Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Blog Page 589

Trials and Tests for female cricketers

Cerys Baines
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Trials and Tests for female cricketers

Claire Taylor, an alumnus of The Queen’s College, Oxford, is known for being one of the best female cricketers England has ever seen.

Taylor secured her full international debut for England in 1998 and from there climbed the ranks of the England team, finally becoming one of England’s most prolific batswomen alongside Charlotte Edwards in 2003. She made her highest score in test cricket, 177, that year in a test match against South Africa.

Since retiring from cricket in 2011, Claire has often found herself back in Oxford, and has worked alongside the university on numerous projects due to her new career in the higher education sector.

She remains heavily involved with Oxford University Cricket Club: she is the Vice-Chair of the Senior Committee and also helps with coaching the teams and running sessions for beginners, which is where I find her today. I begin by asking Claire how much she thinks sport at the university has changed since she herself was a student here in the mid-1990s.

“It’s been an interesting journey, I think Oxford is getting serious and there is a lot of pressure on students now, some of it self-made and some of it down to tutors and the Norrington table. It would be a really interesting conversation if we sat down with some current undergraduate students and asked them about freedom to play. From what I can see, it seems as though the cricketers have a fair amount of freedom to play.

“I also think sport has got a lot more organised and the facilities are a lot better without a doubt – I was captain of the hockey team and we used to have to cycle past the ring road to get to an astro-turf to train as there wasn’t one at Iffley Road back then. The gym at Iffley is better and the sports hall has definitely improved. We didn’t even have a swimming pool here when I was at Oxford.

“Altogether the facilities are better and the clubs are a lot better run – there’s a Sports Federation now which there never used to be, so that provides some extra support to all the clubs, which should mean they are better governed and it’s not just down to a group of students to manage that.

“More clubs are also organised now in terms of getting money from sponsors and getting funding from alumni so there’s that element too.”

After the 2000 Cricket World Cup, Taylor took the decision to focus on her cricketing career and decided to go full-time, meaning she had to give up her job and consequently saw her income take a huge hit. A hit so big, in fact, that she was forced to move back in with her parents. I ask her whether this was a difficult decision for her to make, and about the steps that need to be in place to ensure no other female cricketer would ever have to make this sacrifice in the future.

“We have to think about whether we actually want women to make that decision, or whether we can create career pathways that involve professionalising women’s sport and then they won’t have to make that decision. That obviously was never open to me.

“Now if there is a really good young female cricketer coming up through the England Juniors, she will probably get a contract so she can be semi-professional by the time she is eighteen, nineteen years old. Players like this will have a pretty clear pathway into an England contract if they are good enough and if they are committed and work hard enough.

“I, however, did have to make a decision and it wasn’t a difficult one, because I had a dream and it wasn’t a dream about being the best systems analyst I could be, it was about being the best cricketer I could be. Yes, there were sacrifices made, but I would make the same decision again, I think it was the right one at the time.”

Of course, increasing the popularity of the women’s game would have a huge impact on the lives of the athletes themselves, as they would receive a lot more funding which would allow them to become even more focused on their cricketing careers.

I ask Claire how she thinks we can increase the prominence of women’s cricket in the eyes of the public and make women’s matches the main sporting events, rather than just secondary to the men’s.

“It’s interesting isn’t it – the women’s game isn’t as powerful as the men’s game, the women don’t hit the ball as hard – however you’re watching two women’s teams play against each other, so if you’re watching it for the competitive element and one team beating the other, there should be no difference there.

“To increase viewing figures for the women’s game, we can do things like changing the boundary ropes to make sure we score more runs, we can do things simply by professionalising the structures in the game, which gives women more time to train and therefore they are a better product.

“We also need to get those personalities out there – we need to give teams personality so that they get followings, so that we create a buzz around each of the teams and some of the players.

“We have done this fairly well over the past few years with some of the youngsters coming through, just look at the likes of Tammy Beaumont and Heather Knight.”

I move onto Claire’s career.

Taylor played for England consistently for 12 years, picking up 127 caps from test matches, 78 from One Day Internationals and 11 from Twenty20s.

Her talents did not go unrecognised and 2009 was a stand-out year for her, as she not only won the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year Award but was also the first woman ever to be selected as Wisden’s Cricketer of the Year.

I ask Claire, out of all her successes, what she considered her highlight to be.

“Chasing runs as a batsman was always my toughest challenge – being set a difficult total and then going about trying to reach it. Definitely the highlight in terms of a successful run chase that was absolutely outrageous was the 2009 semi-final in the World Twenty20 against Australia. They scored 160-odd runs and we had never scored that many against them, and it was a tough ask.

“To do that with three or four balls remaining in the game and then to go on and thrash New Zealand in the final – it was a properly good year of cricket for England’s women. We were talking about world domination.”

With that in mind, I put Taylor on the spot and question her about the toughest ever opponent she has faced.

“The obvious answer would be Australia because for the first few years of my career they were much better than we were. We weren’t even on the same park as them in some of the games we played against them. So to get better over the course of my career, both individually and as a team, and then to be competitive and then to start beating them, that was really important.

“But in terms of a real challenge: India away. They have some very good players and they’ve been brought up on their pitches, they have good spinners, good support for the team and they just have a love of cricket over there. It’s just always a great challenge that you want to step up for.”

I wondered whether the conditions and the pitches in India also contributed to the fact that India was a tough fixture.

“India is hard. You know India is going to be hard, you know it’s going to be slow, you know it’s going to turn. The West-Indies was also unexpectedly tough as we were probably expecting quicker pitches over there.

“There is huge variation in pitches around the world. You can do as much as you possibly can to prepare but generally you’re touring in the winter so you can’t get outside, so you have to hope that you have enough time when you get out there to get some decent sessions in and they give you some decent opposition to play against so you get some match practice.”

The conversation inevitably drifts back to the representation of women’s sport and the issue of trying to get more girls and women to participate in sport and make it seem accessible.

“Over the past year or so and into this year, there has been a real push around getting women involved in sport. There are a range of sports that we all played as kids, hopefully cricket, but netball, rounders, maybe football.

“However we maybe got a bit turned off by them at school.”

Taylor moves on to talk about how we can regain that interest from women in regards to sport.

“We’ve had the Cricket World Cup, we’ve got the Netball and Football World Cup this year. There’s so many opportunities to follow and go and support our international female athletes.

“I’d say get out there, get watching some sport. Hopefully that will inspire people to either pick up a tennis racket, badminton racket, squash racket, for example, or go and find out what’s happening at their local women’s football club, because it is so easy now to get involved, there are so many opportunities.

“The way that those structures are set up and the way that the coaching is available now can make sport a really enjoyable experience.

“That’s what we’re going to try and do at this taster session tonight, we’re going to try some stuff with some people who have never played cricket before and really enthuse them about the game.”

Before we finish, Claire is keen to offer advice to any aspiring female athlete who is currently at Oxford and wondering where they can go with their talent and love of sport.

“At Oxford it’s got to be a balance between finding the time to do the work that you need to do to fulfil your potential academically but then making time for sport. I’m a real believer in the positives that sport brings in terms of mental health and finding balance. Two things I would say: don’t be afraid of hard work. We should never shy away from hard work if we want to achieve things.

Secondly, never stop learning.

“We’re in a wonderful situation here but when you leave Oxford, just never stop learning – there’s always people to learn from and to talk to about whatever sport it is you’re interested in, so always be learning and always work hard.”

Lady Pat. R. Honising: Tinderella

Lady Pat R. Honising
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Lady Pat. R. Honising: Tinderella

Dear Lady P,

My moment has finally arrived – after months and months of having tinder “just for a laugh”, the day has come where it has actually served a purpose other than being a vessel of entertainment on gals nights in. My selective swiping rate of approximately one man per hundred has yielded success, and I now have a first date coming up this week with an actually appealing man who might be interested in me? Any advice on how not to accidentally get blackout drunk and make a tit of myself/repel all men for the rest of time would be much appreciated!

Thank you muchly, A lady-in-waiting

Thank you muchly,

A lady-in-waiting

My dear sweet anon,

First of all , a HUGE congrats is in order, how exciting for you! You must lend your incredibly single Aunt some of your Tinder prowess/utilise the ‘share with a friend’ feature if you somehow happen to find another promising needle in the haystack that is Oxford Tinder. But less about that, and more about getting you ready for the date of a lifetime. Luckily for you (and unluckily for me), Tinder dating in Oxford happens to be a topic I am well versed in, you’re in safe hands here my dearest. 

First things first, you need to focus on how you are feeling about the whole shebang. Worry less about analysing his/his ex’s/his maternal cousin twice-removed’s insta posts for now, and more about what you want to get out of the night. Maybe it’s the fleeting bragging rights that come with telling your mates about how he is “sooooo much better looking in person” the next day before getting dumped over text and never mentioning him again, or maybe you are looking for the ‘real deal’. Either way, put yourself first and don’t go in there taking a single ounce of shit – if he turns out to be a flake/catfish/sexist, then you can absolutely now take the moral high ground – he’s the one missing out! If nothing else, at the very least you will come away with all the validation that one night of (hopefully) undivided attention tends to give you, plus very possibly a cute new panic-bought outfit, which we’ll talk more about following this very clunky segue! 

You all know the drill ladies, the key to feeling good is looking good. Sure, that new top you bought off the Topshop sales rack because you wanted to look fit in Bridge could work, but a trip to Westgate with your (probably quite exhausted) girl gang in tow also couldn’t hurt. Not to pedal an old cliché (although I am an Agony Aunt and that is in fact my job), but make sure to dress for you and you alone – do not waste a perfectly nice outfit on a boy who probably thinks that cullottes are something you season your chicken with. Dress for yourself to make sure you’re looking good and feeling gorgeous no matter how things pan out.

Once you’ve got all your emotional and physical prep out of the way, including that one enlightening shower where you shear your way through a month’s worth of unruly leg hair, (N.B. do NOT feel obligated to shave for any man please and thanks!), it’s time for the Big Day. There’s only really one way to prepare from here before you make the trek down to a devastatingly cool/devastatingly spenny Cowley bar – reserving the hour in all of your friends’ calendars for a bit of moral support over a cuppa/something stronger. It doesn’t really matter what words of wisdom they’ll give you during this vital time because you’ll probably still stress over the apparently limitless different ways you could fuck up, but it’s nice all the same. Just try to channel the message of every single “live laugh love” Facebook mum combined and be yourself because it’s probably bloody fantastic. Whether the date ends in an “it’s not you, it’s me” text a week later followed by a grovelling apology DM a year later, or even a fully fledged boyf, it’s all a bit of fun and will probably make a really good story to overshare with in the very near future! Go out and smash it, your Auntie will be thinking of you!

Lots of love and luck in your Tinderella pursuits,

Lady P. xoxoxo

Post-Post-Punk: Got the Spirit, Lose the Feeling

Kavya Deshpande
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Post-Post-Punk: Got the Spirit, Lose the Feeling

“And what’s the point of talking if all your words have been said?” 

So snarls the frontman of Shame on the opening track of their 2018 debut, Songs of Praise. It’s a peculiar lyric, all the more so given that it comes from a band that defines itself as post-punk two decades into the twenty-first century.

This is not to say that Shame’s self-categorisation is wholly unjustified. They have, after all, mastered their territory. Last year’s album resuscitates most of the post-punk pantheon, borrowing from Joy Division, Gang of Four and The Fall. Everything from the relentless guitars to the hoarse delivery has been fine-tuned to maintain the illusion that you could be listening to a remastered album from 1980. Yet beyond the admirable craftsmanship, the effort put into perfecting imitation suggests something else. There’s a sadness to it, like watching a professional Elvis impersonator perform in a backwater pub, noticing a faraway look in his eyes and realising that for a moment there, he wasn’t seeing sticky menus on empty tables but a screaming studio audience on The Ed Sullivan Show. Or something like that, anyway.   

What it comes down to is the fact that post-punk lacks the plasticity of genres like rock or hip-hop, which freely pool together music that would otherwise be separated by decades. It is, by its very name, less a style than a moment in time. Yes, it encompasses sinister riffs and fractured melodies, but it’s also the death-rattle of a country in the wake of punk, the sound of kids on council estates blasting records with swear-words while the people who made those records slowly overdose in cold city squats. Cultural critic Mark Fisher associates it with “the slow cancellation of the future”; the ageing and gradual forgetting of promises that had been made back when the Sex Pistols were still new and a Conservative government was an improbability. We could go even further – post-punk was never anything more than its earliest articulation, the opening line on Joy Division’s 1979 album Unknown Pleasures: “I’ve been waiting for a guide to come, and take me by the hand.”

And if we go with this last definition, it’s clear to see how Shame, a post-punk band far removed from the actual temporality of post-punk, can exist. Many who remember the year 2016 as the beginning of the end-times will share a similar yearning that acts as a succour to their overarching political anxiety. There has always been an expectation that art is at its best when the world burns, and now that expectation is rising in pitch and desperation to become a demand. After all, post-war rationing was countered by rock ‘n’ roll, institutional racism by jazz, Thatcherism by the heirs to punk who quoted Nietzsche over hollow drums. Today, we sit around and wait for our crisis-era culture. It’s an exercise in futility. The conditions that created the old millenarian prophets no longer exist. Or, as Fisher puts it, “Producing the new depends upon certain kinds of withdrawal… but the currently dominant form of socially networked cyberspace, with its endless opportunities for micro-contact and its deluge of YouTube links, has made withdrawal more difficult than ever before.”

There is no guide coming to take us by the hand, and so we get nostalgic. We return to old sounds because we remember how they once made us feel, and we chase them, replicate them, turn them into pastiche if we have to, all in the hope that we might feel the same way again, not realising – or perhaps not wanting to acknowledge – that those sounds were for a different age, that now we will have to learn to cope without a new soundtrack for our new anxieties.     

And perhaps we can’t afford to be cynical. So anyway, ‘One Rizla’ is a banger.

Christ Church JCR votes against Plush accessibility donation

Luke Dunne
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Christ Church JCR votes against Plush accessibility donation

Christ Church JCR has voted against a motion to donate £1000 from its unplanned expenditure budget to help fund the “Plush For All” accessibility campaign.

The planned donation would have helped fund a lift which would make the club accessible for those with disabilities.

The motion failed by a margin of 45 votes to 30, with 2 abstentions.

Other colleges, including Wadham, Pembroke, University, and Hertford already collectively donated over £1800 to the campaign.

Christ Church’s unplanned expenditure budget, from which the money was to be taken, is given £3000 per year, of which £800 has been spent so far. Any money left in the fund returns to the college administration, and does not rollover into the next academic year.

Those present report that one of the main objections which was raised at the meeting included the inappropriateness of using this fund for non-emergencies. The majority of fund spent so far this year went towards building a new herb garden.

Other objections include the lack of accessibility within Christ Church, though no amendment or alternative motion was proposed on that topic, whilst others variously argued that it was inappropriate to donate to a non-charitable organisation, and that the donation would not benefit Christ Church students.

Plush is Oxford’s only LGBT+ club, and since its move at the beginning of Hilary has not been accessible to wheelchair users.

Speaking to Cherwell, the Christ Church LGBTQ+ Representative said: “As LGBTQ+ officer I am disappointed that the JCR was not able to support this motion; one that would have greatly improved the experience of disabled LGBTQ+ Students, present and future.

“However, it is vitally important to remember that Christ Church has a large and vibrant LGBTQ+ community, with a strong support base in college.

“The motion appeared to fail as a result of a general concern towards donating to a for profit organisation, not as a statement of objection towards the LGBTQ+ or disabled communities. While I believe that these concerns are misplaced, they are worth noting.

“There will undoubtedly be considerable controversy and a sense of disappointment moving forward.

“However, members of the JCR, the wider Oxford LGBTQ+ community and prospective students should not lose sight of the fact that Christ Church is a warm and welcoming home for a diverse range of students, the vast majority of whom flourish and succeed here.”

The Christ Church JCR executive, the Plush For All Campain and the SU’s LGBTQ+ campaign have been contacted for comment.

Cat-calling – who’s the real pussy?

Simone Fraser
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Cat-calling – who’s the real pussy?

Content warning: discussion of sexual harassment.

The first time I got wolf-whistled at I was eleven years old. I was walking down a hill in a small town near mine, in a fairly short skirt, tights, and t-shirt when I caught the attention of a load of men on some scaffolding on the other side of the road. I don’t remember them saying anything threatening, and I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they thought that I was older than I was – I’ve always been tall. But that doesn’t change that fact that they were sexualising someone who wasn’t even in secondary school yet. The worst thing is, this isn’t a particularly uncommon story.

Flash forward eight years. The gym that I use at home is about fifteen minutes’ walk from the bus stop. You cut through the retail park, along a busy double carriage way for about five minutes, and finally through a quiet council estate. On average, I get cat-called, honked at, or looked up and down by a creepy man (usually over sixty), one in three times I make that journey. I’m fully desensitised to it now. Most of the time they’re in a car, and I’m on the pavement, and by the time I’ve registered what’s happened they’ve gone, and I can shake off the feeling of self-consciousness by ramping up the music through my headphones and pulling my jacket a little tighter around myself.

But not all the time. And for a lot of people this is not the case. It’s a sad fact that almost everyone knows someone who has been seriously threatened or even hurt after an escalation of a situation like this. And this is why we need to take a stand, regardless of gender, against not just the people who do this, but the whole culture of thinking that it’s acceptable.

There’s vaguely the idea floating around that having a group of random men shouting at you is complimentary or that it’s a way of flirting or showing interest. And havingsomeone showing interest in you is a nice thing, surely? And how different is it to having a cheeky, subtle flirt with a bartender, or shop assistant? In short, the answer is very. Flirting assumes some kind of relationship and a sense of safety and equality. Both individuals (crucially, no men flirt in packs, do they) get involved and enjoy it. While both catcalling and flirting 9 times out of 10 give rise to nothing, one leaves a woman feeling empowered (if a bit giggly) and another makes her feel objectified, scared and ashamed.

As for the idea that it is somehow a compliment, why do they ultimately always lead to a woman being sexualised? Sometimes it’s nice to be sexualised, and sometimes women want to be. But not all the time by gangs of random (usually far older) men. It may sound ridiculously naïve, but what’s stopping a man saying “nice shoes”, or “lovely smile” rather than “nice tits” or “the things I’d do to you” etc ad nauseum. Plan International reported that two out of three girls in the U.K. had experienced public harassment — including more than one in three while wearing school uniforms. Which begs the question, do these men in their 20s, 30s, 40s or even 50s actually want to shag a child, or indeed any of the women they catcall? Do they actually expect said cat they are calling to hop in their car, climb up onto the scaffolding they’re on and just get at it right there are then?

No, they don’t. What they want to is make women feel small, while making themselves feel big, particularly in front of their mates. Strangely enough catcalling seems most of all to be about male-male realtionships rather than male-female ones. In a study by UN Women, one self-proclaimed catcaller told the interviewer that “I’m bored. I’m bonding with my male friends. We’re having fun and we aren’t thinking how the woman is feeling.” A tale as old as time, really.

I was in the back of a friend’s car in the summer when I realised just how much of an issue this is, at least in my area. The three boys, all absolutely lovely, respectful, non- sexist (I hope) humans, started reminiscing about a previous journey, where they’d honked at a load of girls in school uniforms, because apparently startling them was funny. To them it was a joke. They knew that they would never harm the girls, and thus they failed to realise that what they were doing was wrong, and that they could cause significant distress and fear of much scarier actions.

Although this is down to their ignorance and they were at fault, it does highlight that a lot of catcalling occurs because it’s ingrained in the heads of many young men that this is okay, and in many young women, including me for the first seventeen or so year of my life, that we just have to put up with it. The simple fact is that we don’t. It isn’t right that there are many places where a woman can’t go out in a short skirt without facing something between minor harassment to full on assault. We need to educate our friends, family, and loved ones that it is not okay to do this, even if the conversation is uncomfortable.

That’s the main point – cat-callers aren’t random, creepy robots, they’re actual people. And the majority of them are not awful, evil humans, they’re subscribing to values of the society that they were raised in. This isn’t to say that they are blameless, we’re all responsible for our own actions, and the way they are acting is completely wrong. However, rather than just condemning them and moving on (I do see the irony in that this is exactly what I’m doing), we need to make a conscious effort, whatever our gender, to make it clear that this kind of behaviour, and in fact casual sexism in general is not acceptable.

As a woman I feel incredibly lucky to live in a society where we are accorded significantly more agency and protection than in many countries, but we all have a responsibility to keep making improvements to society. It’s up to us to effect the positive changes we want to see in society, and this is just one example. So, educate the people around you, help those who are suffering, and as a final point: don’t fucking cat-call.

Brookes receive an (indoor) kicking

Tom Ashley
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Brookes receive an (indoor) kicking

Next year, there will be two new teams sporting the famous dark blue strip for Oxford University Association Football Club (OUAFC), as both a Men’s and a Women’s Futsal Blues team enter the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) leagues.

Futsal has been a global sport for a few decades now, but only in the last ten years have British universities seriously established teams, with men’s sides competing in a total of 26 regional leagues, and women’s sides in a total of twelve, this season.

Futsal Cuppers is now an entrenched part of the Trinity Term sporting calendar; taking place from weeks one to four, all games are being played at Iffley this term between the hours of 13.00-16.00 on weekdays.

And this year the first inter-collegiate Futsal League was played during both Michaelmas and Hilary terms. St Anne’s men’s team won the competition, consisting of ten of Oxford’s finest footballing colleges, with a record of nine wins out of nine, just edging out New College and Pembroke who finished second and third respectively. With the Acer Nethercott Sports Hall offering a state-of-the-art venue for home games to be played at, it is no wonder that OUAFC have decided that now is the time to create the two teams.

Selecting enthusiastic players from Oxford’s various 11-a-side teams, alongside strong performers in the inaugural College Futsal League, two preliminary squads have been created to represent the university.

Ahead of their first official games in the autumn, both the Women’s and the Men’s teams took on Oxford Brookes in a friendly game at Iffley last weekend.

Although Brookes’ first Futsal season was in 2013, and they operate in the higher BUCS divisions, this didn’t seem to faze either of the Oxford sides.

In the first game of the day, the Women’s Blues were outstanding from the first minute. Dominating possession and creating clear-cut chances, by half time they had built up an apparently unassailable lead. Their dominance continued in the second half and Oxford ran out 11-4 winners in the end, a result that their fine performance merited. With Brookes’ Women’s team finishing third in the Midlands 2B League this year (the third division of four in the Midlands) and Oxford, as a newly created team, entering into the League below (Midlands 3A) next season, this is a very encouraging result and suggests that the Women’s Blues will be looking to fight for promotion straight away next season.

The men’s game was a closer-fought affair, with Brookes’ greater experience in Futsal tactics being combated by Oxford’s technical superiority on the ball. Some fine goalkeeping and clinical finishing ensured that Oxford constantly retained the lead, much to the frustration of the Brookes players, who launched into some questionable challenges. Once the full-time whistle had blown though, Oxford had secured a fantastic 8-3 triumph.

Even more striking than with the women’s game, the Oxford Brookes team competed in the Midlands 1A League this season (the top division out of six for men’s teams) whereas the Oxford team will have to start off next season in the Midlands 4A League, five divisions below.

This is a very promising result for Oxford and will give a huge amount of confidence going into the futsal club’s inaugural competitive season.

In regards to the creation of the Futsal teams, OUAFC President Alex Guzel commented that he was “hugely excited about adding another two teams to the football club, allowing even more people to competitively represent our university which, for me, is the greatest honour you can have.

“It’s great that we will compete in one of the fastest growing indoor sports in the world and beating two teams that compete in high BUCS leagues is a great start.”

For the University of Oxford, and the sport of Futsal, the future looks very bright indeed.

Ballroom Brutalism

Sophie Kilminster
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Ballroom Brutalism
Models left to right: Joe Cresswell, Toyin Ihinmikalu, Lily Parmar, Kate Whittington, Rebecca Wright, Cyara Chaska Wilsenach, Katy Jenkinson


So often images of Oxford balls focus on the perfectly dressed
against the backdrop of an ancient college. We wanted to subvert
this and show another side of an Oxford ball. We juxtaposed
beautiful, feminine dresses (and a jumpsuit) with gritty, brutalist architecture.

Our models were largely bare-faced, save
for a slick of vibrant, metallic lipstick that goes against the
grain of a typically elegant ball image.

We swapped stilettos for chunky Doc Martens, the shapes of
which echo the brutalist backgrounds of the photos but contrast
the silky, slinky clothes our models wear.

Photography: Sarah Williams

Styling: Sarah Williams and Sophie Kilminster

Cherpse! Arthur and Anna

Cherwell Life
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Cherpse! Arthur and Anna

Arthur Fooks, 1st Year, Geography, Keble 

I went into the date looking for someone with an iguana. Anna has an iguana (schdoush!). Fantastic start. In order to impress Anna, I got an iced coffee (it was a bit cold outside- thought it seemed daring). She seemed less than impressed. I lied that I did computer science in order to win her back, but she caught on- you see Anna could smell lies. I accidently drank my coffee too quickly and the caffeine made me feel a bit delirious, already was nervous after the lying. Anyway, I think it went pretty well- conversation flowed like a really big river. Think the fact both our names started with an A threw her off. 

What was your first impression? 

Surprisingly average height. 

Quality of the chat out of 10? 

9.5/10.

Most awkward moment? 

I felt the iced coffee mistake loomed over our date. 

Kiss or miss? 

I’m a not-before-marriage kind of guy. 

Anna Colley, 2nd Year, PPE, Worcester 

So I found out straight away that he was a fresher (and, even worse, a geographer). But we nonetheless had a nice coffee and an equally nice chat in The Missing Bean. Despite our (obvious) differences, we happen to have a few things in common (e.g. a hatred of Chihuahuas and absolutely no musical talent). We were both signed up by our friends, and neither of us really knew what we’d been claimed to be interested in etc., so I was quite relieved that he was ‘normal’. He seemed like a genuinely friendly guy, neither of us had to resort to asking interview-style questions and I enjoyed his decision to wear a corduroy shirt. 

What was your first impression? 

‘Wait, is that him? But he’s got two coffees in front of him….’ (Someone else had left them at the table). 

Quality of the chat out of 10? 

Whatever he rated me minus one. 

Most awkward moment? 

I did mention colouring, which I’m sure is triggering for a geographer. 

Kiss or miss? 

Hmm…

Looking for love?

Email [email protected] or message one of our Life Editors Eve Webster or Simone Fraser!

Interview: Greg James

Joanna Lonergan
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Interview: Greg James

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Greg James admitted that he’d actually sh/t himself on the train on the way to speak at our very own Oxford Union. According to him this “may or may not have been the day after the Brits” so we’ll let you put two and two together on this one…

It’s this kind of laid-back, witty and approachable aura that impressed me when I spoke to the Radio 1 Breakfast Show DJ after his event at the Union. We talked about everything from his radio career and fundraising efforts to his university years and love of cheese and wine and, throughout our entire conversation, he was so at ease that I never would have guessed his traumatic train experience. It’s this relaxed and friendly approach which James tries to channel into his radio shows, spending time working on a more “natural style of presenting” like that of Terry Wogan, someone he counts among his heroes.

“There’s a lot of people on the radio that don’t actually understand what a radio show should sound like. It can be in the way they speak, sort of ‘Hello guys, hey you lot, how are you?’. But saying ‘How are you?’ is quite weird. What, are you supposed to go ‘Fine thanks!’? “It’s making sure you’re absolutely talking to one person. Just like you would do in the pub or something, when you’re like ‘oh did you see that thing on Netflix or here’s a funny email that I got.”

I experience first-hand the impact and resonance this approach has with his listeners, as we have to pause our interview on two occasions when students come over to say hello to Greg. Each time he is more than happy to chat with them, asking their names and what they study, and agreeing to take selfies with them. When Greg turns back to me the second time, he explains how important it is that people feel they have some sort of relationship with him. “That’s my only aim, to feel like they can just say hi to the point where sometimes they think they actually know me. Sometimes I even go ‘sh/t do I know you?’ and then I have to go ‘hmmmm no I don’t.”

The 33-year-old has an obvious talent for connecting with the ordinary person, something which has helped entice 300,000 additional listeners to the Breakfast Show since he took over from Nick Grimshaw (‘Grimmy’) at the end of last year. It’s well known that Grimmy is pals with the likes of Rita Ora, Harry Styles, Alexa Chung and Kate Moss – it only takes a glance at his Instagram to see his star-studded contact list. But James insists he is the flip side of the coin (or the CD?). “You need a Grimmy for there to be a me. You need to balance off someone.”

“I’ve never been interested in celebrities really, I’m not interested in fame. I don’t find all famous people automatically interesting, so it would be disingenuous for me to go on and pretend to want to talk to people I don’t want to talk to.” This strikes a particular note with me, especially as the modern media seems obsessed with what David Beckham had for lunch or the colour of Meghan Markle’s tights, often at the expense of the more acute issues of the day. Instead of the likes of Mr Beckham or the Duchess of Sussex, James says his real focus is the listeners.

“I’ve always found that listeners are more interesting than me or any guest you could have on. There’s 6 million people, with 6 million lives and stories to tell. I used to love hearing a caller be funny. There’s something very empowering about making the listener the star of the show. That’s what they should be. They’re literally paying for it and it’s a thing for them; it’s their show and they should be in control of it, to a certain extent.”

The desire to engage and connect with his listeners is what’s often inspired James to embark on his more ‘whacky’ projects for the show, and he uses the example of the “stupid pass the pasty idea”. After a listener from Scotland called in and admitted, to many peoples’ horror, that he had never tried a Cornish pasty, the team at Radio 1 decided to send a pasty from Padstow in Cornwall all the way up to Aberdeenshire via the listeners. Yes, the only companions the pasty had on its long trip was Greg’s producer, a microphone and various Radio 1 listeners.

“[My producer] would give the microphone to a listener and suddenly they were the commentator, or they were the reporter on the scene, and that’s a really special thing that you wouldn’t see on TV really…”

It’s here that James’ brain gives out on him and the revels of the previous night are hinted at. There’s a long pause, interspaced with various ‘ummms’, ‘errrrs’ and a “sorry my brain is a bit dead”, before Greg re-boards his train of thought and continues on.

“The listeners more often than not step up. They know the spirit of the show I guess, they know how to deliver it. They get the joke and they understand that it’s a very silly thing done very seriously. It’s really magical to hear a listener just sort of run with it and go. “We had a plumber, I think, who took [the pasty] from Manchester train station on a steam train. This guy just woke up in the morning and was going to his job, and suddenly he was the star of the breakfast show.”

In what I assume is his attempt at a Mancunian accent, Greg explains: “He was just like ‘We’re at the train station, big beautiful steam engine there and it’s a beautifully sunny day and the smoke’s billowing through the station.’ “It was this really beautiful description and I’m just like this guy didn’t know he was going to be on the Breakfast Show this morning and suddenly he’s the thing that brightened lots of peoples’ day.”

Although he’s likely too modest to admit it, Greg himself is also in the business of brightening peoples’ day. Listeners of his radio show will remember Katie, a primary school teacher from Kent, who had just been dumped by her boyfriend. Katie well and truly had her day brightened by Greg when he invited her to be his (platonic) date to the Brit Awards 2019. “Bringing along a teacher from Kent, who’s just been dumped, to the Brits is just like ‘c’mon, this is all nonsense’ – it’s wonderful nonsense the Brits is – so that was really fun. To see it through fresh eyes is really great. Hearing her go ‘Oh we saw P!nk, we were up close to P!nk’ because you can get a bit desensitised to the whole thing, a bit blasé like ‘ah it’s just the Brits’. But then suddenly you see it though Katie’s eyes and you go ‘oh yeah, this is fun’ and she really nailed it.”

The DJ showed promise as a radio DJ early on, winning ‘Best Male Presenter’ at the Student Radio Awards 2005. I ask him about his start in student radio, but he explains his passion for radio began long before he enrolled at UEA to study English and Drama. At 13, he began making his own radio shows in his bedroom, messing around with the jingles and recreating the chart show, but “didn’t really tell anyone about it”. From there he joined the local hospital radio station, taking requests and digging out CDs, before getting involved with Livewire at UEA. A desire to learn everything there was to know about the industry characterised James’ early radio career and he is keen to emphasise that he is still learning, even after over a decade at BBC Radio 1.

“You have to be obsessive. You have to be a nerd about it. I think you have to know everything, even things you don’t need to know. I need to know what Classic FM do, I need to know what Capital FM are up to at 4pm, I need to know all these things to know where I fit in.”

After his award in 2005, Greg did some shows for a radio station in Newcastle. It was then that Radio 1 got wind of the rising talent and invited him in for a pilot. He did his first show the day after he graduated. “When I got to Radio 1, I was very very new and I didn’t know anything about myself and I didn’t really understand about the radio industry that much, but I had been working at it. I wouldn’t say I’d been working hard, I’d just been enjoying it. I think in the last few years I’ve really tapped back into why I do it in the first place, and it’s because I enjoy it. You shouldn’t overthink it any more than that.”

After starting out on the Early Breakfast Show, starting at 4am, Greg moved to the drivetime show, where he accompanied listeners on their journey home from work. But after six years the DJ was beginning to grow out of this, and he says the move back to early mornings came at the right time, despite getting up before the crack of dawn. “I was done with the afternoon show. I’d had enough of finishing at. It’s just a long time to do any job, six years, and I needed a change and a new challenge. The getting up is all doable, and you know that it’s not going to last forever. There’ll be a time when they don’t want me to do the Breakfast Show on Radio 1, so you just grab it. “Also, going to bed at 9.30pm is such a great excuse not to go to things.” (If this isn’t relatable content…)

I’m keen to talk to Greg about his other great passion aside from radio – fundraising for charities. But his fund-raising efforts are more than your average bake sales, charity auctions or ‘celebrity experiences’. In 2013, Greg braved the crocodiles of the Zambezi River and in 2016 he completed five triathlons in five days. However, perhaps the most remarkable was his ‘Gregathlon’ which saw Greg cycle up the highest mountains in Wales, England and Scotland to raise money for Sport Relief’s projects to support young people living with mental health conditions. This challenge was especially gruelling and for a short while it looked like the infamous ‘Beast from the East’ might have ruined everything. But as soon as the harshest part of the storm subsided, Greg was back on his bike and competed his challenge, raising over £1 million.

“[The Gregathlon] became a metaphor for how people overcome their mental health issues. You couldn’t have written it any better really. We set out in the first week and I remember we all said to each other ‘I don’t know how this is going to go, but whatever the story is tell it and point a microphone at it, and jot all those little details down’. It’s all those little things that bring the story to life.” We talk a little about mental health, an especially acute issue at Oxford, as well as many other universities around the country.

Greg’s father-in-law, Alan Rusbridger, has been the Principal of Lady Margaret Hall since 2015, and Greg tells me that speaking to Alan has really opened his eyes to the problem. “[Alan’s] been surprised at how much he’s needed to learn quickly on the job about the stresses and strains that all the people who work and study here are under. How there’s never enough provision for peoples’ mental health. “You’re under a lot of pressure to deliver here, and you’re literally surrounded by the weight of this history of this place. It’s quite oppressive actually. It’s lovely on the one hand, but it’s largely irrelevant what Michael Gove did thirty years ago to what you’re doing now. It’s nice to have a history of a place, but people can get weighed down and overawed by it.”

Greg has his own experiences with mental health – his wife Bella has recently released a book, ‘Jog On: How Running Saved My Life’. Finding Bella is obviously something Greg is hugely grateful for, and he mentions it when I ask him about his greatest achievements. “Getting married is probably a thing I never thought would happen. I think I needed Bella to just give me the confidence to really go for the things that I believe in. She’s a really extraordinary person, and I think we really help each other because she suffers with confidence and anxiety and OCD. She’s been a really amazing addition to my life.”

It’s at this point we are interrupted again, though this time it is not a fan eager for a selfie. I am told to put my laptop away, since, of course, there are “no laptops permitted in the Union bar”. I spend the remaining five minutes of the interview surreptitiously peeking at my screen. Greg has a couple of bits of parting wisdom for me. He tells me that he is a qualified racing driver, that his first job was stacking papers in WHSmith, but he also tells me that the most important thing in life is to “be kind.” Having recently attracted media attention for ‘defending the snowflake generation’, Greg explains “being kind isn’t boring. It’s unfashionable to be kind, it’s much better to be shouty and a bit of an arsehole. Being an arsehole is in fashion.”

When we’re done, Greg transitions smoothly into his next appointment even though, in his own words, he feels “tonight I’m just going to put my mask on and then my ear plugs and just fall asleep as if I was in a coffin. I’m on my knees.” That’s the life of a radio star – the Brits, the Breakfast Show, the Oxford Union, and an interview with Cherwell, all in a days work.

The Ruling Class – ‘a new beast, though one they are competently battling’

Reem Ahmed
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The Ruling Class – ‘a new beast, though one they are competently battling’

My preview of The Ruling Class, a week before the first performance, demands quite a bit of imagination. The rehearsals take place in a rather cramped room hidden away in the recesses of St John’s College, and the worn furniture has been commandeered as a substitute for several props.

“Imagine those two chairs are a chaise longue,” the co-directors, Lev Crofts and Eddie Holmes-Milner, tell me, “and that those armchairs stacked on top of each other are a giant cross”. Later on, as we are watching a scene from the second act unfold, Crofts surreptitiously informs me that I am to understand a giant blanket that one of the actors is holding is a set of coronation robes.

Hold on: a chaise longue, a giant cross and coronation robes? Let me explain – but brace yourselves, because it’s gloriously ridiculous. The plot of The Ruling Class, a 1968 black comedy by British playwright Peter Barnes, revolves around the 14th Earl of Gurney, more commonly known as Jack. A paranoid schizophrenic, he has developed a delusion that he is in fact Jesus Christ. Now that the 13th Earl of Gurney is dead (accidental ‘autoerotic asphyxiation’, Crofts informs me – no, I don’t know either), and he has left the majority of contents of his will to his mentally ill son, classically farcical drama ensues.

Undeniably, this is a comedy driven by its characters, each memorable for their individual antics: among a few other characters, we meet Jack’s money-hungry, scheming uncle Sir Charles (played by Basil Bowdler), a bishop (played by Jack Parkin), a butler (Tucker, played by Lucy Mae Humphries) and a rather clinical, detached psychiatrist (Dr Herder, played Luke Buckley Harris). To be sure, Crofts and Holmes-Milner have chosen large shoes to fill in attempting to tackle the comedy. Tom Bannon, in playing Jack, is taking on a role first made famous by the iconic Peter O’Toole, who championed the character both on stage and later on the screen. Bannon also follows a 2015 West End revival for the play that featured an electric portrayal of Jack from James McAvoy, who earned Best Actor at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for the performance.

In the first scene I preview, which is a scene from the first act and, I am told, comes directly after Jack’s dramatic entrance (fresh out of a mental institution), Dr Herder is in tense conversation with an irate Sir Charles about Jack’s delusion (“Why haven’t you used the knife?” Sir Charles demands, to which Dr Herder replies calmly, “Lobotomy is unnecessary in this case”).

The dark subject of mental illness is neutralised by the relentless comedy throughout – and yes, it even delivers some classic public school jibes: “He can’t forget being rejected by his mother and father at the age of eleven,’” Dr Herder claims. “They sent him away, alone, into a primitive community of licensed bullies and pederasts.” “You mean he went to a public school?” Charles replies.

When watching this preview, it’s not at all difficult to look past the makeshift set as I am instructed. Though deprived of a proper stage, Bowdler and Buckley Harris confidently command the small space they are accorded.

I must single out Bowdler in particular for the snippet of his performance as Sir Charles which I watched: bullish, angry and overbearing, he is convincing as an entitled English aristocrat, sidling up menacingly to the doctor and demanding answers.

In the next scene I preview, this time from the second act, Tom Bannon comes into his own as Jack, speaking swiftly, almost incoherently, as he further reinforces his delusion. Though Crofts informs me that I am to imagine Bannon as being singled out by a spotlight, and Sir Charles’ wife, Claire (played by Eleanor Cousins Brown), shrouded in darkness sitting on the chaise longue off to the side, the scene did not need it, as Bannon is arresting in his performance, the crescendo of his babbling speech culminating in a single loud proclamation (‘I am the Lord Jesus come again in my body!’) just before the lights come up.

This is Crofts’s and Holmes-Milner’s first production as codirectors. Both met on the set of Pirandello’s Henry IV last term, where Crofts was the Assistant Director and Holmes-Milner one of the cast members. The Ruling Class is clearly a new beast for them, though one they are both competently battling.

With the first performance looming on the horizon, and having only started rehearsing at the end of 0th week, it is clear that they are feeling the pressure (I am told, rather sheepishly, that a tutorial essay due three days ago may have been forsaken). Yet I am equally struck by how dedicated and passionate they both are about this show – after the preview, though both are still in the throes of an intense rehearsal schedule, they are both eager to talk with me more about the play itself and their experience adapting and directing it.

When I ask them what they want the audience to take away from their production of The Ruling Class, Crofts’s immediate response is simple: that “it’s fucking hilarious”. This is true – as I watched the preview, other cast and crew members could not help but laugh along with me, even though they must have watched the same scenes so many times before.

A question which struck me as I watched the preview was whether this was a play which could transcend its own time – with its rather crude treatment of mental illness (especially in light of our current mental health epidemic) and its mockery of a class system which is not quite as apparent today, is Barnes’s play outof-date, tasteless, or even offensive?

With respect to its depiction of the upper-class, Crofts rightfully points out that class is still as pervasive an issue as it was in the 20th century, citing his experience in Oxford so far as evidence of this. Coming from a state school, he tells me, institutions such as CalSoc (Oxford Caledonian Society) or pastimes such as ‘beagling’ are a million miles away from his upbringing and indicative of a long-standing class system. In his words, “you have to be involved in that sort of thing for a long time”.

With respect to its depiction of mental illness, Holmes-Milner makes a compelling argument to the contrary, describing it as a play that is essentially to do with institutionalised abandonment. He uses the second act in particular as evidence of this, as it represents a tonal shift from the first, a movement away from the absurdity to something much deeper.

It is at this point in my article where I must tread carefully, for fear of revealing too much. I think, echoing Crofts’s phrase that it is a ‘play of extremes’, is as far I can safely go – where you start when watching this production is very far from where you actually end up in the final scene. Barnes’s treatment of themes such as mental illness and class is much more nuanced than it first seems. It is precisely this which makes The Ruling Class so much more than a farcical comedy, and I recommend you head down to the BT Studio next week to see it.

The Ruling Class is at the BT Studio from Tuesday 14th until Saturday 18th May (3rd week). Tickets can be found here.


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