’d have to be “The Only Living Boy In New York”, which I heard Paul Simon sing. I’ve never been – a terrible thing to say – to a ‘pop’ concert, ever. But I did hear Paul Simon live in one of these kinds of very middle-class things that they used to do at Cornbury in Oxfordshire. Hearing him sing “The Only Living Boy In New York”, was just fantastic because he’s been a lifetime hero – 10 years ago I heard him. 

Thinking of later in my life and my family life, I suppose, and the things I’ve enjoyed with my children and my husband, actually, you know, I probably go for some Ella Fitzgerald, her Rodgers and Hart American Songbook. (1956).

MP: I really adore her versions of the songs from Porgy and Bess. I guess they’re just amazing that you actually did with Louis Armstrong I think those are some of my favourite things to him to listen to, especially when you need something that’s relaxing. I think she just has such a soothing tone of voice and it’s fantastic.

HG: She does this scat singing – I love the way she can use her voice as a musical instrument. 

MP: So what has been the best concert that you’ve ever attended had the pleasure of attending?

HG: There’s a question of what the concept meant to you, on the one hand; and how brilliant it was as a musical event, on the other. If it’s what the concert meant to me. Actually, it would be Alfred Brendel playing in Oxford Town Hall, Schubert’s D. 959 Piano Sonata – probably other things as well. The reason that’s important to me is, in fact, my husband. I didn’t go with him I didn’t even know him then –  but I remember looking across Oxford Town Hall and seeing my husband, who was a history student in the same year, thinking “Oh, that’s interesting. Peter Ghosh is here,” you know, I knew him by sight. “Oh, he’s obviously interested in this kind of thing.” It’s probably the first time I sort of registered him at all. So that’s completely sentimental. 

For the other…we always, but clearly not this year, try to go to two or three of the BBC Proms, and we quite regularly get up to London to the Royal Festival Hall and hear pianists or string quartets or whatever they may be. I suppose, probably. I’m trying to think of a particular one. The power of hearing something like one of Mahler symphonies played live – it’s completely extraordinary. 

MP: Yes, yes, yes. I completely agree.

HG: Again, when I was a young civil servant  – so this must have been about 1979 – Peter and I went and heard Rafael Kubelík with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra play Mahler’s First Symphony. I thought it that was simply wonderful – you’ve just got to hear Mahler’s symphonies live.  

MP: So, have you had any concerts, which you had planned to attend, cancelled or postponed thanks to the pandemic?

HG: One of the great jewels in Balliol’s crown is that we have a series, you must look out for them, On Sunday evenings in term time we have four concerts, every term, which are all endowed – that means they’re completely free to the public. What we tend to do is to get up and coming musicians – sort of like BBC Radio Three Young Artists, new generation artists, whatever they’re called – to come. Our students organise it students get in touch with the players. And we had to cancel all of those in TT20. We paid all the musicians, because, you know, we knew how much musicians are struggling at this time. One of the players who would have been fabulous to hear again  – we’ve had him at Balliol before  – is a classical guitarist called Sean Shibe. Last term, we managed to fit in two [of the concerts]. One of them had a jazz quartet, called Dinosaur. 

The other artist we had was a quintet from CHINEKE! They played, amongst other things, a wonderful selection of World Music and European classical music. Part of their repertoire was Schubert’s Trout Quintet, so that was great. We’ve had to cancel people like Pavel Kolesnikov, who was supposed to be coming, and, again we paid them. We had a wonderful programme but this term, we just had to say sorry you can’t come. Here’s the money. 

Another thing we actually managed to keep going – as well as in many other colleges – was the choir. So choral music would actually remind me of pandemic; especially something like Stanford’s Beati Quorum Via. I love English choral music! 

MP: So, I’m going to try and test your knowledge of the music of the youth, so to speak. So, what artists do you think that this year’s freshers are listening to right now?

HG: So, I have the disadvantage that my children are now 30 and 32. So if you had asked me this question 10 years ago when they were both students, I would have been able to answer it. The other problem I think parents have now is that, of course, the music doesn’t fill the house, you could be driving somewhere, and they’ve got their earphones in. You want to listen and you want all singing along which is also a lovely thing to do in the car. 

Are they listening to people like Robyn? It depends what kind of thing. I mean I think what’s amazing is just how broad people’s tastes are now. People can listen to sort of cheerful people like Taylor Swift, Robyn’s quite cheerful…  and then of course, there are all of these just amazing musicians – whether it’s what I think is rap or garage – I imagine people listened to quite an eclectic mix. 

MP: Personally, I can go from listening to some Dua Lipa who’s been absolutely fantastic – to listening to some of the indie rock music, like Shame, that I very much enjoy. I think the availability of the streaming services has meant people have been able to just listen to whatever they want, whenever they want, which is just fantastic.

HG: Of course, the music culture now is very different and creates a sort pretend sense of community. Is there a common canon? Now, like with so much of culture, what’s the value of a common canon?  How do you weigh that against the against the wonderful opportunity of greater diversity? I mean that’s a question in every cultural person’s head. 

MP: People do try and keep up with what’s happening the charts and stuff. There’s always like the big hits playlists on any streaming service so I think people do end up listening to some of the same artists, but then people can be  listening to things back from the 70s, or 60s, or 50s, or to more diverse and obscure artists, and even things from overseas. 

HG: It’s instant gratification! I have two children, as I say. My daughter lives and works in London. My son is in fact in Oxford, an Early Career Fellow at Jesus. And so, obviously, we haven’t seen that much then but we’re consuming, and you know, we had a brief period where we were able to go for a holiday in North Yorkshire with our son. But one of the things we always do when we’re going together on a long car journey is that [her children] put together a playlist. 

I think one of the things I was going to say – this was a song that I would associate with the pandemic year is that wonderful Taylor Swift song “London Boy”. It’s sort of a very witty song that she wrote about whichever British person – Tom Hiddleston or someone – she had been going out with; I think she’s been out with a succession of British boyfriends. She puts on a bit of a cockney accent; it’s all about going to Camden Market; “Do you fancy me?”, I mean, with a joking tone. Although I think some contemporary music just takes itself too seriously, I loved that. I had no idea about Taylor Swift before but now happily have that on my Desert Island. 

MP: Yeah, I think some people are thinking that she was referencing to Gemma Collins at one point – I found that hilarious. 

HG: So I keep up to date, but not as much as I should. 

MP: So what other music reflects your experience of the pandemic over the past year? 

HG: Like everybody, I was thinking “Right, okay, lockdown, and what do I do? Self-improvement!” There are two things I tried. One of them is intellectual, which was finishing James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I had meant to do for a long time. The other was to do Couch to 5k. Although I’ve been doing a bit of running over the years and have occasionally done a 5K, it was just to get me back up to speed. I did the NHS Programme and I was so proud of myself for being able to run a 5k without stopping – unfortunately, I did it so enthusiastically I then managed to hurt my ankle so I stopped and had to start again! If you asked me “what am I proud of?”. I did Couch to 5k. Okay, so going with that for a running song I would say Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (1985). Definitely one of my pandemic songs. 

Another thing was that we find ourselves shut up with our families. And in our case, you know, my husband and I – Peter is upstairs as we speak.  I can hear his tutorials because I’m downstairs in the conservatory and he’s upstairs in his study – I mean our study! – teaching something about history.  The pandemic tests whether or not you can get on and that you’ve still got things in common. We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary, last year, had a wonderful family holiday in India to celebrate. But it’s nice to discover actually, you can do it, and the sort of theme song for that would be. And this also reminds me of one of my favourite films When Harry Met Sally. “It Had to Be You”, the Frank Sinatra song (1980). (Sings) “For all your faults I love you still. I didn’t like these people who were cross or never crossed or try to be boss, it had to be you”… because we both think we’re always right.  So, definitely that one! 

MP: Finally, if you could sum up Oxford in a song, what song would you choose? 

HG: A song about Oxford or what Oxford means to me? 

MP: I’d say…both? 

HG: Good heavens, that’s a tough one. Do You ask everybody that question? 

MP: Yeah! 

HG: Let’s think… It’s got to be a piece of music that encompasses so many things. So, if you think of the city, it’s got to sum up beauty because it is a beautiful place. And it’s got to sum up, having some sense of the length of time. I will say to students, “one of the things that Oxford should give you is this sense that ‘Yes we live today, but there’s centuries of past and centuries of future and what we worry about or what we believe may seem very strange in a few years’ time, what we worry about will be trivial’”. So, it’s good to have a sense of time and space. Obviously, there’s learning, there’s thinking about the common good. 

It’s not a perfect choice, but how about Jessye Norman, one of Strauss’ Four Last Songs: beautiful, serious, thinking about the end of things as well as current. I’m just trying to remember what the last one is called… “Im Abendrot?” You could choose something English [like Alan Rusbridger], but it’s such an international university now. 

MP: I know ! When I am in my accommodation, I think I’m one of the only two Brits, which is absolutely brilliant. 

HG: Across the University, I think about 80% of the graduates are international, 20% UK, partly because – having seen my son go through all this – it’s so hard for UK students to get funding. Particularly for humanities – very, very difficult – which is why the University is focusing so much on raising funds for research scholarships and particularly for groups who are even more marginalised, such as UK black students. Undergraduates I think it’s about the reverse.

So, we’ve talked about Beethoven seven, we’ve talked about ballet music, and all the rest, and we’ve even talked about “Crocodile Rock” (laughs). 

MP: it’s a very eclectic mix we’ve got here so I’m sure people will be very eager to hear it! 

Listen to Dame Helen Ghosh’s ‘Bodleian Bangers’ Spotify mix @cherwellmusic. Image credits: Balliol College, Oxford.

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