Where to go now?
There are some questions that will never fully be answered. Hamlet: Antic disposition or truly divided consciousness? Marmite. Tasty yeasty snack or sperm of the Devil? St Hildas.
Columns: Problems with funding
This week's sabbatical's arguments about funding may strike many people as a tad dull, as a cue to examine their naval, rather than an issue to get at all worked up about. After all, there's no need to: that is what Sabs are for.
Columns: Time is running out
Term is drawing all too soon to its inevitable conclusion and the sinking feeling of gloom that comes when you have been evicted from your college room by some conference guest to struggle home with all your worldly goods. Such dark thoughts could usually be dispelled with the memory that if all else failed you could look forward to weeks spent on the couch with daytime TV. But no more can you rely on a diet of cult (if not quality) TV to kill those empty mornings. Channel 5 showed its last episode of Sunset Beach on Wednesday. The end of an era no doubt you will agree. To mourn the passing of perhaps the most student orientated programme ever made we have placed two of its most illustrious characters Meg and Ben on our front cover....
Columns: Political Sketch
A policy announcement by the Prime Minister failed to fill the void at the centre of existence, it was reported this week. Tony Blair's promise of extra money for a revamp of the Millennium Dome, to make it "a truly amazing reflection of Britishness", did little to dispel to dark gloom that shrouds humanity. Despite being accompanied by soft lighting, a trendy backdrop and couched in catchy phrases, Mr Blair's statement left our miserable species as wretched as he found it.
His pro
Columns: Real Life
On hearing the smooth purr of Martin's BMW Marlene patted her hair, freshly styled by Nikki Clarke, in the antique mirror, set her jaw in a smile and flung open the door to welcome home her husband. John kissed her lightly, on the cheek,
Columns: From the OxStu Archives...Ye Oxenford Diorrhea!
Another good week for those of you who like a good burning as Oxford's so-called 'Reformation' continues unabated. Last week the Burning Campaign held its biggest gathering yet as a crowd of almost twelve people gathered on Broad Street with their now-familiar "F**k Heretics" banners. After the protesters matched around the city brandishing the heads of witches on pikes, three heretics, Hugh Latimer, Thomas Cranmer, and Nicholas Ridley (Balliol) were burnt at the stake after admitting to apostasy in signed confessions received by the Proctors last week....
Columns: Jack Nory
Exams. You can love them, you can hate them, but, like an old couple driving a Reliant Robin at 30 mph in the inside lane of a motorway, you know you'll have to pass them eventually to get where you want to go. There has always been something undeniably suspicious about exams, although quite what I'd never been able to work out. I'd always thought that several hundred future lawyers all in the same room at the same time, and all escaping unhurt, was as a prime opportunity missed. Unless, of course there was another, altogether more sinister plot behind exams....
Columns: His and Hers
His. People are shit. This was a difficult conclusion for me to reach, but one which I did over a considerable period of consideration. I would love to be able to hold out my hands like a loveable mendacious politician and say that the world was a lovely place full of lovely people, but the simple fact is that it isn't....
Columns: Dis-course
In the words of that Fast Show bloke in the shed, 'This week, I have mostly been eating... Muesli'. Okay, the Germans invented it, which puts most people off it; and anyone who is open-minded enough to ignore that has probably once been offered a bowl of greyish sludge calling itself Alpen or something similar. Alpen, in my opinion, belongs in the same category of loser-foods as Dolmio, both being designed for people who take no joy or pride in what they eat, and would happily live on NASA food-pills if they could. Alpen is, as mentioned before, greyish, over-sweetened, powdery sludge which sets like concrete on the bowl, and has done more to tarnish the name of muesli than Germany ever could, even in a nation as xenophobic as this. However, I have been extensively researching muesli for the last week or so, and I can safely say that a proper muesli bears absolutely no relation to such filth. A proper muesli is a riot of tastes, textures, fresh and dried fruit, with chewy bits, sweet bits, crunchy bits and soft bits, which wakes up you and your palate in innumerable different ways. Think about it. Instead of popping a NASA Concentrated Sugar McPill, you spend a bit of time preparing your muesli, and a bit of time eating it; during this time you wake up, plan your day, ponder the meaning of life, brew your coffee, and generally brace yourself for a hectic life with a bit of peaceful munching. What is more, it doesn't matter if everything goes insane after that, because not only will your mind be composed and your nervous system strengthened by innumerable vitamins, but the grains and nuts and things you had for breakfast will metabolise slowly, leaving your (composed) mind free to concentrate on things other than eating....
Columns: Wisewords
This is, by my reckoning, the 41st article I've written for this tawdry, filthy newspaper. It is also my last. For the past eight terms, I've been edited, criticised and vilified. I have been called "the ironically named Mr Wise". An article I wrote on nationalism was called by the current OUSU advertising manager "the worst piece of journalism I've ever read". Last week, Queens' JCR took such offense at this column that they have voted to cancel their subscription to the Oxford Student. I'm sick of bashing my head against a wall of false political correctness and falser careerism provided by those who seek to censor, purify and save us all....