Thursday 14th August 2025
Blog Page 462

Elevate steps down: Oxford Union officer candidates drop out after controversy

Cherwell News
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Elevate steps down: Oxford Union officer candidates drop out after controversy

Following messages sent from a candidate invoking George Floyd’s killing as reasoning for registering to vote, officers for the ‘Elevate’ slate have dropped out of the running for positions in the Union.

This afternoon, the candidates for officer positions did not nominate themselves for the election before 3pm, meaning they are no longer eligible to be elected. This leaves the election uncontested for the ‘Hope’ slate. 

Candidates running on the Standing and Secretary’s Committee will be on the ballot paper, but some have already announced they will not be campaigning for votes, and will not be associated with the ‘Elevate’ slate. 

The messages sent to encourage people to register to vote for the Union elections were condemned as “disturbing” by the Hilary Term Treasurer and an ex-Standing Committee member.

The message from the candidate read: “Even though this is not the typical content of a union message I feel I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the fact that it feels as though a union election has no place in a world that feels as though it’s unravelling at the seams – today my friends were tear-gassed and the streets I’ve grown up in were looted and destroyed and helicopters fly over my head as we speak (it’s nearly 2am), I’m sending you this link to register to vote because I find that I’m having a hard time making sense of the world right now and at its best, I think the union provides a place for that to happen.”

Melanie Onovo, Treasurer of the Oxford Union in Hilary Term, wrote in a statement on Facebook that the slate “opted for privately handling her abhorrent behaviour without acknowledgement for the necessity of a public apology.” 

The private apology from the candidate said: “In moments like these it is vital that people participate in the open exchange of ideas. The Union provides a forum to gain nuanced understanding and hear conflicting views. The people chosen as Union representatives determine what speakers and issues receive this important university platform. I wish, as we all do, that the Oxford Union remains a positive force for having conversations that matter.”

Onovo responded to the private apology saying: “I have been asked not to call this out publicly and ‘destroy 2 years of work’ but how someone can decide winning an election in a student society is more important than this grotesque behaviour is beyond me.

“THIS IS NOT AN APOLOGY. I recently had to suffer through racial discrimination in Christ Church in relation to the death of George Floyd and this sham of an apology is in total INSULT to the work I, and many of my Black brothers and sisters at Oxford and across the globe have been doing to positively contribute to the fight against racial injustice.”

Mo Iman, an ex-standing Committee member, also posted an open letter on Facebook, and described the messages as “Another clear incident of a white person appropriating the struggles of a minority community for their own success.”

Olly Boyland, the former ‘Elevate’ Librarian candidate, announced his resignation from the campaign on Facebook: “I completely accept that we, the Elevate officer team, completely mishandled the situation. We should have dealt with the situation more firmly and swiftly, ensuring a public apology was made at the outset. We should also have sought to ensure we had a more diverse officer team. It is for these reasons that I am dropping out of the election today.”

The ‘Elevate’ campaign stated earlier today “We sincerely apologise for the deep hurt that was caused by these messages. The member of our slate who sent these messages will no longer be running with us. Having already been nominated, her name will appear on the digital ballot, but she will not be endorsing, or be endorsed by, Elevate.”

‘Elevate’ has not yet officially announced that the slate has stepped down from the election.

Image credit to Wikimedia Commons.

Oxford City Council prepares for safe return to work

Madison Carroll
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Oxford City Council prepares for safe return to work

Oxford City Council has recently begun to prepare the city for employees returning to work. Last week, the Council announced that it would commit £234,000 to kick start businesses for when shops can reopen in Oxford.

This comes as Oxford University Pro-Vice-Chancellor Dr. David Prout calls for preparations to facilitate the transportation needs of employees returning to work. The University stated that they anticipate around 5,000 of 14,500 employees will begin commuting to work during the summer. However, as around 60% of employees live outside of a reasonable cycling range the release expressed the needs of Oxford employees for safe transportation.

A letter from the University to the council stated that employees will need to use Park and Pedal – they will drive to the park and then cycle or walk the last few miles of their commute. This practice will become essential until the pandemic ends. For this plan to work, the Pro-Vice Chancellor expressed that more secure areas for employees to leave bikes overnight need to be established and safer, traffic regulated cycling routes from Park and Pedal sites to employment sites need to be increased.

The Council has surveyed businesses in order to gain a better perspective on the measures needed for employees to safely return to work.  In the City Council’s survey, to which 191 organisations responded, they found high levels of support for more secure cycling and road closures. Additionally, survey respondents highly favoured road closures and new zones for outdoor tables and chairs. Respondents of the survey include small and large retailers, NHS institutions, and University colleges.

“Local businesses have sent a very clear signal,” said Councillor Tom Hayes, Oxford City Council Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Green Transport and Zero Carbon. “We’re seeing very high levels of support for more secure cycle, road closures and safety measures outside schools, new separate and safe cycle ways, and new zones for outdoor tables and chairs. Our clear aim is to make changes in the areas where we exercise control and to continue influencing our partners to use their powers in the interest of public safety.”

The Council’s new changes will focus on making spaces for cyclists and pedestrians more secure as citizens are being encouraged to avoid public transportation whenever possible. The focus of the Council’s efforts will be to ensure that cyclists and pedestrians can maintain social distancing while traveling.

“When shops reopen on 15 June, the city centre will become busier,” said Councillor Hayes. ”Social distancing protects public health, so we have to move quickly to ensure people minimise contact with others. We’re moving quickly because there isn’t a lot of time left before the city centre reopens, but we’re moving forward in cooperation, listening to and working with local businesses to get things right.”

Efforts to maintain social distancing include things such as increasing the number of bicycle parking spaces and in the city centre and temporarily reallocating road space for pedestrians to have more room.

The Council is also placing an emphasis on ensuring that disabled people have access to shopping areas in the city centre. The Council has already hosted a workshop with disabled people to discuss this issue and are in talks with disability groups in Oxford.

In response to Oxford University’s statement on the transport needs of employees returning to work, Councillor Hayes expressed the urgency to implement social distancing measures in the city: “We have a tight deadline of 15 June, when the shops will be reopening, to prepare the city centre for an easing of the lockdown,” Hayes said.

“The return of a minimum of 5,000 University and Oxford college employees to work during the summer creates an additional pressure to put in place social distancing measures. We’ll continue to do all we can, committing significant funding to cycling and walking to prepare for 15 June. In line with Government guidance, heeding the calls of the University, and exercising influence over the local transport authority, Oxfordshire County Council, we are determined to ensure that the city centre and the people using it aren’t left unprepared for 15 June.”

Image credit to Tejvan Pettinger

Review: The Mirror and the Light

Oscar Jelley
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Review: The Mirror and the Light

The final instalment of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy finds her writing with more lyricism and force than ever before, and cements her prestige as one of the greatest writers living.

Hilary Mantel has complained, vocally and often, about Hans Holbein’s misleading portrait of Thomas Cromwell. Eyes narrowed, lips pursed, Holbein’s version of Henry VIII’s right- hand man is an insensate thug, not the kind of person you’d greet with a smile in a dim-lit alley, nor sympathise with as he makes his sorry way to the scaffold. Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy, then, might be thought of as a kind of counter-portrait, an attempt to read against the historical grain – to recognise the self-made man, the intellectual, the polyglot, the father, the master and the loyal servant behind the picture that Holbein hands us. With the release of The Mirror and the Light, Mantel has accomplished something that is rarely done. She has persuasively imagined herself into the shoes of a man who lived almost five-hundred years ago: she has made her readers feel that she knows him and, by the end, that they might know him too.

Mantel’s books are the apotheosis of what a novel can be: loud, lavish worlds, brimming with sensory detail in a narrative that spins out into space as well as time. In them, Cromwell’s polymath intellect is the medium through which Tudor England glitters into view like sunlight through stained glass, from its most particular details to its grandest ambitions: from the warp and the weft of an Antwerp carpet, to the quality of the weave that holds a country together. Wolf Hall, the first breathless immersion into Mantel’s Tudor world, sets the tone, and charts Cromwell’s ascent into the king’s favour and the rise of Anne Boleyn. Bring Up The Bodies, a political thriller taut as the skin of a drum, describes her fall, and Cromwell’s further rise. The Mirror and the Light is the longest and slowest of the three, and sees him rise further still, until suddenly – ineluctably – he plummets, and is undone.

If this latest book is her finest yet, then it’s in large part because it builds so grandly on what has already been. Mantel layers her portrait of Cromwell so densely that you feel she is better acquainted with her fictional man than the real one was with himself – better, perhaps, than many real people are with themselves. Memories, myths, fantasies and visions intrude upon the central thrust of the narrative, configuring and reconfiguring themselves in breathtaking counterpoint. By the final pages, she has built up a web of mental associations so tight-knit that, in a few achingly poignant paragraphs, she is able to summon up feelings and experiences capacious enough to encapsulate an entire life. It is, as Mantel is keen to acknowledge, a self-contained book: but read it with the first two fresh in the mind, and the sheer scope of that final, brief chapter is overwhelming.

Tudor politics were often violent and shockingly unjust, and even under Mantel’s sympathetic eye, Cromwell cannot be exculpated from all crimes. But despite his sometime brutality, it’s impossible not to feel close to Mantel’s figure: the genius from nowhere who became the second-most powerful man in all England, with his enterprising eye and his unforced skill, his easy wit and his surprising generosity. Henry VIII, too, is masterfully depicted, swaying from scene to scene between forlorn and frightening. Henry was a human man who nevertheless conducted himself with the kind of volatile caprice usually reserved for the Old Testament God, and this is a tension that Mantel navigates with absolute command. The many other characters – most of them lost to popular imagination, but marvellously reanimated here – are handled in similarly deft style. Anne Boleyn, in particular, stands out; her loss is felt in the last instalment, but that can hardly be helped.

All three books balance a pacy and quick-witted story with an unwavering reverence for the contemplative and slow. They are sometimes very funny, and occasionally quite strange. They are always, always stunningly written. The prose is lyrical and yet utterly lucid; somehow, she captures the force and cadence of Tudor speech in a way that feels authentically archaic without becoming twee, and the extrovert rhetoric of the age only enhances Mantel’s already astonishing gift for pith and clarity. Her unmatched eye for detail shows most prodigally in quieter moments: scenes set on hushed evenings, in gardens abundant with flowers and fruit, or on crisp mornings surveyed from atop the saddle of a horse. The Mirror and the Light contains a lovely description of the variegated textures of plums, and such interludes abound throughout the trilogy, moments of tranquil equipoise that tip effortlessly towards transcendence. The first two books won Mantel the Man Booker Prize, twice. No-one writes like her, not as engrossingly and, it might seriously be suggested, not as well.

In the first book, Mantel describes Holbein’s attempt to paint her leading man. Appraising the finished portrait, the real Cromwell – her Cromwell – is unimpressed: “I look like a murderer.” Next to Holbein’s image, that stern and unyielding figure whose face gives nothing away, Mantel’s Cromwell is a far more compelling proposition: a flesh-and-blood man, worldly, talented and compromised, striving to remain upright in a place and time that teeters constantly on the edge of crisis. Her trilogy is a triumph. Read it!

Union candidate dropped from slate for messages invoking George Floyd protests

Cherwell News and Investigations Section Editors
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Union candidate dropped from slate for messages invoking George Floyd protests

The Hilary Term Treasurer and an ex-Standing Committee member of the Oxford Union have condemned ‘disturbing’ messages sent by a candidate to Oxford Union members. 

The candidate, who has now been dropped from the ‘Elevate’ slate, sent messages to members asking them to register to vote, mentioning the death of George Floyd and the ensuing protests, and using these as reasoning to register to vote in the Union’s online elections. 

The message read:

“I hope you’re doing well in these challenging times. The thought of us all being together again at Ox in MT20 may be the only thing keeping me sane right now. 

“Even though this is not the typical content of a union message I feel I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the fact that it feels as though a union election has no place in a world that feels as though it’s unravelling at the seams – today my friends were tear-gassed and the streets I’ve grown up in were looted and destroyed and helicopters fly over my head as we speak (it’s nearly 2am), I’m sending you this link to register to vote because I find that I’m having a hard time making sense of the world right now and at its best, I think the union provides a place for that to happen.”

Melanie Onovo, the Treasurer during Hilary Term, wrote in a statement on Facebook that she had “approached the leadership of the Elevate slate”, asking for a public apology, but that “they opted for privately handling her abhorrent behaviour without acknowledgement for the necessity of a public apology.” 

A private statement sent to Onovo from Elevate that was written by the candidate stated: “Hi all. I’ve recently been made aware that a message to friends I wrote related to the Oxford Union may have been perceived as electioneering when that was the furthest thing from my mind at the time. I sent the message coming from a place of pain at seeing widely broadcast images of police brutality against people of colour that reached a tipping point with the murder of George Floyd. 

“These disheartening events cast a spotlight on institutional racism in the US. This pandemic at this moment further brings into sharp focus longstanding inequalities from which America suffers. In the full force of these tragic events, I felt uncomfortable campaigning. For that reason, I made no mention of my candidacy for the Union in my message. However, I thought encouraging people to register to vote to preserve what is best about the Oxford Union was productive at this critical juncture.

“In moments like these it is vital that people participate in the open exchange of ideas. The Union provides a forum to gain nuanced understanding and hear conflicting views. The people chosen as Union representatives determine what speakers and issues receive this important university platform. I wish, as we all do, that the Oxford Union remains a positive force for having conversations that matter.”

Onovo responded that “I have been asked not to call this out publicly and ‘destroy 2 years of work’ but how someone can decide winning an election in a student society is more important than this grotesque behaviour is beyond me.

“THIS IS NOT AN APOLOGY. I recently had to suffer through racial discrimination in Christ Church in relation to the death of George Floyd and this sham of an apology is in total INSULT to the work I, and many of my Black brothers and sisters at Oxford and across the globe have been doing to positively contribute to the fight against racial injustice.” 

Mo Iman, an ex-standing Committee member, also posted an open letter on Facebook, and described the messages as “Another clear incident of a white person appropriating the struggles of a minority community for their own success.”

After Iman and Onovo posted their statements, the Elevate campaign wrote on their campaign page: “Earlier this week, a former member of Elevate sent messages asking people to register to vote in next week’s elections. These messages referenced the protests that occurred in the aftermath of the brutal killing of George Floyd, and attempted to link these incidents to the Oxford Union election. 

“To use the death of a black man, and a movement of anger and pain that has resulted from years of institutional racial persecution for a student election is wrong. We condemn any such message, no matter who or where it comes from. 

“We sincerely apologise for the deep hurt that was caused by these messages. The member of our slate who sent these messages will no longer be running with us. Having already been nominated, her name will appear on the digital ballot, but she will not be endorsing, or be endorsed by, Elevate.” 

“We can’t rely on the black community to encourage us to speak out. We need to work harder. We are deeply sorry.”

Both Onovo and Iman noted the difficulty of making concrete change at the Union, and their own personal experience as BAME committee members. Iman noted that “it often took hours to pass even the smallest of changes to the rules and procedures of the Oxford Union”, while Onovo stated, “Having to constantly explain why it is problematic to be dismissive of the feelings of minority groups in Oxford who have been ostracised by the Oxford Union with invitations sent to white supremacists and nazis in the name of free speech was EXHAUSTING and I had limited power to change that.” 

Iman wrote that “The Union Melanie and I worked towards, with many others, sought to improve the experience for everyone and particularly the minority groups that had been excluded from spaces like these for many years. It is incidents like these that show that our work has only chipped away at the paint and that there is still much more to be done.”

He added, “I call, and encourage others to do so as well, for the Elevate slate leadership to publicly apologise, seek to educate themselves and resign their positions immediately in order for them to step back and properly understand the roles they were willing to commit themselves to.

“Your position on the Oxford Union committee is a privilege that you should continuously use to improve the lived experiences of members, especially those who have been marginalised and excluded from spaces like this before. Not one to disrespect and dishonour the countless lives lost to racial inequality and police brutality.”

Image credit to U.S. Department of State/ Wikimedia Commons.

Oxford researchers lead drug trial into alternative COVID-19 treatments

Isabella Colletta
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Oxford researchers lead drug trial into alternative COVID-19 treatments

Researchers at the University of Oxford are working alongside NHS associates as part of a team to carry out a new clinical drug trial to aid treatment of COVID-19. The trial will examine the “re-purposed” drug’s effectiveness at raising oxygen levels in the blood of COVID-19 patients to improve their chances of recovery.

Current treatments for ensuring high oxygen levels in the blood include oxygen masks and ventilators to support the patient’s breathing. However, Oxford researchers hypothesise that COVID-19 limits how much oxygen is carried around the body through the blood flow. This means that usual methods of assisted breathing and oxygen therapy may be insufficient compared to use with other respiratory illnesses.

To combat this, the trial is using the drug almitrine bismesylate to redirect blood to oxygenated areas of the lung, which is known to work successfully at redirecting blood flow when used in treatment for patients with ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome). The trial’s Lead Researcher, Professor Peter Robbins, described the reasoning behind testing this specific medication in a statement to Oxford University: “We know that almitrine can increase oxygen levels in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome by constricting the blood vessels in regions of the lung where the oxygen is low. We want to see if almitrine will also have this effect in COVID-19 patients.”

Almitrine will be used in clinical trials in selected areas across the UK, and will examine the effect of the drug on two different groups. The first group will be made up of those who need breathing support and will measure the oxygen levels in their blood during treatment. The other group are those who do not require assisted breathing, but will be monitored for whether or not  the drug reduces the need for respiratory support.

Professor Robbins further described his hopes for the trial, saying: “If almitrine can add to the overall effectiveness of respiratory support, then the hope is that clinicians will need to mechanically ventilate fewer patients, and that they will be able successfully to support more seriously ill patients throughout the course of their illness.

“People can recover from COVID-19 in the same way that they recover from other viral illnesses. That’s by fighting off the virus with the body’s normal defence mechanisms. But if the lung becomes so damaged that blood just doesn’t pick up enough oxygen, then the body never gets the chance to finish the job and the patient dies from the low level of oxygen. So, what we are really trying to do with supportive therapy is help the patient to continue to function whilst their body fights off the infection in the normal way.”

The trial is being supported by the medical research charity LifeArc, who have given £10 million to finance 15 other drug trials to improve treatments of COVID-19. Funding has been given to studies which use “re-purposed” medicines which are used to treat other conditions or drugs in the late stages of development, as this offers a higher chance of identifying successful treatments faster.

In a statement to Cherwell, Dr Catriona Crombie, Associate Director Technology Transfer at Life Arc, said: “The benefits of conducting trials with repurposed drugs include reduced cost, reduced time and fewer safety concerns. Almitrine has already been shown to have a good safety profile and demonstrated efficacy in people with COPD. “The trial will show almitrine’s effect on oxygenation and whether it is effective in reducing the need for other forms of ventilatory support. It is also hoped that a suitable treatment regime can be established. As almitrine is an existing drug and not novel, it can be manufactured in a few months so it can be made available for severe COVID-19 patients in NHS hospitals if granted access.”

Image credit to Pixabay

Black Lives Matter march in Oxford tomorrow

Imogen Duke
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Black Lives Matter march in Oxford tomorrow

A peaceful march in solidarity with Black Lives Matter is planned for tomorrow, Wednesday 3rd June, in South Park from 1pm.

The march is organised to ensure social distancing and safety. A safety notices asks everyone to wear gloves and face masks and to use hand sanitiser where possible. It also states the 2 metre rule “is essential for the safety of our protesters”.

The flyer advertising the march states: “We have received much more support than we ever could have expected, and we want to ensure we can abide by social distancing rules! This is especially important as members of the BAME community are more vulnerable to the virus.”

“This is a PEACEFUL PROTEST and we will encourage people to leave if it gets out of hand! This is to ensure the safety of everyone!”

“We have support from Black Lives Matter and other organisations, but this is an independent protest, and everyone is responsible for their own actions!”

This past weekend saw peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in London, Manchester, and Cardiff. Many more protests are planned around the UK in the coming days.

They are sparked by the death of George Floyd, killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis on 25th May. There have been widespread protests across the US for the past 6 days.

The Instagram account with more information about the Oxford march can be found here.

Reality TV: harmless fun or mental health disaster?

Jaya Rana
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Reality TV: harmless fun or mental health disaster?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t watch reality television. In fact, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love reality television. Growing up in Essex, I was exposed to the superficial reality show culture from a very young age – frequently bumping into ‘stars’ from the likes of TOWIE and Love Island in cafes, gyms, and shops around town. Now, there are a plethora of issues I could raise even surrounding these two shows alone; from a lack of body diversity, to their eurocentrism, to the lack of LGBTQ+ representation, but for the sake of this article I’m going to consider primarily their impact on self-esteem and the unattainable beauty ideals they perpetuate.

For those of you who haven’t yet experienced the Love Island craze which has swept the nation, the premise is this: a group of ‘sexy singles’ are sent to a Majorca villa with the supposed goal of seeking love (though often a lot of raunchy contact and melodrama ensue in the process). Audience votes determine the length of their stay in the villa, and the winning couple return home with a £50,000 cash prize. It’s unsurprising that being inundated daily with images of this uniform body type (which we already find all over social media) impacts mental health. The lack of body diversity, plus the prevalence of surgical enhancement in this show, and others similar, leave many young people – myself certainly included – feeling insecure. Consuming this type of media for the duration the show requires can make it difficult to remember that self-worth is derived from more than just one’s exterior. There have been countless occasions where I’ve watched reality TV from the seat of an exercise bike, desperately attempting to emulate what I’m seeing on the screen.

However, while we can all agree there are innumerable issues which arise from participating in and watching reality TV, there is clearly something which draws us in; last year almost 5.9 million people were tuning into Love Island daily. Perhaps we’re overthinking it; reality TV can be considered a welcome escape from the mundanity of normal life. Investing oneself in the glamourous drama of these preened-to-perfection stars is addictive and engrossing. Perhaps there’s nothing wrong with appreciating beautiful people. Many contestants on such shows are ‘scouted’ from modelling agencies or social media platforms, and their entire lives centre around conforming to beauty standards. If someone has worked hard to achieve washboard abs or invested hours in getting perfectly polished nails and flouncy bouncy hair who are we to criticise? Especially when we’re the ones choosing to tune in after all. 

Maybe watching reality TV isn’t intrinsically problematic, rather the way in which we watch it needs careful consideration. Anyone who has seen an episode of Made in Chelsea will recognise that the participants are filmed with a perpetual ‘soft light’ filter over their lives; all colours are muted and all flaws diluted. If we can watch these shows with an awareness that aesthetic value is their central goal, much like we see plastered on Instagram, we can come away from the experience unscathed. It’s only when we’re fooled into conflating reality TV with actual reality that we begin to lose sight of what’s real, versus what’s actually an unachievable aesthetic. My issue, however – and I imagine this is an issue for many of us – is that I simply don’t think I can fully disassociate the two. I always come away from watching reality TV feeling somewhat inadequate; whether it’s because I feel uglier, or fatter, or simply less put together than those I’m watching, it simply does not benefit me to consume this type of entertainment. That’s why I’m making a conscious effort to cut down on my reality TV consumption, with the eventual aim of stopping entirely. And, in the mean time, I’m going out of my way to rewrite the narrative that I play in my mind while watching people who are characters, and remind myself that comparing my daily life to someone else’s highlight reel simply is not fair.

Channel 4 has suggested that reality TV has the capacity to do good – priding itself on examples such as The Undateables which centralise around those who are often neuro-atypical. But does it glorify its participants or ridicule them? (the title would suggest the latter…) Perhaps a better example is Naked Beach, which actively chooses to feature participants of all shapes and sizes – normalising bodies with cellulite, and stretch marks and body hair. While this may be true, these types of reality TV shows are few and far between, and almost never attract the same viewership as the likes of Ex on the Beach and Love Island.

Research points to the existence of a sort of ‘media contagion’ which has an awful impact on adolescents in particular, from promoting exploitative advertising (we’re talking weight loss pills, teeth whitening strips that don’t work and the dreaded ‘waist trainers’). In fact, it has even been affecting primary school children, who have been found emulating contestants. Despite the Love Island producers’ attempts to minimise damage to children by airing the show after the watershed, it’s impossible for a show which is such a pop culture phenomenon not to trickle down into even the youngest of demographics.A survey commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation revealed that heartbreaking 24% of 18-24 year olds feel severely worried about their body image specifically due to reality TV; the number of adolescents with body image issues stemming from social media pressures and reality TV combined is much higher. Perhaps it is time that we take a long hard look at our watching habits, perhaps even our digital consumption habits in all their forms, and question whether they are beneficial or might well be dangerous. We ought to take a critical look at reality TV and consider whether its advantages are significant enough to make up for the intense damage it has caused, and still is causing, to a large proportion of the population.

Confessions of an (un)qualified Au Pair

Alice Peat
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Confessions of an (un)qualified Au Pair

“Don’t you dare cry. Don’t let them see a chink in your armour,” I told myself. Commands, negotiations and bribes had failed miserably, simply falling on deaf ears. Under the glaring midday sun, my nerves in tatters, I decided to bring out the big guns. I could already feel a smug smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. I prepared myself for the inevitable moment of victory.

“If you don’t get out of the pool in 10 seconds, I’ll tell Mama that you can’t have any gelato today.”

My opponent, already two steps ahead, surfaced and told me equally smugly that she’d already had a cornetto for breakfast. And with that bombshell, she dove straight back into the pool. 

Child – 1; Alice – 0.

***

As every ab initio language student knows, 90% of first year is spend nodding along without a clue what’s going on. Fed up with sitting through Italian listening classes and not understanding what the woman in the video was on about, I made the somewhat rash decision to spend my summer in Italy. Being far too stubborn to take the easy option and spend time strolling around Florence eating overpriced pizza, I took the plunge and signed up to be an au pair. I uploaded my profile onto the AuPair World agency and asked myself what could possibly go wrong, reasoning that Italians were basically British people with better food and less social awkwardness.

As the well-known phrase goes, the road to a perfect host family never runs smooth. With every ‘like’ my profile received, the brief endorphin rush was cut short by the realisation that the family in question just seemed weird. There was the woman who confessed to loving her six rottweilers more than her two daughters and asked that I’d ‘care for the dogs like my own’; then there was the creepy dad who said my main role would be ‘taking care of all our needs’ (euphemism, anyone??). Call me fussy, but I wanted to spend time brushing up on my Italian rather than grooming overexcited canines.

Finally, though, I found myself signing a contract with a family from Emilia-Romagna, who thought I’d be suitable to look after their precious offspring. As soon as I stepped off the plane, blinking confusedly, the famous Italian hospitality craftily lulled me into a false sense of security. From the youngest cousins to the nonni at the head of the family, I was treated as some new and interesting specimen who could bring strange tales from foreign lands. The youngest asked me if it was true that we ate frogs’ legs in England; the cousins interrogated me relentlessly on British drinking and drug habits. (fyi, the rest of Europe thinks we’re alcoholics.).

The fact that I’d signed up to be a glorified babysitter for a 7- and a 10-year-old only really hit me when I found myself faced with the challenge of doing our daily hour of English speaking. Each attempt at fun, educational games, where I’d try to make them pick up English words and phrases, was like gesticulating desperately at a brick wall. I sought the girls’ validation much like one seeks the approval of a tutor who seems thoroughly uninterested by this week’s cobbled-together, incoherent excuse of an essay. It didn’t help that they were far tougher than even the strictest tutors. Rather than listening to my fascinating explanations of the present perfect continuous tense, the girls chose to drown me out with unusually chirpy Italians who voiced over never-ending episodes of iCarly.

Still suspicious of this strange pale girl who was trying to corrupt their brains with frankly useless information, it was only the girls’ realisation that I was the owner of a shiny smartphone which finally won them over. This opened up a whole new realm of possibilities: daily (or even hourly) games of Candy Crush, endless photo filters and YouTube videos were all at touch of a button. On one fateful afternoon, however, when I was mopping up their attempt at making slime, I was brought running by their screams. They’d stumbled across a stream of questionable bop photos, many where I seemed to be clutching a drink for dear life. From then on, they looked at me with a new aura of respect, as if this random girl brought in to look after them had finally turned into an actual adult who did actual adult things and was therefore qualified to tell them what to do. This didn’t stop them telling each family member with glee that “Aliche ama l’alcool”.

The closest I got to the sweet, sweet relief of an alcoholic beverage was the compulsory evening ‘passeggiata’, where we’d don our glad rags to go and spend a few hours doing what the Italians do best: socialising. We’d parade around local towns, the girls acting like angels and the parents showing me off as the ultimate middle class status symbol. Each time, we’d make it a couple of metres before we bumped into another colleague’s son’s girlfriend’s sister, to whom I’d be labelled as a figure of ‘cultural exchange’ and ‘cross-country friendship’. The girls, with noticeable glints in their eyes, would suddenly idolise me, clinging on to me as if I was their sole reason for existence. This was a far cry from the journey there, which would be spent crammed into the back of a small car between two screaming girls, tearing around Italian country roads, to the soundtrack of Mahmood’s Soldi on repeat (if you know, you know). As time went on, I grew to love this tradition of doing a PG carpool karaoke; there’s something infinitely wholesome about singing along at the top of your voice when you’re not caged in by those sweaty velvet walls.

In Oxford, we’re often so busy running from one thing to the next to reflect on why we’re doing it. Being thrust into such a different, slower pace of life was a much-needed opportunity to re-evaluate my priorities. Equally, I was thrown into situations (notably the swimming pool incident) that tested abilities which, ironically, my languages degree never touched upon: the very essence of communication. Indeed, by the end of my stay, my sorry excuse for Italian had been transformed so much that I actually understood the girls’ whisperings. In a shocking turn of events, they admitted to one another that they’d miss me because (and I quote) “she’s funnier than Mama when she’s cross”. Of course, they’d never have given me the satisfaction of telling me that to my face. Perhaps most important, however, was the daily reminder of why we use contraception. Until you’re ready to deal with a child who’s defecated on a slide in 35 degree heat, do you what need to do. And until then, enjoy every ounce of freedom you’ve got.  

In Conversation with Sir Mo Farah

Lucas Jones
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In Conversation with Sir Mo Farah

It’s not easy to cover hundreds of miles when you’re stuck inside. With global sporting events cancelled or postponed for the foreseeable future and many types of training prohibited or significantly altered, international athletics and, by extension, international athletes have been hit hard by the lockdown. Sir Mo Farah has, however, managed to take it in his stride.

Farah, winner of four Olympic Gold Medals and a plethora of other titles, is the most successful British track athlete in modern Olympic Games history. He has competed and won at every distance from 5000 metres to marathon and had announced a return to the track for Tokyo 2020 last November to try and retain his 1st place position for the third time in a row. An Achilles injury may have slowed him down, but Farah was making good progress towards that goal before the coronavirus shut down races across the planet.

“At the time, in March, I was in a training camp in Ethiopia,” Mo smiles, “I pulled out of the London Big Half early on because of an Achilles problem, but once that settled down and got better I did four weeks of training.” However, as the pandemic became more prevalent this training regime was cut short. “It was just kicking off, I had to change my flight to come back home and make sure that when lockdown happened I was with my family, so that’s what I did. Since then it’s been nothing.”

Farah is committed to his family, constantly referencing them as we discuss staying motivated amidst so much confusion. They occasionally appear in the background of our Zoom call, having clearly inherited some extremely speedy genes. They also feature prominently in Sir Mo’s YouTube channel, which boasts an impressive 139,000 subscribers. The content of the videos has shifted recently, with more family challenges and less training videos. That’s not to say, however, that his training has dropped off.

“I normally do between 100-150 miles a week and a lot of the time I’m in the gym three times a week” smiles Mo as he describes his average training regime, “most of my running’s been on the treadmill, I’ve even done hill sessions on the treadmill.” He rattles off this regime as if it were easy, maintaining a positive tone as he describes the most gruelling elements of his training. If there is one word to describe Sir Mo, it has to be motivated. He seems to have sprinted through circumstances that have robbed many of us of all our motivation. The secret, he says, is setting your eyes on the finish line.

“You always have to have a goal and have ambition and look beyond this. I’m one of the lucky people in the way that I still have a treadmill here, I have a bit more space than everyone else. You always have to try to think positive and that’s what I try to do with my kids. We try not to go into too much detail and always be negative so, in a way, it’s like, ‘let’s go and have a laugh, kids! What can we do?’ Go in the pool, go in the garden, go and do challenges. Just keep your mind active.” He tries to get the kids to run at least a mile every day if they aren’t out on their bikes, making sure that there is always something to focus on to get through the day.

Keeping your mind active is one thing, but looking beyond the pandemic is quite another. Social distancing will likely last for months, leaving athletes whose training depends on upcoming events in a difficult position. I put this to Farah, asking if he has any specific event in mind with regard to his training. “My aim has always been the Tokyo Olympics,” he replies, “that’s what really drives me to stay on my feet, stay motivated, stay hungry. That’s what my goal is, ultimately.” Although his goal has stayed concrete, the circumstances will have changed drastically by the time his shoes touch the track.

The travel industry is set for massive losses, and recent developments in the UK’s quarantine plans mean that going abroad won’t be an option for the foreseeable future. This is an issue for athletes who rely on travel for everything from altitude training to World Championships. “It’s definitely going to have a knock-on effect, no matter what,” says Mo. “I’m trying to stay positive.”

Another huge problem for organisers is that it is extremely difficult to have socially-distant spectators in stadiums. Korean football has got past this by staging games with no crowds at all, or even filling the seats with poorly-chosen humanoid dolls. An eerie silence has replaced the cheering and chanting in these stadiums, which poses a problem for athletes who thrive off the crowd’s energy. “There’s no question about. The crowd is everything. It drives you, it puts you on your toes, it puts you on edge. Without the crowd, I think it’s going to be totally different.” The roaring crowd which has accompanied all of Sir Mo’s signature sprint finishes will probably be absent the next time he runs. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but Farah manages to keep sight of what is most important.

“Without the crowd it’s going to be boring but, at the same time, it’s what we need to do to make it as safe as possible.” Speaking as “a massive Arsenal fan”, it’s clear that even if he agrees that having football without spectators is odd, “If it means we can have football back and this is how it’s got to be for a little while then we just have to stick at it because it’s the safety of the players. But as an Arsenal fan, I’m thinking ‘man, I don’t like the look of that!’ Imagine seeing the whole stadium empty…”

These concerns are still firmly in the future, for now it’s a question of adapting his training in the present. His commitment to the treadmill means that he can still cover the distance, but training has lost a key social element. “It can be lonely at times. It depends who you have and how much you enjoy it. Whatever you put into it is what you get out of it, whereas in football if you can have a bad day but there are ten more players who can help you recover.” Reliance on a team dynamic is something that Sir Mo doesn’t have to worry about as much as team players. “I think it will have a really big effect,” he notes, acknowledging that each player training as an individual could cause serious issues when football starts back up.

Hammering out 10-mile sets in isolation is no mean feat, but Farah says that Team GB has “handled it in a positive way by trying to put athletes first.” The period of uncertainty leading up to the Olympics’ postponement was a particular cause for anxiety, but “once that settled down we got the comfort of thinking ‘I have a date’… The goal is to always have something to aim for. That’s what you thrive off, and that’s what gives you that boost, that energy and motivation.” Recovering from his aforementioned Achilles injury, Farah had set his sights on the Olympics knowing that he faced an uphill battle. The weeks leading up to the announcement that the Olympics would be held in 2021 were particularly stressful because, as other races in the UK were called off, Farah had no way of testing himself. “If I hadn’t run other competitions it would have been crazy to run in the Olympics,” says Mo, emphasising that he’s glad that the focus has been on the safety of athletes first and foremost.

Even if their safety is put first, the consequences of the lockdown on mental health still weigh on athletes. “To be honest at this point they haven’t spoken that much about mental health,” Mo states, “They had a target, their target’s been cancelled. I’ve been there and done it so many years that I can overcome that but for some younger athletes I think they will have that in their minds. It’s important to support them in general, not even just in sports.” I suggest that public figures like Sir Mo have an important role to play in keeping up morale across the country, to which he beams: “I think that’s always the key for me. As a general thing, I love to be able to help others. A five-minute phone call is just five minutes for me, but that could make that kid’s day. When I was younger I loved football and if one of the Arsenal players said ‘hi’ to me that would have made my day. We used to collect stickers, I remember that we used to get excited about stickers, so imagine one of the players in real life saying ‘hi’ or saying something to you.”

Farah’s reach has been massively increased by social media. He uses Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to engage with viewers and fans, retweeting letters from children and entertaining on Instagram live streams. He has also participated in the 5K challenge which, in classic Mo style, he did as part of a 10-mile training session from home. Asked his time, he replies “oh, was it 18 or 19 minutes?”  He smiles the most when he talks about how much he enjoys helping others out in a time of crisis and is in the middle of telling me how much easier it is to stay connected by social media when our call cuts out. “It’s an easy way to stay connected…” are the last words I catch.

We manage to reconnect, and the focus shifts beyond running. It’s hard to face the distant future when the next few months hold so much uncertainty, but Farah’s plan seems clear. “When I finish running completely, I’d love to be able to give back to the younger kids and get involved more with coaching. I’ve actually just got my coach’s license so I’m actually qualified, which is a good thing to have. Particularly young kids in Britain, there are a lot of kids with potential who are good enough, but it’s always hard to make that transition from juniors to seniors. For me I just see myself as a coach. I’m also not bad with kids, having four kids myself.”

Sir Mo retains a lightness throughout the interview that makes it hard not to smile along with him. He’s also positive about the future of running as a leisure activity in Britain, saying: “back in the day we saw running as something that you had to do in PE, or as a warm-up. Most people, if you tell them ‘you must do this’, they’re most likely not going to do it. Running’s a great way of getting everything out. It clears your mind and you’re in a different zone.”

Farah is very clearly still going for gold. We haven’t seen the last of the ‘Mobot’ yet, but until then he has to bear with lockdown and continue to train. With questions about the feasibility of the 2021 Olympics continuing and lockdowns relaxing across the world, it is extremely difficult to stay motivated. Sir Mo is an example of the positive, goal-oriented attitude we need to make it to the finish line. “We’re all human at the end of the day,” he remarks as the interview ends, “we just have to try to be positive in every way that we can.”

Somerville students raise over £30 000 to support George Floyd protesters

Imogen Duke
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Somerville students raise over £30 000 to support George Floyd protesters

A Facebook fundraising page started by Somerville students to provide legal support to protesters in the USA has raised over £30,000 since Saturday.

The donations go to the National Laws Guild Inc, a non-profit in the US which provides legal support to advance human and civil rights. They are working with other charities including the Minnesota Freedom Fund to provide essential support to those protesting after the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis last week.

The fundraiser initially aimed to raise £2,000 to help “mitigate the harmful and deathly impacts of the criminal justice system against black people and those that stand up to oppressive structures.”

It raised over £1,000 in less than an hour and raised over £10,000 in less than 24 hours. It is still rapidly growing at over £30,000. The team plans to encourage donations to the fundraiser for two weeks.

The fundraiser page explains: “The American criminal justice system disproportionately affects black people in America, as institutional racism often puts them in closer proximity to poverty. Some cannot afford bail, or private attorneys. They are placed in jails before their trials where they face the risk of death every day. Given the COVID-19 situation, and the difficulty of social distancing in jails, protesters being jailed could be even more life-threatening than it usually is. (See the stories of Kalief Browder and Sandra Bland).”

“The ten-minute-long video of George Floyd’s murder was proliferated on many social media websites; he could be heard clearly shouting that he couldn’t breathe. This followed the racist shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, murder of Breonna Taylor by police and the attempt by Amy Cooper to call the police on Christian Cooper; she told him she would call the police and tell them that an African American man was threatening her life. For many the sequence of events was pertinent; Christian Cooper’s encounter could have been fatal, George Floyd’s encounter was fatal.”

The Fundraising Team told Cherwell: “What we witnessed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the publicity of the #BlackLivesMatter movement were many public declarations of solidarity using social media. We are firm believers that activism requires action and wanted to create a means for people to do that; this was the main motivation for creating the fundraiser.

“Statements on social media are an important thing for black people to see because for so long many have felt that issues of racism are often ignored, but we felt that there is more to solidarity than words alone.

“Danielle first approached Nadia, Ibti, and Cara with the idea of putting forward one of these charities to our JCR because there was an opportunity for an extra-ordinary charity ballot. After asking around and making some enquires it was clear that the bureaucracy involved would stop charities getting the funds in a timely fashion; it was then we moved to the idea of a fundraiser. Emma then heard that we were thinking about putting forward a charity motion and offered her help.

“We worked together to write the description for the fundraiser and spoke to the Minnesota Freedom Fund to find out if they were happy for us to use Facebook. They pointed us in the direction of other charities they were working with (Black Visions Collective, Reclaim the Block, Legal Rights Center), as they had been inundated with funds. After a brief Twitter search we found out that the National Lawyers Guild were being suggested as the main point of contact for protestors and we decided to go with this charity.

“We did not expect the fundraiser to gain so much traction and even began with the meagre goal of £2000, but after raising over half the amount in one hour we began steadily upping our goal. We can only thank the Oxford Black community and everyone else who shared the fundraiser.

“It is amazing to see how much has been raised and the support from students all over the UK and the World, but this is by no means the end. We hope that people don’t just donate to this fundraiser and move on, but rather take it as a step to becoming actively anti-racist. Black people don’t get to forget about things and move on because the systemic and structural nature of racism and white supremacy permeates every aspect of their lives.”

Read Melanie Onovo, Imogen Taylor, and Nigel Yau’s Silence is complicit, but so is inaction: Why JCRs and British institutions must act now here. Read Reem Sultan’s The Open Casket of George Floyd here. Read Ti Balanta’s Anti-blackness: a performative business here.

Image credit to Leonhard Lenz / Wikimedia Commons.

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