Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
A love of technology, zealous misogyny and the belief that pasta leads to pacifism: these three are just some of the more prominent traits of that strangest of early twentieth century European intellectual movements, the Futurists. Launched by the moustachioed poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, this was a philosophy of energy and dynamism – a tagline […]
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Image credit: Louis Thomas I have never been to anywhere more chaotically beautiful than Palermo, the capital of Sicily. Traffic lights seemingly offer loose guidelines of when drivers should stop, and pavements and roads merge into one for the swarms of Vespas, or Vespe, rather, buzzing around you. I thought I would hate being woken up […]
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If you like unlimited vodka and things with lard on, and of course you do, then there is only one place you should be on Saturday the 23rd of February: the main hall behind St. Giles’ Church. Why, pray tell? Because one of the best nights in the Oxford drinking calendar is to be found […]
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Image credit: Louis Thomas As the renowned Chinese poet and Tang dynasty government official Bai Juyi quipped, “the grand household snorts at syrupy wine, the exalted scholar laughs at petty poetry”. The first of this sentence was stolen from Wikipedia, the latter half from Janet Z Wang’s presentation to Bacchus, the University’s wine society (of […]
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Image credit: Louis Thomas Clad in my regalia (a Moss Bros tuxedo with a cummerbund to act as a crude gastric band), I marched from my poky little flat, in which I have been surviving on toast, Southern Comfort and leftover offal, to the Cherwell Boathouse for the twentieth anniversary dinner of Bacchus, the University’s […]
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Image credit: congerdesign via pixnio I assumed that like in any fairytale, from the moment I met you, you’d be the one I could count on—whenever I needed you, you’d always be there. Before we were officially together—I remember the date, December 12, 2018—you would answer my messages even during the odd hours of the night […]
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Image credit: CC0 by George Hodan There was more to Ancient Greece than Gerard Butler in a leather thong indulging in some vigorous male bonding; indeed, there was more to Ancient Greece than war. It was a land of philosophers, playwrights and poets, and, arguably more importantly, it was a land of high quality ingredients. Some […]
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Image credit: Pauline Blanchet By quarter-to-five, a large queue had already started to form on Great Russell Street as I was talking to Jisu Kim, the manager of Seoul Bakery. He was sitting across from me at one of the tables inside the restaurant as we discussed the words and drawings left behind by past […]
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Image credit: Louis Thomas “This were all glaciers back in my day”, my fictional Neanderthal great grandfather grunts, racistly. “Of course, it’s not like that now – all these Homo sapienses comin’ over ‘ere, taking our flint”. The Palaeolithic diet has recently witnessed something of a resurgence, with its followers believing that a pre-agrarian diet […]
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Coming from a French family, I was looked at in befuddlement when I announced my transition to vegetarianism two years ago. In a country where meat is the centre-piece of a meal, the question my grandparents asked me was ‘So what will you eat then?’ Yet within those two years, I have observed some – […]
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Image credit: Dominique Fortes Despite my excitement at the mere thought of the challenge, it took many weeks of back and forth to determine whether I should or shouldn’t participate, but in early December, I finally decided. I would do it. I would take on “El Criminal.” Mission Burrito’s website refers to the challenge as […]
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Image credit: Louis Thomas In 2016, Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, was listed by Yahoo as the best international city for food. Levantine cuisine is, factually speaking, healthy, and this is a factor which contributes to the life expectancy of a Lebanese person being approximately 77.22 years, as of 2014, (though demographic statistics concerning Lebanon […]
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Image credit: Gresa Rustemi From November the 17th to December 22nd 2018, Oxford’s famous ‘dreaming spires’ provide one of the more atmospheric backdrops of any of the country’s free Christmas markets. Set in the heart of Oxford on historic Broad Street – surrounded by the Sheldonian Theatre and historical Oxford University buildings, the opening of […]
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Image credit: Louis Thomas. Description: a roasted ox heart with a Christmas hat on it. The ox was dead, to begin with. I know this because I bought its heart on the Internet. The festive season is closing in and if, like me, you are a disgusting glutton, then this provides the perfect opportunity to […]
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Image credit: Pixabay. Description: an Italian butcher’s shop. It will be no secret to anyone who has read this section or spoken to me this term (though that’s not exactly a high number of people) that I am passionate about, or perhaps bewitched by, offal. It seems that there are two sorts of people in […]
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Image credit: Louis Thomas. Description: pork crackling, fresh out of the oven. “As a youth, I used to weep in butchers’ shops”, as Uncle Monty remarks in Withnail and I, is a statement which strangely resonates with me. I’m clearly not particularly sensitive when it comes to seeing an animal being sliced up on a […]
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Image credit: Andrew Foo After a recent fieldtrip, I and a group of friends spent a few days resting in the city of Kota Kinabalu, in Malaysian Borneo. It’s one hell of a place. Firstly, a number of bars provide all the liquid refreshment you may require. Secondly, the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park provides […]
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Image credit: Gresa Rustemi. Description: a salmon fillet salad. Cafe CoCo is a quirky place; indeed, I’d say it has character. Some of the art in the cafe borders a little on scary, like the big sculpture of a clown in a bathtub. That I could do without, but hey, how many other cafes have […]
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Image credit: Louis Thomas. Description: a dome of jelly around which lies various USSR-related items. One hundred and one years ago, the world was changed forever: the Russian Revolution would sweep aside the Tsar, and the empire he reigned over, replacing it with a new society, one which promised peace, bread and land. However, not […]
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