Friday, May 9, 2025
Blog Page 70

An ode to the spring onion

Jay Austin
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An ode to the spring onion

Content warning: discussion of eating disorders

I really do add spring onions to everything, you know. They go with my eggs, on my toast, in my tuna and on top of my bolognese. They’re the base of pretty much every pasta recipe I make and I’ve put them in more than a few soups. Every day, I move one step closer to mixing scallion juice into my brownies. After that, who knows. Sorbet, perhaps?

A spring onion slots beautifully into any recipe. It’s got the distinctiveness of chilli or ginger, but cooler and brighter – the perfect way to liven up a basic meal, or add another layer of complexity to something more flavourful. I always keep a bunch or two on hand; they’re practically a necessity for me.

Predictably, of course, I wasn’t always so liberal with my spring onion usage. Up until about five years ago, I’d barely heard of the things, let alone tasted them. For essentially all of my life, I’ve suffered from what people around me at the time called picky eating and now, with hindsight, can fairly confidently be identified as some sort of eating disorder. My preference for basic foods and my tendency to skip meals was only exacerbated by becoming responsible for cooking for myself. During the first COVID-19 lockdown, I essentially alternated between two meals – eggs on toast and tuna pasta. If I didn’t have the ingredients for either, I usually didn’t eat anything.

Things started to change when, standing smack dab in the middle of the Tesco Extra aisle, I had an epiphany: I missed eating vegetables. Alright, it probably wasn’t that dramatic. I don’t even remember why I chose spring onions specifically. But for whatever reason, I came home that day with a bunch of them in my bag. I chopped them up, sprinkled them over my eggs, and that’s when the love affair started. They crept into everything I cooked, meal by meal.

It didn’t end there. Eggs on toast (with spring onion) started to bore me, so I bought an avocado on a whim one day, and, who’d have guessed – it turned out I quite liked avocado. Plain noodles (with spring onion) weren’t cutting it any more, so in went chilli flakes and soy sauce and other basic ingredients I’d always been too scared to try. My spring onions were my safety net. I knew I liked them, and I knew the sharpness of them could sideline any flavours I ended up not liking. What I found, however, was that I did like all of these new ingredients. I enjoyed the taste of the avocado and the textural contrast it added, too. I struggled a little with the heat of the chilli at first but soon enough I was adding it to tomato soup, using its aftertaste to extend the flavour.

My new fervour for cooking only grew. Now that the floodgates had opened, I was looking for ways to make everything I ate more interesting. I learnt the five flavour types, and now I always keep lemon juice on hand for a splash of acid – honey, too, for a sweet undertone. Bored of tinned soup, I made my own;it really does taste so much better. Then, of course, I had to bake some bread to go with it. “You know what goes well with tomato soup? Cheese,” said everyone on the internet, and I’d never liked most cheeses, but I sucked it up, bought the mildest I could find, and sprinkled spring onion all over it. And I enjoyed it! I stopped skipping lunches, because I learnt to love making them. They were a part of my day I actually looked forward to. Finding new ways to combine flavour and texture is something I absolutely live for. Going out to eat has become a lot easier, too; I no longer end up holding back tears in a restaurant because there’s nothing on the menu I can bear the thought of.

I’m not going to call myself a ‘good cook’. My shopping basket gets a little more varied every week, but there’s still whole categories of ingredients I haven’t tried. There’s ingredients I’ll probably never be able to bring myself to try – blue cheese, for one (although I always said I couldn’t stand the idea of smoked salmon, and you’ll never guess what’s sitting in my fridge right now). I regularly burn toast and split sauces. But I still feel a little burst of pride whenever I remember my flatmate saying “oh, wow, you can actually cook!” when he saw me roasting a courgette, because the me five years ago would never have even thought of doing that, let alone adding paprika to the soup it went into.

The soup didn’t actually taste much like courgette, for the record. I put too much spring onion in, and it overwhelmed everything else. I’m not complaining, though – you can never have too much spring onion in your life.

St Antony’s College signs deal with top Chinese university

Cherwell News
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St Antony’s College signs deal with top Chinese university

St Antony’s College has recently signed a 5-year deal with Tsinghua University and received $130,000 to take on two fellows from the University per year. Tsinghua is the top university in China where most leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including the president Xi Jingping, studied – they have been nicknamed the “Tsinghua clique”.

Some of the $130,000 sum will be paid back to the fellows as a research allowance while the rest will go towards “a number of budget lines” including a management charge for administering the programme.

Tsinghua University does not pay the fellows directly but sends them the money through St Antony’s College. As a result, Tsinghua fellows will be paid by Oxford University and will be employees of St Antony’s College. 

Tim Niblock’s, emeritus professor at the University of Exeter, told The Times: “it makes quite a lot of difference in the Chinese system whether they are simply being paid by Tsinghua to do research abroad, or whether they have some kind of a recognised status as part of another organisation. In short, the latter gives them much more kudos than the former.”

St Antony’s, which is known for its international student body, told Cherwell that they have similar partnerships with other universities, some of which are funded by similar means.

Fellowships are either self-funded, funded by specific donations held as endowment funds, or as in this case funded by external institutions.

St Antony’s said the agreement’s benefit to the College is “largely academic. Our fellows and students, based at our various internationally-known area studies centres, have productive interaction with researchers from IIAS Tsinghua, who work on various parts of the Global South on topics of interest to our academic community.” 

Asked about criticism they might receive, St Antony’s told Cherwell there are “some [express] reservations… because of objections to Chinese human rights and political issues such as the mistreatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, the repression of political rights in Hong Kong, and threats against Taiwan, while others believe it is legitimate to engage with academics at leading universities as they are not involved in state policy-making on such issues.”

The announcement of the programme follows a MI5 warning to UK universities regarding national security risks associated with international partnerships. Specifically of concern is sensitive research leaking to competitors in countries like China.

The Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith said about the agreement: “This decision is astonishing… How can Oxford care so little about the freedoms of people?” 

Somerville College JCR passes motion calling for Vice-Chancellor’s resignation

Cherwell News
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Somerville College JCR passes motion calling for Vice-Chancellor’s resignation

Somerville College Junior Common Room (JCR) passed a motion on Sunday evening to release a statement, which included a demand for the resignation of Vice-Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey, over her response to recent pro-Palestine protests in Oxford.

The motion, which passed with 32 in favour and 5 against (numbers amended 21:00 27th May), was voted on during an emergency meeting which was initially proposed at 22:18 on Friday evening in an email to the JCR, suggesting a meeting time of Sunday 5pm. The date and time was not confirmed until the day of the meeting at 12:17. The full statement was sent out to the JCR at 13:18, after the wrong statement was attached to the initial email. The JCR was not scheduled to meet before next weekend. The turnout represented a small portion  of the JCR, whose membership is several hundred. 

The statement called for Tracey’s resignation for her “refusal to engage with [Oxford Action for Palestine]” and “her office’s decision to call the police on peaceful protesters” after protesters staged a sit-in at University offices on Thursday. The demand also called the University’s statement, issued after Thursday’s events, “woefully inadequate.”

The call for Tracey’s resignation was one of four demands on the University included in the statement. They also demanded the University immediately engage in negotiations with Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P); issue a formal apology for calling the police on students; and award “[a]mnesty for all peaceful protesters.”

Police arrived at the University Administration offices in Wellington Square on Thursday morning after protesters entered and occupied the building. 17 protesters were arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass and affray. One one of the 17 was also arrested on suspicion of common assault. All of the 17 protesters arrested Thursday were subsequently released on conditional bail.

The University’s statement, which was sent to all students on Thursday evening and signed by the Vice-Chancellor and other University staff, described the “direct action tactics” used by the protesters as “violent and criminal”. It further instructed: “this is not how to do it.”

The statement also called on Somerville College to condemn the University for calling the police on protesters, to demand the Vice-Chancellor’s resignation, and to support OA4P and “leverage their position” to pressure the University administration to comply with the group’s demands. 

Police entered Somerville College on Thursday afternoon to launch a drone from the premises, after requesting permission to enter the College as part of an effort to maintain the safety of individuals in the nearby protests. Somerville College told Cherwell that the police had “no business” being on College grounds and confirmed that they were subsequently asked to leave by College Principal Jan Royall, after the decision became more “widely-known.” 

The College said in a statement on Thursday: “We take this opportunity to reiterate that we support and respect the right of all our students to protest peacefully. We have extended an open invitation to our students to discuss this incident and the wider protests with us should they wish.”

Danae Ali (a second-year PPE student at Somerville), who proposed the motion, told Cherwell the University’s position regarding the protest “puts their students in danger” and said their conduct on Thursday “clearly evidences this.” 

When questioned about the low turnout, they said: “JCR open meetings generally have a low voter turnout” and noted that the turnout to today’s emergency session was “about the same” as for regular meetings. 

Earlier this month, Somerville JCR passed motions to publish statements in support of Palestine and OA4P’s “liberated zone”. Today’s motion follows several from Oxford college JCRs supporting the pro-Palestine encampment. 

The artist and the photographer: An analysis of Francis Goodman’s Film negatives

Taya Neilson
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The artist and the photographer: An analysis of Francis Goodman’s Film negatives

The walls of the National Portrait Gallery in London are dotted with an eclectic mix of paintings and photographs. There is no hierarchy based on which the art is displayed, but rather visitors are hit by a wave of portraits as soon as they enter a room in the gallery. The visitor is met by a room of unfamiliar faces and throughout their journey they become increasingly curious about the stories of the individuals who now adorn the gallery walls. One such individual is the artist Lucian Freud, whose rather unconventional charisma was captured by the photographer Francis Goodman in 1945.

Goodman was invited to take photographs at Freud’s flat, 2 Maresfield Gardens, following their initial, and rather spontaneous, interaction at the Coffee An’ in Soho, London. Freud, a young artist who had recently graduated from Goldsmiths’ College, likely perceived such an interaction with a professional photographer as a sign that his art career had just begun. Goodman’s photographs, after the Second World War, which featured regularly in the British magazine The Tatler And Bystander, focused on covering high society, lifestyle, and politics.[1] Yet, the portrait of Lucian Freud was not as organised or calculated: the photographs were taken outside during winter, where the reflection of the cold winter snow on young Freud’s complexion acted as a natural form of studio lighting.

An unusual dynamic is consequently captured between the photographer and artist in the photograph of Lucian Freud. Rather than Goodman directing the sitting, it appears that Freud cultivated his own image as an artist through the medium of Goodman’s photography. As such, rather than the final photograph reflecting primarily on Goodman’s perceptions and insights as a photographer, the hardship experienced by Freud as a Jewish artist in post-war London is revealed. This is especially depicted by the piercing, though distant, gaze of Freud and his folded arms, attempting to protect his body from the cold winter in London. Freud emigrated to England in the 1930s, aged ten, alongside his family to escape Nazism. Whilst Freud was granted British Citizenship, the photograph illustrates the realities of migration as Freud appears unsettled by the harsh conditions of the outside from which the photograph was taken. Nevertheless, whilst a sense of starkness and coldness is portrayed through the slightly blurred surrounding landscape, this is in contrast to the extremely clear and determined glare of Freud himself. The photograph, therefore, was important to Freud as a reminder of the origins of his life as an artist and his ability to navigate the alienating environment of urban London.

The photograph not only depicts Freud as an artist, but one of his own paintings is also visible  in the background. Goodman and Freud cleverly synthesise the mediums of paint and photography. The portrait depicts an old, slightly deformed man, who’s glance mirrors the direction of the artist himself. The man in the portrait and the artist are therefore connected, perhaps through similar shared experiences of isolation and hardship. Freud is sitting and his lower position on the ground means that the portrait is depicted above the artist. It is almost as if Freud was now directed by the art he created and the photograph reveals how interrelated his emotions or personality were to his artistic process.

Goodman’s other film negatives also reflect the unconventional beginnings of Freud as an artist. For example, one photograph depicts Freud with dishevelled hair placing the spout of a watering can into his ear. Again, he looks away from the camera and appears to be contemplating what he was discovering. Whether the watering can symbolises an old ear trumpet of the nineteenth century, or whether it was supposed to symbolise Freud as a plant being watered and nurtured, mirroring his growth as an artist, is unclear. Yet, what is apparent is that Freud was highly creative in his expressions as an artist, where he chose unconventional objects or settings to symbolise his rather unconventional journey as a painter.

Located on the second floor of the National Portrait Gallery, the photograph of Lucian Freud no longer depicts an unfamiliar face. The square film negatives considerably capture Freud’s life as an artist torn between an isolated past and his new outlooks for the future. The photographs, therefore, symbolise the beginnings of his careers, which was possible even if his experiences following the rise of Nazism and his migration to London were equally as difficult to interpret or comprehend than his interaction with a watering can. 

Vigil for former Oxford student ‘wrongfully held’ in Iran for more than two years

Euan Elliott
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Vigil for former Oxford student ‘wrongfully held’ in Iran for more than two years

A vigil will be held for Johan Floderus, a former Oxford student, who has been detained in Iran’s notorious Evin prison for over two years.

Floderus, a Swedish national, graduated from Harris Manchester College in 2014 with a philosophy, politics and economics degree, before working as a diplomat with the European Union’s External Action Service. 

In April 2022, the then 33-year-old was arrested at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. His arrest was made public more than a year later. Last December, Floderus appeared in an Iranian court, accused of “spreading corruption on earth” – prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. 

The vigil, aimed at “raising awareness of Johan’s plight”, will be held on Saturday 1st June. A silent march is to be held through central Oxford, concluding with a reception at Harris Manchester College. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained by the Iranian government for six years, will speak, along with friends and family of Floderus.

Conditions in Evin prison, where Floderus is currently held, are notoriously poor. Human rights groups accuse prison guards of arbitrary beatings, humiliating detainees and failing to give injured prisoners access to medical care. Floderus is allowed one short conversation a month with his family. Cell lights are kept on 24 hours a day, and according to his family, Floderus is given neither sufficient food rations nor medical attention.

Floderus’ detainment is seen as part of Iran’s strategy of hostage diplomacy, whereby Western citizens are arbitrarily detained so that their freedom may be leveraged by Tehran for financial or political gain. The European Union has stated that there are “absolutely no grounds for keeping Johan Floderus in detention.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was allowed to leave the country in March 2022, the day after the British government settled an outstanding debt of £393.8 million, linked to the pre-revolutionary government’s order of thousands of British tanks which never arrived. In September 2022, the US unfroze £4.8 billion of sanctioned Iranian funds in return for the release of five American prisoners.In July 2022, Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian prison official, was sentenced to life in prison by a Swedish court for crimes against humanity following his involvement in the 1988 mass executions of Iranian prisoners. Nassim Papayaianni, of Amnesty International, has stated that there are “very clear indications that the authorities are holding Floderus hostage to compel the Swedish authorities to swap him for the former Iranian official, Hamid Nouri.”

We Walk Along

Josephine Thornton
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We Walk Along

We walk along by the river, my hand in his, our arms of different lengths and his palms much bigger than mine. The sun is hot but not too hot; we feel its glow on our shoulders as we walk towards the bridge. Along the bank there are poppies, hundreds of them, interspersed between the long grass. Their tissue paper petals are translucent in the sun. We walk and say very little, but sometimes his fingers gently brush against the back of my hand.

The path winds upwards and opens onto a bridge, a great metal monstrosity that hangs above the wide stretch of dancing waters below, but from up here there is little sense of that. You stand by the railings and look down at the glittering blue, the sun rippling in a blinding continual flutter, and you close your eyes and feel the breeze in your hair. You forget for a moment that your heart is heavy, and those words you have been trying not to say evaporate on your tongue.

We stand there for several minutes, passed by occasional cyclists in bright lycra and walkers, some in jeans and t-shirts that catch on the breeze, others dressed in tight leggings and wielding walking sticks. A few greet us, some smile in our direction. I imagine how we look from the outside, young and intertwined. The present does not capture what might be coming next, and so they keep walking or pedalling, these passers-by, and we become extras in their stories, frozen in our moment of bliss.

The sun is taken in by a cloud and it is a reminder that the afternoon will not last forever. I look up into his face – I am always looking up – and see into his familiar eyes. There has often been a melancholy tinge to that blue, and now that it is the end of May I finally understand why. Those eyes have known all along that they will watch as I walk away. He smiles, the sweetness of his face clarified by his sorrow.

I trace his chin with my finger. Without the need for any words, in the language that will always unite those of a similar soul, I tell him that I would not change a single one of these perfect moments that have led us towards our imperfect end.

The Orwell Tour review: ‘A unique and first-rate travelogue’

Hassan Akram
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The Orwell Tour review: ‘A unique and first-rate travelogue’

Within the last year there have been countless new books on George Orwell, but Oliver Lewis’s The Orwell Tour, just released in paperback, is the most accessible and enjoyable of them all. Lewis writes in a crisp and evocative style (I can still see in my mind’s eye the Martian dust of Marrakech and the architecture and landscape of Huesca); and he has Orwell’s own gift for fresh similes (on a bus “it was as if the passengers were coins in a tin can being rattled”; in Burma he finds “a crumbling church tower, as if copied and pasted from Surrey”). The result is a book which, even without the Orwell element, would remain a first-rate piece of travel writing.

Orwell had an extremely productive life in which, aside from writing enough novels and essays and letters to fill twenty thick volumes, he travelled very widely. He was born in India, educated at Eton, lived among miners in Wigan and beggars in London and Paris, served as a policeman in Burma and a soldier in Spain. Lewis handles every location with expertise. He is not just a travel writer, but a novelist, a humourist, and a historian.

Like Evelyn Waugh, a contemporary of Orwell’s and a former contributor to Cherwell who wrote a number of amusing travelogues, Lewis makes his travels more fun to read about by recording a number of humorous interactions with locals. There is an incident that stands out involving an octogenarian monk in Burma. Lewis approaches him and asks for a photograph. “He replied: ‘Mannay?’ I answered that I had paid my entrance fee, but he snapped back: ‘No mannay? Get out!’” At another point Lewis meets a woman who complains to him that, on ships, dogs are always taken down first: “They’re treating them like animals. It’s disgusting.”

Lewis manages seamlessly to blend anecdotes and local colour with history and biography. In the chapter on Burma, he gives an overview of the country’s history since Orwell’s days, and this historical coverage flows perfectly with all else around it, where in less competent hands it would have come through as a tacked-on digression. Some of the accounts of local folklore are also very good, e.g. the legend of Jack of Southwold.

There is some literary criticism here, too, but it never overbears and is always interesting. Lewis belongs to that school of Orwell scholars which seeks to rescue his dullest novel, A Clergyman’s Daughter, from what E.P. Thompson called the condescension of posterity; an intriguing parallel is drawn between that novel and The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (yet another Cherwell alumnus – we’re on a roll this week). If anything, these snippets of literary criticism are too brief, although those who want more such can always console themselves with a copy of Orwell: The New Life or the latest issue of George Orwell Studies.

Lewis does his best with the less interesting sites of Orwell’s life, and the quality of writing and research never falters. Orwell had lived for some time in some quite full places, like Hayes, of which he gave a laser-accurate description as “one of the most godforsaken places I have ever struck”. Henley-upon-Thames, the town of his childhood, is green and pleasant, though it is more worth reading about for the charm of the Edwardian setting than the charm of the place itself.

The book also benefits from small details of niche interest. Lewis, like Orwell, is something of a bibliophile, and he has an extraordinary eye for bookshops in all the places he has visited. “It is hard to resist visiting any bookshop in the vicinity of somewhere with Orwellian credentials.” It is interesting to read a description of a tucked-away library in India where books in English have gone utterly unborrowed since the 1950s, remaining as a sort of shelved tomb for the British Raj. Some of Lewis’s observations defy categorisation but remain amusing and thought-provoking: in Marrakech he reflects that former French colonies have better hotel breakfasts than former British ones.

If at times Lewis tries too hard to be accessible (i.e. explaining about how public schools are not really public), that is compensated for by the fact that everyone can read this book. Lewis succeeds admirably in everything that he aims to do, and his infectious enthusiasm for his subject shines through in every line. Whether you are interested in travel or literature or history or biography, this is definitely a book to read – as, I am sure, will be his upcoming book on travels through the life and work of John Steinbeck.

Oliver Lewis’s book The Orwell Tour is now available in paperback from Blackwell’s, Waterstones, and Gulp Fiction. You can find my interview with Oliver Lewis here: [weblink/page number]

The Drake and Kendrick Lamar saga

Nina Naidu
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The Drake and Kendrick Lamar saga

Since the rise of hip-hop in the 1990s, diss tracks (short for disrespect or disparage) have been a staple of the genre. These tracks aim to tarnish a person’s reputation through the art of “spitting bars”, escalating conflict between individuals. It’s often a game of verbal ping pong, where releasing one diss track prompts a response which in turn prompts another response, intensifying the rivalry. I’ve even witnessed amateur rap battles on primary school playgrounds with kids hurling insults about each other’s mums. While somewhat entertaining (especially when both parties commit to the diss), the stakes are never as high as in the most infamous track feud: Drake versus Kendrick Lamar.  

Many are surprised to know that the Kendrick-Drake feud actually dates back to the early 2010s, despite its recent resurgence. Initially, the two artists began on favourable terms with their first collaboration in 2011 on Drake’s album Take Care. They continued to collaborate together over the next few years. However, in 2013, Lamar stirred the pot by claiming that he would “murder” Drake amongst other rappers in Big Sean’s song ‘Control’. This led to a response from Drake in the album Nothing Was The Same, referencing Lamar’s ‘Control’ verse. Drake, however, denied dissing Lamar, claiming that he wasn’t at all threatened by Lamar’s verse. 

Between 2015 and 2022, their disses evolved into ‘sneak disses’: subtle jabs without directly mentioning names. This feud reached a peak in a famous 2016 interview with Barack Obama, who, when asked whether Lamar or Drake would win in a rap battle, appraised Lamar’s album To Pimp A Butterfly as the best album of 2015. Drake responded unfavourably to Obama’s endorsement of Lamar, taking a shot at the former president with the line “tell Obama that my verses are just like the whips that he in / they bulletproof” in his song ‘Summer Sixteen’. 

Fast forward to 2023, when fellow rapper J. Cole suggested that he, Lamar, and Drake formed the ‘Big Three’ greatest rappers of modern hip-hop on Drake’s song ‘First Person Shooter’. Lamar, rejecting this idea, responded with a diss track asserting that he was only “big me” rather than part of the aforementioned trio…

In March 2024, Lamar released ‘Like That’, stirring controversy with disses aimed both at J. Cole and Drake. Referencing many of Drake’s previous albums and songs (“fuck sneak dissin’, first-person shooter” and “certified paedophiles”, for example), this marked a departure from years of subliminal disses. Accusing Drake of issues with alcoholism, gambling, inappropriate behaviour with minors, and being a neglectful father, Lamar made it undeniably clear that their beef was far from over, and he was determined to win. As of May 2024, 17 total diss tracks have been involved in their feud. 

While diss tracks have always fuelled drama in the hip-hop scene, their reputation has been somewhat diluted by the sheer volume produced by YouTubers and social media influencers. A notable example is the feud between Jake Paul and RiceGum, two YouTubers popular in the mid-2010s. When Jake Paul released his infamous song ‘It’s Everyday Bro’ in 2017, it was widely mocked for its poor quality. The song dissed Paul’s ex-girlfriend, Alissa Violet, prompting her to release a response track, ‘It’s Every Night Sis’ with RiceGum. Their feud, which also involved Paul’s brother Logan, caused quite a stir on YouTube, with many criticising their bars as inauthentic and ghostwritten. Today, when people mention “diss track”, it’s difficult not to think of these two influencers trading juvenile insults.

Despite this, the enduring feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar remains both entertaining and impressive. While the content of their diss tracks may be contentious, the prolific output of music is a testament to their dedication and talent and casual listeners and fans alike remain eager to hear the next revealing instalment.

World Cocktail Day at the Ashmolean Museum

Cherwell News and Investigations Section Editors
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World Cocktail Day at the Ashmolean Museum

As News editors, when we received an invite to the Ashmolean Museum’s celebration of World Cocktail Day – 13 May, for those who didn’t celebrate – we jumped at the opportunity to take a break from running between protests and sending off comment requests. Instead of attending our usual 4 pm tutorials, we found ourselves at the Ashmolean’s rooftop bar, where we were served a range of Ashmolean-inspired cocktails. 

We arrived at the event and were greeted by a table decorated with flowers and charcuterie boards. Other members of the press, Ashmolean staff, and representatives of Gibson’s Organic Liqueurs and Oxford Artisan Distillery joined us as we discovered new cocktail recipes and learnt more about the Ashmolean Museum. 

We spoke with a member of the Ashmolean’s brand licensing team, whose workdays are dedicated to ensuring that the museum’s ‘brand identity’ is aligned with their wider narrative. Her creative domain includes art print tees developed with Topman, but extends to creative details with an ecopaint brand developing paint colours inspired by the Ashmolean’s collections. The newly painted rooftop restaurant features ‘Enamel Blue’, for example, lifted from accents on delicate pins and brooches in the enamel jewellery collection, and ‘Breaking Wave’, a colour from the details of waves depicted in their Japanese woodblock prints. 

As part of these efforts, the museum recently launched a partnership collaboration with Gibson’s Organic Liqueurs, whose owner, Miles Gibson, attended this event. Gibson’s farm, based outside Burford in Oxfordshire, grows all of the fruit and flowers used in Gibson liqueurs – a feature of the company that is, according to Gibson, “unlike almost every other liqueur producer in the country.” 

We tried the Ashmolean Crab Apple Organic Liqueur, developed by Gibson, first straight-up and then in a crab apple martini. The liqueur is composed almost entirely of crab apples and sugar. The alcoholic base, a gluten-free organic grain spirit, was hardly detectable and allowed the pure bitter apple flavour to dominate the drink. Star anise – subtly sweet and tinged with licorice – added an needed edge. The liqueur bottle is enamelled with Still Life of Apple Blossom, a relic from the Dutch Golden Age, painted in the 1680s by John Verelst. The painting, we are told, was Verelst’s only one not to include a vase – a nod to the organic wildness of the crab apple used in Gibson’s liqueur. 

We also tasted the Oxford Artisan Distillery’s Ashmolean Dry Gin, the bottle of which featured ‘Spray of Morning Glory’, by Takeuchi Seiho, part of the museum’s Eastern Art collection. The blue and green flowers depicted in the print are a nod to the orris and exotic kaffir lime leaves, two of 17 botanicals that together created the final full, juniper-led taste. It was a flavourful base for a summery G&T, which we received garnished with a slice of jara lemon and a sprig of lavender. 

If the Monday afternoon invite-only rooftop gin tasting didn’t quite align with the museum’s stated goal of making their collections “more accessible… and relevant to people’s lives”, then at least the event was such a delight that no one attending seemed to mind. The atmosphere was light, the drinks were both tasty and brand-aligned, and, as the organisers reminded us, it’s royalty income generated from products like cocktails that allows the Ashmolean to keep entry to its world-class galleries free. 

In addition to free entry for all, the Ashmolean provides Oxford students and alumni with free entry to paid exhibitions and a 10% discount on all museum merchandise. 

Cherwell Introduces: Tongue

Joseph Lomax
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Cherwell Introduces: Tongue

Joining me this week are the up-and-coming Oxford rock band, Tongue. After a gorgeously hot and sunny day, I had the pleasure of watching their electric set on my home turf, the Christ Church bar.

Consisting of front-man James (2nd Year Mathematician at Worcester), bass player Tilly (2nd Year English and French student at Pembroke), guitarist Doudou (2nd Year Mathematics at Christ Church), and drummer Jack (2nd Year English at Wadham), the band met me after their set to discuss who and what Tongue are, their favourite memories as a band, and their love for the humble Dyson Airblade…

So how did you guys meet and form a band?

James: I was on a total crusade during freshers’ week of 1st year, after introducing myself I would tack on ‘do you play guitar’ or ‘do you play drums’, and Doudou plays guitar. We met at this introductory maths lecture. And I met James because he’s part of a different band…look at his t-shirt!

Jack:  I’m in Blue Bayou, and we both played at Wadstock, and James found us and liked us!

James: We came across Tilly, because I know Alec, and he knows Tilly, and she plays bass, and plays well!

Jack: Very well.

James: Everyone I know who plays an instrument has played in Tongue at some point. Basically 10 people? Actually, 11. AND a chairman, Jacob. He may or may not be here tonight.

Taking a brief break halfway into their set, James was keen to help me continue my journalistic endeavours – so I asked, accompanied by a lovely drumroll from Jack: Who is your biggest musical inspiration?  

James: It’s Pavement. Yeah. Official answer is Pavement. Anyone else got any suggestions?…no? Yeah, Pavement!

What is your favourite song to perform as a band?

Doudou: Say it on three?

James: Yep, ok let’s do it on three….

Tilly: No wait, I’m between two and I wanna say the same as you guys…. ok ready.

All together: One, two, three… Dyson Airblade.

I had to ask: What was it about this hand-dryer that was so special for the band?

James: It’s just the best type of dryer. You know you’re going to have dry hands, the physical intensity of it is just incomparable.  I have a belief about hand dryers, you’ve got to put one hand on top of the other slide them in and out alternately, it should be systematic! And that’s what a Dyson Airblade is…systematic!  What on earth is better than an instructional hand dryer? You’ve got clear communication.

Tilly: I like the Dyson V version; you know the ones with the handles that jut out (like the ones at Society café? I ask) I don’t know about the society café toilet, but all I can say is there’s something very powerful about the stance of that Dyson.

What exactly did you mean when you said that you embody: ‘The typical machismo of post-funk jazz fusion?’ – I could sense the irony but thought I’d get some clarification.

James: Just a little joke about jazz-fusion – not to get sincere, but local music is an old-boys club. Our Spotify is 59% male listeners, an all-time low for us. It’s a joke about how machismo the industry is.

What is your creative process like? Do you write all together, or do you bring ideas to one another. Tell me how it gets thrashed out.

James: I’ll come in with a skeleton, and everyone else will put the meat on. I encourage them to put their own special meat onto the bones. To me whoever is playing IS Tongue, and I am always saying I want you to make this your own.

What is your favourite memory together as a band?

James: Mine is when we first rehearsed. Doudou was late as shit, and me, Fin, and Mathias played Dress Like Shit, and it was…fine. But Doudou arrived and we ran it again and it sounded beefy, and fun, and just so much better.

Tilly: I really like when we ran onto the train at the last minute, and we all went to Didcot together. We were just ambling without a care in the world and then all had to frantically pile onto the train.

Any special business in Didcot?

James: I live there, and I have a shitty little studio in my garage called the box where we rehearse.

What’s the story behind the name?

James: Deep down I wanted the name to be Feral Beast Club – Doudou and Mathias, everytime I suggested it, were like yeah, ok, that’s an option….

Doudou: someone just said Tongue one day, right?

James: Yeah, someone who isn’t in the band anymore suggested we call it Tongue. As an 18-year-old getting a text from a 23-year-old saying ‘I like Tongue’ was something I’d never experienced before…

And finally, please tell people why they should buy your album!

James: They should buy the album because Jack couldn’t buy his cigs from the Tesco opposite Christ Church.

Jack: Because there’s music on it!

James: Because Mathias Franz plays drums on it and he’s a god incarnate.

Tongue’s debut album, Tongue! is out now. 

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