Tuesday 10th June 2025
Blog Page 879

Stop romanticising racists in the football community

Daniel ODriscoll
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Stop romanticising racists in the football community

As I emerged from the metro station into the afternoon heat of Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, the adage ‘Mad dogs and Englishman go out in the midday sun’ circled around my mind ad nauseam.

As opposed to the relatively subdued scene I had witnessed during the previous days, the square was filled with a sea of blue shirts and Midlands accents. This was, by no means, a rowdy crowd: fans of all ages, races, and genders ate, drank, and played impromptu games of football, generally contributing to a carnival atmosphere, which, at least from my own perspective, genuinely appeared to be inclusive, even family friendly. A companion of mine spoke of similar scenes, at least early on, in the famous Plaza Mayor.

They had even voiced their relief that it was Leicester City, and not Chelsea or another English team with a bigger reputation for crowd trouble, that had been drawn for the first-leg Champions League clash. Indeed, I myself remembered having read, after their Premier league triumph, of Leicester’s family-like ethos. For example, free beer and cupcakes are given out on their chairman’s birthday, as well their relatively multicultural fan base. This seemed to me to be a step in the right direction, away from the bad old days of bigotry and violence on the terraces which have, in past years, affected my own hometown of Cardiff.

I was consequently shocked to hear news that evening of antisocial behaviour and violence between fans and the Spanish police. Reports of the usual jingoistic chants like, “ten German bombers” as well as the more specialised, “You Spanish bastards, Gibraltar is ours”, were accompanied by videos of the lighting of flares, the throwing of objects at police, as well as the subsequent baton charges, tear gas, and even, ‘allegedly’ rubber-bullets, with which the authorities replied. All of this caused me to wonder, what changed the dynamic from one of friendly excitement to one of tension and aggression? Booze? Police overreaction? Brexit? Even Englishness itself?

It is almost inevitable that the gradual descent from day-drinking into day-drunkenness will cause any crowd of football fans to get rowdier. Yet a specific, most likely very small, subset of fans were clearly unable to resist turning pre-match joviality into outright antagonising of anyone not from ‘Ingurrland’.

While my own experiences of watching Welsh international football have certainly been punctuated by the occasional childish anti-English chant, particularly during the Euros last year, the reactions of locals to such behaviour from Welsh and English fans abroad still differ immensely.

In 2016 French paper L’équipe went as far as to call the Welsh supporter contingent in Bordeaux “magnificent” and “above all peaceful”, venturing the explanation that the Welsh “must ‘put beer away’ better than others”, while the French media, perhaps in some cases unfairly, roundly condemned the English as violent boozed-up thugs. Regardless, local authorities consistently seem to detect violent and unruly undercurrents in the behaviour of English fans at both club and international levels. Deliberately provocative elements, such as the controversial content of their chants, which reference foreign wars and terrorism more often than most fans from the British Isles, often add an intimidating, even sinister, undertone even with the presence of a language barrier.

Meanwhile, some prejudice against English supporters may merely be a legacy of a decades-old negative press coverage over English football fandom. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, England has seen little to no growth in groups of professional, only martially trained, ultras in the mould of Russia’s Orel Butchers.

My lingering questions about the roles of Leciester fans themselves in all this were at least partially answered on my flight back to Wales the following day. In contrast with the near-empty flight which I took on the way to Madrid, the queue to check-in was packed with worse-for-wear Leicester fans. Several large groups middle-aged men were on the flight and my seat was in the middle of them. The fans I sat next to were roughly my age. After striking up a conversation I found out that, though many also supported Rangers (prompting half-jokingly murmured sectarian songs after I revealed the fact that I’m a soon-to-be Irish citizen whose family support Celtic), they had already followed Leicester elsewhere in Europe, cutting short their lads holiday in Benidorm to get the train up for the match.

Though boisterous and loud, these men were genuinely nice guys and later told me that the police had been out to get Leicester fans the day before. Nonetheless they did admit that some were poorly behaved and claimed that a much older fellow Rangers fan from Leicester had received a ten-year ban.

Soon after I heard two guys a few rows in front of me faux-whisper bigoted remarks about their fellow Asian fans, clearly audible both to me and to those discussed—“Shit, look at her in the headscarf—hope they’re not ‘terriyakis’”: this was not in any way a harmless or inclusive joke, but callous mockery.

Moreover, at the end of the flight, a middle-aged fan with Glasgow Rangers tattoos on his arms across the aisle looked behind him at two bearded Asian men and said loudly: “Didn’t realise ‘they’ were sat there, thank God they didn’t put me by them.” No other fan attempted to moderate the behaviour of these imbeciles, some even chuckled, despite the fact that I myself felt (and indeed still do feel) guilty not speaking up. It is unfortunate that the behaviour of a tiny minority, both in public clashes in central Madrid and in subtler, but no less despicable, incidents such as that on the plane, tars people’s impressions of Leicester fans. Yet, this issue is not unique to Leicester.

Across English football, a small, but vocal and poisonous, minority often grows to dictate the atmosphere at events, often only ever being condemned by ordinary fans retrospectively, sometimes even being defended by them until violence erupts and controversy ensues. This gives rise to environments in which the nationalistic bravado of the individual matters more than the good of the entire fan base.

Now more than ever, in times when social media has been proved capable of capturing every idiotic chant or obscene gesture, fans must go above and beyond to police harmful behaviours that would otherwise go unchecked among their fellow fans lest we see a repeat of 2015’s racist actions by Chelsea fans on the metro.

Appeals for positive change through informal moderation among fans themselves and the promotion of anti-violence and anti-discrimination campaigns are what is needed, the reinforcement of stereotypes surrounding football fans and the near-romanticising of the ‘English hooligan’ is not.

Regent’s meat-free motion given the chop

Claudia Rowan
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Regent’s meat-free motion given the chop

A JCR motion pushing for the rescission of ‘Veggie Wednesdays’ at Regent’s Park College was abandoned this week amid controversy among students.

Despite the motion being withdrawn during the meeting this week, due to a lack of necessary statistical evidence, Regent’s Park JCR President Ella Taylor-Fagan, speaking exclusively to Cherwell, said that it is possible that the motion will return in the next meeting. Taylor-Fagan commented that “the motion was brought forward by two members of the JCR, after concerns were raised about the financial and environmental implications of veggie Wednesdays”.

Reports from the meeting suggest that the proposers insufficient knowledge of the topic led Taylor-Fagan to urge a postponement.

Regent’s Park’s current tradition is to provide solely meat-free options in college hall on Wednesdays. This was begun in 2015 as a result of a JCR referendum instigated by then-finalist Will Yates, and was at first met with positive support.

First-year Geography student Ethan Dockery, who proposed the motion against ‘meat-free Wednesdays’, was keen to abandon the current arrangement. He commented that, “whilst in theory the concept means well, it doesn’t work in practice as eating in hall on that day is stigmatised—no one wants to eat in a ‘dead’ hall”.

Dockery went on to explain that, as a result of the supposed unpopularity of the practice, the “food made, and other aspects of preparing the food—such as water and energy—gets wasted”. When asked whether he was surprised by the mixed reaction to the motion, he said that he “wasn’t surprised by the reaction itself, but by the size of the controversy… people were up in arms before they had even read the motion”.

One vegetarian student from the college told Cherwell that it was necessary to block Dockery’s motion, as “it decreased the number of food choices vegetarians would have, and the ‘wastage’ argument was irrelevant, as college bases meal provisions on previous weeks. The motion came with good intentions, for example with the proposer hoping for college to decrease the overall consumption of the more polluting meats (i.e. beef)…this should, however, have been the main focus. Vegetarianism without a doubt has positive environmental and ethical impacts, and the consensus in college shows people wouldn’t want to modify veggie Wednesday, which was actually something that drew me to Regent’s.”

Due to students’ opposition, various Oxford colleges have faced similar difficulty when attempting to implement and uphold the policy. Somerville College held a controversial referendum concerning ‘meat-free Mondays’ in 2013, which caused split opinion. In response to the reaction, the college reached a compromise: ‘More-Veg Mondays’.

Somerville undergraduate and Oxford Vegetarian Society co-president Miriam Adler, who identifies as a “longtime angry vegan”, is in favour of introducing meat-free days to as many colleges as possible. Adler commented that “having a meat-free day each week is a great way to encourage students to think about their food choices and the consequences they can have for the lives of animals, or for the environment…changing what we eat is one of the easiest things we can do to make a difference. Of course, one vegetarian meal a week is not enough to have a massive impact, but it gives people an opportunity to open the debate, and it might make the thought of going vegetarian or vegan more palatable!”

‘Meat-free Wednesdays’ in Regent’s Park will continue, unless the revival of the motion receives sufficient support.

Losing our memories and our selves

Carolina Earle
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Losing our memories and our selves

The passage of human life is marked by an aggregation of experience. These experiences, and the memories of these experiences form a great part of who we are. What does the ‘self’ become, and what do we lose when we are no longer able to remember the experiences and moments which shape us? To unwillingly and unwittingly lose ourselves is a state of being which most fear. And yet, one in 14 of those over the age of 65 in the UK are afflicted by dementia. Their experiences and capacities—from inherent motor dexterity to long-term memories—are whittled away. As we lose our memories, we would seem to lose grasp of who we are. It is for those who have known us to remember us. Losing one’s memory is to increasingly lose the understanding of the self, all whilst remaining unaware of our own degradation.

There are various forms of dementia, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, with the latter remaining its most prevalent form. The symptoms of those afflicted range from problems in language, to a decreasing faculty of judgement, to changes in mood. Whilst some patients are outwardly perceived as aggressive, others are described as vacant. What is true of all its forms, however, is that its symptoms worsen over time, affecting not only actions in the day-to-day but the entire ‘self.’

A family friend of mine, Evelyn Welch, who is unrelated to the early modernist historian, saw dementia first-hand. Her mother was afflicted by dementia in her later life, with its appearance a devastating, ever-worsening and inescapable fact of both their lives. Evelyn has worked for different pharmaceutical companies, one of which—Eisai—focused to a great extent on Alzheimer’s disease. Her mother was diagnosed with vascular dementia at the age of 80. One day she would sit by her mother, who was no longer able to grasp that it was her daughter who sat by her. And yet, through the strikingly clear—though scarcely conceivable—pain of watching the course of dementia as it took hold, Mrs Welch would always remain ‘mother’ to Evelyn, and never became a woman who she no longer knew. This loss was the crushing and devastating human manifestation of the diseases and chemicals which had taken hold in her brain.

As a child, Evelyn’s mother would stand by the window, waving goodbye as she and her brother made their way to school each day. A blue-badge tour guide from the age of 50, Evelyn’s mother would guide tourists around London—from the dungeons to Buckingham Palace—reciting facts and the history of the city in both English and fluent French to her tour groups. She made sure to maintain a working knowledge of essential news-items, and was always improving and developing: fresh knowledge formed a key part of her repertoire. She was kind and incredibly astute. The most brutal irony of Mrs Welch’s disease would rest in the fact that her memory had been so great. She lived until the age of 94, never afflicted by any major physical disease in the last decade of her life, never in pain. Her heart was strong, and this was true both emotionally and physically.

Despite this physical health, Evelyn’s mother was the one in 14 of those above the age of 15 in the UK afficted each year by dementia. Despite touring until the age of 70, exercising and stretching her mind, this was not enough to counter her affliction. Evelyn cannot pin-point the moment when she first realised that her mother was suffering from vascular dementia. She remembers how she had taken her mother to the doctor, where they discussed the need for her to undertake a mastectomy. Retrospectively, she wonders if this was near the moment at which her mother’s dementia truly began, if this was when the symptoms of the disease first began to present themselves. For even as her mother seemed to engage with the doctor, she remained unable to fully grasp what was being explained to her. It would take another five years for Evelyn and her family to be able to confirm the onset of the disease.

Indeed, when her mother was 80, it was a call from a pharmacist which first alerted Evelyn that something was truly wrong. That day, her mother had returned five times to the same drug store down the road. Each time she asked for, and bought, a tube of fixodent for her dentures. To her, the pharmacist’s exclamation that Mrs Welch had bought enough that day to open shop herself would have seemed absurd—it was evident that for Evelyn’s mother each trip was the first. It was then, when someone outside their family circle had noticed the undeniable affliction of what was on a day-to-day basis a more imperceptible loss of astuteness, that the severity of small lapses and previous worries came abruptly to the fore. This was one of the first of increasingly severe episodes which came to form the daily reality for Evelyn’s mother and her family.

From a biological standpoint memory is multi-faceted: we differentiate temporally between the memories which last mere milliseconds—allowing us to see and understand a panorama by the layering of snap-shot images—and those long-term memories which last for many years. And yet, fundamentally, memory is conceptualised in the cultural and emotive sphere. What one might crudely take as mere ‘images’ at a biological level, are imbued with and inspire emotion. It is memory which writes and underpins both our personal and national histories, shaping our perceptions of the past and of the present. In short, if one is the sum of their parts, what of those parts without the memory which would ostensibly give these parts their meaning and purpose?

Evelyn recalls one of the more terrible moments which took place at one Christmas a few years on. She had hosted a dinner party, attended only by close family. Throughout the evening, her mother had continually asked her a million questions—“have we,” “where,” “what…”. And in the early hours of the morning, as Evelyn stood in the kitchen, washing the piles of dishes from that evening, her mother came to her asking what she was doing. Despite the fact that mere hours before the home had been filled with noise and the people she had known and cared for a lifetime, it was evident that Evelyn’s mother in no way recalled that anyone had come to them, or anything of the course of the evening. Evelyn remembers her frustration as she led her mother back to the living room, and how upon returning to the kitchen she stood “crying my eyes out”. And yet, when she returned to see her mother—to apologise for her frustration, to see how she was—Mrs Welch simply turned around and said “hello” to her daughter. She was surprised to see her and said that she had not realised Evelyn had been in the house.

Evelyn tells me how her mother’s prolapsed bowel prevented her from going out by herself. Though it made her weaker and weaker, Evelyn painfully calls it a blessing in disguise. To know that her mother was inside was to know that she was safe. Her loss of memory and communication, despite her ability to perform the most simple tasks (unlike the affliction of Alzheimer’s, whose symptoms may comprise an inability to perform such basic, internalised actions) meant that she would be unable to explain to someone where she lived if lost or if asked, where she was going, nor who she herself was.

On hearing Evelyn’s story, I think of my own mother. My mother, who has seen and held me at my worst and my best, who I do not need to explain myself to, who understands my gestures, my grunts, who indulges me, and rights me, and who knows who I am and all that I have done.

I think of my grandmother who is now 85. She’ll call me by my sister’s name before letting up a well-humoured chuckle as she retraces her steps, correcting her mistake. How she hugs me, and still calls me ‘tesoro’ and who makes sure her hair is brushed, (sprayed with volumiser if the occasion is a special one), and lipstick done before she makes her way slowly but surely to the shops and to the doctors, or on walks through the neighbourhood. And yet, she refuses to allow anyone to help her as she hangs up the washing or bends down to cut herbs in the garden for her cooking. She has always remembered to call me on my birthday. She lets loose great bursts of elegant laughter as she recalls how my grandfather stepped on her toes at their first dance, or how she and her best friend sputtered along together in a rickety at when they learnt how to drive. Her eyesight has deteriorated, and yet, she knows who I am. If I were to open the front door one day to my beautiful nonna—she will always be the most beautiful soul to me—and be received by a blank stare where all that life was held before, with no attempt to recognise a face that she no longer knew, the least I would do is cry. The least.

For, though she would never be lost to be me, she would be lost to herself and I may be lost to her. It is a thought that pains me to entertain, I hesitate to write words that I pray will never come true. And yet, this was the painful reality of what afflicted Evelyn’s mother, and that which Evelyn saw happen to her mother, as each day she would move less and perceive less. She was always obliging to her carers, thanking them when they came, four times each day. And though she would attempt to show interest in the pictures Evelyn placed before her, it was evident she did that her mother did not realise the faces looking back at her in the pictures were family, with little idea of who was beside her.

Evelyn never believed her mother was gone—she says that she lived in the hope that her condition would improve, despite telling me that deep down in her heart, she knew in her heart that she would not. And yet her brother—a musician—wrote a song for his mother, ‘The Girl in the Window.’ Mrs Welch no longer waved from the window after a visit from her children, and as with the disappearance of this recurring gesture, for Evelyn’s brother, he felt that he had lost his mother, too. Evelyn tells me of the small victories: keeping her mother in her own home, as she had expressed a wish for years before; the painlessness of her slipping away; the way she sang along to very old songs and how she knew to answer in French when her relatives called from abroad: her peace.

And yet, it would be self-evident to say that the whittling away of memory, and the whittling away of the self took much of her mother from Evelyn. Though Mrs Welch lived to the age of 94, her daily life became a routine, as she became increasingly vacant to the world and the people around her. To listen to such a story is devastating, and the pain of living through such a numbing and hitherto irreversible process unimaginable.

I talked to Jina, the head of European and American affairs specialising in dementia at another pharmaceutical company. She tells me that though difficult, companies are making progress in producing more effective medicines for dementia.

Despite the failure of all clinical trials in the past ten years to produce effective treatment, she explains that studies are now evolving. There is a move to focus on earlier diagnosis and treatment, in order to prevent the deterioration of the brain before the symptoms of Alzheimer’s and other dementias present themselves in their strongest form. And yet, the complexities of producing an effective drug are ever-present: from the billion-dollar cost and the question of governmental funding to the under-prioritisation of care for the elderly. Despite reserved views on David Cameron, Jina tells me that under his tenure, funding for research in her field has increased. She tells me that the industry has had a history of international collaborations, and continues in this vein. Though a long process, and a difficult one, it is this science, and these billions which are hoped to one day prevent the degradation of memory and the vacuum which has taken so many like Evelyn’s mother.

We will continue to exist even if we do forget, and we will continue to disappear into the great fabric of the world, even if we are able to remember. And yet, the devastation of a life unknowingly lived is the painful truth of dementia, and it is Evelyn’s pain, and unwittingly that of her mother which we hope will one day be remedied by drugs of the likes produced in companies such as Jina’s. To forget is to lose, and it is the ability to know that you are living which strives us to work towards remedying such premature loss. Where there is life, there must indeed be hope. We must remember—as far as we are able—that we cannot forget those whose memories are being drawn from them, not resigning ourselves to helplessness or the difficulty of this affliction.

My date with Theresa May

Charlotte Tosti
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My date with Theresa May

As you might imagine, I was incredibly nervous. Even more nervous than usual, actually, because I’d needed to drop my tendency to be ‘fashionably late’ to dates since this was the Prime Minister, and I knew that I was nothing but a narrow line in her day’s schedule. Being late would have lost me everything. Though, to be honest, it’s my vote she needs now. Hopefully electioneering will delay her a few minutes. I pick a table in the darkest corner of the café, and attempt to calm down. Suggesting how many Theresas I know could be a conversation starter. I try to think of as many Theresas as I can. Saint Teresa of Ávila, Mother Theresa, Teresa (or ‘Tess’) of the D’Urbervilles, Theresa Villiers (the less significant Theresa in the Tory party)—

The Theresa arrives just as my mind game starts to run dry. She produces a wry smile, and I stand up to shake her hand—or should I grab it and hold it like Donald Trump? But she goes in first and I offer nothing but the ‘dead fish’.

Before we read the menu, I compliment her on her dress sense, pointing out her fashionable leather flared trousers, the well-trimmed navy blazer patriotically accompanied with a white blouse and crimson silk scarf. She smiles reassuringly, and gives a modest thank you, avoiding any comments on my less remarkable, and certainly less expensive, outfit. She knows I’m amongst the working poor.

The waitress trots up and we make our orders. I play it safe, a cappuccino, no cocoa powder on top. Theresa stays true to her British colours, ordering herself a pot of English breakfast.

“Something to have with your drink?”

“Ah, you know what I’d like”, she says suddenly. “One of those…crunchy almond biscuits from Italy—cantucci! They’re in most cafes, in every Costa, or Café Nero, you know…”

The waitress looks uneasy.

“I’m sorry, we don’t stock those ones anymore.”

Theresa remembers we have now left the EU, and asks what else they have.

“Erm, I think we’ve got some Madeira cake? There might be some bread pudding lying around…”

There is a long pause. I know Theresa is indecisive, I remember she took ages deciding when to trigger Article 50. Who knows how long it’ll take for her to choose between one bland snack and another. She can’t stop a slight scrunching of the nose.

“We’ll be fine, thank you.” She gives another Cheshire cat smile.

As she has to look friendly in public, she stops the waitress and asks her name and where she is from. Maybe she thinks prime ministerial friendliness is a category on TripAdvisor. The waitress looks slightly nervous, and seems to peer out of the window in case one of the vans designed to deport illegal immigrants is hovering around.

“I’m Paola, from Valencia—but I’m going back as soon as the visa expires.” With that, she rushes off. Theresa looks uncomfortable. I reassure her that it doesn’t matter as she can’t vote anyway. She responds with an ambiguous “hmm.”

I raise her spirits by having a rant about David Cameron and his spinelessness. I load her with compliments about how she can—to quote herself—”lead a country”, get better press than Jeremy Corbyn (she smirks—she knows that isn’t hard), and strut through the White House and face the Beelzebub himself.

“Hold your horses, Donald is actually quite a gentleman.”

Wow, I can’t compete with that. My office only happens to be oval-shaped, and I don’t have a shiny yellow combover, or a Tower of Isengard in New York. I try to steer the conversation away from politics. She gets too much of that.

We reminisce about the places we have travelled to, and she asks me what one of my favourite cities was. I muse about Brussels, but remember I have only ever visited a petrol station there, so I make something up. She doesn’t seem to notice my fabrication, and looks morose as I recall how tasty the chocolate was—how one box of Guylian is worth thousands of barrels of Quality Street. I reassure her. “I understand, I guess you aren’t so welcome in Brussels anymore?” She gives a solemn nod.

Eventually, I realise that wherever we seem to steer the conversation, it reminds us of our continental bereavement. I scan my eyes around the café. It’s dreadful. Customers sit wiping greasy bread pudding raisins off their chins, the smell of burnt bacon pervades the air, whilst the salt cellars and Heinz tomato ketchup bottles sit as numbly as plastic mini married couples by the odd plate of untouched Madeira cake. Now Vera Lynn is playing on the radio. I have to put Theresa May out of her misery. I want to hear Nouvelle Vague covers, and I want the people to drink espressos and eat croissants and Danish pastries. I want a portrait of Jean-Claude Juncker to hang upon the walls like a portrait of Chairman Mao.

On the premise that being Prime Minister makes her some sort of genie, she asks me if I had one wish that she could grant, what would it be?

“Easy. To reverse Brexit.”

The Cheshire cat grins again. She puts down the china cup, carefully wiping the fuchsia lipstick stain off it. She raises her eyebrows.

“Well, Brexit means Brexit!”

Her aide walks in to signal our time is up. And, with that, she bids me goodbye and drives off to visit a local grammar school to tell the students how great they are.

A limp, lifeless insult to every single viewer

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A limp, lifeless insult to every single viewer

Some will say that attacking an Adam Sandler Netflix comedy is the sign of a weak critic, one devoid of imagination, one shooting fish in a barrel simply because he can. Those people are absolutely right: the majority of his films are so aggressively, incessantly, irrepressibly mediocre, that to write yet another fuming tirade about them would be to admit absolute creative bankruptcy.

Here, therefore, is yet another fuming tirade about one of his comedies.

Sandy Wexler follows the titular Sandy (Adam Sandler), a mendacious Hollywood manager, as he seeks to cultivate the talent of Courtney Clarke (Jennifer Hudson), a singer that he discovers working in a nearby theme park. The plot proceeds as though it were locked into the twin tracks of cliché and trope, never deviating from the beats of romance thwarted and triumphant love that one would expect in a low-rent rom-com.

Sandy is one of the most infuriating characters ever put to screen, consistently irritating, unlikeable, and ineffectual, his every second onscreen nigh-on unwatchable. For the role, Sandler has adopted a shuffling gait, a softly-spoken, slightly-lisping voice and a laugh like that of an asthmatic seal. Every word he speaks and every gesture he makes seem to be performed with the sole intention of eliciting maximum annoyance from the audience.

Even beyond his grating externalities, it is impossible to support Sandy: he lies chronically without convincing a single person, launches into fits of rage without warning, and he fails every one of his clients repeatedly. It might work if he was deplorable but efficient; it might work if he was honest but hapless; it might even work if he was both contemptible and ineffective but was then punished for being so. But Sandy gets the girl, leads a terrific career, and enjoys long-term happiness despite the dishonesty and ineptitude which characterises him throughout the film’s 130-minute runtime.

And yes, the film runs for 130 minutes.

The film fundamentally cannot sustain such a gargantuan length. The narrative through-line is a simple, stock story, one that could be whipped through in half-an-hour by a better film. The film is only so long because it is entirely ignorant of how to pace its exchanges, scenes, and sequences. There is not a single moment which feels like it is the right length—every single one is extended to breaking point, and then stretched out for another few minutes, just for good measure.

In one scene, a character repeatedly forgets to record Courtney’s demo track, leading to an outraged outburst from Sandy. This sequence—which runs for several minutes—does not contain a single actual joke and yet keeps on going, and going, and going, refusing to stop and refusing to do anything interesting, and refusing to show the slightest regard for anyone watching it. A film does not need perpetual forward momentum to succeed. But, if you are going to take a slower approach, every moment needs to justify itself, needs to prove its worth by being funny, or amusing, or affecting, or something other than mind-numbingly inert.

In fact, the only moment in which Sandy Wexler manages to reach the heady heights of reduced disinterest are in its infrequent forays into dark humour. Yet these gags reveal yet another of its failures: the film is entirely unaware of why it exists. If Sandy Wexler simply knew what it was—even if that meant being a dime-a-dozen love story—it would be less offensive than the noxious trash fire currently streaming on Netflix.

So yes, perhaps it is too easy to lay into an Adam Sandler comedy. But then Sandy Wexler never seems to put in any effort either, so why should I? When a film has so little concern about its own quality, so little regard for doing anything of interest, so much contempt for its audience’s time, how can one respond to it in any other way?

American art at the cutting edge of the 21st century

Altair Brandon-Salmon
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American art at the cutting edge of the 21st century

Two shows. One, the most high profile exhibition of contemporary American art. The other, a Visual Arts MFA degree show—not contemporary art, but one example perhaps of the future of art in the US. The former is, of course, the Whitney Biennial, on until the 11th June at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in its new, very precociously-designed home in New York City’s Meatpacking district. Renzo Piano (architect of the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Shard) has created a glossy, metal and glass, angular frame to the museum, right at the end of the High Line. In a sense, it is Piano’s work who introduces the Biennial, the first installation in the exhibition. The Columbia first-year MFA exhibition, which was on from 24th March–8th April, is less glamorously located on the eighth floor of Schermerhorn Hall, a nineteenth-century Beaux-Arts, red brick building at the heart of the Ivy League-university’s campus in Morningside Heights, on the Upper West Side. Yet once inside the gallery space, the comforting familiarity of blank white walls returns and we are no longer so far away from the Whitney after all.

The Whitney Biennial is intended as a sampling of contemporary American art: it makes no claim to comprehensiveness, nor it is as prescient as it seems. Critics like The New Yorker‘s Peter Schjeldahl have taken great pleasure in pointing out that the curators—Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks—made their selection of works before last November’s presidential election. Indeed, the last Biennial had one hundred and three different artists represented, while here we are down to a more digestible sixty-three. On the other hand, Columbia’s MFA twenty-five strong cohort, are very conscious of the spectre of the 45th President of the United States. Meg Turner’s striking black and white, upside down American flag, entitled ‘It’s already happening/it has always been happening here’ breathes in the air of political anger and protest.

Which is not to say the Biennial shirks current concerns—its most controversial work, Dana Schultz’s impressive, almost abstract painting ‘Open Casket’ has drawn ire from activists for a white woman portraying the mutilated body of Emmett Till. References, implicit or otherwise, to Black Lives Matter abound. One of the pieces operates more as polemic than art, Frances Stark’s ‘Censorship Now!!’ excerpting from Ian F. Svenonius’ book, which argues freedom of expression is a ploy of capitalist oppression—ironic for a work exhibited within a corporately-sponsored museum which claims to celebrate artists’ expression.

One of the most striking elements of both shows however, is the return to canvas. Of course, painting has never really gone away and the periodic cry from critics of either the death or revitalisation of painting occur with predictable cyclicality. What marks the works at the Whitney and in Columbia though, is their determined representational qualities, shirking abstraction. Aliza Nisenbaum’s ‘Latin Runners Club’ at the Biennial, a large-scale portrait of a cast of diverse runners recalls public murals, while Samantha Nye’s ‘Entertainment For Men (Bard And I As Triplets)’ from the MFA exhibition, shows three nude, blonde middle-aged women entwined by phone cords on a deep, flattening red background. Indeed, even in the galleries in Chelsea, works on walls dominate: certainly they are far more saleable than more avant-garde art forms.

Yet what I think is the crux of the comparison between the Whitney Biennial and the Columbia MFA show is that question of quality. The best work at the Biennial—such as Samara Golden’s genuinely awe-inspiring installation ‘The Meat Grinder’s Iron Clothes’, or the stained glass of Raúl De Nieves—is profoundly beautiful, moving, and thought-provoking all at once. Yet the worst (and make no mistake, the curators’ tastes are not infallible: you will find plenty to dislike), like the infographic that is the collective Occupy Museum’s contribution to the show, is not very much better in terms of craftsmanship, polish, and confidence than the work at Columbia. This is all the more surprising when you recall it is a first year MFA show. Certainly, the powerful ‘Revenge/Regret’ series of encrusted paintings, cleverly utilising a corner of the gallery space to surround the viewer in images hovering between representation and abstraction, could see Tanya Merrill one day gracing the hallowed space of the Whitney or the Met Breuer.

The gap is not so great, the difference in quality from the chosen representatives of contemporary art in America today not as large as you might expect. Perhaps that is because the future of American art, as exemplified by this grouping of MFA students, is so enamoured with the present art of America, their subjects and styles and forms merging together into a thick, rich morass. We shouldn’t read this as a condemnation of the Whitney Biennial: on the contrary, it is a testament to the talent that has yet to break through that it is already operating on such a high level.

Exploring Hull and its high water

Julian Wood
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Exploring Hull and its high water

Sitting down with a friend for the morning pre-lecture coffee, I decided that I could no longer put off broaching the subject: “If I were to say ‘Hull. Discuss’, what would your response be?” Even accommodating the strange spontaneity of my question, the look with which I was met—as if he had decided to consume his morning fix in granular form only—said it all. “Umm…City of Culture”, came the bemused response, “industry, I suppose, maybe football”.

The mention of Hull, or Kingston-Upon-Hull to give its seldom-used full name, is sadly the common precursor to such reactions. The furrowed brow; the kind of strained face one would give to somebody quoting the Trainspotting script in a nursery. They are the familiar response to the mention of a town that has become an almost unspeakable byword for all that is bleak, Northern, post-industrial misery. Forever fixed near the top of the ‘worst places to live’ list in the national consciousness, the title ‘City of Culture’ seems to be the one positive thing anyone is willing to say about the East Riding of Yorkshire’s largest settlement. It is the one potentially positive, stereotype-avoiding thing people can come up with, and when pressed further many struggle to elaborate on anything distinctly recognisable about the city.

What actually is cultural about Hull after all? Edinburgh has Sir Walter Scott, Liverpool the Beatles, London the West End, to name but one for each. What, if anything, has this Land-That-Time-Forgot ever given to the UK that would ever constitute ‘cultural’?

And this pervasive attitude is a devastating shame. Hull, the winner of the ‘UK City of Culture 2017’ competition, is—as its City Council’s website accurately describes—a “great Northern city with a rich heritage and vibrant cultural offerings”. But it has yet to show its true colours to the country in this regard. It is true that Hull is playing host to many cultural celebrations over the course of the year hosting, for example, three concerts of the BBC Proms performance of Handel’s ‘Water Music’, at the Stage@Dock on 22 July.

Such activities are excellent opportunities for the city, and I thoroughly encourage and welcome them, but they still do not properly constitute the showing off of Hull’s own culture. They almost suggest that Hull’s 2017 status is a form of slap-on label. It is cultural because a distant committee has decreed as such, and in order to celebrate this, they will ‘put culture over here today’, dropping it, like a patronising UNICEF, into an otherwise barren wasteland that could not possibly come up with any of its own. Maybe some stereotypes simply die hard in people’s minds, but certainly this city’s real character, even with its new title, remains unknown to most.

Now, I must confess to committing the cardinal sin of essay-writing: searching for ‘culture’ in the Oxford English Dictionary. My guaranteed afterlife in the eternal fires of Academic Hell aside, the definitions with which I was presented seem to fit perfectly with Hull, despite its unfortunate national image. “Distinctive ideas, customs, social behaviour, products, or way of life”? Absolutely. “Artistic and intellectual development”? Definitely. Hull is unfairly preceded by a reputation as a forlorn, flavourless backwater—it is a place as distinct as they come, with its own unique character and richly varied contributions to the world of human achievement. It is simply a matter of being willing to look for them, and, in the absence of being able to truly appreciate these things from a distance, I did.

Paragon Interchange, the grand, column-lined Victorian train station on Hull’s bustling Ferensway. In the shadow of the huge board celebrating the city’s 2017 status, there is already evidence of Hull’s justification in receiving the accolade. Amidst the crowd on the packed concourse stands a seven foot bronze statue of former Poet Laureate Philip Larkin, frozen mid-motion, manuscripts in hand, rushing towards the platform.

Predictable jokes about the virtues of fleeing Hull aside, the station itself was celebrated in the opening line of Larkin’s 1964 poem ‘The Whitsun Weddings’, and Hull served him faithfully as a city-sized muse from his appointment as its University’s Librarian in 1955. Larkin’s own succinct reflection on the city: “I never thought about Hull until I was there”, is sadly all too accurate—it can be difficult to remember somewhere so ‘over there’, surrounded on all three sides by sprawling farmland, let alone its significant contributions to the world of literature. Yet significant they were, for Larkin was not alone. Leaving Paragon and heading West, to Bishop Alcock Road, one comes face to face the marble statue of the 17th century metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell, who grew up in the city and later served as its MP.

Evidently, despite being the home of one of the most distinctive accents in Northern England—with vowels so flattened that even a simple can of ‘kerka kerla’ appears an alien concept—the city has inspired some of the finest lyricism in the English language.

Certainly, nobody would deny that this was a significant ‘cultural’ contribution, and indeed the arts are a greatly under-appreciated aspect of Hull’s creative output. Still in the west of the city, in the leafy suburb of Newland, I am greeted by the residents’ own self-assertion of this: the plastering of a large poster onto the side of a generator. The picture: the cover of the first album by Hull band The Housemartins, aptly named—in typically city-proud fashion—London 0, Hull 4. Initially based here at a humble terrace in nearby Grafton Street, this jangly guitar group–best known for their 1986 Number 1 acapella cover of Isley-Jasper Isley’s ‘Caravan of Love’—was the training ground for two of modern music’s giants. Paul Heaton, subsequent co-founder of The Beautiful South, served as frontman, singer, and lyricist. Behind him, the unassuming Norman Cook, now perhaps better recognised by his stage moniker of Fatboy Slim, plucked at the bass. Backtracking south towards the city centre, at 38 Beverley Road, lies the former premises of Turners Furniture Shop. It was here in 1982, after taking their name from the shop’s tagline, that Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt founded Everything But the Girl, best remembered for their 1994 Number One single ‘Missing’.

Of course, there’s visual art itself, perhaps especially surprising given the needless reputation of the place. Certainly, one would not expect Stig of the Dump to paint something Rembrandt-esque, yet once again the city’s unjustified caricature precedes it. Until recently, when it was moved to the Humber Street Gallery for preservation, one of the locals’ most prized visual expressions of the ‘Hull spirit’ adorned a corrugated iron jetty at East Hull’s Alexandra Dock. I refer to ‘Dead Bod’, a human sized painting of an upturned, stylised dead bird, with the words that gave the image its name scrawled beneath. ‘Bod’ being a local slang term for bird, the piece was allegedly the post-pub effort of Captain Len ‘Pongo’ Rood and Chief Engineer Gordon Mason in the 1960s. It became a symbol of the city’s rich maritime heritage, the bold outline being one of the most prominent features to guide the once vast fishing fleets on the River Humber back to their docks.

Associated British Ports painstakingly took the effort to transfer the image in March 2015 after a significant campaign was mounted to save it in the face of demolition. This included the creation of a special ‘Save Dead Bod’ blonde ale by Humber Street’s Yorkshire Brewing Company, a typically Hull-esque gesture that highlights the importance of the down-to-earth, ‘good chat, good drink’ mentality that gives the community its cohesive power for such actions . These efforts by the locals are as good an indication as any of their devotion to this aspect of their own heritage-based identity, and of their immense pride in championing it.

Strolling through the empty murmur of East Hull’s waterside, the city’s fishing fleets are long gone. The damage to their industry was irreversible after the so-called ‘Cod Wars’, a series of Iceland-UK confrontations from 1952 to 1976 over fishing rights, ending with the loss of Hull’s prime catching grounds. Yet, despite being estuarial, and no longer a fishing capital, the people of Hull are fanatically proud of their maritime connections.

In July 2016, 3,200 residents gathered, naked, and painted four shades of maritime blue, from 5am in the city centre to take part in New York photographer Spencer Tunick’s ‘Sea of Hull’ installation. The photographs, recently opened for exhibition at Hull’s Ferens Gallery on 21 April 2017, depict the volunteers as a blurred collective mass, arranged as flowing waves through the streets of the Victorian city centre, and in the Queen’s Gardens in concentric rings as a huge human ship wheel. The sheer number of volunteers, and their willingness to totally expose themselves to the freezing morning winds for multiple hours—a task requiring multiple truckloads of Northern mental grit—shows the importance the people of Hull attach to their own unique take on ‘culture’.

Everyone was socially levelled by the process, an egalitarian gesture where background and class were discarded in favour of collective celebration. Even the great rivalry within the city itself: between the two sides of the River Hull that runs down its centre—seen most passionately manifested at the Rugby League games between west-supported Hull F.C. and east-supported Hull Kingston Rovers—was put aside for a common gesture of appreciation. A city that inspires such devotion from its residents, especially in the pursuit of artistic creation, cannot constitute the swamp of protozoan lowlife many are too willing to brand it. Hull needs anything but the truck-based import of culture—it already lives powerfully, in its own distinct form, within every resident and every paving slab.

It is a place that inspires devotion: the people of Hull—or ‘Hullensians’—are proud of their city, and are unwilling to succumb to external pressure in demonising it. The only city in the UK to have non-red telephone boxes—opting for cream instead when it escaped British Telecom’s monopoly—is a place that is quietly confident in its own unique identity. Indeed, it is this sense of self-reflection that is perhaps among the most admirable traits of the city as a collective entity, and lies at the heart of what constitutes arguably the most overlooked, yet culturally significant, building in the city.

At the corner of West Hull’s Beverley Road, number 144 on the corner with Fountain Road, I pass what appears to be yet another one of the boarded-up, crumbling remnants of Victorian Northern England. Another example of the grim-covered, expired grandeur that characterises the common mental picture of Hull. But this dereliction is, unlike most, deliberate.

The wreck’s original incarnation, the National Picture Theatre, was, on the night of 17-18 March 1941, filled with 150 patrons for a screening as the Second World War distantly raged. The film: ironically, Charlie Chaplain’s The Great Dictator. At 10pm, an airborne mine from a German aircraft fell through the ceiling and exploded, devastating the building and smashing the very glass that still remains, in small fragments, in the corners of the skeletal window frames. Miraculously, an air raid warning prompted prior preparation, and all 150 moviegoers emerged unharmed from the incident. Hull, as an industrial centre and key port, was the most bombed city outside London: 1,200 were killed, and over 153,000 made homeless by the Hull Blitz, as more than 95 per cent of the city’s housing was damaged.

In an act nothing short of outrageous, the September 2015 BBC documentary Blitz Cities did not cover Hull, prompting bitter indignation from the city that serves as home to one of the very last non-ecclesiastical bomb-damaged sites in the UK. Indeed, while seemingly overlooked, the building—save ageing almost unchanged since impact—seems to form a fitting reminder of the ground-level, local, and irreplaceable damage of war. It is a shattered mausoleum to thousands of voices silenced by conflict—those often too readily forgotten in the grand narratives that relate them. Hull is anything but the remorseless, bleak frontier zone it is all too often characterised as. It is a place of tender sentimentality and respectful appreciation, a place whose rugged industrial past does not rob it of a heart. This is the Hull many are unable or unwilling to see: a place of distinct identity, bold creative expression, and passionate and powerful feeling. It is a city of culture not just for 2017, but for all years. ‘Hull. Discuss.’ can have no brief response, and certainly anything but a silent one. People can laugh at the prospect as much as they like, but to paraphrase what Larkin said: ‘You’ll never think about Hull until you’re there’, and it’s well worth it.

“There is a God”: A view from the Oxfordshire count

Iris Kaye-Smith
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“There is a God”: A view from the Oxfordshire count

“There is a God,” declares one Oxford Labour councillor after the announcement of Witney South and Central, in a stuffily crowded sports hall in Abingdon. “We threw everything we could at that one.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the prevailing atmosphere among Labour party candidates and activists at the Oxfordshire County Council vote count isn’t one of optimism: Witney South is one of the biggest success of the day, with Labour’s Laura Price increasing her majority from a slim ten votes in 2013 to over a hundred. With losses in Banbury and gains in the city of Oxford, the Labour group has suffered a net loss of only one of the fifteen seats they won in the last election.

The Liberal Democrats, increasing their overall share of the vote, have made important gains in Abingdon, where Layla Moran hopes to unseat Nicola Blackwood in the general election in June. The ruling Conservatives undoubtedly hoped to gain at least the one extra seat they needed for a working majority—their palpable frustration at the prospect of another four years of a hung council, coupled with the loss of deputy group leader Rodney Rose (Charlbury and Wychwood), and council cabinet member for transport David Nimmo Smith (Henley), as well as their failure to take Abingdon East from the Lib Dems, has made it a disappointing day for what is still by far the biggest party in Oxfordshire.

None of the Oxford undergraduates standing in this election have become county councillors, though the Lib Dems’ Lucinda Chamberlain (University Parks) and Labour’s Lucas Bertholdi-Saad (Wolvercote & Summertown) have both increased their parties’ share of the vote in their respective divisions. Labour party candidate (and Jesus College history tutor) Emma Turnbull has won an impressive victory in the University Parks division, which includes most of the central Oxford colleges. With Brasenose student Lucinda Chamberlain in second place, fighting a campaign focused in the university community clearly pays off in the biggest student division in the county, unseating the incumbent Greens and winning Labour a 300-vote majority.

If there’s any cross-party mood in this hall, it’s the urgency with which these results are regarded by candidates and activists who, mid-campaign, found themselves fighting a very different kind of election.

“The election became entangled with the general election,” said former Green councillor David Williams, accounting for his defeat by Labour’s Helen Evans in Iffley Fields. For local party campaigners, these elections were a trial run, a warm-up. The results augur well for Anneliese Dodds’ chances of holding Oxford East for Labour in June, and perhaps for the Lib Dems’ campaign in Oxford West & Abingdon. Attitudes towards the election are shown here in microcosm: the Tories comfortably sure of winning, the Lib Dems’ expecting a revival with a campaign centred around Brexit. UKIP are, with only double-digit results in some divisions, out of action almost completely.

Labour’s strategy is one of defence. There may be little optimism, but there’s even fewer signs of resignation and defeatism. Despite these unexpectedly good results in target seats, few campaigners in the local party or university Labour club will take much time to celebrate. “Labour are the best party to represent young people. What we’ve done in Oxford, to ensure almost all students now have Labour councillors, we now need to do across the country in the next five weeks,” says OULC co-chair Tom Zagoria. “On Monday we’ll be back on the doorstep.”

“Fun, thoroughly amusing and worth watching”

Freya Thorpe
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“Fun, thoroughly amusing and worth watching”

Ambriel Productions provided an evening of vibrant amusement in its performance of the well-known, but nonetheless greatly enjoyable, Little Shop of Horrors.

The production was a triumph as an ensemble, and some of the best moments of the show were the scenes in which the majority of the cast were onstage: the larger group songs that open and close the play particularly stood out.

The majority of its musical numbers were accompanied by simple but effective choreography. When performed by the main cast members, these dances became absurd and humorous, while the three ‘street urchins’ making up the chorus showed some inconsistency in the energy they presented (though this may perhaps be attributed to its being the dress rehearsal).

Such fluctuation in dynamism could also be seen across other characters, with the entrances of Orin Scrivello, D.D.S (played by Laurence Belcher) bringing more life and humour to the stage.

It was, in fact, the villains of this play who claimed the standout performances—Scrivello for his almost pantomime level of caricature (which transferred strongly into the other roles Belcher took on later in the play) and Audrey II with her fantastic sassiness.

Jess Bollands, the brilliantly powerful voice of this devious plant, seemed to take over the stage as her leafy character took over Mushnik’s shop. Although there were occasional discrepancies between Audrey II’s lines and the movement of the speaking plant, it was overall well designed and operated, especially for an amateur production.

While there are entire websites dedicated to spreading the amusement provided by various low budget, rather odd Audrey IIs (lowbudgetaudrey2.tumblr.com can supply hours of entertainment), Ambriel Productions’ version avoided this category and instead delivered a degree of vibrant eccentricity that was disappointingly lacking in the costumes of other characters.

The original Audrey (played by Amelia Gabriel) in particular seemed slightly more toned down than I’d expected, though her role was still highly amusing. She delivered some of the play’s most entertaining lines, and her accent was at times excellent.

While the costumes (and perhaps the eccentricities) of various characters were relatively restrained, the set counteracted this with its striking billboard and use of coloured lights, and frequently enhanced the lurid, fantastically odd atmosphere that I most enjoyed about this play.

Overall, while the theme of domestic violence created more uncomfortable humour than perhaps it would have in the original staging, Ambriel Productions’ play was fun, thoroughly amusing, and definitely worth watching.

SnapShot: Boat Race afterparty

Matthew Roller
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SnapShot: Boat Race afterparty

After choosing to watch my beloved Arsenal slip to another disappointing home result instead of watching the Boat Race with my friends, I arrived late to pre-drinks with only a tepid Emirates lager (a steal at £4.60 for a Carlsberg) in my system. As Pimms-fuelled shouts of ‘dodger’ were hurled at me—deeply unjustified considering my exemplary Cellar attendance in Hilary—I realised I was in for a long night.

Sober, exhausted, and disgusted at myself for having paid £15 (plus booking fee) for a ticket, I hoped that it was only the egregiously long queue that had caused Embargo República to be sold to me by my London friends as ‘The Bridge of the King’s Road’. These hopes were soon to be shattered. Indeed, after my fears that literally everyone from my boarding school years would be present were confirmed, I realised that my points of refuge were limited.

The bar—with its £10 drink offers—was unappealing. Ten minutes’ worth of secondhand Marlboro Gold smoke later, it hit me that my solitary remaining option was the one I feared most: the dancefloor.

Catching the eye of Encore Events’ Ollie East, armed with his beloved ‘Throwback Hits’ Spotify playlist, I soon recognised the familiar cocktail of acute social embarrassment and mild self-loathing take over, trying as I did to look like I was enjoying The Killers’ ‘Mr Brightside’ for the 14th time that term.

And yet somehow, when the lights came on some 80 minutes before the scheduled close, I found myself disappointed that the night was over. There was such an acceptance amongst those in ‘Bargs’ that their big Sunday night out would be tragic that somehow, it had become almost enjoyable.

Two night buses later, I lay on the spare mattress on the crippling uncomfortable floor of my college wife’s house, reflecting on the fact I had become the sort of person who likes the kind of night I had just attended. To paraphrase that old sage, Mark Corrigan: “A little bit of me had died—but a lot of me didn’t give a shit.”

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