Thursday, May 15, 2025
Blog Page 469

Genetically Modified Foods: Friend or Foe?

Mizan Rahman
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Genetically Modified Foods: Friend or Foe?

The EU has not approved any genetically modified (GM) fruit or vegetables as safe for human consumption and in the UK they are mainly used to feed animals. In contrast, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are present in up to 70% of foods on the U.S. supermarket shelves. So is the EU being pedantic in choosing an organic approach?

GMOs are organisms that have their DNA altered to include genetic material from another organism. This is done by isolating the gene that codes for the desired protein (such as one that codes for pesticide resistance) then inserting it into the crop or livestock’s germline. New gene-editing technology such as CRISPR has the potential to make genetic alterations even easier. GMOs are not commercially grown in the UK, but imported GMOs such as corn are used in animal feed. There is no general restriction on growing GMOs in the UK, and the 1990 Environmental Protection Act 1990 allows the Secretary of State to control the release of GMOs in England.  They are subject to a risk assessment and there are strict labelling rules requiring producers to disclose if GM products have been used.

The UK public have their reservations on GMOs – in 2016 a Food Standards Agency survey highlighted that 27% of the public were concerned about GM foods and in a poll in 2017, 61% of Conservative voters wanted to ban production of GM crops post-Brexit. This scepticism highlights some of the fears of the potential damaging effects that GM foods could have on our health.

A fear that resonates at a time like this is that GM foods could be facilitating the creation of superbugs. Whilst GM plants contain genes that allow for pesticide resistance, they utilise marker genes which can be resistant to antibiotics, such as the marker gene in Bt corn which is resistant to some penicillin-type antibiotics. It is therefore no surprise that in 1996 the EU banned Bt corn for this very reason. They have the potential to transfer to microbes in our gut, making some pathogens resistant. Although there has been no evidence as of yet that dietary DNA can be transferred to bacteria in the gut, this could change, with a potentially worrying consequences: we could be allowing disease-causing microbes to become resistant to antibiotics, making medical treatment less effective and fuelling the race against antibiotic resistance.

One other potential negative effect of GMOs is the creation of ‘superweeds’. Some organisms can be altered so that they are resistant to pesticides, allowing farmers to spray the whole field without the worry that the crops will be damaged, saving both time and money. However, gene transfer may allow these GMOs to cross with wild and conventional crops or other neighbouring plants, thereby spreading the genes that allow for such resistance. Gene transfer could create weeds that are resistant to herbicides, rendering the use of herbicide-resistant GMOs useless. There is also a general ethical issue of whether humans should modify and interfere with the integrity of another organism.

There are clear benefits to GMOs, as modifying crops allows them to be resistant to herbicides which allows for more effective pest control leading to higher crop yields. This can reduce the risk of famine. For example, Ugandans eat, on average, more bananas a day than any other population; they account for around 30% of an average Ugandan’s daily calorie intake. However, a bacterial wilt has decimated whole fields of the crop and it is thought that between 2001 and 2004 the infection had cut total banana yields by as much as 52%. To combat this, researchers have found that by inserting a gene from a green pepper, the modified banana is able to kill infected cells and continue growing. This is clearly a significant success of GM foods because they have the potential to solve issues of widespread hunger. Increased crop yields could also increase income as farmers simply have more produce to sell, which would be of most benefit to rural households living below the poverty line.

GMOs can also address health issues, evident in the success story of golden rice which has been claimed to provide 60% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin A. This is rice that has been engineered to include β-carotene which the body can convert into vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency can lead to blindness and an impaired immune system, but golden rice has the potential to prevent this. GM foods could to treat diseases and allow for more crop yield, which could become a useful tool to fight world hunger – currently affecting nearly 1 in 8 people globally. Foods can also be modified to provide flexibility in how they can be used, and fruits such as tomatoes and apples have been altered to reduce browning and bruising. In a time like this it is clear that long-lasting fresh produce can be useful as it can reduce the need of going out for groceries. It also means we can enjoy out-of-season fruits for a longer period of time, and potentially reduce the need for importing such foods, thereby reducing food miles.

Although there are fears that GMOs may have unforeseen consequences, they have been in use in the U.S. for over 25 years. By holding GM foods to the same safety standards as organic foods, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has introduced GM foods into the market, successfully reassuring consumers that they are not more likely to cause allergic reactions or have long-term health effects. The U.S. have even taken the labelling approach in the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, requiring bioengineered food to be labelled so that citizens can make an informed choice and avoid GM foods if they wish. Despite strong opposition to GMOs from some green NGOs, scientific evidence does not seem to suggest there to be any substantial health risks.

However, with the withdrawal from the EU, the laws governing GMOs in the UK are retained – for now. The ongoing health crisis may exacerbate fears over GMOs and their potential resistance to drugs, and public opinion is unlikely to change any time soon.

Image attribution: https://pixabay.com/fr/photos/pomme-de-terre-sur-le-terrain-1628500/

Titian behind closed doors: the ethics of an erotic gaze.

Gaia Clark Nevola
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Titian behind closed doors: the ethics of an erotic gaze.

“Anybody who loves painting loves Titian.” With these bold words and the familiar, if rather flat, echo of Einaudi’s piano, the BBC streamed, digital rendition of the National Gallery’s ‘Titian: Love, Desire, Death’ opens. 

Undeniably, the exhibition was a historic event. For the first time in more than 400 years, since they were hung together in Prince Philip of Spain’s palace, Titian’s seven paintings (or ‘poesie’ as he preferred them to be termed) interpreting Ovid’s Metamorphoses are once again reunited in one room, to be viewed together as intended by the painter. In an exceptional stroke of bad luck, the occasion was, as we are all keenly aware, inaugurated by a global pandemic, and two days after opening its doors to the public, the paintings are locked away until further notice. So, enter the BBC to distribute Titian to the nation.

The structure of the one-hour episode seems to be in a continuous process of slippage. The linear procession of walking through an exhibition breaks down, there is little overarching narrative; the beginning, middle and end blend together into a confused and confusing smoothie. Credible academics are interspersed in syncopation with random Titian aficionados who happen to inhabit the buildings where the painter once lived, a qualification which apparently renders them eligible to impart valuable contributions to the field. At first, this seems to be done for comedic effect. Julia Panama, the current resident of the multi-million-pound Venice property which used to be Titian’s home, bristles with excitement as she is given a good 5-minute chunk of airtime to explain how her choices of painted wallpaper and plush teal ottomans are infused with the essence of Titian. Later, she whips out her phone, showing anyone who will listen pictures of herself on the cover of Cosmo back in the 70s. She introduces a friend to the camera too, an artist apparently, who now paints in the studio where Titian once worked. He too is keen to whip his phone out, explaining in broken English laced with Italian that:“Sono un galantuomo… ti faccio vedere le mie donne” (I am a gentleman…I’ll show you my women), a statement he uses to preface scrolling through pictures of his multiple, and noticeably much younger, girlfriends. “Better than Casanova,” he smiles charmingly, no hint of an apology. In these moments of surreal chauvinism, I wonder if conscious parallels are being struck between the sexist male gaze of the artist today and that of the 16th century but am left unsure if enough thought has been invested to even do that. 

I had never been to a digital art exhibition before this one. Sure, art history programmes I’d seen a-plenty, but the dynamics here are interestingly different. As well as showing the paintings, which to be frank they do precious little of, interviews and footage from the exhibition’s trailer are woven in too. They have the head curator, leaders in the field, art critics. They even rope in Mary Beard. This programme bustles with discordant voices struggling to quite align, and what feels like rushed editing does little to alleviate this problem. Everyone seems keen to mark out their patch on how best to do the viewing, on what story is being told. “These are pictures about desire, about looking,” says Matthias Wivel, head curator, but the direction of where, and how, to carry out this looking is very much left open to debate. 

Rupert Featherstone and Alec Cobbe, art conservators, form a different, rather more grotesque comedy duo than Julia and her painter friend. They gaze at the nude: “It’s a very erotic picture, with the back view, where so much is, sort of… left to the imagination,” the former says, making sweeping hourglass figures with his gently folded hand “but you’ve also got this: her very prominent bottom!”. A flash of a grin, surely the most naughty fun he’s had since school, but he’s not done yet. “There’s a variety of bottoms, there’re different forms…I like the pressure of sitting.” No one steps in to criticise.

The problem really with the programme is the staggering lack of sensitivity. Titian’s Poesies, for all their vibrancy of colour, the complexity of texture, and importance as cornerstones in Western art, are without exception scenes of violence perpetrated against women. True, the stories are age-old Greek myths, but the subject matter remains. These are men gazing on unconsenting bathing women, women chained up nude to rocks, women pregnant and victims of rape being publicly shamed, women abducted by male gods to be assaulted. To titter lightly over the pleasantness of ‘bottoms’ pushed down by the weight of sitting is not a matter for academic disagreement, but what feels like an insult to content and viewer.  

Jill Burke, author of the monograph ‘The Italian Renaissance Nude’, comes across the best in the programme by far, along with Mary Beard. Forty-five (painful?) minutes in, Burke is allowed finally to criticise the absurdity of failing to engage with content: “we don’t look at the subject matter, we look at brushstrokes and genius… the art world colludes in this objectification.” There is bitterness in her tone, and rightly so; there is a great male privilege in being allowed to gaze on paintings of violated women’s bodies, with no need to consider the ethics of the erotic act of gazing. 

I am not suggesting that Titian’s work, along with some of the stuffy scholars who have been interviewed, ought to be binned overnight. Mary Beard is right to say that these paintings are important, even crucial, cultural points that provoke discussion. Titian’s paintings are painted with extraordinary skill. They might tell us things too: about how ideas of beauty and eroticism have been shaped over time, about how military and political power has historically been enmeshed in male notions of power over the female body. Let us be clear though; these images do not, in any way, speak to an authentic experience of violence against women. These images are laced with a smoke-screen of what has been consistently convenient for a male-centric, patriarchal society to perceive a woman in pain to look like: scantily clad and beautiful, objects of desire. These fetishized nudes should not be pointed to as ways of understanding rape or the gendered disparity in power dynamics. If they were, they would not have hung on the walls of oppressive kings. 

“Anybody who loves painting loves Titian.” Perhaps, right at the start of this rather disappointing programme my heckles should have risen, wary of anything trying to universally pin down subjective opinion as a constant and unshakable marker of what is beautiful, important or great. I am reminded of Terry Eagleton, defining the act of labelling something as beautiful as colonially establishing hegemony. A hegemony of the aggressive male gaze is replicated not only by Titian but far more troublingly by so many of the talking heads in the programme. “To demand that art be morally pure is basically to demand that art not do what it has always done. That’s what art helps us do, art is not there to provide a moral example, art is there to ask us questions, or make us ask questions of each other,” crows Wivel, rounding off the programme. Quite possibly, he is right. However, if we are to ask ourselves honest questions and have open honest conversations, we must first learn to see Titian’s nudes clearly, and not simply through the hegemonic gaze of the sublime, erotic and aesthetic. 

Friday Favourite: The Waves

Sarah Lewis
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Friday Favourite: The Waves

The Waves by Virginia Woolf is a book that I unapologetically love. As an English student with a long reading list, I don’t tend to reread too many books. Yet I could happily revisit this book again and again, knowing that each time I would find something new within it. Every line is crafted like a poem, with its rich style possessing endless room for interpretation.

It is difficult to say exactly what The Waves is about. In general, it portrays the interconnected lives of six friends: Bernard, Neville, Louis, Jinny, Susan, and Rhoda. Woolf traverses the lives of these characters, spanning from their early days together as children, through to middle age and beyond. In doing so, it presents their interior lives, with their thoughts, feelings and impressions of the world as they interact with each other and progress through life.

Published in 1931, The Waves is an example of an experimental novel, arising from the modernist period. Alongside writers such as James Joyce, Woolf was constructing new ways of representing life. In her diaries she details the idea of writing a new kind of novel, which she describes in 1927 as consisting of ‘some continuous stream, not solely of human thought, but of the ship, then night &c, all flowing together’. This is achieved to an extent in her earlier books, such as Mrs Dalloway (1925), but The Waves advances further than ever before in portraying the interior life, free of narrative and plot. 

I remember reading it for the first time in sixth form, taking it out of the library only because I thought it was about time I read some Virginia Woolf. Whilst I didn’t really understand what was going on at first, the words still struck me. I’ve been a Woolf fan ever since, burning through many of her other books, but it’s always this one that I come back to. I talked about it at my Oxford interview, momentarily forgetting how nervous I was as I explained why I loved this book. The Waves now has pride of place on my bookshelf, and whenever I have the time to indulge in reading simply for pleasure, it is often this book that I pick up. 

I love it because it captures so intimately both how it feels to live, and to experience. Internal thoughts mix and blur with perceptions of the external, whilst personal anxieties are expressed in long-running sentences, each artfully crafted. As in many of Woolf’s novels, memory mixes with experiences of the present, as in real life. This is evident in Neville’s recollection of a past meeting with his friend Percival, who he is in love with- 

‘I snatched the telephone and the buzz, buzz, buzz of its stupid voice in your empty room battered my heart down, when the door opened and there you stood. That was the most perfect of our meetings. But these meetings, these partings, finally destroy us.’

Neville’s love for his old school friend Percival is movingly depicted- a transgressive act by Woolf considering how such feelings would not have been widely accepted at the time. The novel also shows how the lives of these six friends are interconnected with each other, as all our lives are. As Bernard reflects in the final chapter- 

‘I am not one person; I am many people; I do not altogether know who I am- Jinny, Susan, Neville, Rhoda, or Louis; or how to distinguish my life from theirs.’

Emotions are so immediate in the novel that it is often heart-wrenchingly sad to read. As a result it is one of the few books that can genuinely still move me to tears. With such powerful emotional potential, and its unique poetic quality, The Waves stays with me as a book I will always cherish and revisit.

Music History: Django Reinhardt

George Newton
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Music History: Django Reinhardt

If Django Reinhardt’s name doesn’t instantly ring a bell, his music certainly will. Hearing it will transport you to a Parisian café or brasserie – his entrancing jazz has become synonymous with French café culture. 

As the most famous, and arguably most iconic, European jazz musician of all time, Reinhardt’s life was as eventful as his music was influential. Jean – or ‘Django’ – Reinhardt was a Belgian-born Romani-French jazz musician who lived through most of the first half of the twentieth century. He combined the melodies of American jazz with the faster rhythms associated with Romani music, his innovative approach earning him an extensive following in the jazz world. This combination, along with his use of the acoustic guitar as a lead instrument, provided an avant-garde and fresh take, rethinking jazz after incorporating inspiration from other genres. Reinhardt’s music was unique in 1930s and ‘40s Europe and quite different to anything his contemporaries were producing. 

What makes Reinhardt’s transfixing solos all the more impressive is that he was unable to read sheet music and, due to a devastating fire in his Romani wagon, only had three fully working fingers on his left hand for most of his career. The injuries he sustained compromised his ability to form certain chords – he had to completely relearn how to play guitar, making his skill and influence even more extraordinary and unique. 

After meeting French-Italian violinist Stéphane Grappelli, the pair formed the Quintette du Hot Club de France, which went on to become one of the most famous and inventive jazz groups of the era – using only string instruments. The Quintette brought hot club jazz to the forefront of the European jazz scene, transforming a little-appreciated genre into one capable of rivalling great American swing artists like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. By the late 1930s, Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli and the Quintette du Hot Club de France were the most famous European jazz musicians.

When the Second World War broke out, the Quintette were on tour in the UK; whilst Stéphane Grappelli opted to stay in Britain, Reinhardt returned to Paris, where his position as a Romani jazz musician in the Nazi-occupied city was a precarious one. The Nazis persecuted the Roma and Sinti peoples and saw jazz musicians as opponents of the regime. It is remarkable that Reinhardt, who was in the limelight as a Romani jazz musician, not only managed to survive the war, but also carried on performing live in Nazi-occupied Paris. In addition, he made seventy recordings of his music throughout the War, including liberation anthem ‘Nuages’. When Reinhardt eventually decided to leave occupied France, he was captured, and it was his good fortune that a jazz-loving Nazi officer allowed him to return to Paris unscathed.

Django Reinhardt changed the ways jazz could be played, and listened to, forever. He created a wonderfully mellifluous new type of jazz which could rival American swing, using his musical ear to write his solos and to develop his iconic guitar style despite the fact that a fire had compromised his ability to use his left hand. He made an astonishing number of recordings, producing over 900 sides between 1923 and 1953, using an instrument never before associated with leading a jazz band. One of the most notable and impressive aspects of Reinhardt’s life is that, although he came from a group which had been marginalised for centuries, and who were facing the worst persecution and genocide in their history, he still managed to create ground-breaking developments in jazz and gain widespread popularity doing what he loved. His Romani identity and family remained important to Reinhardt throughout his life; he would often just leave Paris to join his family for a few days, without even telling the Quintette.

In 1953, Reinhardt passed away at the age of just 43; however, his legacy lives on and continues to inspire musicians today. His children and grandchildren are musical; his second son Babik is a jazz guitarist and Babik’s son, David, leads his own jazz trio. However, the fact Reinhardt questioned assumptions of what the guitar was capable of has extended his influence to many modern guitarists too. When Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi lost the tips of two fingers in an industrial accident, he was inspired to play guitar after hearing about Reindhardt’s right-handed technique. Jeff Beck, who played with Eric Clapton, referred to Reinhardt as ‘by far the most astonishing guitarist ever’. Joe Pass, one of the most renowned jazz guitarists of the 20th century, wrote an album called ‘For Django’ and there have been two films made about him.

With his smart suit, pencil moustache, slicked-back hair and a cigarette nestled between his lips, Reinhardt symbolises the archetypal French musician of the 1930s. He was brave, innovative, sometimes erratic and unreliable, but more than anything focused on creating and performing unique music which forever changed the face of jazz and expanded the boundaries of the acoustic guitar.

Suggested listening: Nuages / Beyond The Sea (La Mer) / St Louis Blues / Où es-tu mon amour? / Brazil (An interpretation of a Brazilian samba song – for a Brazilian version see Brasil (Aquarela Do Brasil) by Eliane Elias).

Emails reveal Government ministers “losing patience” over freedom of speech issues

Imogen Duke
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Emails reveal Government ministers “losing patience” over freedom of speech issues

Oxford University’s public condemnation of UNWomen Oxford UK Society’s decision to ‘no-platform’ Amber Rudd came after communication with the Department of Education and internal disagreement over the proposed statement.

The society cancelled the International Women’s Day event, which was hosting a talk by Amber Rudd, 30 minutes before it was scheduled to begin, due to protests over Rudd’s links to the Windrush scandal and her time in government.

Emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal internal discussion over the public response of the University. The statement initially proposed by the Public Affairs Directorate was published in its original form on 6th March, the day after the cancellation. The University deregistered UNWomen Oxford UK as an affiliated society in late March.  

The Vice-Chancellor spoke with the Secretary of State for Education’s Special Adviser the morning after Rudd’s ‘no-platforming’, following the Department for Education asking the University to “talk to someone as soon as possible.” The University also had “off the record” information that “senior Government ministers are losing patience with the sector in general, and what they perceive as slowness and inconsistency in response to freedom of issues [sic].”

The Proctors had suggested that the proposed full statement be replaced by a more “succinct message” which would be “in line with how the University has responded to other such clubs and society concerns.”

The head of University Communications responded saying the “wider political context” meant that to “deflect criticism of Oxford” the University had to “unambiguously condemn” the students’ decision. This referred to an expected Department for Education announcement of “tougher regulation/ legislation around freedom of speech.”

Later that day, Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, called for the University to take “robust action” against the “unacceptable” decision. The next day, he wrote in The Times that “if universities can’t defend free speech, the government will,” praising the University of Oxford for adopting “strong codes of conduct that champion academic free speech, explicitly recognising that this may sometimes cause offence.”

The Proctors’ Office had also recommended the proposed statement be less “emotive”, through removing reference to the University’s “feelings”. They suggested deleting the statement “taking necessary steps to ensure that this cannot be repeated”, saying it committed the University to “something that is not possible to 100% enforce.”

One staff member described the Public Affairs Directorate as “blowing the situation up” and that they were “worried” they would “make it worse”. They said: “I managed to see sight of the briefing (they don’t typically share as it’s not us responding) and I have gone back to them as I didn’t like what they were saying and some of it was incorrect.”

The University was also concerned about the formal complaint to be made by the Free Speech Union, run by Toby Young. He had lodged a complaint to Exeter College about the ‘no-platforming’ of Selina Todd earlier that week. The Public Affairs Directorate noted: “no doubt Toby Young will pick this up – two no platform issues in under a week related to us.” The complaint to Exeter College is described as having “detailed understanding of national legislation and the college’s own policies.”

The Mail on Sunday reported that this “correspondence between senior university staff… shows a strong statement denouncing the cancellation was only published after pressure from the Government and from political campaigner Toby Young.”

The University told Cherwell: “Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor has a long history of defending freedom of speech and the Secretary of State had nothing to do with the University’s position on this matter.

“The University strongly disapproved of the decision to disinvite Amber Rudd and the Proctors took just and proportionate action according to the existing policies which underpin the University’s stance on freedom of speech.

“The decision to deregister the UNWomen Oxford UK Society was taken by the University proctors because its conduct was in breach of the University’s code of conduct for student societies.”

Toby Young told Cherwell: “I was pleased to see the Free Speech Union being taken seriously by the Oxford authorities. From now on, any university that fails to uphold free speech can expect to receive a letter of complaint from the FSU and those letters will be copied to the Secretary of State for Education. University administrators know that if they don’t uphold free speech the Secretary of State is minded to take action.”

The society, which has since changed its name to United Women Oxford Student Society, defended the decision to disinvite Amber Rudd on its Facebook page: “We would like to begin by directly apologising for our decision to invite Amber Rudd to talk at our society, in particular to the BAME students of Oxford and other communities affected by her policies. We recognise that we should have addressed this issue upon deciding whether to invite her. We stand by our decision to cancel the event and show solidarity with the BAME community.”

The Committee of Oxford College JCR Presidents (PresCom) wrote an open letter criticising the University’s response to the society’s cancellation of Amber Rudd’s talk. The letter said the response demonstrated “the widely felt sentiment that the University is quick to abandon its students in the face of unwarranted backlash from national newspapers and high-profile individuals.” It also described “a lack of consistency as to when the University will take a stance in response to national headlines; in previous cases, the University has chosen to distance itself and not intervene.”

Oxford love can hurt like this

Franziska Rauh
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Oxford love can hurt like this

Okay, I thought, when I found myself two weeks into lockdown: NOW is the time to finally read that copy of Brideshead Revisited I bought at Blackwell’s in my first week at Oxford. I opened Evelyn Waugh’s much beloved masterpiece and read its opening description of a sunny June day in Oxford. But the references to cobblestones, punting on the Isis, walking down High Street, and passing Carfax tower gave me a sharp pain in the chest. I could not read them while feeling that I had been torn away from all this beauty and excitement by a global health crisis; that, in all likelihood, there would not be any days of June in Oxford for me in the foreseeable future (being on a one-year graduate course, I could not soothe myself by hoping for better luck in Trinity 2021, either). I was too heartbroken. So with a sigh, I put Evelyn Waugh back on the shelf, where he had been since October; only, this was now the bookshelf in my childhood bedroom somewhere in Bavaria, and not an Oxford college bookshelf anymore, which had given my earlier failure to read one of the most famous Oxford novels at least some kind of glamour before.

I browsed my mother’s bookshelves instead, in search of light entertainment, captivating enough to keep me from thinking about the pandemic or the academic work I was not doing. I settled for the crime section and decided to revisit a man who rarely fails to cheer me up: Lord Peter Wimsey, Dorothy Sayers’ charming gentleman detective with impeccable manners. Deliberately, I did not go for Gaudy Night, the famous case in which he, once again, comes to the aid of Miss Harriet Vane, herself a writer of detective stories who has returned to her former Oxford college haunted by mysterious incidents, culminating in attempted murder. I read Have His Carcase first, a story set in Wilvercombe and not in danger of harming my feelings. Only when I had thus reacquainted myself with Wimsey and Vane did I dare to give Oxford novels a second try, and reread Gaudy Night (after a first reading last summer, in preparation for Oxford life). Gaudy Night is a very rich novel, giving you food for thought way beyond your typical detective story. So at first, the Brideshead Revisited effect held off. Maybe because I already knew the novel, and the reading was not imbued with the high expectations of a first encounter with a literary classic that had put me under pressure trying to read Brideshead Revisited; maybe because I had a captivating mystery to solve, Sayers’ witty language to admire, and her protagonist’s thoughts on female empowerment to evaluate, and could not dwell on my broken heart (blessed with an astonishingly bad long-term memory, I was not restrained by already knowing the ending of the story).

Still, the more I imaginatively delved into college life again, the more I felt I had been bilked out of something. Strolling around Christ Church, where Harriet meets Lord Peter’s spoilt but amiable nephew? That should have been me in an hour of leisure I just had not found yet, because there was always an essay to write when I wanted to go visit other colleges! Harriet and Lord Peter romantically resting in a punt on the Isis? That should have been me and my equally charming Oxford love interest still to be found at one of the college balls I was now not going to! Girls running around college in panic because they cannot find their gowns? That should have been me before my Trinity exams, dressed up in sub-fusc and in a rush to get to examination schools (okay, that might not be a totally attractive idea to everybody, but you get the point). In her foreword to Gaudy Night, Sayers writes, with reference to the mixture of fiction and reality that forms the novel’s setting: “However realistic the background, the novelist’s only native country is Cloud-Cuckooland, where they do but jest, poison in jest: no offence in the world.” But I was offended. Sayers’ Cloud-Cuckooland bore enough resemblance with the Oxford I knew for that.

At some point, I intended this to become a well-balanced piece of writing which would retrace my journey from anger to acceptance, where I would tell you how reading Gaudy Night had been a source of calm and solace to me, where I had been disappointed at first, but ultimately found a way to look at all the fun Oxford stuff depicted in the novel with gratitude: for I had been a part of this amazing world for a while, and I still was, even if only remotely. But you know what? I am not going to lie. I am not there yet. I am still in the anger stage. I am aware that I am incredibly privileged because the only major effect this pandemic has had on my life so far is that it has interrupted my year abroad, at Oxford. I am not intending to compare. Yet I also do not think it is helpful to deny oneself the right to feel angry, disappointed or sad. I think that having these feelings about the abrupt ending of my Oxford time means to maintain a pinch of normality in this crazy world. Because under normal circumstances, if I had to return home from Oxford in haste, if I was not able to carry on living a dream of mine I had cherished for years and I had finally seen come true, I would be exactly that: angry, disappointed, and sad. And so, no, reading Gaudy Night did not soothe me by imaginatively letting me return to Oxford. It made me realize even more clearly what I had lost and thus kindled my anger. I intend to stay angry for quite a bit longer. But I’ll be fine eventually. And after some time, I may be able to pick up Brideshead Revisited again, or any other Oxford novel, and maybe the thought of sunlit cobblestones will not make me flinch anymore. Maybe a reference to the Rad Cam will not hurt so much. Maybe I will be able to think about High Street or Queen’s Lane as just some street I used to know. But I doubt it. 

Fashion in an age of aesthetics: artwork’s place within commercial culture

Devanshika Bajpai
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Fashion in an age of aesthetics: artwork’s place within commercial culture

The intrinsic connection between art and fashion has been so perfectly expressed by none other than the illustrious Giorgio Armani who selects his garments “as if they were works of art and art chosen and exhibited with all the brilliance of fashion.” It is unsurprising, then, that in a world dictated by constantly-updating social media feeds that the two industries are using one another to stay relevant. The forerunners in both industries from large fast-fashion brands and conglomerate museums to haute couture houses and unknown artist are all gloriously collaborating with one another pandering to consumers whose attention consistently needs to be attained. Consequently, this trend in cross-pollination is giving a gravitas to brands & artists enabling them access to markets they could only dream of entering. Back in 2016 we saw the high-street brand COS join forces with The Guggenheim to create a collaborative line of Agnes Martin inspired clothing which radically altered their better known fast-fashion aesthetic. Whilst at the other end of the spectrum we have reveled in Gucci’s collaboration with Trevor Andrews better known as ‘Gucci Ghost’. Such a radical composition chaperoned Gucci into a successful street-style aesthetic that has not only appealed to the common consumer but also to celebrities such as Rihanna all the way up to Elton John. Such a contrast in brand, artist and successful outcome is fascinating; this world of symbiosis is not only changing the face of the art market but also the boundaries of fashion.

Art as an entity is often sought after because it’s a ‘one off’ – the less there are, the more they are worth – is a common rhetoric at any art auction or sale. So how does a mass-produced brand use art to make both, the artists and the brand more successful? How is it that making original artwork more accessible makes it more profitable? Well if one is to look at the early days of Supreme, Jebbia decided to create ‘drops’ of limited-edition clothing, commercially akin to Warhol’s multiples in order to upmarket the price on ‘exclusive clothing’. Other brands caught on to the success of Supremes’ ‘art-fashion’ model and began to produce in the same way. Japanese artist, Takashi Murakami’s collection made with Louis Vuitton sold at prices higher than the luxury brand’s basic pieces signaling to the consumer, the rarity of this collaboration. In keeping with the art markets exclusivity, brands use ‘limited edition’ to keep both relevant in this fast-paced world and also to retain the ‘integrity’ of the artists name. Evidenced by Vuitton’s prominence in the public eye being credited for its propulsion of Murakami into the global art market. It’s clear that fashion has an accessibility to commercialisation that art had never before had access to and this is a strong benefit for their unison of creativity. However, its shelf-life seems to be deteriorating to nothing more than a tokenistic trend where these obvious strategies no longer challenge the face of fashion.

Artistic integrity, fashion and commercial culture enjoy a tenuous relationship even when the influence extends vice versa, for artists using fashion as stimulus. Elmgreen and Dragset’s ‘Prada Marfa’ land art installation that creates bountiful discussion and personal interpterion that even the artists didn’t expect. The work itself is a reconstruction of a Prada shop placed outside the city of Marfa, Texas. Not only is the store stocked with real Prada items, it was even vandalised and burgled on its opening night. The irony doesn’t stop there however, the real-life exclusivity of Prada is replicated in their ‘Prada Marfa’ work’s visual exclusivity being that one has to take a pilgrimage to get there. As a comical and fascinating interjection in the fashion world, Elmgreen and Dragset’s are benefitting from the cult-followings of fashion houses which has introduced new audiences to their art. However, one can now begin to see that such successful collaborations are few and far between.

One just has to look at the infamous Vuitton partnership with the king of commercialisation Jeff Koonz which was heavily panned by critics due to its unoriginality, tacky appropriation and its clear disrespect to the works of Old Masters – it was even famously described as “fashion terrorism”, the ultimate symbol of appropriating artists’ work for consumerist goals. For those unaware of this disaster Koonz pasted paintings from various Old Masters including, Rubens, da Vinci and Titan onto Vuitton’s bags, tactlessly adorned by garish primary colors and Koonz iconic bunny. Perhaps the question remaining is whether these art and fashion collaborations need to do anything more than entertain the fast-paced changing aesthetic of the modern-day consumer whom are willing to pay the price.

It is easy to see how expensive designer brands can collaborate with successful artists to make their exclusive clothes even more desirable. Yet more interestingly, one may claim that when collaborations allow art and fashion to reach a wider audience, directly or indirectly, this outweighs the underlying issues of tokenistic commercialisation. For example, in 2004 Uniqlo released Andy Warhol prints on their clothing in order to follow in Warhol’s rhetoric of art for the people thus began their illustrious journey of combining contemporary art with their ‘affordable’ brand. Today, Uniqlo are partnered with MoMA in New York symbiotically printing artist work that is housed in the museum from Basquiat to Kruger in an attempt to bring divergent audiences to both Uniqlo’s store and to MoMA. Such a powerful symbiosis extends over the pond to The Tate in London who similarly paired with a high-street store, Dr. Martens, to garner a wider interest in the galleries permanent collection. Incorporated with the classic Doc aesthetic William Blakes paintings adorn the shoes leather depicting some of his most famous scenes. Dr. Martens and The Tate noted that like Doc’s “Blake is a true rebel and the ideal artist to elevate DM’s shoes and accessories.” Both of these major collaborations are seemingly doing a lot to encourage visibility of the arts as well as expanding their own brands cultural aesthetic. Therefore, these successful examples are forging a path for other artistic collaborations to comfortably find their place within commercial culture.

In conversation with Dr Xand

Lucas Jones
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In conversation with Dr Xand

Dr. Alexander van Tulleken has Covid-19. He told me as much down the phone, explaining that no other disease could explain the symptoms he was suffering from. He had a persistent cough and a fever, the standard symptoms, but he had also lost his sense of taste and smell. This was before that was widely accepted as a key symptom, but he was certain that it was important. “Anecdote is more powerful tool in medicine than we give it credit for,” he explains, noting that although studies had not proved a conclusive link between loss of sensation and the disease, reports from South Korea strongly suggest that one exists. In a post-truth world, the suggestion that our trust should be placed in anecdotes may raise some eyebrows, but Xand, as he’s usually known, knows what he’s talking about.

While he may be best known as the presenter of programmes like Operation Ouch and The Twinstitute, Dr. Xand also has an impressive medical background. With qualifications from Somerville College and Harvard Medical School under his belt, he made a name for himself as an editor of the Oxford Handbook of Humanitarian Medicine, and a senior research fellow at Fordham University, New York. His career as a senior medical analyst has seen him report on health crises around the globe, covering the Ebola epidemic in the United States and working with the World Health Organisation, Merlin, and other significant health charities.

“I was quite lazy at school,” he says, “I would have loved to do an English degree or a History degree, but I would have sunk without a trace.”  He points to the nature of the degree as one of the key reasons he wanted to study medicine, arguing that he needed the structure to keep him on track. There was also a family element involved. “There’s this sort of reinforcing virtuousness about saying that you want to be a doctor,” he laughs, “people start to treat you like a doctor when you’re fifteen.”

You would think that children’s telly would be the undignified, silly, boring, weird bit of a person’s career… instead it’s literally the most intellectually stimulating.”

“

Perhaps this explains why Xand and Chris (his identical twin brother) followed such similar paths. Both hold medical degrees from Oxford University, and both studied Tropical Medicine afterwards. Intriguingly, they both started presenting at the same time, doing a documentary series called Medicine Men Go Wild, which examined indigenous medicine. Since then they have worked together on several television projects, most famously Operation Ouch.

“There was never a moment when either of us went ‘I’m going to pivot to presenting’” says Xand, making it clear that his main interest is still humanitarian medicine. However, that hasn’t stopped him from presenting an impressive selection of programmes. “We got asked to do more stuff,” he explains, “we had a strange thing that we were twins, and twins are very useful on telly because… you have a built-in relationship that can be very silly or antagonistic and still be comfortable.”  The Van Tulleken twins put this relationship to full use in many of their shows, acting as human ‘lab-rats’ for experiments ranging from alcohol intake to acupuncture.

The twins are probably best known for their children’s series Operation Ouch, a science show on CBBC that Xand describes as the “most intellectually demanding, morally engaging, complicated, scientifically accurate thing on the telly.” More on that in a moment. Asked whether he changes his register to get his ideas across the children who watch the shows, he laughs. “On BBC 2 I would be reluctant to use the word ‘hypothesis’ whereas on Operation Ouch we use it routinely.” Children who don’t understand something, he explains, keep watching, whereas adults tend to switch off.

Operation Ouch is, according to Xand, pitched at the level of first-year medical students. While this may seem ludicrous, his justification makes it clear that he isn’t joking. “You would think that children’s telly would be the undignified, silly, boring, weird bit of a person’s career… instead it’s literally the most intellectually stimulating.” Navigating topics like alcohol, sex, and gender while remaining both appropriate and completely inclusive is no mean feat. The brothers manage impressively, discussing concepts as advanced as saltatory nerves and iron channels without ever deviating from the juvenile humour that characterises the show.

“Public Health England (PHE) has one of the most difficult jobs in the world at the moment.”

Getting messages about health and wellbeing out to the population has never been more important than it is right now. I asked Xand his thoughts on the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic as someone who has been delivering public health messages to the UK for years. He immediately refuted my suggestion that his work was primarily concerned with public health. “Most of what we’re trying to make,” he responded, “is entertainment… I try not say ‘here’s how to live your life.’”

True as that may be, he hasn’t shied away from public health work in the current circumstances. Since the start of the pandemic, he has appeared as a medical advisor on several television shows, responding to questions on BBC’s Newsround and filming a documentary about self-isolation for Channel 4. Despite his modesty, he is clearly more than qualified to comment on the government’s response.

“I think that Public Health England (PHE) has one of the most difficult jobs in the world at the moment.”  Although he concedes that many of the publications published by PHE aren’t as visually appealing as they could be, he also reminds me that “that isn’t their job.” Instead, the organisation has to put out clear material for local community leaders to reinterpret in ways that will accommodate for everyone in Britain. The respect he has for PHE’s response to the crisis is audible, he takes the opportunity to emphasise the unique difficulties of planning such a response.

“In doing the messaging correctly,” says Xand, “the government will look bad and chaotic… You think ‘well, that’s terrible communication’ but it’s not. That’s perfect public health.” This is how Xand explains the Prime Minister’s seemingly sudden decision to put the country into ‘lockdown’. Public health announcements clearly change our behaviour, often in a way that helps the virus spread. In keeping information to themselves for the good of the country, the government’s response looks more piecemeal and disorganised than it actually is. In other words, “PHE are doing a much better job than they can ever get credit for”.

“In doing the messaging correctly,the government will look bad and chaotic… You think ‘well, that’s terrible communication’ but it’s not. That’s perfect public health.”

The coronavirus crisis will not treat everyone equally, Xand is brutally honest about that. “I think we are going to get a massive tension between desperate attempts to slow the spread of the virus and the absolute desperation of people who are already in extreme poverty or who have fallen into extreme poverty. For many people, the big consequence of this virus will be a plunge into poverty from which they cannot escape.”

The long-term problems associated with this pandemic will be more to do with economics than health, and the short-term victims of the lockdown certainly won’t be the politicians. There’s a whole social element to the crisis as well: many people will inevitably be trapped with their abusers and single parents will have to juggle a daunting set of tasks that now includes home-schooling.

Since this interview took place, Xand has made a full recovery. He continues to answer the nation’s questions on television, providing a reassuring, expert presence in a world of terrifying news and ill-informed WhatsApp oracles. The UK, however, continues to see cases rise in line with Xand’s tentative predictions. He made another prediction, this time that the coronavirus was “spreading unchecked” in Africa. As Africa’s total confirmed cases exceeds 10,000 and lockdowns are implemented across the continent, his words ring true. His consistent ability to interpret the direction makes me wish that he hadn’t made any more predictions. Unfortunately, he did.

“We’ll recover from Covid-19,” says Xand, “unfortunately, I think this is not the big one. I think in our lifetime we will see worse pandemics.” Coming from anyone else, this would seem like an alarmist conspiracy theory. But it’s coming from Dr. Xand, and he clearly knows what he’s talking about.

Readers questions:

When is the UK going to return to normality? – Ayesha Khan

“This will leave a very significant scar in everyone’s minds and some people’s bodies in the way that huge global events like September 11th often do. Life goes back to normal, but not quite. We will get our lives back, for sure. Most people are happy to get on the train and go to the park with this virus circulating, so clearly this is not a virus that will in itself change our behaviour. Our behaviour is being changed by rules and regulations and as soon as those are lifted to some extent our lives will go back to normal. I would say the next twelve weeks are going to be really, really unpleasant in terms of what we see on the news. In the end the virus is not stoppable in any proper way, we can slow it down but the health service will inevitably be overwhelmed. I would think that by the end of the summer with testing increased and more knowledge about the denominator we are going to have a much clearer picture of how to respond. I would think that in a year’s time things will look very much better for most people.”

Is there going to be a dramatic rethink of the economy after Covid-19? – Sam Millward

“No. I think basically people are idiots and as a species, we’re doing an absolutely terrible job of everything. What’s a slightly more intellectual way of phrasing that? There have always been heroic people throughout history who we’ve ignored: The Labour Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement. So many people have resisted the bad forces of greed and capitalism through the centuries but essentially, we have built a world which seems to require its own destruction and I don’t believe we’ll stop doing that. If you look at our behaviour with regard to climate change, if you look at the way we ran the economy post-2008 we seem absolutely unwilling to put long-term benefit over short-term gain. Given our willingness to ignore things that are definitely going to happen and be bad for us, climate change being the obvious example. I feel very, very pessimistic about our ability to change anything significant.”

Responses have been edited for length and clarity, interview conducted on Wednesday 25th March.

The Minefield of Coronavirus Metaphors

Orna Rifkin
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The Minefield of Coronavirus Metaphors

“This is the frontline in a war,” begins BBC medical correspondent Fergus Walsh’s special report on coronavirus, filmed in University College Hospital, London. He speaks these words over footage of doctors armoured in blue and white plastic gowns, facemasks, and visors. The coronavirus-as-war metaphor besieges the language of world leaders, from self-proclaimed ‘war president’ Trump to Xi Jinping’s waging of a ‘people’s war’ against the virus. It has also invaded the language used on the news, on social media, and in our quarantined homes.

Who, exactly, is fighting this war? The doctors? The patients? Peter Openshaw, a senior doctor who has been treating COVID-19 patients, finds the metaphor harmful. He speaks of patients suffering from the disease who suffer a further sense of guilt and personal inadequacy, feeling that they haven’t had the strength to fight the virus, when the biological reality is completely removed from such psychological perceptions. Was it really Boris Johnson’s strength as a ‘fighter’ that led to his discharge from St. Thomas’, or, as he himself says, the hard work of the NHS staff who treated him?

Politicians like the Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Matt Hancock, and Donald Trump have all referred to coronavirus as an ‘invisible enemy/killer’. But while the war metaphor is used to turn coronavirus into a psychological reality, it is also causing psychological ills.

This is the argument of Susan Sontag’s long essay Illness as Metaphor, a study of literary and historical portrayals of tuberculosis and cancer, the most metaphor-addled diseases of their epochs, aiming for a ‘liberation’ from morally-charged metaphors which extend the spread of these diseases into language itself. A disease-turned-metaphor harms more than the ill.

What separates coronavirus from other illnesses is its WHO-endorsed status as a pandemic. Here, disease-as-war metaphors work both on a personal and a national scale; they can be read both inwards, as in Openshaw and Sontag’s misgivings, and also outwards, as a collective fight into which the healthy are also ‘enlisted’ or ‘conscripted’.

There are two war metaphors which are becoming increasingly tangled — disease as war, and politics as war. We should be mindful of keeping these separate. A point of contention around the House of Commons Brexit debates has been the use of military terms to describe political processes, the PM’s ‘surrender bill’ being a prominent example. Camouflaged within these metaphors are violent notions of division and superiority which are deeply unhelpful in public discourse.

One issue with the military metaphor is its misogyny — it implies that only men are soldiers, only men are politicians, only men are doctors. Deborah Tannen, in her outmoded linguistic theory of gender ‘difference’, associates language of collaboration with women, and language of conflict with men. A linguistic difference which has since been shown to reflect pre-existing gender roles. The use of this metaphor, overwhelmingly by men, perpetuates sexist stereotypes which not only harm women, but complicate political processes of consensus.

There is an aggressive, nationalistic quality that is attached to the war metaphor which, when its use is universalised, is undoubtedly dangerous. Although the prominence of the Second World War in the Queen’s address can be criticised, her call to “join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour” is powerful. It cuts through the rapid-fire declarations of national war that have been made by so many world leaders, hasty to enforce their own political power. This is why I find the words of Fergus Walsh, and so many others, so incongruent — doctors work to heal, not to harm.

Image via Getty Images

God Save the Queen, I Guess

Natasha Voase
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God Save the Queen, I Guess

I’ve never made any secret of my dislike for the British Royal Family; they spend too much on clothes, horses and houses few of us will ever see and, other than a bit of ribbon-cutting, what good do they actually do? From their tangled web of relationships to their ludicrous headline-grabbing scandals, they’ve always struck me as being the well-bred version of the Kardashians. However, during this time of crisis, I’ve developed a sort of grudging respect for one royal in particular: the Queen.

This year hasn’t been a good one for the royal family; from Prince Andrew’s car crash Newsnight interview and implication in the Epstein Scandal, to the abrupt exit of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex from the Firm, it’s been a true annus horriblis. However, with Boris Johnson out of action and his cabinet bickering about who’s meant to be in charge, the Queen has emerged above the fray to remind us that, despite the absurd soap opera of her own family, she still does, at 93 years old, have a role to play.

Addressing the nation outside of her Christmas Speech for the fourth time and facing the camera looking like a sweet but determined granny, she urged the nation to be unified in the face of a pathogen which has brought the world to a grinding halt. Telling us to live in the knowledge that we’ll meet again was a masterful touch; in a time when physical contact has been banned and Zoom proves to be a poor replacement for face-to-face contact, never have we been more eager to meet our friends again. Perhaps as a woman who has lived through many of the events described in history textbooks, she is uniquely placed to capture the mood of millions of people hiding away indoors.

Though the Queen might be the unifying figure Britain needs at this moment in time, the future of the British monarchy is by no means secure and no one knows that better than she. A child during the 1936 Abdication Crisis, she saw the monarchy coming close to the end as her uncle abdicated in order to marry Wallis Simpson. Meanwhile, the Queen mother and George VI were regularly booed when they visited bomb sites in the East End during the Second World War. A bomb might have landed in Buckingham Palace’s garden, but that didn’t mean that their suffering was on par with those living in the heart of one of the poorest and worst-affected areas of London. Meanwhile, coming to the throne in 1952 as the head of a large empire, she oversaw the transition from Empire to Commonwealth amidst the backdrop of a rapidly changing British society to which the monarchy looked increasingly stuffy and out of date. Going back to the decade in which many of us were born, the Queen was far from popular. From the annus horriblis of 1992 to her handling of the death of Princess Diana in 1997, her Second World War stoicism seemed increasingly out of place with the new Britain of the 1990s. However, somehow, she’s managed to survive it all, celebrating her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.

Therefore, the Queen, with her brightly-coloured suits and matching hats perched atop white hair, might be the head of state Britain needs, if not the one we chose. Whilst an elected Head of State might drag Britain kicking and screaming into the 21st century, the advantage of the Queen is that, unlike any President, she’s almost eternal. Donald Trump may be voted out in November 2020, Emmanuel Macron in 2022, but the Queen will always be there. Thus, the greatest challenge faced by the monarchy today is not COVID-19 but what to do when the Queen’s no longer at the helm – and at 93 years old, her death isn’t a remote possibility.

The Queen’s well-chosen words may have proven the monarchy’s worth, but the rest of the family should be working out how to keep the lights on when the head of the family is gone. The departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as well as Prince Andrew’s disgrace should give them the impetus they need to slim down the monarchy and get rid of the hangers-on, whilst the Queen’s speech should give them the inspiration they’ve been looking for to prove that they’re more than just reality stars with posh accents.

The role of the monarchy is to provide unifying leadership and the Queen has done just that. However, in order to keep the Crown on their heads, they should continue to adapt, remembering that more secure monarchies than theirs have been brought down by smaller crises than this.

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