Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image description: The John Radcliffe Maternity Hospital For many, the NHS is the jewel in the British crown. ‘Envy of the world’, ‘the national religion’, it is difficult to overstate its importance. For decades, the health service has been used as a particularly poignant political football. Recent years have perfectly exemplified this. Who could the […]
Continue ReadingImage Credit: Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA-3.0) “It is time to start a new chapter” declared Angela Merkel, announcing her decision not to run for re-election as chancellor in 2021 and to stand down as chair of the centre-right CDU at the party’s conference in December. A chancellor for 13 years and a CDU chairwoman since 2000, Merkel […]
Continue Reading
Image Credit: Ronnie Macdonald (CC BY 2.0) Recently, Mesut Özil announced his retirement from international football at the relatively young age of 29, citing racism as the reason for his decision. I think I can safely say that his decision to quit caught a lot of the football community by surprise. Sure, we thought, there […]
Continue Reading
The Erasmus Programme turns 30 this year, but its future in the UK is in doubt. With no concrete assurances from the government that it will continue to participate in the programme after Brexit, students and academics alike are concerned that the scheme will soon be a thing of the past. Hal Churchman, just back from an Erasmus year […]
Continue Reading
Kick-off at the Signal Iduna Park was scheduled for 19:45 (GMT) on Wednesday. Come 19:49, however, Lukas Podolski was still addressing the endearing German fans who had gathered to witness his farewell to die Mannschaft, and it became clear that England were merely the party guests of the occasion. The script had already been written; […]
Continue Reading
It is undeniable that we have been facing a refugee crisis in Europe – over a million people travelled here in 2015 hoping to build a new life. This year, the numbers entering are not as overwhelming, but we are still left with the challenge of how to cope with the hundreds of thousands of […]
Continue ReadingPerhaps it was naive of me, but I didn’t come to Germany expecting a culture shock. Schnitzel and S-Bahns aside, I’ve never felt that Germany was particularly foreign. We have much in common: a national penchant for beer and football; languages from the same roots; weather that fluctuates between miserable rain and sunshine that makes even […]
Continue ReadingIn my experience, most British people don’t go to Germany on holiday. Business, Oktoberfest, friends, perhaps, but a German holiday is greeted with faint bemusement. Perhaps people have visions of finding themselves floundering in John Cleese-esque “don’t mention the war” predicaments; or perhaps another practical, grey Northern European country simply doesn’t have the appeal of […]
Continue ReadingAngela Merkel’s election victory has been widely hailed as historic, on a personal as well as political level: not only did her centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) achieve its best result since 1994, with 41.5% of the vote, but she herself gained an impressive third term as Chancellor of Germany – only the third post-war […]
Continue ReadingSceptics may think a performance of a play about Nazism written during the Second World War would be ‘old hat’. However, I defy anyone to find Jonathan Church’s marvellous revival of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui passé. Comedy, live music and glamorous costumes are brought together with superb acting to heighten a […]
Continue ReadingTraveling can truly open your eyes to the extraordinary, and often overlooked differences between supposedly similar regions. Take for example, the different drinking cultures to be found in my homeland of England, and my current home of Germany. Here in Deutschland, the cheapest beers will set you a back a mere sixty cents, and, conforming […]
Continue ReadingAni and Matt debate whether we should save the Euro
Continue Reading