Sunday 20th July 2025
Blog Page 571

Oxford Union bans blind member ejected from debate

Luke Dunne
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Oxford Union bans blind member ejected from debate

Following the Oxford Union’s No Confidence Debate, in which one member was expelled from the Union chamber after a disagreement with staff, the Oxford Union’s disciplinary panel has found the member to have caused disruption, and have banned them from the Union for two terms.

A panel consisted of ex-President Stephen Horvath alongside ex-returning officers Henry Samuels and Alastair Graham.

The member was found guilty of violating the Union’s rules against “violent conduct” The Union’s finding states that the member in question did not attempt to dispute this, but rather made a case based on self defence and due cause. 

The findings add: “The Defendant claimed their actions were justified because they were attempting to criticize Union policy towards disabled members, and we agree that members of the Society should be able to raise objections and constructive criticisms of the Society through the appropriate channels.”

“But to do so in an aggressive manner towards members of staff is deeply unacceptable”.

An Oxford Union spokesperson told Cherwell, “As per the redacted report on the noticeboard, the defendant was acquitted on the charge of disruption.”

“The conviction was for violent conduct, and other conduct liable to distress, offend or intimidate other members.”

A Guide to Oxford College Bars

Oxford College Bar Review
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A Guide to Oxford College Bars

Every undergraduate college (and most of the graduate ones) have a college bar, meant to serve as a venue for members of college to socialise, though friends from outside are welcome too. Some bars are more frequented than others, due to factors such as price, quality of drinks, or simply whether it’s part of the respective college’s culture to socialise there. Many also serve cocktails unique to the college – they are usually very strong, and at a decent enough value to get the average person comfortably tipsy on a night out. In our first year, we visited all 39 college bars in Oxford (check out our adventures at http://www.facebook.com/oxfordcollegebarreview) and lived to tell the tale. We are here to write a condensed review of our favourites.

BEST DRINKS: ST. JOHN’S AND REGENT’S PARK

If you’re looking for drinks to settle your palate, then look no further than these colleges. St. John’s cocktails were invented by friendly bartender Yannick, who is always ready to tell you about his many concoctions, such as the Apple Crumble, Ginston Churchill, and the ARRRRR. He’ll even make you a customised drink based on your flavour/alcohol preferences!

As for Regent’s Park, the first thing we hear a lot is “what’s Regent’s Park?”, but the quality of drinks served should put them firmly on the map. It’s a much smaller bar (and quite hard to get into unless you have a friend from the college and are not in a large group), but they serve an array of fantastic drinks, all equally delicious and cheap; our personal favourite is the Rheinberg, which is similar to a White Russian. Also, order the Mind Eraser: it works.

BEST ATMOSPHERE: QUEEN’S AND JESUS

Atmosphere is a category that is hard to judge, simply because some nights we went weren’t the same nights college members would visit, so this is more based on ambience and how the bar is laid out. (The upholstery at these bars played a huge factor in our rating.) Queen’s has a more ‘local pub’ vibe, and is rowdy most nights; unfortunately, you definitely need a friend in college to get in, and don’t forget to bring change to choose a song on the jukebox. It’s great for small groups, as it isn’t the largest of bars, but is definitely warm and cozy.

The recently refurbished Jesus bar is special in an entirely different way: it is beautifully decorated, with warm green walls and fairy lights, and has perks such as a UV room (where you can play UV ping-pong!) and comfortable beanbags to sit and play Mario Kart with your friends (and by that we mean lose friends due to Mario Kart).

BEST VALUE: BALLIOL AND ST. PETER’S

Balliol’s infamous Crazy Tuesdays live up to their name, as the price of their already cheap drinks is further reduced by half, making it a popular destination for many students across the university. You will definitely get your money’s worth, but the strength of their drinks also come with extreme sweetness. You can actually taste the low price in their drinks, but that’s a rant for another day.

St. Peter’s is well-known for their Cross Keys cocktail, which not only tastes delicious, but also sets you back a mere £5 for five lethal shots – in fact, it’s so famous, the recipe has been stolen/adapted by other college bars. Best of all, it comes in different flavours: mango (our favourite), tropical, cherry, apple, and summer fruits. At some point in your time here, someone will recommend going to Peter’s for pre-drinks or to socialise; take them up on it, it’s well worth it. These bars are perfect for pre-drinking or simply just having a good night on a budget.

NOT A DRINKER?: MANSFIELD AND SOMERVILLE

If you’re not a fan of alcohol, don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about you! There are several college bars which double as a cafe during the day and are commonly used as workspaces for students who don’t want to be holed up in their rooms or a library. Mansfield’s bar, with its wide range of snacks, drinks, and desserts, is definitely worth a visit, and we’re a particular fan of their smoothies and cakes. In fact, people will work there into the night too, as the bar section just never seems to be open. Somerville’s Terrace bar is well-lit by the skylights, and their paninis are absolutely delicious. One of Somerville’s college drinks is even non-alcoholic: the sweet and fruity Somerville Sunset is the perfect cooler for a relaxing afternoon.

SPECIAL MENTIONS: CORPUS CHRISTI, WOLFSON AND ST. CROSS

Corpus has expanded its menu quite a bit since we reviewed it in our first year (and our page is constantly updated to reflect this), and its drinks all have delightful names like the Pelican, the Blue Whale, the Flamingo, and the Black Mamba. The drinks all cost a fiver but are of varying strengths, so choose wisely depending on how sloshed you want to be that evening.

As for Wolfson College and St. Cross, these two probably have the most inventive menus out of all the graduate colleges we visited – Wolfson has the added bonus of some fantastic pop-part on the walls, and last Trinity term served some Star Wars themed drinks for May 4th. However, we would advise to go with a friend and in small groups, as security at all of these colleges is quite tight.

If you would like to visit these bars but don’t have anyone to go with, have no fear – join our group Oxford College Bar Tours and will be organising regular visits. It’s a very relaxed social space, a great opportunity to meet other students, and you don’t have to drink to participate!

We are also organising our first ever bar crawl on the 1stof November to raise funds for a local homelessness charity – get involved here.

Reaction in Metatheatre

Orla Brennan
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Reaction in Metatheatre

Reaction is the basis of all drama. A play cannot come to life without being able to rely on the chain of reactions that make up the dramatic form: an electric current passed from one actor to another. The virtue of a play therefore rests on it’s credibility. Or does it? 

Traditionally, theatre places an emphasis on the ability of the play’s art to reflect life in the most realistic way. The goal of the actors is to pierce the fourth wall separating the stage and the audience, reach into their minds and hearts and leave there an imprint of their production, but the crucial element to this theatrical convention is that this intended impact is never stated. That the goal of the actors is to make the audience believe in what they see enough to be moved, that they are acting at all, that their words are not their own but come from a script, that their clothes were chosen for their characterisation, and that the actors are not free to determine their own actions, but puppets to articulate an artistic message, are facts that are almost subconscious to both the actors and the audience. If, as in a production of Barnes’ The Ruling Class, a character is ordered to get off the stage, the unsaid is said, the audience is immediately uncomfortable. That what the audience is reacting to is not real, that they are in fact spectators at all, are facts that when articulated seem to dangerously toy with the conscious destruction of the fourth wall. 

If, tauntingly, a character on stage asks a rhetorical question of the audience, provoking them to react to the art as they would do if they were asked the question in life, the audience almost become actors – they are unable to answer the question invoked for fear of destroying the art. The character of Bishop lampton in The Ruling Class’ statement “Therefore if anyone can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.”  to which characters stare deliberately at the audience is an example of this in practice. If members of the audience were able to react how they wished to what they saw, the production would cease to be a play, but a verbal interaction between actors and audience members. 

That the reactions of the actors are artistic, meaning contrived, the word artistic originating from the Latin artificium, and the origins of art referring to craftsmen, and their skill to create, and the reactions of the audience, if they haven’t seen the play before, are genuine, leads to a paradox. Is reacting to art a real reaction? If one sees a play in which an actor murders another actor and one sees someone being murdered in real life, would one react in the same way? Of course not. 

Reaction is based on the premise of not only repeated action – re, action, but also of a pre existing action to which the reaction comes from. But which is the first action which triggers the chain of the drama? To what does the first actor react to? Is it the ticket men tearing the tickets at the door? Is it the audience taking their seats? Is it the hush falling over the room? Is it the lights coming on the stage? Is it the actor’s first words? Is it it the first note of the orchestra? Or is it when the playwright first discovers the plot of the art? The convention of the drama dictates that these things naturally progress, one reaction leads to another reaction, until the play is finished, but when the conventions are drawn attention to, the line between art and life is made conscious, the life that the art represents is at risk of being shattered. In the same way that some members of the audience have run on stage to save Cordelia in a particularly riveting production of King Lear, the lives of the characters are at risk when their being characters becomes apparent. 

The Ruling Class is a particular instance of playing with theatre, and drawing on its artificiality. The alternate reality that exists for the protagonist Jack, a paranoid schizophrenic, namely, that he is married to a fictional character, is manifested in the form of the lady of the Camelias in act 1, who is in fact a woman pretending to be his supposed wife bribed by his family in order to cajole him into marrying, and thereby release his inheritance. This is another instance in which a work of literature becomes life, within a play which is equally an enactment of a literary work. The last line of scene 8 draws on this irony as Dinsdale Gurney exclaims

“I say, Mother’s just told me this Lady-of-the-Camelia-woman’s a fake. I know J.C.’s as batty as a moor-hen, sir, but this isn’t playing the game.” 

To which Sir Charles replies, “Game? What game? It’s no game, Sir! This is real.” Indeed, when confronted with this, Jack refuses to accept the boundary between reality and art, and becomes frenzied, and even more bound up in his own world, seen by the stage directions upon his being confronted with the truth of the tale – “The Earl puts his hand to his face; when he takes it away his features are covered with white make-up.” If he were to accept that the Lady of the Camelias was a fictional character, and that his father had asked someone to pretend to be her, he might also have to accept that he himself is playing a part, that he is a fictional character, and a literary figure. Thus his inability to concede that the lady of the Camelias is artificial, is also his inability to concede that he himself is artificial.  In this instance madness is blurring the boundary between art and life, to such an extent that it becomes impossible to distinguish between the two. 

So reaction, the chain of electric current which defines the movement of the play, and on which the play depends, when broken, shatters the illusion. If the audience has no reaction to the art, the play becomes useless. If the actors have no reaction to each other, the play naturally ceases to be credible, and the art is destroyed. It is the reaction on which the dramatic form rests, but when the role of the actors and the audience is made explicit during the production, the world that exists for the actors and for the audience from the time they take their seats to the time of the first clap of the applause,  is exposed as both real and not real; A psychological paradox which both fascinates and terrifies those involved. 

Catalonia: Violence Was Inevitable

Eli Rubies
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Catalonia: Violence Was Inevitable

If you have visited Barcelona in the past two years, you may have seen, alongside the senyera estelada, the pro-independence flag, yellow ribbons looped around railings, graffitied on walls, or hanging on flags from balconies with Llibertat Presos Polítics (Free Political Prisoners) emblazoned across it. The yellow ribbons are used to show solidarity for the Catalan politicians and activists who were jailed after the attempted illegal referendum in October 2017, and to demand their freedom.

Catalonia is a north-eastern autonomous region of Spain with its own regional government and a separate cultural identity because of its language, traditions, and distinct history. Since modern Spain was formed from the union of different kingdoms, Catalonia has had a complex relationship with Spain’s central government.

When my grandparents were growing up, they had to be careful when and where they spoke their language, for fear of repercussions. In my time, the pro-independence movement in Catalonia has grown rapidly, arguably due to the refusal of successive Spanish governments to establish any meaningful dialogue about an independence referendum, or even a moderate constitutional reform to accommodate Catalan demands for a more effective self-government. In truth, it was the overturning by the Constitutional Court of the Catalan statute of autonomy in 2010, which the people had already approved, that first led many Catalans to demand independence. As I write, the president of the Spanish government is refusing to even pick up the phone to the president of the Generalitat (Catalonia’s government) to discuss how to address the crisis in the streets.

This culminated in the Catalan government (whose majority party at the time was a coalition of pro-independence parties) unilaterally deciding to hold a referendum on 1 October 2017. On that Sunday, over two million people came out to try to vote. At this point, the Spanish government responded with disproportionate violence. The people who left their houses to vote were met by the Guardia Civil, Spain’s national military police force, who beat them with batons as they tried to place their ballot papers, and who smashed into polling booths, harming many civilians. In the days that followed, most members of the Generalitat, the speaker of the Parliament, and two leaders of grassroots pro-independence movements, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, were arrested. Others, including ex-President Puigdemont, chose exile rather than trust the Spanish judiciary, which has proved notoriously partial on this issue. Those arrested were tried for up to thirty years in prison on the charges of rebellion and sedition. Last Monday, after a two year investigation and trial, the sentences were announced.

Was this jailing proportionate according to the legal system? Although the referendum was not legal, the demand to have the right to vote on the independence of a region and the attempt to have a referendum were completely peaceful. Some people held flowers in their hands as the riot police beat them with batons, and the phrase “som gent de pau” (‘we are people of peace’) became popular on placards and in chants. Yet, these politicians and activists were charged and tried for rebellion, which is by definition a violent act – “an act of armed resistance to an established government or leader”, and found guilty of sedition, with sentence lengths comparable to those reserved for terrorism and rape. Should political dissidence make you a criminal? I believe that these sentences were not justice, they were revenge. One could even argue that they were a tool to further immobilise the pro-independence movement.

Last Monday, most of the leaders were sentenced to between nine and thirteen years in prison. In response, people in Barcelona and all around Catalonia took to the streets to protest, and on Monday thousands of people occupied Barcelona airport. Constant protests every day this week have seen police brutality to an extreme not seen in Catalonia since the death of Franco.

This week, for the first time some of the protesters, albeit a minority, resorted to some acts of violence, with a few policemen injured from rocks thrown by protestors. Protestors have also been burning bins in the streets of Barcelona in order to create barricades between themselves and rows of riot police. It is important to note, however, that this small number of acts is in response to police brutality: I follow various Instagram accounts to which people have sent in videos of policemen beating people that they have already arrested, of people who are sitting or walking peacefully being bombarded by four or five policemen beating them at the same time. I have seen videos of a child being hit, police vans purposefully driving into protestors, and four people have lost one of their eyes; just on Saturday, nearly two hundred people were injured. Rubber bullets have also been used, and tear gas thrown by police from the top floors of buildings. My friends in Barcelona have sent me photos of huge purple bruises that spill over their arms and legs, and a friend of a friend has had the top of their head split open by a baton.

These videos cannot be found in the mainstream Spanish media. Amongst the violence this week and in general since 2017, the Spanish press has been giving a biased and distorted account of the political conflict in Catalonia. This week’s reports from Spain’s main newspapers, in particular ABC and El Mundo, have focussed on victimising the few wounded police, and not reporting the wounded protesters. They have also expressed their belief that the Spanish government is not being harsh enough to protesters, and that it should intervene immediately and take over the Generalitat.

When the Spanish justice system tried the two main leaders of the grassroots pro-independence movement, the “two Jordis” as they are known, they unnecessarily imprisoned leaders that had always defended explicitly peaceful civil disobedience. After years of protesting massively and peacefully, of making pacifism a core belief of the pro-independence movement, this week people questioned why they should not turn to aggression if they would be imprisoned anyway. If you come to protests, exercising your civil right to political demonstration, with your hands held up, but leave with your face stained with blood, would you hold strong in your belief for absolutely no political violence? Most pro-independence Catalans still do, but the more radical ones, particularly young people, are beginning to question this.

In the place of the two Jordis came Tsunami Democràtic, another grassroots movement which organised the demonstrations this week. Yet, this movement is less explicitly pacifist than the one that came before, and seems prepared to disrupt on a more extreme level: for example, the occupation of the airport on Monday, and the burning of bins in the streets. What happens when you remove the peaceful leaders, and sentence them to disproportionate sentences? Something more provocative comes in its place. This does not make violence justifiable, but it helps to explain how people turn to it.

The justice system in Spain is clearly flawed: by unnecessarily criminalising leaders committed to a peaceful democratic process, after the government had already treated peaceful demonstrators with police brutality, it has further radicalised the independence movement.

Exploring Space is Worth the Costs

Benedict Yorston
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Exploring Space is Worth the Costs

It has been almost half a century since the last human set foot on the moon. Apollo 17’s landing in 1972 carried Gene Cernan, our 11th and final moon-walker. That mission was never intended to mark the end of America’s manned moon-missions. Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were all planned, with landing sites and crews. The sole reason for their cancellations was, as it frequently is with science, money. Budgetary constraints left NASA having to cut the Apollo Programme short, just three years after Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind.

Fast forward to present day, and one can see the incredible advancements that came about directly because of the Space Race. Whilst on the face of it, we haven’t returned to the Moon, or landed humans on any other celestial bodies, that belies what has actually been a quite incredible half-century of progress.  At the beginning of the new millennium, the first astronauts boarded the International Space Station, which has been continuously occupied for almost 19 years now. That is in stark contrast to the 76 hours the Apollo 11 mission had to sustain.

Whilst the ISS, and even the Moon landings, could be pointed to as mere vanity projects, lacking material benefit, that would be to ignore the enormous impact of our space exploits.

Earth now has 1886 satellites in orbit, which are used daily for everything from television broadcasting and communications, to the Global Positioning System and weather forecasts. Whilst these examples of the technological advancements are widely recognised as coming about directly from space exploration, there are many more whose origin may not be immediately obvious. Scratch resistant spectacles come from the windows of spaceships. Long life food storage has been developed from the need to feed our astronauts (Mark Wagner aside). Walkie talkies, fire-resistant clothing and digital optics also were developed as part of space programmes. Perhaps most surpassingly would be the ballpoint pen: a meticulously calculated solution to writing in weightlessness, it is now commonplace.

None of the major space agencies directly intended to solve these problems in themselves – they were necessary steps for the ever more ambitious projects they were undertaking. This nearly-unreasonable ambition led to a huge scope of technologies being advanced or discovered. This process is called a Moonshot(the name being derived from the original Moonshot – the Apollo missions). Moonshots are the exact reason that it is vital we continue to fund our further exploration of space.

Google X, Google’s semi-secret experimental lab, was created with the sole reason of pursuing Moonshot projects. None of these projects are funded with the expectation of short-term profitability, but rather with the faith that they will result in breakthroughs and progress. If one of the world’s most successful companies subscribes to such a model, why should our attitude to space be any different?

NASA’s budget this year is $21.5 billion. The US Military budget is $639 billion, 30 times more. Whilst there is clearly a need for defence spending, and sometimes no clear economic argument for space investment, this is the short-sighted viewpoint. It’s been estimated that for every dollar spent on the Apollo missions, the United States economy benefitted to the tune of 100 times that. The undertaking of the project without guarantee of returns resulted in one of the greatest investments in history. As we keep pushing our sights further out into the universe, to Mars and beyond, the technology required, and therefore the technology we’ll discover, will continue to advance. Not to invest in that would be a grave oversight.

If the cold logic of the cost-benefit analysis of space exploration does not persuade you, there is of course the more romantic viewpoint – we ought to pursue knowledge and enlightenment in everything. We can’t do that simply by remaining focused on a planet that represents only the smallest fraction of the universe.

Review: Unplanned-ersnatch – ‘the kind of plot twists only improv could beget’

Sophia de Medeiros
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Review: Unplanned-ersnatch – ‘the kind of plot twists only improv could beget’

Wednesday the 23rd of October saw The House of Improv kick off their brand-new show Unplanned-ersnatch at the Michael Pilch Studio Theatre with an audience-inspired and mollusc-loving hero, some delightfully incorrect science, and the kind of plot twists only improv could beget.

A fairly humble affair featuring minimalist staging, costuming, and scene transitions, the performance had all the traditional charm of improvised theatre. The mood for each scene wasv set by piano accompaniment, as well as the occasional use of single notes to great comic effect such as doorbells or to accompany physical actions such as characters poking one another.

Embracing the medium of improvised theatre, the performers were able to make light of slip-ups such as “Lincolnshire” morphing into “Lancashire” over the course of the evening. Another source of enjoyably self-aware entertainment was the prized “yellow/blue/pink/green” shell being a different set of colours in every scene. The long form comedy format meant that jokes could be built upon steadily, creating a strong sense of audience familiarity even within just the hour. Repeated references generated much hilarity over the course of the show, as did the sexual insinuations of “carbonara sauce”.

The somewhat bland and sexist plot was redeemed by its self-consciously overplayed approach, making an enjoyable caricature of the whole cast. In fact, characterisation was easily the show’s strongest suit – characters were very distinct, sporting some great accents and mannerisms which ultimately rendered them all loveable in their own way. When audience members were given the choice of how two characters should interact, there was a palpable sense of personal investment in each character’s story. This was demonstrated in the competing cheers for each alternative story line option, with audience members either strongly rooting for a character or driven by morbid curiosity to see them fail. At the start of the performance, suggestions for a name and profession were taken from the audience and assigned at random to each cast member to produce an array of potential protagonists for audience to choose from. Whilst suggestions such as “Late Night Nigel: candle-maker” elicited much laughter, Will’s physicality and voice-acting quickly gained the majority vote. The appearance of a Hungarian genie-in-the-mollusc proved an audience hit with quotes such as “if it could be grounded in the language of molluscs, I would appreciate that”.

Although the show ultimately works towards a happy ending, the audience are given the pleasure of witnessing a number of false starts as the plot is allowed to derail into a depressing ending which is then “rewound” in a very literal way. Characters’ actions are played out in reverse at high speed until they return to the point where audience members were last given a choice in the narrative. This rather unique story telling device places an increased emphasis on the “what if”s that are intrinsic to improv, highlighting the many different ways that a story can play out based on both the actors’ improvisation and the audience’s participation. Presented with a choice, one cannot help but wonder what would have happened if the alternative had been selected, and Unplanned-ersnatch playfully offers an answer – albeit just one of many possibilities – to this question. Ultimately, however, you will want to go see this show again to determine just how differently things could have played out.    

OUAFC Blues win against Coventry

Lucy Tansley
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OUAFC Blues win against Coventry

The football season has mixed results in its opening fixtures, with all teams playing, complete with new additions and new formations, ready for the coming term. These matches mark the first competitive play since the side’s tour to China over the summer, and that preseason has set all players, old and new in good stead for the upcoming fixtures.

The Blues team played their first match of the season away against Coventry as part of their BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) Midlands 1A league, which also includes teams from the universities of Nottingham, Coventry and traditional rivals Cambridge. The side came away with a 3-2 victory, reflecting their superior play throughout the match, although Coventry are not the toughest opposition in the group, and the Oxford side will need to work hard in order to cement their claim for the title this season. As the season begins, the team have been experimenting with an interesting 5-3-2 formation shape, which marks a change from recent years, but while it is taking a little getting used to, hopefully this first win will put the team in good stead for the fixtures this term.

The second team, the Centaurs, lost 3-1 away against the Northampton 1s in their BUCS Midlands 3B league, which also includes varsity rivals Cambridge’s second team, as well as second teams from Leicester and East Anglia. Oxford’s men’s third team, the Colts, drew 2-2 at home in a derby against local rivals Oxford Brookes at the University Parks. Despite playing well, the Colts conceded a late equaliser that narrowly robbed them of their first win to kick off the season. They will face future matches in their Midlands 4D league against Coventry, Derby and Bedfordshire among others.

Joining the Blues team on their trip to Coventry, the men’s fourth team, the Broncos, suffered a 4-2 loss away in their opening fixture, but came away with some positive points to work on, with lots of new additions to the squad being fielded in the starting line-up. They will compete this year in the BUCS Midlands 6A league, which includes teams such as Nottingham 5s, Coventry 5s and Oxford Brookes 4s. Notably, these lower teams have recently been plagued with injury among their ranks, meaning that individuals are playing with teammates they have not necessarily had much experience with before. The glimpses of quality that nonetheless shine through should therefore be taken a positive sign for the future of OUAFC this season, and when players have returned from injury, the newly formed side will be back to its former strength.

The women’s sides have also started their BUCS campaign, competing in the Midlands 2A league, in a group comprised of teams from the universities of Cambridge, Leicester, Lincoln, Loughborough and Warwick. The second team, the Furies, play in the Midlands 3A league, which includes teams such as East Anglia 1s and 2s, Nottingham Trent 3s and Bedfordshire 1s.

Both men’s and women’s Blues sides will play their annual Varsity match against Cambridge in March of next year, the 135th iteration of the clash, where Oxford will be looking to avenge last year’s defeat in both the women’s and men’s matches. In college-level football, the opening round of this years Cuppers tournament will take place this week. Last year’s tournament saw New College take the trophy after a hard-fought final against Christ Church, their second cup final in three years who will be looking to avenge the loss this season. The women’s Cuppers tournament is also set to get started, after St Catz took the title last year 4-1 against a Keble/Hertford combined side. Meanwhile, all JCR football divisions are now well underway, with St Anne’s currently sitting at the top of the men’s Premier Division.

Iran opens stadium doors to female fans at last

Betty Barber
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Iran opens stadium doors to female fans at last

For the first time since just after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women have been allowed to attend football matches in Iran. This follows the self-immolation of ‘blue girl’ who was recently detained for disguising herself as a man to be able to watch a football match, an event which caused outrage in the football community across the globe.

The ban was not written into law but “ruthlessly enforced” (according to The Human Rights Watch) with the argument that women must be shielded from the ‘masculine atmosphere’ and sight of semi clad men. This ‘gesture’ has arisen from the selfimmolation of Sahar Khodayari, known online as ‘blue girl’ for wearing the colours of her team (Esteqlal of Tehran). She was arrested in March for disguising herself as a man to attend a match.

After being imprisoned for three days, she was released on bail and awaited her court case six months later. It was outside court where she set herself on fire, after discovering that her trial had been postponed and allegedly overhearing that she could get between six months and two years in prison. She died a week later due to injuries at the age of 29.

Khodayari was not alone in concealing her gender to be allowed entry. There have been increasingly more “bearded girls” or “azadi girls” disguising themselves so as to support their favourite teams despite facing detention as a consequence. In 2006, Jafar Panahi directed Offside, a film about women trying to watch the World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain. Despite being set in Iran, it was banned from being screened there, yet was critically acclaimed, notably winning a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The international governing body of football, FIFA responded to Khodayari’s
death by pressuring Tehran to allow women to attend World Cup qualifiers. It stated that it would “stand firm” to ensure that women have access to all football matches in Iran and threatened to suspend the Islamic Republic over its discriminatory male-only policy. They label this time as “a real moment for change”.

In spite of FIFA’s pride in its actions, one of the statutes in its constitution states that discrimination on the grounds of gender is “strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion”. It has taken Khodayari’s death to make FIFA act on its own constitution as the ban has persisted and Iran have not been suspended.

On Thursday the 10th of October, 3,500 women attended the World Cup qualifier against Cambodia. They were seated in a separate women’s only section of the Azadi (in Farsi meaning freedom) stadium and watched over by more than 150 female police officers (figure taken from Fars News Agency). The stadium’s capacity is 78,000, meaning only 5% of the seating was reserved for women, while footage reveals that there was plenty of available seating in the men’s sections of the stadium. BBC Persian Sport reported that the FA would not give more seats to the women who wanted to attend, even though only 2,500 men had purchased tickets. The first batch of tickets for women sold out in less than an hour. However, this move was symbolic of a moment of change in the attitudes towards female football fans in Iran.

Those women who were lucky enough to secure tickets were crammed in, decorated in their national colours of red, green and white, and wearing face paint and wigs. They were delighted to see Iran win 14-0 to Cambodia. The BBC quote a woman from Twitter who posted “We had fun for three hours. All of us laughed, some of us cried because we were so happy”. This issue, while not seemingly essential compared to other issues women face in countries such as Iran, is still an important step.

Although women had been allowed into the stadium to watch a screening of their team playing Spain in the 2018 World Cup, this was the first time they had been allowed to watch a live game on the pitch of Tehran. Iranian Football journalist, Raha Poorbakhsh, had the opportunity to comment on the match in person. She remarked that “after all these years of working in this field, watching everything on television, now I can experience everything in person” which simultaneously speaks to the joy that this change has sparked and the absurdity of the ban. Although there is a sense of gratitude among Iranian women, one woman going by the pseudonym of ‘Sara’ says it could be managed much better as it should be a “family sport” yet being segregated by gender does not allow for this.

Since the game, feedback has been significantly positive towards the change. Masoud Shojeai, the captain of the male Iranian football team posted on Instagram that the ban is “rooted in outdated and cringeworthy thoughts that will not be understood by future generations” and this incredulous attitude is shared by many. In the past two years, at least 40 women have been arrested due to going to football games disguised as men and as Suzanne Wrack of The Guardian says, progress is “painstakingly slow”.

According to her, the gesture is not enough, the ban needs to be completely lifted, along with the charges of those who face prosecution and their criminal records. Many share this dissatisfaction, Amnesty labelling the move as a “cynical publicity stunt” and Human Rights Watch noting that there was only a “token number” of tickets offered to women so as to appease FIFA. Joyce Cook, its head of education and social responsibility told BBC Sport “it’s not just about one match. We’re not going to turn our eyes away from this” which is reassuring in so much as it shows they will not let Iran continue to discriminate against gender separation in the face of football.

The situation has challenged ingrained attitudes in Iranian society, notably the exclusion of women from public spaces and their role in society. Some are less enthusiastic about the change and remain unconvinced. Prosecutor General of the Islamic Republic, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri maintains that it is a sin for women to go to the stadium and see “half naked” men, which emphasises the significance of the change and underlines the dominance of tradition in Iran.

These attitudes are found diluted among many Iranian men, like in Nader Fathi, a clothing business owner. He felt that although the presence of women could benefit the atmosphere in the stadiums, “they will regret it” if exposed to “swear words” and “bad behaviour”. Many believe that the activists deserve the credit for imploring FIFA. ‘Open Stadiums’, a movement of Iranian women “seeking to end discrimination and let women attend stadiums” (@openStadiums Twitter) often wrote to the organisation about the ban and have campaigned for women’s access for 15 years. The spokesperson for the group blames FIFA for Sahar Khodayari’s death “because they knew this for years and they should’ve done it a lot sooner”.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has tried to pressure Iran to allow women to watch domestic league matches, however authorities have only committed to make World Cup qualifiers inclusive. This change, which is long overdue and outdated, is not enough. It is unacceptable that FIFA did not intervene sooner, and that an innocent woman’s death has not inspired more meaningful or progressive action. In spite of this, it has provoked an international conversation about women’s rights within sport which is a minor victory, but the dialogue must not end here. We still have a long way to go.

Review: Me, as a Penguin – ‘bound to put a smile on your face’

Thomas Player
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Review: Me, as a Penguin – ‘bound to put a smile on your face’

There are many examples, both in the wild and captivity, of same-sex pairs of penguins trying to raise a chick together. Some of them even attempt to hatch bits of rock and fish, and in aquariums such penguin partners have been given fertilised eggs, going on to successfully hatch and raise them. So far, so heartwarming. That is until a recent news item about such a pair raising a “gender-neutral” chick (no, I’m not exactly sure what this means in the penguin world either) led to the ever-present and unwantedly opinionated Piers Morgan declaring that he is now “identifying as a penguin”. Isn’t the modern news cycle fun?

Me, as a Penguin, the 2009 offbeat comedy by Tom Wells on this week at the Burton Taylor Studio, somewhat predates this particular controversy—although gay penguins, of the kind that sparked Morgan’s tirade, do come up. We are introduced to sensitive, knitting-obsessed Stitch (geddit?) who is living in Hull with his pregnant sister Liz and her husband Mark. He has upped sticks from his seaside hometown, where he spent his days working in his parents’ wool shop and advising the local grannies on tricky crochet projects, in order to dip his toe halfway into the big-city gay scene.

Set entirely in Liz’s front room, this is a kitchen sink comedy-drama with everything but the kitchen sink itself. Stitch feels he doesn’t fit in anywhere and is painfully aware of it, spending most of the play doing what can only be described as moping about. Then again, who hasn’t spent an evening drinking vodka, sobbing, and listening to Kate Bush?

There is, however, a serious side to all the farcical behaviour, and our exploration of his unfulfilling life through the eyes of his sister and brother-in-law is tragically endearing. It does also occasionally veer towards the pathetic, bringing to mind a pretty boring counselling session with far too much crying.

Anyway, this gripe can be planted firmly at the door of the playwright. The question is, how was this particular performance? The small cast worked well together, charmingly and believably portraying their everyman characters. Peter Todd as Stitch is hesitant, shy, and emotionally constipated: perfectly in character. Martin Parker and Jennifer Crompton get the most laughs as the husband and wife who love to hate each other, while Charlie Wade, as Stitch’s laddish misplaced love interest Dave, is dynamic and cruel, livening up the play no-end.

The production manages to steer refreshingly clear of thespy tropes that often plague student theatre. That is, except for the interpretive dance scene transitions: funny, but probably not meant to be. There was a bewildering range of Northern-ish accents on display, ranging from generic Yorkshire pretty much all the way down to North London. In all seriousness, for a play about a close-knit family where the plot revolves around the fact that these characters have never moved far from Hull, the accent choices were just confusing. Pacing also suffered in places, with some particularly painful pregnant pauses.

There were however plenty of laughs, and I spent much of the evening grinning at the likeable characters, the farcical positions they found themselves in, and their wry observations on everything from IKEA furniture to ice lollies (you’ll never see a Mini Milk in quite the same way again…). This is a nicely put-together production of a play that is heartwarming, verging on the overly sentimental—a bit like the news coverage of those gay penguins, come to think of it—and is bound to put a smile on your face.

A.R. Penck: I think in Pictures

Deniz de Barros
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A.R. Penck: I think in Pictures

I Think in Pictures is a veritable treasure chest of hidden colour and symbolism, displaying an oeuvre that defied East-Germany’s standards of Socialist Realism whilst also offering up a commentary on the modern man for those wishing to read it. The presentation of A. R. Penck’s work is deliberately codified, down to the artist’s true name, in a way that defies our regular expectations of an exhibition.

Prefacing the exhibition is a short biography of the artist, but beyond that the set-up is very minimalistic. The room’s white walls allow the powerful colours of Penck’s paintings to pop. It was a small yet very organised special set-up which I found was interestingly claustrophobic yet practical. The entrapped nature of this exhibition space is significantly seen in the way that his largest piece, Edinburgh (Northern Darkness III), 1987, stretches fully from floor to ceiling like a great wall. A brief explanation of the piece describes it as a history painting commenting of Gorbachev’s reform programmes and conflict in Northern Ireland, but also suggests it to be a work more generally about control structures in social systems. The gallery contends to this idea: a deliberately placed bench persuades you to sit and consider the piece; the wall and ceiling boxing in the piece create a sense of constriction; overall the viewer finds themselves not only looking at the paintings but also possibly sympathising with Penck’s own feelings of restriction.

A lack of adjoining commentary pushes you to create your own readings of the works in a symbolically non-restricted way too. By being allowed to reach your own conclusions about Penck’s work, you are thrown in the deep end without much context – I do think, however, that this was a very smart and poetic decision on behalf of the Museum.

I Think in Pictures plays with the notion of art as a conveyor of many messages – even without the presence of the written word. One might find themselves drawn to the mysticism on the Standart figure of his Nine Works: Untitled (1982) or N-Komplex (1976) for instance as a symbol of fear and surrender as instigated by conflict. We as the viewer face him, but it is unsure if we are in the shoes of the assailant or are bystanders of an act of suppression. The symbol is a contemporary response to the spirit of fear of the Nazi regime and yet also could make one think of examples modern political suppression as well.

Penck’s alias (his true name being Ralf Winkler) gave his identity a sense of mysticism with which he used to shroud himself and give him the freedom to create under less scrutiny. In a same way, we are not given much of an intellectual framework to go from, and therefore are at liberty to interpret his work as we like. His work is unlike any other Symbolist work I have seen before. He creates his own universal artistic language that addresses the viewer that was rejected during his time because it was “unacademic”. Supposedly, the exhibition defies modern art historical categorization, with his works treading the lines of Expressionism, Primitivism and in some forms Surrealism. His sculptures remind me of Giacometti’s elongated, stick-like forms and made me consider a more Existentialist quality to his work.

Ultimately, the exhibition pulls you in with some contextual starting point, but ultimately leaves you to do your own ‘research.’ We are given a dichotomy of the mystery that is Penck-the-person and an oeuvre which aims to create a language that can be understood. It was a gem of an exhibition to visit and is one that I highly recommend people should visit. Take the time to sit before Edinburgh, to consider the oeuvre, and think in pictures as Penck once did.

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