Keble College has today confirmed that its vacation storage units are safe for students and staff to use, after conducting an asbestos survey earlier this week.

Keble College Bursar, Roger Boden, has emphasised that the dangerous building material was properly managed at all times and never posed any risk to students. Use of the units for storage purposes will now continue as normal.

Speaking to Cherwell, Mr Boden said, “As a routine part of this risk management we have commissioned surveys for the presence of asbestos of the units that are used for vacation storage. I am entirely satisfied that these areas are safe, both for our students and our staff. Managing the asbestos risk in buildings is a major long-term task that most owners of buildings face. There are comprehensive rules as to how the risk is to be managed.”

A Freedom of Information request submitted this week by Cherwell has also revealed that at least four other colleges have asbestos or asbestos containing materials (ACMs) on site, at no risk to staff or students. These include Exeter, St Johns and St Edmund Hall, who confirmed that they have 31, 23 and 130 student rooms containing asbestos respectively. Queen’s College also said that they were aware of low risk asbestos sheeting within college property. All other colleges either confirmed that they have no asbestos on-site, or have yet to respond to the request.

Like many 20th century buildings, asbestos was used in the construction of the storage space as a fireproofing and insulation material. Asbestos related risks on University and College property are managed by the Estates Service, which develops individual Asbestos Management Plans for individual colleges, as required by law. The University Administration and Services department also keeps a comprehensive asbestos register for all asbestos and asbestos containing materials (ACM).

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) website, “Asbestos materials in good condition are safe unless asbestos fibres become airborne, which happens when materials are damaged.” Most colleges carry out annual surveys of asbestos in consultation with specialist companies who provide expert asbestos removal services. Students moving into rooms containing asbestos must be legally be informed of this fact in writing. Since undisturbed asbestos poses no health risk, the presence of the material cannot be used by students as grounds to request new accommodation.

One second-year Keble student, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “It isn’t really a problem that I worry about. Builders and workmen are the ones most at risk. It’s a case of out of sight, out of mind.”

A former prostitute who was once pictured with Oxford alumnus George Osborne, and is now writing a set of memoirs which could prove embarrassing for him, has had her house raided by drugs police.

Natalie Rowe, formerly known as “Mistress Pain” and “Miss Whiplash”, hosted a series of parties in the early 1990s, which Osborne attended regularly.

The Chancellor, who had a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, knew “Mistress Pain” through her then-boyfriend, fellow Bullingdon Club member William Sinclair. Rowe informed reporters that she had once “definitely” seen cocaine on a table at one of the parties, and that Osborne had found her ample collection of whips and sex toys, adding, “He found it quite amusing”.

The parties took place shortly before the start of his political career, and the picture shows him at a party supposedly held to celebrate Rowe’s pregnancy by Sinclair. “I remember vividly on that particular night I said to George, jokingly, ‘When you are prime minister one day I will have all the dirty goods on you.’”

The raid took place 48 hours after the release date for her book was announced. Rowe claims the memoirs will be “embarrassing” for the Chancellor.

“I’d like to think the fact that I’ve been unfairly targeted by the police has nothing to do with the fact that my book is about to be published, which happens to be very embarrassing for the Chancellor. But it’s certainly made me wonder,” Rowe told reporters.

No drugs were found at the scene.

The picture first surfaced when Osborne was shadow chancellor. He denied the “defamatory and untrue” allegations of drug-taking completely. David Cameron faced similar accusations during his early political career that he took cocaine as a younger man.

The Bullingdon Club continues to be notorious, yet this behaviour is alien to the vast majority of Oxford students. “I wish OUCA meetings were this fun,” commented a first-year member of the Oxford University Conservative Association.

Lord Paul Drayson, former Labour cabinet minister for Science and self-confessed “car nut” has set the record for a sub-1000kg electric car in his converted Le Mans racer at Elvington airfield.

The car owes the technology behind its four YASA-750H motors, each with a capability of delivering 160 kW, to the ‘Energy and Power Group’ from Oxford University Engineering Department.

The group, which is primarily interested in sustainable energy research, is headed by Dr. Malcolm McCulloch of Christ Church.

Dr. McCulloch commented, “We are very pleased that Oxford could develop leading edge technology that can be successfully pushed to the bleeding edge and break world records that have stood for seventy years!”

The Drayson team faced the challenge of making the former le Mans racer lighter than 1000kg, so one of the most important advantages that the Oxford-engineered motor offered was its lightweight design.

The previous record for a sub-1000kg electric car was set on the Bonnville Salt Flats in the USA in 1974, by Battery Box General Electric, and had stood at 175mph for thirty-nine years.

The new record was set according to FIA regulations, which state that the car must complete two “passes” over a one-mile stretch in a period of one hour; the record-breaking time of 204.2 mph is the average of the top speeds reached on each pass.

Speaking on the day of the record-breaking run, Lord Drayson explained that the motivation behind the attempt. He said, “To prove that there’s no reason why an electric car can’t do everything an internal combustion engine can do.”

The electric car may yet have some way to go however, as the Bugatti Veyron currently holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest car with an internal combustion engine, with a record of 254.04 mph.

However, the new record puts the electric engine considerably closer at the heels of the internal combustion engine in terms of speed, something which must be gratifying to the Energy and Power Group, whose mission statement is ‘researching efficient, low carbon energy systems’.

The group’s current research projects focus on smart energy systems and storage, transport and electrical machines.

Oxfordshire police have recently launched an ‘Operation Bike’ campaign in a bid to improve cyclists’ road awareness.

Since June police have been attempting to educate cyclists about road laws and theft prevention. They have emphasised the use of helmets, bike lights, and abiding by the same rules as cars.

The officer behind the campaign, Sergeant Matt Sulley, explained the impetus behind the idea. He said, “The idea is to keep people safe… Only by education can we do that.”

Sergeant Sulley and his colleagues have been operating from Broad Street every Wednesday to register bikes and try to educate people on bike safety. They have also been more active about giving tickets for improper behaviour.

The police have been especially keen on picking up those ignoring red lights, ‘no entrance’ signs and those who neglect to have bike lights on when it is dark. Sergeant Sulley attributed these violations to a mixture of some people consciously flouting the rules and others being genuinely ignorant about proper road safety. He explained, “We do find some cyclists just do not know what road signs mean. Some cyclists consciously break the laws, but some just don’t know what is going on.”

A second year Hertford student was recently stopped for not possessing fully functioning lights, and thought the police very amicable about the matter,. He said, “They let me off a fine because I had a back light, and my front light had just run out of batteries.”

He also reported that cyclists are given the option of buying and installing lights within an allotted time in order to forgo any potential fine, and added that he was given an informative leaflet to explain the aims of the programme.

Since beginning the programme, police have registered 1,400 bikes and in the last six months bike theft is down 13% on the same period in 2012. The police have no intention of stopping the programme and have said it will run indefinitely.

The Fire and Rescue service have also got on board, teaming up with the police in order to encourage taking active personal responsibility for safety on the roads – particularly with regards to wearing helmets and high visibility clothing.

A survey has found that less than half of cyclists in Oxford wear helmets or other appropriate protective clothing. Matt Henderson, a finalist studying English at University College, is a strong advocate of wearing a helmet. Inspired by the outspoken campaigning of Olympic rower James Cracknell – who only avoided being killed when he was struck by a lorry in America due to the fact that he’d been wearing a helmet – Henderson asked, “How can there even be a debate about it?”

According to a study from Oxford’s Department of Experimental Psychology, a kiss can reveal certain vital things about a potential future partner.

The study, conducted by Rafael Wlodarski and Robin Dunbar, involved an online questionnaire which asked more than 900 adults about the importance of kissing in both short and long term relationships.

The responses to the survey reveal that women apparently value kissing more highly in relationships than men, perhaps because women have to invest more time in having offspring due to the typical 40-week length of a pregnancy as well as any subsequent period of breast-feeding.

Somewhat surprisingly, the team conducting the research found that sex doesn’t appear to be a driving factor in the reasons why humans kiss. As Wlodarski explained, “We found that the amount of sex in a relationship was not related to relationship satisfaction.

“This is not to say that more kissing leads to a healthier relationship – it could be that a healthier relationship leads to more kissing, but the two seem to be related.”

In the survey, more frequent kissing was linked to higher-quality long-term relationships with a increased rate of partner satisfaction.

One Wadham student commented, “It seems a bit laughable at first, really, [but] it is probably worth pursuing in order to work out which reasons for kissing are stronger than others.”

A first year at Exeter College said, “Research like this almost takes the romance out of relationships – there must be some intellectual drives as well as biological or physical ones.”

Thomas Wilson, another Exeter fresher, was more eloquent, declaring, “I like kissing.”

George Entwistle, former Director-General of the BBC, is thought to have enrolled at Oxford University studying a part-time masters course in the history of design with the Department of Continuing Education. 

Mr Entwistle’s latest move follows his media silence for the past year after he became the shortest-serving Director-General in history, having to resign after 54 days in the job at the end of 2012. His resignation came after a harrowing 15 minute interview with the BBC’s own John Humphreys in which Entwistle was unable to defend a false Newsnight report that implicated Lord McAlpine in a child abuse scandal.

Despite being in the job less than three months, Mr Entwistle received a £450,000 pay-off, which, as Exeter JCR President Ed Nickell put it “should cover his first battels”.

The Department of Continuing Education and Mr Entwistle, e-mailing form a St. Catz Nexus account, declined to comment. However we hope he enjoys this weekend’s matriculation along with the rest of the freshers.

Corpus student were distressed by news of beloved tortoise Oldham’s death, which was announced by the Corpus President, Professor Richard
Carwardine, during Freshers’ Formal last week.

In a speech to the incoming first years, Professor Carwardine announced that Oldham, who summered in the garden of the Presidential Lodgings, died in late August.

The JCR President, Patricia Stephenson, broke the news to the rest of the JCR in an email at the beginning of term. She wrote, “Oldham, one of our favourite tortoises died over the summer… I don’t really know how to handle the news. This will be discussed at the first JCR meeting of term and if anyone needs to talk to someone please look towards the peer supporters, who are there for these moment.”

According to Professor Carwardine, Oldham was afflicted with ‘fly-strike’, whereby a wound in his carapace became infested with fly eggs and maggots, weakening him severely. The wound was exposed to insects due to a pre-existing split in Oldham’s shell.

The infection is thought to have set in whilst the President and his wife, Dr Kirk, were away from Oxford. Upon their return they took him to his registered vet.

A thorough examination discovered that the infection was too advanced for treatment, and due to the painful nature of his injuries it was decided that the most humane course of action was to put Oldham to sleep.

Oldham, formerly known as Toddles but renamed in honour of Corpus’s first benefactor, is survived by his civil partner Foxe. Both competed regularly in races at the Corpus Tortoise Fair, held annually in Trinityv. Foxe is the reigning champion following a storming victory in June 2013.

Former Tortoise Keeper Jan Willem Scholten spoke of these happier times. He said, “All Corpuscles, both near and afar, will remember with fondness Oldham’s achievements on and off the race track as well as his remarkable modesty, of the sort that only the greatest athletes can show. I am proud to have known him.”

This sentiment is echoed around Corpus, with second year Aled Jones calling Oldham “…the People’s Tortoise, and that is how he will remain in our hearts and our memories for ever.”

Current Tortoise Keeper Lily Aaronovitch commented on how Foxe, Oldham’s partner since April 2011, is coping with his death. She said, “He was Foxe’s Moneypenny, the Alice B. Toklas to his Gertrude Stein. Oldham was Foxe’s Patroclus… Much like Achilles he has become somewhat aggressive following his companion’s death and so will not be joined by a new tortoise in the foreseeable future.”

Dennis O’Riordan has been suspended from practice by the Bar Association after being exposed as having faked his way to a stellar law career.

O’Riordan’s supposed credentials included attending Radley College, a private boarding school, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he claimed to have received first class BA and BCL degrees as well as a DPhil and an Eldon Scholarship. He also claimed to have got a Masters in Law from Harvard, a degree from the University of East Anglia, and that he was a member of both the New York and Irish Bar Associations. He added that he was currently a visiting lecturer at Oxford University.

On the basis of this he managed to land a pupillage at an unnamed barristers’ chamber, before moving on to become a partner in two top city law firms — Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft and Paul Hastings. The latter he joined in 2009 as a special consultant at its London office.

He was only exposed when he applied to another barristers’ chambers in November. The Bar Standards Board has now suspended him from practice for three years.

In a statement, his current firm, Paul Hastings, said, “Mr O’Riordan left the firm last Wednesday with immediate effect.”

A source from the firm felt that prior to his dismissal O’Riordan was doing “excellent work” and that his clients had been “very pleased”. Another said, “He produced his Bar certificate and a degree from the UEA — he was definitely qualified and had been doing sterling work at Cadwalader and had great client feedback. It’s just that he lied about his academic qualifications, and if you are a barrister, you can’t do that.”

Alex Bartram, Balliol JCR President, commented, “It’s good to see that Balliol appears to be the college of choice for those inventing a brilliant academic career for their CVs. On the one hand, I’m proud that we’ve got an absolutely justified reputation for academic excellence; on the other, I’m slightly concerned that we might be the go-to big-name-College for fraudsters and liars.

Dennis O’Riordan was unavailable for comment.

The recent approval of a new treatment for multiple sclerosis marks a partnership between Oxford and the University of Cambridge stretching 20 years.

Lincoln College Professor Herman Waldmann and his team of Cambridge researchers have been collaborating to develop Alemtuzumab, a new treatment for multiple sclerosis, which was approved by the European Medicines Agency last month.

“In particular, we have great admiration for the neurology team in Cambridge with whom we have worked on this project for so many years,” Waldmann said. “Their commitment and focus has been exemplary, and this has been a good example of basic and clinical science collaboration at its best.”

Multiple sclerosis is a disease affecting nerves in the brain and spinal cord, causing problems with muscle movement, balance and vision, and affects more than 100,000 people in the U.K. Alemtuzumab reboots the immune system by depleting immune cells, leading to a modified, positive immune response.

Joseph Sanchez, a third year biochemist, commented that the work leading to this approval demonstrates the necessity for high-level University medical research.

He said, “Medical research is a necessary facet for academic institutions because it gives not only precedence for the university or college itself to make strides in particular fields. It also sets a basis for academic enlightenment in student bodies and encourages those interested in improving their immediate surroundings to actually take action in solving the problems for the future.”

Although the drug does assist in treatment of multiple sclerosis, it also causes an additionally auto-immune disease in one-third of patients. For Sanchez, this does not necessarily present an ethical dilemma, considering the significance of the disease.

He said, “What MS does is virtually strip your nervous system of any kind of protective coating that prevents misfiring of electrical signals throughout your body. In many cases, it can cause such debilitating pain and such horrendous conditions that not even the most potent of medication can alleviate the disease’s effects.

“Thus, while the side effect of potentially receiving another autoimmune disease is extremely serious and should not be taken lightly (which is why the researchers appear to be taking action to improve on these conditions), I think that it comes down to the patients’ choice to weigh the options and decide what’s best for their own body.”

According to the University of Cambridge, researchers are continuing to look into this side effect and how to identify people who are susceptible to it.

A fresher from Exeter College was locked inside the Freud Café last Wednesday night after a drunken trip to the restrooms led to a five hour long sleep on a toilet seat. The disorientated student awoke at 4:30am to find himself locked inside the bar, unbeknownst to his colleagues and the bar’s staff.

The event took place at the Exeter Freshers’ Ball. The fresher, who wished to remain anonymous, told Cherwell, “We bought drinks from the shop and it kicked in pretty quickly. I was very drunk and feeling quite ill, and thought I needed to be sick.”

However, a trip to the bathroom saw him pass out in one of the cubicles, where he remained until the early hours of the morning. Describing his awakening, he said, “I was very drunk at this stage. Everything was dark, and I set off the alarm when I entered the main room.”

The situation merely worsened when he triggered the fire alarm while searching for the light switch in the darkness. He was also unable to find a way out, since, as he noted in a commendation of the security system at Freud’s that “everything was locked up very well.”

A call about the fire alarm alerted the police to the events. A report from Thames Valley Police issued to Cherwell said, “Police attended and could not see any signs of a break in and so contacted the key holder who attended.” They entered the building only to discover the unfortunate fresher and mistake him for a burglar.

According to the student, the misunderstanding saw the police order him to “get down on the ground”, but he “couldn’t hear because of the alarms.” Instead, he began to advance towards the officers, oblivious to their commands.

In the confusion the intoxicated student may have come close to being tasered by a pair of officers who did not know his intentions; after a third officer indicated this to him he finally obeyed the order.

The fresher said, “He handcuffed me and put me in the back of the police car. He asked, ‘Why didn’t you get down when we said to?’, and I explained.” He added, “I guess that was quite fortunate that I did eventually hear them.”

A statement from the police claimed that when officers reached him, the fresher was “initially arrested while the property was searched for any damage or theft, he was then de-arrested”.

The episode ended amiably with the first year being returned to his college by the police. He said that he returned to his bed safe and sound and no subsequent action occured regarding the incident.

Students who have spoken to Cherwell about the event have had mixed reactions. Tom Stafford, a fresher from St Anne’s College, commented, “It makes me feel bad by comparison. We obviously need to be hitting it harder.”

However, St Anne’s Entz rep Matthew Morrow, said, “I’m a-freud this guy only has himself to blame. All I can say is it must have been one hell of a poo.”

One American visiting student and self-proclaimed amateur bartender said to Cherwell upon hearing the story, “There are no words to express my displeasure at the concept of the guy’s inability to get down.”

He added, “You’d think an establishment which mixes natural frequenting of the bathroom with alcoholic drinks would ensure the toilets were checked.”

Thankfully, while the fresher reported that he thought during the crisis, “this is the worst thing that could possibly happen”, he claimed to have recovered from the shock come the following morning and now views the incident as an amusing twist in his week.

He added, “Looking back on it, I thought the story was a good one. I told my friends the next day. I’ve had a lot of people asking me if it’s true.”

Nor was the agreeability of his freshers’ week as a whole compromised by what has been described as his ‘Freud’s Fiasco’. “The night was funny even before I passed out in the loo,” he confirmed.

The owner of Freud’s was unavailable for comment.