Your Letters
PAINT IN THE ARSE
In Hertford College they kick all finalists out of their accommodation during the Easter Vacation to paint their student halls because they know that they'll study better at home, amongst nagging parents and the constant temptation to go out with normal people. This way Hertford get to prove themselves as good students who don't need libraries to learn. But in Lincoln they have a better tactic: they allow us to stay in our fully-paid-for student accommodation during the Easter Vacation so that we can study surrounded by those sad others also staying up to study. In fact, Lincoln is such a fan of libraries that, the week before our finals, they fumigate us with paint in hope that the smell will either drive us to the library or insanity, the latter meaning we'd be perfect candidates for graduation from Oxford anyway. As commented by the surveyor, people make too much of an unnecessary fuss. But just in case we have the sense to open the windows and let in the drifting clumps of swollen pollen on drippingly humid breeze (I have hayfever), they make sure to re-paint our kitchen for us as well. That way we also can't eat during working hours (when we should anyway be in the libraries), strengthening our sense of discipline and on a positive side note probably killing the plants growing on the bathroom ceiling. But to show that Oxonians can be "unpredictable' and a little bit kooky, THEY DON'T TELL US WHEN THEY'LL BE DOING IT! Surprise! Whatever you eat today will taste of emulsion - just like being in hall! Hang on, there's an idea, why don't you go to hall for food since you aren't in self-catering accommodation because you don't get clockwork hungry at the same time everyday for edible food. No, you're in self-catering accommodation to pay over sixty-two pounds a week because you love your college and want to make sure it looks great for the conferences moving in to kick you out a week after term. Or do the houses go to the tourists this year?
Name withheld, Lincoln NOT SO REVOLUTIONARY? Dear Sir,
The Oxford Revolution's choice of Che Guevara as their emblem is an insult to almost every section of society that the Access Scheme seeks to include. This is the Che Guevara who, while travelling in South America's Caribbean coast in 1952, wrote in his diary of "the indolent and fanciful blacks" as "magnificent examples of the African race who have conserved their racial purity by a lack of affinity with washing."
No doubt the famous photo was adopted as the Revolution's emblem simply because it is eye-catching, and out of historical ignorance. But it mocks all sincere efforts to promote equality and tolerance, and widen access. Cuba, both pre- and post- revolution has an awful record, described by Human Rights Watch as "generally arbitrary and repressive".
Can the Access Scheme really justify adopting as its emblem a man whose philosophy included the belief that "we all must keep our hatred alive...hate that can push a human being beyond his natural limits & make him a cold, violent, selective, & effective killing-machine."
Guevara makes an eye-catching poster, which emphasises the theme of "revolution", but we would not expect Virgin Trains to use Mussolini to publicise its new timetable, even if he did make the trains run on time.
Yours faithfully, Andrew Sutton, Balliol OXSTU IN 'BRAINLESS IDIOTS' SHOCKER!! Sir,
I realise that your paper abandoned all pretence of objective reportage long ago, but will you print a contrary point of view about the Irving affair? The real question your front page should be pondering is how a ludicrously self-important and irrelevant organisation like OUSU should be able to pass off its do-gooding left-wing cant as representative of the university's entire body of students. There was **one** valid reason for cancelling the Irving debate: the risk of BNP-devotees assembling in Oxford. The full-page spread a couple of weeks ago that denounced the Union for giving Irving a "platform" for his racist views amounted to nothing more than pernicious scaremongering and downright falsehood. Irving was not invited to talk about views on the Holocaust; he was asked to talk about freedom of speech, a subject on which, thanks to the brainless intervention of your paper, he is now even more qualified to speak. Now that I'm in my last year here, I cannot express what a relief it will be to leave a university populated by such idiots. I had not realised that my buying OUSU's cheap stationery entitled them to dictate which debates I may and may not attend.
Yours in disgust, Seb Perry, Merton. FOUL PLAY?
In reference to your article concerning the Men's Varsity pool match, I would merely like to point out a few things. First, the comment made by a Cambridge player that Antony Dodson "can't play flair!" is in no way a derogatory comment on his playing ability. It is merely saying that he is a boring bastard who clearly wouldn't know the meaning of the word fun if it danced naked in front of him. A condition sadly indicative of the entire Oxford team.
While you complain that Cambridge were unsporting, not once in the entire second day's play did I ever hear an Oxford player congratulate a Cambridge player on a good shot, and from Cambridge there were many. They did however congratulate their own players on ordinary, dull pots that most people could have potted blind. I also heard Cambridge players and supporters congratulating Oxford players on good shots.
Furthermore, I would say that it is decidedly unsportsmanlike to take such a ridiculous length of time to play a shot. I saw a frame where the Oxford player took ten minutes to decide on a shot. The shot? He was breaking. One doubles frame took over an hour and an half. While Oxford may congratulate themselves on playing tactically, I would say that while tactical play is indeed an important part of the game, Oxford appeared to be playing not only to win, but to piss us off as much as possible while doing so. Well done, you succeeded.
Not, that this really concerns me - after all , we all know that the only reason Oxford feel the need to win at everything is because it's a second (or is it fourth now?) rate university.
Yours sincerely, Ali Haskell, Cambridge
24th May 2001