Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image Description: A sustainable clothes shop Summer sales, holiday clothes, new-season equals new wardrobe. Normally, at this time of year, many of us would be taking advantage of student discounts to get that perfect fit for the sunny weather. Instead, clothing sales sunk by 34% in March – a drop easily associated with the lockdown […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: trombone and music stand lie on of a pile of scattered sheet music Arts and culture have proven of insurmountable importance during lockdown, and the proliferation of online resources has certainly served us well. But we all know that’s it’s not quite the same as in-person consumption. On top of that, though, is […]
Continue Reading
Throughout the whole of Hilary Term I suffered a debilitating illness that severely affected my mobility, alongside my ability to do work and socialise. Each week I found myself constantly declining invitations to one activity after another, missing out on dinners with friends or going to bops, and always having to shamefully request extensions for […]
Continue Reading
Last week, we asked Oxford what it wanted to do as soon as it got out of lockdown – and it didn’t disappoint. After six weeks of involuntary celibacy, the country’s ‘best and brightest’ were thirstier than the freshers at a bop post-Cha-Cha Slide. This week’s RevYou was your shot at self redemption, as we […]
Continue Reading
Image description: A Canadian anti-lockdown protest The right to protest is a fundamental right which should not be stopped if one does not infringe upon the law. This principle should apply in all circumstances, including that regarding coronavirus. Europe, and the UK in particular, have taken a massive toll from the Covid-19 emergency, and the […]
Continue Reading
Image description: Family watching TV together in the 1950s Are you still watching? Or are you catatonic, quilt-smothered and crisp-covered, one foot dangling over the end of the bed in refuge from the furnace-like heat of your duvet, and one eye bleakly registering the lockdown breadmaking psychodrama on your mum’s cat’s Instagram? This is the […]
Continue Reading
Image description: Peep Show cast looking into the camera The truth is, I suppose, I like Peep Show. That’s why I wrote this article. I like the show, and I believe it can help people survive through lockdown. Is that such a crime? Should I be hounded to the ends of the Earth just for […]
Continue Reading
Image description: Abi Owen, author, holds a bow and arrow I remember leaving Oxford with elbow-bumps, laughing and joking and shouting “see you in October”. I remember going home on the train, using hand sanitiser while trying to sit as far away from people as possible. I remember watching videos of people in quarantine in […]
Continue Reading
The prospect of online tutorials initially strikes dread into many of our hearts. What if I get trapped alone in a video call with my tutor? How on earth do we break the painful silences? There is a distance that comes with speaking to someone via a camera rather than in person, and it is […]
Continue Reading
When news of the lockdown hit, a week into the vacation, I knew I was in trouble. I thrive on certainty and low-energy social interaction – two things a lockdown was guaranteed to take away. This – an indefinitely long period of isolation in a town that I was very happy to leave – was […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: several A4 pages stuck on the wall read “Tessa Marry Me?” It’s not an easy time. Every email and conversation starts with “I hope you’re safe and well”, “…in spite of these difficult circumstances”, “strange times”, or, my personal favourite, “a warm virtual welcome”. It feels almost weird not to talk about it—and it […]
Continue Reading
The Oxford Student is proud to announce the OxStu RevYou, a light-hearted weekly survey of Oxford students! Each week we’ll be releasing a question for readers to answer, and producing an article reviewing the best submissions received. So are you bored? Isolated? Think you can submit some banging chat? Send your (anonymous) answers to the […]
Continue Reading
I want to start by acknowledging how lucky I am. Many of my fellow LGBTQ+ people at Oxford will have been forced to lockdown without their significant other. Some are even shut away in hostile family environments, or trapped in the closet with no clear reprieve. I know how fortunate I am that that is […]
Continue Reading
Image description: a person at the window of dark room “I’m going to make sure that your wedding is nearby so I can visit you lots.” The acrid taste of my dinner after my mother said these words was not due to the food going off in those few moments. When saying this, I imagine […]
Continue Reading
Whilst most of the world is in lockdown, literature is still free to comfort, entertain and let you explore different cultures. Here are my favourite books from around the world, to be read whilst our world is a little further away from us. Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (originally in Spanish) An underrated book […]
Continue Reading
Image description: a rainbow flag with the slogan ‘Queer & Proud’ The Albert Kennedy Trust (AKT), the charity for homeless young LGBTQ+ people, recently advised that young people considering coming out to their families should pause their plans as the restrictions in place to combat coronavirus could make a bad coming out experience a whole […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: British Government NHS coronavirus public information poster. The Government’s early response to the Covid-19 pandemic drew widespread criticism for its lack of robustness. Initial reports suggested that No. 10 favoured allowing the population to develop a natural “herd immunity” which would protect the most vulnerable. It is not yet clear whether delaying the […]
Continue Reading
Staying at home has been onerous for many, and we’re all starting to miss the once ostensibly small but now perceivably luxurious activities that would assumedly come with the return home for the vac. There are many parts of the pre-COVID-19 world for which we all feel saudade; activities as futile as a stroll around […]
Continue Reading
Coronavirus, leaving us cooped up in our homes, has predictably also left many of us bored. We’ve been forced to rebuild our daily lives into some semblance of a routine. Once it became clear I had fewer hobbies and interests than I thought, I succumbed to downloading Houseparty to stay connected during lockdown. It was […]
Continue Reading