Ritual is the word
Next time you pass a group of snotty-looking figures in navy blue tailcoats, strutting towards Christ Church's Peckwater Quad, noses in air, to be photographed for their annual picture, stop for just a second before heaving half a brick at them.
Features: Smouldering Scully
AIDS, yes. Future projects, no problem. Her life, her theatre work, her film projects are all fair game.
Features: Screening Spire
If you have ever felt that returning to Oxford at the beginning of a new term is like stepping onto a film set, then you may be closer to the truth than you think. While the history of Oxford may be dominated by important scientific and intellectual advances, arcane traditions, and a dubious rivalry with 'the Other place', those of us with more of a mind for pop-culture can take comfort in the important role that our town and university have played as a staple location for television and film productions over the last 50 years....
Features: Screening Spire
If you have ever felt that returning to Oxford at the beginning of a new term is like stepping onto a film set, then you may be closer to the truth than you think. While the history of Oxford may be dominated by important scientific and intellectual advances, arcane traditions, and a dubious rivalry with 'the Other place', those of us with more of a mind for pop-culture can take comfort in the important role that our town and university have played as a staple location for television and film productions over the last 50 years....
Features: Riches to Rags
By five o'clock every evening people are queuing on St. Michael's Street, outside the Oxford Union. The Gatehouse is about to open its doors for two hours to provide food, clothing and above all company to the homeless.
Features: New Year's Resignation
Quitting smoking never entered into the equation when it came to New Year's resolutions this time around. I know it damages the sperm and causes infertility, leaves you short of breath and drags with it an aroma faintly reminiscent of Dot Cotton's discarded underwear - but I have no intention of giving up simply due to the arrival of 2005....
Features: Thought for Food
'An apple a day keeps the doctor away'. 'You are what you eat'. 'An army marches on its stomach'. Food-related proverbs in current use are few. It is easy to forget that we are amongst the first set of historically anomalous generations that do not have to worry about food on a day-to-day basis. We are now a society where more people are killed by over- than under-eating. The continuing process of industrialisation has divorced all but a tiny minority of us from food production, and fast-spreading commercialisation has changed our relationship to the finished products in a seismic way....
Features: Victims of Indifference
In November the UN's head of humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, described the guerrilla war in northern Uganda as the "biggest neglected humanitarian emergency in the world". Despite some brief publicity resulting from this, the war continues to be one of the most misunderstood conflicts in Africa. Just a brief look at the background to this bloody skirmish shows why it is unlikely to be resolved without the help of the international community - yet with the world's attention forever focused elsewhere, such a resolution looks frustratingly distant....
Features: A ragged set of principles
'The things we do for charity", the sexy girl smiles seductively on a poster in my JCR. She's advertising RAG's calendar of half-naked girls. The calendar doesn't lay out steps to solve the world's problems, nor does it elucidate the issues at stake, but RAG has concluded that sex sells better than politics.
RAG's s
Features: Storming Forward
WHEN ASKED to sum up his feelings about the 123rd Varsity Match, Ben Durham says simply, "I didn't even want to contemplate losing."
