Friday 11th July 2025
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Lessons From Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino

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Lessons From Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino

Even before Arctic Monkeys had started talking about what Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino was actually going to be, a casual fan could tell that the group were steering away from the dynamic, groove-centred brand of indie-rock that catapulted their previous release into ubiquity. Pictures of stern thirty-year-olds in suits looking pensive hardly screamed of past themes of lust, adolescence and nightlife. It was clear that the Monkeys were entering into a new era.

However, I don’t think many expected their newest release to be quite as off-the-wall as it turned out to be. Abstract metaphors and dreamscape imagery, sung over psychedelic, lounge-pop instrumentals made Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino a challenging listen for even the most open-minded of fans. The melodies were less catchy, the drums less prominent, and the punchlines more subtle.

To some, Arctic Monkeys had strayed too far. They were no longer the gritty, loud symbols of youth and disobedience that fans had initially taken to. To others, the challenging nature of the newest album was a welcome breath of fresh air. It was an album that was truly different from anything on the scene at the time; it was the product of Alex Turner’s genius, that fans were able to fumble around in, trying to understand and explore.

And this was exactly the risk of putting out a project like this. By releasing such an abstract project, fans separated out into likers and dislikers of the new music, and there were concerns for the future of the once immaculate Arctic Monkeys brand. So what made the  Monkeys take such a risk? And why do artists take risks like these in general?

A good place in time to start thinking about these questions is just after the release of the Monkey’s fifth album AM. In NME’s highly praising review of this album, Mike Williams suggested that AM was so good that it secured them a permanent place in history, and that the band could “do whatever they want, sound however they like, and always be Arctic Monkeys” from that moment forth. This kind of bold talk is likely to have played a part in making the band feel comfortable enough to release something so out-there.

However, the situation they found themselves in post-AM, was not as simple as this. Yes, AM secured their place in history, but it also captured millions of fans around the world, and with that came a certain level of pressure. Putting out such an abstract project was not only an artistic risk, but they also risked losing millions of eager listeners, along with their attention and money.

Artists rarely benefit from such a move. Album sales are almost always lower: AM was one of the top 20 albums in the charts for 42 days, whereas Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino dropped below 20 after just six. On top of this, reviews are often mixed: AM has a Metacritic rating of 81/100 compared to Tranquility’s 76/100.

There are some exceptions of course. When Kendrick Lamar released his landmark project To Pimp a Butterfly, it was a risk. It was not as much of a risk as Tranquility, but with challenging instrumentals and a more fluid song structure, it was a risk all the same. Lamar’s album, however, rather than suffering as a result of its ambition, is now often praised as being one of the greatest rap albums of all time, and boasts an obscene 96/100 rating on Metacritic – a rating only surpassed by 3 other albums.

However, this kind of tangible reward is rare. The Monkeys did not suffer greatly at the hand of their risk-taking, but considering the omnipresent-super-band they seemed on a path to become, they missed out on a lot.

Yet, this is where the intangible benefits of risk-taking are so important to recognise, and why Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is such an important record. Arctic Monkeys did something so much more fulfilling and important than make a popular album – they created something different. By letting go of industry distractions like money and fame, the Monkeys were able to create something truly weird and wonderful that, long after they have stopped making records, is going to inspire kids to make weird and wonderful things too. And that is arguably worth way more to an artist and, crucially, to the world of music than any AM-esque album.

Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is a symbol for artistic integrity, and a reminder of how important it is for artists not to get bogged down in the shallow dreams of ‘success’, and to just make something freaky and new.

Rats plague St. Hugh’s accommodation

Eve Webster
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Rats plague St. Hugh’s accommodation

St. Hugh’s have come under fire after rats have been found to inhabit one accommodation building on-site.

One student was moved into welfare accommodation during the night after discovering a dead rat on her floor.

This follows complaints made to the College by students and “committed and repeated efforts” by JCR officials to raise the issue of rats, as well as the general need for maintenance, in the Wolfson building, home to second-year students.

Second-year Maths student, Rhiannon Davies, whose is now temporarily staying in another block, told Cherwell: “Given I’d complained to college about hearing rats in my room several days ago, I’m appalled; this is unacceptable given the already poor state of the building and amount that I’m paying for it.

“There’d been a funny smell in my room for a few days, in the end I looked behind a bedside table and found the rat so it had clearly been there a while.”

The second-year building has also been sporadically without hot water since the start of term, with some rooms in need of maintenance. Another student was moved out of the building last night after a ceiling was at risk of collapsing following a leak, which was also reported at the start of term.

Oxford SU Vice-President for Charites and Community, Rosanna Greenwood, told Cherwell: “Students are often seen as vulnerable tenants and left with poor quality housing which is totally unacceptable, especially considering the amount that students pay.

“It should go without saying that a student’s accommodation is fit to live in and free from vermin. We are in conversation with the JCR at St Hugh’s on how we can offer support to them.”

One St. Hugh’s student told Cherwell: “The JCR Committee and VP have have been so great in pressuring the college. Every time, they put in committed and repeated efforts to sort this, but I just hope College now springs into action and sorts this out. Wolfson is a fun place to live, but the obvious problems take away from this.”

St. Hugh’s JCR President, Alex Yeandle, told Cherwell: “It is both concerning and unacceptable that members of college have had to go through the ordeal of having rats in their room.

“The JCR has been in touch with the individual concerned and has ensured that they could access support. Both the Vice President and I have met with multiple senior figures in college today, expressed the concerns of the JCR and gained clarity from the college. We have been reassured that work is ongoing to solve the issue imminently and thoroughly.

“As a committee we have maintained a strong, equal and respectful relationship with college and we don’t expect this to change. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will keep all students updated.”

In a statement, St. Hugh’s College told Cherwell: “The College was made aware of this and has already taken action.

“Over the summer College carried out an extensive programme of refurbishing and redecorating rooms. We are constantly working to improve the quality of the accommodation we offer our students, and to act quickly in response to complaints or maintenance problems.”

Undergraduates at the college all pay the same £1390 per term for college accommodation, irrespective of where their room is located.

Mary Beard interview – “The ancient world is a safe space for arguing”

Barney Pite
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Mary Beard interview – “The ancient world is a safe space for arguing”

Mary Beard is Britain’s best-known don. Widely regarded for her appearances in BBC documentaries and debates with Boris Johnson, Beard has introduced millions to the ancient world. For my own part, (although this perhaps says more about my 12-year- old self than anything else) I remember particularly enjoying one documentary about Pompeii which included a long tour of the city’s brothels. And she has, of course, provided many an aspiring Oxbridge classicist with rich fodder for their UCAS application.

Unsurprisingly, I felt a little intimidation at the prospect of the interview. Beard, as the forthright advocate of a subject sometimes dismissed as irrelevant and outdated, is universally acknowledged as a bit of a hero. In January of this year, the Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins published a “Long Read” on ‘The Cult of Mary Beard’, while her talks and book-signings attract crowds of ardent fans. It was with no little apprehension, and no shortage of nervously scrawled questions, that I called up Mary Beard, on a sunny August morning.

We spoke – of course – about Classics. I wanted her to sell me our subject: “Classics is a particularly privileged discipline,” she responds, “because of the way the subject has been defined as not simply Latin and Greek literature but a wide swathe of cultural and intellectual studies – it’s going to continue to think hard.”

Beard concedes – rightly – that there’s something Victorian about the oft-repeated claim that studying the classics teaches you how to think – what does knowing ‘how to think’ mean? “It’s about learning to not just think,” she clarifies, “it’s about learning to make a plausible, convincing,analytical argument. It introduces you to how people research, find out, analyse, structure and argue.”

Of course, this is the great virtue of studying a humanities degree, where you are taught not just how to work the answer out but how to persuade your interlocutor that your stance is correct.

I ask Beard about that perennial concern of humanities graduates – the jobs market. She laughs: “It would be a sad day for the planet if employers did not value skills of argument, research and analysis, and I don’t see any signs of that being seriously challenged. We’re not in a position where there are these poor old classicists who are not getting jobs, whereas people who’ve done astrophysics are slipping effortlessly into employment.”

So, if it’s the training in careful analysis and thoughtful debate which marks out the humanities, then what similarly distinguishes Beard is her almost total willingness to thoughtfully engage with people who disagree with her. Famously, she once took a Twitter troll out for lunch, and after an online fracas concerning the fall of the Roman Empire, she met with arch-Brexiteer Arron Banks, which was recorded by the Guardian. In a world where it seems impossible for people with differing political views to hold a conversation that doesn’t turn into a flame war, the description of their mostly genial conversation made cheering reading.

It’s easy to characterise Mary Beard as some sort of public intellectual – a figure from the Academy who utilises their learning and experience to mete out political commentary and considered wisdom – but the title isn’t one she likes: “Would one ever call oneself a public intellectual? It’s a phrase that’s often used with a slightly ambivalent, slightly pejorative sense.”

But that doesn’t mean that she regrets her visibility in the public domain: for Beard, speaking up is part of giving back. “I’ve been very lucky,” she says, “to have been able to spend my career studying and teaching something that I’m very interested in. I have a responsibility to give back, partly in gratitude and in respect for what I’ve been able and allowed to do with my life. What a Classics – or what any Humanities discipline does – is it
gives a real edge to some of the analytical skills that we ought to have.

“I think that there is some kind of obligation to comment and to use those more widely. It is really important that public and political debate and particularly political debate are not restricted to those people who have somehow self-defined as professional politicians.”

Modern political discussion can sometimes make it seem like we live in a culture where initial disagreement is a roadblock to discussion and further progress but Beard sees it differently. She believes that total agreement and a full consensus is something neither possible nor desirable.

“One of the things that all of us should contribute in,” says Beard, “is to increase the degree and level and productivity of public disagreement and one of the most important things a society can do for itself is to provide a way to disagree furiously while still being engaged in this same overall social project.”

“Agreement,” she continues, “is comforting in some respects, but in other respects what it does is it closes down debate. What would it be like to have a culture in which we all agreed with each other? It would be absolutely ghastly.”

This is the spirit which carried Mary Beard to meetings with Arron Banks and Boris Johnson. I think it’s brilliant, and all-important. Perhaps the one lesson to take away from the political earthquakes of 2016 is that unless you listen to someone you disagree with,
they aren’t going to change their mind.

And Beard has not been afraid to say things people disagree with – following 9/11, Beard
wrote in the London Review of Books that “the United States had it coming,” and that “[w]orld bullies, even if their heart is in the right place, will in the end pay the price.” These comments provoked some considerable anger, as did a tweet published in the advent of the Oxfam sexual assault scandal earlier this year. “Of course one can’t condone the (alleged) behaviour of Oxfam staff in Haiti and elsewhere.” said Beard. “But I do wonder how hard it must be to sustain “civilised” values in a disaster zone.” The problem was, of course, the word ‘civilised’, and all it’s colonialist resonances. Beard was challenged in a blog post by Dr Priyamvada Gopal, a Reader in Cambridge’s English department; typically, they met and talked it over, rather than resorting to vitriolic argument.

Beard concedes that there are elements of her discipline that could be construed as colonial: “The Classical inheritance and tradition is by and large a Western phenomenon” she told me. But Beard asserts that the situation is more complex than it might appear, and rightly so: “I don’t think that even in the West that we are simply the inheritors, the bland straightforward inheritors of what the classical world has bequeathed to us. Thank God we’re not.”

“The standard stereotype,” she continues, “would be to cast Rome as a proud, fearless,
uncompromising and totally unreflective empire. But It’s also important to remind people
that Rome was also the source of many of the criticisms of Empire that we have.
Rome generated both an imperial ideology and an anti-imperial ideology at the same time.”

Beard tells me about Tacitus: in chapter 30 of the Agricola, Tacitus’ biography of the Roman general and Governor of Britain, Tacitus puts they phrase ‘they make a desert and they call it peace’ into the mouth of Calgacus, a British chief.

“There’s hardly been a decade”, as she tells me, “since Tacitus wrote that in the early 2nd century AD, probably not a year, in which that phrase wasn’t completely applicable to some bit of military activity.”

Part of what’s appealing about studying the Classics is that, in a sense, they are liberatingly
distant; Tacitus and Calgacus are so far from us as to almost exist in a vacuum. “The ancient world was a long time ago – ” said Mary, “ – Cicero was 2000 years ago. None of it – in a way – matters; it is a very privileged, safe space for arguing.”

One of the oft-noted contradictions with which Mary Beard presents us is that she is both of the establishment and deeply subversive: “She often represents herself as quite traditional though she also likes to think of herself as transgressive” said Greg Woolf, director of the University of London’s Institute for Classical Studies, in conversation with Charlotte Higgins.

Yes, Beard’s willingness to challenge standard formulations of Roman history has helped breathe new life into the ancient discipline. But the subject still has structural access problems: to do Classics, you need to know Latin, and to study Latin, you need a school which teaches it.

“It’s the case it is changing and it has changed and we want to do more to change it”, she says. But Beard has seen a revolution in her lifetime: when she was an undergraduate, 10% of Classics students were female, and students without Latin and Greek to A-Level couldn’t study for a Classics degree. Now both Oxford and Cambridge offer ab initio degrees in Classics, and as many girls take Classics as boys. “I don’t think that any subject should rest on it’s laurels and not look at those who were perhaps excluded from it either structurally or perhaps directly,and think about how to do something about that.

“Just making something available on paper isn’t the same as encouraging and setting the groundwork out there for people,” she continued, “who might never have thought of it before. And that’s a tough nut to crack – extending classical civilisation and classical literature in translation in schools is one way to do that and telly programs are not a bad way to spark interest in the ancient world.

Complacency would be utterly out of order and every university not just Oxbridge has got loads more to do there.”

Most professional academics give the public sphere a justifiably wide berth; but Mary Beard doesn’t. I almost wonder why – abuse on Twitter and near constant scrutiny seem a lot less fun than hours in the University Library and Roman History.

But Mary Beard communicates her subject with compelling and contagious enthusiasm: “I think it’s part and parcel of being an academic actually,” she says. “It seems to me kind of unremarkable.”

Well, Mary, not to us.

She who dares, wins

Cherwell Fashion
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She who dares, wins

London, Paris, Milan and New York Fashion weeks have put the final nails in the coffin: there is only one rule to follow in fashion and that is to take RISKS. Runways were adorned with louder than life pieces of clothing – clashing prints, fully sequinned outfits, even double denim. Highlights include Isabel Marrant’s Paris fashion week show, which saw models wearing denim boiler suits, metallic dresses, and bold print dresses with cowboy style white boots. The incredibly huge Jacquemus hat that took Instagram by storm over summer was echoed at this year’s fashion week with their larger than life bags. Practical they may not be, but they certainly tick the box of taking a risk in fashion.

This wave of rule-breaking styles at this year’s fashion weeks had already been foreshadowed by popular, high-street trends such as athleisure – suddenly it’s stylish to wear holographic cycling shorts and beige trainers. We’ve always been told that double denim is a big no-no, and clashing prints makes you look like your gran’s curtains, but fashion week has shown that this is no longer the case: fashion knows no bounds and doesn’t care about all the rules set in place before.

For this week’s fashion shoot, we took influence from the flood of rebellious fashions embraced recently by the biggest brands, taking to the streets of Oxford to find art, colour and vibrancy among the classic colleges. Playing with as many prints and textures as possible, we wanted to show this new-found playfulness in the movement of our models – spinning, jumping and exploring. We wanted to be daring in a place that can so easily become formulaic.

Trends such as clashing prints may be a gamble in everyday life: they could either attract many compliments or cause people to stare at you dubiously in the street, but to gamble is to be fashionable. After all, it’s only through gambling that styles ever become trends. Do you really think that the first person wearing fishnets back in the day was instantly admired? No, but the gamble pays off when even just a few people like your style. That’s if ‘gambling’ is even the right word, as now doing what is ‘wrong’ according to the fashion Bible is somewhat the norm…or even a safe option? We are in a post-rules fashion era, and that excites us here at Cherwell. So as fur coats sweep the high street, don’t fuss over only wearing plain trousers, get out your leopard print.

Credit

Photography: Skye Humbert
Stylists: Skye Humbert, Jaleh Brazel, Lara Drew
Models: Hakim Faiz, Yingmin Khoo, Ashley Broadhurst
Article: Rebecca Gregory

‘A Star Is Born’ as Bradley Cooper makes an impressive directorial debut

Jonnie Barrow
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‘A Star Is Born’ as Bradley Cooper makes an impressive directorial debut

When a film is a remake of a remake of a remake, it tells you one of two things: either Hollywood is completely creatively bankrupt, or else the story underpinning these remakes is a heck of a good ‘un.

A Star Is Born definitely belongs to the latter grouping; in each incarnation, it chronicles the story of a male star who, while struggling with addiction and ageing out of the limelight, happens to meet a young female talent he can help along the road to superstardom.

It’s an infinitely adaptable tale which is able to reflect the trends and concerns of its age, but it’s been over 40 years since the last retelling saw Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson rocking out in 1976.

This time Bradley Cooper stars as Jackson Maine, an old-school rocker who discovers Ally (Lady Gaga) in a drag bar performing the most showstopping rendition of La Vie En Rose imaginable. From there, he catapults her into the limelight while aided by a stellar Mark Ronson-produced soundtrack.

Where Judy Garland and James Mason’s 1954 ASIB sharply satirised the decline of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Cooper (making his directorial debut here, as well as producing the film and co-writing the script and portions of the soundtrack) gently explores the machinations of the music industry through Ally’s rise to fame. But he’s far more concerned with how Jackson and Ally relate to each other as characters than in any grand satirical or thematic ideas, and it’s here that the film shines.

Cooper has been consistently excellent in serious dramatic fare for a few years now, but it’s still impressive how completely he disappears into this role, from his beautiful country-rocker vocals to his reserved, fragile gruffness concealing his affection and admiration for Ally. Gaga, meanwhile, is a revelation – while Cooper’s character has complexity in the way he’s written, Gaga imbues incredible depth into a somewhat slighter-written role, and her chemistry with Cooper is off-the-charts. This latter point is crucial: the film would fall apart if it weren’t for the extraordinarily persuasive meet-cute between the two characters, upon which the film’s central and emotionally earnest relationship rests.

Cooper’s direction makes for an impressively assured and incredibly measured debut. He makes excellent use of coloured light through cleanly composed shots, and draws fantastic performances from his stunning cast, even if the film threatens to get a little bogged down towards the third act. Yet despite these reservations, the film managed to complete my holy trinity of indicators for what makes a good film: I became so engrossed that I forgot to write notes for the entire middle third, I cried my eyes out during the climax, and I’m now listening to the soundtrack as I write this review.

Make no mistake, this film will drive the conversation during awards season. But far more importantly, it’s a powerful, well-told love story that’s about to take the world by storm.

A look at the Cuppers draw

Cal Flintoff
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A look at the Cuppers draw

The start of the college season can be a difficult time for even the sagest of soccer skippers, as they scramble to assemble their squads to go to war with: battling contact hours, fitness concerns and selection dilemmas, just to get eleven players at the same ground in the same colour kit.

Throw in the fact that the holy grail of the Oxford footballing scene, Cuppers, has been handed an early term start commencing on Monday of 2nd week to allow for the Hassan’s Cup – the task for the captain has become more challenging than ever. Pre-season friendly plans have fallen through, the defence haven’t yet got each others names nailed, the mercurial forward has come down with a mystery virus; can the team stoke the fires within and rouse themselves for a victory that will define the season?

The first-round draw has been made, you can now see who your side will be taking on for a shot at conquering all.

On paper, the Premier Division behemoths have fared well avoiding taking on each other at a time where tactical plans are still embryonic, and scouts have yet to compile their extensive dossiers from hungover visits to the depths of Marston. In fact, four of the seven sides in the highest echelon of the college game have secured fixtures against relative minnows of the Third Division; the opportunity for a giant killing is a very real possibility, and in particular both of last season’s finalists, Worcester and New (facing Univ and Oriel respectively), will be wary of being upset on their travels so early in the tournament.

Another highlight of the draw is a match-up between the two erstwhile First Division sides Balliol and Queen’s. Both were relegated last season despite the former topping the division at the winter break and then registering just a sole point thereafter. They are eager to right their wrongs. Elsewhere in the division, Pembroke and Teddy Hall, historically teams who go deep into Cuppers, have been pitted against each other, but the triumvirate of St Anne’s, Exeter and Christ Church have all been handed the golden ticket of a first round bye. Anne’s – fresh from last year’s triumphant dual Hassan’s Cup campaign and League promotion, will play the red Exeter juggernaut in the second round.

Elsewhere, Lincoln College will take on St Hilda’s as they look to rebuild from a catastrophic slide right through to the bottom of the pyramid, and will do well to look to their Turl Street rivals for inspiration: Brasenose won the competition from a similarly low-lying position in 2016.

Rounding off the fixtures, newly promoted Hertford face off against a strong Somerville outfit in an all-Division-Two clash, Merton/Mansfield host Premier Division Champions St John’s, and Keble take on St Hugh’s.

On the Inside

Bertie Harrison-Broninski
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On the Inside

CW: This article contains descriptions of self harm, violence, and mental health.

A national crisis escalates in the background, involving over 80,000 Brits: an epidemic of violence, drug abuse, disease, and mental health problems. Our prisons are at breaking point. Last year, there were a record 31,025 assaults, and 46,859 incidents of self-harm among inmates. Recent inspections have been damning, with 80 out of the 118 prisons examined providing insufficient or poor standards in at least one area, and only 7% of prisons receiving a ‘good’ rating across the board.

In January, HMP Liverpool made headlines with the “worst conditions inspectors have ever seen”, with damp, unfurnished cells, flooded toilets, piles of rubbish, broken windows, and infestations of rats and cockroaches. In August, HMP Birmingham, the first publicly-run prison to be privatised, was renationalised after just seven years. Private contractor G4S was found to have failed at preventing the “dramatic deterioration” into disorder and drug abuse.

For politicians, being seen as tough on crime is always popular. This has led to longer sentences, and now the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe, with the prison population doubling from 1993-2011.

England has repeatedly disobeyed the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to our prisoners. David Cameron’s government cut 7,000 prison officers, and the Ministry of Justice is the department most acutely hit by austerity measures, on course to have had a budget cut of over 40% from 2010-2020.

Prisons minister Rory Stewart recently claimed that he would resign after a year if he had not reduced violence and drug use. This sounds like a bold claim, but he’s aiming to do this only in ten selected prisons. His fifth role in four years, remaining in the undesirable position of prisons minister for twelve months would get him kudos from his party anyway. A known future Tory leadership hopeful, he’s been fast-tracking up the political ladder. However, the scale of these problems is vast, and very unlikely to be fixable in a year.

I spoke to Kyle, a prison officer. Kyle’s prison differs from those that most often make the news such as Birmingham and Liverpool, as it’s 20th rather than 19th century, and ‘Category C’ rather than ‘B’. C and B hold similar levels of offender, but B is more escape-proof. There are more ‘Cat C’ prisons like Kyle’s than any of the other categories in England and Wales.

I was interested to find out if the ‘typical’ prison experience differed drastically to the sensationalist scare-stories from the Victorian Cat Bs. Are Liverpool and Birmingham isolated cases of prisons that just need to be closed, or are the problems more systemic?

“Cat Bs are worse but it’s still a loud, chaotic, horrible place to live. Intimidation and violence are just everyday occurrences here.”

The officers don’t see a lot of the violence between inmates as it happens in cells behind closed doors. This is made worse for Kyle as the CCTV in one part of his wing has been scratched over.

“It’s been like that for a number of months and not been fixed. By and large no officers are in that area and so that’s where all the really rough guys are. I’ll approach and the first thing I hear is ‘WOOP WOOP!’ and everyone’s obviously stopped what they’re doing… there’ll be someone getting their jaw broken…people smoking, which is illegal in prison now. If I’m on my own, anything can happen there. I had a prisoner come up behind me the other day when I was there and sing, ‘Oh Kyle, Kyle, you think you’re safe at work, but you’re not…’”

And he probably isn’t. Every year papers report that the number of assaults on staff has reached record highs. According to The Express in April, one officer is assaulted every hour.

“Just this week one of the officers on my wing was punched twice, bleeding out of his face. A few weeks ago, a female officer in another wing got her eye split open with a flask. I know the job’s a ticking time bomb with me getting assaulted.”

Nevertheless, Kyle warns to be cautious with statistics in the papers. He carefully notes that in a number of cases: “Most of those numbers are probably minor, like a push. People get spat on a lot, that’s fairly common.”

Sure enough, in the full House of Commons briefing paper on prison statistics, only 864 out of 8429 assaults are classed as ‘serious’. But statistics can be conservative too. The same paper reports that drug use has halved from 18% of inmates in 1998/99 to 9% in 2016/17, but Kyle is suspicious.

“It’s got to be higher than that. A clean test result doesn’t always mean they’re clean. People hide piss that belongs to someone else and then they’ll use that in the test.”

Nine percent of inmates having drugs in their system on one particular day is also not an indicator of how many use drugs overall. Lots of ‘legal highs’ and synthetic cannabinoids are also difficult to detect. The paper misleads in not distinguishing between these and cannabis.

Cannabis is listed as the most frequently detected drug, although the most common drug in prison is almost certainly ‘spice’, which Kyle says is “not really anything like weed at all”.

“Occasionally you smell cannabis, but it’s nothing compared to spice,” he said. “People are genuinely addicted to it. They can’t stop smoking it but it’s so bad for them. When they’ve smoked too much, the prisoners call it ‘going over’. You have to call healthcare. There’s sick everywhere, and people become stuck doing repeat actions. I saw someone the other day trying to hang up the phone but the phone was just dangling below. “He wasn’t even conscious. People get carried back to their cell. It’s fucked up. I guess it’s just a cheap escape from prison.”

Rory Stewart has rightly linked the increase in violence and self-harm in prisons to the growing abundance of spice. He stated in February that he is “confident that we can do more to tackle the issue of drugs in our prisons”.

His methods? “We have invested heavily in technology and sniffer dogs to help improve detection. I am examining different models of body-scanner, increasing searching and fixing the prison windows, which are clearly a key entry point for drugs that are being transported by drones.”

In Cat C prisons such as Kyle’s however, drones and bodily smuggling aren’t even necessary: “It’s crazy. In a large amount of the areas the prisoners are in there’s only one fence, so anything that gets chucked over will land right in the prison.”

While Kyle says the vast majority of contraband is literally thrown in this way, there have been cases of corrupt staff: “There was one guy that turned out to have been bringing drugs in and smoking crack with prisoners. Apart from that I’m sure people bring in phones and tobacco all the time.

“There are so many drugs, phones, and contraband in the prison that it’s almost futile sometimes… someone will do a search and be like ‘we got a phone!’ and it’s like ‘great, but how many more are there’, you know? It’s not solved anything at all…”

Mobiles are important contraband for several reasons. Without them, prisoners in Kyle’s prison have to queue at a shared phone in the wing, for which they have a pin account that gives them access to a limited set of approved contacts: “You can’t just pick up the phone and dial any number, because obviously loads of them have restraining orders”.

Mobiles, then, give people the comfort of Skyping their relatives every night in their cell if they so wish, for example. It also gives prisoners unrestricted research capabilities: when a new guy enters the prison, others will have already Googled what he was convicted of, even where he’s from, and where his family live.

There are also official restrictions on how much money prisoners can spend per week. So to pay for drugs without a mobile, prisoners have to call one of their approved contacts and ask them to transfer money on their behalf from another account to whoever they’re paying. With a mobile, this clearly becomes easier. In prisons where drones are used in the way that Stewart mentioned, they’re controlled via a mobile app.

The result is that “in Cat C you spend all your time fucked up. If you play your cards right, you could be a raging heroin addict and people might not even notice because there are so many worse off people literally walking around the landings like zombies. That’s what spice is like. People smoke in their cells, and staff numbers don’t allow us to go around opening the doors of cell after cell looking in. You can just smell it all the time, just smoke.”

Spice can trigger a kind of acute psychosis nicknamed ‘spiceophrenia’ due to its similarities to schizophrenia symptoms. “I’ve seen people so mentally ill you can hardly comprehend what they’re thinking. Personality disorders are a big thing.” It can also trigger violent episodes.

All of this is accentuated by the prison environment: “I can’t think of a more paranoid place in existence than prison. Once I was on the landing and asked ‘Did one of you just say my name?’ and they were like ‘Oh look, it’s starting to happen to you as well’…Paranoia is huge there.”

There is an increasing awareness of the scale of mental health issues among offenders. The Criminal Justice Alliance estimates that 21,000 people suffering from mental illness are imprisoned; a quarter of the current prison population, while there are only 3600 beds reserved for patients with mental-health issues.

Kyle says that the mental health professionals in his prison are “overworked”, elaborating: “Certain prisoners use their time too much, and there are so many prisoners with mental health issues that are just ignored because they don’t speak up about it. There are certainly prisoners that should be in a psychiatric hospital, but are just left.”

Lots of these prisoners are on Imprisonment for Public Protection, or ‘IPP’ sentences. These were introduced by the Blair government to effectively give offenders extra prison time despite their crimes not warranting life sentences.

It gives them an indefinite sentence until they demonstrate improvement by meeting various conditions, conditions that are very hard for spice-users to meet.

“There are so many examples just in my prison alone where guys have been in there for maybe eight to ten years over tariff with no real hope of getting out. After that long in jail, you really can’t progress.”

Recent recruitment drives to compensate the coalition cuts have meant that staff are inexperienced, many having worked in the service for less than a year.

“You realise that everyone’s just winging it. There’s so little communication, not just between officers and the managers but between us and other departments. If a prisoner flips out in healthcare for instance, they’ll deal with it in a way where they just shut them out, often without meds. We end up having to escort them back to resolve it.

“Meds get stopped all the time. I’m always hearing ‘My meds have stopped and I need them to concentrate!’ Some do sell their meds, but obviously the point of putting someone on a methadone script is to eventually get them off methadone. Someone had their ADHD meds stopped the other day and that caused a scene.”

With nearly four thousand cases of self-harm in prison per month, an urgent review of policies is needed. Kyle tells me that fresh razors are given out regularly to offenders.

This even included an individual who regularly self-harms “with long hair and a big scruffy beard, who clearly doesn’t shave. He regularly said his goal is to die in prison by cutting himself. We had no reason to think he’s going to do anything but slice his skin with those razors.” But when officers tried refraining from giving him a razor, “he got angry, shouted at us, walked away, and ten minutes later he comes down gushing blood. He’d cut up because of it and blamed us.”

Kyle explains that some prisoners also use self-harm as a form of protest. “A really common thing is something like a gift will be sent in for the prisoner, and that has to go through our reception, because a lot of the time there’ll be contraband in the parcel. That takes time, arguably too much time. The prisoners want their stuff and feel like they’re being ignored. They’ll say ‘well I’m going to cut up then’ and slice themselves good and proper. Nine times out of ten, later that day they’ll have their Xbox or whatever because someone will process it due to that.

“I heard about a riot in one prison that happened because the prison service ran out of fans to give prisoners for their cells. As soon as they began to riot they had Argos vans pulling up with hundreds of fans. Bad behaviour gets good results in prison. Cutting yourself absolutely does get you what you want.”

Even before they get to prison, offenders are disproportionately likely to suffer from mental health issues or drug abuse. For these people, Kyle says “I can’t think of a worse place for them than prison. It’s easier to get drugs in prison than it is on the street, and the prison environment is in no way helpful to mental illness.

“I’m thinking of one prisoner on my wing who’s a prolific self-harmer. His face is mutilated, his body all scarred up. He just cuts and cuts and cuts. He’s IPP, over tariff. But if you go on his case notes you can see that when he came in he was a fresh faced, young, good-looking chap. You can click back over the years and see the demise of a man in his mugshots, because they get out of date every year or so. I think the only reason he hasn’t killed himself is that he’s got family on the out that he cares about enough to stay alive, but certainly his life is prison. His sentence has completely defiled him.”

A parliamentary justice committee has been investigating the prison crisis. Its Conservative chairman, Bob Neill, said earlier this year that “We really need to have a serious conversation about what we use prison for. Society has to think about that. “How much of our prisons now are just warehousing for people with mental health and other issues?” More needs fixing than broken windows. It is time to think about serious, systematic prison reform: a non-partisan issue, and one that urgently needs addressing.

Some names in this article have been changed.

If you have been affected by the issues raised in this article, please contact the Samaritans on 01865 722122

Copestake hat trick ensures victory for the Blues

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Copestake hat trick ensures victory for the Blues

A slow build-up meant that the start of this week’s match against Cardiff Met was a cagey affair, with both teams sitting deep, determined to give nothing away. The Blues managed to open the scoring through Dave Clarke, who took advantage of a rebound off Cardiff’s keeper and duly converted home.

Despite the goal unsettling Cardiff Met for a while, they soon bounced back with one of their own, a well taken deflection from a short corner, clearly a much practiced set-piece routine taken straight from the training ground that proved clinically effective, sending the Blues into the half-time break with a level score line.

The second half saw both teams come out playing much more aggressive and entertaining hockey, opening up the game and allowing more chances. Oxford took full advantage of this new style of play, piling the pressure onto Cardiff Met. The pressure soon paid off with a high-quality finish from Blues captain Alex Copestake who showed his flair with a one touch lob straight over the keeper’s head, putting the Blues 2-1 up in scintillating fashion.

The Blues now put their stamp on the game, not content with sitting back and defending their one goal lead, they played a high press, asking some serious questions of the Cardiff side. The tactic was rewarded when Sam Greenbank stole possession before unselfishly offloading the ball to Copestake who again showed his eye for goal with a clever finish on the reverse.

With the Blues now sitting comfortably at 3-1 up, concentration levels started to drop, and in the highest BUCS division, teams get punished for this. Cardiff Met handed out the punishment in the form of two counter-attacking goals, the speed of which caught Oxford on the back foot as their defence struggled to react.

After Cardiff’s spate of attacking play the Blues were looking like coming away with a single point from a match they had largely dominated. Enter stage Alex Copestake, who once again led by example, scoring Oxford’s fourth and claiming a hat-trick for himself.

A tense finish to the game saw the Blues continue to fend off efforts from Cardiff, with big saves from the keeper and Will Thompson embodying the spirit of the squad with his excellent running down of short corners.

After these uncertain stages of play, Oxford managed to close the game out well, keeping possession and showing some real professionalism to stop any potential danger from Cardiff Met, securing victory with a 4-3 result which puts them in second place ahead of their top-of-the-table clash with Exeter on Wednesday.

Captain and hat-trick hero Alex Copestake told Cherwell: “It was a good team performance, we showed a lot of character to get the win after Cardiff had come back from 3-1 down.

“On a personal level it’s always nice to score, but the main thing is that we’re connecting well as a forward unit and looking very dangerous when we break quickly.

“It bodes well for our next BUCS game at Iffley on Wednesday, where we have the chance to go top of the table if we beat Exeter.”

Bringing Doctor Who out of the past

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Bringing Doctor Who out of the past

Regeneration, one of Doctor Who’s most iconic plot ideas, bakes the theme of rebirth in the show’s very DNA, yet it is important to remember that when the show first started back in 1963, this was far from the case.

Just as rebirth – relaunching – is engrained in the show’s 55 year history, so is the challenge that faces each new lead-writer when their time comes to tell the audience what Doctor Who should mean to them.

The difficulty that faced writers in convincing viewers of Patrick Troughton’s second Doctor undoubtedly faced Chibnall in the case of Whittaker’s thirteenth. Although one episode may not have convinced me, I am certainly intrigued, and more importantly excited.

Whilst many aspects of the episode felt distinctly new (at least in the show’s modern history), from the grungier, blue-lit aesthetic to the inclusion of up to four companions, there was much that honored the show’s history. Composer Segun Akinola’s reworking of Ron Grainer’s iconic theme music is a gorgeously deferential new composition. Indeed, his score proved much more evocative of the classic series – with its soundscape of discordant bells and whooshing wind – than Murray Gold’s more bombastic scores ever did.

The episode’s ending, which left our four heroes stranded in deepest space after a botched teleport job, was also wholly reminiscent of the cliffhangers of classic ‘Who’.

It came off as a neat tribute to Tom Baker’s early seasons, where each story would link up with the next through a cliff-hanger. These cliff-hangers usually left our heroes displaced to a new location, and drew on the tradition of the ending of 1963’s first ever episode, ‘An Unearthly Child’.

But tradition aside, the episode had to stand out as an entertaining piece of television in its own right, regardless of the show’s history and the loyalty of its fans.

It ultimately achieved this, even if the true direction of the series seems as-yet obscure. There’s room to explore each of our companions and their worlds further, but we still know little about them.

Ryan (Tosin Cole) proved the most compelling, perhaps because Chibnall gave him the most time to shine; his vlog acted as the structural focal point of the episode, itself a clever play on the expectations of the audience. Grace (Sharon D. Clarke) died early in the episode, but I imagine we will be feeling the repercussions of that particular incident as the series develops over the nine episodes still to come. Yaz (Mandip Gill) was likeable enough, even if the subtler nuances of her character remain to be seen, whilst Bradley Walsh’s Graham provided some well-placed comic relief without risking undermining the tone of the episode as a whole.

Jodie Whittaker’s performance was faultless. She was loveable, funny without being too silly or unbelievable, convincing when it came to the more moralizing lines, and ultimately
engaging in a way that Peter Capaldi’s Doctor struggled to achieve until a good few episodes into his tenure.

Her performance served as the moral and emotional anchor to the episode, fusing together its differing parts into a compelling and cohesive whole. Whittaker so completely filled the shoes of her predecessors that seeing her as the Doctor was unquestionable.

As far as the story is concerned, the data-gathering monster was a nice nod to contemporary anxieties, whilst the tooth-faced antagonist of the piece looked more as if he’d stepped of the set of a Hollywood film than the BBC’s studios in Cardiff…

On the whole, however, the episode was surely a success.

It wasn’t a masterpiece, and not nearly as exciting as Steven Moffatt and Matt Smith’s debut of 2010, ‘The Eleventh Hour’. But it did what it needed to do: portrayed a convincing
and exciting new universe for our new Doctor to inhabit (and made charity shopping for clothes just that little bit more epic too).

Atop a crane over darkest Sheffield, Whittaker’s Doctor describes regeneration as follows: ‘There’s this moment when you’re sure you’re about to die, and then you’re born.’

In the same way. the show has been re-born, reinvigorated before our very eyes.

It’s an exciting time, especially after a period of somewhat sporadic quality and hiatus that marred the latter part of Moffatt’s tenure. Here’s hoping it’ll be a good one.

Interview: OUDS President Francesca Amewudah-Rivers

Cesca Echlin
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Interview: OUDS President Francesca Amewudah-Rivers

It’s 9am on a rather uninspiring, grey Tuesday morning in 0th week. But, as we begin the shoot in St John’s garden, our photographer, Laura, exclaims of our model in her hot orange metallic puffer jacket: “Wow, that’s amazing. As soon as you stepped into the shot the brightness rocketed.”

That’s how best to describe meeting Francesca Amewudah-Rivers for the first time. Her reputation certainly precedes her – as President of OUDS and director of the extremely successful all-BAME production of Medea at the Keble O’Reilly in Trinity, I expected to be intimidated at our first meeting. But Fran (as she is commonly known) has a way of making you feel really comfortable. Whilst she is clearly a talented person, she speaks about the issues we discuss with sensitivity, humility and real compassion.

Firstly, Fran explains how she became OUDS President. As she became more and more involved in the Oxford drama scene in her first and second year, friends began suggesting to her that she apply for the position. Initially, she was wary of the idea, but, reflecting on the problems within Oxford drama, she quickly began to realize how much she wanted to transform things. I am struck by how organic Fran’s path to leadership feels – it was without exaggerated presumption or ambition, but an intense desire to make the change she wanted to see.

An emphasis on access, diversity and representation feels central to Fran’s presidency, and this is a topic she speaks about with passion. Foundations for this kind of change were originally laid when Fran set up Oxford’s BAME Drama Society at the start of her second year with fellow students Riya Rana and Taiwo Oyebola, providing a space for people of colour to develop, explore and encourage dramatic ideas and impulses. From this society came the idea for the all-BAME production of Medea at the O’Reilly, which was met with critical acclaim.

This sensational production coincided with the publication of Oxford’s access statistics. These figures were disappointing to say the least – a shocking fact is that, in 2017, Oxford admitted more students from Westminster School than black students. As such, the representation of BAME people in Medea proved particularly poignant. Fran remembers seeing the effects of Medea, and insists that “the most rewarding thing” about the performances was “seeing diversity in the audience.” She recalls seeing people of colour, utterly enthusiastic, because normally “they’re not seeing their stories on stage.” Medea, with it’s all-BAME cast, references to the Windrush Scandal, and the consistent depiction of its protagonist as the “outsider”, brought into focus narratives that are too often pushed to the wayside when it comes to theatre.

Fran recalls the experience of putting on Medea joyfully, but also describes the feeling of immense pressure in the weeks before the performance. “It was terrifying…. It was literally like the inside of my head being put on stage for everyone to see.” But, the play, she says, took on a life of it’s own: “what was in my head”, she says, “wasn’t what it became. You can only imagine something to a certain extent in your head. That’s what’s so great about theatre.”

I find myself curious to ask her more about herself, and what she plans to do after university. She insists that, after university, she needs “to do what makes (her) happy” and that will not involve a “nine-to-five desk job.” Fran tells me that music is a central passion of hers – it is what she studies at St John’s College, and she used these skills to compose the beautiful music for Medea. Getting into the creative industry is inevitably difficult, and Fran explains the additional barriers for people of colour because, so often, “their parents have not had theatre empires” or perhaps because “most immigrant families don’t have the money to take their family to the theatre.” Thus, again we return to the problem of lack of diversity and representation both on the stage, and, crucially, in the audience.

So, as President, what does Fran want for the future of OUDS, and Oxford drama in general? First and foremost, she insists that “at the end of the day…it’s student theatre. It’s all about having fun… and taking risks.” She points out the potential for Oxford student drama to take itself too seriously, describing a “hierarchy” in the way venues are used. Students focus on a set path, starting with a BT (Burton-Taylor Studio) show and aiming eventually for a Playhouse show. Instead, Fran insists, we should do away with this, and think “what’s the best venue for this project?” Each project should be approached with as much respect and encouragement as the next. Crucially, Fran insists that Oxford drama should be an “inclusive” place, where we appreciate the “many blessings” we have. The drama community at our University should chiefly be “about supporting each other.”

“So what can we do to get more involved and push for change?” I ask her. For freshers, or those new to drama, – “If you want to act, audition for things, if you want to create anything, write. Create your own narratives and put yourself out there… If you really do care about something and want to see it happen, and if you fail or if it’s bad, you’ve learnt from it. You’ve not lost anything.” For those further down the line, and more established in the Oxford drama world, “really think about how you audition” and about making those who audition “feel comfortable.”

As our interview draws to a close, I feel a warm and all-encompassing feeling that can only be described as optimism. If this is the effect of this year’s OUDS President one-to-one, I can’t wait to see more of what she achieves with the full support of Oxford’s dramatic community behind her.

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