Sunday 27th July 2025
Blog Page 829

Strong musical talent and an excellent script

Jacob Greenhouse
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Strong musical talent and an excellent script

Entering the Keble O’Reilly Theatre for the debut performance of Cyrano de Bergerac, I was greeted by a well-lit busy stage. I have often found that performances have difficulty filling the O’Reilly’s stage, but Cyrano’s large cast and clever direction meant that no part of it was left unused. The costume and make up were also convincingly done, far better than I have seen in other student productions, giving the impression that we were actually in 17th Century Paris.

While the play may be entitled Cyrano, the entire cast plays a strong role in keeping the fast-paced musical running smoothly. This was certainly the largest cast I have seen for any student production in Oxford (I counted 18) and the writers made sure that each member plays a vital role. From the very start of the play, the cast are immersed within the audience, running up and down stairs, whilst sword fighting with what look like real swords. The fight between Cyrano (James Bruce) and Valvert (Jody Clark) in the very first scene raised expectations for the rest of the play, and the audience were not to be left disappointed.

What makes Cyrano stand out from other productions is the combination of strong musical talent with an excellent script. The music and script were written by two students (Sam Norman and Aaron King) but had I not known this beforehand, I would have guessed Cyrano to be an early Lloyd Weber. The main motif entitled ‘I love you’ is repeated at the most crucial moments of the play, leaving it engraved into my memory – so much so that my housemate and I have taken to singing the duet whenever we cross paths.

A special mention must go to the more minor songs in the play. ‘Oh will you come with me to Gascony’ was not just a fantastic melody, but was a great contrast to the fast pace of the play. The song reminded me of ‘Tomorrow belongs to me,’ from Cabaret. Both sing of a more optimistic homeland and have wonderful flowing melodies. Similarly, ‘Swallows’ felt like it had been plucked straight out of the ‘Sound of Music,’ showing just how convincing the composition was. 

 

However, I cannot credit the success of Cyrano solely to the music: it takes a committed cast and director to transform script into performance. The ability of the entire cast to improvise when cues were missed, and to band together for the big chorus pieces, must be commended. What really stood out from the very start was the comic ability of specific actors. The power couple of David Garrick as Ragneau the Poet/Baker and Lucy Talbot as his wife were the stand out duo of the show. Their ability to lighten the mood of the entire performance left the audience applauding every time one of them stepped on stage, and won them the largest final applause of any of the actors. Tackling perhaps the most difficult of characters to play, with both a demanding acting and singing role, Greta Thompson made commendably easy work of playing Roxanne.

Overall, the modern transformation of an old time classic did not disappoint. The classically styled music worked well with the ambiance of the performance, with melodies that will be stuck in my head for weeks to come. What was achieved in just four weeks of rehearsal is a credit to the Director (Rosie Richards) who must have worked tirelessly in order for the performance to come together. West End productions of this scale put in months of work for a standard to which Cyrano came remarkably close, and being able to pull off this production while balancing the Oxford student lifestyle is commendable in itself. What’s more, the original composition of the musical breathed new life into such a well-known plot.

A wonderful performance combining good acting, singing and comedy. 

TV memes for deadline-drowning teens

Becky Cook
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TV memes for deadline-drowning teens

For the most part, memes have the lifespan of a housefly. Despite pre-dating the internet as a concept, memes have come to rule our virtual reality, and their casual browsing occupies a hefty chunk of our essay procrastination. While a lot of them are spawned from the news, current affairs or dead gorillas, many look to the world of film and TV for memeworthy matter. The outlandish and expressive animation of Spongebob Squarepants, for example, has created a range of resilient memes, from Mr Krabs spinning in a whirl of doom, to Spongebob’s forefather Primitive Sponge, who has come to represent various primal fears. Then there are the enduring memes of Futurama Fry and his perpetual indecision or Condescending Wonka, featuring eminently recognisable images from both the small and silver screen.

These familiar stills accompanied by a witty caption have become the inside joke of the modern day, and many heavily rely on the likes of popular TV shows and film. This renewal of the familiar is superb because it allows audiences to squeeze even more laughter and emotional significance from shows regardless of whether they were axed decades ago or are still on our screens today. Dormant fanbases, such as the Friends followers, have been wholly revived and ensure the charm and magic never wanes, even when the show does. Their status as inside jokes relies of the exclusivity of what their humour is referencing; in order to fully understand our resident Facebook page ‘Oxford Uni Peep Show Quotes’, you really should have seen Peep Show.

This reliance on the communal experience of a TV show differs from the ‘you had to be there’ nature of an inside joke, because there is suddenly a clear way of moving from someone on the outside looking in to someone in on the joke. ‘You had to be there’ becomes ‘you have to see this’ and the nonplussed become fellow revellers. Memes like the ‘Etcetera’ and ‘Patricia’ memes birthed by M. Night Shymalan’s film Split made more people watch the film, not just because it was being talked about, but because it was being virally circulated in funny memes that people wanted to understand. Similarly, a huge component of the unparalleled popularity of Love Island this year was the meme pages it bred. When you were online, the show was virtually inescapable; everyone was talking about it or tagging people in memes about it. Little did Chris Hughes know that a shot of him looking morose in bed was going to be so heavily circulated that summer.

The latent power of a meme to influence the popularity of a TV show or a film has been discovered. Our fixation on social media and desire to understand the meme makes us want to seek out the media being referenced in each internet sensation. Fervent fanbases have adopted memes as a way to strengthen and reinforce their love for their favourite TV show, as well as foster a sense of inclusion and affinity with other fans. This has spawned memes focusing on increasingly obscure reference points, which in turn narrows the circle of enthusiasts and solidifies their loyalty.

Studios have begun to recognise the power of meme culture. The viral marketing campaign in the approach to the release of Straight Outta Compton greatly altered the film’s box office success. The #StraightOutta meme-generator let fans alter the film’s logo. This canny form of free marketing won a Shorty Award as 9 million memes were generated and the film raked in $60 million more than anticipated upon opening. However, as expected, the internet always has a dark side. Dora the Explorer’s unabashed innocence seems to leave people wanting to enforce perversion onto it, while Arthur the Aardvark’s frustrated clenched fist created explicit memes that left PBS somewhat appalled.

Yet, memes seem to bind people together and how can something that forges connections and sparks fervent passion for shared interests be a bad thing? Humour and the internet have proven powerful enough to unite existing fans and infuse new life into sleeping art. They are our cultural epidemic, upholding the film and TV we love most.

‘Bacchae’ review – A focus on gender that isn’t reflected in the casting

Louis Morris
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‘Bacchae’ review – A focus on gender that isn’t reflected in the casting

The Oxford Greek Play is an august tradition, providing a special opportunity every three years to see a performance of a Classical tragedy in the original language. Despite its many strengths, however, this year’s performance of Euripides’ Bacchae – the story of how the god of revelry returns to Thebes to wreak bloody revenge on his mother’s family – leaves the spectator wishing that its creators had been a bit less traditional in their staging of such a potentially powerful play.

In his director’s notes, Sean Kelly acknowledges that choosing the theme of gender as the main focus of this production presented him with a number of delicate problems concerning casting and staging. Unfortunately, the slightly apologetic tone he takes at this point seems justified by the results of some his choices.

The decision to have Dionysos played simultaneously by three actors was a bold one which felt in keeping with the character’s multifaceted nature – part man, part god, and part beast – and Derek Mitchell, Harry Lukakis and Marcus Knight- Adams worked well together to form a capricious and frightening triumvirate. However, by failing to give the members of the trio any distinguishing features or to identify them with particular aspects of the protagonist’s self, the director left the purpose of this device somewhat unclear and under-developed.

In addition, given that Kelly specifically writes that “Dionysos is not confined to a gender binary”, having all three of the deity’s incarnations played by male coded actors also seems to be a missed opportunity.

Indeed, the general reluctance to cross-cast any major male roles felt oddly conservative for a play so rich in themes of feminine power and gender fluidity (one character, Tiresias, is famous in mythology for having swapped sexes). No female actor spoke a non-chorus line until the final scenes of the play, and even half the chorus of maenad women were played by men.

Given that Dionysos is the god of mad excess and the play revolves around the inner struggle between savagery and civilisation, another thing that prevented it from achieving its full potential was that the cast too often held themselves back. The choreography had plainly been arranged with considerable care and imagination by Isobel Hambleton, and was ably executed by the chorus. However, its stylised precision sometimes felt at odds with the ‘bacchic frenzy’ that the maenads sing about.

Some more rough-around-the-edges physicality would have been welcome – one of the most raw and chaotic scenes, in which the maenads exult over Dionysos breaking free from his prison, was also one of the show’s most effective.

Although King Pentheus represents the counterpoint to the unconstrained debauchery of the revellers, Spencer Klavan’s portrayal of this character could have also used a little extra forcefulness. His Pentheus came across as peevish and pernickety rather than disciplined and dictatorial. A more macho performance in the earlier scenes would have given the character’s subsequent reversal of fortune – when he is emasculated by Dionys0s’ trickery, then infantilised and placed at the mercy of his mother – even greater impact.

That said, there are still many areas in which the production succeeds. The cast are to be commended for the considerable feat of mastering an entire play in a dead language, and, in general, the ancient Greek was delivered with clarity and poetic power. Bill Freeman as First Messenger and Emilia Clark as Agave were particularly noteworthy for their fluent, naturalistic delivery. The scenery was simple but effective, with a giant cage-like cube serving as a prison, portico, and dressing-room as required.

Some shrewd decisions were also made to work round certain conventions of ancient Athenian drama which often prove onerous to modern audiences. Notably, the ponderous tradition of replacing all action scenes with a messenger’s monologue describing them was circumvented with the help of a well-shot film, which was projected onstage to accompany narration of the show’s climax in which Pentheus is hunted down and dismembered by his own family (I would say spoiler alert, but the play has been out for 2400 years, so you’ve had time to learn the twist ending).

In sum, this is a production not lacking in good ideas and technical accomplishment, but a reluctance to go for broke and embrace the bacchic spirit prevented it from fully living up to its promise.

Blues train with Windies captain

Matthew Roller
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Blues train with Windies captain

Oxford’s Blues cricketers had a surprise addition to their winter training last week, as West Indies T20 captain Carlos Brathwaite joined the squad for a handful of sessions.

The Bajan, who shot to prominence after hitting four consecutive sixes off Ben Stokes to win the 2016 World T20, was in the city to visit his fiancée, who works at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Brathwaite’s agent called Blues coach Graham Charlesworth, in a bid to give him an opportunity to train ahead of his stint with the Khulna Titans in the Bangladesh Premier League. He netted at the indoor school at Iffley Road on several occasions, and Blues players had the opportunity both to bat with and bowl at the hard-hitting all-rounder.

The 29-year-old has gone over a month since playing competitive cricket, after being an unused squad member in the West Indies’ recently-concluded ODI series in England. In the one-off T20 international in mid-September, he took 3/20 in 3.3 overs to seal an unlikely 21-run win for the visitors.

Blues captain Daniel Escott described the six foot four Brathwaite as “a very modest guy who was keen to help and advise”.

“He has a huge amount of expertise to share,” Escott told Cherwell, “so it was really insightful. All the guys who spent time with him really enjoyed it, and we hope he’ll come back again soon. He hits the ball harder than anyone I’ve ever played with before, and he put a hole through the wall of the cricket school in his first session.”

Brathwaite himself enjoyed his time training in Oxford, and told Cherwell: “For university level, the cricketers are of a good standard and are very keen to learn which is an important trait to have at that stage.

“I really enjoyed my time in the UK,” he continued. “It is probably one of my favourite places to visit. It helps that my fiancée lives in England and recently moved to Oxford. We are loving the city and looking forward to spending a lot more time in the UK and by extension Oxford supporting the guys.”

The West Indian has largely focused on T20 cricket in the past eighteen months, ever since earning a $620,000 contract with the Delhi Daredevils. Since then, he has also appeared for the Sydney Thunder and the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, and was named West Indies captain in that format after Darren Sammy’s controversial sacking in August 2016.

Brathwaite flew to Bangladesh on Tuesday after a brief return to Barbados ahead of this year’s edition of the BPL. He is likely to make his Khulna Titans debut in the side’s opening fixture, against the Dhaka Dynamites on 5 November. The Titans squad also contains
former South Africa players Rilee Roussouw and Kyle Abbott, Pakistanis Shadab Khan, Junaid Khan and Sarfraz Ahmed, and uncapped Englishmen Benny Howell and Jofra Archer.

“I am in a good space mentally,” he said ahead of the competition. “Form it is neither here nor there, but it was good to get some time away from the game after being involved in the IPL, CPL and then the England T20 game.

“I had three or four weeks where I got in some quality skill work with Charlesworth at the University and also got to do some fitness at home. My mind is at ease and I am looking forward to doing the best I can for my BPL franchise.”

Student activism countering Oxford’s “social apartheid”

Mia Millman and Amelia Horn
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Student activism countering Oxford’s “social apartheid”

According to David Lammy, Oxford needs to stop “hiding under the bushels” and “instinctively blaming schools and educational inequality for the problem that they have”. But the extent of student activism aimed at reducing inequality suggests that Oxford students at least are not shying away from the problem.

Students and societies have spoken out in response to criticisms made against the University last week. Speaking to Cherwell, Lammy emphasised the “important role” of students in forcing change.

Last week’s report made national headlines for its exposure of racial inequalities at Oxbridge. Following a series of Freedom of Information requests, data was released revealing that ten out of 32 colleges failed to admit any black British A-level students in 2015. The data also showed that Oriel did not admit a single black British A-levels student from 2009-2015. In light of these findings, Lammy accused the University of “social apartheid”.

When Cherwell asked Lammy about how to change the University, he said: “Students play a really, really important role.”

He went on to state that colleges that have “have consistently been very progressive in how they have gone about trying to get a diverse intake” are often those where “work has been led by student officers really obsessed with the issue of getting access to these young people”.

Several JCR representatives, as well as Oxford’s African and Caribbean Society (ACS), the Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality, and Common Ground have spoken out following the publication of Lammy’s report.

While last week’s report provides a damning criticism of the University, it did not acknowledge the access programmes and initiatives being championed by student activists to counter these inequalities. Earlier this week in a statement, ACS said: “Attempting to reduce such a complex issue to a series of political soundbites only serves to obscure the depth of the problem and can often do harm to the progress being made in the area of changing perceptions and breaking down barriers to the students at the very heart of this discussion…

“Oxford is a microcosm of the deep structural issues embedded in the British educational system”. They emphasised that the data fails to show “how many young black students are actively discouraged from applying to Oxford by their teachers, despite achieving the grades, because ‘Oxford isn’t for them’”.

In order to boost application rates from the Afro-Caribbean community, ACS “developed an independent access framework” to help young black students. They have three main access initiatives – an Annual Access Conference (AAC), the Visions Programme workshops, and a shadowing scheme.

Speaking to Cherwell, JCR BME representative Isabella Rooney agreed that student-led equality and diversity organisations are not given enough attention. In response to Lammy’s publication, she said: “While these statistics do convey that the reality of the diversity in Oxford needs urgent work, it also puts prospective students off applying.”

Among other initiatives put in place by students is Common Ground – an organisation which aims to analyse and tackle present day inequalities through investigating Oxford’s colonial past. Last term, they held a symposium that featured over thirty events.

Speaking to Cherwell about their progress so far and plans for the future, they said: “Now we have almost 1,500 followers on our Facebook page, and want to continue the discussion interrogating Oxford’s racist, classist, and colonial past. Not only continuing the discussion, but working with the University to make structural changes. ”

Neha Shah, co-chair for Oxford SU’s Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality (Crae) also responded to Lammy’s research into diversity at Oxford. Shah said there is an “entrenched systematic bias” which “persists at all levels of the university, especially with regard to racial and ethnic diversity”.

Shah also condemned the University’s reluctance to fully publish the ethnicity data, which Lammy referred to as ‘defensive’ and ‘evasive’, according to The Guardian. CRAE also criticised the University’s response that they couldn’t release the data on the grounds of the Data Protection Act.

Shah said that this “tells us all we need to know about the number of ethnic minority students at Oxford”.

Hertford BME representative Aisha Nado told Cherwell: “More can be done by Oxford in terms of progress and access.” Echoing the sentiment expressed by many other students, she added that changes at Oxford need “to be backed up by a change to a system where socio-economic factors determine where you end up in life”.

Exploring the poetry of the everyday world

Lucy Enderby
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Exploring the poetry of the everyday world

Many of his fans have long tipped Murakami for the Nobel Prize in Literature, with his cult-like followers packing the ceremony as they do his signings and readings. When he missed out to Kazuo Ishiguro this year, his ‘Harukists’ as they have been dubbed, were disappointed once again.

The author himself however, notoriously shies away from the glare of the media. On his blog ‘Mr Murakami’s Place’, he spoke of his annoyance at the annual fuss surrounding the Nobel Prize, telling a fan “This is not a horse race.” Indeed, despite having book sales to rival those of J.K Rowling and Dan Brown, he maintains a relatively low profile, rarely giving interviews and refusing to comment on most public affairs. This quiet, mysterious aspect of his character no doubt fuels his cult like following.

He started writing his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing at the age of 29, after a passing thought while sat watching a baseball game. He owned a jazz bar in Waseda for nearly 10 years with his wife, and has said in an interview with Context magazine how he was “deeply influenced by this kind of music- the rhythm, the improvisation, the sound, the style”. Indeed, like jazz, his books often seem to have been shaped by a fusion of cultures. Although he was born of two Japanese literature teachers, his work is influenced most notably by Western authors, from Dostoevsky to Vonnegut.

Growing up in a post-war era, the influence American culture had on his work is clear, often incorporating these clearly into his work. His 1987 nostalgic love story Norwegian Wood takes its name from the Beatles song, whilst he has translated into Japanese the works of authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Chandler. “When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. That’s what I think. It’s just a form of sincerity”, as the pages of Norwegian Wood proclaim.

The author is known for his pensive, surreal novels that dip into the metaphysical realm, but which centre around contemporary emotions with magically ordinary characters. He has spoken of aiming to fuse a poetic version of the everyday world with a fantastic, supernatural realm in his work. Imperfect, unfulfilled, and passive characters who feel deeply populate his novels.

His latest book, Men Without Women, is a collection of short stories about men who find themselves alone. Like Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage, he touches once more on the concern of loneliness. In an interview with The Guardian, he said “I’m an outcast of the Japanese literary world”, with the country’s top literary critics dismissing his lack of traditionalism and awareness of language as a fictive construct.

Despite this, his novels seem to gravitate back towards Japan, but addressing subjects of love, introspection and surrealism which have a truly transnational appeal. Jay Rubin notes that “You don’t go to Murakami for views of society but of the human brain.”

Oxford academics unite to condemn MP’s “creepy” letter

Emily Lawford and Matt Roller
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Oxford academics unite to condemn MP’s “creepy” letter

Oxford college heads, senior fellows and alumni have criticised Tory MP Christopher Heaton-Harris after he wrote to universities asking for a list of tutors lecturing about Brexit.

Speaking exclusively to Cherwell, a number of leading university figures have variously condemned the letter from the Eurosceptic Tory whip as “creepy”, “stupid” and an “implied threat” to the universities and academics who received it, suggesting that Heaton-Harris “should lie down in a darkened room and think about his behaviour.”

The letter, which was sent to all UK university vice-chancellors, asked for a copy of each institution’s syllabuses and links to any online lectures relating to Brexit. Helena Kennedy QC, principal of Mansfield, told Cherwell: “I think Mr Heaton-Harris has a rather narrow understanding of what happens in a university.

“I have no doubt he holds the view that most academics are proEurope and he would be right but it does not infect the intellectual process.

“The nature of academic discourse and inquiry is to examine issues from all sides. If Oxford did not do that, how come it produces politicians across the spectrum?

“His kind of thinking is what produced a narrow curriculum in our state schools and the invention of Clause 28 to prevent any discussion of homosexuality in schools back in the late eighties and through the nineties.

“Whatever he says, his true purpose is about proscription and it is inimical to the true purpose of education.”

Downing Street responded to Heaton-Harris’ letter by telling reporters that the MP had not been acting in his capacity as government whip when writing to university leaders, but as a member of parliament.

Heaton-Harris, the MP for Daventry and a hardline Eurosceptic, clarified that the letter had been sent in a personal capacity, but failed to provide an explanation for his requests. “To be absolutely clear, I believe in free speech in our universities and in having an open and vigorous debate on Brexit,” he tweeted.

Lord Andrew Adonis, former Labour minister and Oxford academic, agreed, telling Cherwell: “academic freedom is the bedrock of a free society. Universities and academics should simply ignore this implied threat to their freedom.”

Robert Gildea, Oxford University Professor of Modern History, who is writing a book on Brexit and the legacies of empire, thought the letter was more “huffing and puffing rather than a Leninist or McCarthyist threat”.

He added, “the letter demonstrates the shallow and two-dimensional mindset that Brexiteers are increasingly showing, as their project becomes more and more embattled. “It shows an ignorance about how universities and research work – no-one ‘teaches Brexit’ and Brexit isn’t just about ‘European affairs’. Our task as historians or political scientists is to understand how Brexit came about, and what its significance is, and this requires deep and multi-layered thinking, which is what we are paid to do.”

Lord Macdonald, Warden of Wadham, agreed that the letter did not pose a real threat to academic freedom. Speaking to Cherwell, he said: “Sending this letter was a stupid and creepy thing to do. I expect Mr Heaton-Harris regrets it.

“Though I doubt it has any implications for universities, since no-one will take this infantile nonsense seriously.

“He should lie down in a darkened room and think about his behaviour.”

Another senior politics fellow, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed his disappointment with the letter, remarking: “It is notable that Mr Heaton-Harris suddenly developed an interest in one tiny part of our teaching rather than Physics, Chemistry or any other subject.

“If Mr Heaton-Harris is so interested, he could of course resign from parliament, enrol as a mature student, and contribute to seminars himself.”

Oxford vice-chancellor Louise Richardson declined Cherwell’s request for comment.

Revealed: how Richardson splashes the cash on flights, hotels, and hospitality

Fred Dimbleby
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Revealed: how Richardson splashes the cash on flights, hotels, and hospitality

Oxford vice chancellor Louise Richardson has claimed nearly £70,000 on expenses since her appointment in 2016, Cherwell can exclusively reveal.

The figures, obtained by a freedom of information request, show that the University spent £30,818 on Richardson’s travel, accommodation, and hospitality in the seven months since taking the job. Since then, a further £38,339 has been claimed in total expenses.

The vast majority of costs were claimed for air travel, with £56,522 being spent on 26 round trips throughout the period, giving each round trip an average price of £2,173.

In 2016/17, £29,969 were spent on Richardson’s air travel. This is nearly four times higher than the average of £7,762 claimed by university VCs on air travel in 2015/16.

£1,911 was spent on non-air travel, such as train and taxi fares. A University spokesperson said Richardson takes economy class flights for short-haul journeys, and travels in business class on longer trips. These longer journeys could include long-haul flights to the US and the Middle East.

Richardson has previously stated that she has “a transatlantic marriage” with her husband, Dr Thomas Jevon, who works in the US. A request for a list of specific flight details was denied by Oxford officials, despite similar FOI requests being approved by other universities.

The University spent nearly £10,000 on Richardson’s accommodation during the period covered by the request.

A request for the names and individual rates of hotels that the vice chancellor stayed in was refused by the University.

This differs from the information release policies of other UK universities. A previous request to the vice chancellors of Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities led to a full breakdown of expenses, including receipts for the purchase of a slice of cake and a bottle of water.

The limited release follows criticism at Oxford for initially refusing to respond to David Lammy’s FOI request into the breakdown of Oxford’s offer holders, prompting to him accuse them of being “evasive” and “defensive”.

President of Oxford SU, Kate Cole, told Cherwell: “Without seeing all of the details, this seems like a high level of spend.

“In a time of increasing pressures on budgets of student services we would want to see as much money as possible being spent on developing the student experience and improving the quality of education.”

The FOI data follows a number of recent controversies involving the pay and expenses of Louise Richardson.

In August, the New College bursar attacked the “grossly excessive” pay of the VC, which totals £350,000 per annum.

When her pension is added in, the total figure is £410,000 per year, making her the third highest-paid vice chancellor in the UK.

Richardson has attacked “tawdry politicians” for their criticism of her pay figures.

The new data show Richardson’s expenses costs are slightly lower than the year 2014-2015 when £44,239 was invoiced for the expenses of her predecessor, Andrew Hamilton.

Over the four years since 2011 covered in the response, £152,695 was spent on Hamilton’s expenses. At the time Hamilton was also criticised for his high level of pay which totalled £462, 200 in 2014-15.

The figures show that the University has spent £221,852 on vice chancellor’s expenses alone since 2011.

This amount would pay for just under eight full three year undergraduate courses, costing £9,250 each, at the University.

It would also pay for just under 60 annual bursaries, costing £3,700 each, for students who have a family income of £16,000 or less.

An Oxford University spokesperson told Cherwell: “The vice chancellor’s expenses reflect her role at the head of a £1.4bn organisation with global responsibilities.

“She has regular commitments representing the University internationally, and all expenses are kept to a minimum – for example, the vice chancellor flies economy class on all trips within Europe and within the US.”

University accused of refusing to open empty buildings to rough sleepers

Henry Straughan
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University accused of refusing to open empty buildings to rough sleepers

Oxford University has been accused of refusing to open up its empty and unused buildings to the homeless over the winter by Green councillor David Thomas.

Thomas condemned the University for its “lack of imagination and genuine compassion and empathy” in regard to Oxford’s homelessness crisis.

The Green Party reportedly approached the Council and the University in February to ask if there were empty buildings in Oxford that could be opened to the homeless, with the hope of reducing the number of people sleeping rough in sub-zero temperatures over the winter.

But despite the Council reporting there are over 300 empty homes in the city, and the University also noting that they had many empty buildings in their possession, neither body would make a single building available.

Oxford University told Cherwell: “We have been in talks with Oxford City Council and Oxford Homeless Pathways, but unfortunately we do not have any available buildings which would be suitable for temporary use as a homeless shelter.

“We want to continue our conversations with the City Council and we will offer help if a suitable building becomes available. We are genuinely committed to working with these partners to help Oxford’s homeless, particularly as winter is approaching.”

Thomas suggested however that in conducting their investigation into empty buildings, the University established so many conditions and unrealistic standards that they set it up to fail.

He added that the University failed to see the buildings from point of view of homeless people, who often have the skills to bring buildings up to minimum health and safety standards.

Thomas said he suspects the University and colleges have plenty of appropriate buildings available, and that if colleges and students knew about this they could mount pressure over the question of: “why the hell will there will be empty buildings in Oxford city centre with men and women out in sub-zero conditions this winter?”

The University claimed that none if its unused properties were suitable for accommodation.

The request by the Greens came after the homeless community successfully cooperated with Wadham College over Iffley Open House. Last winter, a group of around twenty homeless people, known as Iffley Open House group, used squatter’s rights to take possession of a disused Volkswagen garage on Iffley Road owned by Wadham College.

On occupying the building, they converted it so health and safety was up to standard, and stayed for several weeks. Councillor Thomas negotiated between the homeless and the college, so that the two groups settled on an end date for the squatters with the result that there was a smooth handover of the building when the date came.

Thomas suggested that the homeless group demonstrated that they could go into a building, use it for a temporary period and not pose any danger and raise health and safety up to standard.

Thomas further claimed that the group showed the possibilities opened by allowing the homeless to use empty buildings in this way. With many of the group getting their housing, education, and health sorted – so that a portion of the group got off the streets permanently.

He pointed out the benefits of such stability for homeless people, telling Cherwell: “If you have nowhere to keep your stuff, to sit down, and you spend all your time just surviving, you don’t have time to make plans and get set for the future.”

Oxford Union under scrutiny for extravagant spending

Greg Ritchie
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Oxford Union under scrutiny for extravagant spending

The Oxford Union’s Standing Committee spent £291,791 in the 2016 financial year, Cherwell can reveal.

However, despite President Chris Zabilowicz’s public declaration earlier this month that he wanted “our Society to be as transparent as possible”, the Union refused to let members view the detailed records of expenses claimed by elected officials. This is despite their own rules appearing to mandate it.

Accounts seen by Cherwell give an insight into where thousands of Oxford students’ membership fees go. Of the £291,791 spent, over £50,000 went on ‘debate costs’, which includes exclusive dinners, speaker expenses, and drinks. This represents an increase of over £10,000 from the 2015 figure of £40,128.

When approached for clarification on the figure, the Union stressed the costs of paid staff to make and serve the dinners, as well as the expense on table cloths and other items.

One member, who was invited to an exclusive Union dinner, told Cherwell: “The dinner was three courses of high-quality food. Costs will have been driven up by the large amount of free alcohol available – both white and red wine, with port at the end. It felt a bit like an exclusive club.”

There has also been a rise in ‘food and stationery’ expenditure by the Committee. While in 2013 this was £5,025, by 2016 it rose to £8,222.

Cherwell understands that an £8 per day food budget for Union committee members working a full vacation day was a major contributor. A £120 breakfast budget in the Easter and Christmas holidays, rising to £200 over the summer, were further significant expenses within the category.

While these figures shed some light on the Union’s finances, the accounts seen by Cherwell do not include what is commonly accepted as full records of expenditure – despite this being permitted to all members by the Union’s own financial regulations.

The Society’s rules state that “all income and expenditure records will be available for inspection by any member by appointment with the President”.

Despite making an appointment with President Chris Zabilowicz in advance, the Bursar Lindsey Warne refused to let Cherwell staff see receipts, not believing these to constitute part of the expenditure records. This interpretation was later confirmed by Zabilowicz.

Instead, the Union only allowed the figures which are already available to any member without an appointment.

Cherwell contacted the Financial Director of a major UK law firm for an expert opinion. They disagreed with the Society’s interpretation that “income and expenditure records” only refers to the audited accounts.

Instead, they stated that the rules permit members to a more transparent view into the Society’s finances, including a detailed breakdown of income and expense claims. They told Cherwell it would be “very hard to argue” that Rule 63(b) just meant audited accounts, “as if that was the intention there would be no point in adding 63(b) as 63(a) would suffice”.

As per the Society’s rules, a request was also sent to the Treasurer Gui Cavalcanti to see the ledger, which is meant to contain “the receipts and expenditure of the Society… which shall be open to the inspection of Members”.

On arrival at the appointment, however, it became clear that the ledger did not exist and had not for some time.

There is no suggestion of criminal wrongdoing by the Oxford Union Society.

This is not the first time the Union has come under fire for appearing to not adhere to its own rules regarding its financial transparency.

The Oxford Student used Rule 63(b) to request access to the full 2008-09 income and expenditure records in 2010, after initially being refused access to the full receipts.

At the time, Simon McIntosh of consultancy firm Grant Thornton said: “Bluntly, records of expenditure do include expenses claims and all that goes with them.”

The Union later backed down in the face of growing student pressure, giving members access to expenditure records including receipts.

When contacted by Cherwell, the Union refused to comment on why their understanding of “income and expenditure records” has changed since 2010 to not include receipts.

The 2008-09 accounts seen by The Oxford Student are considerably more detailed than those available today. For example, they list the amount of money spent on miscellaneous expenses by individual positions, such as the President, Treasurer and Librarian.

The accounts are now itemised so that assessing the expenses of individuals is impossible. Instead, the Standing Committee account has a ‘Miscellaneous’ category.

The old accounts also revealed how much was spent specifically on dinners and drinks by the Committee. Now it is grouped under ‘debate costs’.

Finally, the 2008-09 accounts were termly, meaning one could attribute their numbers to a particular administration. The audited accounts given to Cherwell were only annual figures.

This is in contravention to Rule 63(a), which states that all termly budgets and accounts must be kept on file in order that members may view them at any time during office hours.

The Oxford Union’s Bursar stated that she could not recall when these changes occurred.

Zabilowicz told Cherwell: “The Oxford Union staff and committee are scrupulous when it comes to the Society’s finances. The Society has never – and, I imagine, will never – offer speakers’ an honorarium [sic]. Any expenses of the Society must be reasonable (a theme throughout the rules), and this is closely scrutinised by the Society’s Finance Committee which any member can attend.

“Every year, we have professional and external auditors go through the accounts, after which the accounts are available for any member to view. Debate Select Committee expenses have to be approved by both the Treasurer and the Bursar during a meeting of the Finance Committee.”

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