Monday 21st July 2025
Blog Page 839

A fresh and quirky take on the brasserie

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Long live the brasserie! Let us praise the purveyor of cut-price opulence, producer of delectable provision, conqueror of the vacant stomach. Branding itself as a “modern British brasserie,” newcomer No. 1 Ship Street no doubt hopes to blend French luxury with British staples, and bring some added finesse to Oxford.

From the exterior, No. 1 Ship Street has a quietly impressive feel. Partners Ross Drummond and Owen Little appear to have an eye for décor: the renovated ground floor is dark but classy – welcoming and warm, with an air of casual elegance.

Apparently, they also fancy themselves as innovators. Upstairs there’s a 28-cover seating area equipped with an oyster and champagne bar. Oh, and don’t forget the separate cocktail bar. Very fancy. Alexia, my guide for the evening, acquaints me with the downstairs, but insists on taking me upstairs anyway. I’m glad she did.

Two flights of stairs later, and I’m in a different world. Every detail, from the oysters exhibited on ice, to the trendy chic of the bar stools has an almost seductive je ne sais quoi. Full marks for the surroundings then. But what about the food itself?

The menu is intriguingly quirky. Unlike most self-described “British” brasseries, it offers de facto fusion – chutney and toast with terrine, as well as steak tartare with rarebit. The pickings are particularly paltry for anyone herbivorous, however: only one starter (I hope you like mushrooms) and a choice of three mains are available on the à la carte menu. Luckily, the wild mushrooms are divine, the sauce creamy yet flavourful and the yolk gooey enough to appease my fussy friend Zoe. My tartare is equally impressive, perfectly balanced between the rough meaty taste of sirloin and the piquant capers.

By this stage, we’re impressed. The starters are fantastic, the service efficient. The arrival of our mains only cheers us up further. Zoe is smitten with her harissa roast vegetables, whilst Rosie’s Torbay sole is also exquisite – the fish flavoursome and delicate, the caper butter sharp and delicious. My veal melts in the mouth. Dessert is similarly superb. Stomach stretched to capacity, I can only nibble on the cheese board but the others treat themselves to peanut butter parfait and cheesecake. I’m assured both were exemplary.

I can’t help but ponder the future of No. 1 Ship Street. It might not be a big brand, but its innovative dining experience makes it unique. Yes, the lack of vegetarian dishes is problematic (the restaurant says it has since altered its menu to better accommodate vegetarians and vegans), but No. 1 Ship Street is a great restaurant, and, having been open for around two months, it can only get better.

The Bill

Starters
House Terrine, £6
Sirloin Tartare, £12
Wild Mushrooms, £8

Mains
Torbay Sole, £17
Veal Shin, £16
Harissa Roast Vegetables, £6

Dessert
Baked Cheesecake, £6
Peanut Butter Parfait, £12
Artisan Cheese Board, £12

Drinks
Pornstar Martini, £8.50
Gin and Tonic x2, £8.50
Bottle of Etna Rosso, £37

Total – £157.50

Love Oxland: “I’d say her spirit animal is a lemon beer.”

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James Coates
Third Year DPhil, Oncology
St Hugh’s

I had to push our date back by an hour because a mate ran his car into a tree (the tree was fine) – so much for first impressions. Thankfully, I explained that said mate is a Historian, and Becky was more than understanding. We easily spotted one another outside Kazbar and it wasn’t long before we found common ground, chatting about the perils of academia. We found ourselves sitting in a corner drinking and mocking rowers for most of the night. After the fourth drink, we decided to hit up Big Society, although I’m pretty sure the Merton crypts would’ve been more lively on a Monday night. I ended up with a bit of a headache and a lighter than expected wallet, but I’d probably do it again. Most importantly, I’d say her spirit animal is a lemon beer.

What was your first impression? 6/10
Chat? Said I’d get devoured in Plush
Personality? Jimmy Carr after three benzos

Becky Todd
Fourth Year, Classics
Somerville

I was kind of annoyed with James before I even met him, as he delayed our meeting by an hour. However, it turns out he had a valid reason and I think in the end it was worth the wait! Right from the start James was very friendly and I found him really easy to talk to – we had a 20 minute conversation about sport, and usually I don’t even like sport! However, he was definitely too good looking to be single, which makes me think there must be something wrong with him. (Joking, kind of…) At the end of the date he told me to add him on Facebook, but unfortunately I don’t know his surname, but I would certainly like to see James again. Eds: See above for James’ surname… we’re all about faciliating love.

What was your first impression? Well-dressed
Chat? Really funny
Any awkward moments? Easy to get along with

It’s not perfect, but the Union is worth the money

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It’s not perfect, but what it provides is unparalleled. The Oxford Union is, with good reason, renowned the world over for the quality of people it both hosts and produces. Merely being able to join the Union is something of an honour.

The price, even with a freshers’ discount, can be hard to stomach. This can be so even with further reductions for students from low-income backgrounds. It really must, however, be thought of as an investment in your future.

You’re buying a ticket to world-class speakers and debates, cheaper-than-average balls, and the opportunity to, once a term, give your approval to the officer candidates whom many claim have already been pre-selected for you in a dark room somewhere.

And joking aside, there are few places where you could get this experience. So you stood outside in the rain to meet Bernie Sanders? You still got to hear Bernie Sanders. Of course, balloting may be better used for certain events, but the opportunity alone is to be relished.

When Oxford is looked upon the world over as a centre of academic excellence, it’s because of niche factors like the ability of its students to debate with and, if they wish to do so, interrogate, celebrities and world experts.

Arguments that the Union is unrepresentative are with foundation. More can be done across Oxford’s societies to increase diversity among those who hold high office. But if this argument is taken as read, if we are given to think that it is only possible to succeed at the Union as a posh white boy, then diversity will never increase. Fewer people will join, fewer people will run for office, fewer people will see the benefits.

Membership also sees you able to join the competitive debating squads, benefitting from training from some of the best debaters in the world. Add to this a library that is well-stocked and underused, and a reasonably-priced bar that has an air of exclusivity whilst being open to all members, and you have a winning combination.

Much fun is often made of the idea of life membership: who in their right mind would return to the Union years after leaving Oxford just to hear a speech or check out a book? But even for three years, you can make, to the truly historic Union, cloaked in its prestige, the focal point of your University experience.

Christian Union banned from Balliol freshers’ fair

Balliol JCR prevented Christian Union (CU) representatives from attending its college freshers’ fair, a leaked email chain seen by Cherwell reveals.

The JCR committee initially attempted to prevent any CU representation whatsoever, stating that it wanted the freshers’ fair to be a “secular space” as it “couldn’t guarantee every major belief system” would be represented, which risked “alienating” new students.

Following discussions between the CU and the JCR Vice President Freddy Potts, permission for a single multifaith stall was granted, but only on the condition that it had no representative of any society manning it. This meant that no member of any religious society was able to exhibit at the fair or speak to freshers.

While JCR President Hubert Au stated that this conclusion had been reached through discussions with the JCR Welfare subcommittee and the college CU, his comments were described as “misleading” by a CU representative.

The ban has led to a backlash within Balliol, with a JCR motion passed unanimously tonight accusing the JCR of “barring the participation of specific faith-based organizations” and describing the step as “a violation of free speech [and] a violation of religious freedom”.

It states: “the Balliol JCR should not make judgements regarding the legitimacy of faith groups or religious expression.”

The motion prohibits the JCR from barring any official religious societies from participation in the Balliol freshers’ fair in future.

During the initial email exchange, JCR Vice President Freddy Potts, on behalf of the JCR Welfare Subcommittee, justified the ban by telling a CU representative: “We recognise the wonderful advantages in having CU representatives at the Fresher’s Fair, but are concerned that there is potential for harm to freshers who are already struggling to feel welcome in Oxford.”

He added: “Our sole concern is that the presence of the CU alone may alienate incoming students. This sort of alienation or micro-aggression is regularly dismissed as not important enough to report, especially when there is little to no indication that other students or committee members may empathise, and inevitably leads to further harm of the already most vulnerable and marginalised groups.

“Historically, Christianity’s influence on many marginalised communities has been damaging in its methods of conversion and rules of practice, and is still used in many places as an excuse for homophobia and certain forms of neo-colonialism.”

The CU representative replied that they were “not sure that it was appropriate or relevant for the JCR Committee to point this out in a discussion about Balliol CU; in the same way this would be inappropriate in conversion with many other faith groups”.

According to a Facebook post by JCR President Hubert Au, a single multifaith stall did ultimately go ahead with “representation” from four separate Christian groups. It is understood that as a result of the ban the Balliol CU refused to attend the fair or license any material distributed on behalf of the CU.

Au said: “Ultimately, it was reached to have a multifaith stall rather than a CU stall specifically, in light of both concerns raised by members Welfare Sub and by an undergraduate survey conducted last term which indicated a lack of familiarity as to where non-Christian societies, events and services were located.”

He added: “We didn’t want to monopolise the presence of any individual faith/belief society at the Balliol freshers’ fair.” Neither Au nor Potts have responded to Cherwell‘s requests for comment.

The Balliol Christian Union is affiliated to the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, a society which represents Christian undergraduate and postgraduate students from across the University. The Union states its main aim as “giving every student in Oxford University the chance to hear and respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article was amended to clarify that comments made by Balliol JCR Vice President Freddy Potts conveyed the collective view of the JCR Welfare Subcommittee.

Ben Stokes’ arrest has killed England’s Ashes chances

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It is very difficult for any England supporter to be optimistic about the fast approaching Ashes series in Australia. The selection of an incredibly weak squad has only been made worse by the debacle of vice-captain Ben Stokes’ arrest.

Getting hammered at a student bar two days before an ODI is ridiculous – he’s England vice-captain, the world’s finest all-rounder and a household name with a lucrative IPL contract. He simply cannot be so irresponsible, and his stupidity has made England’s already slim chances even worse.

It is unclear how much of the series he will actually play, but without him at his best for all five Tests, England will lose 5-0. Stokes’ aggressive and increasingly consistent batting,
combined with his pacey bowling, are critical to England’s chances of success in Australian conditions. Without him, England’s squad is short of both quality batting and bowling. The rest of the squad is simply not good enough.

The inclusion of Mason Crane, with a bowling average of 42, is a bizarre choice over the prolific Jack Leach or Adil Rashid. There will be a lot of reliance on Broad and Anderson, who are world-class in English conditions, but both average over 30 in Australia. That might have been mitigated by the presence of sheer pace, but with doubts over Stokes and the inexplicable omission of Liam Plunkett, England lack an aggressive enforcer that can match the likes of Pat Cummins or Mitchell Starc.

Meanwhile, Cummins and Starc will be delighted at the prospect of bowling at the likes of Stoneman, Malan, Vince and Ballance. Without Stokes the batting line-up will struggle to recover from the inevitable collapses. If Root and Cook fail in any innings, England could easily be bowled out for less than 200. England fans should prepare for the worst – without Stokes to guide them, England will get slaughtered Down Under.

Cautionary tales of fresher fails

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Arriving with a reputation

How could I forget my first night in Oxford? I’d basically spent the whole summer shitposting in the offer holders’ group, and had gained a rep of sorts. At subject drinks, a third-year historian told me that I shouldn’t want to be a ‘BNOC’ because “everyone knows of you, and no one knows you”. I was instantly reminded of Gilderoy Lockhart’s words of advice in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets: “Fame is a fickle friend, Harry: celebrity is as celebrity does, remember that!” I never could quite live it down and spent the whole of freshers’ week thinking, “what have I done?”

I spent my first night out dodging awkward lean-ins

My freshers’ week was a hot mess of drinking, dancing and regrettable life choices that somehow managed to end up being very enjoyable. Naturally, I went out every night on principle, and each night contained a golden moment of embarrassment: peeing down an alley, stealing a bow tie, and even attempting to pole dance in Plush – but I’ll focus on the first. After numerous shots, I was delightfully binned in Emporium. On a break from my sixth form boyfriend, I’d spent the night dodging awkward lean-ins and dancing away from meaningful eye contact.

Finally, I was caught. A well-timed snog from the boy I’d been chatting to sent me running. I was in no mood to keep dancing, so it was a miracle when I bumped into another fresher from my college. We left the club for a drunken adventure round Oxford, during which my new friend attempted to teach me how to pick locks with 0% success (I now know he can’t pick locks for shit). We wound up back at our college, lying on the quad, laughing about the ridiculous fines we’d receive if caught, and having DMCs till it got too cold to stay out.

Going clubbing for the first time

Before you start reading this, it is important to know two things: I am not cool, and I hate clubbing. However, when coming to university, I decided I was going to make myself like clubbing, and thus become cool. This is the story of exactly how that went. Actually, there is no particular narrative to the first portion of Monday evening. Essentially, I just consumed alcohol in the desperate hope that it would make the rest of the night fun (spoiler: it didn’t). We set off to the club and I was in high spirits, laughing and trying to chat with everyone on the way to make some new friends before the week was out. The first hour was totally alright (I didn’t love it – why would I?) but, shock of shocks, I seemed to have made a club-friend. This was both a blessing and a curse because we kept buying rounds of Jägerbombs for each other. I wasn’t drunk, but the copious quantities of Red Bull and all the corresponding sugar did not serve me well. I had to lie down in the street to avoid throwing up until a FREP took me back to college. At 9am the next morning, I had to sit very, very still at University registration. I did not go out again.

The scouts found a condom in my room

My scout refused to clean my room for a week because I left a used condom in my bin on the first night of freshers – I had to buy them lots of chocolate to earn forgiveness.

I got with a total stranger

On the Wednesday of freshers’ week, I went to Emporium and within 20 minutes had lost my friends. I found myself in an inescapable crowd of total strangers, but got the impression they were second years. I saw a guy I thought I recognised and suddenly ‘realised’ he was my college dad. I introduced myself, referred to him as “daddy” and my memory is a little fuzzy from here on. Later, sober, I realised this was not in fact my college dad. Not at all. Total stranger.

A late night detour

It was a particularly intoxicated evening, post-Blinds, and I decided, upon seeing the queue for Bridge, that I simply couldn’t last 40 minutes of waiting, especially with a bladder full of wine. Of course, the logical thing to do was not to run into Spoons to find a loo, but to return back to college. The guy I’d been walking down to the club with agreed, and we headed back arm in arm. Upon arrival, I realised that I seriously needed to pee, and said I’d just run to the loos and meet him “by his room”. Unfortunately, it turned out I had no idea where his room was, and although he sent me very clear directions, my wine-sozzled brain interpreted these as cryptic clues leading me through corridors that had become a maze. After wandering through several quads, I met another person, and decided to explore the college with them, leaving the poor first guy to worry about/look for me. The next morning, I found the very clear messages and did my best to apologise for my behaviour, but sadly nothing came of this adventure.

Spotted in the nude

My room had a pleasingly big window, but not a great view. It overlooked a large building on the other side of the quad, which to my untrained eye appeared fairly empty. Over the course of freshers’ week, I did what any normal fresher would do: showered, dressed up for nights out, changed my clothes at various points. All very innocent, or so I thought. Fast forward a week, and I was sitting opposite a friendly second year boy on our college football crew date. We were having a chat about which buildings we lived in, and it soon transpired that – *oh God* – he lived in the building opposite me. Turns out, his kitchen was the floor below my room, and enjoyed a crystal clear view into my bedroom. “O-hh,” he exhaled, the light dawning in his troubled eyes, “You’re the naked chick!” I haven’t been out since.

Feel good indie for the oncoming winter

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It’s been five years since the midlands rock scene sprung back into prominence, with triumphant debut tracks from brummie indie rockers Peace and Swim Deep. And it shows no sign of dropping back following this startling second album from Superfood. Bambino paints a picture of a much more controlled and self-aware outfit than that portrayed by its predecessor, thoroughly in tune with the direction and pace of the modern British music industry.

There is nothing more exhilarating in music than an artist fulfilling their potential, particularly after a disappointing debut, and nowhere is this more applicable than here. First coming to attention due to their frontman’s role as producer of early demos for the aforementioned Peace and Swim Deep, Superfood’s debut album Don’t Say That failed to replicate the success seen by other midlanders, receiving a one star review in Cherwell in late 2014 (which, I have to say, feels a little harsh). Halving their member count for the follow up, the two-piece’s sophomore album is filled with infectious melodies and luscious lyrical delight, drawing and improving upon their earlier work with a genre-defying, feel good vibe.

Superfood’s signing to Dirty Hit Records – those behind The 1975 and Wolf Alice – comes as no surprise, nor does their tour later this year. Bambino draws on releases from Tame Impala and Glass Animals releases. These frames of reference, however, feel a disservice as Bambino is a resounding success as a piece of artwork in its own right.

The potent album opener ‘Where’s The Bass Amp?’ sets the stage for this with a filthy bassline and fear- less samples, signalling confidently the bold and groovy record that is to follow. Whilst not losing their Britpop influence, Superfood shift away from a boring Blur or Oasis remake, towards a much more contemporary and original sound, making reference to jazz and funk. They even sample ska on the brilliant track ‘Unstoppable’, which many will consider the album highlight, packed with boozy lyrics and a formidable beat. ‘Natural Super-soul’ follows, treading delicately with soulful, woozy, yet self-assured lyrics with a true 90’s groove backbone. A personal favourite, ‘Raindance’ turns through a multitude of genres with an invigorating beat, infused with grungy nostalgia plus a funky, Jamiroquai-esque sound. The critically adored early first single ‘Double Dutch’ calls back on this nostalgia, its laid-back jazzy tone colliding into trip-hop. Three very smart instrumentals, culminating with ‘C Is For Colour’, truly bring the LP together into a complete singular en- tity. Whilst the dazzling intensity of the opening few numbers drops away at times into the second half of the record, it maintains its core project of carefree relaxation, right through to the end. Bambino’s closer, named ‘Clo Park’, contains a coolly executed guitar solo, evoking a euphoric laying in the grass vibe.

In contrast to the resurgence of guitar music in recent years, Bambino is not just another drug-fuelled guitar pop album. It may not contain a political statement or manifesto, nor is it as backwards looking or as downhearted as some of its lyrics suggest. It is however, an instrumentally diverse, heartwarming and life affirming tribute to youthfulness; intelligent, daring and brash; full of bright and loud colours and with a much bigger bite than their previous output. It’s just what the doctor ordered going into the short, cold and wet autumnal days, and a definite dark horse for the award season in the new year.

How a small office in Bloomsbury keeps the tradition of criticism alive

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The London Review of Books’ offices lie just beyond the British Museum, taking up two floors of an unassuming office building in a narrow Bloomsbury street. It’s not a road you would stumble down. Yet its self-effacement is fitting for a paper which, as assistant editor Alice Spawls explains, “we think our job’s done best by not being in the middle of things, so we’d rather keep a certain distance in order to maintain the quality of what we do.” The marvellous sense of aloofness that pervades the LRB, as it’s affectionately shortened to, has seen it buck every trend in publishing: few pictures, matte paper stock, and long – very long – articles. The current issue I have besides me as I write this (Volume 39, Number 16, 2017), has John Lanchester on Facebook for 9,000 words and T.J. Clark on Picasso’s Guernica for 7,000 words. There are few forums in Britain that would give a writer the space to do this, 24 times a year. It’s a freedom which has attracted some of our best writers: Andrew O’Hagan, Hilary Mantel, Julian Barnes.

As I sat down with Alice Spawls on an early August evening on the second of the LRB’s floors, I could see the back of the neoclassical spire of Nicolas Hawksmoor’s St George’s church, replete with George I in Roman garb atop a pyramid steeple. It’s the kind of peculiar, off centre view which informs the LRB itself. Around us were hundreds of books, laid out over half a dozen tables, covering every field imaginable, fresh from publishers of all sizes and specialisms, every book suggestive of a dozen different articles.

Spawls pointed to a newly-arrived book, David Kynaston’s Till Time’s Last Sand: A History of the Bank of England 1694-2013, and discusses the various routes which could be taken, “whether we wanted to review it as a social history, or as economic history, or whether we wanted to give it to someone to talk about central banks today. There are a lot of ways of approaching a book.” She describes the process of selecting a book for review as being a collaborative process amongst the editors. “We go through the books, pick out the ones that are of interest, either because they’re so good or so bad, and we sit around the table going through them and thinking about which writers to approach. We have huge scope to address certain issues or address issues in a new way”

Spawls has written for the LRB on subjects from Vanessa Bell to Vogue. She is young and alert, dispelling the idea that the paper is run by radical old Dons, although it’s clear they publish what they like to read and write. She started as an intern at the paper, “Like nearly everyone else here,” and as she puts it, “there’s always an expectation that an intern here would write something for the LRB.” Spawls, moreover, is an artist who has contributed a number of covers to the LRB, which traditionally have little to no connection with the issue’s content, elegantly refraining from including a photograph on the front cover.

The process for writing for the paper however, is rigorous and long. “Articles go through three or four editors and a lot of rounds of editing,” Spawls explains, setting it out as an alliance between author and editor. “There are different sorts of writers. There are some writers who present us with a lot of words and we have to do a lot of finishing. And there are some writers whose pieces are too finished, too polished, and their pieces need to breathe. Some editors can see the whole structure of ten thousand word pieces and others focus on a particular sentence.” Yet she stresses that one of the pleasures of her work is “how much the writers surprise us. We are always trying to predict what our writers are going to say, but we never do – writers like Jenny Diski always surprise us.”

In press weeks, Spawls describes the office’s atmosphere as being ‘like a submarine, it’s stuck on course, and it’s heading somewhere terrible and we’re frantically trying to change direction. There’s a sense of impending doom as we’re about to go to press.’ She goes through the laborious process involved after the LRB’s editor Mary-Kay Wilmers has settled on the issue’s contents. “She has a magical way of drawing out the similarities between disparate articles. We have to lay them out, edit them again, fact check them, and do all the word splits!” Grammar and syntax are areas of special concern. “We spend a lot of time talking about the nitty gritty, about language and our style guide, which is a constantly evolving beast. There are arguments about whether communist should be capitalised or not, or where a comma should go.”

It is this, I think, which crystallises the LRB’s special quality: no detail is too insignificant, no hyphen too unimportant. The editors care and so do their readers. Its circulation of around 70,000 per issue is over double that of The Times Literary Supplement, putting it around the mark of The Spectator. And while the readership is loyal, they’re also ‘loyal dissenters’, as the frequently rambunctious letters page attests. Spawls laughs when I raise the paper’s politics, “Our readers are complaining all the time about our politics! And we disagree internally lots too. We don’t just publish what we agree with.”

The LRB has been insulated to a degree from the sea change in publishing, driven by digitalisation, that has occurred over the past 15 years. “You can’t get an online only subscription and there’s little demand for that. But the internet has created a different readership; they might read an article whose link they’ve been sent, and they’re different to the ones who read the paper properly.”

Yet the paper has its blind spots, particularly with fiction. Reviews of non-fiction works overwhelmingly dominate its pages and Spawls acknowledges that “We do approach fiction differently[…] We struggle to do as much as we’d like. A good non-fiction book lends itself to the good, discursive essay we like publishing, which is harder to do with novels. We find it hard to find people who can write about fiction in an interesting way, avoiding academic language or the worst excesses of fiction writing itself.” In an era when contemporary literature is treated so shallowly in the broadsheets, it feels like an area where the LRB should be expanding its coverage.

The LRB though, has stayed remarkably consistent in tone, content, and layout for nearly 40 years now: if you look at its début issue in 1979, published as a British counterpart to The New York Review of Books, little has changed.

Mark Boxer’s wonderful cartoons are gone, colour covers only began in 1993, and Spawls notes that the paperstock changed last year, “we were all upset about that, even though I don’t think our readers noticed.” When I asked if it will be recognisable in a decade’s time, she replies, “I hope it will stay the same.” A horror of change for change’s sake, insures la tradition de qualité.

Near the end of our conversation, Spawls tells me “There’s a certain nervousness about being too popular, if everyone was reading the LRB, we’d be quite worried. We’re not interested in being in the public consciousness for its own sake.” This hints at the LRB’s defining philosophy, a detachment from the quest for popularity, setting about publishing more interesting things no one else is doing.

By being intelligent, careful, and thoughtful, and expecting its readers to hold these values too, the LRB has made itself indispensable, because there’s nothing else like it.

2017/18 JCR Premier League preview: Catz favourites to retain the title

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The JCR Men’s Premier Division gets underway in first week, and all seven sides competing for college football’s ultimate prize have undergone big changes over the summer months. With top scorers graduating, new captains stepping down, and incoming freshers largely unknown entities, the league is exceptionally unpredictable, but it may shape up as follows:

Title Challengers:

Defending champions St. Catz go into 2017/18 full of confidence – as ever – and with good reason. Capricious midfielder Till Wicker returns after a long-term injury, but it is up front that the real talent lies. After captaining UCL last campaign, Thomas Achtel slotted straight into the Blues side against Oxford City Academy in pre-season, and grabbed a hat-trick on debut. If he finds form at college level, Catz will prove a difficult team to beat.

Cuppers semi-finalists Exeter have been a real force in college football for the past few years, and this season should be no different. Goalkeeper Sean Gleeson has been given the captain’s armband, and Blues skipper Alex Urwin is a priceless asset with his defensive ability and capacity to ping balls forward from centre-back. Oluwatobi Olaitan’s panache and creativity in midfield will be vital going forward, and although it remains to be seen how Exeter will replace George Bustin’s goals, the Turl Street outfit are optimistic about their title chances.

St. John’s preparations for the season have been less than ideal, with a late change to the captaincy required after Centaurs’ [University Second XI] captain Sam Morris stepped down from the position. Ben Briggs has stepped up to replace him, but the men in red will likely be reliant on Eddy Mort replicating last year’s goalscoring form. The striker, who started up front on the Blues’ China tour, scored nine for the college last campaign, and set up another ten.

Mid-table mediocrity:

Typically strong in the JCR Premier Division, Wadham’s top-three finish last season was no surprise. However, they are without the mercurial talents of winger Ben Williams this year, who has moved to Cambridge to study for his Masters. If they fail to replace his creativity and trickery, a challenge for the title could prove too much.

Queen’s go into this season without last year’s captain Adam Rhaiti. After impressing for the Centaurs, the Modern Languages student misses out on the upcoming campaign due to his year abroad, and he leaves a gaping hole in central midfield. However, Dom Thelen, who scored one and set up another in Oxford’s 3-2 Varsity win last year, has a predatory instinct which makes him an invaluable asset at this level.

Facing the drop:

After several strong years challenging for the Premier Division title, Worcester finished in mid-table last season, and go into 2017/18 without either of their two top scorers from that campaign. Defensively, they look strong, with Blues centre-half Sam Hale and new skipper Matt Wilson marshalling the troops, but they are reliant on a strong fresher intake for goals.

Newly-promoted Balliol are something of an unknown entity. With very few players involved in the university set-up, the Broad Street side will be reliant on college-level stalwarts to keep them in the Premier Division – it could be a long season.

Andrew Adonis: “Increasing tuition fees has made the Tories unbreakably toxic”

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Tony Blair summed up his priorities in just three words – “education, education, education” – and entrusted his flagship revolution in Britain’s schools to just one man: Andrew Adonis.
His legacy – thousands of academies, which have largely replaced failing comprehensives with some extraordinary results – has been secure since the Conservatives appropriated his policy and ran with it into government.

Despite this, one gets the impression that his political appetite has barely been whetted – from his office in Little Fielden House, he sustains Stakhanovite levels of activity. Lord Adonis – as he is now titled – is writing two books due to be published next year, running a set of lectures, which he will deliver in Oxford this term, on Prime Ministers and Europe since Thatcher, chairing the National Infrastructure Commission, and is an active member of the House of Lords – all whilst fighting against Brexit and the excessive and increasing pay of senior university staff.

Lord Adonis is eagerly awaiting his own lectures: “we have a star studded cast,” he tells me. Lord Charles Powell, Oxford’s own Chancellor Chris Patten, Labour peer Stewart Wood, and Theresa May’s former aide Nick Timothy will all review the European policy of Prime Ministers they knew and served.

PPE students who, presumably, will flock to these lectures might be in for a shock if Adonis should digress and give his thoughts on their degree.

“PPE is a degree essentially in rhetoric, not in intellectual substance,” says Adonis. “PPE produces generations of students who are very good at making arguments on the basis of very flimsy substance. It does teach you a lot about writing very glib 2000-word essays, which have an argument you could just as easily write the reverse of the next week.

“Most of the people making the worst arguments in the Brexit campaign had done PPE at Oxford.”

He himself got into Oxford to read PPE but tells me he is “immensely glad that I switched to History, because first year Economics is just reading newspapers.” Presumably, going on to write not-very-glib essays and reading much more than just newspapers, he graduated top of his year, before gaining a doctorate with a thesis on the House of Lords in the late nineteenth century, and tutoring History and Politics at Nuffield.

Oxford was an unlikely place for Adonis to end up. His mother left him when he was three, and the majority of his early years were thus spent in a children’s home. He was no Tracy Beaker, however, but a quiet, meek, well-read and well-mannered child.

His academic spark was spotted by the manager of his children’s home, Auntie Gladys, who arranged, along with his father, for Camden Council to fund a place for Adonis at Kingham Hill School, a boarding school in Witney. There, he had to learn how to survive quickly. He recalls that sport was the predominant social determinant of the day, and, being relatively unskilled in all aside cross country running, he took to managing and organising things.

On one occasion, the school seemed both uninterested and unqualified to develop an efficient timetable for transporting all students to a CCF trip. Perhaps prescient of his future career, they deferred to Adonis before he was even a teenager. He remembers methodically jotting out which pupil would take what train to what destination, and from there how they would arrive at the field, before writing individually to each student to deliver their specific instructions.

The imagined sight of this twelve-year-old boy – a future Transport Secretary – writing a detailed timetable of efficiency, is far more charming than the idea of, for instance, a prepubescent Boris Johnson telling his friends he wanted to be “world king”.

He continued to excel at school, and by sixth form, he was “practically running the school” – but still found time to prepare for Oxford’s admission test in which he did well enough to be offered a place at Keble. This proficiency for multi-tasking would come to provide him with many more opportunities in his life.

Adonis spent the summer before university working behind the counter of an unemployment office. In that summer of 1981, unemployment had tripled from one to three million. He remembers endless lines of traumatised middle-aged men – doubtful whether they would ever find another job.

At this point in the interview he deters from his usual style of answering questions: like a machine gun – one line of argument triggering the next, all being aimed precisely at supporting his overall conclusion, but at this point in our conversation something seems to have jammed in the barrel. He talks of endless queues around the block, an infinite supply of cases to be processed by hand , regularly resulting in him working until midnight.

The prolonged sense of desperation of the men in that office is a memory which has most certainly not deserted him. It is, perhaps, the first moment the gloom, misery, and importance of politics leapt off the page and confronted this bookworm face-to-face. His intimacy with economic disaster has perhaps turbo-charged what he considers is his duty to fight Brexit tooth and nail, a feeling of duty which brought a halt to his political hiatus.

On Brexit, he believes things “are now moving strongly in favour of another referendum. The one thing the two sides of the argument, in both major parties, will be able to agree on is a referendum”.

Adonis’ prediction goes like this: in the Commons, “the Conservative party will split on whether or not the deal is a good idea. In Labour, the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs will be in favour of staying in the EU, so they’ll be against the deal. Even those who are in favour of leaving won’t want to support May’s deal because it will be bad for Britain. That will include the leader Jeremy Corbyn.”

According to Adonis, Corbyn will then acquiesce to the pro-European case because he “would betray the trust of his younger supporters if he was to move into an anti-European position.” In that referendum, the outcome “is marginally in favour of staying at the moment because the deal will be so bad. If you put those probabilities together, thats how you get to just under 50% chance of Brexit being stopped.”

Yet it is not only Brexit which has Adonis enraged about our present politics. He is also waging a war against the pay of university leaders and the current level of tuition fees.

“Increasing tuition fees to £9,250 has just made them unbreakably toxic and politically unsustainable,” he tells me, predicting that as a result “tuition fees will be swept away because whoever wins the next election, Labour or Conservative, will fight the election to abolish them, because it’s far too complicated a position to fight the election on reducing them.”

Adonis’ preferred solution is for “a sharing of the cost of universities between the student and the state, fees of £9,250 is moving the entire cost and more – because most courses do not cost £9,250 to deliver, onto the student.”

He believes “Oxford has a position of moral leadership, as well as needing to do the right thing for its own students.

“Louise Richardson, the vice-chancellor, who in my view is being paid an unjustifiably large salary for being a leader, needs to show leadership, and the best leadership, in my view. What she could do is to cut fees by £1,000 a year for the next five years, and halve her own salary, and put the cut in her own salary – and that of other university managers, who are grossly overpaid in Oxford, put that all into a pot for reducing fees for students.”

Louise Richardson has labelled politicians like Adonis “tawdry” and “mendacious” for making a link between tuition fees and the rapidly rising pay of vice-chancellors, and, at first sight, the notion that halving the pay of a vice-chancellor could solve the tuition fee crisis is obviously absurd.

However, Adonis argues that those who have challenged him on this point, such as economist Danny Blanchflower, “haven’t done the maths”. At Oxford, if the total pay of the 452 individuals earning over £100k was cut by 25%, every undergraduate could have their fees cut by £1000 next year. A change which would enormously benefit every student, and affect just 3% of its staff.

He says he wants to return to government, hates opposition, and, says “if I was university minister in two years time, I would set up 50 technical universities across every city in the UK which would be outstandingly good to match the technical universities of Germany”.

Could this happen under a Corbyn administration? “No, no, no, Corbyn will not be Prime Minister. People who lead political parties who lose elections almost never win them second time round. There have been 39 elections since 1944 in Britain and the US, and in only three (Churchill, Nixon, and Heath) cases has a leader who has lost the first election and then gone on to win the second.”

In all, if Adonis continues to push his agenda with the drive and energy that has punctuated his ca-reer, perhaps the next great surprise in British politics will be his style of centrism spreading like wildfire.

Then again, as a PPE student myself, perhaps I could just as easily write another glib 2,000 words next week about how Adonis is the last surviving dinosaur hanging onto an ideology which the electorate has effectively driven into extinction.