Best of British
If you ask somebody to name a successful British businessman, Sir Richard Branson is likely to be the first that will spring to their mind. Indeed, his reputation as an entrepreneur is international: he has both made a guest appearance on Friends and been the butt of the humour of The Simpsons, and has even taken to writing articles for Oxford University's second-favourite weekly paper in a bid for attention. It was therefore with some disappointment that on meeting Sir Richard I realised that, behind the carefully stage-managed image and the equally carefully tended facial hair of the Virgin tycoon, there is hidden a surprisingly normal bloke....
Features: Beautiful people
Ask a man what make-up he likes on a girl and he'll probably mumble something about preferring girls who are 'natural' and don't wear any make-up at all. This is a lie. For what he means when he says 'natural' is not, of course, the grey-skinned, Wurzel Gummage- style monster that most of us would morph into if left for a month without our various lotions and potions. What he means is that he likes girls with flawless, effortlessly glowing skin, soft glossy hair, sparkly eyes and rosebud lips. And this, as we all know, cannot be achieved without a bucketload of products....
Features: Murdering a Pint
Inspector Morse is a pretty legendary drinker. In one episode he drinks three bottles of vodka and eight pints of bitter. Now you too can go drinking with Oxford's favourite alcoholic detective - watch an episode on video with your drinking buddies and fine yourself according to the table below - if you've ever played the Star Wars game or the Withnail and I game you should be right at home. You should probably be in rehab as well, you drunkard. Fantasise about keeping Morse company in a corner of the White Horse and buying him drinks all night while he tells you about his fascinating career in the police, and his current perplexing case. If you get him sufficiently smashed he might even tell you his secret first name. Or he might tell you that he really loves you because you're a mate, and then be sick on your shoes. ...
Features: Pop go the students
When I was first told of an Oxford Popstars project, I was sceptical. Camera crews, a final in the Town Hall, high Internet technology - it sounded a little ambitious. Then the Popstars team reached the final of a venture capital competition, obtained the interest and funding of various companies, and my scepticism gradually vanished. Last term, 45 Oxford students took part in the auditions, before a panel of five judges and six cameramen, all sporting black Yooniv sweatshirts. A few days before the auditions, the project manager invited me to sit in on the occasion, and so that Saturday, I made my way to the Music Faculty. ...
Features: Pop go the students
When I was first told of an Oxford Popstars project, I was sceptical. Camera crews, a final in the Town Hall, high Internet technology - it sounded a little ambitious. Then the Popstars team reached the final of a venture capital competition, obtained the interest and funding of various companies, and my scepticism gradually vanished. Last term, 45 Oxford students took part in the auditions, before a panel of five judges and six cameramen, all sporting black Yooniv sweatshirts. A few days before the auditions, the project manager invited me to sit in on the occasion, and so that Saturday, I made my way to the Music Faculty. ...
Features: Pop go the students
When I was first told of an Oxford Popstars project, I was sceptical. Camera crews, a final in the Town Hall, high Internet technology - it sounded a little ambitious. Then the Popstars team reached the final of a venture capital competition, obtained the interest and funding of various companies, and my scepticism gradually vanished. Last term, 45 Oxford students took part in the auditions, before a panel of five judges and six cameramen, all sporting black Yooniv sweatshirts. A few days before the auditions, the project manager invited me to sit in on the occasion, and so that Saturday, I made my way to the Music Faculty. ...
Features: Pop go the students
When I was first told of an Oxford Popstars project, I was sceptical. Camera crews, a final in the Town Hall, high Internet technology - it sounded a little ambitious. Then the Popstars team reached the final of a venture capital competition, obtained the interest and funding of various companies, and my scepticism gradually vanished. Last term, 45 Oxford students took part in the auditions, before a panel of five judges and six cameramen, all sporting black Yooniv sweatshirts. A few days before the auditions, the project manager invited me to sit in on the occasion, and so that Saturday, I made my way to the Music Faculty. ...
Features: Le Pen's dream
Jean-Marie Le Pen, it seems, is not a particularly pleasant man. Described variously as a former street brawler or Algerian torturer, he proposes various xenophobic policies and was fined for racism after describing the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps as a "detail of history". Yet on Sunday 21st April 2002, over one-in-six votes for the next President of France were crossed next to his name....
Features: Access: the new old boys' network?
Everybody knows that there is an discrepancy between the number of people from state schools and independent schools in Oxford and the rest of the country: the Government and media have reminded us enough times. We know that state schools, particularly inner-city schools, are under-funded and often poorly organised, we know that these students by comparison lack the same encouragement and educational training. So what's new? The arguments have all been heard before. ...
Features: Letter from America
I am sitting in a scene of terror. With devious intent, Senator Bill Frist has assembled us to an 8am breakfast meeting in the very Senate building that was shut down by anthrax last October. And the topic of today's meeting? Bioterror!