Wednesday 2nd July 2025
Blog Page 427

Social distancing patrols in Oxford after rise in coronavirus cases

Mark Robins
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Social distancing patrols in Oxford after rise in coronavirus cases

Oxford City Council is enforcing local patrols and inspections to ensure residents adhere to social distancing rules. A spike in cases has led to fears that Oxford could be put under local lockdown restrictions.

Case numbers have fallen since mid-August, lowering the city’s alert status from amber to yellow. However, Oxfordshire’s Director for Public Health warned residents to “stay on guard.” The BBC reports that there were 18 cases in the week up to 3rd September, 14 fewer than the previous week.

The Council announced that six officers are carrying out daily patrols in the city centre to ensure social distancing is followed. They will also check that pubs and restaurants are complying with government regulations.

The Council is working closely with food vans and takeaways, where social distancing is difficult, to emphasise the need for face masks and collecting track and trace data.

The Council says that the increase in cases was “predominantly among young people” and is targeting 18-29 year-olds specifically through a social media campaign promoting mask wearing. Meanwhile, posters have been placed in bus stops in areas where young people live and gather.

Oxfordshire County Council told Cherwell it is working with both universities in Oxford to plan for the control of the virus.   

A new coronavirus testing centre was opened at Oxford Brookes last week, open to anyone with symptoms. The free swab test takes less than a minute and returns results the next day. Oxford University students will also have access to the University’s dedicated testing service for staff and students.

Ansaf Azhar, Director for Public Health, warned residents to stay vigilant, saying that 18-29 years were the “catalyst” for increased case numbers.

Mr Azhar said: “While the figures are going in the right direction, now is not the time to relax. We’ve had an uncomfortable period of being statistically close to areas of the country that we know are on the Government watchlist.

“It may be that the message is getting through to people that they must self-isolate if they are returning from holiday in a country that is not on the exemption list. It may also be that people have responded by remembering to do the basics – keeping their distance, washing their hands and wearing a face covering.

“What is for certain is that if we forget those basics again and slide into bad habits, those figures will rise once more and we’ll be heading at speed into becoming an area of concern for central Government and ultimately lockdown.”

He added: “We have been heavily targeting messages at the 18-29 year old age group that had been the catalyst for this rise in cases in Oxford. We hope to have had an impact. However the reminder is a constant one for everyone. Do not let your guard down. COVID-19 is still circulating and the only way to suppress it is by our own actions as individuals, families, colleagues and neighbours.

“This advice will apply this week, next week and every week until we are able nationally and internationally to say that COVID-19 no longer presents a risk. We are watching the statistics on a daily basis and will respond to trends as they emerge.”

Image credit to David Iliff/ License: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Self-isolation for international students: How has your college responded?

Amelia Wood
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Self-isolation for international students: How has your college responded?

Government guidance means that students travelling from certain countries overseas will have to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival in the UK. Following Oriel College’s controversial decision to charge international students self-isolating there before term over £700, including a nearly £30 per day food bill, Cherwell has conducted an investigation into colleges’ self-isolation policies for international students.

Colleges have varied widely in their approach to rent over this period. Some colleges, including Hertford, Magdalen, Queen’s, and Worcester College, have opted make accommodation free, while others are charging at their normal termly rate.

Food provision has been another point of difference. Some colleges, such as Balliol, have opted to use the third party Compass Catering to provide meals to isolating students – at a cost of around £18 per day for three meals. Other colleges are opting to provide meals in house or are giving students facilities to cook. Students at St. Anne’s and Oriel will face a total bill of over £500 for the 14 day period.

When students must arrive by and where they will be housed also differs, from graduate blocks to term time rooms. Finally, some colleges have emphasised welfare support to those isolating. New College has designated specific locations within college for students to exercise. St Peter’s College has organised daily welfare checks and afternoon activities.  

See how colleges have responded below.

Balliol College: Students self-isolating before term are encouraged to return to college by 15th September. Students will be charged for the full cost of two weeks of rent for the room they have been allocated. Hot meals can be purchased from Compass Catering, at a cost of £15 per day plus 20% VAT for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Orders must be made 72 hours in advance and are charged to students’ battels. Takeaways and shopping can be delivered to the lodge, providing students can find a non-isolating friend to deliver it to them as porters will not be delivering to rooms.

Brasenose College: Students who need to quarantine are encouraged to arrive by 19th September and will be charged standard rates for their room band. Isolating students may spend 30 minutes per day in the quads if wearing a face covering. Meals may be catered from Hall, though it is unclear whether students can have takeaways and shopping delivered.

Christ Church: Students travelling from outside the UK should arrive back in Oxford by 15th September at the latest. Students will be provided with catering facilities and a small group of student helpers will be around to assist with shopping and food deliveries. 

Corpus Christi College: No information yet.

Exeter College:  Overseas quarantining students are encouraged to arrive from 14th September. Students will typically be allowed to isolate in their term room, with the same rent price as during term. Meals can be collected from the Servery at the usual cost or from an ‘external contractor’.

Hertford College: Those who must self-isolate before term have been asked between 7th and 13th September. They will receive rooms in the Graduate Centre/Folly Bridge, moving into their term time room once the 14 day isolation period has finished. Quarantine accommodation comes at no charge to students.

Jesus College: Students can arrive as early as 7th September. Isolating students will be provided with an ensuite room. The catering team will provide three meals per day to the door, provided that students pre-book. The meals will be charged to battels, but details on accommodation costs were not specified. They also suggest renting an Airbnb or getting food deliveries from Tesco or Ocado.

Keble College: Students can arrive at any point provided that they leave enough time to finish their isolation period before the beginning of term. Three meals per day can be delivered to the door, if desired, at the cost of £18 per day. Grocery deliveries are also possible. Keble accommodation is almost exclusively ensuite, and students will be housed in their term rooms, at the cost of £5 per night. Financial support is also available for struggling students.

Lady Margaret Hall: No information yet

Lincoln College: No information yet.

Magdalen College: Students who need to quarantine have been asked to return on September 7th, 10th, 14th, or 17th. The cost of accommodation will be automatically covered by the Student Support Fund, so there will be no additional rent cost. The email made no mention of food provision.

Mansfield College: No information yet.

Merton College: According to the college’s website’s FAQs on coronavirus, provision of food, accommodation, and regular visits from the welfare team. Prices are not mentioned. 

New College: Self-isolating students must have completed their quarantine period by the beginning of their term time lease in October but should also not complete it before their lease is due to start. Accommodation for this period will be charged at £22.12 per night plus insurance until 1st October, when it will increase to £23.04 per night. This means the minimum rent cost for the 14 days is £310.10. Students may only leave their room to exercise on college grounds or to collect food deliveries from the Porters Lodge. Food provisions were not specified. 

Oriel College: Read our article here. International isolating students will be charged a flat cost of £400 for food over the two weeks for three meals per day, which breaks down to just £9.52 per meal or £28.57 per day, batteled. The total cost including accommodation is over £700. Students must arrive by 18th September. There are “some funds” available for anyone in financial hardship. 

Pembroke College: Students should arrive ideally by 20th September, but by the 23rd at the latest. Rooms will be priced according to the room band, and students will be batteled for the extra 14 day residence period. Food will be ‘available’ but exact arrangements were said to depend on the accommodation type. Anyone in financial hardship can contact the college as usual.

Queen’s College: Those who must quarantine before term should arrive on 20th September. They will be housed in ensuite accommodation. Food parcels will be provided to students on arrival and then can be ordered online. All charges, including rent and food, have been waived by the college, but there is still funding available to support any students with financial problems. 

St Anne’s College: Students should return to college on the week of September from the 12th to the 19th. They will be given ensuite rooms that will be deep-cleaned by scouts once the isolation period is completed. Hot meals will be delivered to the room. The total cost including food and rent is £548.10. Anyone who may struggle from the cost is urged to contact the Treasury.

St Catherine’s College: No information yet.

St Edmund’s Hall: No information yet.

St Hilda’s College: No information yet.

St Hugh’s College: Students should arrive between the 14th and the 17th. There is a flat charge of £350, covering both ensuite accommodation and food for the 14 day period. Once students have finished their self-isolation, the rooms will be deep-cleaned ready for term-time students. 

St John’s College: No information yet.

St Peter’s College: After checking into college, students who must self-isolate will be directed straight to their allocated accommodation where they must remain for 14 days. They must have arrived by 19th September. Students will isolate in their term time room and be charged rent at the normal daily rate. St Peter’s Kitchens can deliver hot food to student’s doors for £14 per day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Compass Catering can also supply three meals for around £18 per day. If other food deliveries are arranged to mainsite, a non-quarantining friend will be required to collect it from the Porters Lodge. Outdoor areas have been assigned for exercise. Daily welfare checks will take place during the isolation period. Academics and students will be running activity programmes in the afternoon. Anyone in need of financial support should contact the Student Finance Officer.

Somerville College: No information yet.

Trinity College: No information yet.

University College: International undergraduates should arrive from the 14th to the 17th September. The accommodation will be charged at £20.61 a night, the lowest normal nightly rate. Students isolating on arrival will be grouped into households. Non-isolating students have been given the option to volunteer for “delivering food” and “providing support” to the international students in exchange for free accommodation and meals during that time.

Wadham College: International undergraduates should arrive between the 14th and 16th September. Students will be able to purchase food boxes from the college. Accommodation will be made available ‘where possible’ to isolating students. ‘The charge for vacation residence will depend on site and arrival date’. Students can apply to the hardship fund. The college did not reply to further enquiries about cost.

Worcester College: All students, regardless of whether or not they have to quarantine as they have come from abroad, have been allowed to return to college early at no cost. The college decided to revert its previous decision to charge for the self-isolation period following concerns raised by the undergraduates. 

If your college is missing and you have information, please contact [email protected].

Students asked to sign COVID-19 Responsibility Agreement

David Tritsch
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Students asked to sign COVID-19 Responsibility Agreement

The University has announced that all students will be asked to sign a COVID-19 Student Responsibility Agreement at the start of the 2020/21 academic year. The agreement supplements students’ existing responsibilities under University and college student contracts.

Each student is expected to make eight commitments about their behaviour by signing the agreement. These include “abiding by all national public health regulations brought in to stop the spread of COVID-19,” as well as “the University and/or colleges’ specific guidance on health measures, together with local public health guidance as relevant.”

The agreement explicitly commits students to follow college/University guidelines on how to interact with and share communal spaces with members of their household. If they live in a private household, they commit to following the relevant Government/Public Health England guidance. Additionally, students are expected to request a test via the University’s testing service if they experience COVID-like symptoms and to notify their College and Department.

Students will be expected to participate fully in any contact tracing if they are requested to do so and will be held responsible for ensuring that their guests adhere to the same standards of behaviour in University, college, or other spaces.

The University’s website states: “The purpose of the Agreement is not to prescribe an additional code of discipline; it is to support community safety and well-being. It is an affirmation of shared values – community, consideration for others, patience and tolerance, and inclusion.”

Students are encouraged to speak to a relevant welfare contact or Departmental Administrator should they believe that someone’s conduct is “persistently and unreasonably creating serious risk.” Possible consequences that the University has committed to range from a discussion with individuals about their behaviour to disciplinary action.

However, students are reminded that circumstances will be different and “any response must be appropriate and proportionate.” Regarding the wearing of masks, the University’s website urges students to “remain mindful of possible valid reasons for not wearing a mask, and not challenge an individual about this, no matter how tactfully.”

The full agreement and FAQs can be found here.

Comfort Films Medley – Chocolat, Call Me by Your Name, Ferris Bueller

Sarah Townsend
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Comfort Films Medley – Chocolat, Call Me by Your Name, Ferris Bueller

During the summer vacation, countless people wish they could ‘pull a Donna Sheridan’ and escape to the Greek island from Mamma Mia! For me, there are three perfect summer films that offer a similar holiday escapism: Chocolat (2001), Call Me by Your Name (2017), and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). 

“But isn’t Chocolat set during Easter?” I hear you ask. You’re right, it is, and it doesn’t have an ABBA soundtrack. Nonetheless, its protagonist, a free-spirited traveller, and its rural French setting are comforting to the housebound, and remind me of a summer holiday I’m yet to experience.

Based on a novel by Joanne Harris, the story is sweet and simple: single mother Vianne (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter travel whichever way the North wind blows, settling in a sleepy French town where outsiders are unwelcome. Much to the dismay of Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), the old-fashioned mayor, they open a chocolate shop during Lent, offering sweet treats to tempt the locals. The film even introduces a hint of magic with Vianne’s supernatural ability to prescribe chocolate as a remedy for each customer’s problems. The story is pleasant and charming enough to resemble a countryside fairy tale.

It’s true, Chocolat might be more of a springtime drama than a ‘summer lovin’ romance – but with rich food and a happy ending, it offers a gentle reminder to enjoy the vacation and indulge in all things sweet.

Then again, after the amount of chocolate I ate during lockdown, the freedom to indulge in my every whim might just have lost its appeal. In all honesty, the end of term meant the freedom to sleep – a lot. Summer is just a breakdown of daily structure, with longer hours and less to do.

Easily a modern summer favourite, Call Me by Your Name is the perfect embodiment of this lazy vacation feeling. Based on André Aciman’s novel, 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) spends the quiet summer of 1983 in his family’s Italian villa, striking up a passionate romance with 24-year-old Oliver (Armie Hammer), his father’s archaeology student intern. It must be said that considering the uncomfortable age gap, Call Me by Your Name does not portray the perfect relationship. Still, by ensuring that the film is entirely from Elio’s perspective, director Luca Guadagnino transforms the intense, short-lived summer romance into a sensual coming of age tale. Through an exploration of unrestrained sexuality, the film focuses on Elio’s awakening to desire, love, and heartbreak.

“It was very important for us for the movie not to look period, for the movie not to look like a reflection on the 80s,” said Guadagnino at the New York Film Festival of 2017. In line with Guadagnino’s artistic vision, costume designer Giulia Piersanti avoided ‘80s clichés’ in favour of more ambiguous, loose-fitting outfits. In her words, the costumes communicated “a sense of summer heat and sensuality” – and this is the essence of the film. With its pastel colour palette and Northern Italian setting, Guadagnino creates a dream-like film in which one summer’s day seems to blur into another.

But if I said that a summer classic is anything that captures the lazy ‘what day is it today’ feeling, I’d be sorely mistaken. If there’s one film that teaches you to make full use of a perfect summer’s day, it is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. A teen comedy blockbuster written and directed by John Hughes, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is one of those 80s classics that never gets old.

One of Hughes’s most beloved characters, Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) is the high school student everyone wishes they were – popular, brainy, and not afraid to skip school. Having convinced his parents that he’s ill, Ferris trades in stuffy classrooms for a sunny day out in Chicago with his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) and best-buddy Cameron (Alan Ruck). With ingenious plans to cover his tracks, Ferris’s quick wit is put to the test as he escapes the wrath of two amusing opponents: uptight principal Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), and Ferris’s sour-faced sister Jeanie (Jennifer Gray). From witty dialogue to slapstick comedy, the film is both inventive and hilarious.

Described by John Hughes as his “love letter to Chicago”, Ferris’s fast-paced adventures show the city in all its glory. Even including an iconic public performance of ‘Twist and Shout’, Hughes creates the perfect high-energy setting for the film’s carefree ‘live for the moment’ mentality.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has been hailed as a pop culture touchstone, and ‘iconic’ is the right word to use. Decades later, some of the film’s most famous scenes have been recreated in the likes of Deadpool and Family Guy, and this comes as no surprise. Infallible Ferris Bueller serves us the fantasy of fun without consequence – the ultimate feel-good film even 34 years later.

Whether you’re longing for a Chocolat style French holiday or an escape to sunny Chicago, I can’t help but feel that it’s Call Me by Your Name that best describes the summer of 2020. No, unfortunately I’m not referring to a dreamy Italian romance, but when Oliver asks Elio what he does during his vacation, to which he responds: “Nothing. Wait for summer to end.” Yeah, I can relate.

Image via Wiki Images

Glutton for Horror

Sophia Zu
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Glutton for Horror

Mild Spoilers for Spirited Away and Pan’s Labyrinth

Of all the sins, gluttony is the only one we truly commit against ourselves, where the implications of the sin are seen in the sinner. There is a visceral image to gluttony, which itself derives from the old French word “gluton” meaning wolverine—teeth glistening with spittle, jaw agape, tongue flailing. There’s a biting irony in this. We—a species that has done irreparable damage to an entire planet with our own gluttony—metamorphosed the image of gluttony into an animalistic farce. It is a potent vehicle for horror because it allows us to empathise with and fear its consequences while assigning the blame to others.

Spirited Away, a movie from my childhood which I am still scared to watch to this day, features one of the most subversive and horrific representations of gluttony in film. Chihiro, the ten year old protagonist, is moving with her parents to a new home when they accidentally take a wrong turn that leads to an abandoned amusement park. While exploring the area, her parents stumble upon an empty restaurant filled with food (think pintxo bar in San Sebastian)—and they eat.

They eat, and they eat. Chihiro wanders off, and (I’m editorialising to not reveal too much of the plot) when she returns her parents have morphed into snarling adult pigs; snouts covered in drool, chewed up food falling at their feet.

The scene is so effective in its horror because the image of raptorial pigs is terrifying enough in its own right. However, Hayao Miyazaki (the director) also uses gluttony as a precise metaphor for the permeation of Western materialism in post-war Japanese society at the turn of the 21st century. Chihiro’s westernized parents, from their imported car to their European-style dress, stand in stark contrast with the aesthetics of the rest of the film, which draw on traditional Japanese influences. The gluttony in the earlier scenes serves as a thesis from which the rest of the film will draw on—the sly encroachment of capitalism, maximalism and consumerism welcomed with open arms by metaphorical pigs.

In Pan’s Labyrinth, Ofelia, 10 years old and terrified in a hostile military camp ruled by her tyrannical new stepfather, ventures into the lair of the Pale Man to retrieve a magical dagger (again, I am editorialising the lore and story line a bit). When elements of gluttony are matched with unlikely suspects, the jarring disorientation that ensues provides another avenue for horror. A feast awaits her; platters of roast turkey and delectable dishes cast shadows in a dank stone room. At the head of the table, in front of a crackling fireplace, sits the monster itself; a famed child-eater staring into a plate empty except for two eyeballs—its own.

In a movie filled with the devastating misery of war, the scene with the Pale Man stands out. Ofelia had been instructed by a magical faun to not eat anything, but, in a moment of weakness, she gives into the banquet and begins to eat. The elements of horror in this scene are exaggerated and precise—the Pale Man absorbs the eyeballs into his hands, fanning out his digits into a ragged mane framing his face. Ofelia escapes miraculously but not without the Pale Man capturing a few of the fairies who accompanied her and eating them whole.

It is difficult to understand or sympathise with Ofelia’s actions in this scene—why could she not just retrieve the dagger and leave? The years of nightmares that followed accidentally watching this scene as a 5-year old seem particularly unnecessary when I found out that she personally awoke the Pale Man and brought the scene upon herself. This contributes to the slightly outlandish terror of this scene—it was completely avoidable. 

The villainisation of gluttony logically accompanies our fatphobic society, where food can be either celebrated or vilified depending on the body consuming it. The discourse around bodies—what’s beautiful, what’s not—have created the myth of “good” and “bad” figures under the guise of health and wellness. Guillermo del Toro, the director of Pan’s Labyrinth, used this internal bias when designing the Pale Man’s appearance, whose flabby, pale skin was inspired by the excess of skin tissue after dramatic weight loss. 

For filmmakers, gluttony is a useful technique for horror because there is no end to the dramatic imagery to which it is associated—bigger bodies, snarling animals, or a combination of both projected onto mythical monsters. It is the subversion of safe spaces—food, which is typically shared with family and friends—into sinister overarching evils that makes its usage all the more unnerving. The nightmarish landscape of food production, with billions of animals destined for blood-soaked slaughterhouses, is deeply entrenched in the modern globalist hellscape we live in. Filmmakers are able to tap into this modern horror, and use it with deft storytelling to craft and weld fear. 

Opinion: Why I won’t volunteer for access events

Joseph Drakeley
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Opinion: Why I won’t volunteer for access events

As a working-class student, talk of access is particularly personal. Discussions of access in Oxford sometimes seems so abstracted, revolving around a desire to increase numbers while neglecting the duty to create an environment conducive for the people behind those numbers to thrive. The notion of Oxford being accessible brings up a myriad of emotions relating to my own experiences, and also my fears for people like me who have yet to arrive here.

Living life through working class lenses, I’ve become no stranger to the classism still very much alive within certain segments of our student population. I have been asked “how I finessed my way into Oxford” after telling someone my dad was a painter and decorator, told that my school background should have had no effect on my performance here and that my poor first year results were not related in any way, proclaimed to be “middle class now you’re at Oxford” when talking about how proud I am to be from a working-class background.

These micro-aggressions seek to completely erase my upbringing and invalidate the difficulties involved with securing a place at Oxford for someone like me. Additionally, I’ve faced more direct forms of bigotry, having been mocked for my accent multiple times. Other facets of college life such as exclusive drinking societies lead to a greater feeling of alienation for the working-class.

Although my personal experiences are echoed by other students like me, these issues are often boiled down to a failure to assimilate into the mindset of the elite. At open days, I felt pressured to simply laugh about the uncomfortable facets of life here and tell applicants they’d get used to it in the end. But this distracts from the classism that is a very real presence in Oxford. We’re told we suffer from mere imposter syndrome, and that we would fit in by simply having more self-confidence. Never has it been acknowledged that middle and upper-class students have a role to play in making us feel welcome at the university. Instead, the burden is on us working-class students to drop our accents and eccentricities in order to better assimilate with our peers.

With regards to the university’s progress in improving working class access, 12.2% of Oxford’s admitted undergraduates in 2019 came from ACORN 4 and 5, the two most socioeconomically disadvantaged groups according to the measure. This figure, which is a 3.6% increase over the proportion of ACORN 4 and 5 students admitted in 2015, is largely in line with the percentage of students from these postcodes which receive AAA or higher at A-level across all UK universities which in 2017 was 12.1%. However, ACORN is a postcode-based measure of socioeconomic disadvantaged, which might miss out working-class students who do not fall into specific postcodes. On the other hand, some middle-class students may fall into ACORN 4 and 5 postcodes, and their admission into Oxford would not spell a victory for working-class access. Oxford may be in line with other universities when it comes to accepting high achieving working-class students, but that shouldn’t be a praiseworthy outcome as it would be the bare minimum if the university were to take no positive action. If our university truly cared about getting more working-class students through the door, admissions should be more tailored to acknowledge the specific circumstances that each student is in whilst applying here.

When it comes time for college to recruit volunteers for open days, I find myself asking why, as a gay working-class man, would I recommend someone to study in a place which has made me feel so unwelcome. The complexity of the issue has made it difficult for me to turn up to access events. I’m not against making Oxford more accessible, but access events sugarcoat the reality of being a working-class student in what is still, in my experience, a highly classist and problematic environment. The Oxford touted as inclusive and accessible in open days has issues that can’t just be fixed by mere repetition of those positive labels.

When I volunteered at open day events during my first year, I found myself spewing generic lines about how inclusive Oxford is and how it is great to meet people from all walks of life, not once reflecting on the fact that as a working-class student, I have never really felt like I fit in. These events essentially present an idealised version of the working-class student experience, hiding the negative experiences that we’ve had to face throughout our time here. We’re an asset to the university only when it comes to matters of access, but are often left to feel unwelcome or like a burden. Volunteering made me complacent in sweeping issues under the rug, as I feared that revealing the faults would put students off applying, which is counterproductive towards greater diversity which the university so needs.

I would love to be that student that raves about how great and welcoming a place Oxford is, but I would be lying. But I am also aware that it would be unfair for me to volunteer at open days and tell every working-class student to run for the hills. Although issues at our university persist, voices speaking out against the inequalities faced by working-class students, such as Melanie Onovo, grow more and more vocal in advocacy, giving me a glimmer of hope for change in Oxford’s future.

Of masks and masquerades in 2020 – from necessity to accessory?

Sophie Grapentin
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Of masks and masquerades in 2020 – from necessity to accessory?

Masks might seem strange, unusual, and new to the British fashionista but in many countries face coverings have been used for both hygiene and fashion long before the events of 2020 unfolded. When watching a YouTube video on the day of a Japanese Cosplayer I was struck by the young woman putting on a mask before leaving the house. Being asked why, she merely said that her make-up wasn’t finished yet and so she wanted to cover her face.

To be able to stay with family, I myself spent this pandemic in Germany where masks became mandatory in late April. At first the response overwhelmed the country. Free patterns were available online, elastic was sold out in all the shops and avid crafters made masks for friends, relatives, and neighbours. However the longer time went on, the less enthusiastic people were about masks. Despite them still being mandatory on public transport and in shops, the masks came off. Slowly they started slithering down people’s faces, first covering only their mouths, and now hanging under their chins. People take them off to eat or drink or sneeze inside train cabins and rip them off their faces as soon as they can. But officially masks are here to stay and now the UK too has made masks obligatory for public transport and shops.

Joining the avid crafters my sister and I made masks too. When I saw my friends suffer while I was in a different country and had no way to go to them, sending them a cloth mask became my way to tell them that I care. In digging through fabric scraps for their favourite colours, I had a chance to say all the things I wanted to say to them. It meant, I want people to see you and who you are even when your face is covered. It meant, I want you to be safe when I have no other ways of keeping you safe. It meant, I want you to remember me even when you haven’t seen me in months and it meant, I’m keeping you in my thoughts too. Masks became a form of love language when things felt uncertain.

Over the past months, many clothes brands also started producing masks from leftover fabrics, often before mask wearing became mandatory in July. With economic insecurity fashion brands producing luxury goods like silk lingerie switched to masks. The British lingerie company Harlow & Fox created seven different designs of silk and lace masks. Developments like this allowed customers to support their favourite small businesses even when they had to tighten their purse strings.

Yet, while this little bit of fabric has taken up an array of meanings and social functions in the past months, it has not yet become a true fashion accessory. Fashion generally has suffered this year. Without parties and dinners, or drinks and club nights we simply don’t have the audience to show off a look. But fashion production didn’t stop and in many places clothing stores have reopened. Pictures of long lines in front of fast fashion stores like Primark went around the world and a friend from London sent me a short video of a line in a luxury shopping area she titled ‘URGENT Louis Vuitton buys’. Clearly people want clothes and clearly people are willing to make an effort to get them, whether they are spending a lot of money on it or a little.

But fashion is not the same as clothes. On the streets people seem to wear what they already had; many appear to have gone to the back of their closets to find something that feels new. Even white skinny jeans appeared back on the streets just a few weeks after several fashion writers had published their love-letters and goodbyes to the body-clinging style. Luxury brands which would usually maintain the strong-hold for the impractical, ridiculous, and fashionable have focused their latest releases on commerciality. The 2020 resort collection Chanel has debuted online could not be playing safer. Navy, white and red for summer are as revolutionary as florals for spring. Their wide-legged trousers were cute, and I enjoyed the chain belts placed directly on naked skin. But in the end, not a piece in this collection was particularly new or exciting. Now, if a luxury fashion house with millions behind them doesn’t have the capacity for fashion this season, what will happen to the rest of us?

Even couture season, the place for fashion designers to make the impossible possible with the help of the best craftsmen in the world, disappointed. Not because the fashion wasn’t beautiful. With nods to the past and lots of glamour, Christian Dior, Ulyana Sergeenko, or Valentino invited the audience to dream simultaneously about an idealised past and an idealised future. Yet it seems that facemasks fit into neither fashion fantasy. Only Victor & Rolf’s couture show included a black cloth mask which a commentator with the optimistic tone and apocalyptic expectations of a 1940s war morale film narrator called “the smartest new accessory of the season”. However, the mask disappeared afterwards and even the models showing outerwear did not wear one during the rest of the show.

Masks might not be high fashion (yet) but that should not deter us from having fun with them. My mother might not be a fashion icon, nevertheless the matching of her cloth masks to her summer dresses and blouses perfectly fits the monochromatic, head to toe, matchy-matchy looks we know so well from social media. And even if protecting others isn’t the new black, being kind will always be in fashion.

Bin or Bake? Reducing your food waste

Katie Schutte
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Bin or Bake? Reducing your food waste

How much food did you leave on your plate the last time you ate? Maybe it was just a rogue potato, or some stray salad leaves, but did you consider the consequence? Each time we throw leftovers in the bin we’re contributing to one of the biggest challenges our society faces today: climate change.

There’s the humanitarian concern to consider too – since lockdown, 1.5 million Britons have gone without food for a whole day due to lack of money or access to food.  But when we throw away food, few of us consider the wasted energy and water taken to grow, harvest, transport, and package it. In 2019, only 55% of food consumed was produced in the UK, and 26% imported from the EU. 

Once in landfill, food decomposes and releases methane, a greenhouse gas which is about 80 times more powerful than CO2 at warming the Earth over a 20-year timescale.  In fact, food waste is responsible for 6% of global greenhouse gases. 

Overall, about one-third of all the food produced in the world goes to waste.  If we look at figures on an individual level in the UK, it’s equally shocking: in 2015 studies found that each person wastes about 108kg of food every year, 77kg of which is edible.  Unlike other environmental concerns, such as single-use plastic, which we can easily cast-off as a problem for governments and corporations to address with policy, food waste isn’t so easy to distance from our own conscience. The government-funded charity Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) released a report this year that household food waste makes up 70% of UK post-farm-gate food waste. This incorporates all food waste production – from manufacture and wholesale, to the retail and hospitality sector – minus that arising in primary production. 

So whilst it may not feel harmful to throw out the odd bread crust, food waste is an environmental (and humanitarian) concern that we have significant influence over.  Fortunately there are plenty of easy ways we can adapt our behaviour in order to minimise this global issue.

1.              Buy less

How many times have you heard that prevention is better than cure? When it comes to food waste, it’s better to not produce the waste in the first place than to find ways to dispose it. Consumerism drives waste, and if there was a reduction in demand then the system would stop producing more food than individuals need.

A good way to avoid buying more food than you can eat before it spoils is to check your fridge and cupboards. People have habitual shopping habits, buying the same products each week as well as buying on impulse, but you might already have food that needs finishing first. And be realistic – do you really need a 2 litre carton of milk (no-one needs that much coffee to get through an all-night essay crisis) or an entire loaf of bread if it’s just for you? Shop smart and the environment, and your bank account, will thank you for it.

2.              Organisation

We’ve all done it: opened a tin of tuna or jar of tomato sauce when there’s already one open in the fridge. One study showed that for nearly a quarter of people in Britain, the main reason they discard food is because they forgot what they had in the fridge.  Try to organise your fridge using the FIFO method, ‘First In, First Out’, by placing the oldest food and opened cans at the front. This way you can avoid opening the fridge to the not-so-pleasant smell of sour cream, or discovering a mouldy can of chickpeas hiding at the back.

3.              Consider what you waste

Here I would like to take the opportunity to praise any vegans reading this list. Food waste is not equal in its carbon emissions. Most of us are aware that meat and dairy products have much higher carbon emissions than fruit and vegetables, and it follows that reducing the amount of meat you bin will have a greater impact than how many carrots you waste. For example, producing beef uses 20 times the land and emits 20 times the emissions as growing beans, per gram of protein.  And although fresh vegetables and salad make up a quarter of edible household food waste in the UK, they only account for 12% of the greenhouses gas emissions from food waste, compared to meat and fish which make up 19% of the emissions despite only making up 8% of wasted food.  Far better to make the extra effort to save meat from being binned than a few petit pois.

4.              Compost

As mentioned previously, food releases methane when it decomposes in landfill, and this powerful greenhouse gas is considerably more effective at trapping infrared radiation in the atmosphere than CO2.

Composting is an extremely effective way to reduce methane emissions, with one study estimating that greenhouse gas emissions from composting are just 14% of the same food dumped into landfill. Another study suggests that, for foods like bread, this figure drops to just 2.2%.  Moreover, composting foods like coffee grounds make excellent fertiliser for plants, adding nutrients like nitrogen back into the soil. It’s a win-win situation!

On a separate (but very important) note, most tea bags are not compostable because of their plastic seals. Although brands like Clipper claim to be ‘plastic-free’, they simply use PLA, a bio-plastic derived from plants rather than fossil fuels.  PLA requires heat over 60°C, water, and specific enzymes (not available in normal environments) in order to biodegrade, making it unlikely these tea bags will decompose in home compost.  Don’t contaminate your compost with these plastic tea bags – instead, buy tea leaves or Pukka tea bags, as these are sealed using a simple stitch of organic cotton.

5.              Freezing

You’ve boiled the kettle, opened a tin of baked beans and headed to the toaster when – disaster! The bread is mouldy! With the help of modern technology, this can easily be avoided. Simply freeze a sliced loaf and defrost a slice as and when you need it. Alternatively, freeze half a fresh loaf so that your current loaf won’t be blue around the edges by the weekend.

The freezer is your best friend when it comes to saving food and money. Freezing fruit, which spoils quickly, makes for a delicious smoothie or batch of jam. Frozen vegetable scraps e.g onions, garlic, celery ends, mushroom stems and leftover herbs, can be stored in a bag in the freezer, and made into brilliant vegetable broths, packed with nutrients. Even foods like milk, pasta, cake (although let’s be honest, who actually has left over cake?) and cheese can be frozen! Which brings us to the next tip…

6.              Buy reduced food

It may just be a habit I’ve acquired over the years from my mum, but the first things I look for in a supermarket are the orange ‘reduced’ price labels. Besides saving yourself money, buying reduced food prevents supermarkets from throwing edible produce into landfill. If you don’t eat it before the ‘use-by’ date, just freeze it when you get home and it will stay fresh until you defrost it.

7.              Read the label

People often get confused about labelling on products. “Sell by” is used by retailers to decide when the product should be sold or removed from the shelves. “Best by” is a suggested date that consumers should use their products by. Neither of these terms tells you when the food is unsafe to eat.  Follow the ‘use-by’ date instead, although even this is just an indication of when the food will pass its best quality, and food is sometimes still edible sometime afterwards.

8.              Eating out

This next one is a little less conventional – again, I have my mum to thank. Next time you go out to eat, take containers with you so you can bring the leftovers home. Before you start thinking about what the staff will think, consider the fact that a) you paid for the food b) the food tastes good and c) it will go straight in the bin if you leave it there on the plate.

Also, don’t feel afraid to ask for an ingredient to be left out if you know you won’t eat it. For example, if you’re eating out for brunch and you order an option that has a side of mushrooms which you know you hate, then ask for it to be left off. That way, you avoid it being cooked and immediately wasted.

9.              Get creative!

There are plenty of recipes online for using up leftovers. Trusty BBC Good Food has its very own ‘Leftover Recipes’ section, including stir-fries, bread and butter pudding, and traybakes. Using up leftovers doesn’t have to mean baking yet another banana bread (although this is, by no means, a negative). It can be as inventive as using sour cream to make chocolate cake or scones, to simply frying mash potato or re-cooking soft cereals to make them crunchy again.

Food waste emits about three times the global emission from aviation, and each one of us has a responsibility to reduce it.  Sending food into landfill is the least preferable option when dealing with food waste, and as more and more systems use food waste, for example, in anaerobic digestion, to make into animal feed, or to redistribute to people going hungry, we need to embrace our own responsibility in the wider food waste network and make individual changes to our lifestyles. None of these suggestions are particularly radical or difficult to do, but all of them require the right mind-set and attitude towards food waste. Next time you go to bin ‘just’ a few chips, or ‘only’ a bread crust, consider the wider impact of your actions, and how you could help change the figures above so they tell a more positive narrative.

Creativity and Covid-19: How social interaction fuels the creative industries

George Newton
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Creativity and Covid-19: How social interaction fuels the creative industries

When the pandemic forced governments across the world to put lockdown measures in place to stop the spread of Covid-19, many hailed the new-found time as an opportunity to work on half-finished projects and new ideas that had been repeatedly pushed to the bottom of the to-do list, as more urgent and pressing tasks were prioritised. These projects took many forms, some decided to learn a language, others took to working out at home, some wanted to learn to play a musical instrument and many, myself included, took the time to widen their culinary repertoire, with banana bread being a popular choice. 

The type of social interaction offered by Zoom, Skype and Teams is largely inauthentic and plagued with buffering and connectivity mishaps that tarnish the very essence of natural human exchanges.

The gift of time, however, was a double-edged sword. It provided a rare interruption in our frantic lives to engage in novel and interesting activities. For many artists and people involved in the creative industries, however, the prospect of spending an indefinite period at home with next to no exposure to the outside world was stressful and offered little inspiration. 

There were countless ways to reach others by video calls; Microsoft Teams, Skype and Zoom all spring to mind. Still, the type of social interaction offered by those mediums is largely inauthentic and plagued with buffering and connectivity mishaps that tarnish the very essence of natural human exchanges. Art and the creators of art are largely inspired by human interaction and by those around them, two aspects that often provide an original idea for a piece.

Even the work of novelists and poets, artists whose artforms ostensibly seem to be very independent and solitary pursuits, depend saliently, if not wholly, on human contact and interaction. The act of putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard in the modern-day, is based on a plethora of micro-interactions. The stimulus for a novel, a play or the main traits of a particular character can be traced back to a simple memory, a scent, an individual crossed on the street or even the place where the writing happens.

The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, for instance, was known to frequent the A Brasileira café in Lisbon, as shown above. He always sat at the same table, which is where his statue stands today. Having lived in and met the residents of many of Lisbon’s neighbourhoods, Pessoa was well-known for creating many heteronyms that he used in his work. While the focus of this article is not Pessoa, he surely exemplifies the effect of humanity on an artist and their work. Social interaction and those around the artist offer stimuli for creativity, stimuli that have been mostly – if not wholly – inaccessible since March. 

As I established earlier, articulating the human experience through art, whether it be music, sculpting or dance, is almost completely dependent on human interaction. The nature of that interaction, however, is not what you would expect. According to Dr Mehrabian’s study, 93% of communication is non-verbal. In fact, he concluded that 55% of human communication is in actual fact visual. Simple experiences such as seeing strangers in the street, sitting next to someone on the bus, waiting next to someone in the queue or bumping into somebody at a concert are all forms of interaction and in some way offer a form of communication, even though we are not directly aware of it.  

Articulating the human experience through art, whether it be music, sculpting or dance, is almost completely dependent on human interaction.

The truth of the matter is that Covid-19 and the lockdown limited inspiration, it was a period of creative stasis, a dip in creativity. This is because one of the aspects that makes the world so exciting is the people in it, the way they live, the activities they pursue and the way they think and connect.

Although it is ironic that I am expressing this idea to you via a screen, understanding the way people live, the activities they pursue and the way they think cannot be transmitted over a series of illuminated pixels that blur and glitch. Facial expressions, seeing people exchange handshakes, hugs, kisses and frowns are all parts of humanity that are lost when face-to-face contact is not possible. Many human characteristics such as scent and personal attributes such as passion and charisma cannot be transmitted through a digital medium. Nevertheless, when normality resumes and life as we knew it, or indeed a form of it ensues, there will be scope for artists of every kind to embrace humanity and social interaction. Perhaps a new conscience and understanding of humanity will emerge as a result of these bizarre, troubling and dare I say it -unprecedented- times. 

While the impulse for artistic creation has been limited, so has the funding to ensure the survival of venues and creative organisations during tough economic times. Music venues, theatres, recording studios, independent cinemas, Jazz clubs, restaurants, food markets and art galleries have all had to close for a substantial amount of time due to lockdown measures introduced in March, with several cultural venues setting up crowdfunding pages and the like to guarantee survival.

Nevertheless, when normality resumes and life as we knew it, or indeed a form of it ensues, there will be scope for artists of every kind to embrace humanity and social interaction. Perhaps a new conscience and understanding of humanity will emerge as a result of these bizarre, troubling and dare I say it -unprecedented- times. 

Not only do these places provide the general public access to art and creative content, but they can also be used by artists as a prompt for new work. The financial impact of such stasis cannot be ignored. The closure of creative businesses and organisations affects artists’ livelihoods; in a world of online streaming, musicians who cannot perform or go on tour suffer financially, artists whose exhibitions are cancelled struggle to sell paintings and independent cinemas who can no longer receive visitors or show the latest films struggle to pay bills and rent. 

The Creative Industries Federation claims that ‘the UK’s creative industries are on the brink of devastation’, and that prior to the pandemic the UK’s creative sector was growing at ‘five times the rate of the wider economy’; however, now, it is predicted that 122,000 permanent creative workers are due to be made redundant before the year’s end. Social interaction fuels the production of art and is integral to the experience of consuming art, whether it be a theatre, a restaurant or a gallery.

Social interaction is fundamental for the financial wellbeing of creative industries, to provide a stimulus for new art, to exhibit art and also to remunerate those who devote their time to create it. While the lockdown measures are important and necessary to prevent further contagion, the impact of Coronavirus has truly disrupted the economic model of creative businesses and organisations, deeply affecting the general public’s access to art, and of course the artists themselves. 

Social interaction fuels the production of art and is integral to the experience of consuming art, whether it be a theatre, a restaurant or a gallery.

The very act of transmitting human experiences through art depends on interacting with others. The development of new ideas and trends is only possible when artistic stimuli can be shared and approached by different people. Equally, the places that house art and exist to exhibit also require human interaction. In light of this, it is only natural for artists to have experienced a block or a dip in creativity since March, and for venues, theatres, galleries and the like to have experienced financial difficulties since the lockdown announcement. It has been damaging, tiring, frustrating and heartbreaking for many. Normality will eventually resume, and when it does, art will be as wonderful as ever. 

Cover Image: Janko Hoener via Wikimedia & Creative Commons.

Thirsting for a heatwave

Bianca Pasca
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Thirsting for a heatwave

Stepping out, you are hit by a torpid wave of heat. It’s getting harder to breathe and beads of sweat run down your forehead. If that weren’t enough, there’s a wet spot under your armpit. Damn right attractive, isn’t it? You would never think about it as “sweet summer sweat”, least of all as reminiscent of sensuality or passion. One thing’s clear: unlike Leon Tallis from Ian McEwan’s Atonement, you do not love England in a heatwave. So then, you might wonder why this sluggish sensation has come to be so ardently associated with sordidness, or why Sean Paul thinks this is “the right temperature to shelter you from the storm.”

Picture this: you’re on the porch, a glass of wine in your hand, as the sun sets after an oppressively hot summer day. Alannah Myles’ ‘Black Velvet’ is carried along by a soft evening breeze, proclaiming that “music’s like a heatwave.” You might then imagine warm bodies pressing against each other to a soundtrack of slow, sensual jazz. Heat is languorous. A hot, slow breath, fogging up the glass. Then coldness is all a-tremble, shivering, making your blood run cold…well, not so fast! 

Heat may be stifling and oppressive, but it is also sizzling, bursting with a sense of freedom. It is Brownian motion, a state of increased entropy, of disorder. It gives the sensation that something is about to happen, that there is tension about to be released in full force. In The Great Gatsby, heat signals the oncoming climax, as tempers rise, “it’s so hot, and everything’s so confused.” Meanwhile, “cold” is Gatsby’s attitude — aloof, apparently unfeeling.  

Heat, then, is both torpid and trepid, stifling and enraging. And somehow, sensuality and passion can be linked to all of these states without contradiction, as if, to return to the world of Atonement, “all the rules change” when spirits run hot.

It boils down to this: love’s fire can be tender, pure in the way flames can be purifying, a symbol of rebirth, rising from the ashes. It can even be sacred, like the fire of Vesta in antiquity, tended by the Vestal Virgins. But at the same time, it can be a disastrous force, the “heat of passion”: ravaging, burning. We have a long tradition of associating love with either the soul or the carnal (this being lust, for which, hot damn, you’ll probably burn in Hell anyway). The ancient Greeks had different names for different types of love, of which perhaps Eros is the one most closely associated with flaming passion. 

You might say it depends on the era you have in mind. After all, in the “Age of Steam”, heat was dynamism—progress setting things in motion, rather than languor. Thermodynamics, rather than a sexy poem. But it seems as if the link between passion and flames has been here for longer than we can say. From Ovid to Shakespeare, there is always “fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes”, and even the word ardour, used in English to suggest passion since Medieval Times, comes from the Latin ardere, “to burn”. 

It seems natural to associate the physical side of things with bodies ‘in heat’, and old ideas about medicine and physiology might have also helped perpetuate the symbolism. Interestingly, the theory of the bodily humours associated blood with an enthusiastic, friendly temper (from which we derive sanguine), while impulsive, aggressive behaviour was associated with an excess of yellow bile. But old physiology also had a theory proposing that, in fits of passion, our blood starts rising in temperature. Thus, we talk about being hot-blooded, and blood itself is tangled up with images of heat and desire: “Oh hot blood, love is gonna get ‘ya.”

The association between heat and illness doesn’t stop here, though: how many times have we heard of the ‘fever’ of desire? Even disease is associated with a frenzied sort of love (or a cramped, hot dance floor in Oxford…) In Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, the passions and vices at a tuberculosis sanatorium are presented against a backdrop of sweltering temperatures and fevers. Even though the action is set in the Swiss Alps, the atmosphere makes you think of the excesses of The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’ more than anything else. Hans, the protagonist, associates his feverous palpitations with his obsession for a Russian patient, Clavdia Chauchat. This lustful heat is an intoxication, both boosting your spirits and making you feel dizzy and lethargic. 

Fire is passion, but it can be passionate love or hate. So, when ‘[s]ome say the world will end in fire’, they might be right. Because “from what they’ve tasted of desire” and what they know of hate, they might reach the same conclusion that, be it through love or hate, the world will indeed end not in ice, but fire.

In the end, the same heatwave can inspire lewd lyrics or thoughts of doom and global warming. More realistically, perhaps, your only cravings could be a cold shower and some ice in your drink. How hot weather might capture your imagination could be as varied as our symbolism for love and fertility: some as cliché as roses, others as obscure as glass sponge skeletons. For now, though, Donna Summer will continue to demand ‘hot stuff’, and Italian cities in the summer will continue to be the chosen setting for pretentious love stories.

Still, our hottest hits might do well to use different symbols to suggest sensuality, since we have so many, like, you know, fig trees and oysters. Which, I admit, sound at least a little bit cooler.

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