Oxford

Oxford’s petty war on smokers

Life is about to get even more miserable for smokers living in Oxford. Oxfordshire county council has announced plans to make the region ‘smoke-free’ by 2025. Smokers will be prevented from having a puff outside cafes, pubs, and restaurants, while employers will be asked to impose smoke-free spaces in workplaces. Hospitals, schools, and public areas will be urged to ban smoking, and lighting up will be discouraged in homes and other private spaces. In short, Marlboro retailers hoping to ply their wares anywhere between Banbury and Henley are going to be out of luck. I’m not a smoker and I have no desire to be. The combination of a wheezy grandfather and

What happens now that Rhodes didn’t fall?

Oriel College, Oxford’s decision to retain the statue of Cecil Rhodes has generated the usual voluminous fury. It has also shown it to be just that: noise. The university’s willingness to face down activists could mark a turning point in proving that when campaigners don’t get their way, the world continues to turn. This might sound obvious but it marks a welcome change to the often depressing cycle of inevitability of protest-social media storm-surrender. All too often, it seems power really does lie with the various campaign groups, charities, and commentators pushing for change. The fact that Rhodes hasn’t fallen, whatever you might think of the man himself, shows that it doesn’t. This is why they are activists

British universities aren’t institutionally racist

There is a spectre haunting British universities: the spectre of institutional racism. ‘There is a lot of evidence that points towards universities perpetuating systemic racism, being institutionally racist,’ the University of East Anglia’s vice-chancellor, David Richardson, told an upcoming BBC Three documentary ‘Is Uni Racist?’. Viewers are likely to be left in no doubt that the answer to that question is ‘Yes’. Two people I know appeared in it, and it was moving to hear them share their experiences. Yet the reality is that for most black students there has never been a better time to study at a university in Britain. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still

Why is India’s parliament discussing an Oxford free speech row?

As with almost every country around the world, India is busy dealing with the Covid crisis. But its parliament briefly turned its attention away from the pandemic in the last few days to another issue playing out thousands of miles away: a row at Oxford University involving an Indian postgraduate student. This no ordinary campus bust-up: the fallout could have big implications for the relationship between India and Britain. Rashmi Samant, who is the first child in her family to go to university, made history last month when a landslide victory saw her become the first Indian woman to head up the Oxford Student Union (OSU). But her victory was short-lived.

Is AstraZeneca’s Covid jab effective against the South African variant?

The AstraZeneca vaccine has been under attack ever since the results of its phase three trials were announced in December. When the results of US trials were released this week showing 79 per cent efficacy against symptomatic disease and 100 per cent protection from serious cases of Covid 19 – and failing to show up any serious side-effects – it seemed to help bolster its reputation.  Yet some of that was undone by subsequent accusations by the US Data and Safety Monitoring Board that AstraZeneca may have included out of date data in its trial results. The company has been asked to come back and present new calculations, using data gathered from its

Why is going to Oxford being held against me?

Should going to Oxford be held against you? In my experience, some employers think it should. A month before the first lockdown of 2020, I attended an interview with a prestigious company in London. With nearly 1000 applicants for each place on their internship scheme, the stakes were high; making it to the interview may have been a success in itself, but now it was time to impress the recruiters in person. After a frantic journey on the underground, I arrived at the interview location. Having spent the previous few days researching the interview process, I expected an hour of rigorous intellectual interrogation, followed by a brief case study assessment. 

Oxford’s remarkable vaccine success

It is worth taking a moment to stand back and applaud Sarah Gilbert and the Oxford vaccine team’s achievement. The data released this evening by Public Health England shows that a single dose of both the Oxford /AstraZeneca vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine cuts the risk of hospitalisation by 80 per cent in the over-80s, the most vulnerable group. It also suggests that the Oxford one, despite its messy trial data, is slightly more effective than the Pfizer vaccine in preventing symptomatic infection among the over-70s. The efficacy of the Oxford vaccine has completely changed the outlook for the UK. This country has enough doses of it ordered to cover

Should poor Oxford students have to volunteer?

I quit the ‘poor people scholarship’, also known as the University of Oxford’s Crankstart scholarship, halfway through my first year. I was only four hours into my 25 annual hours of volunteering, tediously spent peeling vegetables for a charity roast dinner – a requirement set by the university itself that I had to fulfil in order to receive my bursary – when I made my decision. Peeling parsnip after parsnip, I felt no warm glow about giving back to the community. My more cynical side thought it seemed like those patronising skill-building exercises for the unemployed. I felt only resentment at how more privileged students at Oxford hadn’t peeled a

It’s time to call last orders on Britain’s rubbish pubs

Oxford is famous for its pubs. Inspector Morse reveals that they are as much a part of the city’s life as any of its colleges. The insatiable undergraduate demand for cheap beer has meant that pubs like the Turf Tavern and the Eagle and Child have permeated (and intoxicated) the minds of students for centuries. So when the Lamb and Flag closed last week, it was as much a story as any of those bizarre murders John Thaw used to stick his nose into. No Jag-driving detectives are needed to work out why it has shut. A year of missed terms and lockdowns dramatically cut the pub’s revenue. Owned by neighbouring St

Statue wars: what should we do with controversial monuments?

Robert Jenrick’s pledge to protect monuments and statues from mob iconoclasm with new laws and powers is very welcome. It’s an issue on which the Government has been quiet in terms of legislation, even if the Prime Minister made clear last summer that ‘we cannot try to edit or censor our past’. Now that the initial wave of Black Lives Matter activism has subsided, it’s essential to stop left-wing councils from renaming our streets, removing public monuments or, worse still, hanging a badge of opprobrium on them. There is more going on here than many realise: Policy Exchange’s History Matters Project, which is chaired by Trevor Phillips, has so far

What does the Oxford vaccine approval mean for the UK?

This morning the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved by the UK medicines regulator, the MHRA. This is almost more of a game changer than the approval of the first Pfizer vaccine, because the UK government has ordered 100 million doses of it – and it is also much easier to distribute, as it does not need to be stored at the same very low temperatures as the Pfizer jab. It means that there really is a chance of life returning to normal in the not-too distant future. Ministers had been very clear in private that if this immunisation didn’t pass, it would mean society would have to work out how to

This replica is better than the original: The Ivy Oxford Brasserie reviewed

Oxford is not an easy city to homogenise; but that doesn’t mean you can’t try. I found a vast shopping centre where the Westgate used to be, looking as shopping centres do: lonely, despite its similarity to every other shopping centre. This was confirmed by the signage. New York City loves and misses you, said a sign, which I doubt: surely New York has things to worry about beyond the citizens of Oxford being unable to shop in New York City if they cannot get what they want at the Westgate? Still, I like the idea of shopping centre lamenting shopping centre across the ocean; it expresses the fashionable neurosis

The vaccine goalposts have shifted

Matt Hancock provided a vaccine update on Monday, explaining that the chances of a drug being ready by early next year are ‘looking up’. With trials pending in the UK, USA and Brazil, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could be approved this year, although the Health Secretary he conceded it would more likely come in spring 2021. He added that doses are already being manufactured so that it will be ready to roll-out the moment it does receive approval.  We’ve heard this all before. At the height of lockdown, Oxford professor Sarah Gilbert – head of one of the teams developing the vaccine – told the Times that a vaccine would be ready by September: ‘It’s not

Oxford skulduggery: The Sandpit, by Nicholas Shakespeare, reviewed

Melancholy pervades this novel: a sense of glasses considerably more than half empty, with the levels sinking fast. This is largely due to its central character, John Dyer, a former journalist in his late fifties, who has returned from years in South America to live in Oxford and write a book about Portugal’s accidental discovery of Brazil. With him comes his 11-year-old son, who attends the Phoenix, a posh prep school based on Oxford’s real-life Dragon School. Gradually, through a series of leisurely flashbacks, we learn that the love of Dyer’s life has died, his wife has left him, journalism has lost its soul and Brazil is going to pot.

Oxford college fails to get in the mood for Brexit day

It’s finally Brexit day, but while some are celebrating, others are finding it hard to get into the mood. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britain’s departure from the EU isn’t going down well in Oxford. As well as flying an EU flag over the Town Hall today, the city is also holding a candlelight vigil for the EU later this evening. Students there are also getting into the spirit. Here’s a university lunch menu from today, sent over by Mr S’s mole at Mansfield College: Mr S fancies Out After 47 Years with a side of Farmers’ Subsidies…

What is a ‘tergiversation’?

Last year, someone at US dictionary Merriam-Webster noticed that lots of people were looking up the word tergiversation online. It was because Washington Post columnist George Will had used it in a piece about the US senator Lindsey Graham. ‘During the government shutdown,’ he had written, ‘Graham’s tergiversations — sorry, this is the precise word — have amazed’. It might have been the precise word, but it has two meanings: one is ‘desertion or abandonment of a cause, apostasy’; the other is ‘shifting, shuffling, equivocation, prevarication’. Both are pejorative, taking the idea of turning one’s back on a principle, since the Latin for ‘back’ is tergum. From the context, Mr Wills

The lessons I learned at my Oxford gaudy

I went to a gaudy last weekend. Several British universities now host these splendid events; mine was at Worcester College, Oxford, from where I graduated in 1981 with a double third in mathematics. A gaudy is essentially a reunion weekend with knobs on. At Worcester they are blessedly free, which is great for paups like me who can enjoy the exceptionally good food and, particularly, wine with a huge stupid smile. (The only cost was £42 for a guest room for a night, and my God do you need that.) Gaudies typically occur for each year’s intake only every seven years, and when you get the invitation you need to

It’s so easy to go mad in Oxford: Chiang Mai Kitchen reviewed

Oxford is a pile of medieval buildings filled with maniacs, and is therefore one of the most interesting places on earth. It is easy to go mad in Oxford — it’s the damp — or grow other worlds, like John Tolkien, whose Middle Earth, I suspect, was largely an emotional defence against the conversation at High Table. I found the cognitive dissonance between the landscape and its purpose so alarming, like finding David Cameron riding an Ent, that I went mad, and so know far less about Tudor foreign policy than I should. It was more awful than it sounds — that is youth’s anguish — and I could not,

Why has Gary Lineker been appointed a visiting fellow at Oxford?

Congratulations to Gary Lineker OBE, who has just been appointed a visiting fellow to Lady Margaret Hall, an Oxford college. This coup was announced on Twitter earlier today by Alan Rusbridger, principal of LMH and ex-editor of the Guardian: Lineker is among nine new fellows appointed by LMH, with Emma Watson becoming an associate fellow, having served as a visiting fellow from 2016-19 “with particular emphasis on promoting gender equality and women’s rights”, according to the college’s press release. That’s Watson, not Lineker, who might have struggled to reconcile that with his refusal to take a pay cut as the BBC’s highest-paid star – he earns £1.75 million a year – to

Spelling it out | 25 October 2018

Just in front of me, visiting Spellbound at the Ashmolean last week, was a very rational boy of about seven and his proud mother. ‘I don’t believe in magic, witches or Father Christmas,’ he announced to the girl presiding over Room One. ‘Perhaps you’re spiritual but not religious,’ said the girl. The rational boy gave her the look she deserved. In that first room pride of place is given to a squat little silvered bottle with a hand-written label: ‘Obtained in 1915 from an old lady living in Hove, Sussex. She remarked: “and they do say there be a witch in it, and if you let un out there’ll be