Thursday 30th April 2026
Blog Page 809

St Hilda’s creates new trans rep

Abby Ridsdill-Smith
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St Hilda’s creates new trans rep

St Hilda’s College JCR has passed a motion to appoint a transgender students’ officer.

The motion, which passed with 63 votes and 1 abstention, proposed that the JCR “introduce the Transgender Students officer as a JCR committee position,” which will be “reabsorbed into the responsibilities of the LGBTQ+ officer, if there is no one eligible who wishes to run for the role.”

Hilda’s will be the fifth college to introduce a transgender students officer, following Wadham, LMH, Magdalen, and St Hugh’s.

St Hilda’s LGBTQ+ officer and proposer of the motion, Poppy Price, told Cherwell: “After consultation with various students, we agreed that the introduction of a trans students officer would help to improve the welfare of trans students in college as well as providing them with a voice on the committee, as valued members of our community.

“I am so glad that the motion passed almost unanimously, and I am proud of our JCR for being willing to take this progressive step. I hope that in the future we will see more colleges follow suit.”

St Hilda’s JCR president, Antara Jaidev, told Cherwell: “The decision to introduce a Trans Rep at Hilda’s was a logical next step for a college that has a rich history of inclusivity and progress.

“The position will cater to the needs of students who identify as transgender, gender non-conforming, or those who believe they should be represented by the Trans Students Officer.

“The St Hilda’s JCR will ensure we leave no stone unturned when it comes to the welfare of every one of our members. I am personally brimming with pride to be part of a college that is so dedicated to equal representation.”

Uni executives defend grad rent hike

Barney Pite
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Uni executives defend grad rent hike

Members of the University’s governing body has defended the 5.8% price rise in graduate rent at an Oxford SU meeting.

Pro-Vice Chancellor for Planning and Resources, Dr David Prout, was asked whether he was concerned about possible student dropouts due to the increase in fees. Prout said: “A balance has to be struck. A line is drawn, and somehow people make choices.”

According to Head of Estates Finance, Sarah Davies, the 5.8% rent increase will generate £90,000 per unit in the next five years. She later clarified that this sum will not fully account for the costs of refurbishment and replacement, and that the University will cover the difference. Prout stressed the need for financial sustainability throughout the meeting. He said: “The University needs to balance a whole range of demands. We must consider how we ought to fund the University’s long term preeminent research achievements.We have to think about the long term enterprise. We can’t support it if we’re not breaking even.”

Oxford SU’s VP for charities and communities, Tom Barringer, who attended the meeting told  Cherwell:  “It is a great shame that students could not be consulted about this 5.8% increase beforehand, since the decision was made behind closed doors. It is strange that a university with a £1.3 billion budget seems so keen to isolate its graduate accommodation department and charge ‘sustainable rent’ – also known as passing on all building costs, including their construction, directly to students.”

The Property Management Sub Committee, which determines graduate accommodation rent, came to the 5.8% figure based on the Retail Price Index plus 1.8%. The committee also imposed a collar on the increase of 3.5% and a cap of 5.5%. The collar and cap will only come into effect next year, after the 5.8% increase, an SU rep told Cherwell. Sarah Davies opened the meeting by explaining the grounds for the rent hike. She said: “The University asked if graduate accommodation was sustainable. We investigated and found that refurbishments were needed, but reserves were depleted.”

Davies explained that accommodation funding is ‘ring fenced’, meaning no funds can be withdrawn or added. If accommodation needs more budget, they would have to borrow money. “An inability to cover the costs limits our ability to replace and reinvest.”

Davies added that accommodation would need to recover £7.2 million per year to fund refurbishments over the next five years. She broke this figure down to £3 million for running costs and utilities, and £4.2 million for ‘capital costs’ – meaning refurbishments and replacements. A standard single room en suite in the Castle Mill complex currently costs £591 per calendar month (pcm).

Following the hike, rents for the same room will rise to £625 pcm.   Davies explained that the University uses college-owned accommodation prices as a benchmark. Balliol College charges £609 pcm for B and C graduate rooms, while St John’s College charges £513.3 per month for a grade B room, plus a termly charge of £214 for ‘the general provision of services’.

The rent hike will only affect central University housing, likely creating greater demand for the limited college accommodation available to graduates. During the 2016-17 academic year, 57% of all full-time graduate students and 70% of full-time graduate freshers were housed either by the University or in colleges.

Cherwell asked for a transcript of the meeting but the request was refused. A separate request to film the meeting was also denied.

Travesties review – ‘a very competent production of a fiendishly complicated play’

Roddy Howland Jackson
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Travesties review – ‘a very competent production of a fiendishly complicated play’

“For every thousand people there’s nine hundred doing the work, ninety doing well, nine doing good, and one lucky bastard who’s the artist.” Henry Carr, the lead character in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties, may think little of the passive role of the artist, but in this case it’s surely the reviewer who counts as the “lucky bastard”. Free tickets? Check. Interval drink vouchers? Check. All this while a strong cast laboured deftly in “doing the work” of a demanding play – and “doing it well” at that.

Travesties charts the reminiscences of Henry Carr (Lee Simmonds), a minor British diplomat stationed in Switzerland in 1917, and his encounters with Tristan Tzara (Julia Pilkington), James Joyce (Kate Weir), and Vladimir Lenin (Staś Butler). If such an assembly sounds unlikely, that’s because it is – while Carr’s feud with Joyce is based in fact, Stoppard plays with Carr’s narrative unreliability to draw these famous figures into collision. As Bea Udale-Smith suggests in her director’s note, “the play, taken sincerely, is about a disintegrating mind”. History, art, identity, and purpose all compete for purchase in Carr’s memory, brewing a play that is as high-concept as it is entertaining.

But as Udale-Smith rightly acknowledges, “Travesties isn’t actually a sincere play.” The brilliance of Carr’s senility is that it allows Stoppard to explore profound questions within a profoundly silly environment. There’s a scene written entirely in limericks. Tzara reimagines Shakespeare with a pair of scissors. The action of the play slowly blurs into a self-aware pastiche of The Importance of Being Earnest. It’s thoroughly absurd, and thoroughly enjoyable – a relief, given the play’s intellectual heft, which can occasionally wear on the audience’s patience.

In the lead role, Simmonds is captivating, navigating the layers of Carr’s delusions with considerable dexterity. As a doddering narrator, his eyes dart anxiously at the audience for validation; as his younger self, he conjures remarkable comic timing and impressive facial elasticity. Pilkington brings ebullience to Tzara, while Butler is imposing as Lenin. Kate Weir plays an imperious Joyce, whose views on art are rendered the most convincingly by Stoppard: “An artist is the magician put among men to gratify – capriciously – their urge for immortality.” The big three historical figures drift at times into the realm of caricature, but given Carr’s tendency to exaggerate his memories, this can be forgiven. The female casting of Joyce and Tzara is a decision repaid by Weir’s and Pilkington’s performances, which compound the sense of distortion in Carr’s recollections.

Udale-Smith guides the audience through this breakdown confidently, adjusting us to Carr’s self-importance with clever spotlighting, and inventing an ensemble to visually fracture his account.

Only at times does this effort fall flat: Travesties is not a play about subtlety, but the music was often heavy-handed. Perhaps most upsettingly, the ‘Mr Gallagher and Mr Shean’ scene wasn’t quarried for all its comic potential. This is more than made up for by Jon Berry’s hilarious turn as Bennett, the champagne-guzzling servant with radical left-wing sympathies, which admittedly had me in stitches.

In an interview in February, Stoppard advised any future directors of the play that the actors need firstly to be audible, and secondly to be charming. I have few gripes about hearing the actors, and even fewer about the likeability of their performances. Udale-Smith has mounted a very competent production of a fiendishly complicated play – as such, Carr’s insistence on his “triumph in a demanding role” in The Importance of Being Earnest is an accolade that can be given to the team behind Travesties, only without any sense of dramatic irony.

Oxford students run for Council seats

Jeremiah O'Mahony
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Oxford students run for Council seats

Nine Oxford students are running in tomorrow’s Oxfordshire City Council elections.

The student-candidates include Jim Brennan, Matthew Hull, Finn Conway, Alexander Curtis, Adam Ellison, David Pearson, Harry Samuels, Emma Teworte, and Chris Witt.

Harry Samuels, a fourth-year Classicist at New College, is running as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Iffley Fields.

Samuels told Cherwell: “I’m running to give residents in Iffley fields – including hundreds of students who live out – the chance to vote for liberal values.

“I’m proud that the Lib Dems in Oxford are standing against Labour’s fines on the homeless and confiscations of property, in favour of more genuinely affordable housing, and continuing to stand up for EU citizens and guarantee they are supported while also calling for an exit from Brexit.”

Matthew Hull, a fourth-year Classicist at Oriel, is running as the Green Party candidate for Northfield Brook.

Hull told Cherwell: “I’m standing for fairer treatment of Oxfords homeless. Homeless numbers are skyrocketing, due to systematic neglect by national governments. Oxford should respond with care; instead, the Labour city council has fined homeless constituents and excluded them from public space.

“As a councillor, I would revoke these draconian council orders and protect vital homelessness services.“

Finn Conway, a second-year Classicist at Balliol, is running as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Holywell Ward.

Conway told Cherwell: “Our two primary issues this election are housing and homelessness. On both these issues, Labour have failed: they haven’t build nearly enough affordable housing; they’ve tried to bill tower block residents £50,000 per head for repairs; they’ve introduced fines that almost exclusively affect homeless people; and they’ve used new powers to confiscate their bedding and belongings.

“We’re offering an alternative this election: more compassionate solutions and a new approach to dealing with these issues – sorely needed in a council dominated by a Labour supermajority.”

Alexander Curtis, a third-year geographer at St Catherine’s, is running as the Conservative candidate for North Ward.

Curtis told Cherwell: “Oxford City Council is in a dire state, and the Labour administration running it have been allowed to get away with too much for too long. Rather than regularly voting in favour of the city council’s flawed policies like the Oxford Liberal Democrats, I would provide real opposition and promote viable alternatives to the current poor quality of governance if I was elected as city councillor for North ward.”

Jim Brennan, a second-year Geographer at St Peter’s, is running as the Conservative candidate for St Mary’s Ward.

Brennan told Cherwell: “The Conservatives next door in Cherwell have built 15 times as much affordable housing than this Labour council.

“I am the only candidate in my ward that actually lives there – do we really want career politicians? We back ourselves – the Conservatives are the only party and standing in every Oxford seat. Do we want this council properly opposed or not?”

He added: “To quote Public Enemy, fight the power.”

Adam Ellison, a second-year History and Politics student at Magdalen, is running as the Labour candidate in Wolvercote Ward.

Ellison told Cherwell: “Local elections can be hugely impactful in how we live our day to day lives. Young people getting involved in a local level, as voters and candidates, is essential to having our voices heard and ensuring that at all levels politics remains dynamic and representative of all ages and demographics.

“Democracy is healthier and stronger the more of us get involved and I hope not only to be a proactive and effective representative for the people of Wolvercote but to be a voice for students and young professionals in Oxford.”

David Pearson, a third-year Biologist at St Hilda’s, is running as the Conservative candidate for Holywell Ward.

Pearson told Cherwell: “I have always preferred the sincerity of grassroots campaigning to the dark arts of student politics. Policy starts with people, and this year is no different.

“I am excited to sand on a dynamic policy platform which really gets to the heart of the challenges facing our city.”

Emma Teworte, a first-year History and Politics student at St Hilda’s, is running as the Green Party candidate for Carfax Ward.

Tewrote told Cherwell: “I am standing in Carfax because I believe the City Council needs to be held to account. Labour currently has and will probably maintain an overwhelming majority on the Council – and that cannot be good for a healthy democracy.

“Having Greens on the Council is about more than improving democratic quality, though. We can make a real difference in policy.

“Climate breakdown is a global issue that I want to address on Council level. Just this week, a Green motion restricting single-use plastics was passed by the Council, for example. I want to work with student and local organisations to further this.”

Chris Witt, a DPhil student in Artificial Intelligence engineering at St Catherine’s, is running as the Green Party candidate for Blackbird Leys.

Witt told Cherwell: “It’s about giving the young people in Blackbird Leys choices; changing voting from something irrelevant to a realistic vehicle for expanding their horizons.

“The focus of the campaign is to make Blackbird Leys an attractive centre for start-ups, beginning with the grassroots of providing free IT training to residents. This will complement the anti-austerity and community building measures that the Green party stands for.”

The elections will be held tomorrow. Registered voters were sent poll cards with the details of their polling station in late March.

Students and residents protest Windrush scandal

Daniel Hall
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Students and residents protest Windrush scandal

Oxford students and residents came together on Monday evening to protest the government’s treatment of the Windrush generation.

The protest, organised by Oxford Stand Up to Racism, drew a crowd of over 50 people on the corner of Cornmarket and Queen Street.

Ian McKendrick, a spokesman for Oxford Stand Up to Racism, told Cherwell that the group was “calling for amnesty for Windrush and other Commonwealth citizens.” He said that the Windrush generation should be compensated for the homes lost, jobs sacrificed, and denied NHS treatment which came out of the government’s “hostile” immigration policy.

“We are attacking the whole immigration policy behind [the Windrush scandal] and Theresa May. The problem absolutely goes to the top.

“When Theresa May was at the Home Office, she was the architect of the hostile environment immigration policy for migrants. She’s fully complicit.”

Donald Norwood – a member of a church in Blackbird Leys, an area of Oxford with a large British Caribbean community– echoed McKendrick’s view. He said the scandal has “created a very nasty atmosphere.”

“It’s just not an accident, it was deliberate policy to make people feel uncomfortable.”

During the protest, members of the Oxford Windrush group spoke. They noted that 2018 will be the 70th anniversary of the year people from the Caribbean arrived in the UK on Empire Windrush, the ship that gave the generation its name. They announced events to celebrate the lives of members of that generation.

To pay tribute to the victims of the Windrush deportations, protesters laid lilies and sang songs, including Civil Rights gospel “We Shall Overcome”.

Chintha, a demonstrator and Oxford resident, told Cherwell: “You cannot undo the state of trauma and the state of total distress that some families went through – you cannot undo that.

“There’s no monetary reward that can take away the pain and the suffering and the sorrow of that period, so even if there is compensation and loads of apologies there’ll still be a lot of very hurt feelings.”

Dolcie Obhiozele, a member of the Windrush generation, moved from Jamaica to Oxford with her mother when she was 11. She recalled how both her mother and aunt had worked for New College as cleaning and catering staff.

Obhiozele told Cherwell: “Many of the colleges and the University, when I look at it, it is built on our back.”

Speaking of fellow Windrush citizens, she said: “These people have worked, and put in here – contributed to the NHS, to their pension. I can’t say how wicked and heartless it is.

“[The government] have just taken their money and everything from them, and just throw them out. It really isn’t right.”

Some of the protesters expressed disappointment at the low numbers of students who turned out to the demonstration. One protester asked: “This city has lots of students, and where are they today? Why can’t they come out for this?”

Louise Zakine, a French woman who has lived in the UK for 15 years, saw the event publicised on Facebook and wanted to show solidarity with the victims.

Zakine told Cherwell: “I’m worried for my friends, my French friends in London – I don’t know what will happen to them [after Brexit] so that’s a bit scary. They’ve been in the UK for over 15 years, and they live here.”

The leader of Oxford City Council, Susan Brown, condemned the treatment of the Windrush generation as “shameful”.

She said: “The way the Government has used its immigration laws to discriminate against the Windrush generation is utterly unacceptable and mean spirited. In Oxford we are proud of the huge contribution that they and other Commonwealth citizens have made to our city.

“On behalf of the City of Oxford I know that colleagues across the council will want to say ‘thank you’ to the African Caribbean community, as we do to all the different communities who contribute to the rich diversity of Oxford life.”

How do we stage Shakespeare in the digital age?

Lizzie Monaghan
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How do we stage Shakespeare in the digital age?

Since the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s passing in 2016, there has been an increasing pressure on directors to solve a problem. How, four centuries on, and countless revivals, adaptations, and re-writes later, could anyone say anything new about Shakespeare? How does one stage Shakespeare in the twenty-first century?

It’s a tall order. Given the sheer scale of Shakespeare’s theatrical legacy, it is a daunting task to provide an original take on the nation’s most celebrated playwright. Yet, in recent years, a few critically acclaimed efforts have  risen to the occasion, attempting to reimagine Shakespeare’s plays in ways that are innovative and contemporary, whilst still retaining that universality which makes them so compelling. Their solution? Digital technology.

With Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood recognises that weight of expectation felt by artistic directors as she follows a director’s attempt to stage a uniquely interactive production of The Tempest. The novel satirically mimics the supposedly definitive productions of our day.

Hag-Seed ridicules those lofty ambitions. It is as if the possibility of contributing anything meaningful with a modern adaption no longer viable. Instead directors must resort to absurd extremities in order to say something new.

Atwood makes a significant observation: she recognises the potential that digital advancements could have in unearthing unprecedented and authentic truths. “The Tempest is,” she says, “in some ways, an early multi-media musical. If Shakespeare were working today he’d be using every special effect technology now makes available.” And she suggests this in Hag-Seed.

The same year, these ambitions were played out onstage in Gregory Doran’s technologically ambitious production of The Tempest. The RSC painstakingly attempted to provide what they described as “a first-of-its kind live digital performance”. Atwood could easily have scripted Doran’s ambition to stage “a truly unique theatre experience, which marries our distinctive theatre skills with cutting edge technology, to give our audiences something out of the ordinary”.

Indeed, the use of motion-capture to generate Ariel’s avatar in real time onstage demonstrated a clear desire to do justice to the spectacle of The Tempest; to immerse the audience in “a human-digital interaction that feels ‘alive'”.

It was no doubt pioneering. However, this approach to adaptation is new and  imperfect. As a member of the audience, I noticed a stark disconnect between technological spectacles of storms and enchantments, and those moments of intimate and human exchange. Furthermore, the use of two-dimensional visual projections onto a three-dimensional theatre space doesn’t make it any easier to cultivate an experience that is immersive for a 270˚ audience in the round.

Some critics even dismissed the production as gimmicky, though I feel such a judgement is unduly harsh. The RSC is a theatre which professes to have “always been at the forefront of radical experiment”. It was right to attempt  to cross the digital with the theatrical so intricately. Whilst not an immediate triumph, it was an ambitious and worthy attempt, the first of its kind.

We are still in 2018. We are far from having a holistic view of what the definitive twenty-first century production could look like. Yet in looking at just the last decade, it is impossible to ignore the impact of modern technology on recent adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays.

Take, for instance, the 2017 production of Hamlet, directed by Robert Icke. Placed alongside the RSC’s earlier version from 2008, one can see the significant strides that have been made in such a short period of time. Icke’s clever staging more fully realises what the RSC’s Hamlet first put into motion, depicting Denmark as a recognisably modern surveillance state.

In 2008, the RSC dabbled in the occasional security camera, camcorder and false mirror. Ickes production goes all out. There are screens everywhere. The production opens in a control room with security guards closely monitoring dozens of locations on the screen looming large overhead. By its close, Hamlet has to shove a camera out of his mother’s face as she dies convulsing on the ground.

Icke, was able to more effectively integrate digital technology into the production without it appearing ‘gimmicky’. Instead, its use enriches the production, bringing the idea of the surveillance state into an authentically modern context.

Hamlet and The Tempest demand vastly different kinds of staging. It’s not hugely surprising that the latter, the more visually ambitious, has not yet reached its full potential at this early stage. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to envisage a similar progression for The Tempest, to imagine another director making the same kind of leap forward from Doran’s 2016 production, equipped with the right technology.

Doran’s adaptation is all the more significant for this reason. As a foundational production, it will shape future interpretations by providing that essential, basic template on which later directors will work. In time, it will come to good.

‘An anthology of divergent styles that promise a skyward trajectory’

Matthew Valentine
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‘An anthology of divergent styles that promise a skyward trajectory’

Geography feels like the beginning of something special. So polished is this selection of guitar-led, groove-infused tracks that it successfully belies an artist who is in fact only 22 years young and opts to produce his music in his bedroom. After having initially opted to veil himself from the spotlight before discovering his mellow yet stirring voice, Misch’s first full-length outing exhibits his journey from young producer to mature singer-songwriter.

That voice is emblematic of the mood on Geography. A distinctively British accent, it harks back to the mid to late 2000s’ surge in musicians who sang in the British vernacular. Misch’s voice is expressive yet effortless, never relying on belting out or falsetto to express himself, but rather mild, coffee-shop, musical minimalism. Clearly, he puts the craft of his songs above the pursuit of hedonistic showmanship.

Geography’s sonic amalgamation shows Misch’s insatiable hunger for expanding the range of styles at his disposal. However, his real talent lies in the fact that he has weaved all those styles onto one album with compelling conviction.

He displays this early on. ‘Before Paris’ is a soundscape discussing the issue of upholding artistic integrity in the face of the economic perils associated with a working musician.  ‘Tick Tock’, the album’s other instrumental skit, evokes a chilled house mood through its muffled synths and transitioning between a half-time swing feel to straight backbeat.  ‘South of the River’ betrays Misch’s true loyalties, proclaiming South London (and, more broadly, Britain) as where musical enterprise resides. A bold declaration, but one supported by the track’s lilting violin riff and driving funk guitar. It is a sonic universe, wrapped up by keyboard maestro Robert Araujo, who navigates the outro with a solo that will turn musos’ heads whilst inviting everyone else to the dance floor.

Collaborations see Misch work with old and new faces. Loyle Carner features on ‘Water Baby’, a track with a piano solo that exposes Robert Glasper’s influence, while ‘It Runs Through Me’ calls on the lyrical finesse of De La Soul. Here Misch seamlessly fuses his beat-making expertise with Latin rhythms, resulting in a song that sounds like a bossa nova indigenous to the suburbs of South Croydon. But it’s not just beats. Misch’s guitar playing prowess is littered throughout the album. ‘Movie’ is a slow jam which draws heavily on the nuances of John Mayer’s playing almost to a fault, sounding somewhat like the American’s equally emotive ballad, ‘Gravity’.

In many ways, Geography challenges conventional genre boundaries, culminating in a sound that has a finger in every pie. From hip-hop to Latin, it demonstrates Misch’s potent ability to draw from contrasting musical spheres, an ability which is sure to set his career on a skyward trajectory.

Merton student society hosts ‘genetic selection’ debate

Isabel Morris
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Merton student society hosts ‘genetic selection’ debate

The Neave Society, a Merton College debating group, hosted a debate on the topic of “genetic selection” on Tuesday, under heavy criticism from members of their JCR.

The event was held a week after a St Antony’s debate on eugenics was cancelled amid heavy backlash from students.

The Neave Society’s original event description read: “Did you want to go to the debate at St Antony’s on eugenics before they decided that it was too controversial for you to hear? No problem, come to Neave!

“Little or no knowledge of eugenics, come and take part!”

The proposed debate topic was “This House Believes that we should legalise genetic selection of human embryos.”

A post advertising the event on the Merton JCR Facebook page received many comments from students protesting the controversial debate topic.

One student wrote: “Oh of course, if an event gets banned at another college (for a damn good reason), then it definitely seems like a great idea to run the same event….

“There is no debate about eugenics. If you think there is, you clearly don’t understand the difference between genetic engineering and eugenics. If you want to have a debate about genetic engineering, have one, but don’t use something so deeply rooted in hatred to try and get attention.

“It’s cheap and frankly disgusting.”

[irp posts=”112822″ name=”St Antony’s ‘eugenics’ debate cancelled amid backlash”]

Another student wrote: “Ah yes, free speech always ends bad ideas and intolerance – that’s why Western liberal democracies with free speech are paragons of modernity, humanity and have absolutely no remnants of any intolerant or hateful ideas.

“Or maybe it’s that giving extreme ideas like these the oxygen of publicity and legitimacy lets them take hold with even more power.”

Very few students attended the event, with only six students having marked “going” on the event page.

The Society changed the event description after its negative reception by the JCR. The new description read: “We will be debating ‘This House Believes that we should legalise genetic selection of human embryos.’ Little or no knowledge on the subject, come and take part!”

Merton JCR President, Jules Desai, told Cherwell: “The Neave Soc intended to have a debate about genetic selection, a subtly but crucially different topic to eugenics.

“Some confusion and miscommunication may have occurred, meaning that the event details were not entirely accurate, however as soon as this was realised, the society amended any confusion and made it clear the debate was on genetic engineering and selection only and not the wider topic of eugenics.”

In defence of their topic choice, The Neave Society President, first-year Lewis Hart, replied to comments on the page: “The Neave Society debated no-platforming and we voted that we were in favour of free speech. If you feel strongly against the concept of eugenics come and speak about it.”

The Neave Society Treasurer, first-year Conor Ó Síocháin, added: “Obviously no racism/sexism will be tolerated, but we hope we can have an honest debate where people can share their views.

“If a view is intolerable then it will (I hope) be properly dismantled in an argument.”

When contacted for comment, The Neave Society told Cherwell: “Tuesday’s Neave Society debated the motion ‘This House Believes that we should legalise the genetic selection of human embryos.’

“It was not to do with eugenics and we did not intend any suggestion of a link between the two.”

TuskTasks app links Oxford students to odd jobs

Jeremiah O'Mahony
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TuskTasks app links Oxford students to odd jobs

A group of student entrepreneurs from Oxford University and Oxford Brookes launched a task-sharing service in April with the aim of “bringing communities together”.

The service, called TuskTasks, connects students with people in the Oxford community who need to run errands but may not have the time.

Members of the public post their tasks on the website along with the price they’re willing to pay for it, and the students choose whichever tasks they can complete.

The response rate is often as quick as a few minutes, Micheal Hodnett, a co-founder of TuskTasks and finalist in real estate management at Brookes, told Cherwell.

So far, according to Hodnett, the service has 201 users. “The idea came when I was lying in bed thinking how much I needed money, and how I was going to make it,” Hodnett said.

Hodnett’s main source of income was doing odd jobs for friends and family, but he wondered why he had to be limited to working for people he knew.

“So I set out to try and create a platform to connect people who need help with students who need work.”

While finding students work is an important aspect of TuskTask’s mission, Hodnett also recognises how the service can bring a community closer together.

He told Cherwell: “There seems to be a lot of negativity towards students within university towns and as such we wanted to paint students in a better light. Students do drink and party – sometimes – but they also work incredibly hard and can be a very reliable taskforce.

“The platform is about helping one another. Helping the students earn money, while they are helping you.”

The service can go a long way towards reducing what Hodnett calls ‘studentification’, the impact of a huge group of students being integrated into a city.

Saam Medizadeh, director of the TuskTasks platform, told the Oxford Mail: “It gives students a chance to bring communities together, reduce the friction between communities and students and have people realise that students can help out.”

Though only a website currently, the TuskTasks team is planning to turn the service into an app by the end of 2018.

Hodnett told Cherwell: “This is the perfect way for students to make money as and when they need it, without having to commit to a regular job that affects their studies-and if we can give students a chance, I’m sure everyone will be surprised.”

Lynne Ramsay reminds us that childhood isn’t a fairytale

Rosa Thomas
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Lynne Ramsay reminds us that childhood isn’t a fairytale

So often our focus on childhood is rose-tinted, coloured by the belief that our childhoods were a simple time, devoid of worry. In this candy-coloured bubble of nostalgia, the work of writer and director Lynne Ramsay is striking. Ramsay has gained fame and critical acclaim for many of her feature length films, including We Need to Talk About Kevin and You Were Never Really Here. However, to appreciate her depiction of childhood, watch Small Deaths – Ramsay’s graduation short film, which won her the Prix du Jury at Cannes in 1996.

This short, running for just eleven minutes, is divided into three moments focusing on experiences of loss in the life of a young girl. The dialogue is infrequent and the plot, if you can call it that, is unclear. Ramsay studied art at Napier College and this is clear in her projects which often focus on image and aesthetic. In Small Deaths, the Camera focuses unflinchingly on the face of a young girl growing up in a Glasgow housing project. In the middle of the tripartite structure the girl watches a cow, hit with a rock by local children, dying. The camera focuses on the girl’s eyes as she takes in the scene in front of her. The little girl watches death and, as an audience, you squirm. The audience, like the girl, are forced to confront the complexities and imperfections of childhood.

Traditional coming-of-age films perpetuate the false idea that our childhoods are carefree periods from which we come of age in one, feature film length, metamorphosis. Ramsay’s frequent exploration of childhood in conjunction with the macabre and the complicated reminds us this is not the truth. The idea that ‘childhood’ is a discreet, different time in our lives, is false. There probably never was a time when we possessed perfect innocence and there is no single, liminal time in which we magically come of age. Instead Ramsay suggests that we are changed by the realities of life that confront us no matter our age.

The flipside of childhood is of course parenthood. This too is questioned by Ramsay’s simultaneously poetic and unforgiving camera, most notably in her film We Need to Talk About Kevin. The film explores the predicament of Eva, a woman whose son Kevin has committed a school massacre. What happens, the film asks, when bad children have good parents? Or maybe ‘good parents’ never existed to begin with. Although cinema is fascinated by the effect of parenting on children, few films ever stop to assess the effect children have on parents.

Ramsay’s latest film, You Were Never Really Here, again examines the darker side of childhood. The film surrounds a hitman who is paid to rescue young girls from sexual exploitation. The gripping narrative is interspersed with horrifying flashbacks from his childhood for which we have little context. Similarly, the girl he is determined to save hasn’t had a childhood, or at least the one we are constantly sold, as she is passed around by different powerful men from a very early age.

Ramsay reminds us that childhood is not just the cause of nostalgia but the root of trauma. Her work asks us to forget the ‘Coming of Age’ trope adored by the cinema. She tries to remind us that childhood inevitably and inescapably interacts with harsh reality, bringing with it the potential for loss, cruelty, and loneliness. For this alone she should be considered one of the most important and innovative directors of our time.

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