Saturday 11th April 2026
Blog Page 997

Man rescued and another missing after falling into river Cherwell

Katherine Pye
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Man rescued and another missing after falling into river Cherwell

Emergency services have been called to Magdalen Bridge this afternoon following reports that two people have fallen into the river Cherwell at Magdalen Bridge.

Thames Valley Police Media Team said in a statement to Cherwell that they were called at 2:40pm and three fire engines, four ambulances and up to ten police cars attend the scene.

BBC News reports that one man has been assisted from the water by the fire services, and that searches for the second person are ongoing as emergency services continue the operation.

It has been reported that a specialist boat is also searching the river.

The bridge remains open to traffic but the incident has caused minor congestion.

Walking the pilgrim’s way

Sophie Jordan
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Walking the pilgrim’s way

Singaporean-born painter and Ruskin alumnus Alvin Ong spends his life in-between continents, unsettled and unsettling. As he travels through countries, he moves lightly across art and forms of representation, depicting scenes stuck between internal, near-fictive visions and the everyday world.

He studied architecture for two years before choosing painting as his primary medium, for its versatility and the flexibility it offers. “In architecture school, my drawings acquired the camouflage of the designer, dedicated to the ceaseless production of preliminary ideas, false starts—lines that suggested wall, floor, concrete, garden, bush.” This brings him to his years at the Ruskin School of Art, which ended with the highlight of the 2016 Ruskin show put on by the year’s graduating students. “I think because of the linear instruction I received in my previous education, I found it initially difficult to adjust to life at the Ruskin. So I continued accepting commissions, doing one for Chelmsford priory, and a few for the Oxford Oratory down the road from my college, St Anne’s.

“Gradually, I began to devote my energies away from commissions and toward the rhythm of a self-driven practice. At the same time, I also found through the presence of my neighbours a creative energy in the studio, as we spurred one another on to take bigger risks. The school became a safe space for experimentation.”

‘We will meet’, Alvin Ong’s second solo exhibition was shown last year in the Chan Hampe galleries, set inside the prestigious white walls of Singapore’s Raffles Hotel Arcade. The initial idea for the exhibition came to the artist and poet friend Theophilus Kwek during their years in Oxford, leading to similar experimentation which took three years to finalise. The result is a collection of large canvases and short, free verse poems each with the same titles providing them with a common starting point from which they then build their own atmospheres.

“In my painting titles, I find myself often drawing from poetry and song, mediums which give voice to that which can be felt, but not necessarily understood. One of my personal favorites, for example, is the painting, ‘A Shadow and a dream’. I took the title from Tavener’s choral work, ‘Song for Athene’, which I felt vacillated between the feelings of arrival and departure. In very much the same way, I also see the function of the text, alongside Theo’s poems, as given to suggestion, as opposed to illustration.”

Working with newly-assembled words on ‘We will meet’ was not an exception for Alvin Ong. Theophilus and him share an interest in travel, in the way history is presented today and in all the possible consequences of this on a rather unstable notion of identity, which had already led them to work together on the writer’s poetry collection Giving Ground, where roles were switched as Alvin’s art completed the text.

“’We will meet’ came out of an ancient pilgrim route I undertook on foot over Easter last year, traversing around 800 kilometers of the Spanish northern coast from Irun to Santiago de Compostela, and then to the cape of Finisterra, the ‘end of the Earth’. Each day, I found myself in a different town, sleeping under a different roof. ‘Home’ became a place to rest my aching feet, to share a meal, to sleep and to clean oneself. Some of these pilgrim inns were ran by volunteers, while others were convents, monasteries or farms.”

These foreign images became the basis of Alvin’s next paintings, mixing in the various atmospheres and by then slightly blurred faces he met during his travels.

“Along the way, I also met and walked with other people. We would trade stories, share our food and our lives with one another. I am left with the memories of these encounters, no matter how fleeting, and these are the starting points for each of my paintings in this series.”

Alvin’s paintings are lit by fuzzy back and sidelights, making his journey companions into silhouettes whose outlines are reinforced by startling colours. The grain of the canvas and the thick lines of painting bring a confusing sense of materiality in his images of monks and ritual processions.

“The wee hours past midnight on Good Friday in Seville were the most dramatic of the Easter processions, against miraculous icons and objects surrounded by flowers, incense, and candlelight. These were the memories that inspired ‘The miracle’.

“Like them, the convents and monasteries that sheltered me in Spain always seemed to belong to another place and time. There was one night in Ziortza when after the evening prayers, the monks switched off all the lights and just sat in silence. I sat with them, in that stillness; it was such a memory of indescribable simplicity and beauty. These are the places I return to in painting. Fictional places I found myself revisiting, all mixed up in wonder, fascination, and alienation.”

A thistle amongst the roses: to be a lone Scot in Oxford

Emma Leech
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A thistle amongst the roses: to be a lone Scot in Oxford

Full disclosure: my parents are English and despite having lived in Scotland all of my life (before moving to England for university) I had never really considered myself Scottish.

No part of me particularly enjoyed the obligatory bagpipe music, that seemed to accompany every mildly significant event. I had never tended towards the tossing of any kind of caber. Therefore, finding myself reduced to tears in a nightclub after the first few bars of ‘500 Miles’ (our unofficial national anthem) during Freshers’ week came as quite a shock.

In all honesty, as a chronic conformist, I had expected to adopt a Hermione-esque accent and attempt to blend in with the south-west Londoners who dominate the scenery of Oxford. However, somewhere along the line, all the Irn-Bru and deep-fried mars bars seem to have seeped into my arteries, and also my sentimental heart.

Whilst I assure you that I no longer suffer from such club meltdowns, I do find myself longing to hear rolled ‘R’s and the occasional “awa an beil yer heid quine” (a charming phrase which translates to “please go away and boil your head, young lady”).

Word of the elusive ‘ScotSoc’ came to me like a coarse Glaswegian whisper on the wind. However, further research concluded that it had died a slow and painful death several years ago, seemingly due to lack of enthusiasm. This is somewhat unsurprising considering that the closest you often are to a Scot in Oxford is someone with inherited land in the Highlands or a Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award.

My experiences made me wonder about national societies. Why do we yearn for them? Why do we feel the need to surround ourselves with people who simply share an accent and potentially a third cousin twice removed? Surprisingly, the longest running Oxford society, with the exception of the Union, is not a clandestine meeting of tail coats and port but, rather, the Welsh society. Every few weeks, Welsh people from across Oxford meet up to share sandwiches, memories, and very few vowels.

Many of these types of societies exist within the university. They unite people who have left their hometowns for the Oxford tumult. And, they support those who perhaps seek to cling to some semblance of familiarity in order to ride out the eight weeks until they can return again.

I assume it is natural, in moving away, to at least slightly idealise your nation and pine for its comforts. But, personally, I did not expect to be so close to the brink of exchanging my everyday make-up routine for a Braveheart-style half-blue face.

Over time I came to realise that when searching for people who came from my home, that wasn’t actually what I was looking for.I was, rather, trying to find the same kind of unappreciated comfort that one only really feels around family and friends, and away from essays and tute sheets.

Not only did I associate the Scottish accent with tartan and haggis, but also with childhood, friendships, and the pre-Oxford kind of life where the opportunity to stop and breathe is frankly taken for granted.

Despite not having moved very far, relative to some others (it is but a short eleven hour Megabus journey between what I now consider my two homes), there are certain things that are undeniably different.

This was not something I had expected, and I can’t even begin to imagine how distant home must sometimes feel for those from even further away.

No doubt one of my favourite things about starting university has been meeting people from different backgrounds and nationalities. However, it sometimes is comforting to know that you have someone to speak to who understands your schooling system, your quirky foods, and why, when drunk, you feel the need to sing Loch Lomond.

So, as I plaster my walls with saltires and listen to Runrig in the library, I make a call into the red and white void. Are there any other lone Scots out there in Oxford, weaving their way through people who think that Jack Daniels is real whiskey, and clamouring to hear ‘bath’ pronounced correctly? Come and find me; we can dance the Gay Gordons until our feet bleed and it is time to go home again.

P.S. England, your water tastes weird.

Mindfulness through a camera lens

Sophie Cheng
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Mindfulness through a camera lens

My parents gave me, at around age five, my first disposable camera. Of course, then, I had no idea that photography would become a lifelong passion.

As someone for whom words do not flow easily, I love creating visual memories: capturing emotions and events in colour and light, creating physical and digital photo diaries with images I have taken.

In today’s age it is so easy to take a photograph. It often becomes one of the many thousand halfheartedly-taken snaps on our phone, never to be looked at again.

What seems to me increasingly important is that, amongst this visual deluge, we find a way to sweep aside the cacophony of the senses that is 21st century living. We should appreciate the offline life going on in front of us, and interact with the images we take in a more meaningful way.

My relationship with photography took an unexpected turn when I found my vision impaired by two cataracts towards the end of my first year at university. As seeing clearly became more difficult, with things looking much brighter and more blurred, I found the most joy in using a film camera to capture moments I wanted to look back on.

Surprisingly easy to use, and yielding better results without editing, there was the added benefit of having a finite roll of film as the curator of the click. Each photo I took with thought. With the ability to immediately view the picture and the subsequent option of retaking now lost, I thought less about appearances and spent more time appreciating the moment.

After having one of my cataracts removed, I noticed how yellow-tinted my vision was in the eye with the cataract still intact. Somehow my eyes had adapted to this, and the colours my ‘new’ eye was seeing were much stronger and clearer. Everything looked better, as if my eyes had a filter to out-filter all others.

This experience helped me become more mindful of the beauty in everyday things—leaves on frosty mornings, how different sunlight can be even ten minutes apart, what washing-up bubbles look like up close. It has realigned my perspective on what’s important and brought me clarity in an increasingly cloudy and crowded world.

Which film best represents your Oxford college?

Jack Allsopp
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Which film best represents your Oxford college?

Oxford colleges are known for their quirks, and inspired by these traits, here’s part two of the Cherwell guide to movies that reflect our second homes.

Queens: With its infamous Florey building, a brooding hulk of concrete where freshers feel as if they are being kept against their will by sinister, totalitarian forces, Queens College will understand the inevitable comparison with 1984. Their extremely tight security—it is rumoured that Queenies hide some Big Brother-esque politico-military mastermind in one of their quads—means that the comparison with this screen adaptation of the Orwellian classic makes total sense.

St Hilda’s: Bridge of Spies sees Tom Hanks’ character engineer a person-swap across a bridge in Berlin. The scene in which the exchange occurs represents the incredible cultural contrast between the two halves of Berlin in the 1960s. Likewise, all Oxonians feel as though our neighbours across the Magdalen Bridge come from a different world. Even though colleges like Univ, Merton and Corpus reside a short stroll away, a chance encounter with a Hildonian on the bridge which spans the Thames feels akin to meeting a Berliner from a different part of town.

Keble: When one is walking to the Pitt Rivers, Natural History Museum or University Parks, one stumbles upon a college which may indeed be made out of LEGO. That’s right, this author feels obliged to let the cat out of the bag: you have been deceived, Keble is not made out of Victorian red brick as you have been told, but rather is constructed from 54,895,274 LEGO bricks, so it is only right that it be likened to The LEGO Movie. President Business’ (a.k.a. Will Ferrell) inexplicable insistence on keeping everything as it is via the use of the most unholy of holy super weapons, The Kraggle, reflects ironically Keble’s obsessively competitive sporting attitude. Shame they caught a crab in the women’s Christ Church regatta last Michaelmas. Darn.

St Peter’s: This College’s architectural style continues to baffle this author. A bizarre and incongruent mish-mash of red brick walls, glass facades, concrete monstrosities and ivy-green drainpipes all come together to form St Peter’s College, therefore if it had to be represented as a film Suicide Squad must be it. In DC’s customary summer let down, comic book enthusiasts were left baffled by this 2016 film which juggled awkward humorous dialogue, seven separate plot lines, innumerable villains-who-weren’t-actually-villains, and Will Smith, leaving the viewer walking out with a thoroughly muddled mind. This is also apt as St Peter’s played host to this author’s first tutorial, which also left him needing a stiff drink and a sit down after over an hour of complete mental confusion.

New: Stepping into New is like stepping into a new world: with its unassuming entrance on Holywell Street, all Oxonians are left with their mouths agape as they stroll into a college of Narnia-esque proportions. Consequently, New College must be likened to the yuletide cinematic sensation, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Most casual fans of TLTWATW would assume that this film is the first in The Chronicles of Narnia series. In fact, this accolade falls firstly to Merton and The Magician’s Nephew. Look it up.

Somerville: Somerville’s very own Iron Lady was the main character of a film of the same name, therefore, on the continuing theme of notable political alumni, this college must be compared to the big screen retelling of the career of everyone’s favourite neoliberal of the 80s, Margaret Thatcher (not, unfortunately, Ronald Reagan). Just as most Oxford students will do their utmost to disassociate with the policies of this handbag-wielding, miner-aggravating, non-turning Prime Minister and the film based on her life, so Oxonians too are distanced from Somerville, which is an ungodly 20-minute walk from the Carfax Tower. You have to take too many right turns.

Shark Tales Season 6 [Trailer]

Cherwell Broadcasting
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Shark Tales Season 6 [Trailer]

It’s back. It’s better than ever. Tomorrow night, Cherwell Broadcasting re-introduces Shark Tales to the Oxford community.

Presented by: Samuel Juniper
Cameraman: Jake Solomon

Life Divided: crewdates

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Life Divided: crewdates

Pro (Jamie Onslow):

Crewdates! The mere mention of the word sends me into a state of uncontrollable excitement.

Ever since my first crewdate, I have been hooked. I have now reached a point where few other forms of social interaction hold any interest for me. Indeed, my compulsive desire to crewdate has led me to pursue the experience at every opportunity, as I strive to incorporate the pastime into all of my day-to-day activities.

My first crewdate was a modest, college-based affair, and the evening conformed to convention. The morning after however, I woke in a cold sweat with trembling hands—symptoms I am now all too familiar with as the tell-tale signs of a crewdate withdrawal.

Panicking, I hurriedly ordered a takeaway curry and devoured it in my college room, drinking Sainsbury’s house red from a polystyrene cup and occasionally standing to sconce myself. The symptoms passed.

I soon realised that one crewdate a week was simply not enough, and that I was going to need a reliable stream of crewdates to get me through the week. I had no option but to sign up to every sports team I could find.

This worked well for a few weeks, until, one by one, I was forced out of every team I had signed up for. This was due to my habit of turning up to practice late, my pockets stuff ed full of onion bhajis and dribbling chicken korma. I was often sent off the pitch for my behaviour, unable to stop hurling one penny coins at the opposition.

Sometimes I wish I had never gone on that first crewdate. I often feel that I am living just to chase a high that diminishes with every fix. Crewdating for me now is a lonely affair. I wander around Oxford’s restaurants, sitting down at random tables and forcing unsuspecting diners to drink wine from my shoes.

Let my story be a warning to future generations of students. Whilst crewdates may be the pinnacle of the Oxford experience, they should be enjoyed responsibly. Lest you find yourself unable to stop.

Con (Nicola Dwornik):

Ah, the crewdate: when students descend into drunken messes, revel in their vibrant sexual encounters and try to digest a mouthful of dodgy curry in-between.

Forget using Oxford degrees to rebel and formulate a new ideology. Us students turn into pigs and use our enthusiasm to vigorously throw up into plastic bags, under restaurant tables.

Perhaps the idea that we do all indeed turn into ‘The Beasts of England’ is a tad harsh. After all, not all crewdates are really bad are they? In many respects, one can feel quite proud of themselves for not sinking to the iniquitous depths of past Arzoo visitors. Failing to incite the kitchen staff to form a picket line (until all post-crewdate cleaning costs are paid) really should be seen as a success. Perhaps there should be good behaviour awards.

The unit of currency for the crewdate, besides desperation, is the penny. Just when you may have thought inflation rendered such denominations as ‘pocket change’, us bold Oxonians have given them a use.

Delicately dropping pennies into glasses both forces a compatriot to down their drink, as well as teasing their wine with a muted copper undertone. As if our Echo Falls White Zinfandel wasn’t aromatic enough already.

Alongside the chiming of pennies, “I sconce anyone who’s mum has had three penises inside her at one” (note: twin brother) is the type of melodious conversation that springs up between courses.

Isn’t it amazing how crewdates manage to keep up with 21st Century etiquette and small talk? Participants on male-only crewdates have been known to have been coerced into asking random girls whether they’d prefer to slap or kiss them, in order to frequent the lavatory. Apparently, ‘giving them a reality check’ is not an option.

Crewdates may now exist in a form closer to Bullingdon Road than the notorious club, but frankly I still just can’t see their charm.

Body, beauty and form: on dance and fashion

Natasha McCabe
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Body, beauty and form: on dance and fashion

Fashion and dance have co-existed as mutual inspiration for hundreds of years. From the elegant lines and powerful choreography of dance companies inspiring the creative directors of leading fashion houses, to designers being tasked with creating costumes for dancers, there’s no denying the powerful connection between these two disciplines.

The 20th century charts the exchange between fashion and dance, especially ballet. From as early as 1909, the costumes of the Paris-based Ballets Russes (1909-29) reflected the daring and innovative choreography that shocked the public and transformed the face of dance in the 20th century.

This legendary company has influenced generations of fashion designers, from Paul Poiret to Yves Saint Laurent, who created an entire collection attributed to the orientalism of the Ballet Russes. The Russian costume designer for the Ballet Russes, Léon Bakst, is renowned for his rich and exotic costumes and sets, which roused an increased fascination with the oriental artistic world.

More recently, designers such as Christian Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier and Rodarte have created costumes for New York City Ballet, with Valentino even designing their fall gala in 2012. Karl Lagerfield also designed an iconic tutu for the English National Ballet’s production of ‘The Dying Swan’ in 2009.

Moreover, the ballet costumes themselves have influenced designers throughout the 20th and 21st centuries with Christian Louboutin declaring that pointe shoes inspired his avant-garde heels. Conversely, fashion designers have influenced the costumes of ballets, with Marc Happel, costume director of New York City Ballet, stating that his costumes for Symphony in C were inspired by Dior and Balenciaga’s designs.

Yet the most striking similarities between dance and fashion may be seen in the amalgamation of these art forms at runway shows, which emphasise the performance aspects of both fields.

Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer ‘04 runway show, titled Deliverance, was a unique fusion of ballroom dancing, couples dramatically running together on a fake track and interpretive dancing. This dreamlike performance was inspired by Sydney Pollack’s 1969 film, ‘They Shoot Horses Don’t They’, in which an elongated dance scene takes place during The Great Depression. Choreographed by Michael Clark and staged in the Salle Wagram, a 19th century dancehall in Paris, the clothing mirrored the performance with feathered skirts both complementing and offsetting Hollywood-era gowns and flashy body suits paired perfectly with men’s suspenders.

For designers such as McQueen, fashion, and in particular, the runway, is not simply a venue to display commercial clothing: it is an artistic performance in its own right, with the body used as a canvas for aesthetic innovation.

This is mirrored by how dance is not just relevant during the performance, as it has profound and wide spreading influence in our very culture, and has inspired some of the greatest artistic minds of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Do colleges have an imperative to help the homeless?

Michael Shao and Matt Roller
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Do colleges have an imperative to help the homeless?

YES: The homeless are our neighbours and we have a responsibility to help them

Michael Shao

The following quote by John le Carré could not be more literal to the homeless people who reside in the Iffley Open House: “Home’s where you go when you run out of homes.” Around 36 people sleep in the space, which includes a kitchen and showering facilities. A petition has circulated with wide support to allow the squatters to stay, and Wadham students have supported the motion as well.

Squatters are indicative of many things. A place I love and hold dear to my heart, Motown, the lovely city of Detroit, home to several of my relatives, faces the problem of abandoned houses rife with squatters. Contrary to popular belief, many case studies done on the squatting ‘problem’ in Detroit have actually shown that in the majority of cases, squatters are much preferred to the counterfactual of abandoned houses with nobody living in them.

In the Brightmoor neighbourhood of Detroit, neighbours adjacent to an abandoned farmhouse actively advertised the empty space for squatters to take up. Their logic, one formed carefully after consideration of their personal observations over the years was that lawlessness would take over in the absence of tenancy by scrap merchants who sought to take apart the house piece by piece to sell. The physical evidence of houses that look like disassembled trucks is all too damning.

By no means am I comparing Oxford real estate to the much more severe problem of property abandonment in the municipality of Detroit: that could not even come close. What is noteworthy, however, is perhaps the parallel as to how certain people have come to view this issue, primarily critics of the Iffley housing project who seem to be in utter disbelief that people who have nowhere to turn to are living in a property that is not necessarily their own: not including Wadham, of course, who chose to supplement their decision with extra initiatives and well-grounded reasoning. In Brightmoor, the saying goes “Squatters mow the lawn.”

More optimistically, neighbours of the Iffley House share similar sentiments to the aforementioned neighbours of squatters in Detroit: instead of typically insisting that they move out in fear of loss of property value or endangerment, the neighbours near to the garage have been very supportive and some have even donated blankets to the temporary tenants.

The solutions that Wadham has proposed as an alternative, while with incredibly good intentions, are noted to be poor answers to a homeless problem that seems impossible to tackle.

The majority of people who are homeless are usually only homeless for a short period of time. Homelessness generally has a power-law distribution. The majority do move on with their lives, but a few stay chronically homeless, and those are also typically the ones who face serious mental illness issues and suffer from drug addiction abuse.

Typical investiture in shelters and donations like the furniture that Wadham has contributed to homeless projects, while an effective short-term solution, is impractical in the grand scheme of things.

Shelters do usually offer a place of residence, but even the ones in Oxford kick out their residents after six to nine months. Let’s not pretend that the ones who end up squatting haven’t already explored their options. For these squatters, perhaps suffering from more chronic homelessness, the squatting is the best resource they have at their disposal.

And as Wadham students have noted, if there are numerous other buildings that remained abandoned as well, it is a moral shame for Wadham not to contribute to alleviating the problem of homelessness.

Wadham does, however, plan to take the traditional road with the old garage that the city of Detroit has taken to address urban decline: the demolition of the building at the end of February, when conditions will still be relatively frigid.

In a twist of irony, their purposes for renovating the building, that being to provide affordable housing for students who find the cost of living well beyond their financial capacities, is the exact problem that usually forces people to turn to the streets in the first place. In the eyes of some, these squatters are those that form a picture of chaos: hard drugs, syringes littering the concrete floors, hard music, and poverty.

It would be foolish to deny the fact that many homeless people do face those problems, but more often than not, the squatter is someone who can’t afford to pay for traditional housing in Oxford, and lives in the Iffley House because the reality of the housing market is a cliff that cannot be scaled.

At the end of the day, they are our neighbours, aren’t they? Not just Wadham’s neighbour, but also our neighbours too. Just like anybody else.

 

NO: The responsibility for the UK homelessness problem is at the hands of the government

Matt Roller

Oxford currently has the second-highest level of homelessness per capita in the United Kingdom, and is the country’s least affordable city to live in. As house prices within the city continue to rise, almost no new council housing is being built, and housing benefits are insufficient: the number of residents teetering on the edge of homelessness is only going to rise.

Despite this, Oxfordshire’s two largest providers of shelter for the homeless—Simon House, on Paradise Street, and Julian Housing, in Abingdon—are set to be “decommissioned” within two years. The Conservatives’ £1.5 million cuts to homelessness provision across the country have left County Councils unable to provide for their residents, demonstrating ministers who have claimed to be serious about tackling the issue of rough sleeping remain ambivalent to the hardships that their decision has caused.

Whilst it spends more than £1m on homelessness support annually, Oxford City Council is far from blameless in this area. The council introduced the ‘Public Spaces Protection Order’ (PSPO) in 2015 which criminalised rough sleeping in the city centre, recognised by opponents as an attempt to “cover up” Oxford’s problem. Indeed, the body’s emphasis often seems to be on ‘dealing with’ the issue of homelessness, rather than helping the most vulnerable members of the city’s population by actually solving the crisis.

We can clearly see the two organisations which have played the most important roles in causing this situation. Firstly, the government’s failure to maintain a reasonable level of funding for city councils has directly contributed to the problems in Oxford. In 2015, then-Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced cuts to housing benefits, which the charity Crisis said would push “more and more people into homelessness” and even had the potential to “cost the taxpayer more than they would save.” The cuts to housing benefits may have helped the government cut back social welfare spending, but to solve the situation it has created, local councils require substantial funding. This is one of countless examples of short-termism from the Conservative government, which since re-election in 2015 has been intent on making immediate promises without considering their long-term societal effects.

Secondly, Oxford City Council’s attitude to rough sleepers and those without permanent housing gives them a duty to alleviate the situation. The council appears embarrassed about the city’s national ranking in terms of homeless people per capita, and has suggested that it “spoils” the city centre. There has been a long-term misunderstanding of rough sleepers, with the council’s actions suggesting they believe homelessness and rough sleeping is a lifestyle choice.

The example of the benches on Cornmarket spring to mind. These have been specifically designed so that they are impossible to sleep on, with arched sides and arm-rests between each seat. The PSPO also demonstrates that the council’s primary intention is to make the city appear clean and easy-on-the-eye for tourists, rather than to improve the lot of its residents.

Currently, several Oxford-based organisations regularly act to help out the homeless population. The Companions of the Order of Malta and the Icolyn Smith Foundation provide hot food and soup kitchens, O’Hanlon House helps the homeless to claim government benefits and provides shelter, and Just Love, a Christian outreach group, meets, chats to and buys food those without housing.

But the university assists too: as shown by Wadham’s campaign to allow squatters to continue to live in Iffley Open House, and OUSU’s ‘On Your Doorstep’ campaign, students help out at both college and university level. Most colleges also contribute generously to local groups through their Charities budgets.

Individual acts of charity and the actions of small groups are helpful as short-term responses to Oxford’s homeless problem, and demonstrate the importance of treating those who sleep rough as people rather than as some kind of plague. But without widespread intervention, the crisis will not go away. Although colleges are right to intervene where possible, the problem as a whole cannot be sorted by a social group, a charity or even a college.

Whilst admiring the acts of colleges when they do intervene, we must not expect them to solve this problem. This is an issue that needs to be tackled with council funding and sufficient housing benefits to give those without permanent accommodation a shelter. For these reasons, it is the government and Oxford City Council, rather than Oxford colleges, who have an imperative to alleviate the human crisis that they themselves have caused.

Instagram: the art of on screen reinvention

William Hosie
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Instagram: the art of on screen reinvention

“Post this one—you look so good!”

“No, as you can see I’m on a blue theme. Can’t post this, will contrast too much with the general style.”

Designing one’s Instagram involves sacrifice, anticipation and careful editing. We can’t always post what our first impulse tells us we should. Or can we?

Well, according to Vogue, we can’t. But then since when has the leading high-end fashion and lifestyle magazine ever been of use to the common man and by extension the common Instagram-user? Is there a specific set of rules to follow for our Instagram to actually fit in, be recognised, admired or simply accepted?

To the question “What is worth posting on Instagram?”, Vogue answers “In short, anything beautiful, awesome, hilarious, or amazing that evokes emotions including but not limited to: laughter, appreciation, jealousy, inspiration.”

Instagram isn’t actually for ourselves: it’s for others. For others to be jealous (of your summer holidays), to be entertained (by a cracking caption), to be impressed (by a picture of you graduating). If I post a picture of a landscape and people like my picture, they’re liking the landscape. But if I post a selfie and people like my picture, they’re liking me.

Our self-worth today is based on a number of likes: we become an object, popular or not, on a page which we nevertheless control ourselves. We are simultaneously subject and object: posting a picture to showcase my life is like acting as a self-reflexive tabloid, creating another ‘me’ for others and myself. Externalising my own body, the ‘me’ on screen is not a mirror image. It’s an edited, designed, improved version of myself.

And obviously not everyone likes the Instagram version of me or you. What you think is an improvement may not seem so to others, which is why we tend to base the improved model of ourselves on popular Instagram accounts and ephemeral media trends (for instance hash-tagging used to be a thing, it isn’t anymore).

Although I’d like to think I’m not quite superficial enough to bother reading through the entire guidelines and actually express an interest, I found myself agreeing with the following: “The #blessed hashtag is only acceptable when used ironically”, “Are you a member of the Kardashian family? No? Then please don’t engage in the use of a selfie stick” and “Finally, please do not post pictures at the gym. Unless you’re working out with Jay Z and Beyoncé, nobody cares.” But then again, that’s just me.

Instagram can be extremely useful for advertising, campaigning and even promoting trends with a positive impact, such as veganism. Veganism may be a fad and has definitely seen a surge since it was popularised through social media and pictures of delicious looking vegan lunches, but it’s nonetheless a good choice to make, for environmental and ethical reasons. It’s just important to take some critical distance and not base our self-worth on what other people think of us, how many followers we have compared to x or y, what the like-follower ratio on our Instagram is.

Our life must not become filtered through social media. Sometimes, when I find myself having to take a decision, I very consciously think “Which option would look better on Instagram?” But surely, one day, we’ll outgrow Instagram and the Insta-me will vanish. Better start taking care of the actual me now, before another, newer media comes along and lets us showcase every step we take, every move we make (you’re more than welcome to sing that).

Already, things are changing. Beneath Kendall Jenner’s socialite stardom and Beyoncé’s flawless internet empire, people have managed to transform Instagram into a trivial meme forum and a place for more intimate personal expression: finstas, private accounts for the close friends only (bio example: ‘Up Close n Personal’). When the term first reached my ears, I gathered it was the union of the words ‘fake’ and ‘Instagram’. “How ironic”, I thought, “to imagine they’ll be truer to themselves on a ‘fake’ account.”

Having learnt since that the words associated to form finsta are actually ‘fun’ and ‘Instagram’, it all makes a little more sense. What it also tells us is that these private Instagram accounts with 20 followers or so are far more entertaining. People allow themselves to be more daring, explicit and unapologetically rude on their finstas, as they know close friends won’t judge and will be all the more entertained, as they share the same interests and sense of humour.

At the heart of finstas lies the idea of self-parody, self-deprecation and sometimes, if I may be so bold, self-memesation. But yet again, we’re only entertained by this because we know it will entertain others. At every like on our finsta post, we laugh a little more.

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