Hollywoods Holy war
Somebody somewhere is hard at work planning a chilling sequel to September 11th. The attacks on the World Trade Centre were carried out with a degree of precision and premeditation of cinematic proportions. As the world's cameras were fixed on the first smoking tower, reporters aghast at a "tragic accident" saw the second ill-fated passenger jet confirm their worst fears. America woke up to the news that she was under attack for the first time since Pearl Harbour. Radios told of personal tragedies while the television replayed those haunting images. We still find it hard to comprehend, but the smoke has cleared, the dust has settled and the United States is frantically engaged in an effort to prevent a similar act ever being perpetrated again....
Features: Apathy strikes, again...
Last week, OUSU elections came upon us and more-or-less credible flyers dominated our JCR walls. We were electing a new leader, someone who should represent the diverse student body in a way that neither the Oxford Union Society nor the assorted JCR presidents can. How often do you go to the Union? Of course, porn stars are always going to be a big draw, but the day-to-day politics of the Society appear to be dominated by hackery and parochialism. Whilst in theory the Union represents a very large proportion of Oxford students, in reality it serves the needs of a small clique (and even the larger group is self-selecting: those of us who do not have more pressing matters to spend £155 on). So the OUSU elections are, within our little bubble, theoretically a big deal....
Features: Making the grade
"You're not weird enough for Oxford!" No, these were not the foolish words of a jealous friend who secretly wished they could also have applied to Oxford. They were rather the damning words of the head of sixth form at my old school - his reaction to my dramatic confession that I was thinking about applying to Oxford. Like someone with a guilty conscience, someone coming out of the closet, it had taken me weeks to admit my shameful desire. I had finally divulged my secret. That was a feat in itself. I was going to apply to Oxford. How embarrassing. How awful. How treacherous....
Features: Broadening the mind?
"A cheap holiday in other peoples misery," spat the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten in 1977, instantly becoming a ragged-trousered prophet as to the regrettable state of travel twenty years later. Anyone who survived past freshers' weeks will be fully aware of the dangers of the gap year student. Not content with pestering indigenous peoples across the globe, these tiresome individuals feel obliged to share their experiences with us all. Thankfully, 'The Traveller' has become a stock student stereotype and most travellers themselves are wary lest they live up to it - no one save the most socially inept or socially arrogant individuals should continue to tell tales about their equatorial adventures for long. Given these facts of student life, we would perhaps be correct in concluding that 'travel broadens the ego' rather than the mind. All would be well however, were this the extent of our criticism of the globe-hopping contingent. Travel, in reality, seems to be fulfilling a more sinister social function. ...
Features: A decade of aid
For those of you to whom MCAB is an unfamiliar term, we are delighted to introduce one of the most unique and worthwhile charitable organisations in Oxford, Magdalen College Aid to the Balkans. MCAB is a university-wide organisation that has been sending groups of volunteers to the Former Republic of Yugoslavia since the start of the conflict, and from last Easter to Bulgaria. MCAB is fast approaching its 10th anniversary, and continues to flourish, this summer sending out a record amount of aid. We were just two of around a hundred student volunteers who took part in various summer projects in Bosnia and Bulgaria. Our experiences in the two countries were equally rewarding and yet very different, reflecting the diversity of problems and needs specific to the people of Bulgaria and Bosnia. ...
Features: Out of Africa
"What do you mean by shower?" my brother Gavin replies wryly when I ask him about his bathroom facilities, as we rattle through the desert in a beat-up Peugeot 405. I have landed in St-Louis with my other brother James the day before and we are embarked on our two-week discovery of Senegal, where Gavin is doing development work. I've always taken his descriptions of life in his village as, perhaps, slightly exaggerated, and I obviously discount the shower quip as yet another piece of "I'm living in the desert" bravado....
Features: Woman of Today
Today has a special place my heart. Many a morning I've woken up hearing the gentle murmur of a politician being skewered on the other side of my duvet. Too many times, I've drifted back to sleep again. There is just something so reassuring about knowing that democratic accountability will go on, whether I write my essay on the decline of parliament or not. ...
Features: An Oxonian in N.Y.
Oxford can spoil you a little for the outside world. While you are up, you can pat yourself on the back for having managed to get in to the planet's best university; you are, to quote James Cameron, King of the World (or Queen) and you are treated that way.Anybody who is bored while at Oxford is, frankly, a boring person. Quite apart from the normal student pleasures of drinking subsidized beer til your liver bursts and organizing rent strikes, Oxford's many societies and groups, the Union chief among them, bring the best of the globe right to your doorstep....
Features: Twentysomething Hell
Are you okay? Sure? Ever start to feel a bit depressed - you know, wonder what's the point of it all? No. So you left your teenage angst at home with your Kurt Cobain posters and copy of the "Catcher in the Rye", you're leaving the mid-life crisis sports cars to your parents' plus you've got all that Bridget Jones 30-something "must get married stuff" to worry about before that, haven't you? Well don't feel too safe, there is a new topic for Richard and Judy (sorry Fern and John) to um and ah about with good old Dr Raj - "The Quarter Life Crisis"....