Why Azim Ansari must continue to study here in Oxford
Recent evidence would lead you to believe that student activism is dead. The level of student protest is at the lowest it has been in decades, while this very newspaper has published articles tabling the demise of demonstration.
Features: Chesney Talks
It was 1991. The allies drove the Iraqis from Kuwait, the USSR broke up, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated and the first Oxford Student rolled off the presses. Yet all these events pale into insignificance compared to those of March that year - when Chesney Hawkes was to bomb onto the scene with the melodic masterpiece that was, and is, 'The One and Only'....
Features: Bleak Thrills
Every once in a while a band emerges, fully formed, to fulfill a potential no-one even realized they had. A band who are spookily, synchronously of the moment, but who also transcend it, managing to do so with an uncanny pop universalism. A band whose tunes make grown men go weak at the knees, and yes, whose looks make young girls' knees tremble too. This year, this time, this band is The Thrills....
Features: Getting real about race
'Identity and belonging are not things that we are born with." This is Trevor Phillips. Provocative, persuasive and determined to enter no-go areas if necessary in the attempt to fight racism and foster tolerance in British society.
Features: Allied With the Past
With the prospect of continued chaos in Iraq looming large and a second Bush victory in the bag, it is fair to say that the future direction of international politics is more uncertain now than at any time since the end of the Cold War. In particular, given the extent to which President Bush campaigned on a 'go it alone if necessary' foreign policy platform, the outlook for formal alliances and international institutions seems bleak. ...
Features: Firing up the Greens
In 2002, a student-led campaign resulted in the University purchasing 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources. That switch made us the seventh largest purchaser of green energy in Europe and saved 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year - more than any other HE institution in the UK.
Features: Comic Belief
It's been two years since comedian Lenny Henry last toured this country - and as the title of his new show explains, he has 'So Much Things To Say'.
Features: Women Forge Ahead
It might have been the case, once upon a time, that the presence of a woman on an engineering course may have raised eyebrows. Those days, however, are long gone.
Features: Ashamed of saying 'Oxford'
It was seven in the morning and I was standing in a queue waiting to get on a coach at Victoria station, chatting groggily to the man in front of me. "You're a student are you?" he asked, and as I answered "yes" I could already see the next question forming on his lips. "Which university do you go to?" That dreaded question had reared its ugly head again. I mumbled the 'O' word, cringing as I did so. To my surprise his response was "Brookes?" It was a split-second decision, and I went with the easy option: "Yes, I go to Oxford Brookes", I said. I lied....
