Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Blog Page 456

Explained: Oxford SU ‘Academic Hate Speech’ motion sparks free speech controversy

Imogen Duke
-
0
Explained: Oxford SU ‘Academic Hate Speech’ motion sparks free speech controversy

The Oxford University Student Union (SU) has condemned “hateful material in mandatory teaching”, after a motion on ‘Academic Hate Speech’ passed in Student Council last week. The motion has been widely reported on and has sparked debate about free speech in universities. The University of Oxford has responded with its free speech policy, used since 2016, which states that “free speech is the lifeblood of the university”. It has not responded to the specific recommendations of the motion.

WHAT DOES THE STUDENT UNION MOTION MEAN?

The motion recommends expanding the University’s free speech policy so that hate speech on the grounds of gender identity, disability, and socio economic status is treated equally to groups protected by criminal law. It recommends trigger warnings on reading lists and guidance to faculties on what constitutes hate speech. 

The motion passed, which means that some SU officers were mandated to issue a statement condemning “the use of hateful material in mandatory teaching”. This is now reflected in a statement on the SU website from the Vice-President (Access & Academic Affairs) and the Vice-President (Welfare & Equal Opportunities). It states: “We must fight to uphold academic freedom whilst protecting our students from abusive sentiment. There is a difference between debate and abuse and the two should not be confused.”

A new SU Policy is also created by the motion: ‘Protection of Transgender, Non-binary, Disabled, Working-class, and Women* Students from Hatred in University Contexts’. The new SU policy recommends that the University publish guidance on the mental health impacts of prejudicial articles, with trigger warnings on reading lists as “a bare minimum”. 

It recommends that texts which, under the Council’s recommendation, would have trigger warnings, are not made compulsory to learn or be examined on. It states that the University’s free speech policy is “inapplicable” when the University requires students to listen, because attendance is taken and material is subject to examination. 

The motion specifically highlights that the University’s free speech policy currently “uses the criminal law as a benchmark for academic free speech protection”. It states that the Public Order Act 1986 mentions criminalised hate speech as against race, religion, or sexual orientation, but does not specifically criminalise “ableist, misogynistic, classist or transphobic hate speech.”

The SU therefore considers that current protection offered to students in these groups from academic hate speech is “defective”. The new SU policy states that the University should go beyond legal definitions of hateful material to offer adequate protection to students in these groups. 

The Student Council gives instances of hateful material currently used in academic teaching: an article advocating for “a moral duty not to have disabled children” and an article “advocating for the murder of disabled children after they have been born,” both on the FHS Medical Law and Ethics reading list. 

Under the motion’s recommendations, the minimum acceptable action would be for this reading list to have a trigger warning and for it not to be compulsory to learn or be examined on. The full recommendation would be that it not be included on the reading list at all. The Council considers that if ableism were specifically prohibited by the Public Order Act 1986, this would constitute “hate speech”. The Council refers to the definition of “hate speech” as to “stir up hatred against a particular protected group”. 

The motion was passed in the first meeting of Student Council in Trinity term. It passed with 28 votes For, 11 votes Against, and 10 Abstentions. The motion was proposed by Alex Illsley, Co-Chair of LGBTQ+ Campaign, and seconded by Leo Gillard, Secretary of Disabilities Campaign. 

HOW HAS THE MOTION BEEN RECEIVED? 

Oxford University told Cherwell that “the University has no plans to censor reading materials assigned by our academics.” The University did not respond to whether it may reconsider its free speech policy to include groups stated in the motion, whether it would encourage guidance to be published on “hateful materials”, or whether trigger warnings would be used on reading lists.

It referred to the free speech policy in University guidance, which states that “free speech is the lifeblood of a university”. This statement has been on the university website and referred to in free speech controversies since 2016.  

After the story was broken by The Oxford Student, many national newspapers, academics, and notable figures picked up on the motion. Coverage has focused on backlash from academics – especially regarding the ableist material condemned in the motion – and the apparent dismissal of the policy by the University. There has been less focus on the proposal to expand the disadvantaged groups named in the 1986 Public Order Act, and to reflect this in the University’s free speech policy. 

This motion comes as one in a line of free speech controversies that events in Oxford have sparked. In March, Amber Rudd was ‘no-platformed’ by the UN Women Oxford UK society. This received major national coverage coverage. The University responded similarly to the incident, with an emphasis on the importance of free speech. In the same week a talk at Exeter College schedule to be given by Selina Todd, a professor of modern history at the University, was cancelled at short notice. 

WHAT IS THE STUDENT UNION AND WHO ARE THE STUDENT COUNCIL?

Student Council is the decision-making body of the Student Union. Student Council is made up of elected students from every ‘constituent organisation’: representatives from common rooms, academic divisions and campaigns, and sabbatical officers. It proposes and votes on motions four times a term.

All matriculated students are members of the Student Union. All students can put forward motions, ask questions, participate in debates, and stand for election. When motions pass, they mandate the Union to act upon them. Motions most frequently recommend and/or condemn official university practices and policy, and inform how the SU works. 

A statement from the SU on the Academic Hate Speech Motion says: “The student voice of the University of Oxford is often ignored. This body seeks to change that. Those who engage in it, and all members are encouraged to do so, can bring motions, amendments, counter-motions, bid for funding for projects, and much, much more.

“[The] motion received no comments and therefore no debate and the members of Student Council voted to pass it. Sabbatical Officers are now mandated by Student Council to release a statement based on the resolves of that motion; their statement is now available on the SU website for members and social media channels.”

The statement from the VP Access & Academic Affairs and the VP Welfare & Equal Opportunities also stated: “If you feel that some of the nuances of this debate may have been lost due to the restrictions of the online format, please feed this back. We also encourage you to participate in the democratic structures of Council – all Student Members can attend, speak, and propose motions or amendments at Council meetings.”

The full motion can be accessed here and the statement made by the SU can be seen here.

Image credit to Abhi Sharma/ Wikimedia Commons

On the misuse of Orwell

Jack Glynne-Jones
-
0
On the misuse of Orwell

The habit of thoughtlessly quoting or referencing George Orwell in political debate has become, like so many bad habits, so common that it is rarely questioned. Using his name as an adjective is an unrepented cliché, and pulling lines from his work is often the first resort of someone short of real-life evidence to back their claims. Partisans on both left and right use him in a similar way to that in which they use the coronavirus; carefully selecting strands of information to fit their political prejudices and presenting these as a fair representation of the whole picture. Ridiculous claims such as ‘the coronavirus threatens to upend the conservative worldview’, and on the opposite side, ‘Coronavirus Vindicates Capitalism’, are a nice demonstration of the kind of thinking often used when writers quote Orwell; ‘How Nineteen Eighty-Four warned us about Brexit’ and ‘George Orwell would have been a Brexiteer’. One added benefit to using Orwell is that it suggests that you have read him, presenting yourself as an encyclopedia of literature with quotations at your immediate command. 

An irony of his overuse, but perhaps one cause of his misuse, is that Orwell is a writer difficult for any political group to ‘claim’ as their own. He was clearly a man of the left: ‘Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly…. for democratic socialism’. However, he was no member of the British mainstream or ‘official’ left. He was highly suspicious of the communist elements, who displayed sympathy to the Soviet regime, yet he also said ‘what socialists nearly all schools believe is ….true happiness of man lies in a society of pure communism’. A socialist, he nevertheless advises : ‘I think we ought to guard against assuming that as a system to live under, [socialism] will be greatly preferable to democratic capitalism’, and he criticized scathingly the ‘intelligentsia’ who would ‘feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God Save The King’ than of stealing from a poor box’. In passages such as these he offers ample material for those on the right, who have adopted Orwell to their causes as much as, if not more than in recent years, the various factions of the left have done. Yet the above quotes illustrate the complexity and subtlety of his beliefs, not to mention the political shifts he underwent throughout his life; up until his experiences in Catalonia, he described himself as a ‘tory anarchist’.

Quoting someone is of course not the same as claiming political ownership of them, nor does it require that you both agree on everything. But you would think that many on the right would be more hesitant to idolise, and use so many quotes from, a man who said such things as: ‘Patriotism….is actually the opposite of conservatism’ and ‘It is only by revolution that the native genius of the English people can be set free’. Furthermore, he is often used to argue against increased state ownership and control, yet he supported socialism which, in his words, means that ‘the State, representing everyone, owns everything, and everyone is a state employee’. As for the buzz-word ‘orwellian’, I think it is a shame to use his name as a term for totalitarianism and oppression, like the naming of biological diseases after their discoverers. Orwell would likely resent the way his name is used to paint the government’s coronavirus lockdown measures as despotic or ‘1984’-like; Orwell thought that ‘we cannot win the war (WW2) without introducing socialism’, and although we are not at war, this comment suggests that he would not object to increased state power in times of crisis. Conversely, similar misuses come from those on the left, with lines such as: ‘Brexit has turned our government into an Orwellian ministry of Truth’, which come from journalists who seem to think it appropriate to use the term ‘Orwellian’ for anything political that one considers ‘bad’. 

Lines from his work are not the findings from some kind of rigorous scientific experiment, yet people use them to add a thin veneer of sophistication or truth to weak arguments. The way they are used often implies that because he said it, it must be true, yet of course, he was fallible like all of us; he could at times drift into vagueness, and display errors in foresight, highlighted by his false predictions of an oncoming ‘English Revolution’, or his claim in 1942 that Churchill did not have many months of power left. Quoting Orwell, or particularly the set of terms associated with him, is too easy a tool to use when attempting to add weight to one’s statements, and instead using more precise examples from real life as evidence, which are more directly related to the topic at hand, would likely add to the quality of debate. Orwell himself said: ‘Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print’, and ‘Never use…. a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent’. 

Referencing writers can be a great way to illustrate a point more succinctly than one might otherwise be able to, or the writer may have had experiences which gave them insight worth mentioning; Orwell is the perfect example of this, in that his experiences as an imperial policeman in Burma and as a fighter in the Spanish civil war provided him with a still unmatched understanding of the unholy trinity of the early 20th century; imperialism, fascism and totalitarianism. However, this does not mean that one should flippantly reference him on any 21st century topic of choice to suit one’s political viewpoints, in a way which wrenches the quotes from their original context and in doing so twists them into an altogether different meaning. 

I certainly do not hope that Orwell will be discussed or referred to less, but that he is used not lazily, without regard to his either views and experiencesm nor to support ideas which he would have despised. The terms associated with him, such as ‘1984 or ‘Big Brother’, can be helpful when used in an honest manner, and as he wrote so vividly it is understandable that they have become (as Christopher Hitchens put it): ‘virtual hieroglyphics which almost immediately summon a universe of images and associations.’ However, these mental packets should not stand in the way of critical thought about the delicate and complex issues facing us today, which require a sceptical but reasonable approach, nor should his works be used dishonestly in debate between left and right. I will finish with Orwell, if I may:

‘This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetises a portion of one’s brain.’ 

Review: Fiona Apple’s ‘Fetch The Bolt Cutters’

Lukas Lacey-Hughes
-
0
Review: Fiona Apple’s ‘Fetch The Bolt Cutters’

“All my particles disband and disperse/And I’ll be back in the pulse.”

Music, to Fiona Apple, seems like a Schrodinger’s Cat kind of paradox; it relies on the prospect of her own destruction, containing with it the danger that by peering in, the listener is fundamentally altering the experience. It is a blur of probability, every moment encapsulating gain and loss, life and death.

Moreover, its existence is threateningly self-justifying, as she states on the opening track of her latest record: “I know a sound is still a sound around no one”.

The title of her latest record offers an interesting antecedent to this idea. “Fetch the bolt cutters/I’ve been in here too long” she asks despondently on the title track, and by performing this task it becomes clear that only on opening the box do we see a single definite state.

Over the course of her twenty-five-year career, it is unclear when Fiona Apple transformed from the husky babysitter of classic hits ‘Criminal’ and ‘Shadowboxer’, into the enigmatic auteur of albums such as When the Pawn and The Idler Wheel(…). However, her latest record manages to encapsulate all that allowed her to morph from mainstream darling into cult favourite. Fetch the Bolt Cutters manages to be her most blistering and defiant statement yet.

Apple delivers an updated take on her classic dense piano rock sensibilities, keying into the sparse, raw, and poetic sensibilities of protest music, laced with the hypnotic triumph of old Jazz standards. The unhurried artist’s first album in eight years manages to be an intimate yet enthused affair.

‘I Want You to Love Me’ is a fantastic opener, as Apple bellows over contrary motion scales, detailing the viscosity of unrequited love. Towards the middle section the track is shifted on its head, as Apple incorporates gun-shot drum kicks and frantic bowing on a double bass, whilst her sustained vocal melodies evoke the raspy fumbling of blowing up of a balloon.

The crisp andante of the opener is followed by the bluesy flurry of ‘Shameika’, one of the more upbeat songs on the track-list. It runs along unperturbed, relaying a story from Apple’s childhood days. The combination of the floundering bass piano notes and the gargled noise layers peppered throughout the track create a sense of winding terror. Album closer ‘On I Go’ delivers a similarly striking tone, a menacing concoction of percussive slams, demented chants, and spiralling guitar tones. The spliced vocals that spool in between the cracks of the creaking bass tones exhibit Apple at her most experimental.

Instrumentally, the album rolls between Apple’s common litany of chants and handclaps, and more daring timbral variation. The disquieting burlesque of ‘Newspaper’, the hop-scotch rhythms of ‘For Her’, and the dusty clatter of ‘Heavy Balloon’ are all moments of breath-taking hardihood. The light tumble of the plucked orchestra on ‘Rack of His’ further accentuates Apple’s outstanding instrumental choices.

The possible influences that could be attributed to this record feel pale and under the thumb, whilst still remaining surface enough to push her tense idiosyncrasies in new sonic directions; Apple will take your Pet Sounds and your Astral Weeks and raise you one higher. The works of Tom Waits, Kate Bush and Gil Scott-Heron are all slowly submerged in the rising tide of the record.

Indeed, one of its best qualities is how it takes the established form and rigour of blues and Jazz music, and creates a topsy-turvy, upended hybrid of sound. Apple locates the originality inherent in tradition and uses this to jolt its looser moments of experimentation into place.

This unwavering rigidity is further unpacked in Apple’s wit, providing some of her most biting lyrical work yet. This acts as a counterbalance to the moments of rage and venom, as Apple works through real emotional trauma. The jumble of stress fractures, emotional wounds, and contusions are all felt in Apple’s hearty poetics. On tracks like ‘Under the Table’ it is made clear that this is a female voice that will not be silenced.

Aside from on ‘Shameika’, there are a lack of pronouns here, and Apple is left to wage war on the ‘he’s’, and the ‘hims’ of the world, the lack of specificity amplifying her cries. In some ways there is no need for detail, as the economy of Apple’s imagery works wonders. On ‘Rack of His’, the embedded references to “Rockettes” and “Fillies” provide a seething comment on the male gaze in two words. ‘For Her’ provides some of the most scathing social commentary on the entire album, all pointing towards a moment of catharsis and defiance in its final line. On ‘Ladies’, Apple takes a more formalist approach to lyricism, and slowly spills over from the anecdotal into the aphoristic. It functions as a hymn to “good women like you”, whilst also lamenting how unreachable female companionship can feel in times of crisis: “yet another woman to whom I won’t get through”.

In many ways, Fetch the Bolt Cutters flirts unknowingly with the current Zeitgeist, exploring issues of entrapment, confinement and isolation. The album was recorded entirely in and with her Venice Beach Home, utilising a makeshift orchestra of kitchen implements and foot stomps to deliver a DIY aesthetic.

This is music rooted in its surroundings, and the quarantine has no doubt accentuated certain aspects of its musical blueprint. As Apple’s trademark alto locks in with the howls and yelps of her five dogs on the title track, amidst the crunches and jangles of homemade appliances you can feel the twisted matte of the carpet, the ripe hum of the plugs, the clenching stains on the coffee table. Apple constructs a symphony of the domestic realm, taking cues from the worlds of field recordings and music concrète. The detail is astonishing, and Apple’s artful approach only makes the material stronger.

Fiona Apple astonishes on her fifth full-length outing, a record that will likely be talked about for years. She weaves a rich musical tapestry of sounds and images. What is patently clear from this record is how intuitive Apple’s music can feel; in the same way as it works itself beneath your skin, Apple herself works from the ground up, raising rhythm from every sonic crack and gulf. It is perhaps through this vertical movement that Apple manages to escape her confines and float forever upwards. This reminds the listener that Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a work with the refined knowledge of the escape artist, the wire-walker, the trapeze artist: that winning elixir of muscle memory and self-knowledge. You can’t knock her off-balance. “Kick me under the table all you want,” she says, “I won’t shut up.”

The Future of ‘That Party Bernie Crashed’

Spencer Cohen
-
0
The Future of ‘That Party Bernie Crashed’

When Bernie Sanders announced to his political allies, in 2015, that he was going to launch a long-shot run for the Presidency, he reassured them that, while he knew he was unlikely to win, he hoped that his campaign could build a movement. While that movement fell short of bringing him to the White House twice, it has nevertheless begun to reshape the Democratic Party and the Overton window of American politics. And, crucially, to the difference of most progressive insurgent campaigns, this movement has created a backbench of devoted lawmakers and political organisations to carry out the movement and its vision.

So, at the end of his second run for office, with a Trump-Biden general election looming, understanding the role Bernie has played in reshaping the Democratic Party and how his legacy will continue to push the Party to the left remains crucial. The movement has had some success conquering the establishment, popularizing a $15 minimum wage, electing members in the House, and bringing in a new generation of young people into politics. As it seeks to continue to wage this ideological battle, while Bernie approaches his 79th birthday, a new generation of progressives seems ready to take over and further Bernie’s ideas and legacy.

Now more than ever, the future of the Democratic Party belongs to Bernie Sanders and the movement he created.

A New Progressive Backbench: The Left Beyond Bernie

The crowning achievement of the Bernie Sanders-led movement is undoubtedly elevating a group of people and groups that will incarnate progressivism for the foreseeable future.

After Bernie’s 2016 campaign, two groups formed seeking to elect left-wing insurgents to Congress: Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress, both of which were formed by Bernie staffers. They seek to carry the Bernie-esque mantra of bringing working-class people into politics to promote more left-wing agendas against establishment Democrats. Challenging the Democratic establishment by primarying high-level Democrats (Joe Crowley, AOC’s opponent was the 4th highest-ranking Democrat in the House) has remained a crucial part of the Bernie legacy. These political groups have also been accompanied by issue-based groups that were inspired by Bernie’s 2016 run, the most prominent of which is the Sunrise Movement, which promotes the Green New Deal and climate advocacy by organising protests, awareness, and backing climate-friendly candidates.

These groups have carried the legacy and ideas of Bernie Sanders by seeking to organise and durably alter politics. In doing so, they have brought new, progressives into the fold to carry on this message from the inside. The Squad, and The Progressive Caucus’ Chairwoman, Pramila Jayapal, have spearheaded this movement by introducing the Green New Deal and Medicare for All bills on the floor of Congress, and by pushing the congressional Overton window to the left. From banning billionaires to abolishing ICE, progressive members of Congress have durably changed the congressional political debate.

Through outside pressure in the forms of these political groups, and inside the halls of Congress, Bernie-inspired progressives have adopted the ultimate outsider-insider theory of change. In that vein, they have not limited their projects to changing the Overton window. This year alone they successfully primaried Dan Lipinski (a pro-life Congressman from Illinois who voted against Obamacare and declined to endorse Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012) with progressive insurgent Marie Newman, and got close to defeating a few other centrist barons of the House like Henry Cuellar.

Therefore, while the next generation of progressives already has a superstar leader in AOC, it also has an increasingly growing number of high-profile leaders like Ayanna Pressley and Pramila Jayapal. These ranks keep growing, and the movement is not a single-person movement: it is constituted of an increasingly large number of members of Congress and political group leaders.

The Bernie-wing of the Party is attempting a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party’s personnel and ideas, and has been making (slow, but sure) progress. It is hard to deny them an even bigger place in the Party for the foreseeable future.

A Long-Term Progressive Playbook: Redefining the Electorate

To win this political battle, the left has had to rewrite the election playbook for insurgent candidates. The mantra of ‘expanding the electorate’ has been omnipresent in progressive politics since Bernie’s campaign. Stacey Abrams emerged as the most visible advocate for this strategy in 2018, which seeks to rewrite the playbook for winning elections, and has split the Democratic Party.

Progressives argue that candidates for elected office, in order to win against moderates and Republicans, need to expand the electorate to younger and low-income voters, minorities, and infrequent voters to build a new governing majority coalition. In every insurgent campaign, from Abrams’ in Georgia, to AOC’s in NY-14, this has been a crucial feature. This model has not yet proven to be workable on the national level however – while Bernie inspired an undeniable uptick in youth turnout, a large reason he lost to Joe Biden was that the wave of ‘new voters’ he would bring into the political process never emerged.

The project of redefining the electorate to include the marginalised in the political process is a cornerstone of the progressive election playbook and is set to create a majority for them in the future. Inspired by Bernie’s efforts to do so on a national level, it remains an ongoing project that will likely to a long-term goal. It is also an idea that has begun to take over the Democratic Party, with a renewed focus on combatting voter suppression, especially in the context of coronavirus, through organisations like Abrams’ Fair Fight and through the increasing attention paid to this issue in the Democratic mainstream.

A Progressive Agenda for Generations: Crafting a Governing Plan

In addition to fighting the political and ideological battle, the Left has been building a governing plan to legislate once it does reach power. Bernie’s theory of change has been crucial in reorienting how progressives and the Party at large see politics. Creating a progressive movement to apply pressure on lawmakers has been a central concern of the post-Bernie progressive movement.

The issues that have become central to the progressive movement, thanks to Bernie, have become issues that are central to the inner-party debates that have animated the Democrats since 2016. Policies like the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and universal and free college have become staples of the debate in the Party. While these issues have become more popular, extensive polling has shown that, while these are popular by name, they poll better as concepts than as policy specifics.

A key failure of Bernie’s has been a failure to consolidate support on the Hill for these policies, instead choosing to wage war on the establishment. This has made issues like Medicare for All a litmus test for progressives, and any politician moderating their stance on Medicare for All (see Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren during the Democratic Primaries) are seen as opponents. Nevertheless, newer members of the movement, like AOC and Elizabeth Warren, have managed to walk a line between being anti-establishment and working with the establishment to advance causes progressives care about.

This progress has meant an incremental shift in the Democratic Mainstream: the $15 minimum wage is a prime example of an issue Bernie has popularised. As the movement progresses, issues like breaking up monopolies, the Green New Deal, free education, and universal healthcare will be the next fronts in the battle for progressives to win public opinion.

Luckily enough, in all these projects, Bernie gave them a head-start. The future of the Bernie Sanders wing is bright: with new leaders, ideas, and strategies to carry the movement forward, progressives should be able to keep making progress in electoral politics in public opinion and continue Bernie’s project for America.

Sense and Sexibility: A definitive ranking of Austen’s leading men

Mila Ottevanger
-
0
Sense and Sexibility: A definitive ranking of Austen’s leading men

Welcome to my definitive ranking of Austen’s romantic heroes and, as an auxiliary ranking that I was not actually asked to add, my favourite actors.

AUTHOR’S DISCLAIMER: This is a sensitive and controversial topic which I will attempt to treat with all due diligence. Please feel free to disagree. However, I am right. Let us begin.

8. Edmund Bertram, Mansfield Park:

Wit: Too bored to care. 

Charm: Too bored to care.

Fine Eyes: Too bored to care. 

Percentage of Derbyshire Owned: The man is a priest. I am very happy that he got his cottagecore fantasy. But is it a mansion with an obsequious housekeeper who practically raised you? I think not. Move along.

Gross Factor: Cousins?! No! He’s not the type of cousin Mr Collins is either i.e. nicely undefined so that I can happily imagine for my own peace of mind that he is six generations removed and the product of an affair. Sadly, he is definitely Fanny’s cousin. He should have married Mary Crawford and neatly sidestepped the possibility of web-footed offspring.

Favourite Actor: I wasn’t about to subject myself to actually watching cousins kissing, so I haven’t watched it. I’m giving this one to Jonny Lee Miller as consolation for losing both best Knightley and best Jo(h)nny-as-Knightley.

7. Colonel Brandon, Sense and Sensibility:

Wit: Silent. Brooding. He’s like Darcy if he never proposed to Elizabeth.

Charm: None at first, but points for his dedicated care and love for Marianne at the end.

Fine Eyes: Was he hot? I neither know nor care. He was old, this I know for sure.

Percentage of Derbyshire Owned: Very rich, which is something we love to see from an Austen hero.

Gross Factor: The bit of me that would excuse his dullness because of his kindness has been viciously trodden on by the fact that he is old enough to be her father. Austen, stop! Get some therapy!

Favourite Actor: I’ve only seen Alan Rickman and I love him lots so let’s go with that.

6. Edward Ferrars, Sense and Sensibility:

Wit: Not dazzling, but not stupid.

Charm: Bumbling, shy, generally Richard Curtis-eque.

Fine Eyes: ‘Not handsome.’ Whoever cast Hugh Grant didn’t listen to this.

Percentage of Derbyshire Owned: It was very attractive of him to give everything up for the sake of Lucy’s reputation, although perhaps he knew she was a fortune-seeker and played the long game. I imagine at the end Elinor turned to him and said ‘I love you; however, given I am a woman who cannot work, how do you plan to finance our future lives and the many children we are sure to have due to 19th century superstitions being our only family planning method?’ to which I think he would have responded with some stammering Grantian reply.

Gross Factor: None, I am pleased/shocked to report!

Favourite Actor: Hugh Grant. I will provide no other justification than this.

5. Charles Bingley, Pride and Prejudice:

Wit: He’s good-humoured but malleable and gullible.

Charm: A sweetheart!

Fine Eyes: Very handsome! Good for you, Jane Bennet.

Percentage of Derbyshire Owned: £5000 a year!

Gross Factor: None! Well done, Austen!

Favourite Actor: Christopher Sean as Bing Lee in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, an online web series adaptation in which Lizzie has a vlog. He really earnestly works for Jane’s forgiveness in this one.

4. Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey:

Wit: When you say you want a funny guy, he’s the one you mean. He somehow manages to make fun of Catherine to her face and yet also be very sweet. He’s also very clever and well-read (Henry is, in fact, the only Austen man I could actually see myself being with because he is – get this – a normal human being. Maybe he just reminds me of Gilbert Blythe).

Charm: Major points for being very kind to Catherine, a loving brother, having a moral compass and coming all that way to apologise. Minus points for mocking her but also, she deserved it.

Fine Eyes: He’s pretty good-looking, I think. His big pull is actually having a brain, though.

Percentage of Derbyshire Owned: He’s got that whole cosy priest vibe going for him too, but I love him, unlike Edmund, so this time I won’t pretend I’d prefer a mansion to a sweet little parsonage. He is also willing to give it up for Catherine. Aw.

Gross Factor: None, again! Keep restraining yourself, Austen!

Favourite Actor: JJ Feild. Watch Austenland – it’s a masterpiece.

3. George Knightley, Emma: 

Wit: Supreme, biting, cutting. It’s like if Mr Bennet was young(ish) and attractive. He has excellent judgment. It’s very good of him, for the sake of my sanity, to actually be able to see what’s happening. It gives me hope.

Charm: Kind, considerate – to everyone but Emma. I love that he is the only one who doesn’t coddle her. Definitely top-notch flirting tactics.

Fine Eyes: Older but rugged. 

Percentage of Derbyshire Owned: Rich, but willing to give up his independence to live with Emma and her father!

Gross Factor: He says he’s been in love with her since she was a child. I would like to brush this off as a joke and think instead that he only realised because of his jealousy of Frank. That had better be true, because he’s 16 years older than her. 

Favourite Actor: Johnny Flynn, you can move in with me and my weird dad Bill Nighy any day of the week (okay, for real, the 2020 Emma is a fever dream of brilliance which builds their relationship beautifully and the way he looks at her is impeccable).

2. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride and Prejudice:

Wit: Extremely clever with zero self-awareness. Very mean, and then suddenly the nicest man on earth. Mr Personality Transplant 1813.

Charm: 0-100 in less than a year. Desperately in love with Lizzie, Miss Reader Surrogate 1813, so we feel loved too.

Fine Eyes: Canonically fit.

Percentage of Derbyshire Owned: Canonically 50%.

Gross Factor: It says a lot about what Austen has done to me that I look at an age-gap of eight years where the woman is so young and say ‘that’s fine.’

Favourite Actor: Matthew McFadyen, I love you so much. That is the problem. It’s called Pride and Prejudice, not Pride and Crippling Social Awkwardness with a Light Sprinkling of Internalised Snobbery. Colin Firth makes me hate him, sympathise with him, and love him. Also, Matthew, this is 2005’s fault in general, but he has better hair. So, it goes to Colin. Just.

1. Frederick Wentworth, Persuasion:

Wit: Clever, competent, succeeds professionally against all the odds. Pretty cutting to Anne, but she deserves it! 

Charm: ‘You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.’ Persuasion is my favourite book of all time for a reason, and it’s because he loves Anne Elliott so much it allows her to feel joy again.

Fine Eyes: Very handsome.

Percentage of Derbyshire Owned: We love a self-made man! Get that coin, Frederick!

Gross Factor: A very small age difference? No close or quasi- familial relationship? Jane, this is your best work!

Favourite Actor: Nothing beats Rupert Penry-Jones and his longing looks.

Oxford SU fights for renter protection amid student rent strikes

Felix O'Mahony
-
0
Oxford SU fights for renter protection amid student rent strikes

Oxford University Student Union and Oxford Brookes Union has written a letter to major lettings agents in Oxford reminding them of their duties under the law and asking for greater protections of students who have been badly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

The letter was sent by Róisín McCallion, VP Welfare and Equal Opportunities at Oxford SU, and Daisy Hopkins, Vice-President of Student Wellbeing at Oxford Brookes SU. It argued that the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, including job losses and caring responsibilities, made it “increasingly difficult” for some students to make rent payments.

The letter went on to remind landlords of Government advice on evictions, which encouraged landlords to “work together to put in place a rent payment scheme where people are struggling to pay their rent”. The advice also reminded landlords that they must give tenants three months’ notice before they seek the termination of a tenancy.

All landlords have been granted a three month mortgage holiday by the Government, meaning that private landlords may stop paying towards their mortgage without impacting their credit scores. While renters have been granted an extended three-month notice period before the termination of a tenancy, tenants will still be liable for their rent.

Given the exceptional circumstances presented by the pandemic, the welfare officers went on to propose a number of additional measures designed to protect those students who had been made most vulnerable by the pandemic. The additional measures are as follows:

  • For students who are unable to return home for whatever reason, an extension of their tenancy should be granted in incidence that Covid-19 isolation measures continue past the end of the fixed term period of their tenancy. This will prevent the individual from being made homeless.
  • Students that have been financially impacted as a result of the situation and cannot move out receive a significant rent reduction or a rent holiday where no rent payments are required throughout the current crisis.
  • Partners should be lobbied to follow the advice of the National Residential Landlords Association to suspend rent increases for the next 12 months, including reversal of planned rent increases for upcoming tenancies.
  • Consider a no-penalty contract release for students who are no longer living at the tenancy address, without transferring any costs to other, remaining tenants. If students have already paid for the next period, this should be refunded along with their deposit.

The letter encouraged lettings agents to forward the letter on to landlords, and support the requests, assisting landlords where necessary.

Speaking to Cherwell, Róisín McCallion emphasised the importance of students being allowed to remain in privately rented accommodation for the duration of the pandemic, noting that students who were estranged from their families or who lived in abusive households would need to be able to continue their tenancies in Oxford regardless of the length of their tenancy contracts. Without additional protection these students could be made homeless by the crisis.

McCallion also highlighted the fourth recommendation to landlords, that no costs should not be transferred to remaining tenants if one tenant chooses to leave the contract early. Tenancy contracts typically make tenants collectively responsible for rent and other payments, but the SU has requested that other students should not be held liable for the financial situation of co-tenants.

The Student Union offers advice to any students who are facing financial or residential difficulties, but due to the significant increase in the number of students who were making requests for residential advice, the Union decided to send the letter to all lettings agents letting to students in Oxford.

So far, McCallion says that while some agencies have responded positively to the letter, so far none have made concrete commitments to the measures outlined in the letter.

A spokesperson for College and County told Cherwell that they have “shared [the letter] with some of the relevant landlords.

“Some of the ideas are in line with government proposals, but some of the ideas in the letter are unrealistic for many clients (especially those with business loans and not mortgages)

“Where we have students who are in genuine difficulty, I am sure we can help them negotiate a solution with our clients. One of the problems is that there are a number of students who really do not have any “hardship” who are asking for “relief” from their landlord and making Landlords sceptical about the genuine ones.”

Cherwell also reached out to Allen & Harris, Andrews, Chancellors, Connells, Scott Fraser and Oxford Lettings for comment. None have replied.

All Oxford colleges have waived tenancy fees for students who are not returning for Trinity term.

In the meantime, students across the country have initiated rent strikes, demanding that students in private halls and university-managed accommodation should be granted relief from their third-term rent.

Cherwell spoke to ‘Liberate the University’, a movement which is coordinating rent strikes at Universities in London, including University College London. The group has demanded that students in all forms of accommodation should be allowed to leave their lettings contracts early, that belongings left in rooms should be stored from collection when it is safe to do so, that students remaining in halls should be granted a 20% rent reduction, and that all halls should enforce a uniform policy in regard to rent payments.

The group currently believes that between one hundred and two hundred students are currently on rent strike at London universities, although many are worried about legal or disciplinary action being taken against them.

The movement saw early success, with UCL operated halls and University of London intercollegiate halls agreeing to three of their demands. However, most private halls have still not agreed to any of the demands.

UCL had initially asked students leaving their contracts early to vacate all possessions from their room in contravention of lockdown regulations, however this policy was quickly reversed.

UCL did not reply to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Sanctuary Students, which operates a number of halls of residence across London, told Cherwell: “While we understand that some students and parents are disappointed, the decision was made with the wider interests of our customers and communities at the forefront of our minds.

“We continue to house a significant number of national and international students in our properties in various locations and for many of these, our accommodation is their primary home. All our sites remain open and without our accommodation these students may become homeless. It is essential we continue to provide them with support staff and access to a safe, secure, managed place to live.

“We are aware that student loan payments will continue through this period and the government is encouraging tenants living in rented accommodation to pay their rent as normal. We have also been encouraging any students with financial concerns to contact us to discuss their situation and will be happy to offer them flexible payment options through an agreed payment plan.”

Cherwell also reached out to Urbanest, another student accommodation provider which has not agreed to the demands made by LtU. Urbanest did not reply to the request for comment.

Students at the University of Surrey also threatened a rent strike over payments of third term rent. The University later announced that no students would be required to pay fees for rent in University-managed accommodation for their third term.

A spokesperson for ‘Surrey, Cut the Rent’, the organisers of the rent strike, told Cherwell that they “know that university management keeps a close eye on student campaigning, and… know for a fact they were aware of the size of the potential strike and we do believe that the threat of a rent strike impacted their decision with the partial fulfilment of demands.”

The group encouraged all students to email their concerns to accommodation managers.

The University of Surrey did not respond to a request for comment.

Image by Isabella Lill

Review: Jerskin Fendrix’s ‘Winterreise’

Fred Waine
-
0
Review: Jerskin Fendrix’s ‘Winterreise’

Weird things are happening in the world of pop music. Charli XCX and Carly Rae Jepsen have bounced back from ‘Boom Clap’ and ‘Call Me Maybe’ to spearhead a new wave of daring experimental songwriting. Kanye released a swear-free gospel album. Grimes is pregnant with Elon Musk’s baby and giving us regular updates on how she is nourishing her child by eating vegan ‘sludge’. Who or what, then, might emerge from this bizarre period in musical history as the latest unstable pop genius, the artist to define the 2020s?

Enter Jerskin Fendrix, a poorly shaven, upper-middle-class millennial armed with Ableton Live and a classical music degree from Cambridge (fortunately he’s talented enough that we can forgive him that). Fendrix’s achievements to date include writing the score for a V&A remake of Alfred Jarry’s absurdist play Ubu Roi and releasing a Christmas single with London math-rockers Black Midi, but his debut album Winterreise has to be considered the outstanding moment of his career so far.

The album’s title, translating as ‘winter’s journey’ in German, is a name fit for an opera. And an opera it is – Winterreise is meticulously arranged, its songs flowing into each other in congruent movements, despite the fact that most of them have had single releases at some point over the last few years. The precocious Fendrix (real name Joscelin Dent-Pooley) is at centre stage, a natural performer who embodies personas with ease; what else do you expect from someone whose stage name is itself rockstar material, equal parts legendary guitarist reference and bizarre sexual innuendo?

Winterreise’s opening track, the 7-minute ‘Manhattan’, is a prime example of Fendrix’s classical sensibilities. It opens with a delicate piano riff that wouldn’t seem out of place in the opening titles of a 90s family movie, but which quickly escalates into frustrated hammering. A bassoon enters, reminiscent of the ‘Grandfather’ part from Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Pitched down vocals and synthetic strings add to a simmering orchestral crescendo which, no sooner than it reaches a climax, is sliced apart by trap-inspired hi-hats and a rock-opera melody. Fendrix’s lyrics seem to document a frenetic and somewhat psychotic love affair, set (where else?) in a snowy New York City. The track reaches the only logical conclusion it could, in the form of a coda pairing an overdriven guitar solo with the sound of rattling cutlery. In short, it’s about as diverse as pop music gets.

The disparate influences keep coming on ‘Onigri’, a PC Music-inspired banger with lyrics about Japanese rice balls and stalking. “I wanna wake up when you wake up/I wanna die when you die”, sings Fendrix in high-pitched autotune; the deranged narrative combines with a naive vocal style and YouTube-football-compilation-style synths to humorous effect. ‘Last Night in New York’ is an unnerving industrial soundscape of revving motor engines, thunderclaps and factory mechanisms. Fendrix’s voice lurks beneath the surface in a murmur; only right at the end of the track does it burst out into a hypermasculine, faux emo cry.

A trio of warped pop songs constitute Winterreise’scentral movement. On ‘Black Hair’, the album’s lead single, Fendrix crafts an ominous loop from an 808 kick drum and a cabasa, before ripping off Ke$ha’s ‘Tik Tok’; the perplexing opening line “Wake up in the morning feeling like Constance Wu” is the first of the track’s countless references to modern culture, which also include Stabilo highlighters, Awkwafina and the Met Office. Fendrix again assumes a stalker/serial killer persona which, paired with a recurring sub-bass/spasming synth interlude, is genuinely fear-inducing. CBS could easily use the narrator as inspiration for the next season of Criminal Minds, such does he mutter “black hair, black hair” to himself as he goes through his victim’s belongings.

‘Swamp’ is another psychological study, this time of a disturbingly one-sided e-relationship; “I’ve known you for one year now/and I wanna know what you look like”, growls Fendrix. The neglected male lover lists his mundane character flaws (“I overseason my food/I text girls when I’m drinking”) and partakes in an imaginary dinner date, seemingly oblivious to just how maniacal he sounds, and still proclaiming to be his e-girlfriend’s “raison d’être”  as the synth-pop chorus builds to a crescendo. Great songwriters tend to enjoy flirting with irony, and Fendrix is no different: when he sings “I wanna be Ezra Koenig”, it is impossible to tell if the Vampire Weekend frontman is being revered or ridiculed. This style of writing reflects that ubiquitous Internet-age fear of judgment which causes us to hide behind online personas at all costs rather than publicly reveal our own opinions.

Fendrix parodies this online role-playing to the extreme on ‘A Star is Born’, the final member of Winterreise’s core triptych, and the album’s best song. His brash, self-aggrandising lyrics perfectly and hilariously channel the nauseating cockiness of Gen Z ‘influencers’ such as Jake Paul; “Call the fire service/cos I’m on fire/Call me Icarus/I’m getting higher and higher” is surely the funniest couplet of 2020. The synth hook might sound like a litter of seal pups has been passed through a vocoder, but this is sing-along EDM magic, and the irony makes it all the more fun. Tracks such as ‘I’ll Clean Your Sheets’ and ‘Depecc’ offer a little more sincerity towards the back end of the album, but Winterreise is at its best when Fendrix puts himself in the shoes of someone even more unhinged than himself. Throughout, he directs proceedings from behind a digitally engineered mask of vocal distortion and autotune, sculpting a masterpiece that, with its video game aesthetic and throwaway pop references, perfectly reflects the joys and perils of modern Internet culture. You might describe closing track ‘Oh God’ as the sound of an existential crisis composed solely of First World problems, and that more or less sums up the album as a whole, too. Kesha, Kanye, Grimes: take note.

SATIRE: Captain Tom We Need You!

Jack Womack
-
0
SATIRE: Captain Tom We Need You!

Many have been quick to point out the unhelpful but increasingly widespread practice of reverting to military language to describe the nation’s ‘war’ with COVID-19, but more striking in the case of Boris Johnson is his fondness for discussing each problem like it’s a training exercise on a private school playing field. Speaking on his first day back from recovery, Johnson was eager to stress the need to look on the bright side: “This is the moment of opportunity. This is the moment when we can press home our advantage.” Distressingly, it’s just as easy to imagine these words being bellowed at full volume by an abusive American football coach, rather than reassuringly into a camera by a head of state.

One of the milder symptoms of lockdown would appear to be that we’ve all been indulging in one too many trips down memory lane. Personally, I live in a sort of dream-haze-waking-nightmare where the years 2006-07 replay on an endless loop, and I’m back in Catholic School saying Hail Marys. For Johnson however, the nostalgic destination of choice is clearly an Eton College games lesson – circa 1979.

Johnson is hardly the first young gentleman to make that well-travelled leap from the hallowed rugby pitches of Berkshire to Number 10 Downing Street. The 20th in fact. But surely no other Old Etonian has quite so aggressively channelled their inner sportsman once making it to high office? Johnson went on to say: “If this virus were a physical assailant, an unexpected and invisible mugger… then this is the moment when we have begun together to wrestle it to the floor.” Happily, Johnson is on home turf here: ‘wrestling assailants to the floor’ slots neatly into the SKILLS section of his extensive CV, right next to ‘crap biographies’ and ‘divorces’.

Many will have seen the video of Johnson barrelling straight into a ten-year-old schoolboy during a visit to Tokyo in 2015. Now it seems that unfortunate boy was simply the dummy run – a training exercise for the real ‘invisible mugger’ to come. If all it took to stop COVID-19 was an ill-timed rugby tackle, we could sleep soundly. It turns out it’s a bit more complicated than that.

The fundamental problem here is category error. Johnson was never meant to be a ‘wartime’ Prime Minister, or even a vaguely serious one at that. We liked him because he smashed through polystyrene walls on Brexit-themed JCBs. The formula worked fine when the problems on the in-tray were hypothetical, but now it’s all getting a bit too real. Getting angry at Johnson for failing to behave like a serious politician at this point is like casting Jamie Laing and Spencer Matthews in Waiting for Godot, and then demanding a refund because you weren’t sufficiently moved. It was never gonna happen, pal.

Still, if the enemy here is ‘invisible’, at least we can be grateful for some highly visible heroes. Chief among them is, of course, newly crowned chart-topper Captain Tom Moore. Having raised nearly £30million for ‘NHS Charities Together’ at the time of writing, you have to take your hat off to him. However, there is something a little unedifying about watching a 99-year-old struggle up and down his garden to raise money for a National Health Service built on the founding principle that ‘it is not a “charity”’.

Besides, how long until the goodwill runs out? Much as we’d love him to, Captain Tom can’t alleviate the anxieties of an entire nation by himself. Surely, it’s only a matter of time until every Brit over the age of 85 is sanctioned with enforced periods of physical exercise, providing tabloids with an unending supply of heart-warming material. As Moore will soon discover, anyone dubbed ‘inspirational’ by the red-tops is playing a race against time. If I were him, I’d be thinking of ways to keep that spotlight from flitting off elsewhere – laps of the North Circular rather than just his garden for instance. That would surely keep the nation going.

Until that day comes however, Johnson’s buller optimism will have to do. “In spite of all the suffering, we have so nearly succeeded,” he told reporters on Monday. Unless ‘nearly succeeded’ is an Etonian euphemism for ‘shattering defeat’, this was a horrific case of misreading the room. For a man desperate to go down in history alongside his hero Churchill, Johnson suddenly looks dangerously out of his depth. It turns out the thick sheen of carefully cultivated eccentricity which has carried him this far is less fun when thousands of lives are on the line. We might need a few more laps from Captain Tom yet.

Student sets up ‘Bridge of Charity’ outside station

Imogen Duke
-
0
Student sets up ‘Bridge of Charity’ outside station

An Oxford DPhil student has set up ‘Bridge of Charity’, an initiative where donated bags of food and basic necessities are hung on the pedestrian bridge outside Oxford train station. It is designed to combat food poverty while resources are under pressure during the pandemic.

Alexandra Fergen, studying for a DPhil in Modern History at Merton, encourages volunteers to fill a bag with essentials and write the contents on the bag. They can then be collected for free by people who need them. The initiative is inspired by the Gabenzäune (donation fences) seen around Germany, her home country.

The initiative has already been well received. After the first day, many of the bags were taken overnight and were replaced with new donations.

Fergen told Cherwell: “Bridge of Charity is a local initiative that I am organising in response to that pandemic. It basically seeks to help those who lack the money or access to basic goods and other necessities in these difficult times.

“I’m setting this up is because research shows that the pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity in the UK and many people are being are forced to skip meals. Many food banks and soup kitchens and other charities that are really important are closed or only offering limited services. As lockdown continues and as the number of cases increases, food insecurity becomes an ever-growing problem.

“The beauty of this initiative is that there is no middle man. It’s easy and its self-sufficient, but it really depends on the community and people’s willingness to participate. I hope that it will be welcomed here as well. I decided to set it up on a bridge, this particular bridge because of its central location of course, but also more generally because of its symbolism. A bridge is symbolic of community, cooperation, and support.”

The initiative can be found on Facebook and Instagram, and people are encouraged to post pictures of their contributions with #bridgeofcharityoxford.

Image provided by Alexandra Fergen

Cinema: The venue transcending the visual

Sofía Sanabria de Felipe
-
0
Cinema: The venue transcending the visual

Maybe if I had known, I’d have stopped to take a picture. I’d have kept that ticket. Maybe if I’d known, I would have made sure I wasn’t “too busy” to catch another movie the following Saturday. Maybe… maybe… maybe, if it hadn’t been our last, the memories of it would have been blurred with countless others a long time ago. The memory of the last time we went to that two-screen retro cinema, weeks before it closed down. 

For someone who finds loud noises, flashing lights in dark rooms, and the enhanced presence of strangers ridiculously overwhelming, the old cinema a couple of miles away from her home should not be enlisted as one of my favourite places to be. And yet, there I was, silent tears falling down my face when I heard the news. The Picturehouse has been shut down. Had run out of business. Online streaming platforms had usurped its place as entertainment provider on weekends and Friday afternoons. 

I couldn’t believe it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m as big a fan as anyone of slumping in bed with my laptop, watching the latest addictive show till the early hours of the morning with a bag of crisps by my side. It’s an incredibly simple thing to do, and entertainment is almost certainly guaranteed. But it’s never quite right. It’s never quite the same as having that experience of watching something on the big screen for the first time, popcorn and Coke neatly placed on each side. 

There’s something about sitting in (lord only knows) how many years old couch chairs that will never be able to smell of anything but popcorn, with surrounding speakers blasting out the opening titles’ tune, that no comfy bed, no sofa nor lounge at home, will ever be able to replicate. There’s something about seeing the silhouette of that same stranger, a couple of rows in front, every new MCU opening night, smell of cheese nachos coming from their seat, that no marathon at home in your Spider-Man onesie will ever be able to bring back. There’s something about slurping away on your drink – accidentally biting into the straw as the action on the screen becomes a bit much – silently praying that you didn’t drink it all too fast, that you’ll make it through the film without being interrupted by an inconvenient trip to the bathroom – that having a “stop” and “rewind” function on your laptop can never even attempt to simulate. 

It wasn’t the entertainment that came from watching a film on a Saturday evening that my tears were mourning after the loss of our local retro cinema. It was the experience. It was the particular convergence of sensory stimuli at one specific moment in time, trapped in my memories forever in association with the latest film release.

They all flash in front of me as I type these words on the page, creating a movie of their own as they intertwine. Bringing the ice-cream flavoured times of childhood summer afternoons spent in that dark room – running away from the heat, desperate for some aircon – together with those Friday nights fourteen-year-old me would spent third-wheeling my best friends on their date – would they actually kiss this time?  

As far as that space was concerned, no matter who we were, how we dressed, smelled, ate, we were always welcome. There would always be something to watch. A horror movie on Valentine’s Day, and romcom on Halloween. A post-break up, latest YA adaptation, an old classic – usually a musical – being shown every three month. It always seemed to have an answer, even if it only kept us occupied for a couple of hours. 

But I suppose that’s just the thing: it was always more than short-term entertainment as a form of escapism. It was more than just a convenient “hang-out” spot for puppy love and overly warm nights. No. It was a constant in our lives. 

It’s been quite some time since I’ve visited the site. Been quite some time since the credits rolled up. And yet, I seem to lie here waiting for a post-credit scene. A last 24 seconds to bid it goodbye. To thank it for the memories, for the experiences it enabled me to have. 

I wonder what those 24 seconds will smell like. Will it be the Christmas ensemble of freshly gifted perfumes, and rather salty popcorn? Will Skywalker blue be the colour that lights up the finale? Will it sound like Célene Dion, professing her love one last time? Or maybe like Alexandre Desplat, harmonising along to Turing’s decoding of Enigma? Will it taste like cheap lipstick and nacho cheese? 

With nothing but speculation and two decades of memories worth of possibilities, there is one thing I can assure. I know those 24 seconds will feel like home. 

1...455456457...2,491Page 456 of 2,491

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by James Ashley