Monday 27th April 2026
Blog Page 849

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Sophie Coe
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One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Upon entering the Brandy Melville store on Carnaby Street, you are seduced by the aesthetic of the American high-schooler; slogan quarter-zip sweats and gingham rompers cover walls adorned with stars and stripes. Break through the façade and actually pick up an item, you’ll notice a difference between Brandy Melville and the last styled store that you entered. It only sells one size, and that size converts to a UK size 6. So highly is the community that this brand creates that the exclusive customers are invited by their body shape.

It is undeniable that the fashion industry has always been affiliated with discrimination. Luxury designer brands have long discriminated financially with their high prices, forging a customer base of a certain monetary status. Yet, Brandy Melville opens our eyes to a new kind of discrimination, the customer base is not shaped by finance, or accessibility to the product, but one based on body shape, by the physical shape of your body, by your biology. If you do not fit the exact measurements of their ideal teenage cheerleader fantasy, you can’t buy their clothes. Anyone with a slight arse, thighs that touch together or any sort of breast is isolated.

Despite this, the brand’s USA Instagram account, a smorgasbord of long-legged, bleached-haired, bronzed, effortlessly candid, and obviously thin models and customers hanging out in empty car parks, has 3.8 million followers and it is estimated that the brand turned over $125 million last year and is growing by another 20% each year. Big numbers for a brand that only sells one size. The success of the company that discriminates is down to the desirable image that it endlessly creates. The clothes that they sell are only basics, such as tank tops and sweats, and they’re not expensive either; for example, you can buy a classic striped top for £18 or a pair of tailored trousers for £24.  It is the models and their bodies that seduce the customers. Girls desire the body shape of the model and try to access this through buying her clothes, in the one size that she wears them. This also transfers from the virtual world into reality, the company’s workforce mirror their important ‘image’, mostly female and all attractive. Furthermore, there is allegations that the staff are subject to being photographed at the end of a shift to make sure that eight hours later, they are still fitting the ‘image’. At the end of the day, Brandy Melville is a company that retails an ideal lifestyle, rather than a commodity.

This focus on body image and appearance undermine the work of organisations such as the Be Real campaign or Girls Out Loud, which try to inspire body confidence and self-esteem in teenage girls full of anxiety surrounding their image. Being excluded from a shop which targets your own generation simply because you are not a UK 6 is damaging and certainly not what you need as a teen, insecure or no. This can be seen in Jo Ellison’s article for the Financial Times titled ‘Brandy Melville and the rise of Instabrand’, looking at the effects of the ‘cookie-cutter inclusivism’ of the brand which prescribes a shape and image for its customers. With a twelve-year-old daughter herself, she provides an insight into the relationship between Brandy Melville and its following. The girl is seduced and reeled in by ‘likes and shares’, instead of press or billboards, making the campaign seem real and accessible, it resides on her own Instagram feed instead of in a glossy magazine. It’s the ‘collegiate, sunny cornfed cool’ aesthetic that Ellison says attracts its ‘mostly pubescent patrons’ in a ‘cult-like appeal’ founded on images which are spread via social media.

It’s indisputable that nowadays we shop for an image instead of an item. Still, the existence of a brand such as Brandy Melville shows us how the selling of one-size basics, a business model that is ultimately exclusive and mundane, can become a cultural staple for teenagers through the use of identical skinny models, Instagram filters and a beach front in Santa Monica. American consumerism has always been transfixed with the ideal, whether it is owning the perfect house with a porch and a swingseat or living the American dream, this transfixion now is adapting to the modern age, Brandy Melville proves to us that we now live in a culture where the ideal has moved from the real to the virtual. Simply, the ideal inhabits Instagram.

The trouble with sex in fiction

William Arlid Crona
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The trouble with sex in fiction

Anybody reading this who has tried writing about sex will know that doing it well is bloody tricky. In fact, it is considered so notoriously tricky that the Literary Review felt compelled to set up the Bad Sex in Fiction Awards, if only to accommodate the vast number of contenders for the prize.

So what is the issue? Why do even the most highly regarded novelists slip below their usual standards when it comes to writing about sex?

One of the reasons, it seems to me, is that sex scenes in novels are often gratuitous. That’s to say, while it might occur with enviable frequency that two (or more) characters in a novel sleep together, it is seldom necessary for the reader to witness the act itself. If its role in the action is simply to show a progression in two characters’ relationship then surely, you’d think, we can be spared the carnal details.

The problem is that when a sex scene has no other purpose beyond being a sex scene, the writing, with no substance to cling to, tends to deteriorate into protracted floral metaphors (who knew the many uses to which tulips and roses can be put) and an overemphasis on anatomical description that leave readers squirming – and not in a good way.

Seeming to have reached this same conclusion, Salman Rushdie for many years avoided writing about sex at all. If the plot of his one of his novels called for it, he would manoeuvre so as to have the sex occur ‘off-stage’.

Eventually, however, he rose to the challenge in his novel Shalimar the Clown. And wouldn’t you know it, his attempt landed him on the longlist for that year’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award for his memorable description of the female sex as a “little pot of fire hanging low, below her belly, heating further what was already hot.” What a poor reward for artistic bravery.

The greatest danger of the enterprise, he explained afterwards, was to try to make the sex in any way ‘sexy’, in any way pornographic. Rushdie seems to be on to something here.

Indeed, the risk in trying to write ‘sexily’ is that quite often the effect is the opposite of what was intended. What seemed sexy in the favourable lighting of the mind’s eye ends up on the black-and-white page being either awkward, or ridiculous, or both.

Real sex is not pornography, which in any case is best left to the professionals, and fiction that tries to present it in this way will end up being at best dishonest and at worst ridiculous.

Then again, some writers have seized upon sex’s more ridiculous qualities and used it to their advantage.

Hanif Kureishi is one example of a writer who deploys comedy to moderate the difficulty of writing about sex. Take, if you will, this example from The Buddha of Suburbia, where the protagonist, Karim, is witnessing his step-brother, for whom he has long harboured amorous feelings, endure a sadomasochistic sex session with a New York prostitute.

“She tipped wax all over him – stomach, thighs, feet, prick. This was where, had it been me with hot wax sizzling on my scrotum, I would have gone through the roof… Christ, I thought, what would Eva say if she could see her son and myself right now?… And it was at this moment, as she blew out a candle, lubricated it and forced it up his arse, that I realized I didn’t love Charlie any more.”

Comedy helps to prevent the pretentious tone that can creep into even the best writers’ prose when trying to tastefully present lewd and lascivious subject matter and thus can be a very useful approach for writing fictional sex. It also helps to relieve the tension a bit, letting the reader relax and allowing the writer room to explore the funny, ridiculous and sometimes disgusting aspects of sex.

Speaking of disgusting aspects of sex, Charles Bukowski, in whose novels the beast with two backs is a rather frequently recurring character, had a different method for tackling the issue.

Bukowski preferred to neutralise the difficulty of writing about sex in his novels by making it either perfunctory (“I pushed my tongue into her mouth, kissed her, and climaxed”) or perverse (“When I came I felt it was in the face of everything decent, white sperm dripping down over the heads and souls of my dead parents.”) Charming.

Though in fairness to Bukowski it must be said that in both his poetry and his prose he devoted extensive effort to documenting the loneliness, boredom and self-loathing that drove him to womanising.

Through his prolific exploration of the subject, he also managed to represent the highly variegated nature of sexual experience; how the same act could be an expression of apathy, hatred, love, anger, joy, jealousy, and so on.

Or to take another example: James Joyce… or, in fact, don’t. In his fiction, James Joyce wrote about sex as James Joyce would write about sex. But if there is one thing to be said about his contribution, at least he cannot be accused of expending any effort in trying to make sex ‘sexy’.

By the by, anybody who might be lusting for a taste of literary filth would not be ill-served by reading Joyce’s remarkably depraved loveletters to his partner, Nora.

Let us instead consider a writer who attempted none of the above deflectionary tactics, who wrote about sex with a characteristically bold but delicate touch.

Among his many other superb qualities, James Baldwin is the best writer about sex that I know of, and having explored this sensitive terrain this should be considered no trivial achievement.

To return to an earlier point, what makes Baldwin’s writing top this particular list is that sex in his fiction is never gratuitous: there is always a point to it.

In particular, Baldwin uses the vulnerability and exposure inherent in sex to reveal aspects of his characters that they otherwise do their best to hide from the world. “For the act of love is a confession,” he writes in Another Country, “One lies about the body but the body does not lie about itself; it cannot lie about the force which drives it.”

Baldwin presents more starkly and with more intensity than Bukowski does the motives that drive people to bed with each other. Take the following passage from Giovanni’s Room: “Her lips parted and she set her glass down with extraordinary clumsiness and lay against me. It was a gesture of great despair and I knew that she was giving herself, not to me, but to that lover who would never come.” He exposes better than any other writer the emotions that storm within people during the act itself.

Consider the following from Another Country: “Yes, he had been there: chafing and pushing and pounding, trying to awaken a frozen girl. The battle was awful because the girl wished to be awakened but was terrified of the unknown. Every movement that seemed to bring her closer to him, to bring them closer together, had its violent recoil, driving them farther apart.”

Notice the language of violence. The actors are clearly terrified: sex is a battle, bringing out the inner torment within them both, each partner fighting a battle not with the other but with themselves, attempting by loving another to love themselves.

This is what makes Baldwin’s writing about sex stand apart from the rest, and is perhaps the key to writing sex well in fiction: what you get is understanding, not description.

Our paradise is lost

Florence Ward
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Our paradise is lost

For hundreds of years our perception of the Garden of Eden has been idyllic – a landscape that is rich in produce, beautiful plants and wildlife that live in harmony. The Biblical portrayal of the Garden describes “trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” (Genesis 2:4).

Just a glance at the work of painters who have depicted the Garden shows an abundance of greenery. It seems we never tire of re-telling the Christian story of man’s creation – everyone from Milton to Shakespeare has had a go. Historically, the focus has been on the corruption of man – that age-old tale of the fruit that cast us out of Paradise. Milton viciously blamed all women: William Golding suggested that we’d become barbarous even with an all-male cast of school-boys.

Since the new millennium, however, it appears our attention has shifted. We are living in an age of tenuous ecology, and such anxiety has changed the way we approach the Christian creation story. Concerns about man’s inevitable sinful nature are no longer at the forefront of our cultural exploits. In a nation that is both secular and religiously diverse, worries about our individual damnation have been replaced by a much more pressing issue: the damnation of our environment.

When Adam and Eve are cast out of Paradise their environment changes. In Milton’s postlapsarian landscape, for example, animals hunt each other for food instead of living harmoniously, and the land Adam and Eve once worked on happily is less fruitful. In the mid-seventeenth century, a failed harvest, though potentially fatal for the farmers that relied on their crops for survival, would have been the extent of the environmental damage Milton and his contemporaries were aware of. For British citizens, natural disasters were the stuff of mythical and Biblical stories. Milton could not have imagined the scale of environmental catastrophe that we are now facing.

On Sunday an Iranian oil tanker sank off the coast of Shanghai, dumping about one million barrels of oil into the sea. Last year was the worst fire season in American history, and one of the worst Atlantic hurricane seasons on record. In 2016, the amount of carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere reached 403 parts per million – the highest it’s been since at least the last ice age. If Milton had watched the last episode of Blue Planet II, which depicted shocking stories of dolphins exposing their young to contaminants through polluted milk and albatross parents unknowingly feeding plastic to their chicks, his postlapsarian world would have looked very different.

Modern depictions of the Garden of Eden show a world in which the impacts of human actions are more devastating for the environment than anything else. The opening credits of Wall-E (2008) span over a landscape ruined by waste. Wall-E is a robot designed to clean up earth while the planet’s human inhabitants have been housed on a Noah’s Ark-esque spaceship, where they’ve remained for hundreds of years longer than planned. Wall-E’s loneliness as apparently the only functioning robot on a dilapidated, post-apocalyptic planet is remedied by the arrival of Eve, a female robot sent to earth with the purpose of finding life.

Beyond being a charming children’s animation, Wall-E gives us an alternative Eden, stained by the sin of an excessively consumerist and wasteful culture. In the Bible story from which the film is inspired, Eve’s eating from the tree of knowledge causes the downfall of man. The conclusion of Pixar’s animation, however, teaches the opposite; it is only when Captain McCrea learns about agriculture and environmental issues that he steers the Axiom back to earth with the intention of saving the planet.

Z for Zachariah (made into a film in 2015) depicts another new Eden – this time one poisoned by a radioactive leak that has destroyed all of earth except, inexplicably, a valley in the deep south. Unlike Wall-E, which ends with the optimistic notion of humans repairing our environmental mess, Z for Zachariah is hauntingly bleak. There is no option to reverse the radiation that has destroyed the planet and the sole surviving characters are forced to live in tense harmony with each other until they die slow, cancerous deaths.

It may be thousands of years since the Bible was written, yet the Garden of Eden story has remained relevant. We are less concerned, however, with the implication of man’s actions on our individual damnation. Indeed, it is imperative to think about the bigger picture. When Adam and Eve made mistakes in the sixth century BCE, the environment they found themselves in was populated by animals hunting one another and harvests that occasionally failed. But a foot wrong in the twenty-first century will cost us dearly. If we want to reverse the effects of the mass extinction we are the throes of, regrow the 18 million acres of forest that are destroyed each year and clean our oceans of the eight million tonnes of plastic that build up in it yearly, we need to act soon.

Post-apocalyptic depictions of Eden currently only exist on our film screens, but the trend is evidence of a growing anxiety about the future of our planet. Human actions are set to cause the destruction of earth – not through an acquisition of knowledge, but a lack of it.

Roger Stone: How liars take the limelight

Ethan Croft
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Roger Stone: How liars take the limelight

Roger Stone entered the Oxford Union in mournful parade on Tuesday night. His black coat was hung over the shoulders like Darth Vader’s cape, though such an aesthetic was dashed by his pinstripe zoot suit underneath, which was more reminiscent of ‘Fat Tony’ from The Simpsons, than ‘evil ruler of the galaxy’. In his choice of attire, Stone clearly attempts to live up to the moniker ‘Prince of Darkness’, though on the occasion of our meeting it came of looking slightly like a halloween costume, with all the cartoon baddies of pop culture rolled into one.

As the Union hacks around me stood in solemn silence – dazzled by the proximity of political infamy – I stifled giggles as Stone’s entourage appeared, all in the uniform of Burberry rain macs. Were these the Inspector Gadget auditions, or was I in for a strip tease?

The glamour of the Union he adored, and so eager for his avid followers back in the USA to get a glimpse of the famous debating society, Stone instructed one of his team to play paparazzo with his camera-phone alongside the Union’s hired photographer. I suspect these pictures were intended for immediate upload to one of Stone’s  websites in the US, Infowars or Stone Cold Truth – America first, as they say. As Stone and I sat down, I asked why his grandson was prodding a camera in my face. “It’s for the website” I was assured. “We’ll just use some clips.” At that moment I imagined the titles of said video excerpts: ‘Oxford libtard ANNIHILATED by Roger Stone’, etcetera.

Yet despite the anticipated opprobrium of his supporters – those on the nativist right who Stone himself has termed ‘non-sophisticates’ in the past – I could hardly resist an interview with one of Trump’s most prominent supporters. Stone is so intimate with the President that he has received dear Donald’s most esteemed gift – implication in the House of Representatives’ Russia probe (he has attempted to crowdfund half a million dollars for his defence). As I was unable to turn down the chance of an interview, so was he. Referring to himself as “an agent provocateur”, Stone seeks out the attention of any and all media. CNN were in to grill him just before I arrived with my pen, paper, and dictaphone. Despite lambasting the so-called ‘Clinton News Network’ in his address to the Union, Stone was more than happy to sit under their shining lights and boom mic.

Worlds collided in the Union’s dimly lit Gladstone room. The old media and the new. The left and the right. The truth and lies. I wondered what our long dead four time Prime Minister who the room is named after, the arch ‘muscular liberal’ William Gladstone, might have thought if he saw a CNN producer and an employee of the alt-right conspiracy network Infowars standing side by side with their cameras fixed on a man with a track record of racism and misogyny (the words “stupid negro” and “die bitch” spring to mind). Perhaps liberalism should start lifting again. But Stone acts so deftly as intercessor between the two worlds, that those on one side often forget his association with the other. In this he differs in the extreme from his Infowars co-presenter Alex Jones, who humiliated himself with a tirade about ‘the EU Nazi plan’ while appearing on the BBC’s Daily Politics. Stone saves his more noisome diatribe for Twitter (a website from which he is now permanently banned) and

Trump campaign events, where he regularly called for the imprisonment of the opposition candidate during the 2016 election.

When I ask Stone whether his highly composed address to the Union was an example of this duality, Stone admits: “you have to obviously speak to your audience.” Here I was reminded of that old warning about the dangers of a charming zealot. Of Nixon (his political mentor) and the Watergate scandal, he says “I don’t think he knew.” Never have I heard something so doubtful told with such equanimity. Nixon himself resigned from the Presidency, had to be pardoned by his successor, and apologised for wrongdoing. “There’s no evidence” Stone insists. To back up this ‘unorthodox’ claim, he tenders the excuse: “I’ve written an entire book on this subject.” At this moment, a terrible truth dawned on me. Roger Stone knows how to woo an audience. In the Union chamber, he made all the right jokes. Equally, he profits in America from the impression that he is a gentleman. Amongst his base, the simple fact of having written books – regardless of their veracity – is worthy of note, and one expects that President Trump, the least literate holder of the office in history, is similarly enthralled by a ‘literary’ figure. Now, sitting in an armchair at the Oxford Union, with the cameras flashing and the applause of the audience thundering, the impression that this man is somehow respectable only grows. He wants to be seen as more than a conspiracy theorist.

The main lines of Stone’s rhetoric, about “a permanent governing class”, seem at first to have a Jacksonian undertone. But on closer inspection, the sense of any grand ideology falls away. It is so clear that Stone’s driving belief seems not to be patriotism, but rather a kind of paranoia about America. He has never in his career been satisfied that a candidate can stand and fall through the processes of democracy. Instead he has been willing to reach the heights of duplicity to protect his heroes. And whenever they fall, he has the same hysterical excuse. Back in 1960, when Kennedy ran for president, the young Stone ensured that his fellow Catholic would win the school mock election by telling everyone in the cafeteria that his opponent Nixon would bring in a Saturday school day. Stone later called this a political trick, but many would describe it as a lie. He now predictably refers to the assassination of the president in 1963 as “a violent coup against John F Kennedy”. Teenage mendacity did not fall away in later life, and after his conversion to the Republicans, Stone was the youngest person implicated in the aforementioned Watergate scandal, the Nixon administration’s criminal attempt to keep the Democrats out of power. He says of that president’s resignation in 1974: “I think Nixon was taken out in a peaceful coup.”

In 2018, as Robert Mueller’s investigation rolls on, who knows what the outcome will be for Stone’s latest political idol, the serial liar Donald Trump. In regard to Trump’s presidential campaign, he speaks of “the use of the entire government surveillance apparatus to violate the constitution.” The thread between all these major instances in Stone’s career seems not to be any guiding political belief, except that the American political system is always against him. It seems that he can never be satisfied with the political process, instead he paints a sensationalist picture of “a permanent government that is neither Republican or Democrat.”  But that, I suppose, is the problem with conspiracy theorists – their arguments and grievances always endure, because they are never obliged to provide any evidence.

Booze cruise: Cocktails at Catz

Ailin Cheng
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Booze cruise: Cocktails at Catz

Renowned for being the drink of choice at bops, the Catz Tail’s sparkling blue and purple ombre is a joyful sight to behold. The drink is a (rather edgy) combination of port and VK – and there’s the option to add a shot or two of vodka if you’ve had a really rough day. Beware though – a few of these down you and the last thing you’ll remember will be the already-spinning face of your college dad warning you, “Careful. Those are dangerous,” as you laugh and wave him away.

The drink is a play on the traditional cocktail, the Cheeky Vimto. But instead of WKD, we stay true to the £1 legendary blue bottle of that wonderful place, Parkend, and use VK. Come down to a Catz bop for a few of these (discounted) magic potions. It will be worth the trek.

The Catz Juice is the more-chill, irty cousin of the Catz Tail. It’s the colour of an (overpriced) Tequila Sunrise and tastes just as delicious, without the bitter aftertaste of crippling debt. The drink is a dazzling combination of orange juice, lemonade, and a dash of grenadine.There’s the option to go alcohol- free,or to add a shot or two of vodka. It’s the perfect, sweet end to essay-riddled days, and before long, you’ll find yourself dreaming about its divine taste during your impromptu naps in the library. Catz freshers resorted to making these themselves over the vac, to cope with their intense sadness.

Despite not being unique to Catz, the White Russian deserves its own shoutout. A chic number made of kahlua, vodka, and milk, this drink is an adult-take on your childhood glass of milk before bed.

It contains the perfect ingredients for student-life: coffee liqueur provides an always-needed energy boost; vodka remedies your crushing despair; and the milk gives the illusion that you still lead a child’s carefree life.

It’s no wonder that certain broody freshers have bargained with the bartender to let this drink be named after themselves – on the condition that they drink 168 in a term (one for every day of the year). For those who don’t have the means to do the maths, that averages to three every night. Undeniably ambitious. We wish them luck on their endeavours.

Blind Date: Not God squad, just theology fresh

Adam Large and Jeanne Lerasle
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Blind Date: Not God squad, just theology fresh

Adam Large, First Year, Theology, Regent’s Park

Painfully early, after taking a five minute detour to peruse the dis- count aisles of Tesco, I headed to the Kings Arms – little did I know it was the most expensive pub in Oxford. After re-mortgaging the house and settling down to a pint of Kronenburg and a rum-and-coke, the conversation with Jeanne was flowing like bop-juice. We quickly discovered that we both do the somewhat niche subject of Theology, and had actually been in the same Bible class earlier that day (not God squad, just Theology fresh). After a thorough dissection of our course and tutors, we eased into some excellent rowing chat (the staple of any great relationship). Despite some awkward geography mishaps, the conversation was easy-going and enjoyable… hopefully we’ll see each other before our next class on the big JC?

First impressions?

She was two minutes late.

Quality of the chat?

Good, but was mildly distracted by the beaut French accent.

Most awkward moment?

Brexit.

Kiss or miss?

Miss.

Jeanne Lerasle, First Year, Theology, Mansfield.

I spent a lovely evening at the Kings Arms – Adam was already there when I arrived, and was waiting attentively for me as I walked in (ever the gentleman). The conversation flowed really well, and there wasn’t a dull moment or an awkward silence – which is something that cannot be said for a conversation with some Oxford students I’ve met. It was lovely to get to know him, but the highlight was when I found out that I had a better 2K time than him (yes… we both row, and no, his chat wasn’t that bad, and nor was mine). It was a slight shame that he thought that Malta is in Gibraltar and that he lied about his cooking skills. Honesty tends to be the best policy, and basic geography is also definitely a must. Overall, he seems like a really nice guy with great fashion sense!

First impressions?

Very sweet and gentlemanly.

Quality of the chat?

A rower who was not dull, nor boring, nor awkward.

Most awkward moment?

We’re in the same Bible class.

Kiss or miss?

Miss.

 

Swapping halfway hall for a halftime pie: football as a means of escape

Josh Travers
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Swapping halfway hall for a halftime pie: football as a means of escape

The Oxford bubble is not something to which I had ever given a great deal of thought. This lack of awareness was probably symptomatic of my confinement within said bubble, but that only made my eventual realisation all the more disturbing. You’re probably wondering why this has anything to do with sport, but bear with me. I didn’t think it would either.

My first epiphany was that being in the bubble invariably compromised my involvement with football. As a football enthusiast I have always endeavoured to keep up an eye on the scores, something my early struggles to cope with my hectic timetable had not re-ally allowed for. Checking how my team were doing on a Saturday afternoon had become a matter of procrastination rather than purpose, and this was all too often the closest I came to watching the games themselves.

My friends from home chastised me for failing to watch derbies, title deciders and the like, and I had to agree with them. For the first time in years I could no longer recall the results of previous games with consummate ease. Had all my past devotion really been so hollow?

I called this my first epiphany, and the concern that it raised led me to have a second. This occurred last Saturday, when I realised how much football really did mean to me. Situated not far outside the ring road, the Kassam Stadium, home of Oxford United FC, is out-side the Oxford bubble in more ways than one.

With a capacity of 12,500, the Kassam is a humble home for any sports team, but it still dominates the spire-free skyline. In and around the ground, there is not a gown in sight. Start talking about collections, bops or sub-fusc and you might as well be speaking in a foreign language (in the latter case you of course would be).

There to celebrate a friend’s birthday, we disembarked the bus from the city centre and headed through the turnstiles to the concourse, and then to our seats. I had expected to enjoy the day no matter what.

As it turned out, I did very much escape the familiar, but not quite in the way I had expected. Although well over 100 miles away from any ground I had previously called home, there was something fundamentally homely and reassuring about the atmosphere at the Kassam, a familiarity that made me all the more amenable to it.

Some of my less football-orientated friends made fun as I punctuated my frustrated murmurings about Oxford’s midfield with hollers for their right-back to show a little more attacking ambition, but it was better than stressing over an essay. I even begun referring to Oxford United as ‘we’ by the second-half; the emotional pull of supporting a team was stronger than I had thought possible.

My continuing emotional involvement with football had been confirmed beyond doubt, perhaps even despite myself. The 2-1 home loss to the bottom side in the league left a bitter taste, especially after a chance to equalise was missed in the dying moments. Yet I was glad to have felt emotionally invested in something which is in equal parts utterly essential and completely inconsequential: a game of football.

So, football still meant a great deal to me. It has helped me to overcome the Oxford bubble, and this is a testament to the positive power of sport. It provides an outlet, respite from the concerns of everyday life that is vital in a high-intensity environment of Oxford. Come on you Yellows!

From novices to champions: the success of Oxford’s female boxers and OUABC

Josh Travers
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From novices to champions: the success of Oxford’s female boxers and OUABC

I spoke to Lydia Welham, captain of the University’s women’s boxing team on Sunday. Despite her seniority in the boxing set-up, her passion for the sport is a recent development, having only discovered boxing a little more than a year ago. She tagged along with a couple of friends to a training session, and was surprised by just how much she enjoyed it, and has never looked back since.

Countless training sessions later, the Oxford University Amateur Boxing Club (OUABC) is now preparing for their biggest term, with the Bucs championships (for the women), Town vs Gown, and Varsity all on the horizon. Many boxers come to Oxford with little or no experience, and their success is a testament to the ability of their coaching staff to produce such a quick turnaround. As Lydia herself said: “The advancement of women’s boxing is a testament to Head Coach David Mace’s expertise and commitment to training each boxer to achieve their highest potential.”

It is also demonstrates the dedication of the boxers themselves. While I was struggling to shake off a post-bop hangover, Lydia had come straight from a training session. No Sunday morning lie-ins for the boxers. Training is everything. Although it is never possible to fully replicate the intensity of a real match, the combination of technique work, cardio, and sparring certainly comes close.

It’s about more than simply throwing punches, as you have to work out your opponent’s style as you fight, assessing your options while constantly keeping your defences up. You have to be thinking all the time, like in a chess match, but with much more immediacy. There’s nothing quite like it. With the Bucs championships taking place over the first weekend of February, perhaps the tough training schedule is not surprising. The competition is divided into different weight categories, with universities from all over the country represented by one boxer per category.

Despite the relative lack of experience common among Oxford boxers, they have dominated the competition in recent times. This year’s women’s team will be hoping to maintain Oxford’s status as the best in Britain for a fourth consecutive year. Despite this ongoing success, Varsity remains the primary focus, taking place at the end of Hilary. At Varsity level, men’s boxing is more established, with matches across nine weight categories compared to three for the women last year, but women’s boxing is on the rise.

Having only accepted their first female members 14 years ago, OUABC has become one of the most successful in the country, an achievement that Lydia believes has its roots in the club’s inclusive atmosphere. Men and women train together, especially unusual for a club of over 100 members. The male boxers not only welcoming women into the club, but celebrating their success.

Their sense of community is integral – Lydia likens it to a family. Every year, around 20 of the most committed boxers, go away on a training camp together. With little opportunity for chat at regular training sessions, the active social calendar affords them the opportunity to build close relationships.

Moreover, leaving Oxford does not mean leaving boxing behind, as the club enjoys a strong alumnae network that has yielded funding for a new training gym and a new women’s kit in recent times. Oxford’s past boxers remain keen to support the club’s future, and women’s boxing is playing an increasingly prominent role in that future. Lydia is optimistic that this trend is set to continue.

St John’s thrash Exeter in a JCR Prem goal fest

Jack Allsopp
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St John’s thrash Exeter in a JCR Prem goal fest

Goals from Kayinsola Akinwuntan, Sam Morris, Alex Wilson, Eddy Mort and John Findlay consigned Exeter to a 5-1 defeat as St John’s Men moved into first place in the JCR Premier Division.

With Balliol’s tie against St Catherine’s postponed due to player shortages, this Monday game offered John’s the opportunity to move to the top of the league and assert themselves in the title chase. John’s took their opportunity with aplomb, dispatching Exeter in a surprisingly one-sided contest, given that the game was second versus third at kick-off.

On a small pitch, both teams tried to break away fast when the opposition lost the ball, but with the ground sodden after hard rain for most of the morning, the first-half was a scrappy affair, with the teams going in at the break at 1-1.

In fact, Exeter took the lead against the run of play in the 10th minute as John’s keeper Stás Butler dropped a cross, allowing Arthur Wellesley to tap home. Yet almost straight from the restart, John’s were level as Blues strikers Mort and Akinwuntan combined well, the former threading it through to the latter who dispatched the ball into the back of the net.

After the initial frenzy, the pace of the game slowed, as Exeter seemed content to sit back and soak up the pressure applied by John’s. In particular, Akinwuntan was causing the most problems for the Exeter defence, with his close control and direct running creating several chances, the most notable a cross he sent into the box from deep within the John’s half that was struck past the post by Mort.

The advantage, however, swung decisively to John’s after half-time, as substitutes Wilson and Morris combined on 55 minutes to give their team the advantage. After good work by Wilson on the left-hand side, he crossed the ball to Morris who volleyed it low and hard into the back of the net.

Further goals arrived in the latter stages, as John’s maintained their knack for scoring late. Wilson turned scorer in the 75th minute, controlling the ball well on the edge of the box, and looped it over Blues keeper Sean Gleeson, with the ball seemingly taking a deflection. Two minutes later and the contest was as good as over. Paddy Osborne was fouled in the box, and Mort converting the subsequent penalty, despite Gleeson diving the right way.

John’s added gloss to a fine result in the last five minutes, with Findlay scoring the pick of the lot. Phil Thumfart, who had a fine game in central midfield winning the ball and distributing well to set his team out on the attack, put a ball into the box which was slammed into the roof of the net by Findlay.

Speaking after the game, Exeter’s captain Gleeson was disappointed: “It was not good enough,” he said. “We know that we are better than that. We weren’t good enough today, and that’ll do.” In truth, Gleeson was right, as resolute John’s defending meant that Exeter’s exciting attacking players Oluwatobi Olaitan and Henri du Périer were kept quiet throughout.

Sam Shah, John’s left wing-back, was pleased with his side’s performance, saying that John’s had “put Exeter to the sword” in a fine performance. Indeed, John’s could have had several more, with good chances for Mort in the first half, and Morris hitting the bar during his team’s purple patch in the game’s latter stages.

Goals rained across the JCR Premier Division as Wadham thrashed Worcester 8-2.

The Brew that changed the direction of jazz

Lorenzo Edwards-Jones
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The Brew that changed the direction of jazz

As the 60s came to an end, jazz had become music of the past: the trend had moved to rock and Motown, and with the death of John Coltrane in ’67, it seemed the genre was losing momentum.

A jazz musician known for his ’59 hit ‘Kind of Blue’, Miles Davis could easily have stayed to gather dust on Columbia’s classical list. But by the end of the decade, he had released an album that would define the future of jazz to come.

The shift was in part prompted by his relationship with Betty Davis. A trendy 22-year-old model, she introduced him to the funk of James Brown and the sonic forays of Hendrix, with whom it is rumoured he was ready to start a supergroup along with McCartney. Though the rockstar’s death in 1971 made this impossible, their brief relationship did much to push Davis in a new musical direction.

The result, Bitches Brew, was 96 minutes of organised chaos, a giant sonic canvas that constantly evolves as each of the group’s 15 musicians adds his own brushstrokes and Monk-like angular harmonies. Every player is in close communication, despite having barely rehearsed, making do with Davis’ rare trumpet cues as guidance.

At one point on the title track, one can even hear Davis whisper to the guitarist, as he hears the jam reaching its natural conclusion: “John… play something.” This is music born of the moment, an album that wrote itself as it was being recorded.

Purists were understandably horrified. The man who had defined classic jazz was now featuring on the same bills as Hendrix, packing out the same arenas as The Doors and Jefferson Airplane had done. Nevertheless, with the addition of John McLaughlin on quasi-funk guitar and other instruments the likes of which had never been heard on a jazz record before, he gave the genre the impetus it needed to stay relevant.

The modern attention span, with its relentless diet of 3-minute singles and quick-fire Spotify playlists, will no doubt find Bitches Brew and its precursor In A Silent Way hard going at first. But Davis’ late 60s output will reward any amount of close listening, and continues to stand as a true testament of an artist who refused to be content with his former success.

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