Friday 25th July 2025
Blog Page 532

Dump Soup

Savannah Hawley
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Dump Soup

Savannah Hawley introduces a comforting recipe to use up your leftovers

In the past several years, the public has seemingly woken up to the disturbing reality of our wasteful habits and how they are directly harming our environment. Elara Oakes outlines a variety of ways to deal with this issue; but while ensuring you’re buying only what you need is the best preventative measure against food waste, there is still the question of what to do with your leftovers and produce that is about to go off.

I love this dish because it is more than what many leftover recipes seem to be – just throwing all your almost-bad food into a skillet and grimacing whilst you eat your stir-fry imposter (a food crime that I, too, am guilty of committing). When I came across this recipe — from a friend who has been thinking of ingenious ways to waste less food since before it was cool — I was thrilled to have something that was as delicious as it was easy and affordable. Affectionately called “Dump Soup,” you might be surprised to find that this dish is incredibly warm and comforting — a meal to brighten those dreary winter days.

Do yourself a favour: stop throwing your vegetables and half-portions of grains into the bin and start throwing them into broth instead. To add another level of flavour to the soup whilst continuing to reduce waste, bake pieces of day-old bread for 20 minutes at 180C to create tasty homemade croutons.

What makes this recipe great is its flexibility, so don’t be afraid to add whichever vegetables and grains you have on hand. The purpose is to use leftovers and vegetables that aren’t at their peak freshness — so, if you have a leftover salad you think might belong in a soup, don’t hesitate to add it.

Credit is due to Karen Bates, whose inventive recipes for wasting less food could fill an entire cookbook.

DUMP SOUP
Serves 8

Ingredients:

700 ml bouillon stock/broth of choice
380 g diced tomatoes
600 g chopped vegetables or leftovers
1 can beans of choice or 150 g grain of choice (barley, quinoa, or rice is suggested)
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp herbs of choice
Pinch of salt and pepper

Method:

1. In a large stock pot or saucepan, combine all the ingredients
2. Bring to a boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes
3. Season to your liking and enjoy

Sustainable Style To Dye For

Emily Capon
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Sustainable Style To Dye For

Muted oranges, deep browns and soft berry pinks make up the childhood palette of New York-based designer, Emily Dawn Long. With a growing Instagram following, the designer is making pioneering steps in the industry towards recycling and reusing things we would otherwise throw out. William Morris said: ‘have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to beautiful’, and Emily Dawn Long proves that even the humblest carrot, onion or cabbage leaf can be, in fact, both. 

Long Dawn Emily, Dawn Long’s label, has a distinct, psychedelic feel. The childish splashes of colour are not chaotic but carefully placed on pieces that include, but are not limited to, shirts, skirts, socks and hats. The influence of a childhood aesthetic is clear in her style; she has spoken to Vogue about staining overalls with berries as a child, in the embryonic stages of her idiosyncratic designs. Her affinity for her garish, distinctive style continued when she studied textile development and design at undergraduate level. She sees dyeing fabric as a process of trial and error, and her pieces certainly speak of the nostalgic, DIY feel of tie-dye. 

Dawn Long has tapped into a reawakening social zeitgeist. An image of 1960s counterculture sartorial success, tie-dye has enjoyed fluctuating levels of popularity since its nativity at Woodstock. Dior’s Spring/Summer collection of 2019 featured kaleidoscopic, tie-dyed dresses, conforming to the collection’s emphasis on the movement of the body, highlighting our own bodily-ness. Dawn Long’s collection is visual fluidity made manifest; the flowers, splashes, swirls and faces bleed into the blank fabric, mirroring the curves of the human form, as the pieces themselves become a frame for the body’s portrait. 

Dawn Long’s collections are steeped in regeneration. She has recently revealed that her favourite dyes are saffron, cabbage and avocado pits, making her process close to completely zero-waste. The rising threats of fast fashion and food waste are no match for Dawn Long’s environmentally savvy label, whose unique and varied designs have a feeling of the bespoke. Not only bespoke, but personal; she often uses leftovers from group dinners, a tradition that began when she simmered down leftover sweet potato skins into a deep brown dye. She has also spoken about rescuing left over vegetables from juice shops in her native New York, making what would otherwise be waste into something unique, wearable and beautiful. 

It’s not only the dyes that are salvaged. She also uses vintage or thrifted pieces as her fabric bases, breathing new life into otherwise discarded items. Dawn Long’s emphasis is on purchasing pieces that wouldn’t otherwise be bought by large wholesale companies; her ethos seems to be the creation of something fresh and original with something classic. Stained clothes are welcome in her armoury of pieces, especially when they would have been thrown away. She doesn’t see something stained as ruined, but rather an opportunity for new design exploration. She’s a specialist in sartorial necromancy. 

Her eclectic, unique garments have garnered considerable attention on social media. Her popularity is testament to the ever-increasing power of social media marketing campaigns; designers and their labels have become more accessible, more relatable. I follow Emily Dawn Long on Instagram. Her comparatively meagre following of fewer than 10,000 makes it feel like an exclusive club, or as if I’m witness to the nativity of a soon-to-be explosively famous label. Her posts are fragmentary and cryptic, making her feed more of a curated exhibition of hand-picked, beautiful objects than a commercialised, product-selling machine. The mysterious and enigmatic continues with her dedication to gentle anonymity: images of her own face are few and far between, hidden behind her phone in a mirror selfie or cut off at the chin. Her own art becomes synecdochic of herself. 

Dawn Long’s philosophy of resourcefulness and renewal brings a fresh, youthful newness to the current fashion scene. Every item touches her own hands, created in her own apartment in New York. The natural, handmade approach is a splash of restorative colour in a world that grows more impersonal, commercialised and separate by the minute. 

A bridge too VAR: Is technology killing the game?

Joe Hyland Deeson
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A bridge too VAR: Is technology killing the game?

For VAR

“KILLING THE PASSION. KILLING THE ATMOSPHERE. KILLING THE GAME. END VAR NOW” read the banner held up by the Crystal Palace Ultras in the first half of their game against Arsenal. Both sets of supporters joined together in the chant of “F*ck VAR”. The last section of the banner was held up again during the 65th minute as a lengthy review following a careless-looking tackle by Pierre-Emerik Aubameyang on Palace midfielder Max Meyer. Two minutes later, the Arsenal man was sent off by referee Paul Tierney under advisement from the Video Assistant Referee in Stockley Park. The banner was quietly lowered as replays played on the big screen inside Selhurst Park showed a horror tackle on Meyer’s ankle, studs up, a definite red. There was an audible gasp inside the stadium, and could be no doubt that the correct decision had been reached. As manager Roy Hodgson observed following the game, the only confusion with the process was why it took so long to reach the decision.

Leaflets distributed to supporters outside the Holmesdale Road stand before the game informed home supporters that this was the beginning of a campaign by Palace’s Ultras group, instructing supporters to chant “It’s not football anymore” when the banners were held up. However, there is no doubt that had those same supporters seen that tackle on Match of the Day in the evening, they would have been incensed if it had not resulted in a dismissal (referee Tierney initially only cautioned Aubameyang).

There can be few arguments against the way VAR was employed in this match. It added a two minute delay, and resulted undoubtedly in a correct decision. It is not, however, this element of the system which faces the most protests. That is reserved for offside decisions. Much is made of so-called armpit calls, players having goals chalked off for infringements that can barely be seen with the naked eye, although quite how an armpit can be the furthest forward part of an individual remains to be seen. Perhaps such supporter’s favourite part of the doughnut is the hole.

There is a lot of focus, too, on the apparent shortcomings of the technology itself. It doesn’t, we are told, film at a high enough rate of Frames per Second to be used so authoritatively; faster players can outrun the cameras. There is a margin of error of three feet! This is nonsense. Such calculations are based on the FPS at which Sky and BT transmit. In reality, officials at Stockley Park have access to a far better quality feed, transmitted live from the stadiums – their margin of error is thought to be less than 2cm with the ultra-motion camera provided by Hawk-Eye.

There are few rules that are objective in football. The offside rule is largely one of them. If a player is in front of the penultimate man of a team’s defence when a ball is played, they are offside. Of course, there is sometimes the debate as to whether a player has been “involved in active play”, although very few of this season’s VAR controversies have had anything to do with this.

Zak will no doubt argue that it kills the atmosphere inside the stadium, and this seems to be one of the most common arguments against the use of technology. Yet it simply adds another dimension to the excitement of the game. I was at Selhurst Park for the Liverpool home match, when a goal scored by James Tomkins was chalked off for a push in the box. Elation quickly turned to disappointment. Yet not only did replays demonstrate that the correct decision had been reached (it seems easier in these situations to blame the technology than the players who are actually demonstrably at fault), there is another side to this argument. I was also in the away end at the London Stadium when Jordan Ayew had a goal given two minutes after it was initially ruled out for offside. As the delay went on longer, excitement built up in the away end and, with this extra delay, the jubilation when the goal was given was greater than in pre-technology circumstances.

VAR is here to stay. The system may be tweaked, but it would be disastrous to remove it completely. Supporters, I must say, have short memories in refusing to recall the decisions missed in previous seasons which are now placed under a microscope, and must learn to work with the new system. It does change the matchday experience, and it does have its drawbacks, but its effect on the game is broadly positive and for this reason it must be embraced.

Against VAR

VAR – the latest footballing controversy. Regardless of which side of the debate you are on, it undeniable that VAR has been one of the big stories of this Premier League season, and it seems to be a discussion point after most games on Match of the Day. For me, VAR is sucking the life out of football. I will show why football doesn’t need, and doesn’t want, VAR.

Firstly, most of football is surviving perfectly fine without VAR. I support Portsmouth, who currently play in League One – VAR could not be further from our game; we don’t even have goal-line technology! Sure, the standard of refereeing is often questionable, and a quick YouTube search would likely unearth many howlers from the past few seasons; but football survives. It’s not as if attendances are dropping off due to poor refereeing!

I have suffered from poor refereeing decisions following Pompey, on numerous occasions. Two games spring to mind. Firstly, away at Luton Town, on a snowy Tuesday night in January 2019, driving through the backroads on the way due to a crash on the M25, Pompey lost 3-2 courtesy of the suspect awarding of a penalty kick and free kick respectively to Luton – both resulted in goals. Less than two weeks later I took the long journey down to Plymouth Argyle, where Pompey drew 1-1, this time courtesy of another direct free-kick for the opposition, which replays showed shouldn’t have been awarded. However, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d rather travel the 6+ hours back from Plymouth feeling that sense of injustice, than sit in a ground and look at a screen, or wait for a referee to do so. In fact, the game away at Luton marked the game where Luton overtook Pompey into top spot, and our season seemed to fall away. Yet still, I’d rather that than the game tried to be made exact. Imperfection is part of football, as I return to later.

The chief reason for my opposition to VAR is that football is a game of emotions, and nothing compares to the ecstasy of scoring a goal. If a goal is contentious in League One, I can take a quick glance at the referee and his relevant assistant, and continue with my celebrations. Last season, Pompey were locked in a battle for automatic promotion, and had to beat Peterborough United at home to maintain any hope. Pompey got the game back to 2-2 from 2-0 down, and then quickly found 2 players through on goal against just the Peterborough ‘keeper – the ball is played square, goal scored, celebrations start… but offside. The decision was instant – one look at the assistant’s flag, and the ecstatic celebrations were cut short (to make it worse, Peterborough scored within minutes and we lost 3-2). The decision was also correct – we didn’t have to wait 5 minutes for dots and lines to be applied, and the game probably wouldn’t have taken the negative turn for us that it did if we did have to wait. But that’s what football is all about – quick play, gaining momentum, scoring whilst you’re on top. Not stopping every few minutes for somebody to re-watch the game on a screen.

As I write this, David Luiz has just been sent off for Arsenal against Chelsea for denying Tammy Abraham an obvious goal-scoring opportunity, and a penalty was given. Clear foul, obvious red card. Yet the Chelsea fans have to hold their celebrations until the VAR check is complete – how deflating. If a player is sent off at Fratton Park, the mocking chants and sarcastic waving commence immediately.

I concede that there have been some occasions when I have enjoyed the use of VAR; but all have been from my sofa at home, watching as a (fairly) neutral spectator. The Manchester United penalty against PSG, which Rashford smashed home, and the Sterling disallowed goal against Spurs, both in the Champions League last season, were two occasions when the drama was brilliant. But football is about so much more than sitting on your sofa at home, watching as a neutral. It’s about standing on the terraces with your mates and family, having a pie before the game, travelling the country (and continent, if you’re fortunate enough) with your team, and then debating the game afterwards.

Joe will undoubtedly produce many technical arguments as to how VAR reduces errors, the type of arguments which admittedly my side lacks. But I ask: why do people play and watch football? It is not for perfection and 100% accuracy – it is for the emotion. This includes the instantaneous joy, disbelief, heartbreak and countless other feelings that football can bring – let’s not let VAR deprive the best sport in the world of this.

Lady Pat. R. Honising – Mumps Mayhem …

Lady Pat R. Honising
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Lady Pat. R. Honising – Mumps Mayhem …

Dear Lady Pat,

I thought I was safe, I thought my parents had set me up to go into the world well loved, rounded and fully vaccinated. Alas, I have recently found out that they may not have fully vaccinated me properly.

At first I just felt a bit ill: headaches, tiredness, loss of appetite. Just your average Oxford week. However a couple of weeks later things took a turn for the worst. I woke up one morning and realised that my cheeks were feeling a bit sore, to my horror when I looked in the mirror, I found that I did indeed look like a chipmunk. My worst fears were confirmed. The plague had reached me. I have mumps. The social shame is at times too much to bear. My room is the only place I feel safe from the judgement of others.

However this is not the sole reason for me writing to you, Lady Pat. Things are indeed worse than this. A couple of days before I realised that I had mumps, those days of distant blissful ignorance of my socially crippling situation, I got with my cherpse. But the question is…. how do I tell this lovely sweet girl about my predicament?

I do not want to be the bearer of bad news that she too may be at risk, yet I fear I must. How do I do it? I really have no idea how to break it to her.

Please help me Lady Pat, you’re my only help!

Alvin (not one of the Chipmunks)

My dear Alvin,

First of all, get well soon. You can’t get mumps through email can you?

Ah well my health and wellness assistant will deal with that. But anyway, mumps. Doesn’t sound pretty. I feel very sorry for you dear, but not much can be done now. First of all you need to get yourself some rest – far, far away from any other humans please. Unless they go to Cambridge because we all know they don’t count. The bonus to hiding away in quarantine is that if you’re lucky, nobody else in college has to see your face!

I understand completely your embarrassment, it always takes a couple of days for my Botox to settle and I feel like… almost a normal person. It’s disgusting. Make the most of the lovely NHS (it’ll be gone by this time next year) and look after yourself – you’ll be right as rain soon.

The real crux of the issue seems to be your ‘cherpse’ however. I have to admit, catching mumps from one of my many lovers is not on my to-do list, but maybe you should see this as an important opportunity to see if she likes you for more than your structured jawbone and hygiene practices. If you get dumped because of the mumps she probably wasn’t the one anyway, to be honest with you.

The thing is though, mumps is highly contagious, and if she didn’t get the MMR vaccine (or even if she did) she might have got it herself. It’s one thing to be the bearer of mumps to your own college, but don’t end up being the reason it gets spread around the whole university. You’ll have to bite the bullet and tell her – before she wakes up with her own chipmunk cheeks and promptly blocks your disease-ridden number.

Don’t worry too much though. Although there is a chance you’ve passed it on, she might also not have got it, or already be immune. In fact, maybe this time next week she’ll be perfectly fine and able to carry out any of the typical Oxford activities like row a boat, head to Bridge, or even write an agony aunt response. Hard as it is, honesty is key darling, and if you don’t tell her she’s bound to find out another way, and unlikely to trust you as much as before.

Being ill is hard, darling. That’s why I pay for private healthcare. You should try it.

Live laugh love,

Lady Pat R. Onising

xoxoxox

Review: Frank Turner’s ‘Love, Ire & Song’

Simone Fraser
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Review: Frank Turner’s ‘Love, Ire & Song’

Frank Turner is an interesting character. Somehow famous enough to play Wembley and the Olympic opening ceremony, but not quite famous enough that you hear him on the radio; he straddles a middle-ground within music. This week however, the 38 year old Hampshire-born musician has proved that his appeal remains enduring, with his 2008 album, Love, Ire & Song officially Brit certified as gold. At nearly twelve years old, why has this album remained such a fan favourite?

Turner has been critiqued in recent years for moving away from his trademark confessional style of music to broader, more political statements. In contrast, Love, Ire & Song is almost uncomfortably personal. We watch Turner bleed out over a crashing guitar line in ‘Imperfect Tense’: “Naked and wretched and retching on a hotel bathroom floor/ somewhere in the City./ Three days not eating, not sleeping, not feeling good anymore/ drenched in sweat and self-pity”. The desperation in Turner’s voice is palpable, and even though it’s been many years since I first discovered the song it never fails to hit me: incredibly personal yet still remaining relatable.

This is a theme that continues throughout the album, notably in ‘Better Half’: another anthem that manages to capture Turner’s disgust in his inability to support “the lover who left me alone”, berating himself with the fact that “there must be a better half somewhere out there” for her, but he is unable to be the person she needs.

The album is not simply a list of Turner’s flaws by any means. Still with his trademark honesty, he jokes his way through ‘Reasons not to be an Idiot’, reminding us that we’re all the same: “you’re not as messed up as you think you are/ your self-absorption makes you messier.” This was a message I needed to hear when I first listened to the song as a melodramatic fifteen year old. Encouraging the reader to “get up, and get down, and get outside”, I frequently used it as a way to hype myself up when I’ve felt particularly bad or nervous about something, and it continues to be a personal favourite for its joy and celebration of everyday happiness.

Other songs move from self-loathing to resignation. Constantly on tour, Turner often talks about his inability to stay in one place, and thus put down any real roots. In ‘Jet Lag’, this is captured perfectly – a slow and melancholy piano melody is the backdrop to simple lyrics that capture his mood well. He’s not devastated, he’s not angry, he’s just okay, which he reminds us is “not the same as being happy”.

That’s one of the remarkable things about Turner’s music, which particularly applies to Love, Ire & Song. Although he has the occasional true love or heartbreak song, his power lies in the ability to translate into lyrics the mundane prickles of emotion that we all go through on a daily basis: the guilt that you’re too busy to spend quality time with your friends; the shame of realising you’re using sex as a coping mechanism; and the mixed emotions of realising you’re not the person your parents hoped you would be, but you’re happier for it.

One of the biggest reasons why I love Frank Turner’s music is because it has been able to uniquely translate emotions that I hadn’t even quite processed myself at the time of listening. As clichéd as it is, as a teenager growing up with lots of feelings, having them realised by someone else was reassuring. Although this is often in relation to the more simple emotions, it also extends to mental health. Turner has been and continues to be candid about his experiences with depression, as well as drug and alcohol addiction; helping to break down fears and stigma alike.

An honourable mention must be given to the first track , ’I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous’. Turner raises a toast to the ‘B-list’ careers of him and his friends: name dropping Dave Danger of The Holloways, and folk singer Jay ‘Beans on Toast’ McAllister. Despite it being for the most part a light-hearted song, he still came out with a line that struck me at the time, and continues to inspire my (somewhat impulsive) attitude to life: “Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings,/About fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings, /And the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering, /And help us with remembering that the only thing that’s left to do is live.”

The most touching song of all lies three spots from the end of the album: ‘Long Live the Queen.’ A touching tribute to his friend Lex, who had recently passed away from cancer, Turner recalls a conversation they had before her death, where she told him: “now you’ll have to dance for the two of us”. Musically, it’s one of the most joyful songs on the album: rather than expressing grief, Turner celebrates Lex’s legacy in a way that captures the theme of the album, reminding the listener to embrace life and everything that it throws at you.

BREAKING: Climate protesters end occupation of St John’s

Rachel Cordery
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BREAKING: Climate protesters end occupation of St John’s

Climate protesters, camped out on St John’s front quad, have announced the end of their protest.

Direct Action for Divestment (DAD), a large group of students from across Oxford University, set up camp last Wednesday in protest of St John’s College’s investments in fossil fuel companies.

St John’s currently invests £8.1 million in Shell and BP, two of the corporations most guilty for worldwide ecological destruction.

After five days of action, DAD announced they would be leaving St John’s via Facebook. Their exit statement read: “Vulnerable communities across the Global South have long been suffering the effects of climate change. We cannot accept a system in which those with wealth and privilege – like St. John’s College – continue to profit off this. As a result, we will continue to hold the College, and the University as a whole, to account.

“During our occupation, the College disabled the keys of St. John’s students seen to be assisting the protest. They have prevented us from bringing food, hot water, and blankets in from outside, and even responded to our demands with trivialising suggestions that the College switch off the central heating.

“In contrast to the antagonism from College administration, Oxford has united in a show of heartening support and solidarity. Students inside the College have brought food and hot tea; tutors have made our case to senior College officials; alumni have spoken out in support of our cause. We would like to express our deepest gratitude, and crucially to thank college staff for their understanding. This gives us confidence that the discussions around divestment will continue after we leave, on every level of college life.

“We are also delighted to have received many expressions of interest from students at other colleges, who want to see similar escalations elsewhere. Anyone interested in lobbying the University and colleges on their investment practices should contact Oxford Climate Justice Campaign, who has been working for many years to encourage intersectional system change in Oxford.

“Yesterday, our representatives met with President Maggie Snowling to discuss our demands. The President acknowledged that our occupation had brought divestment to the top of the agenda, and we are pleased to say that she has promised to make some small steps in the right direction. She agreed to increase student representation in their Ethical Investments Working Group, and will no longer invite BP and Shell employees to advise on College investment practices. Finally, she said that the working group plans to put forth a recommendation to the Governing Body by the end of the year – two years after St. John’s students first raised divestment. The College has already failed in its duties to its members. If the recommendation is not a strong commitment to divest, the College will have failed in its duties to the world.

“In our five day occupation, we brought divestment to the forefront of people’s minds. We have reignited a conversation not only within St. John’s, but across the University. We will continue to hold the College accountable throughout the divestment process. We are glad that the College has recognised the importance of this issue. We hope that the College will continue to make this a priority. If they do not, we will be back.”

More to follow.

Nigerian English words added to Oxford English Dictionary

Rachel Cordery
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Nigerian English words added to Oxford English Dictionary

The most recent linguistic update of the Oxford English Dictionary has expanded their record to include a number of Nigerian English words.

According to the OED: “The majority of these new additions are either borrowings from Nigerian languages, or unique Nigerian coinages that have only begun to be used in English in the second half of the twentieth century, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Some of the words and usages added include: ‘to put to bed, in put, v.’, ‘chop-chop, n./2’, ‘buka, n.’.

The OED commented on their decision, saying: “By taking ownership of English and using it as their own medium of expression, Nigerians have made, and are continuing to make, a unique and distinctive contribution to English as a global language. We highlight their contributions in this month’s update of the Oxford English Dictionary, as a number of Nigerian English words make it into the dictionary for the first time.”

Speaking exclusively to Cherwell, a spokesperson for the OED said: “The OED has added Nigerian English words as part of a wider effort to broaden our coverage of World Englishes in the dictionary. We believe that including words from all world varieties of English enables the OED to tell a more complete story of the language. The sheer number and variety of these words reflect not only the global reach of English, but also the unique culture, history, and identity of the various communities all over the world that use English in everyday communication.”

“The OED acknowledges that with the current status of English as a world language, no longer is British English to be regarded as the dominant form of English – it is only one of the many individual varieties of the language that share a common lexical core but develop their own unique lexicons. Each World English is a living, changing variety, whose distinct vocabulary encompasses all sorts of lexical innovations, from borrowings from local languages to new abbreviations, blends, and compounds. They give a flavour of what its speakers have contributed to the development of the English word store.”

“In recent years, the OED has published particularly large batches of new entries for English varieties spoken in Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, and now, Nigeria. For each project, our inhouse research has been enhanced by expertise from linguists in each region. We will continue to work on these varieties, as well as on other Englishes in West Africa, East Africa, and the Caribbean. We are also working on a targeted survey for our core academic audience, in order to better understand the specific requirements of our users with regard to our World English coverage.”

Physics Department hosts Stargazing Night

William Atkinson
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Physics Department hosts Stargazing Night

On 25th January, the University Physics Department held a special stargazing night at the Denys Wilkinson Building on Keble Road. Running from 2 PM to 9 PM, it was a chance for over 1,000 people of all ages to see both inside the Physics Department, and out at the stars. 

Running annually since 2012, the event acts as an open day for the Physics Department and provides opportunities for families to learn about space and the night sky. Activities included a series of child-friendly talks, arts and crafts stalls and a new virtual reality experience designed to bring users closer to the Universe. 

Lectures ran throughout the day. The topics embraced were suitably eclectic, ranging from “Dark Matter and His Dark Materials”, via “How do we know the Milky Way galaxy is a spiral?” to “Giant Galaxy Burps”. Talks were given by University lectures and researchers, including Dr Becky Smethurst, who also runs the YouTube channel Dr. Becky designed to bring astrophysics to a wider audience. 

The event also featured a diverse array of ways of observing space. Attendees were provided with the opportunity to use the Roswitha Wetton telescope, located on the Denys Wilkinson Building’s roof, in order to find neutral hydrogen in the Milky Way. Later, tours of the night sky were hosted in the planetarium for visitors. For seasoned amateur star-gazers or those who wanted to give it a go for the first time, hints and tips about viewing the universe were given in workshops from local experts from Oxfordshire’s amateur astronomy groups, as well as from members of the Department. 

Aside from observation, plenty of opportunities were provided to explore the department and its work. Astronomers were on hand to answer questions on space in the “Science Café”. Games were hosted in the lecture theatre, and a series of astronomy-themed craft activities were run. These “Astrocrafts” were newly themed this year around the theme of upcycling and the transformation of old cereal packets and CDs into spectrographs. 

The University Physics Department was unavailable to comment on the night’s success, but with now nine years under its belt, it’s likely the event will continue in future. 

Research England funds Oxford Creative Destruction Lab

Catherine Dema
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Research England funds Oxford Creative Destruction Lab

The Creative Destructive Lab (CDL), a new business centre which opened in the Saïd Business School, will be funded by Research England and promises to create 4,000 UK jobs and raise £1 billion in private finance. Oxford CDL will support hundreds of science-based early-stage startups, with a specific focus on artificial intelligence, healthy ageing, alternative energy, and quantum technologies.

According to the CDL website, the program “is an objectives-based program for massively scalable, seed-stage science- and technology-based companies.” 

Research England, a part of UK Research and Innovation, claims the project will support 225 UK businesses and aims to raise £225 million in capital in addition to generating £900 million in equity value. 

“The scheme will help transform some of the UK’s pioneering research ideas into viable products, improving the UK’s entrepreneurial and finance ecosystem, and build on international best practice,” states Research England.

Oxford CDL aims to bring the best international practices for creating and supporting startups to the UK. The program brings a Silicon-valley mindset and approach to funding and encouraging startups. The startups are paired with successful mentors, including entrepreneurs, investors, scientists and business professors – including Google’s former Chief Financial Officer, Patrick Pichette; Elizabeth Caley, Chief of Staff at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; and Shivon Zilis, Project Director at Elon Musk’s Neuralink.

Chris Skidmore, UK Science and Innovation minister, said the Research England investment “draws in Silicon Valley expertise and business knowledge to inspire the next generation of UK entrepreneurs to create the technologies of the future.”

Skidmore said, “This innovation Hub – the first in Europe – will help our start-ups get the support they need to take their ideas to market and scale up their businesses.”

Referencing the success of the postgraduates who created Google, Skidmore said he hoped CDL would foster the same ingenuity and success among world-class UK researchers.

Of the collaboration with Research England, Patrick Pichette of Inovia Capital, Google’s former Chief Financial Officer, and Founding Partner of CDL-Oxford, said, “The CDL is a fantastic transition point for UK scientists, academics and developers coming out of the university setting. Productising research can be hard — so it’s really rewarding to help with mentoring and funding their first steps in the business world. Research England will be a great partner in helping build a new generation of tech leadership here in England.”

According to a recent report published by Research England, the UK is a world leader in research commercialization. Research England states that Oxford CDL will build upon this success through cooperation between university researchers and commercial startups.

The Oxford location for CDL allows the centre to be in close proximity to innovation hubs in London. Research England said “The University of Oxford is an important leader and convenor for CDL in the UK given its international brand necessary and capacity attract high quality North American partners, and it has developed its own highly dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem. The university has formed more spin-out companies than any other UK university and now has over 160.”

Oxford CDL is the first European location for the lab. CDL has also run successful programs in the United States and Canada. Since its establishment in 2012, companies that have participated in CDL programs have created over £2 billion in equity value. Such companies include North (Waterloo), Atomwise (San Francisco), Deep Genomics (Toronto), Automat (Montreal), Kyndi (Palo Alto) and Heuritech (Paris).

The first cohort of businesses began the program in September 2019 and a second cohort session took place on January 24.

Council strengthens focus on private housing

Joe Stonor
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Council strengthens focus on private housing

Oxford City Council is planning “the largest change to rules around private rented accommodation in Oxford for a decade,” as it seeks to improve safety standards across the sector.

Subject to government approval and a public consultation in the summer, the Council aims to expand its current licensing scheme to incorporate all 20,000 rented homes in Oxford in order to maintain a minimum standard. If all goes to plan, the Council hope that the scheme will be enacted by the end of the year or the start of 2021.

Landlords will have to provide proof that their properties have the legally-required gas, electrical and fire safety certificates. The license will also seek to establish that every landlord is a “fit and proper” person, namely that they have not committed any housing-related offences or crimes involving fraud, violence, drugs and certain sexual offences.

Last week, the council received £71,000 from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to fund the implementation of the plans. The money will go towards the development of an algorithm that will be used to identify unlicensed properties, as well as a solicitor who will work for 3 months on a guide for enforcement officers to successfully retrieve money from fine-dodging landlords.

The proposal comes after inspections carried out by the Council uncovered rogue landlords renting out garden sheds as rooms and placing toilets in showers, among a broad range of clear infringements of safety standards. 

Deputy Council Leader Linda Smith said that the Council “have found countless examples across Oxford of homes where even the most basic of standards have not been met and vulnerable tenants have been left in illegal and dangerous conditions.” Of the 243 inspections undertaken in 2018/19, 32 per cent were given notices warning of unsafe condition.

However, there are fears that the proposals could in fact have a negative impact on Oxford tenants living in the city’s most precarious situations. Gavin Dick, a local authority policy officer for the National Landlords Association, warned: “The reality is Oxford will become more expensive and push the most vulnerable out again as we’ve seen before.”

Under the current plans, all landlords will have to apply for a license costing approximately £600 over five years, and will also be liable for further miscellaneous costs, costs that could be passed on to renters.

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