Monday 7th July 2025
Blog Page 467

The New Music Celebrity

Hannan El-Amriti
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The New Music Celebrity

The glossy pages of the likes of NME and Rolling Stone were pored over by music aficionados in the past, hoping for a snippet of the intent of their hero’s use of a 5/4 time hi-hat on Track 6. Those unwrinkled pages were very much the landscape of music journalism in the past: a smooth grassland of domineering publications with any disturbance being minute, in the form of a fanzine or otherwise. It was a time in which scathing remarks and low ratings were very much part and parcel of music reviewing. So much so that Rolling Stone re-reviews now-beloved albums that they gave on initial release a mixed to poor review. Although these giants have wielded weighty words, many music fans approach traditional publications with scepticism and derision.

Circulation remained afloat nevertheless, with magazines fighting for exclusive interviews and photoshoots with the same musicians that they may have dismissed years earlier. Huge artists were part of a pantheon, defined by their myths and legends, and only music journalists had the authority to poke holes.

With the arrival of the World Wide Web in the early ’90s however, the internet became the meteor to wipe out the dinosaur publications. All of a sudden, fanzine (a portmanteau of fan and magazine) creators with no background in professional publishing could create blogs online dedicated to the independent music scene—crucially, with a guaranteed readership. Blogs shifted the focus away from glorifying the larger-than-life rock stars to profiling up-and-comers still playing the pub circuit. ‘Pitchfork’, now owned by Condé Nast, is heralded as a bastion of music reviewing, but it started out as a humble Chicago-based online music magazine. No longer did circulation and sales matter, but rather clicks and hits.

In an era of instant, anytime, anywhere media, video music journalism has undoubtedly become the hivemind of the internet music community. One of the early pioneers of D.I.Y videos is the eclectic, offbeat Nardwaur. The self-proclaimed ‘Human Serviette’, his work dates back as early as 1985, interviewing the likes of Courtney Love back in the heyday of ‘Hole’, and most recently interviewing industry it-girl Billie Eilish. Donning a tam o’shanter and a scarily encyclopaedic knowledge of the artist at hand, his charmingly bizarre interview style is enough to knock back any PR-curated facade. Even the previously-mentioned Pitchfork have capitalised on the visual media market, with video essays and even interviews where artists breakdown their creative process, all with a technical focus.

To talk about internet music journalism without mentioning Anthony Fantano would be impossible. His YouTube channel ‘theneedledrop’ has amassed over 2 million subscribers as of the writing of this article, and his influence has no signs of halting in the near future. ‘The internet’s busiest music nerd’ is famous for his album review videos, rounding off with a final score out of ten. This flagship content is interspersed with takes on industry news and, in the past, meme reviews The overwhelming appeal of Fantano may appear baffling to outsiders; there are few, if any, examples in history where a music critic has a clamouring fanbase magnitudes larger than many of the artists he reports on. It seems he has the perfect balance of sincerity and amusement; packaging compelling analysis in a wrapping of internet humour and distinct channel branding.

These online personalities have created enormous followings, and they have somehow become the new music celebrity. In an era where artists are more accessible than ever (see the multitude of Instagram lives during quarantine!), there is less need for journalists to brawl for the latest scoops when many artists are open to talking about their lives through social media. Nardwuar and Fantano, on the other hand, remain elusive to their fans, with appearances outside of their own content rare, which keeps interest and speculation rolling.

Nonetheless, the fixation with someone like Fantano’s music criticism can be inhibiting. I too have been guilty of hanging onto every word, waiting for the gavel to drop and the final rating to be uttered, but it has been argued amongst online communities that some fans may be forming musical opinions entirely based on the words of a few individuals. Ultimately, they are human too, and healthy disagreement is far more valuable to the discussion. Such behaviour, however, has existed since the dawn of music criticism and has simply been magnified by the lens of social media.

Regardless, the rise of independent journalism has been praised for its coverage of fringe genres and can be credited in part for expanding modern music tastes, with a face to boot. Where Rolling Stone was more concerned with the big label mainstream, niche artists with less industry backing are finally taking up their rightful space in the musical zeitgeist.

Opinion – Why this government boils my piss

Will Atkinson
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Opinion – Why this government boils my piss

First, I must admit I’m a leftist, I have my biases and I am certainly not a Boris Johnson fan but one consistent theme I have seen in this government’s response to COVID-19, especially over the last week, has been sheer hypocrisy. The defence by senior members of the government of Dominic Cummings’ breach of the lockdown rules is the most recent, glaring example of this.

Matt Hancock’s integrity is something I have questioned for a while since his branding of Boris Johnson as “dangerous” only days before backing him as leader and his similar rejection of suspending Parliament before ultimately backing it in government. His defence of Cummings was the nail in the coffin. On the 6th of May Hancock said Neil Ferguson, a government adviser who broke social distancing rules was “right” to resign and that social distancing rules are “very important and should be followed”. Fast forward a few weeks and it is revealed another important adviser, the Prime Minister’s right-hand man, has broken the rules. The same response? Of course not. Hancock tweeted it was “entirely right” for “Dom” to seek childcare for his toddler.

Michael Gove also weighed in on the debate on twitter stating, “caring for your wife and child is not a crime”. That is undoubtedly true but is also completely irrelevant. The argument is that Cummings broke the lockdown rules which is a crime, a crime introduced by the government Gove is a part of. I have read the regulations and as far I can see caring for your family is not a defence to breaking them. Nor are ministerial tweets a defence for crimes last time I checked.

Boris Johnson had gone M.I.A over the previous two days (presumably hiding in the Downing Street fridge), the silence was deafening. His eventual response was a car crash. The UK’s worst Churchill tribute act set out his case that Cummings’ actions were “responsible”, “legal” and done with the “overwhelming intention of preventing the spread of the virus”. The Prime Minister is wrong, it is clear he broke the regulations once if not twice. Travelling to a second home is explicitly what the government had been telling us not to do and was the reason the Scottish health chief was forced to resign only weeks ago! Cummings’ actions were not those of a man attempting to “prevent the spread of the virus” they were the opposite.

Although there is undoubtedly an element of this being a witch-hunt to remove Cummings, it is, at its core, a matter of principle. If you don’t hold your top adviser to account for failing to follow your own rules how can you expect anyone else to follow them? The answer from the Prime Minister was (uncharacteristically) clear: it’s one rule for us and another for him and his pals.

This was not the only time this week the Prime Minister showed himself to be a bumbling hypocrite. The post-Brexit immigration bill, introduced into Parliament on Monday, declared that care workers were “low-skilled” and that new foreign care workers would be subjected to surcharges on entry to the UK. This was until the government was forced into an embarrassing U-turn by Keir Starmer and the Labour Party. The people the government label as “low skilled” are those currently keeping the country going; they are the very people that this government clap for every Thursday, the type of people who Boris Johnson admitted saved his life. They clap for them with two hands and slap them with the other… three-handed monsters.

The final dose of hypocrisy is shown in the government’s similar U-turn on the problem of homelessness. The government set out its commitment to solve homelessness by 2024 in December last year. Fast forward to the outbreak of COVID-19 and they were able to get most people of the streets in two days. Why were they able to do this so quickly? Because suddenly homelessness became a problem for them. Fearful that COVID-19 would spread among the homeless they quickly took action to house people. Admittedly homelessness is a far easier problem to solve with hotels laying empty. But what it does show is that homelessness is a choice for government, it isn’t inevitable and with the will to solve it can be done, and fast.

Events during this pandemic have highlighted this government does not care about ordinary people. It is one rule for them and their pals and another for us. “Arrogant and offensive”, this government are “truth twisters”. Shout out to the Civil Service twitter page for that last quote.

In defence of Jerry Krause: Responding to ‘The Last Dance’

Thomas McKeown
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In defence of Jerry Krause: Responding to ‘The Last Dance’

“Players and coaches don’t win championships; organisations win championships.”

These are the infamous, supposedly self-interested words of former Chicago Bulls GM Jerry Krause, the villain of Netflix’s ongoing 10-part documentary, The Last Dance. At the time of writing, two more episodes remain of the ultra-popular basketball documentary; and while public favour of former Bulls star player Michael Jordan seems to be at an all-time high, the same could probably not be said of MJ’s front office counterpart. At a time when people have more reason than ever to engross themselves in television, Krause’s infamy in pop culture is currently matched only by Tiger King protagonist Carole Baskin. If you aren’t familiar with the NBA or the documentary, here are a couple of tweets to give you an idea:

Throughout the series, Krause is portrayed as jealous, greedy and bitter. On multiple occasions he is openly mocked by Michael Jordan, mainly in reference to Krause’s stature. On one occasion, Krause is shown swallowing medicine while standing on the sidelines during a practice session. Jordan, without missing a beat, sarcastically remarks: “So those are the pills that keep you short! Or are those diet pills?” It was Jordan, the most decorated player in NBA history, who immortalised Krause’s nickname, ‘Crumbs’, in reference to the doughnut crumbs which Krause was often said to leave on his suits. Despite being ostensibly the boss of the team, Jerry Krause was at the very bottom of the Bulls’ social hierarchy. He sat by himself on the team bus, he was the butt of every joke, and he was critiqued – publicly and privately – by the Bulls’ playing and coaching staff.

Of course, some of this criticism was entirely fair. When Scottie Pippen, Jordan’s brightest co-star and a perennial all-star player in his own right, asked for a contract which didn’t even remotely come close to other players of his calibre, it was Krause who stubbornly refused. Pippen would become renowned as the most criminally underpaid player of his generation. And when the Bulls did win their sixth championship in eight years in 1998 – spoiler alert – it was Krause who seemingly inexplicably dismantled the team, losing four of the team’s starting five players and replacing long-term head coach Phil Jackson. The prevailing diagnosis for this decision has, for the guts of two decades, been that Krause simply could not stand being out of the limelight. That his jealousy simply overrode his professionalism and steered the Bulls into the (mostly) mediocre two decades which followed in his absence. I, however, would like to offer up a defence.

It is not easy to win a battle of public opinion against a man like Michael Jordan. In today’s age of ultra-accessible celebrities enabled by social media, it is simply impossible to quantify the scale of Jordan’s ethereal fame in the 90s. Between commercials with Nike, McDonalds or Coca-Cola, Jordan would win a record 6 MVP awards and find the time to star in Space Jam, which at the time was the highest-grossing sports movie ever which didn’t have a bloke called Rocky in it. Suffice to say: Jordan speaks, people listen. And, in The Last Dance, he speaks at great length – usually at the expense of Jerry Krause.

But here’s the problem: in the NBA, general managers aren’t supposed to engage in wars of public opinion, and Krause was dragged into a public trial which he never wanted any part of. One of his more complimentary nicknames was ‘The Sleuth’, earned due to his renowned ability to keep secrets and do his work outside of the mass media horde. The team Krause inherited in 1985 consisted of what Jordan himself compared to “a travelling cocaine circus”, and The Sleuth transformed this into the most successful team in the history of the sport within 15 years, winning three championships in a row on two occasions. For those unaware, the NBA operates on one crucial egalitarian principle: each year, the teams with the worst record in the previous season receive the first choices in the following year’s NBA Draft, consisting of the best prospects from colleges throughout the country and elsewhere. If you’re a good team, that means you have to try exceptionally hard to find diamonds in the rough if you are to achieve any modicum of longevity, given every other worse team are being given the best young players in the world year upon year – and as it happened, diamonds in the rough were Jerry Krause’s speciality. In one famous example, he travelled to Yugoslavia to personally scout young forward Toni Kukoč, who would go on to be drafted as late as 29th overall in 1990, and ended up being an integral part of the team as the Bulls won their second ‘three-peat’.

Other than Jordan, there was not a single player on any of the Bulls’ championship-winning teams in the 90s who hadn’t been hand-picked by Jerry Krause, and yet the Bulls faithful and general public have painted him as the villain at every turn. The Last Dance and its long full-feature interviews with Jordan and Pippen do not help to soften this depiction. “[Krause] would rather destroy an institution than see it thrive,” seethes one of the aforementioned tweeters off the back of another episode of the documentary, but in my view this anger is misplaced. Jerry Krause orchestrated arguably the most successful period of sporting dominance of the last 30 years and initiated a rebuild of the team when it appeared as though that era was coming to an end. Krause died in 2017 and wasn’t able to be interviewed by the producers of The Last Dance. Perhaps if he had been, the unfortunate narrative which continues to shroud his legacy could have been reversed.

The Housing Crisis: coronavirus and ‘mass evictions’

Sophie Irving
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The Housing Crisis: coronavirus and ‘mass evictions’

In the midst of a global pandemic, another dangerous crisis is emerging on British soil. This time, Day Zero will be the 25th of June. Unless action is taken before this point, the UK government’s inability to provide strong safety nets for private renters will end in perhaps the worst housing crisis this country has faced yet.

Private renting has seen a significant increase of 63% in the previous decade, with 4.5million households now living in the private rented sector. With few rights as renters, the COVID-19 pandemic has showcased how fragile this market is, and the danger this poses to millions. Government measures announced in mid-March to protect renters and landlords lack any financial support, rent freeze or subsidies, and instead suggests co-operation between tenants and landlords to avoid devastation. While the effective “eviction freeze” until the end of June has provided short term reassurance, its lifting can only end in mass evictions unless more is done.

This crisis cannot be understated. Unless the Government provides financial support for renters, or a rent freeze, mass evictions will become the norm, as more and more are unable to meet their monthly rent. Research by Citizens Advice this month showed 2.6million tenants have already missed a rent payment, or expect to do so, owing to coronavirus. As an increasing number of workers are furloughed or face job losses, lack of home security will become a serious threat to millions. Private renters especially will struggle to make ends meet as the English Housing Survey of 2017-18 found that 63% of this group reported no savings. A further study, by YouGov and Shelter, found that in 2019, almost three million private renters were a single pay check away from losing their home. Such a dire situation prior to the pandemic can only have been expedited since.

Worryingly, this appears to be affecting our most vulnerable disproportionately; those in the government’s categories of “increased risk” to COVID-19 are three times as likely to have fallen behind on a bill during this time. Families with children are also at an increased risk of losing their homes during this pandemic. In the same YouGov and Shelter study in 2019, it was found that in the case of job loss, 44% of these renting families would not be able to pay their rent or mortgage from savings at all. This means that 550,000 families would be immediately unable to pay their rent in the case of job loss, a prospect increasingly likely in the current climate.

Come June 25th, when the eviction freeze ends and court proceedings begin again, where will these families go? Recent government leaks suggesting the end of the homelessness support scheme enacted in March, will expedite this fear and rightly so. A large portion of our society has been abandoned by their government. To avoid the imminent crisis, the government must do more – as must the opposition in holding them to account. Labour’s recent 5-stage plan response was welcomed but found lacking – it too did not propose the rent freezes or subsidies that would alleviate those in precarious positions.

This pandemic has the potential to be the crescendo of a housing crisis that’s been brewing for years, and unless we see a major re-shaping of legislative support for renters, it will be catastrophic. Going forward, there must be an in-depth assessment of how housing is provided in this country, and for now we must put pressure on elected officials to immediately provide home security for all, through legislation and financial support.

Anyone who is facing homelessness can get free and expert advice from Shelter by visiting www.shelter.org.uk/get_help or by calling their emergency helpline on 0808 800 4444. If you too feel strongly about this, get in contact with your local MP to put pressure on the government.

SATIRE: Has anyone checked in on Gwyneth Paltrow recently?

Ben Jureidini
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SATIRE: Has anyone checked in on Gwyneth Paltrow recently?

Holly Holiday from Glee consciously uncoupling from her brain stem has become the definitive image of Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 pandemic-based thriller, Contagion. Yes, Contagion, you know, that one where Gwyneth Paltrow dies like five minutes in. It’s easy to see why: her distinct lack of characterisation in said five minutes means the audience is basically just watching actual real-life Gwyneth go through the motions of a film’s exposition… (“That’s Gwyneth Paltrow flying home to a cuckolded husband!”)…until she’s not… (“That’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s forehead being peeled back in an autopsy room!”). The shock of so-called Beth Emhoff’s death is really the shock of imagining a virus so ostentatious as to remind us that Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare-in-lover and vagina-egg-entrepreneur, is as vulnerable to collapse of the central nervous system as the rest of us nobodies.

The film in general, whilst host to some of the finest acting talent the western world has to offer, as well as (sorry) Gwyneth Paltrow, isn’t that great. It’s difficult not to laugh when we see Gwyneth go from sweaty brow to grand mal seizures before you can sing two happy birthdays– have you tried Matcha for that, Gwyneth? Kate Winslet shivering herself to death again is still, however, more uplifting than Gal Godot’s rendition of Imagine but perhaps less educational than Kylie Jenner’s stunning revelation that “Coronavirus is a real thing”.

In the midst of the literal apocalypse, it’s difficult to sit back with Bake-Off-Style fodder (You know what else is crumbling, Sandi?! The NHS!), but turning to BBC1 after the credits roll on the 26 million dead only to be hit with ‘Pandemic death toll reaches 200,000’ is far from reassuring. Some things, naturally, are more relatable than others: I have been informed by conspiracy theorists (you know Jude Law is the bad guy in this film because the powers-that-be spent God knows how much of their $60 million budget giving him a snaggletooth to indicate general neckbeard nefariousness) that COVID-19 is a government-controlled bioweapon/5G radio waves /Greta Thunberg’s coup-de-force of climate activism. I have not been kidnapped on a WHO mission to rural China as a hostage for vaccine priority, but hey, who knows what’s going on with you. You do you, Marion Cottillard, you do you.

Christopher Orr complained in The Atlantic that Contagion was too ‘clinical’, that it needed a lesson beyond ‘wash your hands and hope for the best’. Besides this confusingly apt adjective – The CDC? Clinical? Surely not – Orr, alongside those posting pictures of Venice’s dolphin/swan/ichthyosaur-laden canals, seems to have missed the point of the film: global pandemic does not a metaphor make. COVID-19 is not Mother Nature getting her own back, nor punishment for straying from God’s light (Can you imagine? You’re a card-carrying Catholic, you masturbate once and bam – worldwide pandemic). It’s biology. People become fomites – your aunt is suddenly a weapon of mass destruction who must be avoided like the plague, because she is the plague. There is no allegory here: Contagion is about contagion. Wash your goddamn hands and hope for the best. And please, someone tell Gwyneth Paltrow about catch-it, bin-it, kill-it.

Oxfess Wars: Fun, Harmful, or just plain Boring?

Sam Harper
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Oxfess Wars: Fun, Harmful, or just plain Boring?

Most Oxford students’ lives right now are defined by uncertainty. Will we be faced with an online Michaelmas as well as Trinity? When will we be able to see our friends and family in person again? Will the world we live in ever return to something resembling normality? 

Yet one certainty remains. Seeking respite from an essay crisis or trying to pass the time during lockdown, we open up Facebook to see a feed clogged with heated political debates between anonymous strangers desperate for validation. I am, of course, talking about Oxfess. 

I’m sure at some point Oxfess was better. A confessions page should be a place to share embarrassing, hilarious stories free from judgment, to give others a quick laugh during a break from their busy schedules. I’m not saying that there aren’t still great Oxfesses- there are always gems to uncover, however many “Oxford colleges as ‘Simpsons’ characters” or “OUCA members as flavours of crisps” posts you need to sift through first. But the recent preponderance of political discourse between enraged keyboard warriors has turned Oxfess sour. 

Don’t get me wrong- political debate has its place, and passionately supporting your views is an essential part of liberal democracy. But Oxfess shouldn’t be that place. Relentless arguments between increasingly angry students are at best boring and annoying to the majority, and at worst anxiety-inducing. At a time where many have lost loved ones or are trying their hardest to deal with working in difficult home environments, to be told there is yet another issue we absolutely MUST care about is a step too far. Even if these debates are engaged with, they achieve very little; seldom do people change their minds or reach common ground after a series of emotionally charged rants over Facebook.  

True, there is a certain irony about writing an entire article about content you ostensibly claim to not engage with. But this trend on Oxfess seems to showcase part of what’s wrong with current political discourse. The Internet allows views to be expressed without the need for accountability; behind a veil of anonymity, people can say whatever they want, however outlandish, ignore or shut down criticism, and find like-minded groups where their subjective opinions are accepted as fact. Now that COVID-19 has forced people into physical as well as political bubbles, there is a risk that politics will become further distorted, with common ground harder to find. Real constructive debate, between passionate individuals willing to openly defend their beliefs, risks being replaced by anonymous ideologues screaming talking points at a computer screen, achieving nothing. 

So as much as you might feel an undying urge to ‘confess’ your belief that taxation is theft, or that private schools are an abomination, or that the controversial SU motion of the hour is a much-needed recognition of existing systemic issues/ushers in an Orwellian police-state, please don’t. Or express your opinion in an appropriate space, like a niche ideological sub-reddit or the YouTube comments on a Jordan Peterson video. 

Or Twitter.  

Self-worth and Size: what we’ve learnt from celebrity weight loss

Trudy Ross
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Self-worth and Size: what we’ve learnt from celebrity weight loss

As I’m sure everyone is very aware at this point, Adele has lost some weight. In the past she’s often been cited as a ‘plus-size’ icon, an inspiration to heavier women everywhere. And of course, she’s also been heavily criticised for her appearance. “A little too fat”, was Karl Lagerfeld’s comment after her appearance on the cover of Vogue in 2012; only one of thousands of judgements she’s had to deal with throughout her career. 

And now, naturally, people feel the need to address her new appearance. With almost 250 thousand comments on her recent Instagram post at the time of writing, ranging from “Talk about a glow up!” to “YOU LOOK SO UNHEALTHY!”, people clearly have a lot of opinions on her ‘transformation’. But why does celebrity weight loss, or indeed any kind of weight loss, engender such a strong reaction? Why do we feel the need to speculate on a person’s life, their health, the motivations for their actions, when they change the way they look?

Honestly, I think the explosive response to Adele’s post says a lot more about society than it does about the singer herself. We shouldn’t be talking about Adele right now; we can’t know the exact reasons for her weight loss and, what’s more, those reasons are absolutely none of our business unless she chooses to share them. Which she hasn’t. What we should be talking about, however, is the obsession our society seems to have with tying a person’s self-worth to their size. 

This can happen in a lot of different ways: people can be shamed for being too big, too small, for changing, and a whole host of other things. They can also be praised for the way their body looks, something which is often just as damaging. When we make a big deal out of a person’s weight, we send them a message that this is something which defines them, and the way other people see them. At the end of the day, the people who can’t stop talking about Adele’s weight loss are the kind of people who actually do let their opinion of someone be determined by superficialities like appearance and body type. And if social media right now is any evidence, most of us seem to be that kind of people. 

Anyone who has lost or gained a lot of weight over a short period will tell you that it spurred on no shortage of speculation and gossiping. People want your advice, they want to give you advice, they want to praise or sympathise with or disapprove of you. Nine times out of ten, those comments aren’t helpful, unless it’s already been made clear by the person in question that they’re comfortable talking about their weight. 

As a society, we have a tendency to assume that a person’s weight must directly correlate to their identity in some way. When someone’s weight changes, we go crazy because of some idea that we now need to change the way we look at them; they’re a different person, after all. Well, here’s my opinion. They’re not. And unless they personally decide that their weight makes up a big part of their identity, it really has nothing to do with who they are. We should all stop wondering about what Adele’s weight loss means for who she is and start thinking about what our reactions to it mean for who we are.

Oxford COVID-19 vaccine trial has only 50% chance of success as cases fall in the UK

Eve Bennett
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Oxford COVID-19 vaccine trial has only 50% chance of success as cases fall in the UK

Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine trial has only a 50% chance of success as the virus is disappearing so quickly in Britain, warns a professor co-leading the project. 

Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, revealed in an interview with the Telegraph that an upcoming trial involving 10,000 volunteers may return “no result” owing to low transmission of the coronavirus in the community. 

This comes days after pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced it would be ready to mass-produce the potential new vaccine from September. Meanwhile, the Government reached a deal with the company to pay for up to 100 million doses, with Business Secretary Alok Sharma adding in a press conference that 30 million of these could be available by September, should trials prove successful. 

But as COVID-19 cases continue to fall in the UK, Professor Hill told the Telegraph that the research team are facing a potentially major setback, casting doubt on the feasibility of the September deadline: “It is a race, yes. But it’s not a race against the other guys. It’s a race against the virus disappearing, and against time.

“We said earlier in the year that there was an 80% chance of developing an effective vaccine by September. But at the moment, there’s a 50% chance that we get no result at all.

“We’re in the bizarre position of wanting Covid to stay, at least for a little while. But cases are declining.”

According to the WHO, Oxford University is one of the 76 global contenders racing to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. The experimental vaccine, known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (or ZD1222), is one of only eight across the world that has started to test on humans, with researchers conducting an initial trial of more than 1000 volunteers in April when the virus was at its peak. The results of this first trial will be released in early June. 

Of the 10,000 people recruited for the second trial, however, Professor Hill expects fewer than 50 people to become infected with the virus due to dwindling community transmission. If fewer than 20 people test positive, he warns the results may be of limited or no use.

“The first trial is going fine. We’re still in business, I can tell you that.

“But we’re not going to do what others have done – say we’ve got something good, but we’re not showing you yet. That’s just bonkers. You either disclose your results or you don’t.”

In the event that the next stage of trials proves successful, the U.K. “will be first to get access” to the vaccine, Sharma pledged at a government briefing.

Professor Hill stressed, however, that the University had secured “hardwired” assurances that wealthier countries would not have unfair priority access to the vaccine. This follows a US announcement that it would provide $1.2 billion to AstraZeneca to fund the vaccine’s development. 

“The reputational damage to the university would be enormous if we provided the vaccine only for the UK and US, and not for the rest of those countries of the world where it’s very likely that the pandemic will still be raging,” Hill said.

The team is one of many planning to conduct further trials in COVID-19 hotspots in other countries. They have already arranged trials in the US, and are currently in talks with other countries where virus transmission rates remain high. 

Hill was keen to warn that despite vast international investment in the project, funding “doesn’t guarantee the result,” adding that “it could be nothing or could be great or somewhere in between.”

Various senior ministers in the British Government have also warned that there is “no guarantee” that a vaccine will be found, and that funding research into other drug treatments is equally vital to help combat the impact of the pandemic on the UK population.

Image by Phoebe White

Love and doubt: ‘Looking back’ at Orpheus and Eurydice retellings

Cecilia Wang
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Love and doubt: ‘Looking back’ at Orpheus and Eurydice retellings

Just as Helen possessed the face that launched a thousand ships, Orpheus, the legendary musician and poet, charmed a thousand hearts with his music.

“Orpheus with his luted made trees
And mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Even sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.

Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing, die.” (Shakespeare, Orpheus)

Alas, this ability to kill grief, in true Ancient Greek fashion of the cruelty of fate, did not extend to himself or his beloved. Upon losing his new wife, the beautiful and graceful Eurydice, to a nest of vipers, Orpheus ventured into the Underworld in a desperate attempt to get her back. His music charmed the coldest and darkest of hearts in Hades, who agreed to relinquish Eurydice from his realm upon one condition: that Orpheus did not look at her until reaching the sunlit earth. Unable to hear Eurydice’s footsteps behind him, Orpheus convinced himself that the gods had fooled him, as they so often did in their powerful and playful ways. Eurydice was in fact with him, although in the shape of a shade, as she was returning into the light to become a full woman again. Tragedy strikes, when only a few feet away from the exit, Orpheus loses his faith and turns to see Eurydice, losing her forever to Hades. The story has enchanted the imagination for thousands of years as such moving talent has been defeated, and such heroic love snatched away.

Roelandt Savery, Orpheus Charming the Animals with His Music (1610)

Northern paintings haven been, for centuries, unjustly crystallised into many’s imagination as gloomy-coloured; so much so that Rembrandt’s painting has been erroneously named The Night Watch- age has been unkind; it had originally stunned with its bright sunlight. The delight in exuberant colours and exotic species (Rembrandt had a stuffed crocodile amongst his personal collection) has been given full expression in the life-long wanderer Savery’s painting. The elephant raises its trunk in symphony with the exalting tunes as the often beastly and savage lion stands transfixed. All in nature comes, bewitched and besotted.

Rodin, Orpheus and Eurydice (1893)

Eurydice, in her ghoulish, spectral form, floats behind Orpheus, reaching the underworld’s entrance. Orpheus, in a fateful moment, hesitates and loses confidence. An instant later, he will glimpse her, and Eurydice will vanish forever. Rodin captures a moment foreboding infinite tragedy. Yet both figures seem to levitate, forever in floating motion. One lingers gluttonously at this pause, wishing it would last forever.

Jacques Offenbach, Orpheus in the Underworld (1874 production in Paris)

Ever keen to mock, the Parisian stage turned the ancient legend into political satire. Liberally alluding to the lechery of Napoleon III’s court, Offenbach found his way out of financial difficulties with this box office hit by lampooning the ancient legend. In this, Orpheus is no longer the son of Apollo, but a buffoon of a rustic violin teacher, who is only too glad to have his wife abducted to the underworld. Alas, public opinion bullied him into trying to rescue Eurydice. Here, the gods are despicable, and promiscuity runs ripe in the divine and mortal alike.

Christoph Gluck, Orfeo ed Euridice (1762)

Hermes may have invented the lyre that was to enthrall generations in the Classical world and the Middle Ages, and gifted Apollo with the divine patronage of music; but Orpheus, the ultimate musician, perfected it. Gluck bid farewell to the overly complex music of opera seria and succeeded with a heart-rending score of sublime simplicity in both the music and drama. The score went on to influence major German operas subsequently, with variations on its plot- the underground rescue mission in which the hero is compelled to control and conceal his emotions- finding their ways in works such as Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Gluck concentrates on the madness and folly of love–eager to retrieve Eurydice and forbidden by the gods to either look at her or tell her what is going on (the latter condition an invention of Gluck’s), Orpheus encounters a panicked Eurydice who takes his refusal to even look at her as a sign that he no longer loved her. Orpheus eventually gives in to Eurydice’s mournful cries in an outburst of desire, only to lose her forever. The gods, cruel and omniscient as they are, know the fragility of love only too well. The lover is always greedy and made insecure by the tiniest’s coldness on the part of their beloved. Eurydice is depicted as a silly girl obsessed in love, and Orpheus, although less silly, cannot toughen his resolve in the face of her beseeching sorrow. Gluck poetically encapsulated Ovid’s verdict, “his sole fault was to love her.” There is truth in Plato’s worry that music is the most infectious form of communication, so much so that the political philosopher proposed to ban it in the training of his ideal city guardians. Here, one gets a taste of perhaps what Savery’s lucky animals got to enjoy- the supreme force of music penetrating every sinew in one’s body.

Jacques Cocteau, Orphée (1950)

The austerity in post-WWII Europe proves no hindrance to an artist’s creativity, at least, not for a virtuoso such as Cocteau. With an eclectic career spanning areas such as poetry, plays and visual art, Cocteau reimagines the vivacious world of gods and immortals. The beautiful Death falls in love with the terse, yet poetically gifted Orpheus. She secretly watches him in his sleep and even taking Eurydice just to create an opportune to meet Orpheus again. The story is just rich with deceit, the omnipotence and cruelty of the gods and destructive romance as any Ancient Greek tale. Here, the tragedy is that of an underling of the gods unable to pursue her romantic love and eventually sacrificing herself for it. Cocteau plays with the leitmotif of mirrors as gateways between earth and the underworld.

Igor Stravinsky, Orpheus (1948 score, picture of 2012 New York City Ballet performance)

Stravinsky composed the three tableaux for American choreographer George Balanchine’s neo-classical ballet. The score remains the most melodic of Stravinsky’s, profuse with usage of woodwinds. Stravinsky is perhaps best-known for his vibrant The Rite of Spring, as a scene in Yes, Prime Minister depicts the adviser remarking to the newly elected PM that if he wished to project change and hope in his first televised address, Stravinsky would be the go-to composer. However, in this, Stravinsky does completely without a percussion section, using predominately quite dynamics. He also gave an important role for the harp, paying tribute to Orpheus’ association to the lyre.

Céline Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Sciamma’s lesbian period drama employs the myth of Orpheus to re-centre the female gaze. The two lovers know their time is soon up and the idea of a reunion far-fetched. The tormented lovers bid farewell to each other through a reinterpretation of Ovid’s tale–Orpheus is not mad or irrational, he chooses the memory of Eurydice. Perhaps Eurydice senses it, too–she calls out to Orpheus to glance back, retaining the souvenir of their love.

No more “Viva la Revolution”: Has our generation become boring?

David Tritsch
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No more “Viva la Revolution”: Has our generation become boring?

Throughout history, students have been feared as the archenemy of social and political order: from Paris to Cairo, we’ve revolutionised cultural norms, broken laws, and outraged our parents, be it through our language, our music or our way of dressing. So why does it seem like students are getting increasingly more… well, boring? Even the most eccentric outfits around Oxford are dressed down with a puffer jacket; “Champagne and Socialism” is the highlight of political activism for many of us and the tunes we listen to are great, but really nothing we do would inspire the same indignation that Elvis Presley unleashed 60 years ago.

The other day, I realised that I’d never talked much to my Dad about his time at university; apart from the fact that he studied Zoology and was pretty left-leaning, I didn’t know much about his student days. When he began talking about to his friends in squat houses that would spray graffiti in-between classes and to whom a monogamous relationship amounted to a moral crime, I found it hard to believe him: was this really the man who lists birdwatching as his most adventurous pastime nowadays? Well, at least he assured me these stories were just the observations of an innocent bystander… 

While conformity and niceness were sinful fifty years ago, I am catching myself embracing the concept of being basic. I wear clothes I feel comfortable in, write the occasional angry political tweet to fulfil my duty as an active citizen and go wild when Mr. Brightside is played on the Bridge top floor for the third time. And honestly, I don’t think I’m missing out on too much: the reason things are considered “basic” are because they’re popular: why not trust crowd intelligence? I think if there’s one reason why the character of Mark Corrigan in “Peep Show” seems so relatable it’s that he’s mind-numbingly boring: “Brown for first course, white for pudding. Brown’s savoury, white’s the treat. ‘Course I’m the one who’s laughing because I actually love brown toast.”

Maybe we just don’t have much to rebel against anymore. In a way, we’ve come far as a society in that we can show up to a tutorial in ripped jeans to discuss civil rights and antifascism, and we can discuss our ideas with young, Labour-voting professors instead of ancient Oxford dons. But that makes it somewhat less appealing to stand up to the establishment. Sure, we have a long way to go: the planet is dying, and my mum still doesn’t “believe” in the concept of an open relationship. But in many ways, it feels like we aren’t all that different to real adults anymore. 

The generation before us was also freer to do what they wanted. In a world where everything we do is recorded, put online and preserved for eternity, we’re much more reluctant to do something risky. In an economy where you could easily have a three-year gap in your CV and still build a successful career, taking out a few months to squat in a house, take psychedelics and listening to Bob Dylan sounded much more appealing than nowadays, when the unforgiving grinds of capitalism are in motion even before we graduate. Spring week in first year, summer internship in second year, grad scheme, Associate, Partner – you’ve made it. But there’s no time to suspend competition to discover who we really are, what we really want to do and if this whole thing is actually right for us. 

Indeed, many of us cannot afford being eccentric. For centuries, being eccentric has been a sign of privilege: those who wore scandalous outfits and practised hedonism have almost exclusively been members of the upper classes. Proving that your social status won’t be diminished despite how you dress and what you smoke is the most impressive demonstration of immunity to social judgement imaginable; David Cameron, Boris Johnson and their friends at university were awful and reprehensible but certainly not boring. However, if a rich Eton boy puts his private parts in a dead pig’s mouth whilst on a cocaine binge, we consider it bizarre – if a lad from a working class background had engaged in the same behaviour at the time he would’ve probably found himself in a mental asylum or worse, in prison. Maybe we can be proud of the fact that we as students have grown diverse enough that most of us don’t enjoy these privileges anymore. 

Should we dare to be more unconventional? Not for the sake of it, no. There’s a good reason to stand up for what you believe in and we shouldn’t be afraid to risk an odd look for it. However, there’s really no point in comparing who can set themselves apart from the masses most distinctly. One has to ask if those who judge others by labelling their tastes as “basic” and refuse to listen to Spotify artists with more than a million monthly listeners are really as individualistic as they claim to be. Quite easily, an ever-spiralling competition of who can show off the most niche personality can end up collapsing into everyone appearing the same. So why not scrap the whole game and dress, listen to, and buy what you like? After all, that’s what it’s all about: deciding for yourself and not letting others pressure you into choices you don’t want to make. And if that Pumpkin Spice Latte makes you less interesting to anyone, smile and take a big sip. 

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