Tuesday 22nd July 2025
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Strikes to continue after academics reject new pension deal

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The Oxford branch of the Universities and College Union (UCU) has said “we are not going anywhere until our contracts are honoured”, as academics around the country rally against a deal struck by Union leaders.

A provisional agreement was made yesterday between the head negotiators of UCU and UUK (Universities UK), which, if ratified by UCU branch officials today, would have meant the strikes were suspended from tomorrow.

However, this has now been rejected by UCU, with the union calling for “urgent talks with the universities’ representatives to try and find a way to get this dispute resolved”.

It follows widespread backlash against the provisional agreement, with protests occurring outside the UCU headquarters in north London, where senior members were due to discuss the deal early this morning.

Many more striking staff as well as UCU branches expressed their discontent on social media, urging for the deal to be rejected with the hashtag #NoCapitulation.

Over 8000 people have now signed an open letter rejecting the proposed deal, including over 150 Oxford staff members and students.

The Oxford UCU branch has also added its voice to the revolt, describing the agreement as a “pathetic offer”, before urging negotiators to go “back to the table”.

Many Oxford students were vocal in their solidarity with staff’s rejection of the deal, and the potential for the strike to continue indefinitely.

A third year history and economics student at Wadham, Lucas Bertholdi-Saad, told Cherwell: “My dad’s a lecturer, and a lot of my friends are postgrads. This deal isn’t what they’ve been striking for, and until we get there we should support them every step of the way. We’ve got to stay standing in solidarity.”

Labour City Councillor and academic staff member, Dan Iley-Williamson, told Cherwell: “I fully support the decision of rank-and-file UCU members to reject the proposals put to them.

“It was a derisory offer – capitulating on central demands of the workers.

“Moving forward, we need to continue the incredible staff-student solidarity we have seen in recent weeks, to show UUK that there’s a united demand for fair pensions for university staff.”

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: “Branches made it clear today that they wanted to reject the proposal. UCU’s greatest strength is that we are run by and for our members and it is right that members always have the final say.

“The strike action for this week remains on and we will now make detailed preparations for strikes over the assessment and exam period. We want urgent talks with the universities’ representatives to try and find a way to get this dispute resolved.”

President of the Oxford UCU branch, Garrick Taylor, told Cherwell: “The overwhelming feedback from members (over 250 emails) was that we should reject the deal.

“This was fed into a national meeting of branch officers, and UCU’s Higher Education committee have now voted to withdraw from the ‘agreement’. The strike remains on.”

Last week, the union said that universities would be hit with a second wave of 14 strike days targeted at exams and assessment if the dispute was not resolved.

Oxford SU have been contacted for comment.

This article was updated at 0145, to include Cllr Dan Iley-Williamson’s comment.

Gyaldem Sugar Review – ‘the night shined but failed to sparkle’

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Last Tuesday, the occasion that all Oxford hip-hop and R&B fans had been anticipating, finally arrived. It was the night of the Gyaldem Sugar event at Cellar, and the hype surrounding it had been understandably huge. R&B tends to spend most of the term lurking in the shadows, second to its more popular and funky 70s and 80s competitors. Hip-hop nights come few and far between.

The ACS night promised to be one of the standout nights of Hilary Term. My equally R&B-minded friend and I turned up to the steps of Cellar around quarter to midnight, the excitement and energy of the crowd fizzling through us, and the heavy bass rumbling impatiently along the walkway.

As a venue, Cellar is oft maligned for being too claustrophobic, but despite this being one of the club’s busiest nights, the floor didn’t feel suffocating or overly crowded, as other clubs can be at their flagship events. Its low ceilings and bricked walls create an urban, underground vibe. The ambience was good, the music was thumping, the signs were promising. We didn’t recognise the first few songs, but the rest of the crowd seemed to be happy enough, with sporadic cheers blossoming into the misty air as the beats switched and a new voice boomed through the speakers.

After weaving through some Tyga – causing many to draw vacant expressions but which aficionados enjoyed – and meandering through some other tracks none of us seemed to know, the sparks we’d been seeking suddenly flew into the air. The first lines of ‘Mask Off’, Future’s 2017 mega-hit, blasted out, and the entire dancefloor erupted. After a fairly slow start, this was it, surely. This was the mouth-watering treat the DJs had been waiting to unleash on the R&B hungry crowd.

But after barely a minute of ‘Mask Off’, the DJ changed to another, much more obscure Future song, before brusquely moving on to a song none of us could identify. Okay, maybe ‘Mask Off’ was supposed to be merely a tantalising appetiser, giving us a taste of what was to come. The disappointing thing was it turned out to be the main course. After getting the adrenaline flowing again during some Travis Scott anthems, the playlist returned to relatively unknown tracks.

While we accepted that there were always going to be some songs we couldn’t recognise, the pace with which the DJ changed songs was frustrating. The ones we did know were limited to one round of chorus, before being switched out to a different track. This frustration reached its peak when the introduction to Drake’s ‘One Dance’ was teased, before another random song – not even by Drake – suddenly replaced it.

This night was supposed to be a tribute to female artists’ contribution to R&B and Hip Hop. Given how male-dominated the genre unfortunately still is, I was quite excited to be given a taster of these artists. But it seemed that even the unrecognisable songs were mostly performed by men.

So, despite a positive, friendly atmosphere, a decent venue, and good company, the music undoubtedly left a sour taste in the mouth. As we walked home with our kebab-van chicken and chips, we looked wistfully at a gaggle of clubbers stumbling out of Fever’s Great British Drake Off event.

Walk Like Natives review – ‘A flash-mob blending into the crowd’

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Standing on the concourse of London’s busiest train stations, as late-night commuters sprint to their platforms, may seem like a normal scene. However, it’s not every day this place plays host to a flash mob, assembling to a backing track that only you can hear.

However, as a repeat attender of Wiretapper’s unique brand of audio-based immersive theatre, it wasn’t the first time this had happened to me. Wiretapper is a project by Shunt, known for their intense and confusing interactive shows such as The Boy Who Climbed Out of His Face, which finished with a naked man playing an electric guitar atop a lake of baby dolls. Their first audio project, ‘Monument’, took place in Trafalgar Square and speculated on the threat of spying and the inevitable destruction of civilisation as we know it.

Their latest project, Walk Like Natives – a collaboration between director David Rosenberg and the choreographer Frauke Requardt, stays very much on theme with their previous shows. Audience members purchase their tickets in advance through an app, which then lies dormant until the morning of the show itself. At that point, a notification pops up – “WIRETAPPER – 12 HOURS”, and the secret location of the performance is revealed.

The app is more than just a gimmick, however, as it delivers the audio of the show to each individual audience member through headphones. Using binaural voice recordings and sound effects that seem to come from all around you, Wiretapper has an incredible skill for creating an intimacy between you and a performer standing over 30 metres away.

Walk Like Natives has no explicit story, but is more of a half-hour tribute to dancing like nobody’s watching – especially ironic given the show’s continuous sinister allusions to constant CCTV surveillance over a fake station tannoy in the audio track. We are told to watch a woman in a bright blue beanie as she disco-dances to Daft Punk in front of Platform 10, and soon she is joined by other people who step in time for a number of beats before disappearing back into the crowd.

Over the course of the show, a total cast of six performers who previously seemed just to be audience members don their own beanies and begin to dance to the pop soundtrack in synchronised choreography, grouping together for a verse or a chorus, then rapidly dispersing again.

It dawns on us how difficult it is to tell which of us are performers, which are audience members, and which are just members of the public, who also happen to be wearing unrelated headphones, simply bemused at the silent performance that’s happening in front of them. It is a flash-mob blending into the crowd. It’s very easy to get distracted from the show itself by that suspicion. Who around me also knows what’s going on? Who knows more than I do?

However, the charm of Walk Like Natives is that these questions aren’t posed seriously, but playfully. Unlike other recent audio experiences such as Circumstance’s It Must Have Been Dark By Then or, more notoriously, Punchdrunk’s Kabeiroi, Walk Like Natives does not take itself at all seriously. As the recorded tannoy announcements get darker over the course of the show – “the next train at platform 9 is the delayed service to Death” – the audience simply laughs at them. The whole experience is a pure celebration of joy. Every audience member leaves with a smile on their face and a rhythm in their head.

Although Walk Like Natives has only one additional listed date, its blurb hints that it will one day form a part a longer, more fleshed-out piece of theatre. How much of this simple initial idea will make it into the final product is yet to be seen. Regardless, it’s certain that, however Rosenberg and Requardt develop it, it will be unique, vibrant, and definitely not one to miss.

Pension dispute resolution in sight

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The University and Colleges Union (UCU) and Universities UK (UUK) have reached a provisional agreement over pension reforms impacting academics, potentially bringing an end to 14 days of industrial strike action.

It comes after a dramatic week of events in Oxford, with Louise Richardson reversing her stance on the pension dispute following pressure from hundreds of academics.

Mediation talks between the two parties begun at the end of last month, though progress was frequently reported as disappointing.

However, employers and union leaders have this evening agreed a revised proposal to reform pensions, which – if endorsed by all parties – will be introduced as part of a three-year transitional arrangement.

During the three years, both employers and members will have to pay higher contributions – 19.3 per cent of salaries for employers, and 8.7 per cent for members.

The deal also includes external scrutiny of the Universities Superannuation Scheme’s valuation methodology by an “independent expert valuation group”, as a result of the concerns raised by some employers and UCU about the scheme’s valuation methodology and assumptions. The group will contain both academics and pension professionals.

The three-year arrangement means both parties will have to find another solution soon and have committed to exploring risk sharing alternatives from 2020, “in particular collective defined contributions”.

UCU have a meeting of their Higher Education Committee and branch leaders tomorrow, where a decision will be made regarding this new deal and the continuation of strikes.

If the proposed agreement is deemed satisfactory, industrial action will be suspended immediately.

Last week, leading academics accused Louise Richardson of “threatening to shut down the debate” on the pensions dispute, after she opposed the prospect of it being debated at last week’s Congregation.

Despite the debate not being heard after the required twenty members opposed, hundreds of academics left the Sheldonian and held their own symbolic vote outside.

The next morning, Louise Richardson cited “the depth of feeling of so many colleagues” in her decision to call an emergency meeting of University management with the intention of reversing Oxford’s response to the UUK survey on pension reform.

The survey was used to justify the controversial changes to the pension fund, citing that 42 per cent of institutions, including Oxford, wanted the scheme to have “less risk”.

Hassan’s beaten to van of the year at British Kebab Awards

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Broad Street establishment Hassan’s has missed out on the title of best kebab van in the UK.

The student favourite was pipped to the award by Atalay’s in Thame, Oxfordshire, at the British Kebab Awards ceremony at the Park Plaza Westminster hotel on Monday night.

Hassan’s came second in the voting, winning a highly recommended certificate.

This is the sixth year that the awards have been held.

Hassan told Cherwell: “It’s disappointing, but we were very privileged to be nominated in the first place.

“But at least we won a highly recommended award, which we are very happy to have received.”

According to the competition’s website, over 1200 guests, including more than 300 MPs, lords, baronesses and councillors, and 800 businesses and community representatives attended last year’s ceremony.

The awards were founded in 2013 by the Centre for Turkey Studies, and celebrate an industry which brings £2.8 billion to the British economy annually.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and London Mayor Sadiq Khan were both guests at the awards in 2016.

Tickets for the ceremony started at £216 including dinner and drinks, and are regularly snapped up by politicos and journalists.

The award was voted for by the public, and it was hoped by many that Hassan’s popularity among students might lead to victory: a post on Oxfess encouraging students to vote received over 400 reactions, while Hassan’s own post was reacted to by over 250 people.

However, it was not to be, as Atalay’s retained the title it won in 2017.

At the time of his van’s nomination, Hassan told Cherwell: “At first we were not even aware we were nominated until we actually got a call from the British Kebab Awards.

“We were completely happy and shocked. We do our best to provide good customer service and food with a smile.”

Hi everyone I would like to say a massive thank you for all your support Unfortunately we didn’t win but we came second and won highly recommend award

Posted by Hassan's street kitchen on Monday, March 12, 2018

Two weeks ago, Hassan’s was forced to stop trading on Thursday night after heavy snowfall in Oxford city centre.

In a 2016 interview with Cherwell, Hassan revealed that his favourite item on the menu was a “chicken wrap, with cheese and chips, chilli sauce and garlic mayonnaise… just a little bit of chicken and just a little bit of chips and I’m done for the whole night.

“The most ordered item has got to be chips and cheese, and then chips and cheese and meat – chicken or lamb,” he added.

The kebab awards were the fourth-most mentioned topic on Twitter on Monday night: #BritishKebabAwards was trending in the UK just below University Challenge, Russia, and Stoke City vs Manchester City.

Booze Cruise: Balliol Combine Harvester

As far as the grapevine extends, it has been said that anyone buying a Balliol Blue in the Lindsay bar is either a tourist or a moron. However, what they may not tell you is that beyond the sickeningly sweet blue hues of their most (in)famous drink lies another gem: the Combine Harvester, possibly the most divisive cocktail ever to grace a college bar. Containing a lethal mix of ginger beer, Somersby cider, three shots of vodka and two shots of port, it is indisputably good for getting smashed, but only if you’re already drunk enough that you will literally down anything. Balliol’s drinks are known for their low prices on Tuesdays, but if you’re looking for quality, just give this one a miss.

To put it into perspective, the experience of drinking a Combine Harvester is like Bridge Thursday: your friends tell you it’s a great idea and it looks snazzy on the outside, but it has a disconcerting smell, and it usually ends in vomit. The flavours come in stages: first, the sweet taste of cider washes over your tongue, lowering your guard. It’s like the “free trial” period everyone enjoys before you’re in a pyramid scheme. Like rowing for the first time, for the first five seconds, you may think, “This is alright, I wonder why people hate this?”, until the disappointment hits.

The flavour is completely overpowered by the rich taste of port, except that the fizz from the cider still remains. Just imagine drinking watered down fizzy port, or the taste of sweet plums clashing with sour apples, and you’ll come pretty close to the mess that is the first layer. This only lasts for a few seconds before the flavour ebbs away, and for a moment, you think the ordeal is over, but no – there is more to come.

The ginger beer mixer and vodka, previously masked by the more strongly flavoured drinks, now enter the scene. Instead of providing the sweet tang of ginger and the smoothness of vodka, one can only detect the foul aftertaste of some unknown E number and concentrated boot polish, which is a taste not even a Bud Light drinker could love.

Why any respectable Oxford student would subject themselves to this omnishambles of a drink is completely beyond us. Then again, kebab van stash is a thing too.

For more weekly reviews of college bars and their drinks, please visit us at www.facebook.com/ocbr2017.

Remembering Wallace: Biography and Memory

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After the suicide of postmodern author and cultural icon David Foster Wallace in 2008, the question of how to remember got difficult. David Foster Wallace meant a lot of things to a lot of people – his work is achingly personal and emerges from a place of deep emotional intensity.

The death of Sylvia Plath, in 1963, had a similar effect: both Wallace and Plath were writers who wrote from experiences of serious pain. The people who loved their work felt a powerful and almost evangelical devotion towards it, and to the story of the writers’ lives – look at how Plath fans defaced her grave, appalled at the memorialisation of Hughes’ Plath, and not their’s. Remembering these writers is difficult because of exactly this; whose version of Plath, or Wallace, do you chose to remember?

The film The End of the Tour takes this problem to its conclusion. Released in 2015, The End of the Tour concerns a road-trip across the midwest made by Wallace and David Lipsky, a journalist tasked with profiling him as the tour promoting his soon-to-be magnum opus Infinite Jest comes to a close. Much of what’s difficult about The End of the Tour is that it’s a really good film; Jesse Eisenberg and David Segal, who play Lipsky and Wallace, are both talented and sensitive and the dialogue is fast and evocative.

But, as is basically true with any biopic, The End of the Tour depicts a version of Wallace miles from the man many remembered. “I found The End of the Tour risible”, wrote Glenn Kenny, a journalist in The Guardian, who knew Wallace: “I lay awake obsessing over the best phrase that could sum up Jason Segel’s performance as Wallace. I came up with ‘ghoulish selfaggrandisement’”. Kenny might take it a little far, but it can hardly be denied that coming up with an on-screen version of anyone historical, let alone a person like Wallace, is difficult.

And Segal comes close, particularly with his voice – some of Segal’s cadences echo “This is Water”, Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech, closely. It’s often been said that Wallace would have hated the idea of The End of the Tour – his agent Michael Pietsch wrote “David would have howled the idea for it out of the room had it been suggested while he was living”.

But following Wallace’s death, what duty, if any, do we have to memorialise Wallace in a way that he would have liked? And what is the value of literally accurate depictions of historical characters? The End of the Tour is a powerful and moving film, but, by all accounts, it gets Wallace wrong. Does that matter? Perhaps. But perhaps it doesn’t.

London Proud

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It’s hard to imagine Burberry without Christopher Bailey. After a transformative 17 years at the brand – Bailey has been chief creative officer and CEO since 2014 – his final show has just premiered at London Fashion Week. Bailey’s last show magnified what we have come to expect and enjoy from the man who revolutionised the once flailing ‘heritage’ brand.

Though there are nods to Burberry’s past throughout the collection, Bailey delivered a powerful twist: the rainbow stripes of the LGBTQ+ flag; So simply infused. So powerful. So, Bailey. In a perfect fusion we see the classic cap has been re-imagined with the LGBTQ+ flag, as has the tracksuit top. T-shirts stamped with ‘Burberrys’ on them nodding to the knock offs the brand once unintentionally encapsulated. Cara Delevigne’s long faux fur rainbow coat flaps as she closes the show, revealing the Burberry checked lining. This triumphant image serves as a lasting reminder encompassing Bailey’s unique talent.

Ahead of the show, Bailey told how his ‘final collection here at Burberry is dedicated to – and in support of – some of the best and brightest organisations supporting LGBT+ youth around the world.”

However, the collection is not the only commitment made to LGBT+ youth; Burberry have donated to the Albert Kennedy Trust, the Trevor Project and ILGA.

Tim Sigsworth, CEO of The Albert Kennedy Trust, said “24% of the 150,000 young people facing homelessness in the UK identify as LGBT+ after experiencing abuse and rejection just for being brave enough to come out to their families. Burberry’s donation will support our ongoing work to provide safe homes and support to young people,” The importance of Bailey’s last show reaches beyond the catwalk and illuminates the struggles of LGBTQ+ youth. The collection is breath-taking. It’s a good-bye, but not a wholly sad one.

The interweaving of the rainbow flag alongside the classic Burberry check has created a whole new layer to the brand, reflecting on how fashion has changed over the last 17 years. The pattern that we associate with ‘Britishness’ has just broadened its image. Although, there is the sense that this inclusivity has always underpinned Bailey’s Burberry. Bailey’s threads of diversity, inclusion and progress have always been at the root of his ethos.

By opening with Adwoa Aboah and closing with Cara Delevigne, Bailey’s final show layered icon upon icon – the new rainbow check, iconic models of Bailey’s era, and the final icon – the man himself. Bowing onstage and almost skipping off like a child, this is less of a sad goodbye when bathed in such brilliance.

Whilst we may not be able to purchase from Burberry just yet, Bailey’s contribution – to fashion, music, charity, and the LQBTQ+ community- is priceless.

‘Unacceptable’ students damage St Peter’s JCR

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Students at the St Peter’s College finalists’ bop on Thursday caused £594 of damage to the ceiling of the JCR.

In an email sent to all St Peter’s undergraduates, Dr Roger Allen, the College’s dean, said the “state of the room on Friday morning caused the scout who looks after the space considerable personal distress.”

“This is a serious matter which requires a robust response,” he added.

Circumstances surrounding the incident remain unclear. One St Peter’s student, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “The bop was particularly busy due to it being [the] finalists’ bop so turnout was strong.

“I didn’t spend enough time in the JCR (the main bop venue) to comment on exactly what caused this level of destruction but I imagine it happened during the usual crowd surfing and getting on each others shoulders [sic] and chanting ‘Angels’ part of the affair.”

Students at the bop caused £594 of damage

The College arranged for immediate repairs to the ceiling to be carried out on Friday morning. The “full sum will be charged in full” to the JCR.

“Such treatment by the JCR of the recently refurbished living space provided and maintained by the College is unsustainable and unacceptable,” Dr Allen wrote.

St Peter’s College and JCR officers did not reply to Cherwell’s requests for comment.

The news follows several anonymous posters on ‘Oxlove’ and ‘Oxfess’ alluding to rowdiness at other college bops.

One post read: “Exeter Final Bop. Fuck me what an evening. So much love. So much skin.”

Another claimed: “I think the bass from Magdalen bops may have given me heart arrhythmia.”

Union reverses ruling after election error

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The Oxford Union has reversed its decision not to amend last week’s incorrect election results, after it was revealed earlier this week that there had been a counting error.

The returning officer, Stanislas Lalanne, issued a revised statement last night stating that he had reconsidered his interpretation of the Union’s electoral rules, concluding that the results should be amended so as to reflect the correct vote counts.

Previously, the Union had informed a ‘defeated’ candidate for the Secretary’s Committee, Rai Saad Khan, that he would not be elected, despite winning more votes than his nearest rival.

Last week saw the first contested Union presidential election in five terms, with the race for Secretary’s Committee also being remarkably competitive.

Only the first eleven of over twenty candidates would make it onto the committee, and the results announced on Saturday morning showed that Rai Saad Khan had been pipped to the final spot by Mo Iman.

However, on Wednesday evening it was revealed that there was mistake with the vote count. In a document outlining what happened, Lalanne said he had “discovered an error in the Excel spreadsheet formula for vote change for Rai Saad Khan.

“I subsequently went through the spreadsheet to investigate whether there were any further errors, and also produced a corrected version,” he said. “I asked an ex-Returning Officer trained in using STV [Single Transferrable Voting] to independently confirm this.”

Rai Saad Khan’s election to the Secretary’s Committee has finally been confirmed.

He discovered that Khan should have had a vote value of 86.298 by the final round. The other candidate, meanwhile, only had a vote value of 81.490. As such, the other candidate should have been eliminated in the final round, with Khan taking his place on Secretary’s Committee.

Despite this error being clear and labelling it “an injustice”, Lalanne concluded he could not change the result. He referred to Union Rule 33(b)(vii)(1), which states that the Returning Officer may order a recount if an error is brought to his attention by a member within 48 hours of the close of the poll – meaning the deadline had long passed when the mistake was discovered.

Lalanne, however, has now revised his judgement, concluding that Khan should be elected at the expense of Iman.

Key to his change of position was his belief that he was the only person in a position to spot the mistake, and thus no member could reasonably have alerted him to the error within the 48-hour period.

Khan told Cherwell: “I want to express how grateful I am for this opportunity. This ordeal has highlighted the importance of transparency, which I want to continue to fight for, and I hope my experience can encourage individuals to step forward and stake their claim, and not be intimidated by the Union’s reputation.

Khan (front, centre) was running as part of Stephen Horvath’s ‘Ignite’ slate

“The Union is one of the best things at offer in Oxford, and its novelty, significance, and success make it something which is worth fighting for.

“I look forward to working with Gui [Cavalcanti, president of the Union for Trinity Term] and the team in making next term a rewarding experience for all.”

In his ruling, Lalanne said: “As in the statement I made on Wednesday, as the Returning Officer of this Society I take full responsibility for the error having been made and apologise for it, in particular to Iman.

“For the public record, I would like to state that when I informed Iman of the error and of my initial decision on Wednesday, I also informed him that there is no need to resign under the Rules. Iman has acted in a manner consistent with the original advice I gave him.”

Iman declined to comment, citing his concern for the welfare of those involved.