CherwellTV takes to the streets each week to find out more about the general public.
This week, we ask what talent people have.
Blog Page 1671
Interview: The Rain Starts A-Fallin’
Hannah Blyth speaks to Rory Platt, the writer and director of The Rain Starts A-Fallin’, Kate Legh the producer and Emily Stewart who plays Kate.
The Rain Starts A-Fallin‘ is being performed from the 15th to th 19th of May at the Burton Taylor Studio.
The mystery at the heart of the financial crisis
The problems at the heart of the financial crisis are awfully complicated. Or so we are told. In recent years, the discussion seems to have focused on the inadequacies of mind-boggling mathematical equations, the tangle of regulations impeding the implementation of capital requirements or the ring fencing of domestic retail banking. But in fact, one of the most serious problems is wonderfully simple: shareholders have been unable to hold their banks to account. And yet for all its simplicity, it remains unsolved and virtually untouched.
Over the past 20 years, the proportion of banking profits going to shareholders has decreased, while the proportion going directly towards salaries has increased. Not only this, but in the lead up to the financial crisis, banks continued to expand their balance sheets, reduced their capital ratio and invested in ever more risky assets. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which from 2000-08 rapidly rose to global prominence as the world’s largest company by assets (£1.9 trillion). These executive strategies may have been in the CEOs best interest, but shareholders suffered and banks were consistently underperforming their FTSE100 rivals. The RBS Annual Report of 2009 illustrates this point clearly.
Why did they let this happen? If anyone could give me an answer, it was Professor Sir John Vickers, Chair of the independent Commission on Banking, Warden of All Souls and economist extraordinaire. I found him in an intimate room on the upper floors of the Ashmoleon, where he was giving a talk on his latest take on the banking crisis. There I asked him how he would explain the apparent passivity of shareholders in the lead up to the crisis. “Why they tolerated more profits going to remuneration rather than shareholders seems inexplicable”. However, he volunteered to try to explain all the same. In part, Vickers believes the reason why such risky behaviour was tolerated was that shareholders appeared to get the upsides form those investments without suffering the downsides. Many shareholders were all too aware that their banks were ‘too big to fail’ and that in case of emergency, the government would have to bail them out.
But there is also a more sinister explanation for this trend, which is the tacit collusion between the elites in the financial sector. For all the talk of free markets, power remains surprisingly concentrated in the hands of banking executives, fund managers and insurers. These individuals have approved riskier strategies and higher pay packets in the name of self-interest. ‘I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine’ seems to be the underlying philosophy. All too often, the board of directors have been populated with the same small crowd of executives who have an interest in partially ignoring the shareholders’ interest so as to create a norm which they can replicate at their own financial institutions.
But all that is changing. On 27th April, 32% of Barclay’s shareholders failed to support the remuneration report which approved a payment of over £20m to their chief executive, Bob Diamond, last year. Last Thursday, 54% of Aviva’s shareholders voted against their pay report and 37% revolted against that issued by UBS. For too long, shareholders have been asleep at the wheel. It is time to wake up.
No Minister – hearts and young minds
What do teachers in Britain today have in common with the miners of the 1980’s? Both, in their respective times, represented an organised political bloc that did its utmost to resist Conservative policies. At the 2010 annual party conference, Michael Gove said that “the Conservative party is now the party of the teacher” and that he had no desire to “go back and re-fight the old battles of the 1970s”. And yet the current changes to Ofsted inspections are evidence of both a lack of confidence in already embattled educators, as well a desire to break them as a political force.
In what other profession are workers as rigidly observed and criticised whilst receiving so little support as those who chose to “do something amazing” and teach. No one challenges the need to inspect schools. However, the current system places unreasonable demands on professionals who are already stretched to their limits. During an inspection, a teacher must be able to give evidence of constant learning occurring for every pupil in said class for the duration of the hour long lesson. Sound difficult? More like impossible. With such difficult and poorly defined goals, it is often left to the whim of the inspector to decide on a pass or fail.
The actual labels given by an Ofsted inspector have also been re-engineered to meet political ends. This January the term “satisfactory” was dropped in the favour of “requires improvement”. In isolation the change appears acceptable, as Michael Gove commented; we should strive to push our schools to be more than satisfactory in a world that places ever greater demands on our students. However, this change is more a case of political expediency than idealism. It all ties back to the government’s desire to push as much of state sector education as it can into the private sphere. By moving the goal posts, the Gove has pushed more schools into the ‘failing’ category and as a consequence, this has encouraged many into becoming academies. In addition to this, no notice is taken of the fact that a bad rating, rather than encouraging improvement, will often do just the opposite. A failing school will often fall into the trap of the self-fulfilling prophecy of failure, as it may no longer be able to attract pupils who are successful or from a background that is conducive to success.
This is to say nothing of the additional stress placed upon teachers, who in schools undergoing special measures face twice-termly inspections. The disruption to the schools daily routine does little but damage the education of its pupils. Morale is important to any workforce and constant inspection gives the impression that one’s skills are not trusted and a feeling of being undervalued. This is breaking the will of many educators and driving them from their profession.
Professions that still retain a degree of political conscience and awareness are a dying breed. Aside from being a convenient way to push forward its education reforms, targeting teachers and by extension the state sector in this way offers it the chance to break the will of one of the last few organisations with the numbers and the power to stand against government policy. In this way teachers today are just as much victims of government agenda as the miners and northern communities were under Thatcher. Some say they are a vested interest, some argue that they are unreasonably resistant to change. But ultimately they are civil servants concerned who refuse to see the well-being of their students as a card to play in the game of politics.
Miss-Represented in the media
Name a film that passes these three tests: (1) there are at least two named female characters (2) who talk to each other and (3) who talk about something other than their love interests. Struggling? The dearth of such films is indicative of a media industry that perpetuates latent prejudice in society. Or so the argument presented by Miss Representation goes. On Saturday I joined a febrile audience at the South Exam Schools to watch the a feature-length documentary, launched to critical acclaim in the States and now garnering attention on university campuses in the UK.
I liked it. It conveyed a social mission similar to the Michael Moore movies, but with less theatrics and more focus. The thesis is that Western youth are being sold the concept of female value lying in youth, beauty and sexuality. The media – increasingly conglomerated and dominated by private, masculine interests – is doing the selling and we, as consumers, are conditioned from youth to lap it up. The result is that we have an intensely patriarchal society in which new gender stereotypes encourage men and women to participate in an inequitable system which rewards and values female endeavour less. The arguments are multifaceted, and my interpretation is just one. I had only two criticisms, one incidental, the other fundamental. First, there is a somewhat lazy use of statistics. The film states that 65% of women suffer from eating disorders – this seems spurious or based on an overly expansive understanding of what eating disorders are. Second, whilst the diagnosis was clear and powerful, the prescription proved elusive.
Hollywood has undoubtedly done women a disservice by consistently awarding women mundane, one-dimensional roles. For every Thelma and Louise or Million Dollar Baby which feature strong female leads, a hundred others portray women as the helpless sexual playthings of powerful male protagonists. Indeed, the 23rd film of one long-running series of patriarchal propaganda, otherwise known as the Bond films, will be released this October. Even the Sex and the City series rarely deviates from the ladies’ desire to be whisked off their feet by handsome, rich Prince Charmings. Most ‘chick flicks’, which are supposedly ‘for women’ though usually produced and directed by men, fall into this category.
Media matters. The main reason for the female deficit at the top is a lack of assertiveness, underpinned by confidence. Leadership demands decisiveness, daring and strength of will – traits as common to females as to males, despite being shown to be exclusively masculine qualities in the media. Female assertiveness in films is strictly sexual, expressing their desire to find love and the security it entails. Otherwise they shown as are passive or emotional when faced with challenges. No doubt, women are prone to be more patient, receptive to others’ views and less confrontational, but it’s our patriarchal conception of leadership that considers these as weaknesses rather than strengths.
When a recent study asked American eight-year olds whether they wanted to become President, the proportion of each gender who responded in the affirmative was identical. Ten years later, nourished by a toxic diet of sitcoms and magazines that condescend the ‘weaker sex’, two thirds of those ambitious young girls had changed their minds, while the young boys largely retained the aspiration. Of course a host of careers merit ambition and we shouldn’t demonise those women who become committed stay-at-home mothers. The point is that as long as we have a political/business/media elite comprised wholly of men, women lose out. In fact everybody loses out: would the financial crisis have occurred if the major banks hadn’t been run by cack-handed, testosterone-fuelled machismos?
Let’s return to politics. The US Congress contains a lower proportion of women than its legislative counterpart in Afghanistan. Our own parliament doesn’t do much better. However, the situation may be improving. Here in Oxford our OUSU President is female, as were the last three Union Presidents. In Westminster Theresa May is the Home Secretary, an office traditionally seen as ‘unsuited’ to a woman’s temperament. And of course there was Iron Lady, the film that boasts a tremendous example of female success against the constraints of that age. All these figures are role models for young women, though tragically their imagery evades our popular Kardashian culture.
What needs to be understood – and to be fair the film did grasp this – is that the status quo isn’t conspiratorial. We aren’t a nation of misogynists, though that doesn’t preclude a misogynistic culture. There’s a certain inertia to the state of affairs that requires us to expunge the sort of lazy sexism represented by ‘lad’ culture that the sexualisation of women encourages. Miss Representation is right to malign it. Inducing cultural changes is hard but the regulation of the media is unpalatable to me. Largely it’s about awareness, learning what is and isn’t acceptable. The media matters because it catalyses the process. It can stop obsessing over what Theresa May wears rather than what she says. Some attack capitalism – drawing a causal chain between the capitalist market and pornification of media. Well, let’s turn the market on its head. We should use our purchasing power to bankrupt those newspapers and production studios that degrade women. Those choices have to be free in order to affect a genuine cultural shift. That requires a more thoughtful understanding of just how potent the media is.
5 Minute Tute: Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
What kind of crimes are women accused of committing as part of Afghanistan’s Zina laws, and what are the punishments?
There are two main acts treated as ‘moral crimes’ in Afghanistan. The first is ‘running away’ which is when a girl or women flees her home against the will of her father or husband. Running away is not a crime under the Afghan penal code but the Supreme Court of Afghanistan has instructed its judges that they should treat it as one. The second main ‘moral crime’ in Afghanistan is Zina, which is sex outside of marriage. Zina is a crime under the Afghan Penal Code and is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
How does the Afghan legal system disadvantage women who are accused of moral crimes?
The Afghan legal system is biased and heavily stacked against women at every stage. An accusation from a man seems to almost always be enough for a woman to be arrested. Statements are taken from women who are alone in police stations without a lawyer or even a friend, signed (with a thumbprint) by women who cannot read. Invasive ‘virginity tests’ which have no medical validity are routinely administered and treated as valid evidence. In one case, even a letter from a woman’s husband saying that she was disobedient was treated as evidence by the court.
The defence of women’s rights was a major justification for the invasion of Afghanistan. How has the presence of NATO troops changed the situation for women?
There has been important progress. Several million more girls go to school now than did in 2001. Maternal mortality has been falling steadily, and life expectancy has increased dramatically. About 28% of the elected house of the Afghan parliament is women. There are female police officers, prosecutors, defence attorneys, judges, civil servants and even two female ministers. But overall, progress has been less forthcoming than that which women had a right to expect in the heady days after the fall of the Taliban. Worst of all, the progress that has been made is terribly fragile and could disappear within a few years, if the international community walks away entirely from Afghanistan.
What restrictions do women still face in everyday life?
Segregation of the sexes in Afghanistan is extreme. In many families, especially in rural areas, women are not permitted to leave the house at all, or at least not without a male chaperone. A large proportion of families will not permit women to work outside the home where they might come into contact with strange men. Many women still wear the burka, and all women have to wear concealing clothing and head scarves. Forced marriage is the reality for most women, and underage marriage is still very common.
What would you say are the forces behind the Karzai government that are keeping the system of moral crimes in place? President Karzai has always faced a difficult balancing act of maintaining good relations with the international partners he relies on for military assistance, while also partnering with powerbrokers in Afghan society. As the international community increasingly appears ready to turn its back on Afghanistan, Karzai’s calculus about the relative importance of these partners is shifting and it becomes less and less important for him to be seen to care about women’s rights.
Kenneth Roth is the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch
Review: Oxford Folk Weekend
This year’s Oxford Folk Weekend provided a weekend of merriment, dancing, drinking, singing, and a slap-up meal of folk musical delights.
Most of the main performances took place at the Old Fire Station while further concerts were performed at the Wesley Memorial Church, the Ashmolean Museum and the Westgate central library. Oxford Castle gardens also boasted a craft fair and Morris displays for families to enjoy.
Compared to the biggies such as Glastonbury, Virgin festival, the folk weekend presented a tiny, intimate and highly relaxed setting; a festival where we would literally be bumping into the artists off stage. Aint nothing pretentious about these folkies …
On Saturday, Benji Kirkpatrick, a member of Bellowhead took to the stage and treated the audience to an energetic performance which involved switching between a myriad of instruments including banjo, mandolin, guitar and bouzouki. He humorously informed us that apparently the artists were having a competition to see who would take the longest in tuning their instruments that weekend.
Saturday afternoon was dominated by the cheeky boys from Telling the Bees, while Mawkin wowed the crowd on Sunday afternoon with their stunning, edgy performance that hosted wild melodies and knowing smirks from the band members. They delivered with much gusto and oozed charm and they knew it.
As expected, the Oxford Folk Weekend was attended by all ages, but, let’s be fair, more old than the young. Nevertheless, Jack and the Arrows, comprising Oxford University students performed a set involving sweet melodies, smooth vocals, heart-felt lyrics topped with simple but effective instrumentation in the form of guitars, bass and the cajon. In contrast, Emily Spiers (an Oxford University German tutor no less) and The Tunesmiths delivered traditional Irish folk songs complemented by a harmonious concoction of the harp, flutes and the uillean pipes. Obscure folk instruments were clearly the order of the day.
Truthfully, the Oxford Folk Weekend this year surprised with the sheer breadth and the joys of folk music. Who said folk was forgotten?
Preview: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Before I begin the review proper, a brief disclaimer: the preview I saw of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was just that – a preview. It featured only three scenes out of a play of three acts. As such, take the following unrelenting stream of praise with a pinch of salt; it may not be representative of the play as a whole. But I sincerely hope, and somewhat suspect, that it is.
To begin, the cast: they are each a perfect fit for their respective roles, and for a play that consists of nothing but four people in a night of perverse, drunken arguments and mind games, nothing less than perfect would suffice. Amelia Sparling, as Martha, oscillates beautifully between savagely humiliating her husband George (Nick Williams) and seductively charming him to get her way. Williams and Sparling have a genuine energy between them; the sense of equally passionate love and hatred is palpable in every line. The second couple, Nick and Honey (Ed Barr-Sim and Tanya Lacey-Solyma) are equally well matched in their roles: the dull, personality-free mathematics professor, and his shrill, irritating wife, who act as pawns and sounding boards in George and Martha’s power struggles.
Not only is every characterisation brilliantly engaging and effortlessly realistic, but director Josephine Mitchell seems to have achieved the holy grail of amateur acting: training her cast to be convincing drunks. For a play in which every character is more or less perpetually inebriated, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf invites the possibility of some truly cringe worthy performances. However, that is far from the case here. Every dropped word, every stumble, every stare is utterly and completely credible. Nick’s quiet satisfaction behind each sip of bourbon; George’s sneering looks into the middle distance as he reminisces; Martha’s unbridled, hysterical glee as she recklessly goads her husband on – every performance is compellingly addictive to watch. In particular, Honey’s drunken dash out of the living room to empty her guts will, I imagine, strike a special chord with much of the student audience.
The choice to perform in the Platanaeur room, a respectable, wood panelled space tucked away in the corridors of Brasenose College was an excellent one. The venue is both an intimate and a natural one, the very image of a middle class living room, where the audience can physically feel every emotion, every loaded question and every glance this spectacular cast throw around the set. This is a performance of an infinitely entertaining and engaging play that has executed perfectly. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I really, really think you should go and see this play: it is certainly the best of the dramatic offerings of Brasenose Arts Week, and very possibly the most accomplished student production you’ll see this term.
FIVE STARS
Student signs six-figure book deal
A second-year undergraduate at St Anne’s has received a three book deal with Bloomsbury, the publishing house responsible for bringing out the Harry Potter books.
English literature student Samantha Shannon-Jones has been given a deal for the first three of her seven-book “urban fantasy series”.
Although she didn’t want to ‘give away too much’, Shannon-Jones told Cherwell that the stories are set in a “dystopian” world, where criminal clairvoyants exist. The first book is entitled ‘The Bone Season’. The main character is a 19 year old clairvoyant named Paige, who flees from a life of crime.
The tale is set in the Oxford of 2059, a town which has been kept a secret and off-limits by the government, named Scion, because (it is claimed) it is full of poison. There, Paige meets Warden, who looks after her.
The works are partly inspired by the Margaret Atwell’s A Handmaid’s Tale and Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.
Shannon-Jones, also Art and Literature Representative for St Anne’s College JCR, told Cherwell that she had working on the first book for “about a year”, working through her prelims, and has been writing since age 13. She said her friends and family have been ‘very supportive’, although also rather surprised, believing she had given up writing after her first book.
According to her blog, Shannon-Jones spent the first months of university solely working on her first novel, Aurora, “a sci-fi romance epic”. She had been working on it since early 2007 and it was somewhere near 200,000 words when it was completed – what Shannon-Jones describes as “a real monster”. The book started to impact on her health, and she told Cherwell that having to abandon it, after its rejection by multiple publishers, was ‘very sad’.
After a family friend put her in touch with David Godwin, founder of literary agents David Godwin Associates in London, Shannon-Jones also showed him the manuscript for Aurora, which he “did not particularly want”. However, she applied for and got work experience there, with the intention of discovering how her writing could be made better.
Shannon-Jones’ opportunity came when her tutor Matthew Reynolds encouraged budding writers to send chapters of their work to Ali Smith, author of Hotel World and many short stories, and Weidenfeld Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature for the term at St Anne’s.
Smith said that she loved the first chapter of The Bone Season, and that Shannon-Jones should send it to agents as soon as possible. Shannon-Jones again sent the novel to David Godwin, who decided to represent the book, taking it to the London Book Fair.
Shannon-Jones told Cherwell that her advice to young writers was, “Believe in yourself, but be able to take constructive criticism, and be able to assess your own work.”
Alexandra Pringle, editor-in-chief at Bloomsbury, commented, “Samantha is just fizzing with ideas. The book is an utterly consuming adventure and we are committed to the seven.”
Thomas Catteral, a second-year St Anne’s classicist and friend of Shannon-Jones, said, “Sami’s absolutely amazing. She has worked incredibly hard both before she came to Oxford and while here, and the fact that she’s getting published even while she’s dealing with the work that Oxford and her extra-curricular activities provide is a testament to the sort of person she is.
‘On top of that, she is one of the kindest souls I know, and that she gives so much of herself means that this book deal isn’t luck – she has worked incredibly hard and thoroughly deserves it.”
Alongside writing, Shannon-Jones is currently organising St Anne’s Art Week this week, and has been marketing manager for several plays including Dangerous Liasons, which has just finished at the Oxford Playhouse.
The Bone Season is due for release on September 12th 2013.