Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Blog Page 453

Springtime Screentime

Ashley Cluer
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Springtime Screentime

Whilst in quarantine utilising friendship, haphazard planning and true style an essence of spring was created from my friend’s bathroom. Flip to page 21 of the first Cherwell magazine and you might be tempted to take inspiration from this photoshoot in planning your own outfits to parade around in once it’s safe to do so. Or perhaps to just wear around the house and stage your own photoshoot for a good laugh with your friends via FaceTime. 

The model is wearing her own vintage style, collaboratively chosen with a keen eye and photographed via FaceTime with the assistance of a helpful sibling. 

Springtime Screentime
By Ashley Cluer
Model: Savannah Roeser

Cherpse! Cai and Charlie

Cherwell Life
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Cherpse! Cai and Charlie

Cai, 2nd year, Chemistry, St. Hugh’s 

First impressions?

He seemed kind, friendly and relaxed, and had a nice voice.

Did it meet up to your expectations?

Yeah, we had some interesting discussions and didn’t realise that we hated each other on a fundamental level, so all in all I’d call that a win.

‘We didn’t realise that we hated each other on a fundamental level, so all in all I’d call that a win’

What was the highlight:

 Probably talking about the ethics of gene-based targeted adverts.

What was the most embarrassing moment:

There wasn’t really an embarrassing moment during the call, save for a hiccup in getting the call going that made him think I’d stood him up.

Describe the date in 3 words:

Interesting, fun and uplifting

Is a second date on the cards:

I would hope so: we’ve added each other on Facebook and I’d certainly at least want to remain friends

Charlie, 1st year, Spanish and Italian, Jesus

 First impressions?

Given that the link didn’t work for half an hour, my first impression was “thank God I haven’t been stood up”, so pure relief.

‘We got onto genetics and he mentioned alcoholism while I was taking a sip of wine’

Did it meet up to your expectations?

In general, speaking to a stranger over zoom was less awkward than you might think. I was expecting a 40 minute silence, but that’s not what happened.

What was the highlight:

“Is your water hard or soft?”

What was the most embarrassing moment:

Apart from the panic around the link not working, probably when we got onto genetics (don’t ask me how) and he mentioned alcoholism while I was taking a sip of wine.

Describe the date in 3 words:

Enjoyable. Funny. Wholesome.

Is a second date on the cards:

As friends, yes.


Modern Classical: Locked Down, Looking Back

Reuben Tendler
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Modern Classical: Locked Down, Looking Back

Ludovico Einaudi is in lockdown. With time to think – to take a walk in the fresh Mediterranean breeze – perhaps the Italian pianist could have presented us with some new ideas? Perhaps the self-described ‘post-classicist’ could have taken a leap of faith into the musical unknown, experimented for the sake of it, and created with something, well, a bit better than usual? Alas, 12 Songs from Home offers nothing new in any sense of the word, save for a more dampened sound quality, probably caused by a digital switch made in order to produce a ‘living room’ acoustic.

Making use of over an hour of endless four-chord cycles, and a clever compositional device known to researchers in the depths of the Music Faculty as ‘repetition’, Einaudi has managed to create his least innovative album yet. Particularly boring – sorry, BORING – were ‘A Sense of Symmetry’, ‘Oltremare’, ‘Berlin Song’, ‘Tu Sei’, etc., et al. No doubt, this all comes as good news for his legions of easily pleased fans, connoisseurs of ‘ultimate soothing classical piano’ YouTube compilations, and his accountants. ‘Why change a well-established formula,’ they ask, ‘when it works?’. The historian and musicologist Carl Dahlhaus would answer: ’for the sake of musical progress’ – and, in other circumstances, so might I.

Right now, however, the saving grace of this retrospective, domiciled dodecagon of piano hits is that it helps to soothe the pain of a lack of live music and fuel the healthy, small dose of nostalgia that keeps our hopes high. There is no time like the present for the argument that consistency can be comforting.

It is a similar lust for the past which oozes out of the latest release by the experimentalist-extraordinaire Meredith Monk, this time energised by her own compositional idiosyncrasies. Full of the characteristically vivid vocals, silly synths, and nutty narration which marks the American composer out as so absurdly wonderful, Memory Game strikes a perfect balance between the intense introspection popularised by Einaudi and the sheer joy of innovation. With input from instrumentalists Bang on a Can All-Stars and fellow New York electro-acoustic deities David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe, this survey of Monk’s life is both playful and politically provocative.

The stand-out track has to be ‘The Games: Memory Game’, featuring calls of ‘champagne’, ‘football’, and ‘chairs’ (three things I am sure many of us have been missing of late) layered above the dulcet tones of neo-psychedelic electro-harp and clarinet, along with occasional dog-like yapping. In contrast, the following track ‘Downfall’ can only be described as a possible theme-tune for a darker, German-language version of the somewhat obscure 2018 adventure film, Christopher Robin. Lighter relief, however, can be found in the smooth grooves of ‘Turtle Dreams Cabaret: Tokyo Cha Cha’ and ‘Acts from Under and Above: Double Fiesta’ (presuming the latter’s title hides no dark secrets).

As an album, Memory Game works very well, irrespective of prior musical tastes. It must be acknowledged, however, that Monk’s nostalgia operates on much deeper levels than Einaudi’s, and that this is what lends it its impact. Memory Game acts not only as a journey of reminiscence through the life of one of the past 50 years’ most inventive and admirable artists, but also serves as a reminder of life’s simple pleasures – something I’m sure we can all appreciate in the current circumstances. Whether you long for football and chairs, get a kick out of amplified xylophones, whether you usually listen to the Vengaboys or Vivaldi, this album is a must.

The particularly successful brand of nostalgia induced by Memory Game can be equated to dusting off an old VHS player and revisiting pleasant home-movies from a happy childhood. The experience of listening to 12 Songs From Home, however, is more akin to eating a packet of cheese and onion crisps and remembering with masochistic fondness how your student flat used to smell of cheese and onion. It seems, then, that modern classical music has used this hiatus in live collaborative opportunities to wind back the memory-cogs to a better time. Whilst Einaudi decides to regress to simple crowd-pleasers, however, Monk continues a journey of progression and musical development on an album that would make Dahlhaus smile.

Labour frontbencher taught Trump’s Press Secretary politics at Oxford

Joe Stonor
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Labour frontbencher taught Trump’s Press Secretary politics at Oxford

Kayleigh McEnany, the recently appointed White House press secretary and former CNN commentator spent a year at Oxford under the supervision of a prominent Labour MP.

The Times reported this week that McEnany was tutored in politics by Nick Thomas-Symonds, newly appointed as Shadow Home Secretary by fellow Teddy Hall alumnus Keir Starmer. However, Thomas-Symonds’ own politics appear to have had little effect on the beliefs of his student.

McEnany spent a year at St Edmund’s Hall on her year abroad from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington D.C, making Oxford one of the four institutions where she has studied, as well as the University of Miami and Harvard Law School.

Whilst still a student, McEnany had a string of remarkable internships including one with President George W. Bush. She launched her media career shortly after graduating, working as a producer on the show of the father of her White House predecessor, Mike Huckabee, before appearing as a token panellist in support of Trump for CNN while still at law school.

The early career of Thomas-Symonds appears to have been similarly illustrious, as at just 21 he was appointed a college tutor in Politics at Teddy Hall after reading PPE at the college. He went on to write biographies of Clement Atlee and Nye Bevan, two icons of the left who, as Prime Minister and Health Secretary respectively, introduced the NHS to Britain. Like McEnany, the Labour frontbencher is a qualified lawyer, having been called to the Bar in 2004 whilst still teaching at Oxford. 

In his time as MP for Torfaen, Thomas-Symonds has spoken out against US steel tariffs and, notably, backed an Early Day Motion seeking to cancel Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK. 

McEnany has shown uncompromising support for the president since before his election. She contributed to the “birther movement” against Barack Obama and staunchly defended Trump’s infamous “when you’re a star, they let you do it” comments.

It appears that McEnany enjoyed her time in Oxford. The Times quotes a 2014 interview in which she states that she has “loved every moment of academia, particularly Oxford.” Her only complaint was, according to a tweet, the lack of Taco Bells the city has to offer.

Image Credit to Gage Skidmore/ Wikimedia Commons

The Last Five Years: Review

Margot Harvey
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The Last Five Years: Review

00 Production’s performance of The Last Five Years pulls off the ambitious project with surprising grace. I say surprising because bringing a musical to the small screen, created entirely in quarantine, is hardly an easy feat. It is difficult though, to imagine a show better suited to such an adaptation than this one.

The Last Five Years is a series of musings on a relationship gone right, and then very wrong. The show is song after song in a disjointed structure with little explanation offered, opening a door into Jamie and Cathy’s love story in all its raw emotion. It details the wonder and terror of collapsing on your bed after your first date with the love of your life and collapsing on your bed just the same when it all falls to pieces. These songs were built in bedrooms, and the team behind this show did them justice in theirs.

Maggie Moriarty as Cathy and Peter Todd as Jamie have the charisma to make amateur dramatics in the context of Covid-19 actually work. They bring a response to all aspects of the relationship to life in a way that doesn’t feel cringeworthy but rather unnervingly human. Both boast gorgeous voices, supported by a seamless score put together by Musical Director Livi van Warmelo, and their acting ability does these complex and occasionally unlikeable characters’ justice. Songs like See I’m Smiling capitalize on the slight awkwardness inherent in such a production. The moments of humour let their talent really shine through, making the most of the comic relief, with songs like A Summer in Ohio and A Miracle Would Happen proving most enjoyable to watch.

The creative team also tackled the task impressively. The thematic and cleverly cyclical nature of Jason Robert Brown’s score is echoed in their creative choices, the motif of mirrors apparent in many of the scenes. The creativity of the camera angles (though not admittedly not always consistent), make it hard to believe the cameramen were friends and family of the cast, most noticeably in A Part of That and The Next Ten Minutes.

The scene shifts from song to song were a highlight of the show’s production, with these moments adding an element of character to the production itself; the use of candlelight in The Shmuel Song contributing substantially to the warm atmosphere vital to its place in the play. Perhaps most notably was Director Imogen Albert’s imaginative sets in a socially distant world. Each scene offered up something new, likely a tricky business in the current climate, and certain scenes were particularly impressive. Metaphorical additions to the piece justified the variation, with Moving Too Fast, a song all about Jamie’s career taking off, presenting the character climbing flights and flights of stairs until he reached the top. The regular use of beautiful outdoor sets also served the show well, providing the breath of fresh air many are missing in this bizarre time.

All the all, the team can pat themselves on the back for a job well done, not least on their choice of musical. The piece leaves its watchers jointly with a sense of awe at the talent needed to create such a show in the challenging time to find ourselves in, and a sense of sadness at the tragic tale before them. The final moments contrast the joy of Cathy finding her first love and the grief of Jamie’s joyless surrender at losing his, with great effect. The 00 Production team certainly did this ‘ultimately soul destroying score’ justice.

Opinion- The Problem With Liberty

Ben OBrien
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Opinion- The Problem With Liberty

As the spectacle that is the Trump-era rolls on, it is increasingly hard to imagine that the United States was once regarded, with both wonder and envy, as the democratic project par excellence. In the nineteenth-century, French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville and like-minded Europeans looked across the Atlantic with admiration, where they saw a great political experiment being played out in real time, and on a continental scale. These Europeans saw a new kind of society, in which the Enlightenment ideal of individuals’ right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, as the Declaration of Independence (1776) put it, had found its political expression. And so, Tocqueville went to America for a lesson in how to run a democracy.

But as the impact of coronavirus magnifies and exacerbates the US’s racial inequalities and lack of affordable healthcare, one wonders what Tocqueville would think now. Freedom must feel like an empty ideal for many. Has the great experiment with liberty gone wrong?

There is a simple force to the idea that individuals are born free and have certain inalienable rights. The US constitution and Bill of Rights first articulated many things now taken for granted in liberal democracies – the right to trial by jury, freedom of religion, speech, press, and many other liberties now considered basic. So enduring are these ideas that, nearly two hundred years later, US libertarian Robert Nozick could write almost as a matter of fact that, “[i]ndividuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them.” In one way or another, this has been the guiding intuition of the most influential Anglo-American political philosophy of the last two centuries. And it is a powerful one; indeed, it is so deeply engrained in liberal democratic culture that it can be forgotten how radical the idea was at the turn of the nineteenth century.

But historically the problem has not been with the ideal itself, but its application. Even as Tocqueville admired America, equality and liberty was in reality enjoyed only by a select portion of the population. It was not enjoyed by Native Americans, many of whom were driven from their land or massacred. Neither was it enjoyed by most African Americans: transatlantic slavery was abolished in 1808, but the domestic slave trade prospered.

The irony is that this sort of exclusivity is entirely in keeping with liberalism, a doctrine which throughout its history has made grand claims about the universality of human rights whilst in practice denying them to certain groups, often on the basis of their supposed “irrationality” or “backwardness”.

Thanks to abolition and the civil rights movement the Constitution is now more inclusive, but the founding ideal still seems disconnected from reality. Coronavirus has laid bare the meagre levels of state help available to those who need it most. Eighty-seven million Americans either have no healthcare insurance or are underinsured. The virus has also hit African Americans disproportionality hard: though they make up less than fifteen percent of the population, they account for thirty percent of coronavirus-related deaths.

Perhaps this is what happens when the original ideal is distorted beyond recognition – when the idea of individual liberty becomes twisted into a libertarian or neoliberal view that equates taxation and redistribution with theft, or “forced labour” as Nozick put it. The merits of that view can be debated, but one thing is clear: it does not follow through on the promise of a truly equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

University staff applicants not informed of hiring freeze before applying

David Tritsch
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University staff applicants not informed of hiring freeze before applying

In wake of the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis, the University has put into effect a 12-month recruitment freeze and redeployment protocol for all internally funded posts. However, applications for many positions are still being advertised, meaning candidates may only be informed of the hiring freeze after they have applied.

The University’s jobs website states: “In light of the coronavirus (COVID-19) challenges, the University is re-assessing its resource requirements. As a result, we are pausing some existing recruitment until further notice.”

The HR recruitment protocol clarified that “all recruitment exercises that are currently underway must be paused immediately (if an offer has not already been made) and the posts assessed against the new criteria for approval.”

Cherwell understands that some applicants have only been informed of the recruitment freeze after applying for jobs.

Aris Katzourakis, Oxford University and College Union Co-President, stated: “All jobs currently advertised may go through the anticipated processes for approval put in place in the current circumstances and therefore applicants could be contacted to be told the job has been withdrawn at any stage.”

An Oxford DPhil alumni criticised Oxford for failing to inform candidates in advance that recruitment procedures had been halted.

Wishing to remain anonymous, they told Cherwell: “Academia is already incredibly precarious for early career researchers, and academic job applications take days, if not weeks to complete well – indeed, many postdocs spend more time on job applications for their next position than on the research that they need to publish to help progress through the academic system.”

The University reportedly hopes to continue the recruitment process as soon as possible and will be in contact with candidates in the future to provide further updates.

According to the protocol, new research posts may only be created or fixed-term contracts extended if “there are overwhelming operational imperatives to fill the post.” Some other conditions such as posts that must be filled for legal requirements or safety reasons may also lead to approval of new contracts.

The protocol applies to recruitment across the University, including all departments and subsidiary companies. It does not apply to colleges or Permanent Private Halls. The University of Oxford is the largest employer in Oxfordshire and currently employs more than 1800 academic staff, more than 5,500 research and research support staff, and more than 6,100 graduate research students.

In response to hiring freezes and having to move teaching online, the board of Universities UK (UUK) has released a proposal to the UK government about a possible industry bailout plan, reportedly worth £2bn. According to the proposal, public funding could mitigate the impact of the ongoing crisis, as well as providing stability for students and researchers across the UK.

The University has been contacted for comment.

Image Credit to Theonlysilentbob/ Wikimedia Commons

Virtual access events held for offer holders and prospective applicants

Lucy Tansley
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Virtual access events held for offer holders and prospective applicants

Colleges are updating their access provisions for prospective students in light of the coronavirus outbreak. Following social distancing guidelines, the University has stated on is website that until further notice, planned outreach events and open days will not go ahead. It is “working hard to explore alternative options” and to transfer events into “digital experiences”.

Last week, Trinity College collaborated with the University to host an online open day for offer holders, welcoming 45 students from the Northeast over Zoom, to give advice and guidance in these times of uncertainty. 

Worcester College is launching a website for secondary school students to offer help for students from year 7 to 13, and have also started a YouTube channel aimed at those thinking of applying to Oxford. Recent videos include a guide to applying to Oxbridge and an introduction to university for students in years 10 and 11. Outreach events with schools in their link areas in the North of England are planned to continue “in virtual form”. 

Christ Church has also taken measures to move its access provisions online. The access team told Cherwell that they plan to “work together with the central team” to offer a “coherent and complementary” replacement to the July open day. Its access initiative run in collaboration with St Anne’s, “Aim for Oxford”, and its own programme “Christ Church Horizons”, will both now run digitally. The college also plans to hold online Q&As with its undergraduates, personal statement webinars, and online live sessions with its link areas in the Northeast. Its annual “Women in PPE” day will now take place using Microsoft Teams on the 26th May, for female-identifying prospective students interested in the subject. 

Wadham have similarly adapted their access initiatives for the lockdown era, offering YouTube videos and articles for school-age students and online seminars to help with writing personal statements and other application processes. They have also paired up with Causeway Education “to provide mentoring support for 250 pupils from link schools with high proportions of widening participation pupils in Year 12 and relatively poor progression to top universities.” Under this scheme, school pupils are paired with subject specialists to support them through their applications. 

Balliol is hosting a virtual history taster day next week for potential applicants, and other departments have hosted or plan to host online open days live-streamed online. 

University-wide, access schemes have been introduced to aid prospective students with the application process. OxBuddy, a student initiative set up by current undergraduates, pairs current students with those thinking of applying in order to answer questions about life at Oxford.

Further updates on outreach provisions are expected to be released in the coming months. 

Image credit to Ukexpat/ Wikimedia Commons

The Land of the Free: Anti-Lockdown Protests Sweep Across America

Francesca Mencattelli
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The Land of the Free: Anti-Lockdown Protests Sweep Across America

The beginning of another week in lockdown for one third of the global population has brought with it a proliferation of ‘anti-lockdown’ protests, focalised in the US. Despite the US currently holding the highest recorded number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world – numbering over 1.1 million and 66,000 respectively – anti-lockdown protests have burgeoned in numerous states, including California, Ohio and Washington.

1st May saw New York’s first anti-lockdown protest, with thousands taking to the streets to criticise the government’s imposition of stricter containment measures. Such protests are underpinned by the desire for ‘liberty’ from lockdown; and yet, the poignant irony of staging an anti-lockdown rally in a city with 13,000 recorded coronavirus deaths is not enough to highlight to protestors the moral and ethical consequences of their method and demands.

Anti-lockdown protests present a twofold infringement upon the rights of others, denying people the ability to protect both their own health, and the safety of their family. While the right to protest is a crucial democratic freedom, in the current climate the nature and aim of these protests threatens other more fundamental rights, predominantly to health and to life. The ‘freedom’ espoused by these protests runs counterintuitively to the right to life enshrined in the American constitution. As such, a ‘freedom’ protest which threatens the basic liberties of others can be seen as ethically and logically self-negating.

The debate underpinning these protests is not as binary as ‘lockdown’ or ‘liberty’. In the current circumstances, it is unfeasible to envisage a society in which the pre-outbreak freedoms of all individuals remain intact; if lockdown were to be lifted – which is the ultimate aim of these protests – the ensuing situation would deprive the most vulnerable members of society of their basic right to life. In such a scenario, physical ‘freedom’ is surely tainted by the moral repercussions of knowing that negligence can, and will, endanger the lives of others.

Considering this potential outcome, the opportunity cost emanating from temporarily circumscribed physical liberties is validated by the associated ability to protect the health and save the lives of many. A key positive which has emerged from global containment policies – and threatened only by a minority of ‘anti-lockdown’ protestors – is a shifting conceptualisation of liberty as something fundamentally communal.

In the US, statistics demonstrate a significant reduction in road traffic in major cities (for example, 67% in Los Angeles and 75% in San Francisco in March). In the UK, road traffic has fallen by 73% and national rail journeys by 77% in comparison to pre-outbreak levels. Likewise, mid-March statistics for global air traffic show a 48% reduction in scheduled flights corresponding to the same week in 2019. These figures demonstrate a consistent and widespread understanding of the need for individual liberties to be subsumed by the more urgent requirements of the communal in this period. The current pandemic has helped re-conceptualise freedom as a communal entity rather than a personal possession which, when over-stepped by some, detracts from the rights of others.

In a democratic context, freedom is often taken as synonymous with equality. The Covid-19 pandemic has complicated this association, demonstrating that conceding to anti-lockdown protestors the kind of freedom they request will in fact lead to greater inequalities between the healthy and vulnerable in society. Such disparities are augmented by emerging evidence of the discrepant socio-cultural impact of the virus, which could be further exacerbated by lifting restrictions at the wrong moment. While lockdown is certainly not without its own subset of financial and social repercussions, we should trust that a regulation seemingly functioning paradoxically to democratic principles will, in these circumstances, benefit society in the long run. Feeling isolated is unequivocally a natural response to unprecedented social constraints; but lockdown is ultimately a communal sacrifice, which will engender communal benefits.

The Last Five Years- Preview

Akrivi Ventouras
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The Last Five Years- Preview

Having watched the preview, I am excited to see and listen to the full-length production of the musical. Both Maggie Moriarty as Cathy and Peter Todd as Jamie provide gripping performances. This is my first time watching The Last Five Years, and I was immediately struck by the discord of watching Cathy’s opening song, in pain over the end of her marriage, immediately followed by a young Jamie’s excitement at his new relationship. This continued in the poignant interlacing of timelines throughout the scenes of the preview, which pit together, for example, Jamie’s book deal success and Cathy’s later difficulties in her career.

As stated in the promotional material this musical charts “the individual and shared lives of Cathy and Jamie, as they grow together and grow apart.” The preview highlights that this is not a ‘typical’ story of lost love, rather we see how the characters’ individual aspirations, failures and successes entwine into their shared history, backed by a moving soundtrack.

The show is made even more impressive in that it has been created, as in rehearsed, filmed,the music recorded, entirely in quarantine. Q&As on the production company’s website point to the technical difficulties they have had to overcome in order to create this perfectly timed and synced piece of theatre entirely from their bedrooms. The production company have stressed that this is a digitised theatrical performance and not a film. At first I was sceptical as to how they would be able to pull off scenes were the characters would have been together on stage. Yet somehow,  take for example Cathy’s second song where she tells Jamie that she can’t understand how he can stand there “And see I’m crying/And not do anything at all” , you feel that Jamie is there but just out of shot. Judging from the preview I felt the same could be said for the actors’ performance. The audience might be remote and online but, in the energy they have given the show, I felt that they  knew that we would be there, watching.

One-off viewing on Saturday 9th May, 7:30pm 

Tickets are £3 and can be bought from www.00productions.co.uk/tickets 

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