Tuesday 10th June 2025
Blog Page 811

Queer spaces should solely be for those who identify as LGBTQ+

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This is not an attack on straight people. Sexuality is, after all, just one aspect of your character. It’s always difficult to write a piece like this without coming across as divisive – but this is not an “us” and “them” issue. We’re all human, we’re all on the same team, and we can all relate on some level.

That being said, there’s a discrepancy between us when it comes to queer spaces, an issue which only queer people are really in a position to fully appreciate. The problem here is not necessarily allies, or people who are questioning their heterosexuality and looking for answers.

The problem is straight people who are just here for the party. It’s a lot harder to be queer around straight people than it is around other queer people. Other queer people understand, to an extent, what you’ve been through, what you’re feeling, what it’s like to be queer in a straight society. Straight people do not.

Before I came to Oxford, I was outed to total strangers by some of my closest friends. It was scary and upsetting, but I knew they didn’t mean any harm by it: they just had no way of appreciating what a massive deal it was to me. Even after I explained, they didn’t understand why I was hurt: it’s 2017, everyone is cool with the gays now.

Even if that were true, it couldn’t take away the fear that it might change how people thought of you once they knew that you were different. It’s hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it, and we realise that. Just take my word for it: it’s so much easier to feel accepted when you know that you’re in a place designed for people like you, by people like you, with people like you.

Of course, there’s no practical way to enforce it. It’s not like our sexuality is printed on our ID cards. However good you think your ‘gaydar’ is, there’s no reliable way to tell who’s queer and who isn’t (much to the relief of many of our queer ancestors, I’m sure). All we can really do is ask nicely. Please: don’t come to queer events if you’re nothing to do with the LGBTQ+ community. If your idea of allyship is not being actively homophobic, you don’t really deserve to attend. And if you must, don’t act like you’re the saviour of the gays for attending.

Don’t use it to broadcast how wonderfully progressive you are. Don’t act disgusted because someone of the same gender hits on you. There are plenty of parties and plenty of clubs – if you come to the queer ones, I’m afraid you’re going to have to accept that this time, it’s not about you.

The road to affordable housing in Oxford is not a simple path

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When walking through Oxford on a Saturday afternoon, it is impossible not to feel the sheer physical size of the University in its labyrinthine sprawl of colleges, libraries, and laboratories. Streets appear created without design, instead falling haphazardly as narrow alleyways and chasms between looming battlements and languishing quads. Whilst tell-tale signs of modernity have crept into central Oxford, the “dreaming spires” have not yet relinquished their spatial supremacy.

But it is sometimes easy to forget the level of land ownership that extends outside of the city walls. According to WhoOwnsEngland.org, in 2015 all the colleges were recorded to have an enormous £1.3 billion invested in property and in 1989, with 127,690 acres owned in total. The number of acres in 2017 fell due to sales, but Oxford University’s landholdings today are still considerable, to say the least. Such mass holdings are fairly anomalous nowadays, anachronistic remnants of England’s feudal past.

Neither do the colleges act like normal landlords. My paternal family are Oxfordshire based farmers, and have rented land from Exeter College since 1945. Since the beginning, the relationship has been less one of landlord and tenant, more of friendly association, one that is only ever mentioned with pride. It has been defined by tradition and stability rather than change, and, unlike the uncertainty that many domestic tenants feel, the agreement has always been defined by security. Living in a college-owned village, my aunt said, was to feel that someone clever was in control.

Yet transposing this archaic relationship into the 21st century has proven difficult. While in the past, housing developments on college owned land would never have been considered particularly newsworthy, the current climate has transformed the colleges’ land transactions from routine agreements to moral arbitration.

Colleges have come under increasing pressure to develop their land, not only from their budgets in the face of declining government funding, but also from Oxford City Council, who are constantly struggling to find suitable sites for new homes. Oxfordshire is one of the least affordable counties in the UK, with the city of Oxford in particular having a house price to income ratio of 11.56, according to West Oxfordshire’s most recent Local Plan.

This dearth of affordable housing in Oxford has become increasingly impossible to ignore. Recently, the local lack of affordable housing has been cited as the cause of Westgate finding it difficult to recruit, as potential workers have been priced out of Oxford’s commuter zones. The University themselves have also felt the pressure of Oxford’s housing shortage, with many dons finding it difficult to find their bearings in a highly competitive housing market.

My first encounter with the immense power Oxford colleges can wield was in the village of Lower Heyford, whose surrounding land is partially owned by Corpus Christi. For a village so near to Oxford – just 15 minutes on the train – it is surprisingly sleepy, with a mere 160 houses running alongside the canal path. As a consequence, this nondescript village was considered ideal for expansion.

The proposal put forward by Corpus Christi and the developer Bonnar Allan was posited as being part of the solution to Oxford’s housing crisis. A third of the proposed houses would have been termed “affordable”, that is for sale or rent at 80% of the market value. But the sheer scale of the village’s growth was completely unprecedented. 5000 houses were proposed to be built, a self-contained ‘settlement’ appended onto the village with its own school, doctor’s surgery and transport links. Over 100 members of the public turned out to reject the plans at a parish council meeting, an act of outcry perhaps not usually associated with balding retirees, but one which left Corpus powerless to follow through with its plans.
The arguments of the villagers that led the campaign against Corpus had more than a whiff of Nimbyism, the overriding message of this meeting apparently being ‘you are not wanted here’, according to the council minutes of the event. Such language could easily be construed as a middle-class fear of the riff-raff rather than any legitimate concerns about the integrity of village life. However, it is difficult to contend with the claim that the proposed change was clearly a move of gross insensitivity. The plans themselves were presented with an almost comical tone of false naïvety that grated with many of Heyford’s residents. Some burst into laughter when developers tried to convince them that the additional homes “would not add significantly to traffic flows”, the implication being that everyone would only use the improved train service.

Although the proposed demographic changes to the village could perhaps be considered inevitable, the speed at which such a change was put forward is rather alien to the ideals of co-operation and compromise. Even Corpus Christi, in their attempt to try and pitch the development, described Bonnar Allan as a “new and different kind of benign developer”, an unwitting Freudian confirmation of the villagers’ fears that some developers were acting like cancers, destroying the countryside under a concrete proliferation of identical homes.
Similar struggles between residents and colleges are alarmingly common, and a perceived aggressiveness on the part of the colleges is becoming more and more widely reported.
The Parish of Fyfield and Tubney has been historically linked with St John’s College since its founding in the 16th century, being part of the college’s original endowment. For centuries, the village has been a refuge for St John’s scholars during times of tension in the city, and Fyfield’s small church is lined with commemorations of past fellows.

Yet development plans for the tiny parish have caused animosity against the college to reach a fever pitch. Some residents have reportedly wanted to sever all visible ties with St John’s, to the point of advocating the renaming of local cul-de-sac St John’s Close. For despite the land around the parish being judged by the local authority as “unsuitable” for development, due to its lack of infrastructure and the land’s current greenfield status, St John’s College has continued to push through planning proposals, with the intention of adding 700 homes to the 185-home parish.

Tim Dougall, a representative of Fyfield Local Action Group (Flag), whose purpose is to prevent what they consider the pernicious impacts of the development, as their website read, “because someone has to”, said that it is primarily the college’s attitude towards the development that has stoked so much local anger. St John’s reportedly continued to insist that the residents’ reception of the planning proposal had been “favourable” despite their clear concern. Dougall also showed Cherwell documents that exhibited the college’s constant evasion of engagement with the local community. Instead of opening up discussion, the President of St John’s urged the campaigners to “liaise and communicate your concerns directly with Lioncourt and the local planning authority”, adopting an approach that has become symptomatic of the shift in St John’s and Fyfield’s relationship.
Much of St John’s planning agenda has been formulated with the help of the public relations company SP Broadway. Martin Harris, an ex-postgraduate researcher in Oxford and a member of the Oxford Green Belt Network, an organisation that campaigns to preserve and prevent the development of Oxford’s Green Belt, has criticised the colleges’ use of such companies at other sites.

Harris said these firms present a “biased case for building over on this important natural capital, denying that this is anti-social vandalism, and claiming that it is necessary to help more people in Oxford find homes nearer to their work.
“That is simply not true, nor is it justified by any objective evidence that I have seen; the motive is financial gain.”

Dougall was also quick to point out what he considers St John’s lack of integrity in promoting the development so forcefully. The college, the wealthiest in Oxford, would stand to make £85 million if the development application is successful, a huge sum that he felt highlighted the paltriness of St John’s spending on bursaries and outreach. St John’s was becoming “a property and investment company with a sideline in education,” he said.
Dougall is not the only one to publicly criticise the colleges. This January, the Oxfordshire Campaign to Protect Rural England announced that “Colleges’ greed puts Green Belt and city at risk”, raising concern over the 17,000 houses that are proposed to be built on Oxford’s Green Belt by 2031. Unlike the land at Heyford and Fyfield, this is land that is protected from development by law, despite the housing shortage in Britain. Christ Church, Magdalen, Brasenose, and Exeter have all come forward with plans to build directly onto these prime Green Belt sites.

Whilst outlying projects in Heyford and Fyfield could be seen as slightly marginal, the green belt, with its proximity to the city centre, is financially secure. Within the green belt, each hectare of farmland is approximately worth £12,000, but the asset value increases enormously if permission to build on the land is granted, rising to £2,000,000 per hectare. Successful planning permission thus massively increases the colleges’ rental income from these sites, with relatively little effort on their behalf – though it is worth noting that the land is only so expensive because of the scarcity of good housing near the city centre.
However, Martin Harris condemned the Colleges’ participation in the development of the green belt as “socially irresponsible”, particularly in regard to its effects on city dwellers’ physical and mental health. By building on the green belt, he explained, problems associated with congestion and air pollution can only be exacerbated.

Harris also explained that the University could even be disadvantaging itself as an institution in the long term by indirectly contributing to Oxford’s environmental decline – though he failed to note the perhaps much greater risk that the housing shortage would jeopardise the University’s ability to recruit the best minds.

“The campuses of many other universities in the UK, in the EU and in North America confidently offer excellent physical environments for study and learning, which are superior to that now found in central Oxford… this may become an important factor which unfortunately steers away talented but discerning people away from coming to Oxford,” he said.

But where does this leave affordable housing? Whilst the belief that houses need to be built is almost unanimously agreed upon, it is the location that is thus the crux of the issue. Bob Price, Labour city councillor, told Cherwell that he welcomed the colleges’ “growing interest in supporting the growth of new settlements.” He believes that the green belt, far from vivifying, is in fact “throttling” the city, and that by not building on it Oxford would be powerless to find a solution to the burgeoning crisis.

However, there is some question as to whether the developments are really providing the houses for the people who need them. The cost of enforcing below market prices means that building affordable housing is less than attractive from a profit perspective. Although Oxford City Council enforces a rule that 50% of all new developments must be ‘affordable’, this agreement is not binding on developers. As Ryan Hunt of South Oxfordshire District Council told to Cherwell, this figure is in fact fairly nominal and subject to change.
“This is a starting point for discussions between the developer and the council and the number can fall if the said number is considered not viable,” Hunt said.

What Hunt is referring to is the Viability Assessment, which Steve Akehurst in the New Statesman called a “trick” used by developers after a site has been secured as an excuse for building fewer affordable homes. After planning permission has been secured, developers often utilise the Assessment to claim that, due to ‘unforeseen’ circumstances, such as lower housing prices or increased building costs, their profit model no longer supports the original number of affordable homes.

According to Charlie Fisher, the problem is even worse on Green Belt sites because there is so much competition for the land, meaning vast amounts of money are required to secure bids.

He explained to Cherwell that last year an unexpectedly large sum was offered for a University site by developers. Charlie explained that the prospect for affordable housing therefore was discouraging – though he didn’t note the massively inflationary impact of the green belt itself on house prices near Oxford.

“It’s challenging to see how they could afford to pay so much for land AND provide the 50% affordable homes the city requires,” he said.

Fisher is a member of Oxfordshire Community Land Trust, and has been working with Homes for Oxford to provide not only permanently affordable homes in the city, but houses that are energy efficient and looked after by community members themselves.

One of their recent projects has been to bid for the brownfield Wolvercote Paper Mill site in May 2016, which is owned by the University. They planned to build 190 mixed tenure homes with a GP surgery and a lagoon. However, in the end their bid was unsuccessful.
“The problem is that the lawyers interpret charity law as meaning charity land disposals must go to [the] highest bidder,” said Fisher.

Nevertheless, he asserted that Oxford University has a “moral duty” to support affordable housing in Oxford, and should seek to give priority to those bidders that are committed to creative housing strategies.

A spokesperson for Oxford University said: “The University believes that responsible development of housing and employment sites within the green belt can, subject to independent review of their impact, provide for the sustainable growth of Oxford.”

The University’s part in development is thus a complex one, and lined with politically-toxic pitfalls. As an institution, Oxford is always going to be under close attention. If they continue to develop in this more aggressive manner, not only will their reputation with local residents falter, but its actions could also be detrimental to its status internationally.

But if they don’t continue to develop land, the British housing crisis will only get worse. There is not enough brownfield land in Britain to fix the housing crisis – at some point, parts of the Green Belt is likely to have to go.

At a time when the University most requires the support of others, it surely does not seem sensible to alienate those very people who have sustained it for centuries. But the University’s interests are fundamentally linked to a good supply of housing and good access to property. Local residents naturally have a right to protect their communities, but their wishes need to be balanced.

 

Trump is using Twitter to dictate the media

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For a handful of minutes last Thursday night, those who searched for Donald Trump’s Twitter account were greeted with an uncharacteristically apologetic message: “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!” It was a sharp contrast to the typical slew of damaging assertions and outbursts that occupy his feed.

Despite Twitter’s claim that this was due to a system error, it was soon revealed that a rogue employee had actually deleted the President’s personal account on his last day at the company. Once Trump’s virtual lifeline was back up and running, he told his 42 million followers that it was clear his Twitter was “having an impact.” Trump’s boast is hardly out of character and he is open about his fondness for the social media tool, telling Fox News in a recent interview that, “When somebody says something about me, I am able to go bing, bing, bing and I take care of it.”

However, his prolific and vociferous use of the medium has arguably caused him as many headaches as self-styled PR victories. His consistent keyboard courage led to the public demanding he be ousted from the platform (if not the Oval Office itself) before he sparks a nuclear war with Kim Jong-un, who saw Trump’s declaration that he “won’t be around much longer” as a declaration of war.

More importantly Trump has proved that digital insults and slander don’t need to be a last resort for campaigners. He understands Twitter as a platform where users benefit from saying the outrageous and controversial as it helps to disseminate what is being said, sparking conversation. Trump has noted the importance of Twitter particularly as a means to bypass what he has infamously dubbed the “fake news” media.

Social  media is Trump’s preferred way of directly conveying his message, it appeals to those who want information quickly, without the airs and graces. It seems his Twitter not only skirts the media, but can somewhat dictate it. A clear phenomenon has arisen whereby a tweet consisting of a few choice sentences can wholly besiege the news agenda. Trump can thus inadvertently exercise a modicum of control over the reporters he denigrates.

Past presidents have carefully drafted speeches for weeks, while a tweet is written in a matter of moments and when it comes to Trump they seem to demand an immediate reaction. Twitter is a superb tool for brief announcements and facile feuding, but a medium with a 280-character limit is hardly apt for explaining the intricacies of Trump’s various policies.

The deletion of his Twitter highlights the integral role which his social media continues to play in his presidency, and may serve as an indicator of who, and what, the American people will adapt to and embrace in the future.

Turtles All The Way Down review: messy, clichéd, and pretentious

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John Green is a big name in the lucrative world of young adult fiction. With four novels and two Hollywood films under his belt, and supported by a fan-base of millions, the release of Turtles All The Way Down, his most recent novel, was a certified big deal.

Turtles All The Way Down is about a girl called Aza who struggles with OCD. It’s also about a billionaire who goes missing, his son, a tuatara, and the White River, which runs through the city of Indianapolis. But above all that, John Green’s new novel is about John Green. Of course, all novelists incorporate insights from their own personal lives into their work – that’s part of the writing process.

Yet, in the case of Turtles All The Way Down, John Green’s confessional account of his own experiences with mental illness seems to come before all else. The plot is a messy cliche, with the characters merely serving as voices in a contrived and at points deeply pretentious faux-platonic dialogue. There are three supporting characters in Turtles, who are all predictable and two dimensional.

The manic and extroverted sidekick Daisy, who’s a foil for the protagonist’s withdrawn introversion, the poetically nerdy but angsty boyfriend Davis, (recycled from his previous novels), and the mother, who’s well-meaning but unsure about how to deal with her daughter’s condition.

Maybe Green is trying to highlight the everyday truths about living with mental illness, or trying to depict ordinary day-to-day relationships when someone’s really struggling. The best sections of Turtles are the bits which deal with OCD. But everything else in the novel feels either superfluous or formulaic. We’ve seen it all before – both Paper Towns and Turtles have the motif of a missing character as a narrative centrepiece, whilst the conversations about love and poetry are recognisable from every one of Green’s books, as is the well-worn romantic progression between the two protagonists.

Indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking that John Green or his publicist has found a formula and is sticking with it. Perhaps the most grating thing about Turtles All The Way Down is that it’s so messy. The best plots are often the simplest, but this one is sprawling, bringing in the Tuatara, for instance. Not only is it messy, but it’s also secondary to what John Green really wants to write about: his OCD.

I was more disappointed than frustrated by Turtles. I love John Green, and have been watching Vlogbrothers (John and his brother Hank’s YouTube channel) for five years. Indeed, John Green is fun to read, at points, and it’s great that teenage fiction is really engaging with mental health issues, but the hype that Turtles All The Way Down is getting seems a little unjustified. It’s messy, clichéd, and at points it’s pretentious. Read something else.

Villians Review – ‘Pop songs with rock sensibilities’

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Ever since I first heard ‘No One Knows’, I was in love with Queens of the Stone Age. Their driving riffs were in perfect harmony with notorious frontman Josh Homme’s eerily melodic voice. They created a musical catalogue any rock band would be proud of, and they have done it whilst straddling the line between true gritty, guitar-rock, and a sort of cabaret parody of itself. 2013’s. ‘Like Clockwork’ was, for me, their masterpiece. Following that, therefore was always going to be a tall order.

‘Villains’ starts with three driving rock songs. The riffs for all three are simple, matched with Homme’s typically droning, ghoulish lyrics, you end up with pop songs with rock sensibilities. The opening track swells in and kicks off into a truly instantly gratifying groove, and the breakdown shows Homme’s voice at its ethereal best. The single, The Way You Used to Do, is an Era Vulgaris-esque headbanger, truly dissolving the line between guitars and synthesiser. The chorus is what makes this song special – a flourish of rich chords in an otherwise musically simple jam. Domesticated Animals is in the same vein, with a 7/8 time signature that will make you feel like you were tripping on your own feet.

The rest of the album is quintessentially QOTSA. Hideaway is a personal favourite: Homme sounds like a choir-boy over raucous, roaring chords, and a hazy drumbeat. What makes the song, however, is the synth line, which washes over cleaning all your wounds from the earlier pace of the album.

‘Villains’, then, is both typically QOTSA, but still an example of them at their punchy and fresh best. However, it can never match the emotional depths or musical variety of its predecessors and can only be considered as one of their ‘very good’ albums, and no more.

Queer spaces can benefit from the presence of allies

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The commodification of various queer events have understandably lead many to try to protect queer spaces with an increased fervour.

For those who identify as LGBTQ+, these spaces serve an integral purpose within the queer community. They supply a safe environment for those who wish to express their identity and are affirming to those who are rarely surrounded by those similar to them.

But they are arguably most vital for those who are taking the first tentative steps towards accepting who they are. It is for this reason that the presence of allies within spaces like Plush should be debated with a certain degree of care. It’s easy for those who have already established a network of friends who identify as LGBTQ+ at university to argue that these spaces should be exclusively queer. But to do so appears potentially selfish – it is to deny those questioning their identity the chance to explore it in the presence of a safe group of friends.

It is to suggest that those well-meaning allies are not valued – when in fact the opposite is true. Of course, there is a distinction to be made where large groups of straight people overrun places like Plush and we should all be troubled when such spaces are almost fetishised by the straight community. Venues like Plush and events like Queerfest are not to be used as a break from the monotony of Bridge and Cellar. These spaces, and the people who occupy them are not an exciting ‘other’ and should not be used or viewed as such.

But there is a deeper problem which underlies complaints of straight, cis-gendered people occupying queer spaces. It is mistaken to presume that we can immediately ascertain someone’s gender or sexuality by merely looking at them. We may assume we see a straight person or couple in a queer space, but to assume such is problematic. Biphobia is an issue which the LGBTQ+ community is yet to adequately combat. Bisexual people are the largest group within the queer community, and yet they are consistently overlooked and undermined by the movement.

So long as straight people remain exceptions to the rule, their presence shouldn’t be deemed inherently problematic. Allies are an integral part of the LGBTQ+ movement, and to reject them from queer spaces is, occasionally, to deny someone of valued support.

Hopefully most will appreciate that they may don the glitter and bask in the glory of Haute Mess or Queerfest, but in the firm knowledge that in this space they are a guest, not a host.

“I’m carrying two paper bags. One contains a croissant, the other my soul”

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Shiny towers and lifts to 116 floors. Glass windows in every direction, the concentrated smell of freshly-pressed suits and over-strained orange juice. Unfulfilled syrupy hopes and dreams are dashed into coffee shots, workwear choices are a sliding scale of monochrome shades – correlating levels of fatigue and monotony that are exhibited by their wearers. Discussions about the weather deliciously extend into ones about financial spreadsheets. After a while everyone looks like a spreadsheet. I press a light-up button and begin the greasy climb. It’s my first day at The Corporation and I’m carrying two paper bags. One contains a croissant, the other my soul. I hand over the latter to a receptionist who really knows how to use eyeliner. The precision of her eye contouring seems rather judgmental, and I immediately doubt the authenticity of her response: “Thank you, you’ll get that back in forty years.”

In return for surrendering my soul, I receive a seductive starting salary and a lanyard that supposedly opens doors. In ten years’ time I will have watched four Wimbledon matches (none of them with my friends), read a disappointing number of books, and have an
unmatched amount of LinkedIn endorsements. I will cash in my bonus for a golden retriever, a dutiful partner, and a home in Clapham. Such is the soulless corporate world, narrated by a beautifully uniformed humanities student. It’s a sterile and naked brand of Hades’ lair that has napping pods rather than glowing pits of fire, and fancy hand cream dispensers littered about in bathrooms to soothe monetary burns.

Dramatics aside, hostility towards the corporate world features rather a lot in conversations I have with other finalists. If we’re not matching types of herbal tea to our moods or discussing dreams had whilst napping, we’re usually producing passive sighs and eyerolls whilst discussing our future careers. Someone has probably just expressed an interest in pursuing a corporate career and suggested that they might find it tolerable, even enjoyable. It may even be that that someone is the one doing the eye-rolling – to soften the blow for us, who are, naturally, the ‘non-corporate intelligentsia’.

This rhetoric that prevails has prompted me to consider rewriting various dictionary definitions. For example: ‘Selling out’ (verb). Used by Oxford students to describe other Oxford students who decide that there is nothing better in life than to get really loaded, exchange their soul for a branded highlighter, and renounce the virtuous lifetime pursuit of wholesome intellectualism.

It’s all a bit silly and small-minded. Whilst our scepticism and mocking might seem mildly amusing, it is arguably rooted in an unwillingness to acknowledge reality. Life, for most, runs on rent and realism, rather than padded-out footnotes. And, it is often brushed over that not everyone from Oxford is presented with the same range of opportunities on graduation.

It’s very easy to lull ourselves into a false sense of homogeneity here. Together we live in a somewhat ethereal kingdom where our continued existence, regardless of our subject, largely depends on reading books or completing a tute sheet, or pretending to have done either. It is an seven-day weekly routine of sparring at pre-arranged tutorial duels and sleeping in marbled towers.

We are also taught by tutors who rarely venture outside. Rather predictably they often only concern themselves with life in the rewarding, yet expensive and volatile, realm of academia. Their words, whether they concern potential career routes or my essay plan, are often ungrounded and rather incomprehensible. It is this aura of intellectual uniformity that starts to show its cracks as graduation beckons. In our final years of Oxford, the real world becomes imminent and less cloaked by stuffy gowns and the like. It becomes a lot more obvious that we are each our own individuals, with different priorities and facing different realities. Upon graduation, some people will eagerly move back home, whilst others won’t want or be able to. Whilst comparing career options, some people will always look for economic security, whilst others will be more flexible and be in the position to be pickier. Just as some can’t justify taking on an unpaid internship, others struggle to qualify applying for jobs in the charity sector, or those which are equally morally applauded, particularly if it means that making ends meet seem impossible or a plain struggle.

A corporate job isn’t always the answer to these insecurities, let alone the only answer. However, amidst all our hate speech I think it’s important to stress that the corporate life is an informed choice, sometimes even a compromise, that many students know they’re lucky to have the privilege to make. For many, it’s the stepping stone to other careers and a foundation from which other goals are pursued. Whilst I’m arguably naïve in saying so, I feel that the drawing of such finite lines between people’s calculated life choices and inherent morals is rather an oversimplification. After all, we are not cut-out paper dolls, and those who choose to go down the corporate route probably do have more highly prized possessions than a logo-embossed Moleskine notebook.

As students, revelling in intellectual snobbery and the rhetoric of ‘selling out’ is amusing. Actually, it’s often hilarious, yet hilariously bad at providing the full picture – which I’m sure we realise, but often forget. It also serves to place those, for whom money is no problem, in a position where making the moral choice is an easier step.

After all, given that my brother does work for a bank, I’m pretty sure that some financiers do have their souls intact, because he has a rather great one. I’m certain that like the aesthetic filter on the Paradise Papers, corporate people have shades of yellow in their lives as well as monochrome, just like all of us.

Could Man City become the new ‘Invincibles’?

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In the 2003-04 season, Arsenal completed their Premier League campaign as champions without a single defeat to earn the team the nickname ‘the Invincibles’, based on the name given to the Preston North End team that went unbeaten in the first ever Football League season. Arsène Wenger’s side, built around the mercurial talents of Robert Pires and Thierry Henry dominated English football that season, and is widely considered – alongside José Mourinho’s Chelsea side in 2004-05 – to be one of the best sides in the Premier League’s history.

Fast-forward fourteen years and Manchester City look set to challenge that consensus. Following their return to the Premier League in the 2000s, and the club’s acquisition by the Abu Dhabi United Group, City have become one of the wealthiest clubs in the world. This has led to huge spending – over £210m went on last summer’s transfers – and the ability to attract Pep Guardiola as manager. City are also blessed with world-class players such as Kevin de Bruyne, highly promising young talents like Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sané, and – at a time when all clubs want a ‘twenty-goal-a-season’ striker – they have two in Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus. Surely, they have everything they need to be the new ‘Invincibles’?

At the moment yes, but we are only eleven games in. City are a great side, and have plenty going for them, but they aren’t perfect yet. You can get at them, as an average West Brom side demonstrated at the end of October, when the mid-table team managed to bag two goals against City’s less-than-convincing defence. So while they have not been defeated so far this season, having won some impressive games (last week’s Champions League victory against Napoli 4-2 springs to mind), they are by no means ‘invincible’.

City are a great attacking side, but their style does leave them exposed at the back. Indeed, a squad that relies on Nicolas Otamendi and John Stones at centre-back will always be vulnerable, and whereas Wenger’s Arsenal ground out results up when they were up against it thanks to the rock-hard spine of Patrick Vieira, Gilberto Silva, Sol Campbell and Kolo Toure, City lack the same bite and winning mentality when they have an off-day.

While it is too early to say for sure, it seems inevitable that Guardiola’s side will fall short of becoming the new ‘Invincibles’: despite the fact they may well win the title, the strain of a European campaign and a lack of leaders at the back means that a City defeat is inevitable at some stage.

In conversation with Layo-Christina Akinlude

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She’s about to start a technical rehearsal when I begin my interview with Layo-Christina Akinlude, the up-and-coming star of Shared Experience’s new production of As You Like It, and after a busy national tour that began in July, her ability to squeeze an interview into a hectic schedule and still remain relaxed, friendly and engaging is the first thing that impresses upon me.

With As You Like It about to come to Oxford (running at the Playhouse from November 14th – 18th), we begin by talking immediately about the production. Shared Experience, formerly the resident theatre company of the Oxford Playhouse, is a group renowned for its vibrant and distinctive physical style, so I ask if it was this innovative style of theatre that drew Akinlude to the project. The answer, she says, is both the exciting possibilities offered by the text, and the vision of the play captured by the company. “Shared Experience is spearheaded by lots of female creative artists, one of them includes our director. And essentially, As You Like It is that show, it’s that show that is spearheaded by a woman, and the whole plot is about a woman taking charge of her own destiny, which is hugely refreshing”.

What does she think makes the Shared Experience version of As You Like It stand out? “It’s current. It is applicable to the world in which we live, especially as regards men and women and the ways in which we interact with each other. When we look at everything that’s going on in the world right now, I think it’s very important to have a play like As You Like It.”

Akinlude plays Celia, the headstrong daughter of Duke Frederick, and with all this talk of strong women, I wonder if she can see any resemblance to her character in herself. “I think a lot of what she does I can relate to. I went to, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, The Guilty Feminist? I went to one of their live shows, and one of the talks was about how women use silence to gain power, and it was really moving. I think Celia is a good example of someone who does that, she uses her silence to acquire what she wants”.

She’s recently completed a stint as Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew at Shakespeare’s globe, another example of a strong-willed female role. Are there any other Shakespearean characters that Akinlude has her eye on? “I think Lady Macbeth is probably up there, and I would also say Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. There’s so many female roles… and of course, I’m doing one now!”.

Outside Shakespeare, “which I love”, she describes an ambition to play the lead role of Ifemelu in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2013 novel Americanah, the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award for its heart-rendering tale of a young Nigerian woman emigrating to the United States for college. Akinlude’s conscious proclivity towards parts that uplift women and provoke thought is one that should be admired.

My next question – about her plans following As You Like It – is met with knowing laughter and an enigmatic “only time will tell”, so we chat briefly about the experiences of young actors trying to find work. In reference to the idea of getting a so-called ‘big break’, Akinlude says that “it requires, as I’m sure you know, a level of discipline that is alien to even professional actors, it’s hard, and one must be prepared for that”. But still, she adds, “if you can’t imagine doing anything else, then pursue it, and pursue it with everything. If it’s what’s going to make your heart beat at night then do it, and do it with everything you have. Be shameless, be relentless in the pursuit of happiness.”

It’s good advice from a woman who has clearly found her own happiness in inspiring others.

As You Like It runs from November 14th – 18th at the Oxford Playhouse. Tickets are available at https://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/whats-on/all-shows/as-you-like-it/6054#tickets

Angel Hill review – ‘It may be simple, but it isn’t empty’

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In the world of contemporary poetry, Michael Longley is often overshadowed by Seamus Heaney, his literary compatriot and friend. But underrating Longley is a mistake, as his most recent Forward prize nominated collection Angel Hill shows.

Longley isn’t concerned with the political or social complexities of the modern world, he’s concerned with the natural, historical, and personal fabric of the world itself. There’s something refreshing about the unashamed and uninvolved observance of Longley’s work, and, as his editor puts it, in these poems the “imaginations of poet and painter intermingle”. Precious little of Longley’s is even remotely political.

In 60 pages of often short and rarely structurally complex poems, Longley explores the world around him as he grows older. Split between his own home in Carrigskeewaun, and Lochalsh, in the Highlands, Longley’s verse is both a series of observations of his world as he ages within it, and an excavation of its history. He writes about his father who fought at Passchendaele, the children whose parents died in the troubles, the early years of his marriage.

The real strength of Angel Hill is the sense of controlled universality that Longley evokes without ever seeming overblown or exaggerated. Angel Hill encapsulates, in rich and powerful verse, everything that it is to be Michael Longley.

Almost all of the poems in the collection focus in some way on both the fl ora and the fauna of Longley’s world. Corncrakes, a rare and elusive bird found sporadically across the Highlands, swallows, nosegays and larks’ nests all feature. A veteran bird watcher and naturalist, much like Heaney, Longley consistently roots himself in nature. Trees, birds, flowers and mountains serve as reference points by which he defines his life. In ‘Age’, Longley writes “I have been writing about this townland/ for fifty years, watching on their hummock / autumn’s lady tresses come and go.” His life is defined, not by his work, but by the natural world with which he has framed his life.

Longley is 78 this year, and his age plays a vocal and important role in this collection. His grandchildren feature throughout, and, once more, Longley envisages himself within the natural environment. In the poem ‘Granddaughters’ he writes “You have buried me up to my shins / in autumn leaves. I am taking root.” He becomes, through his offspring, a part of the natural backdrop. Angel Hill is certainly in part a peaceful meditation on death – both his own, and that of his friends, including Heaney.

Although Longley isn’t much read, he should be. His poetry has peace to it, a sense of contentment. He looks at the world around him, at his own life and he sees in the trees and in the birds something appreciable, something worth versifying. It’s simple, but it isn’t empty. It has all the craft and meaning of someone who’s been writing poetry for fifty years. It is, at its best, timeless.