Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image description: sunrise over Port Meadow Bubble… bubble…breathe. Arms stretching out, thwacking, slashing, gliding. You see nothing except your pale hands pushing down into the black void below. Your freezing brain seems to thrash around in your skull as you rotate to breathe on either side. Long weeds creep up from below to wrap themselves […]
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Image description: A pond in a moor Peatlands are remarkably valuable ecosystems when treated well and extremely damaging when not. Young activists and local communities, including in Oxford, are fighting to restore and protect what has been perilously overlooked, while the government slowly catches up. Peatlands are a type of wetland ecosystem found all over […]
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Walking, without a doubt, has become my salvation. I’ll admit, I’ve always been a particular fan. I’m one of those freaks who not only willingly chose to do Gold DofE (a British award scheme that culminates in an excruciating, often very wet, 4-day hike up and down the best ‘wild country’ the UK has to […]
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Image Description: A selection of Mia’s houseplants in brightly coloured plots; a terrarium Being a parent is difficult. From watering to misting, soil replenishments to pot changes – our babies require a lot of care. In my case, all twenty-nine of them. But why do we do it? There are, in fact, many reasons. Just […]
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I’m a city girl through and through. I was born and raised in Greater London and spent most of my free time hanging out with friends in my local town; going to the cinema and stuffing our faces at Pizza Hut were the usual weekend activities. Rarely did I venture out into the countryside, namely […]
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And breathe…the value of the natural world to the health of the planet and us. If you consult your doctor, you would probably not expect them to advise you to take a walk in the park. But the value of immersing yourself in the natural world has been recognised by a recent report from Griffith […]
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Image description: The Bay of Naples When you hear the word ‘landscape’ what do you picture? Green fields, tall mountains, unending forests, the open sea? How did these ideas form in your head? In fact, we are not born with them, and indeed many people born in places of incredible diversity will picture similar things […]
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Down George Street, the ugliest road in the city centre; straight on through the cyclists’ death-trap (the junction before the bridge); past the pharaonic Saïd Business School, and follow the cycle path; soon, on your right, sheepish Wadham students should be emerging with their granola from the Waitrose across the road; right turn after the […]
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Going into this performance, I wasn’t quite sure which half of it I was more excited about! As a physics student, I was thrilled to be able to witness Brian Cox’s enthusiasm live, but as a keen music enthusiast I also relished the prospect of being able to hear all four of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” […]
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It was always going to be difficult to beat the first series of Planet Earth, even if it was produced a decade ago when technology was nowhere near today’s standards. Back in 2008, Planet Earth was something truly ground-breaking. Although we had had nature programmes before, we’d had nothing like this. Once it was shown, […]
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There seems to be an obsession around about looking naturally beautiful at the same time, and this might be because it seems to be the hardest thing in the world and that human beings strive for the impossible. It has become a stereotype that the highest and hardest stage in art is to look natural […]
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When the end of term comes around it’s nice to get away from it all for a few days. Of course, what this means depends on ones definition of “it all”. For me being surrounded by people in a bustling town or city is part of “it all” and is something that I feel the […]
Continue ReadingSean Scoltock interviews Guardian columnist, writer and producer George Monbiot. “We live in a shadowland, a dim, flattened relic of what there once was, of what there could be again”, George Monbiot. If not literally feral, George Monbiot, the figuratively rabid Guardian columnist, by trade menacingly encircles cosseted elites. A self-described “unreconstructed idealist” with the […]
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