Sunday 8th June 2025
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The money behind the St Peter’s Perrodo Project: meet the Perrodo family

Jorrit Donner-Wittkopf
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The money behind the St Peter’s Perrodo Project: meet the Perrodo family

2018 saw the completion of the latest stage of the Perrodo Project at St Peter’s College. Thanks to a £5 million donation made by the Perrodo family, two of whom are alumni of the college, St Peter’s now boasts a plethora of “flexible teaching spaces”, and numerous other “improvements”.

Many of the donors who shower Oxford’s colleges and departments with gifts have dubious backgrounds, even if – like the Perrodos – their philanthropy conforms to the University’s policy on charitable giving. The Sacklers, who give their name to the Sackler library, own Perdue, a company that pleaded guilty in 2006 to marketing drugs with “intent to defraud or mislead”. Their painkiller Oxycontin has since been at the forefront of an opioid crisis that had, by 2016, caused 200,000 deaths. Wafic Saïd, namesake and donor for the Saïd Business School, is credited with brokering a multi-billion dollar arms deal between Saudi Arabia and the UK. Further back, the 18th century slave-trader Christopher Codrington gives his name to the library at All Souls college.

Bearing this in mind, I decided to look a little more closely at the Perrodo family. Soon their donation was framed in a similarly murky light.

For almost half a century now, the Perrodos’ primary source of income has been Perenco GL, an oil and gas exploration company founded by paterfamilias Hubert Perrodo. Perrodo was born to a family of Breton fishermen and, after a number of years working in the oil industry, founded the company that became Perenco in 1975. In later life, he developed a passion for playing polo and growing wine – his polo team, Labégorce, is named after the vineyard that he owned near Bordeaux. Today, his descendants form one of the most influential ‘oiligarch’ dynasties. Their company, Perenco, is a low-profile yet mammoth player in the oil industry, extracting more than 250,000 barrels a day across the globe.

Perenco GL specialises in buying up sites that larger competitors deem unprofitable. Many of them come with a ‘problematic’ indigenous populace or environmental dilemmas that draw the unwanted media limelight to those at the top of the pyramid. Flicking through the scores of legal battles and criminal charges levelled against the Perrodo family’s flagship company, it became more and more clear that Perenco operates on the margins of what is moral – and on the margins of what is legal. Perenco’s abuses are hidden from watchdog organisations by a thick canopy of trees – the remoteness of its oil wells and the opaque Latin American systems of control mean that the international press has great difficulties accessing information about Perenco’s activities. But a little digging can perhaps give us a flavour of the behind the scenes of Perenco’s business activities.

According to a scathing report by Collectif Guatemala and French environmental groups, Perenco uses ‘1970’s-style’ drilling tactics in some of the most biologically diverse and vulnerable ecosystems on the planet. In breach of internationally-agreed extraction protocols (employing water and air-transport to limit rainforest destruction, for example), Perenco has constructed 204km super-highways through the heart of the Amazon. Only last year, a planeload of nature documentary-makers discovered a set of illegal runways that had been carved out of protected forest land using controlled fires near one of Perenco’s wells in Guatemala. In Columbia, Guatemala, Peru and the Congo, Perenco’s pipelines have leaked on an abnormal scale, destroying protected flora and fauna as well as polluting surrounding rivers.

On the human rights side, Perenco GL’s record is even more questionable. On the 1st of November 2018, Reuters reported that a Venezuelan state oil company official testified to having received millions of dollars in bribes from Perenco, in return for “preferential treatment”. The practice of bribing local officials seems not to have abated over the past two decades, since newspapers first began reporting Perenco’s practices. Already in early 2012, the Colombian newspaper El Spectador had reported on Perenco’s policy of illegally outsourcing work to undercut and thereby maroon unionising contract workers.

Most sinister of all, in 2012 French Newspaper Libération reported on the several testimonies by paramilitary fighters who accuse Perenco of having financed armed militias for several years in eastern Columbia, paying out thousands of dollars in oil in return for serving as the coercive arm of the company. The fighters were members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary and drug trafficking group responsible for the deaths of at least 50,000 Columbians.

Just as problematic is Perenco’s ongoing illegal expansion into the homelands of the last remaining ‘uncontacted’ Amazonians. The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest presented a court case against Perenco for what it deems illegal intrusions into ‘Area 67’, a preserved hinterland reserved for local indigenous groups by international convention. In 2012, Perenco faced international condemnation when it came to light that the environmental consultancy it had contracted had withheld evidence of an ‘uncontacted tribe’ in the company’s operational zone. These tribes are at serious risk from Perenco’s oil rig workers: environmental groups estimate that 50-80% of the indigenous groups could die within months due to their limited immunological defences.

Perenco’s quiet expansion into Amazonians’ territory is unlikely to be halted by anything other than concerted legal action and global condemnation – Area 67 was recently found to have a vast oil reserve beneath it and the Peruvian government is unlikely to neglect capitalising on such a lucrative source of revenue. Perenco GL itself completely denies the Amazonians’ existence. Perenco’s Latin American regional manager likened the idea of contemporary Amazonians living alongside his rig workers to the idea of the Loch Ness monster: “much talk…never evidence”.

When Cherwell asked Perenco about the allegations, a spokesperson for the company said: “Perenco is a leading, responsible, oil and gas company, adhering to the highest industry standards wherever it operates. Furthermore, Perenco makes a significant contribution to the national and local economies where it operates and runs a wide range of initiatives to improve the lives of those living close to its operations.

“With regards the specific points you have raised, Perenco strongly denies any such allegations.”

Perhaps the Perrodo family itself is actually unaware of the day-to-day running of their company and simply reaps the dividends, dishing them out plentifully for nobler pursuits, such as investing in education, playing polo or sponsoring 24-hour car races at Le Mans. One would like to imagine that the Perrodos have somehow innocently overlooked the storm of bad press their flagship company has been receiving over the past decades and could at some point be stirred into action by well-meaning student activists writing in the Cherwell. That is, I think, unlikely.

Billionaire oligarchs’ grants go some way to guaranteeing Oxford’s continued hegemony. To see how central oil money is in the university’s make-up, one need only note the existence of the Blavatnik School of Government, the ‘Shell Professor of Earth Sciences’ and the BP-funded Centre for the Analysis of Resource-rich Economies. The oligarchs who invest in Oxford and universities across the country enhance their brand image, receive tax breaks for donating to registered charities, and are immortalised through cutting edge architecture. This is one current cost of our prestigious education.

When told of the questionable background of the Perrodos’ fortune, many of my colleagues at college nodded knowingly and reminded me that this was the nature of corporate capitalism; such corporations would always meet local resistance and be challenged by environmentalists. As a PPEist friend of mine drily noted, such issues inherently crop up when predator multinationals go for gold in the Global South (think Shell, BP and Nestlé, for example). Perenco is no better and no worse than many other multinationals. But is that a reason to accept their money without question or comment? St. Peter’s didn’t seem to think twice – when asked to comment on the allegations levelled against the Perrodos’ company, Perenco, there was only talk of the family’s “charitable purposes”. According to the Master, “the entire fabric of the college has been greatly enhanced”.

At heart, it is a question of posterity. Today, we look on Christopher Codrington and Cecil Rhodes with distaste. Will we look at Oxford’s acceptance of oil-tainted money with the same feelings a hundred years hence? Even those who think Rhodes should stay perched on his plinth – or who believe Oxford’s implication in the Paradise Papers is only natural – can surely agree that colleges would do better to consider donors’ packages as a whole and not be led blindly by big money philanthropy and grandiose promises. Of course, we may stand corrected in a decade’s time if Perenco achieves its lofty green energy goals and governments legislate the rest. But for now, this seems little more than a pipe-dream.

‘New year, new me’: why it’s time to ditch new year’s resolutions

Reem Ahmed
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‘New year, new me’: why it’s time to ditch new year’s resolutions

Picture this: you’re at a family gathering that’s taking place between Christmas and the New Year – the period of limbo, when no-one knows what day it is or what they’re supposed to be doing. There’s too much food and the drinks are flowing. Your distant aunt-something-or-other, whom you haven’t seen since the last annual family gathering, sidles up to the dessert table, eyeing the tiramisu. She takes a sizeable portion, along with a few other sweet nibbles. As she’s moving away, she catches your eye. A guilty look passes over her face. With an embarrassed laugh, she assures you of one thing, which happens to be the same thing she tells you every Christmas: ‘I’ll start my diet next year.’

Sound familiar?

If your family and friends are anything like mine, in the weeks leading up to the new year and in the first few weeks of the new year, the same old mantra is bandied about without fail: ‘New year, new me’. And yet, by the time January 31st rolls around, your best friend has already broken her vow to spend less money on clothes (the ASOS New Year sales are invariably her downfall), your little brother has broken his vegan pledge with a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and that tiramisu-loving aunt from the family gathering has not been able to resist the donuts at the weekly office meetings.

I, too, have been responsible for making empty promises the moment the clock strikes midnight and breaking pretty much all of them in the few weeks that follow. In the past, I’ve resolved to do everything from getting more organised, to writing in my diary every day, to exercising more often and practising more self-care. Though some resolutions have lasted longer than others, none have resulted in a long-term change. I’ll be organised for a week, then devolve into my usual messy habits for the rest of the month, and this process will repeat itself for the rest of the year, until I promise myself – once again – that I’ll get more organised in January.

This is apparently a universal problem. If the statistic floating around on the internet is anything to be believed, only 8% of people actually stick to their New Year’s resolutions. This begs the question: is there any point to making New Year’s resolutions in the first place?

Ultimately, I think not. From my numerous unfulfilled resolutions, there is one thing I’ve learnt over time: the very concept of a New Year’s resolution sets you up to fail from the get-go. It’s an unrealistic promise to suddenly break all your old bad habits on January 1st and maintain this impeccably until the 31st December, a promise to transform into a ‘New Me’ merely overnight and banish the ‘Old Me’ to the deep recesses of the past, never to be seen again. Not only is the impulsiveness of New Year’s resolutions a recipe for failure, but also the fact that resolutions tend to be too ambitious. Perhaps there is something about the monumental striking of the clock at midnight that inspires within us a desire to monumentally change our lives. In reality, small, consistent and gradual changes – which can be adopted at any point in the year – will lead to greater changes overall. Furthermore, there is something illogical about the fact that, though in our goal-oriented society we’re constantly striving to better ourselves, many of us wait until the new year to finally make a change. This only fuels procrastination – how many of us have found ourselves gorging on as much junk food as possible, because the new year is quickly approaching and we’ve decided that we’re going to start eating healthily when it begins? Why do we always wait until tomorrow to better ourselves?

If you’ve succumbed to the annual tradition once again and have already made your New Year’s resolutions, good luck; I hope you are part of that 8% who stick to them. If you have yet to make yours, be realistic, devise a plan and start off with something small. And, if you have no desire to make any New Year’s resolutions whatsoever – good for you.

‘A bit of Bah Humbug’: Christmas in Great Expectations

Isabella Colletta
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‘A bit of Bah Humbug’: Christmas in Great Expectations

As the author of one of the world’s best loved festive tales, Charles Dickens is an undeniably “Christmas-y” author. With nearly every year bringing a new inspired take on the classic ‘A Christmas Carol’ to our screens, from the old-school Muppets take to Hallmark movies, he is often given the trite title of ‘the man who invented Christmas’. Whilst A Christmas Carol is a typical family favourite (as it should be), most of Dickens’ novels can capture much of our feelings around the Christmas season. Great Expectations is a prime example. Whilst this novel is certainly not the cozy, festive read many people enjoy in the wintertime; it is can be that necessary cynical antidote to Tiny Tim’s sugary exultations.

Pip’s childhood Christmas dinner is almost something out of a millennial comedy sketch. Turns out spending Christmas day surrounded by relatives or family friends who will take any opportunity to bash the youth of today is an antiquated festive tradition. If you’re emotionally exhausted from the inevitable family debate about Brexit, Pip‘s awkward Christmas dinner is a familiar scene to be relished around this festive period. Surrounded by his dreaded sister’s middle-class acquaintances, Pip experiences the barrage of questions and assumptions everyone must deal with at some point over Christmas. If the minimal but joyful dinner of the Cratchit family in A Christmas Carol represents the generosity and thankfulness we aspire to at Christmas, then Great Expectations embodies the reality. One of the tableaus from the original serial form of the novel shows Pip trying to escape this scene, alongside the hilariously identifiable understatement of a caption: “Pip does not enjoy his Christmas dinner”.

Despite the setting of Christmas Eve taking place through the perspective of a child, there is little excitement of what this will actually bring. In fact, the anticipation of the novel lies in Pip’s discovery on this day not of presents or food, but a mysterious and threatening stranger in a graveyard. For our protagonist, the occurrence of this gothic plot means Christmas is a bit of an inconvenience, which can be refreshing to read about amongst the constant festive mania.

Whilst not warm and festive, Great Expectations is in some ways the perfect post–festive read as it becomes a comforting antidote to all the things we love to hate about Christmas. It’s gothic plot and gloomy settings enable the perfect form of escapism from the traditional Christmas scene Dickens characterised in A Christmas Carol. It can be fun to believe that Dickens created this bleak scene from his own disillusionment around typical scenes of festive joy. Writing to a friend, he once stated that “I feel as if I had murdered Christmas”. If Great Expectations is his response to that, it works perfectly in contrast with the festive scenes and moral solutions established in A Christmas Carol.

There is no simple moral lesson to be learned in Great Expectations. The novel depicts the growth of Pip as his perceptions of the world are twisted and moulded by the class structures and wealth he encounters. Pip doesn’t immediately learn any lesson from his encounter with the criminal in the graveyard at Christmas, which would be too in keeping with the festive season. Nor do we. Christmas comes and goes, and we continue to read about Pip’s mysterious experiences.

The novel is complex, dramatic, engaging and a little bit depressing. It is a fantastic read, but what makes it so wonderful to read around this festive season is that it doesn’t take the Christmas day setting too seriously. Whilst it makes for a comedic festive scene, the core of the book and its pull lies elsewhere. Dickens rejects any pressure to conform to the conventions of the holiday. Instead, like all days, Christmas passes in the novel without much notice from the author or the protagonist. After the overwhelming mania of Christmas, its intense commercialisation, and the arrival of your relatives on Christmas Day, it has become a comforting thing to read about

Manchester United are finally playing catch-up with old rivals Liverpool

Cal Flintoff
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Manchester United are finally playing catch-up with old rivals Liverpool

When Manchester United picked up their record-setting 19th English first division title in 2011, the manager at their bitter rivals Liverpool was none other than Kenny Dalglish. A totem of the sweeping success Anfield had enjoyed in a roaring two-decade period now a distant memory, Dalglish’s installation at the helm betrayed the need at Anfield for familiar faces, for comfort and for a thread from which to trace to better times.

Liverpool were untouchable between 1975 and 1984, topping the first division on seven occasions in the nine-year spell, proving irresistible on the continental stage too by forging a dynasty in Europe with four famous triumphs in quick succession. In front of a packed-out Wembley stadium in 1978, Dalglish scored the winner to down Belgian opposition Club Brugge. No abundance of foresight would predict the circumstances of his return over thirty years later: no league title since the turn of the 90s and a demise accentuated – accelerated, even – by a potent miscellany of off-field events, perhaps underlined best by the 1985 Heysel Disaster and the subsequent blackout of English teams in European football.

“Au revoir Cantona and Man United. Come back when you’ve won 18”

When in 1994 a group of forward-thinking Liverpool fans unveiled their challenge – scrawled on a bed-sheet in block capitals marker pen – at Anfield, the power-shift in English football was already well underway.

By now, foreign players such as Eric Cantona were percolating into English stadia and broadening the division’s horizons; as English football returned on the European agenda, a new force had emerged. This was Manchester United’s second triumph in a row in the newfangled Premier League and just a few months earlier, capitalising on sources of new money in the game – and with commercial nous that would come to define the upcoming era, tilted to the Christmas market – the club had opened a gargantuan megastore. With Ferguson and the Class of 92 allied together, a global brand was born.

Liverpool and Manchester United have always revelled in each another’s failures. The landscape of English football is defined with great heft by their rivalry and the eras of dominance celebrated and endured. When Jurgen Klopp’s side took 36 shots against a Mourinho side set up like a roadblock, counter-attacking with two articulating lorries in centre-midfield, it was emblematic that the two now have their boots on the other feet once more. When the Kop sung to a chorus of “Don’t sack Mourinho”, it was an embarrassment analogous to the infiltration of the Anfield Road End in 2011 to proclaim that United were back; a haunting taunt and an emphatic dent to the image of the club – through the lens of fandom or the charts on Wall Street.

It is tempting to suggest that it has taken a strong, genuinely title-challenging Liverpool to shake Manchester United into action. As Liverpool top the Premier League at Christmas, United languish, cut adrift and are left to rue a post-Ferguson era that has left the pioneers looking primeval. There are other factors at play, of course, the circumstances blurred, but the parallels are difficult to ignore. As Manchester United struggled to adapt to a new era, Liverpool acted to adopt the structures required to run a successful modern-day superclub. Jurgen Klopp provided a philosophy to buy into; Mourinho brought with him his pragmatic toolbox but no clear direction other than a third season December check-out, this time at the Lowry, almost exactly three years to the day since his last.

So, in a roundabout way, to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Why a manager who failed to stymie a struggling Cardiff City and who, according to Clubelo ratings, has failed to improve his Molde team over a three-year spell in the 23rd strongest division in Europe? On pure managerial acumen and efficient recruitment strategy, the managerial loan-deal ranks as just about the most left-field decision the club has made in the Premier League era. It makes the seven million splurge on Bebe on account of a personal recommendation look like logical, well-reasoned business.

If the appointment of Jose Mourinho and the subsequent coup in attracting both Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Thursday night football supposed to be proof United still reside on a higher plane to their newer, more zealous and opulent rivals, then hidden beneath the media-savvy, feel-good arrival of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is a stark admittance that the club is now finally playing catch-up.

The club needs time. Lots of it. Liverpool’s hare-brained high-press and explosive transition may be inimitable with the lumbering presence of Romelu Lukaku, but their strategies are far easier mimicked. More pointedly for Manchester United, they need a smoke-screen from which to conduct it behind.

From the vantage point of the boardroom, Solskjaer is the perfect candidate. A club legend and 1999 hero, he is a manager with serious ambition but nonetheless one who could never claim to land the job on merit; one who will claim no autonomy over January dealings and who will return to Norway with his celestial status unperturbed whether Kylian Mbappé tears his side to shreds or not. Alan Shearer took Newcastle down in 2009; Kenny Dalglish led Liverpool to a lowly finish not replicated since the 1960s. Roberto Di Matteo won the Champions League with Chelsea. Quite clearly, it’s a gamble, but it’s one that the current iteration of Manchester United feel obliged to take.

As Ed Woodward puts it: “His history at Manchester United means he lives and breathes the culture here.” In the eyes of the baby-faced assassin, he may now be the manager but Sir Alex Ferguson will always be “the Gaffer”. For all parties then, the appointment hopes to bring familiarity. For United, the familiarity with the winning culture of old, the hairdryer treatment and Fergie time; and for Solskjaer himself, familiarity with a bench from which he has analysed so many games. But for once, he’ll have to do it all without leaving it.

Edward Burne-Jones at the Tate: A reminder of greatness

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Edward Burne-Jones at the Tate: A reminder of greatness

Perhaps one of the lesser-known names among the Pre-Raphaelites, and yet commonly heralded as one of Britain’s greatest painters, the new Edward Burne-Jones exhibition at the Tate Modern marks the first solo showing of his work since 1933. Like the Tate Modern’s summer show-piece, Picasso: 1932, the new exhibition is rich in detail and overflows with the intensity and power of the artistry on show. Possibly one of the most profound experiences to be had in the world of art this winter, this exhibition is not one to be missed.
The exhibition begins with Burne-Jones’ early pen and ink drawings and instantly one is presented with work so thorough in detail, and so fascinating, that it’s hard not to spend hours on the first few works alone. Pieces such as Childe Roland, inspired by the Browning poem ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’, exude intricacies, the sunflowers seeming to be tossed around by the wind, half beautiful, half monstrous – and conjure entire worlds, into which one is subsumed as if in a dream. Burne-Jones’ gothic take on the story of Noah’s ark, The Return of the Dove, with its corpses and skeletons floating in the water alongside the ark, typifies the enchanting, decadent nature of his work, which tinges, colours and permeates every piece on show. The showpiece of this first room, The Annunciation and the Adoration of the Magi uses a colour palette of golds upon rust red that paints the nativity in a new and sensual light.
The highlight of the exhibition is however its third room, which houses the best-known and most mesmerising of Burne-Jones’ works. The succession of strong-jawed women laying claim to their respective unassuming, scantily-clad men, is intoxicating as it is disturbing. Burne-Jones’ attention to detail throughout ensures the works are as striking when viewed up close as they are, arresting the gaze from afar. The exhibition also offers a glimpse into the other sides to Burne-Jones’ character, both as a man and artist; his amusing sketches paired alongside various preparatory studies and unfinished works. One such work, Souls on the Banks of the River Styx, a haunting depiction of the fate of the souls of the dead, chills as it moves, and is all the more beautiful for being left incomplete.
A series of Burne-Jones’ portraits of friends and family members explores another side to his character, whilst the exhibition is at its most immersive with its presentation of The Briar Rose series. With lines written for the piece by William Morris printed in gold along the walls, and the canvases arranged so that one’s path runs parallel with that of the prince, into the woods, the council chamber, then the court, then the bower, one seems to come upon the sleeping beauty as if a part of its dream world. The power of this series, its detail and its beauty, is wholly hypnotic. One enters the mind of the man and returns to the real world altered. Suddenly beauty lurks in the minutest of detail, and power in the simplest of gestures.
The exhibition ends with a series of tapestries, produced as a part of Burne-Jones’ long-term involvement with William Morris’ Morris & Co., which, dazzling as they are, serve to anchor one again to the material world. Thus, the experience of the exhibition itself is actualised in its construction. One is taken to new worlds, lands of fairy tale and myth, shown things beyond one’s own most-buried dreams, then these same worlds, this same beauty, is applied to material surfaces; a piano, a wall-hanging; and one leaves the exhibition with the sense that, yes, life can be that beautiful, and that decadent, and that sweetly melancholic. And thankfully there waiting for you beyond the doors of the exhibition is the gift shop, amply stocked to satisfy one’s newly replenished aesthetic needs.

An experience more than just an exhibition, this is not one to be missed; an insightful but always respectful glimpse into the mind of one of Britain’s greatest painters.

What cultural blockbusters can we look forward to in 2019?

Chloe Whitehead
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What cultural blockbusters can we look forward to in 2019?

Love Island, Avengers: Infinity War, and Ariana Grande’s Sweetener: these 2018 blockbusters became staples of global popular (and meme) culture. So when looking ahead to 2019, what more could we possibly have anticipate? Our society may well have peaked. But ah wait, not quite; a trace of hope flutters in the ether, in the form of the following cultural lanterns we can all share the hype of in the New Year.

The Testaments – Margaret Atwood (September 2019)

‘Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.’ Margaret Atwood, and her world-famous protagonist Offred, refuse to be silenced. The Testaments will be the latest novel from the Canadian cultural icon, but more intriguingly is a sequel to her modern classic, The Handmaid’s Tale. Originally published in 1985, that novel resonates unmistakably with the troubled mood of today; the #MeToo movement, for example. Globally, the disturbing blood-red cloaks and white bonnets of the Handmaids have become symbols of feminist protest, worn by pro-choice Irish women and anti-Trump activists in London. So how will this new story develop Atwood’s infamous dystopia?

I’m particularly looking forward to it after working for two weeks in the Marketing and Publicity department of VINTAGE, the publishing house responsible for Atwood’s latest title. When announcing the new novel their social media accounts (and office interior!) became a lurid green, which could imply numerous things: will Gilead suffer from further obliteration by toxic waste? Has Offred found fresh, green pastures anew?

Those outside publishing know little about the novel, but we have learned it will be narrated by three female characters. A video Atwood tweeted following the announcement read: “Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.”

Provocative, relevant and elusive; this novel will be one to watch out for.

Toy Story 4 (June 2019)

The toys are back. When I first heard the news, as I’m sure some of you will be, I was annoyed. Toy Story 3, ending with grown-up owner Andy travelling to university and leaving his childhood playmates with adorable toddler Bonnie, brought me to tears last Christmas Day. Clearly the guilt of leaving my beloved toy Rabbit behind was too much. But the ending of that film is moving. It’s about growing up; the bittersweet guilt and future promise is palpable. So why ruin it with another film?

Apparently Pixar, the film’s creators, are well aware of the potential controversy. Former Chief Creative Officer and now one of the new film’s writers John Lasseter has assured fans that it isn’t just a money-making machine. Magazine DigitalSpy quotes him insisting “We don’t want to do anything with them [our beloved plastic friends] unless it lives up to or surpasses what’s gone before.” Hmm.

Two trailers have been released. The first features Woody, Buzz, Jessie and friends holding hands and skipping in a circle against an idyllic blue-sky backdrop. But new character Forky, a plastic fork with pipe-cleaner arms, sends everyone sprawling screaming “I don’t belong here”. The second trailer introduces new characters Ducky and Bunny, funfair prizes fan-girling over the Toy Story franchise before Buzz Lightyear and best pal Woody themselves turn up. It’s all very bizarre. Let’s hope the film is worth superimposing the last one’s perfect ending.

Norman Fucking Rockwell – Lana Del Rey (TBC)

Ever Young and Beautiful, the velvety voice will return in 2019. Norman Rockwell was an American artist and illustrator famed for his covers on the Saturday Evening Post, intended to reflect daily American life. He produced a famous poster (although probably not the one you’re envisaging) of Rosie the Riveter, and was the artist behind the iconic ‘Freedom of Want’. But what’s this got to do with Lana?

Her music often looks back to a romanticised American past: take previous songs ‘American’, ‘Old Money’ and ‘Blue Jeans’. But her most recent music has been in the urgent present. ‘When the World Was At War We Kept Dancing’ from her last album ‘Lust for Life’ is just one example, asking “Is is the end of an era? Is it the end of America?”. But the last two songs she released, ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’ and ‘Venice Bitch’, are less jaggedly political. Both, released in late September this year, have a pensive, tranquil mood.

Speaking to Zane Lowe for his Beats 1 radio show, she mused “I know it’s a crazy title, but that’s just the title of the record”, whilst also championing references to painters as a reflection of her song-writing process.

It seems the new Lana is set to be a gorgeous blend of her usual indulgent melancholy and some newer, joyful tones.

Peaky Blinders (Summer 2019/TBC)

By Order Of The BBC, Cillian Murphy’s deictic presence in a razor-blade flat cap will once again grace our screens in 2019. This programme is rock-solid proof that not all BBC period dramas age you by 30 years, combining dogged working class struggle with the sheen of the Art Deco era, all framed by some good old-fashioned violence.

Many would consider the next and final season of Game of Thrones to be the most exciting TV calendar event of the year, and don’t get me wrong, I largely agree. But Peaky Blinders is, for me, the more perfect combination of fantasy and grim reality. Its coverage and examination of organised crime is relevant to a nation that has seen (according to the Independent) 121 homicides in London alone this year.

The previous season also tackled issues surrounding socialism, communism, and workers’ rights, important to contemporary politics dancing around issues of immigration and the way it affects our country’s workers. But the series also promises eternally impeccable Gatsby-style costumes, and alluring characters embroiled in scandalous back-stabbings, humorous dialogue and relentless plot twists.

Personally, I can’t wait. 2019 should be a good one.

The desire to be elsewhere: a look back at some of 2018’s musical highlights

Helena Peacock
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The desire to be elsewhere: a look back at some of 2018’s musical highlights

The opening track of George Ezra’s album Staying at Tamara’s moans ‘Why, why, what a terrible time to be alive’, and in 2018 this seemed an appropriate refrain for many others to moan in chorus. Written in solitude, gripped by anxieties about the world’s unpredictable turbulence, Ezra cries out, literally so in the call and response verses of ‘Don’t matter now’, for some kind of united resistance to the paralysing fear of standing alone on ‘an island in an ocean full of change’. But far from stridently confronting such fear, the sonic richness of the record, with effervescent gospel backing, opulent brass instrumental accompaniment, and a-cappella-clap-along-choruses knowingly designed to play into the winning hit-making formula of 2014’s Wanted on Voyage, constantly fights against a reality of isolation and despair. Ezra’s warm and striking baritone instead turns to simpler (and more marketable) visions of hot summer sun, reckless dreams, and the heady pulse of romance running like ‘paradise through… your veins’.

Ezra’s decision to shy away from the shadowy depths of the year’s political nightmares was counterbalanced by the work of many artists, who instead began to revel in their pessimism. LA-based Family of the Year released their highly-anticipated Goodbye Sunshine, Hello Nighttime and with masterful folk harmonies and an unavoidable wistfulness of tone, the band wrote forlornly of a time when things were just a little easier, and the Malibu sun shone just a little brighter. ‘Bitter Mind’ reminds us that ‘nothing lasts forever, things will only get so much better’ and though the album perhaps lacks the youthful, free-spirited energy of their earlier work, the music’s heavy nostalgia redolent with escapism and reverie seems unwaveringly appropriate for a year when youthful enthusiasm became harder and harder to retain.

Others too couldn’t ignore the melancholy atmosphere – Courtney Barnett’s Tell Me How You Really Feel is a dark and desolate expression of crystalline vulnerability and frustrated anger at modern misogyny (quoting Margaret Atwood: ‘Men are afraid that women will laugh at them; women are afraid that men will kill them’). Even MGMT’s Little Dark Age, while at once full of curiosity and the psychedelic fun of 80s synth-pop, sees the duo a decade on from the fluke-hit of their mocking debut ‘in the front row’ of reality. The sinister undercurrent of their previous music moves to the forefront as they end the album with a gloomy elegy in ‘Hand it Over’ acknowledging that ‘the joke’s worn thin’. And as MGMT seem finally, belatedly, to have discovered the real world, so too Jon Hopkins’ explorations of the cosmic awe of heightened consciousness take a space walk through our own world with immeasurable, celestial soundscapes mapped out in the uncomfortable and unstable rhythms of Singularity, which thrum with uncertain significance long after their trance-like beats fade. Hopkins’ album is distinctly about our world, but also distinctly about something else, and this trait of escapism ran throughout the music of 2018.

The long five years since Arctic Monkeys’ epochal AM finally culminated in the release of Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino in which Alex Turner swapped the muscle clenching, swaggering guitar riffs of Arctic Monkeys past for a seat behind a piano in a cocktail lounge in space. Though the crooning tone of ‘I Wanna be Yours’ remains in the falsetto backing of ‘Star Treatment’, it is transformed by retro piano sounds, and even the distinctly ‘rock-music’ intro and slamming guitar that begin ‘She Looks Like Fun’ fade as Turner’s clear voice cuts petulantly through. The record is almost resistant to the music the band previously produced, though it holds the same arrogant disdain for conventionality it has none of the gritty, snarling defiance of ‘Don’t Sit Down Cos I’ve Moved Your Chair’ or arrogance of ‘I Bet You Look Good on The Dance Floor’. The insistent pace is absent, it’s sluggish, brooding, languid: this music was not written to be played to packed arenas surging with pulsating fans. It’s almost unaware of its audience, written into a void, played to be listened to through a veil of wisping cigar smoke and liquor. Turner’s voice drips with smooth irony as he croons ‘it took the light forever to get to your eyes’ in acknowledgement of the refracted and scattered messages of the almost impenetrably abstract music.

Not all artists experienced 2018 through such convoluted dreamscapes: Janelle Monáe’s unforgettable Dirty Computer combined rap, pop, R&B, soul and rock into a liberated and limitless celebration of resistance to oppression, the Black Panther Soundtrack curated by Kendrick Lamar assembled an eclectic and powerful mix of artists, as well as a socio-political rage that accompanied the film’s message, Years&Years’ Olly Alexander explored modern masculinity and queerness in the bittersweet and euphoric Palo Santo, and even Ariana Grande attempted to follow in the footsteps of Rihanna’s ANTI or Beyoncé’s Lemonade with the assertion that her new album Sweetener was like her previous music, but with a message: ‘Here is my bleeding heart, and here is a trap beat behind it’ as she told Fader in an interview.

But despite a heightened political engagement in popular music, perhaps far more striking is many artists’ willingness to display their disillusionment, their desire to be elsewhere, in another era, or in another world. From George Ezra’s summer escapism and the irreverent pop music of Confidence Man, the post-punk indie anthemic hits of Shame’s Songs of Praise, and the scattered ideas of the statement-making A Brief Enquiry Into Online Relationships, 2018’s music displayed a typical contemporary anxiety: whether to sit up, listen and engage, however futile it may prove, or simply to drown in the music, and dance until the year is over.

British Library Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms review: Illuminating the Dark Ages

Adam Dalrymple
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British Library Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms review: Illuminating the Dark Ages

The Anglo-Saxon period has long been regarded as an inconvenient interlude in British history between the departure of the Roman Empire and Norman Conquest. In light of this, the accomplishment of the British Library’s stunning exhibition Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms is not only that it illuminates the events of these seven centuries of English history, but that it reveals the period’s vital importance in defining English identity. The exhibition traces the formation of England, the Germanic origins of the English language, the conversion of the British Isles to Christianity and even the demarcating of county boundaries that persevered from the creation of the Domesday Book right up until 1974.

The exhibition begins in 5th Century Britain, recently settled by the Angle, Jute and Saxon peoples of northern Europe whose runic inscriptions look completely foreign to the modern eye but constitute the first evidence of the English language. These tribes then fused to create the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the 8th Century. Converted to Christianity by missionaries from Rome, the different kingdoms jostled for supremacy with Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex dominating in turn. After King Alfred the Great defeated the Vikings, his descendents forged the new kingdom of England. The end of the exhibition details the successive invasions that this new Anglo-Saxon England faced in the 11th century by Danish King Cnut and then, of course, William the Conqueror.

This exhibition illustrates the sophistication of Anglo-Saxon culture. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity brought Latin literacy to the British Isles, enabling an extraordinary flowering of artistic achievement in illuminated manuscripts. These dazzling manuscripts form the heart of the exhibition. Alongside Biblical verses you see elaborate Celtic knots of gold and maroon twisting and turning across the page, while strange beasts chase venerated saints through the margins. Letters and swirling patterns often morph inexplicably into animal faces. Rather than just admiring these manuscripts, however, the curators enable you to interact with them by providing translations alongside the text. Beyond the artistic achievement of their illustrated manuscripts, we also witness the Anglo-Saxons’ literary achievement in the first text of Beowulf, and their scientific achievement in Bede’s explanation that the Earth is “not circular like a shield … but resembles a ball” – almost one thousand years before Galileo came to the same conclusions.

We are also shown the Anglo-Saxon kingdom’s place in an interconnected medieval world, with manuscripts brought by missionaries from Rome and an Abbasid Caliph’s golden coin shamelessly appropriated by a Mercian King. A highlight of the exhibition, The Marvels of the East, details how people in the East were thought to have no heads, with their eyes and mouths instead believed to reside in their chests.

The sparkling Alfred Jewel and monumental stone Ruthwell Cross tease you with the incredible skill that the Anglo-Saxons possessed in sculpture and metalwork, but only a few examples of these are on show. This is the exhibition’s main problem; it contains slightly too many manuscripts and not enough Anglo-Saxon material culture. Considering that half the exhibition’s artefacts are from the British Library’s own collection, it is perhaps not surprising that it is the written word which dominates, but it would have been worth raiding more of the British Museum’s Sutton Hoo hoard, just a mile down the road.

However, it is difficult to complain when the manuscripts brought together are of such immense historical importance. Through the rooms of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms you will pass Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Beowulf, the St Cuthbert Gospel, the Domesday Book and the Codex Amiatinus, the earliest surviving complete Latin Bible, returning to the UK for the first time since it was sent to the Pope as a gift in 716. The most impressive is the Lindisfarne Gospels, perhaps the masterpiece of early medieval art. The British Library declares this a “once-in-a-generation exhibition” and on the basis of these historical treasures, it is hard to disagree.

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War is at the British Library until 19 February.

Oxford academics scoop eight New Year Honours

Ben van der Merwe
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Oxford academics scoop eight New Year Honours

Eight Oxford academics are among the twenty-two Oxfordshire residents named in this year’s New Year Honours list.

Included among the winners are Wadham’s Alexander Halliday, who was until recently the head of Oxford’s Mathematical Physical and Life Sciences Division, who is being honoured for services to science and innovation.

Four Oxford women are to be awarded honours, including two from Mansfield college. Helen Margetts, until recently the long-time director of the Oxford Internet Institute, is to be honoured for her contributions to social and political science, while Lucinda Rumsey is to be recognised for her services to widening participation in higher education.

Professor Jane Armitage will be awarded an OBE for her medical research as a Professor of Clinical Trials and Epidemiology. Kate Tiller, a Founding Fellow of Kellogg College, is being knighted for her contributions to local history.

Other Oxford academics who will be recognised in the awards are Brian Dolan, a Visiting Professor of Nursing, and Stephen Darlington, an organist at Christ Church from 1985 to September 2018, for services to music.

Former Oxford Professor of Tropical Medicine and Global Health Jeremy Farrar is to be awarded a knighthood for his services to global health as director of the Wellcome Trust. Richard Hobbs, head of the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, is also being recognised for his services to medical research.

Oxford alumni are also among this year’s honours, including the author Philip Pullman, who went to Exeter College, and economist Tim Harford, formerly of Brasenose.

Meanwhile, academics at Cambridge University scooped five awards this year, including two women.

The annual New Year Honours list is dedicated to recognising the achievements of Britons across public life and has been held since at least 1890.

Is West Side Story still relevant today?

James Tibbles
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Is West Side Story still relevant today?

West Side Story is my favourite musical of all time. It has everything you could possibly want from a Broadway show: high drama, Shakespearean tragedy, spectacular choreography, stirring music, and notes every tenor dreams of being able to hit. Yet, the more I find out about the show’s conception and dig into its content, the more I fall in love it. Leonard Bernstein’s seminal work hit Broadway in 1957 and set a radical precedent for Musical Theatre in both musical form and content – so much so that it made it onto the Edexcel GCSE music syllabus!

The American composer and conductor was born 100 years ago into a Jewish family and received no musical education until the age of 10. He followed a remarkable trajectory, however, to write several Broadway musicals and symphonies (On the Town, Candide, West Side Story), and become the first American-born director of the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein was a confectioner of musical genre whose genius ear brought new combinations of international sounds to the American stage. In the recent BBC documentary ‘West Side Stories’, his daughter Jamie Bernstein fondly notes how he ‘built bridges between genres’, amalgamating bee pop Jazz vocabulary with Latin American beats in West Side Story’s impossibly eclectic score. This weaving of melodic and rhythmic patterns reflects New York’s lively cosmopolitanism and the conflict of identity that came with the city’s rapidly changing make-up.

Yet, beyond its musical genius, the show has an important tale to tell. Following the concept of Romeo and Juliet, the musical tracks the relationship of Tony and Maria who fall in love at a chance encounter, but are kept apart by ethnic differences – Tony a white American, and Maria a Puerto Rican. The show spoke directly into the context of 1950s New York when ethnic tension was rising with the increase of immigration; by 1955 over half a million Puerto Ricans had moved to New York hoping for a better future in the ‘free’ world of America.

The city, however, became more divided than ever; wars between gangs were not uncommon and inter-ethnic relations were firmly discouraged. These demarcating lines of prejudice and community isolationism are masterfully reflected in Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics. Anita’s song ‘Boy Like That’ warns Maria of the dangers of mixing outside the Puerto Rican community:

Forget that boy and find another

One of your own kind

Stick to your own kind!

The whole way through the show, the text, music and choreography marry together to create a powerful evocation of the tension that hung in the streets of New York. Very few musicals before had tackled such relevant and palpable issues so boldly on the American stage.

West Side Story has stood the test of time not just because of its artistic mastery, but because of its universal message. As the show’s choreographer Jerome Robbins once said, the show is about intolerance all over the world, not just in 1950s New York. In many ways, the show is more relevant today than it ever has been. With Brexit threatening tighter borders, the LGBTQ community facing discrimination across the world, and nationalism on the rise in both America and Europe, the world seems more divided than ever before. Fundamentally, the “forbidden” relationship between Maria and Tony speaks to those who aren’t allowed to be themselves and love who they want to love. The musical seeks to demolish artificial divisions of identity by conveying the dangers we face when that freedom is taken away. At the heart of the show is a message of tolerance.

This overarching message was also reflected in the real-life politics of the Broadway stage. Bernstein was a major advocate for social justice and tried to reflect this in his music and casting. On the Town was one of the rare cases of inter-racial casting in the 1940s and Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the film adaptation of West Side Story, became the first Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award in 1961. Bernstein’s projects were carving the way for social progress and tolerance by giving a platform to ethnic minorities.

Despite the show’s history, however, many new revivals of the show are still criticised for white-washed casting. Most recently, many people complained to the BBC for its poor casting choices at the Proms this year. Sierra Boggess, however, who was due to play Maria in the August concert, humbly turned down the role to make way for a Latina actress and ‘correct a wrong that has been done for years with this show in particular’. Even 60 years after the show started making waves in the theatre world, casting conventions still have a way to go before we see minority groups fairly represented on stage.

And this is why West Side Story will never be confined to the archives as a “museum piece”. Plans are already in full swing for a new film adaptation from Stephen Spielberg, and in December next year Broadway will see a brand-new revival of the show featuring new choreography and authentic casting. It is continued interest like this that demonstrates the timelessness and universality of the show. Bernstein was not only a master composer, but lay the ground for social justice and diversity in theatre. 100 years since his birth, very few composers have come close to reaching the same force of impact that he made during his remarkable career.

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