Sunday, May 11, 2025
Blog Page 776

Keep your health afloat and stay in the boat

Emma Ball
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Keep your health afloat and stay in the boat

The mornings are getting colder, the alarm clock is blaring at 5:30am and you still haven’t made up an erg score to put on the spreadsheet. It is probably at around this time that you wonder why you made the decision to carry on rowing into Hilary term.

When weighing up the choice between a few extra hours in bed or a cycle ride along a bumpy toe-path before the sun has come up, thinking about the infamously intense ‘erg’ you’ll have to complete on top of your morning outing could easily have you quitting rowing for good. Yet erging can rapidly develop into a fun and rewarding challenge if you do it with your fellow crew members. The beneficial effects on your fitness are many and varied and it is an excellent way to burn off all of those Christmas calories.

Moreover, a true sense of team spirit and togetherness is at the heart rowing, making it an exception to many other sports. Whether it’s expressed through the classic end of row debrief or else pennying your friends on a crew date, being a rower means that you are not just part of your team but part of the whole boat club, and you have the ‘stash’ to prove it.

Of course it is a commitment, but so is everything that is worthwhile and everyone knows that it’s healthy to balance your work with other activities. There is nothing like a brisk morning row to act as a surprisingly effective hangover cure and to clear the mind of any stresses and worries you may have.

All sports and challenges in life are made easier when you have a goal to focus your efforts on. In Hilary, the hope for termly glory is decided at Torpids: the chaotic, bumps-style race. To give up now before you’ve had the chance to compete would be a huge shame. Indeed, the last thing you would want is to get to the final day of Torpids and be the one watching from the riverbank, wishing that you were in the boat. It is said that in life you regret that which you didn’t do, far more than those things that you did. After all, the chance to row for your college at Oxford University will most likely be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

So yes ungodly early starts are a bit grim, you do wake up questioning all of your life decisions, and the concept of an erg can seem like something akin to torture. But you never do it alone, and as you catch that other boat in Torpids or even just as you watch the sun rise over the river, you realise that it is moments like these that make it all worthwhile.

‘League of Gentlemen’ review – meaningful, powerful and incredibly funny

Jack Allsopp
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‘League of Gentlemen’ review – meaningful, powerful and incredibly funny

After an extended hiatus, The League of Gentlemen returned to our screens on 18 December. Fifteen years on, everything has changed in Royston Vasey. Pressures on world fuel supplies have led to the dawn of fracking, the LGBTQ+ community have gained a far more prominent role in mainstream discourse, and Brexit has descended upon the United Kingdom. Yet nothing has changed. Pops is just as menacing as ever, Les’ dream of finding musical stardom is just as ill-fated as it was, and the Denton family still adore slimy amphibians and terrorise their nephew, Benjamin.

In their comeback, Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, and Mark Gatiss have added a healthy dose of biting social commentary to their sketch show. They have created a set of three episodes which resonate deeply with the current political climate and prove that this swansong is not just a self-indulgent daydream basking in past successes, but actually has something meaningful, powerful and incredibly funny to relate to their audience.

The star of the show is undoubtedly Edward, whose love for his own insular community has been moulded ingeniously to parody the parochial, patriarchal patriot who stands up for all things ‘local’. Although Brexit jokes might have saturated Britain’s comedy scene long before this December, his assertion that Royston Vasey needs to ‘take back control’ is wonderfully inexplicable in the mouth of a shop-owning mass murderer, whose ability to dodge death is almost as remarkable as his wife’s coming to terms with the modern absurdities that are accidental live-streaming, texting on the toilet, and Google Maps.

Equally as wonderful are the awkward exchanges which take place in Babs’ Cabs, after the eponymous taxi-driving owner has had a sex change. The offence ‘xe’ takes to Benjamin using female pronouns degenerates into absurdity when Babs is unable to decide which pronoun she herself prefers, though Babs does insist that ACRONYM (Actively Considering Reassignment OR Not Yet Made Your Mind up) describes the community much better than LGBT.

Yet in amongst these pointed nods towards contemporary society, The League of Gentlemen’s return succeeds in doing what it has always done well all over again. Heartbreak and horribly gruesome twists characterise all three episodes. Especially shocking is the reveal that Pauline has now been institutionalised, which has the viewer doing a double-take as they realise that the scene is not merely just another day at the Job Centre, but a desperate attempt to reawaken Pauline’s memory, degenerating as a result of some-unnamed psychiatric condition.

Things get even more painstakingly brutal in the second and third episodes, with several major character deaths which made this author gasp aloud. We are even treated to an attempted resurrection, as through a scene reminiscent of Voldemort’s reawakening in Harry Potter, Harvey Denton’s soul is transported into the body of his maligned nephew.

In between these moments of heightened drama, the quality of the writing stands out as once again superb. The inter-weaving of distinct plot lines marked out the first two seasons in particular, and this narrative tool was again employed to great effect this time around. The mysterious photo-booth served as the over-arching unifier and showed us who was really pulling the strings behind the scenes.

The League of Gentlemen’s return has showed that this deeply disturbing and darkly comical style is a crowd pleaser today as much as it was 15 years ago: if you need convincing try not to be absorbed by the macabre of the bingo scene, in which one wizened pensioner recounts a Thai love-affair. But despite their successes, the comedy trio announced subtly, and rightly, that this would be our last glimpse of Royston Vasey. Benjamin noted to his aunt how he could visit but never stay; just like Papa Lazarou’s circus, Pemberton and co. need to roll out of town once the lights are out, the story has been told, and enough victims have been claimed.

Are we set for a robot takeover?

Sam Liu
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Are we set for a robot takeover?

Back in July 2017, an article was published on The Independent regarding two artificial intelligences developed by Facebook that had started talking to each other in a language that only they could understand. Terrified readers suggested this was the beginning of the end, arguing that AIs could now start plotting to destroy mankind and rule the earth. In reality, the Facebook bots certainly did not pose such a threat. But the possibility of robots overtaking humans in intelligence seems quite real today.

In the Facebook case, the communication between the programs was entirely intended and probably not dangerous at all. Their creators had designed them to complete a negotiation task that involved the trading of balls and hats. The catch was that the programmers gave the AIs the freedom to choose how they communicate with one another – meaning they did not have to use comprehensible English. During the task, they developed their own ‘shorthand’ and their first few lines went as follows:

“Bob: i can i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alice: balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to

Bob: you i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Alice: balls have a ball to me to me to me to me to me to me to me”

To me, this doesn’t look too unusual at first glance. It actually reminds me of how all of my fellow classmates tried to communicate in English when we were first learning the language back in China. We only knew a few words in English, but still wanted to be able to converse – so our communications were much like Alice and Bob’s attempts.

In the case of the AIs, however, those few words were the only few they ‘thought’ they needed. So those were the only words they used in the negotiations. Without the constraints of grammar, manners and social norms, Bob became the most selfish program ever and Alice became very desperate.

Anyway, this is what I think happened, and after a surge of fear mongering clickbait articles Facebook came out to clarify that indeed, the programs were acting entirely as they had been told and the communication was all part of their task. But what if the clickbait articles had been right? Is it possible that humans wouldn’t be able compete with an intelligence we had created?

With the recent rapid development of artificial intelligence, many people believe that a ‘Technological Singularity’ is to occur sooner rather than later. This is the name for the point where robots reach human intelligence, and while estimates for its time vary wildly, most believe it is set to happen within the next century – for example, Google’s chief of engineering Ray Kurzweil puts it at around 2045. While the idea of ‘reaching human intelligence’ is very ill-defined, the important part is probably encompassed by adaptability – programs being able to draw on past knowledge and outside sources, and use this to solve any task, or at least as many as humans can, without being set to do a specific one. At this point the only cognitive difference between robots and humans will be speed – and it is likely that the robots will be much, much faster.

So, if a time like this comes, will computers dutifully solve every problem we have ever had, or will they have also developed the level of free thought required to see us as lesser beings – perhaps even trying to kill us? And what do we do if the worst case happens?

This may seem like fiction, but I think it’s possible that by the time AI becomes this advanced, we will also have the technology required to upload a human’s mind (or consciousness) onto a computer. After all, if the computers of the future are to support a programme that has the same processing capacity as a human brain, who is to say that that same computer cannot support an exact digital copy of one’s consciousness?

For some people who are afraid of the Singularity, this possibility presents a solution. Once a person has uploaded themselves onto a computer, or enhanced their natural brain and body with computers, they do not have the same physical limitations as an ordinary person. They may well be able to compete with the speed and capability of post-singularity AIs.

However, this potential solution comes with more problems.  Much like how Alice and Bob picked only the necessary words and phrases to communicate, when it comes to uploading the consciousness of a human being, for example, Sam’s, we may have to make a choice as to which parts of Sam’s consciousness to upload. The answers to this are not entirely obvious. For instance, it seems unnecessary to upload Sam’s desire for pizzas to a machine that cannot eat, but on the other hand, it is surely a part of his personality. We may even want to avoid uploading some parts just to save storage space. Once this sort of decision is made, I’m not sure you could say that it really is Sam who exists on the computer, rather than someone else.

These questions are all fascinating – but we probably have until at least 2045 before we have to answer them. The future looks like it’s going to at least be an exciting ride. Let’s just hope we humans are ready for whatever that may mean.

Oxford hosts leadership programme to tackle Brexit effects

Greg Ritchie
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Oxford hosts leadership programme to tackle Brexit effects

Oxford University this week hosts the first classes for a new European network of future leaders tasked with solving the continent’s social problems. The initiative, formed in response to Brexit, aims to bring diverse young minds together to address issues such as growing nationalism and youth unemployment.

Oxford is one of thirteen elite European institutions taking part in the programme run by the Europaeum, an organisation which aims to strengthen pan-European ties across university networks.

It has awarded thirty postgraduate researchers with a scholarship of around €10,000, which will cover their travel, tuition, and accommodation for the various seminars.

The first cohort – which includes four graduates from Oxford – arrived at Balliol College yesterday for the first week-long module. Seven more events will be held over the next two years in cities across Europe, including Leiden, Geneva and Prague.

Dr Andrew Graham, former Master of Balliol, who conceived the idea for the programme, said that though it was triggered by Britain voting to leave the European Union, the continent currently faces a wide set of social troubles which go far beyond Brexit.

“Brexit was absolutely part of it but universities in Helsinki and Madrid and Prague and elsewhere face issues that are just as intractable. There’s the rise of the far right in Germany, the disputes in Catalonia, the tension around migration, and high rates of youth unemployment in places like Greece and Portugal,” Graham said.

“These are European problems, not just EU or eurozone problems alone. But it was Brexit that made me think it was time for something fresh.”

Graham believes programmes like these could help young academics have a practical impact on the rest of society, something which he thinks has been lacking recently.

“The Brexit result clearly had a lot to do with a fundamental absence of leadership. But it was also about opposition to evidence, and an information barrier among large parts of the public,” he said.

“As academics we have to think: what happened to the values of the Enlightenment and the insights from the scientific revolution? What the hell did we do wrong?”

Stressing the need for practical solutions, Graham added: “The results of their efforts have got to have value. I don’t necessarily mean monetary value, but value for society. They can be idealistic, but they also have to be pinned into reality – ideally something that could be implemented in one form or another.

“What we want are outcomes that will excite people and be useful, whether to an MP or the European parliament or an NGO or business. It could be all sorts of things, but it has to interest someone and give them a solution that they can bring about.”

The Europaeum was created in 1992 by Lord Weidenfeld, Sir Ronald Grierson, and Lord Roy Jenkins, the chancellor of Oxford at the time. It aims to strengthen pan-European ties across university networks by bringing together talented young people who could shape the future of the continent.

It is made up of twelve universities, of which St Andrews is the only other UK university.

Lord Patten, chancellor of Oxford, was appointed Europaeum’s new Chair of Trustees in October. Speaking at Balliol to announce the new programme in September, he said: “Does anyone doubt that Europe faces huge difficulties? Does anyone doubt that the future of Europe must lie with the young? Does anyone doubt that the UK will be a better and more stimulating place if it continues to be fully contributing to, and engaging with, the intellectual mainstream of Europe rather than retreating into English Nationalism?

“My predecessor as chancellor, Roy Jenkins, was proud to have initiated the Europaeum and I am equally proud to be part of these new initiatives.”

The programme comes after a series of initiatives by the University to maintain its European links post-Brexit. Louise Richardson, vice-chancellor of Oxford, announced last month a new partnership with four Berlin universities which will facilitate increased collaboration.

The Premier League – how sustainable is the current format?

Cal Flintoff
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The Premier League – how sustainable is the current format?

On 25th March 2014, Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich became mathematically unassailable in Germany, smashing the Bundesliga record with seven games still to play. This time, it is 17th March 2018 that will be – according to the Times’ statistician Bill Edgar – the day of destiny for Guardiola’s lithe blue figurines: Brighton at the Etihad the proposed final obstacle to becoming the earliest English top-flight victors since 1891.

It is perhaps premature to get carried away with thoughts of how early Pep Guardiola could conquer the league, especially with trips to Anfield, the Emirates, and Wembley to come, but as Manchester City continue to extend their own record winning streak, a more pressing concern is the threat to the widely-held notion of the Premier League as the most competitive in world football. This is not to detract from the achievements of Guardiola or his Manchester City side, curated with purpose and vision, perfectly executed – be it a deft Kevin De Bruyne through-ball or a searching cross-field high ball from Ederson – and perfectly managed. In fact, it is the opposite.

It feels incongruous to be having this discussion just two seasons after witnessing the ultimate sporting underdog tale, but the Premier League is constantly evolving. City are the beautiful veneer of a cash-soaked, global-reaching incarnation of the Premier League. When Leicester triumphed, they created a vacuum, and as Roberto Saviano lays bare in Zero Zero Zero, ‘evolutionary transformation is fuelled by vacuums’. In short, Leicester sparked a renewed assault from each of the now-entrenched ‘big six’.

Antonio Conte’s Chelsea were the harbinger. With a revolutionary tactical mutation – perhaps merely an adaptation to the personnel at his disposal – Chelsea were able to conquer the division. However, it is Manchester City who have seized the opportunity with most meaning, a perfect storm of financial clout, gilded talent, and visionary coaching. Chelsea were controlling and relentless, but City are an indefatigable wrecking ball, representing how an eminent force can function when everything slots together perfectly. Manchester City have the league wrapped up in December; yet more pointed is the gulf in class between the top six and the rest that is continuing to enlarge.

Newcastle captain Jamaal Lascelles described their fixture against Manchester City as a nothing-to-lose game, effectively a free shot at the champions-elect sandwiched between fixtures against West Ham and Brighton. That’s exactly what Jonjo Shelvey put into practice, taking a free shot from the halfway line straight from kick-off. Newcastle were as close as any team this season to frustrating City, only the third to concede just a solitary goal, but they did so passively. Shelvey’s effort was one of only two shots on target for the Magpies.

The concern is that the deployment of this game plan is proliferating, and the results are telling. This season the rest of the league average 0.44 points per game versus the big six, while the big six average 2.38 versus the rest. Burnley top ‘the rest’ with a healthy 0.86 p.p.g., achieved with roughly a third of possession. For their part, Burnley and Sean Dyche are enacting the philosophy to a tee; the fact they represent the only team not cut adrift is an indictment of the League’s dynamic.

On 23rd December, Everton hosted Chelsea and offered no attempt to partake in possession, failing to register a single shot on target. Indeed, Everton’s season is a distillation of the fine balance between ambition and consolidation, and of a team stuck with nowhere to go. Everton have long since loomed, but with £150 million spent in the summer to no avail, the appointment of Sam Allardyce is imbued with resignation. Since his arrival at the club, Everton have recorded 40 shots versus 94 conceded and yet quietly accrued 12 points from a possible 18. They will probably finish 7th. Southampton will likely sack Mauricio Pellegrino, end up in 8th, and try again next year.

It is therefore a misconception, perpetuated globally, that every Premier League encounter will be a frenzy of lethal attacking like Arsenal 3-3 Liverpool. When the new domestic broadcast package is auctioned in February, 200 games out of a possible 380 will be available to be screened. It is the international market, however, that is beginning to wield greater power – the latest Chinese broadcast deal represented a 1000% increase – and that has forced the Premier League to play mediator between the best and the rest, holding clandestine meetings over proposals for performance-based distribution. With the competition eroding in greater context as its appeal is outsourced, the big six re-establishing themselves as eminent forces in Europe, and digital giants Amazon, Netflix and Facebook swarming, just how sustainable is the future of the Premier League?

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time review – ‘the show regenerates, and not a moment too soon’

Sam Sheppard
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Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time review – ‘the show regenerates, and not a moment too soon’

In October 1966, the BBC broadcast The Tenth Planet, the last serial featuring the first incarnation of the Doctor. “It’s far from being all over,” the Doctor proclaims near the end, and, not long afterward, viewers were confronted with the unexpected sight of the Doctor regenerating for the very first time. This is the moment which Steven Moffat decides to revisit in Twice Upon a Time, Peter Capaldi’s swansong. The dying Twelfth Doctor, who is refusing to regenerate, bumps into his own past self, who is similarly reluctant to change. It’s an ambitious premise, and one which isn’t realised quite successfully.

It’s worth noting that Moffat hadn’t always wanted to write this episode – the original plan was that the Twelfth Doctor would regenerate after the explosive heroics of the Series 10 finale. The journey towards his regeneration, consequently, feels rather dragged out, and I can’t help but feel as though he goes out on more of a whimper than a bang.

The plot revolves around the two Doctors investigating Testimony, a mysterious organisation who have been interfering with the past. However, it turns out that they are merely seeking to preserve the memories of the dead; there isn’t actually an evil plan to be foiled. While all feels a bit insubstantial, I admit that this wasn’t much of a problem for me, as I found most of it to be a fairly entertaining runabout. What really captured my interest was the interaction between the Twelfth Doctor and his past self, and, unfortunately, this is the point where the episode really falls down.

William Hartnell, who played the First Doctor, passed away in 1975, and his performance is here recreated by David Bradley. Bradley offers a strong performance, convincingly capturing Hartnell’s mannerisms. However, he’s let down by the writing: Steven Moffat seems to have forgotten that he’s writing for a time-travelling alien as opposed to a human being from 1960s England. The First Doctor was certainly never as sexist or reactionary as he’s shown to be here, and the disappointing result is that Moffat’s vision of the original Doctor feels more like an unflattering caricature than a faithful homage. One consolation, though, is that Peter Capaldi is on fine form. His last moments are a poignant send-off to a character I’ve grown to love, and it was very moving to see old companions Bill and Nardole, and even a shoehorned-in Clara, brought back for a last goodbye.

Ultimately, this is an episode that makes an attempt – albeit not a perfect one – to proclaim that we all have to evolve and move on, while still remembering the past. It’s an admirable moral, and one which is perfectly captured by the explosive moment where the Twelfth Doctor whispers “Doctor, I let you go,” before finally regenerating. Despite its failings, Twice Upon a Time ends on a confident note, and I was instantly captivated by Jodie Whittaker’s two-word introduction as the Doctor. Doctor Who has shown, once again, that it’s far from being all over.

Oxford academics rewarded for services to Britain

Oscar Baker
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Oxford academics rewarded for services to Britain

Senior Oxford academics across a range of fields have been recognised in the 2018 New Year’s Honours list.

Professor Margaret MacMillan has been appointed Companion of Honour (CH) for services to higher education, history and international affairs.

The Honorary Fellow and former Warden of St. Anthony’s College joins only 65 others who currently hold the special distinction.

Two knighthoods have also been awarded. The first will go to Bernard Silverman, Emeritus Professor of Statistics and former Master of St. Peter’s College. Silverman recently served as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Home Office. The other goes to Professor Tim Besely CBE, currently at LSE, who was knighted for services to Economics and Public Policy.

Professor Ngaire Woods, founding Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government, is appointed CBE.

Woods said: “I am honoured by this award which reflects the remarkable dedication of the staff, faculty and students of the Blavatnik School of Government.

“The establishment of the School underscores what is possible when fantastic colleagues and supporters across Oxford and across the world come together to address a very serious challenge.”

Professor Jane Humphries, fellow of All Souls, has also been given a CBE for services to Social Science and Economic History.

Joining them are three recipients of an OBE. Professor Judy Sebba is recognised for services to Higher Education and Disadvantaged Young People.

Sebba, who serves as Director of the Rees Centre at the University’s Department of Education, said: “I am delighted to be receiving this honour.

“Our findings repeatedly show that young people in care need others to believe in them if they are to believe in themselves.”

Other recepients include Translational Medicine Professor Chas Bountra and Alan Giles of the Saïd Business School.

Three MBEs were also announced. One of the recepients, the Director of the University’s Migration Observatory, Madeleine Sumption, said: “I’m delighted that the work of the Migration Observatory has been recognised in this way.

“Migration has been one of the defining issues in the UK’s public debate in the past few years and the whole team has worked incredibly hard to make high-quality evidence accessible to the public, the media, policymakers and civil society.”

Dr Jake Dunning, a Visiting Research Fellow in the Epidemic Diseases Research Group, is recognised for services to Clinical Research for trials conducted during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. He said he was “truly humbled by this award.”

Twelve awards in total have been given. Recently-appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor Dr David Prout, a former senior civil servant, has been appointed Companion of the Order of Bath.

1,123 people have been recognised overall in the New Year’s Honours. Seven university members were given honours in the 2017 list.

Transforming light into flesh

Tony Wilkes
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Transforming light into flesh

Scripts can be revealing. One such script – the fourth episode of Netflix’s second series of The Crown – leaves a lasting impression. It is punctured by certain sounds: [CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS], [CAMERA WINDING], [CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]. The result is an episode ghosted by the image of the camera and its lens. Why should this be the case in an episode exploring the beginnings of a love affair – one between photographer Tony Armstrong-Jones (Matthew Good) and Princess Margaret (Vanessa Kirby)? What is its relation to the experience of love?

Our fascination with the photograph stems from the relation that the image maintains with its subject. Philosophers have articulated how this incites pleasure. Roland Barthes writes how “the [figure]…has really touched the surface, which my gaze will touch…[L]ight is here a carnal medium”. In other words, photography displays its magic, produced by light, by connecting the viewer with the body of the photographed.

Photography can be erotic as it captures a body that we can touch with our gaze. It is fitting, then, that the royal love affair develops with the development of a photograph. We are shown intense close-ups of the couple’s hands – leading the other to the photograph in the chemical bath; gliding paper over the surface of water; taking a corner, lifting it, and revealing the white of a shoulder. The Crown shows that the photograph can only be created by touching the surface – we view with our hands – much like love and desire.

This glimpse of a shoulder epitomises how we see photographs as fragments. The words “and flash” echo through episode four. The images exist only in a flash, or as Eduardo Cadava writes “a slash of light”. The episode shows how this fragmentation seduces us, exploring photography’s fetishist gaze. Apart from its sexual meaning, fetish also refers to an object that has magical powers. Arguably the meaning of a photograph, its magic, is embodied in these close-up fragments.

The episode begins with Armstrong Jones as a wedding photographer, his photographs enlarging certain details: the laces of a child’s boot, the ribbon on a man’s hat, and the white flower in a guest’s lapel. It is these seemingly insignificant details, “qualities easy to miss”, that carry the essence of photography. The same can be said for love. It is only a certain fragment of Margaret’s photograph – her eyes – that carry the eroticism. The point is emphasised by the box of Margaret’s engagement ring. It is decorated with her eyes, torn out from the photograph. What arrests us with both love and photography, then, is a marginal or unexpected detail that somehow carries the meaning of their image.

Contemplating love and photography, Barthes writes how “we must think of something other than simply light or photography: we must think of…the last music”. He articulates a certain link, or “correspondence” between music and photography – a relationship that is equally explored in The Crown. We hear the sensual voice of The Flamingos vibrating through episode four, singing “My love must be a kind of blind love. I can’t see anyone but you”.

The sound quite literally underscores a fascination with the erotic potential of the surface of images. Like the photograph, music has the power to leave an imprint or a trace because of its rhythm. Rhythm literally means “type” meaning to mark or imprint – be that on wax or vinyl.

Margaret dancing to I Only Have Eyes for You transforms her into another kind of erotic surface. Her body moves as if to a rhythm that begs to inscribe – one that Kirby sensuously harnesses.

Why ‘The Polar Express’ is a creepy Christmas classic

Maya Little
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Why ‘The Polar Express’ is a creepy Christmas classic

‘The Polar Express’ couldn’t get more Christmassy. It features snow, a magical train, reindeer, children sliding down an enormous sack of presents, and tap dancers delivering hot chocolate whilst singing. Whilst one might not automatically associate the last of these with Christmas, it gives the film the feel-good vibe that is absolutely necessary in any good Christmas film. I watch ‘The Polar Express’ every single Christmas, making it a sort of Christmas film by association (the same way that ‘Chicken Run’ is a Christmas film, even though there’s not a snowflake in sight).

However ‘The Polar Express’ is also deeply weird. Take the animation, for example. Several critics (and my mother) found the characters disturbingly inhuman to look at, because the style falls right into the ‘uncanny valley’: it’s not-quite-human, but it’s close enough to creep you out. Ed Hooks, an actor who teaches animators, suggests that this is because you can’t use motion capture on eyes – the film uses very detailed motion capture to ‘animate’ their characters, but this fails when it comes to the eyes, which were animated separately, meaning the eye movements can look inaccurate and jarring.

For me, however, this inhuman atmosphere only heightens the film’s mysteriousness. The male and female leads are nameless (they are credited as Hero Boy and Hero Girl), making them that little bit more unreachable, their lives comfortably unreal. The elves are nasal, harsh, and not at all cute. There’s a carriage full of broken toys riding behind the children on the train – a dark reminder of the aftermath of Christmas excess.

There’s also the curious character, played by Tom Hanks, who rides on the roof of the train. He helps Hero Boy to safety, tries to intimidate him into not believing in Santa, and disappears through the wind like a ghost. It’s difficult to tell who he represents; is he a reflection of Hero Boy’s fear that Santa isn’t real (‘you don’t want to be bamboozled!’)? Perhaps an alter-ego for the conductor, also played by Hanks (they seem to cough in exactly the same way)? Or, as a deleted scene suggests, simply the ghost of a man who was killed on the train? Amidst the simple plot of a children’s film, the man on the roof is an anomaly that I’ll never quite figure out.

Perhaps ‘The Polar Express’ is just a little too weird, a little too creepy to become a children’s classic, but that’s exactly what keeps me coming back – there’s more to the film than just a watchable display of Christmas and all its joys. Or perhaps I continue to watch it simply because I’ve already seen it so many times; because like all the best parts of Christmas, it’s tradition.

Small town communities step into a modern world

Kathryn Sandilands
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Small town communities step into a modern world

A boy from my old high school died last night. I’m reading it on Facebook; it’s been four hours since the news got out and there are hundreds of comments. He was in the year below me and from the next village over. My best friend calls me in tears – he was close to her brothers, she says, he came round to her house all the time. I wanted to talk to someone from home, she tells me. At this moment I am 300 miles away from the town where we went to high school, at university in England. I did not know the boy who died. But, somehow, I count.

It’s almost the Christmas holidays and my student room is a mess. I’ve got postcards from home on the noticeboard beside my desk. They’re old photos of the high street from around the 1970s – my mum bought them for me from the local newsagents when I begged for post during those first homesick weeks last year. Not much has changed in town during the forty years or so since that photo was taken to make cheap postcards. There’s more parking spaces, maybe. One or two of the shops have changed hands. My university friends would find it funny that I’d know that because none of them are from small towns.

When I moved down south to go to university, I was looking forward to living in a city. The village I grew up in is the kind of place that you love until the age of twelve, at which point you abruptly realise that going to the cinema requires an hour and a half on the bus and you have to ask your mum to drive you round to your friends’ houses. It’s the kind of place that you start to love again once you’ve moved away, I’m learning. My dad went to the same secondary school as me, and if you walk up the street with him on Hogmanay then he knows almost everyone by association if nothing else. When I come home for the holidays, old school friends meet up in the pubs and I bump into my former teachers at lunch times.

I didn’t know the boy who died – I’ve said that already. But my newsfeed is full of him: he wore a bizarrely colourful suit to prom; we had the same history teacher; it looks like he was involved in quad biking. I do know the people posting their condolences. This is how it works in small towns: even when you don’t know someone, you sort of do. Almost everyone is the friend of a friend. Tonight, that means that the outpouring of grief online feels a lot closer to me than it really is. Maybe there’s a similar effect when an eighteen-year-old boy dies in a big city, but right now this feels like something that can only really happen in villages where the names on the war memorial are also the names on the front signage of the shops.

The movement of small town community onto social media is a strange phenomena to observe. There’s a Facebook group which has been specifically created to broadcast issues pertaining to the local community. On an average week, this is full of warnings about road closures and escaped sheep; the kind of issues which are so mundane as to become ludicrous when enshrined in text. When the local council threatened to close the public toilets, there was an online campaign, which successfully ensured their continued presence on the high street. The abolishment of the bakery section of our local Sainsbury’s was met with uproar on this group just last month, and the impending closure of the only bank in town is currently causing great upset.

Common opinion seems to be that social media renders communication less meaningful, causing people to separate even in their togetherness. Tonight, I’d probably disagree with them. Would all of these people have known that this boy died otherwise? Certainly not so quickly, and probably not all at once.

Maybe there’s a certain falsity to this online mourning – it’s definitely a strange thing to behold. The idea of small town values seems like an oddly twee and old-fashioned way to explain the sense of community that is making itself known on Facebook right now. But this is not a case of supporting a stranger who happens to have the same postcode.

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