Indecent proposal accepted?
US pop sensation and Juice favourite, Britney Spears was recently offered 7.5 million dollars to sleep with an American millionaire. However, the apparently virginal Miss Spears declined the offer, saying that she intends to wait until she is married before indulging in the physical act of love. It was only a matter of time before a revelation of this magnitude and the circumstances from which it originated caused debate among the student body as to what one would do in a similar position....
Features: Britain's students go West
Gordon Brown's manipulation of the Spence affair to mount a scathing attack upon Oxford has detracted attention from another issue which the debacle has raised, and which the Government finds embarrassing because of its track-record: the funding of University education. Laura's decision to accept a £47,000 scholarship to Harvard exemplifies Britain's problem, rather than Oxford's. Why did she choose to study overseas when, her rejection aside, she could have gone to another excellent British University? If University funding does not increase substantially, promising students will continue to go west - to the rich American universities. They attract the gifted with hefty scholarships and sports facilities far superior to those of their British counterparts. Therefore, an examination of this appealing American model combined with reason instead of hysteria whenever tuition fees are mentioned would certainly benefit our present inadequate system. At present it is certainly not attractive to hard up students, as grants are only given in exceptional circumstances....
Features: Homelessness: a way of life?
A walk down Broad Street or St Giles would be enough to convince most people that Oxford has a serious problem with homelessness. It seems, too, from talking to several homeless people that local authorities are not doing enough to combat this situation.
Features: Those who know best...
Oxford's Gatehouse drop-in centre is a busy place. The queue for food stretches back at least twenty people, while about a dozen circular tables are already occupied. There is a bustling feel to the place - everyone is chatting, eating, calling over to one another. Our mission is to try to infiltrate this scene to ask the homeless people themselves whether they believe enough is being done in Oxford to tackle the problem of homelessness. For problem it surely is... isn't it?...
Features: A phoenix from the ashes
"I didn't want it to be a wail of pain, I wanted it to be something that people would enjoy," says Andrea Ashworth of her best-selling memoir, Once in a House on Fire. It seems she has succeeded. The book describes how the house "burned" with the violent abuse she and her sisters and mother suffered at the hands of her two stepfathers. The story is harrowing, all the more so because the reader knows it is true, but at the same time it remains an enjoyable read, with humour and many touching moments. Andrea, a graduate of Hertford and Junior Research Fellow at Jesus, speaks of her readers' reluctance to admit to "enjoying" Once in a House on Fire. But, she says, they don't understand that this is what she wants. The book, Andrea's first, and a best-seller on-and-off since its publication in 1998, has been translated into several languages, and won the prestigious Somerset Maugham Prize. In 1998, she was voted Elle New Writer of the Year....