Sunday, May 11, 2025
Blog Page 1777

Giraffe George Street: Review

Agnes Arnold-Forster
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Giraffe George Street: Review

I’ve always imagined Giraffe to be a noisy restaurant. One of those irritating places that prides itself on its ‘atmosphere’ over the basic ability to hear the person sat two feet away from you.

Thankfully, in this I was mistaken: the ambience was surprisingly relaxed for an eatery on George Street on a Friday night, and the service prompt and friendly.

Eating is my primary concern. I like my food high in quantity and high in quality. Giraffe delivered on both counts. A meal is not a success in my eyes unless I come away in at least a modicum of pain. My partner in crime and I shared the nachos. I like nachos even in their most basic form, and these were nachos on a higher plane. I would say they were probably the very best bit of the meal. Lots of cheese, alarmingly big slices of chili and all the appropriate condiments.

My first error was to have the burger. Not because of the quality, but the quantity. My second was to order a side of onion rings, even on top of the chips it came with. The burger was good, not at all overcooked. I had mine with bacon and avocado, which may offend some burger purists, but avocado improves any and all dishes. It’s the virtuous cousin of mayonnaise.

My accomplice went for the exotic sounding mojito chicken – this was an experiment which fell down a little. The chicken was well cooked, but the spicing was all wrong. It needed a lot more lime to live up to its name. She did however proceed to help me out with the burger and agreed wholeheartedly on the avocado.

For dessert we shared a banana waffle split. The banana was gorgeous, hot and sweet, and there was just the right amount of ice cream to balance out the gooey waffle. A success, had I not eaten so many nachos in the first place.

Giraffe may not be haute cuisine, but it has substance and at least a little bit of style. Just try to avoid undue gluttony, remember the mantra ‘starter or dessert, not both’.

Giraffe are now offering 25% off Monday – Thursday and Sundays from 6pm with an NUS extra card: perfect if your college doesn’t serve hall on weekends or you want a different sort of crewdate.

On this day and through the ages

Miles Lawrence
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On this day and through the ages

 

2nd week. It’s an uninspiring sort of concept. On the other hand, (although I suppose it was technically 1st week) the freshers had their first real taste of anachronistic Oxford absurdity with their matriculation ceremony. I loved matriculation – an excuse to pose for daft photos of launched hats forbidden to be worn, a pub crawl in pseudo-white-tie, and a useful lesson to never, ever go to Clems again. A Mr. John Moynihan, of Balliol College, felt differently in 1969, when Cherwell reported ‘A colourful anti-matriculation ceremony will take place on Tuesday, 21st October.’ Mr Moynihan first made his name in Oxford last year by going through the matriculation ceremony in drag. [He said]; ‘Our intention is to disrupt seriously, in the funniest and jolliest way possible, what we consider to be an anachronistic ceremony, that long ago outlived its usefulness.’
On the topic of sartorial peculiarity, we have an Evelyn report from 1980 of a character known to us all for his Tory-blue tie – William Hague. Poor Will gets stood up by his ‘frunions’ as ‘Thompson… has been twice persuaded to break blood pacts with cuddly northerner William Hague.
‘First, he agreed not to stand as Secretary;  then, again, he agreed not to stand as President this time round. Hague is so worried by Thompson’s steamroller campaign that he has taken up a deliberate policy of wearing bomber jackets, training shoes, etc. in preference to the traditional Pelling-style 8-piece suits.’ Ten points to the next person who shows up at P&P in a bomber jacket and air force ones.
In more recent news, 2003 saw Pembroke buying a new feline friend after their old moggie was purportedly hurled from Christ Church’s Tom Tower. Cherwell reported ‘when a Christ Church cow was painted Pembroke pink and died two years ago, rumour has it that Christ Church retaliated by hurling Pembroke’s beloved cat, Molly, off Tom Tower. If you’d like a further clarification of the absurdity of painted animals, I suggest you take some time to watch the pets episode of Russell Brand’s Ponderland. Keep an open mind – I didn’t ever think a video of a man hiring a boy to dunk birds in coloured dye would ever be of any use, but I just filled the rest of this article with it. 

2nd week. It’s an uninspiring sort of concept. On the other hand, (although I suppose it was technically 1st week) the freshers had their first real taste of anachronistic Oxford absurdity with their matriculation ceremony. I loved matriculation – an excuse to pose for daft photos of launched hats forbidden to be worn, a pub crawl in pseudo-white-tie, and a useful lesson to never, ever go to Clems again. A Mr. John Moynihan, of Balliol College, felt differently in 1969, when Cherwell reported ‘A colourful anti-matriculation ceremony will take place on Tuesday, 21st October.’ Mr Moynihan first made his name in Oxford last year by going through the matriculation ceremony in drag. [He said]; ‘Our intention is to disrupt seriously, in the funniest and jolliest way possible, what we consider to be an anachronistic ceremony, that long ago outlived its usefulness.’

On the topic of sartorial peculiarity, we have an Evelyn report from 1980 of a character known to us all for his Tory-blue tie – William Hague. Poor Will gets stood up by his ‘frunions’ as ‘Thompson… has been twice persuaded to break blood pacts with cuddly northerner William Hague.’First, he agreed not to stand as Secretary;  then, again, he agreed not to stand as President this time round. Hague is so worried by Thompson’s steamroller campaign that he has taken up a deliberate policy of wearing bomber jackets, training shoes, etc. in preference to the traditional Pelling-style 8-piece suits.’ Ten points to the next person who shows up at P&P in a bomber jacket and air force ones.

In more recent news, 2003 saw Pembroke buying a new feline friend after their old moggie was purportedly hurled from Christ Church’s Tom Tower. Cherwell reported ‘when a Christ Church cow was painted Pembroke pink and died two years ago, rumour has it that Christ Church retaliated by hurling Pembroke’s beloved cat, Molly, off Tom Tower. If you’d like a further clarification of the absurdity of painted animals, I suggest you take some time to watch the pets episode of Russell Brand’s Ponderland. Keep an open mind – I didn’t ever think a video of a man hiring a boy to dunk birds in coloured dye would ever be of any use, but I just filled the rest of this article with it. 

 

Fighting for his Father’s Freedom

Joseph D'Urso
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Fighting for his Father’s Freedom

 

aslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theoretical pyramid which ranks five different categories of human needs. On the bottom are base needs such as food and sleep. Above this come safety and security. Thirdly we look for love and belonging, then esteem in the form of respect and confidence and finally self-actualisation in the form of morality and creativity.
I met Pavel Khodorkovsky on Tuesday after he spoke against the motion ‘This House believes that what happens in Russia stays in Russia’  at the Oxford Union. He took me from Maslow to Moscow by explaining how Vladimir Putin is attempting to jump the Russian state to the fourth ‘esteem’ stage without firstly ensuring the security of individuals and private property required by stage two.
Russia is now a world power with a strong sense of national identity and pride that it lacked a decade ago. However it fails to observe the rule of law, perhaps the most fundamental tenet of a liberal democratic state. The most high profile victim of Eurasia’s ‘managed democracy’ has been the oligarch and anti-Kremlin activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was once Russia’s richest man, but is now languishing in prison until 2017 on fraud charges considered by Amnesty International and Western governments to be politically motivated.
His son Pavel is lobbying internationally to raise awareness of the situation in Russia. He explained that British people should care both because of basic humanitarian empathy and because the powerful geopolitical pull of Russia affects Britain’s national interests in fields  such as energy, security and diplomacy. He described how the UK ‘should be interested in having a fair partner. Not someone who uses force in their diplomacy, but someone on the same level’.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky can hardly call himself lucky, but his son recognises that his case at least has international press attention. The same cannot be said for the thousands of other businessmen, journalists and political activists detained in the Russian Federation. After learning of the extent of journalistic repression I had to get Pavel to calm my fears that an apparatchik in a dimly lit office on the outskirts of Moscow might be etching my name onto a new file while you read this.
Khodorkovsky emphasised how middle class democratic disengagement in Russia is due to the powerlessness and the predictability of the system. ‘They have been cheated time and time again and they believe that whatever they do will have no effect on the result.’
The journalist Ed Lucas, another speaker at Tuesday’s debate, told the audience that ‘Russia is the world’s smallest democracy. There are two people in it, and only one of them votes.’ Putin will become Russia’s next President in March after confirming three weeks ago that he rather than the incumbent President Medvedev will be the candidate for the establishment United Russia party.
His last four years as Prime Minister were largely spent behind the scenes, less concerned with public relations than consolidating power. There are also several recent examples where he has clashed with foreign journalists and officials, and Khodorkovsky predicts he will come back a ‘much tougher person to deal with’.
The ‘gangster capitalism’ of Russia stems from the break-up of the USSR two decades ago. Shares in former state owned companies were distributed amongst the Russian people. Rather than this having an equitable effect, a few oligarchs bought up most of the shares.
Khodorkovsky highlights that this makes the Russian system perhaps easier to destabilise than other regimes. ‘Anyone found engaging in human rights abuses should be denied visas. Destabilising the mafia-like structure starts with only one to two hundred people – if these fall the whole system will fall.’ He sees the UK as complicit in propping up the oligarchs by allowing them to live and operate financially in London while sending their children to British private schools, and implores us to engage with Russian students in the UK.
The tension which led to the imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky stemmed from his attempts to get involved in politics. The essence of the Russian state’s relationship with the super-rich is that they may do what they like so long as they stay out of politics.
Khodorkovsky highlighted that these are uncertain times for Russia economically and demographically. Its budget deficit is projected to continue growing in 2013-2014, and the reserve fund which finances government borrowing is running out. Russia also suffers from declining birth rates; its population is projected to fall 20% by 2050. He sees Putin as having two options. Either he continues to repress, which could lead to disorder nationwide, and even another war in Chechnya or the Caucasus, or he makes significant concessions.
Pavel Khodorkovsky, in an American twang from living in the States for the past eight years, spoke movingly about how his daughter has 
never met her grandfather. Though this is just one isolated case in the world’s largest country by geography, one must take concern at the egregiously autocratic nature of a state expected by many to simply slide into democracy after the Cold War. Russia’s long term future is entirely unclear, but its short term future looks grim.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theoretical pyramid which ranks five different categories of human needs. On the bottom are base needs such as food and sleep. Above this come safety and security. Thirdly we look for love and belonging, then esteem in the form of respect and confidence and finally self-actualisation in the form of morality and creativity.

I met Pavel Khodorkovsky on Tuesday after he spoke against the motion ‘This House believes that what happens in Russia stays in Russia’  at the Oxford Union. He took me from Maslow to Moscow by explaining how Vladimir Putin is attempting to jump the Russian state to the fourth ‘esteem’ stage without firstly ensuring the security of individuals and private property required by stage two.

Russia is now a world power with a strong sense of national identity and pride that it lacked a decade ago. However it fails to observe the rule of law, perhaps the most fundamental tenet of a liberal democratic state. The most high profile victim of Eurasia’s ‘managed democracy’ has been the oligarch and anti-Kremlin activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was once Russia’s richest man, but is now languishing in prison until 2017 on fraud charges considered by Amnesty International and Western governments to be politically motivated.

His son Pavel is lobbying internationally to raise awareness of the situation in Russia. He explained that British people should care both because of basic humanitarian empathy and because the powerful geopolitical pull of Russia affects Britain’s national interests in fields  such as energy, security and diplomacy. He described how the UK ‘should be interested in having a fair partner. Not someone who uses force in their diplomacy, but someone on the same level’.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky can hardly call himself lucky, but his son recognises that his case at least has international press attention. The same cannot be said for the thousands of other businessmen, journalists and political activists detained in the Russian Federation. After learning of the extent of journalistic repression I had to get Pavel to calm my fears that an apparatchik in a dimly lit office on the outskirts of Moscow might be etching my name onto a new file while you read this.

Khodorkovsky emphasised how middle class democratic disengagement in Russia is due to the powerlessness and the predictability of the system. ‘They have been cheated time and time again and they believe that whatever they do will have no effect on the result.’

The journalist Ed Lucas, another speaker at Tuesday’s debate, told the audience that ‘Russia is the world’s smallest democracy. There are two people in it, and only one of them votes.’ Putin will become Russia’s next President in March after confirming three weeks ago that he rather than the incumbent President Medvedev will be the candidate for the establishment United Russia party.

His last four years as Prime Minister were largely spent behind the scenes, less concerned with public relations than consolidating power. There are also several recent examples where he has clashed with foreign journalists and officials, and Khodorkovsky predicts he will come back a ‘much tougher person to deal with’.

The ‘gangster capitalism’ of Russia stems from the break-up of the USSR two decades ago. Shares in former state owned companies were distributed amongst the Russian people. Rather than this having an equitable effect, a few oligarchs bought up most of the shares.Khodorkovsky highlights that this makes the Russian system perhaps easier to destabilise than other regimes. ‘Anyone found engaging in human rights abuses should be denied visas. Destabilising the mafia-like structure starts with only one to two hundred people – if these fall the whole system will fall.’ He sees the UK as complicit in propping up the oligarchs by allowing them to live and operate financially in London while sending their children to British private schools, and implores us to engage with Russian students in the UK.

The tension which led to the imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky stemmed from his attempts to get involved in politics. The essence of the Russian state’s relationship with the super-rich is that they may do what they like so long as they stay out of politics.

Khodorkovsky highlighted that these are uncertain times for Russia economically and demographically. Its budget deficit is projected to continue growing in 2013-2014, and the reserve fund which finances government borrowing is running out. Russia also suffers from declining birth rates; its population is projected to fall 20% by 2050. He sees Putin as having two options. Either he continues to repress, which could lead to disorder nationwide, and even another war in Chechnya or the Caucasus, or he makes significant concessions.

Pavel Khodorkovsky, in an American twang from living in the States for the past eight years, spoke movingly about how his daughter has never met her grandfather. Though this is just one isolated case in the world’s largest country by geography, one must take concern at the egregiously autocratic nature of a state expected by many to simply slide into democracy after the Cold War. Russia’s long term future is entirely unclear, but its short term future looks grim.

 

5 Minute Tute- Ruling Russia

Luke Harding
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5 Minute Tute- Ruling Russia

 

How did authorities react to you as a Western 
reporter?

How did authorities react to you as a Western reporter?

I arrived in Moscow in February 2007 which was possibly the worst timing for a British citizen to show up because Alexander Litvineko had just been murdered with polonium two months earlier in a plot which had the fingerprints of the FSB [the successor agency of the KGB] all over it.  Not only was it a major international scandal, it utterly wrecked the Anglo Russian relationship. Within a few months, I found myself caught up in what felt like an incompetently written Cold War drama.  Robert Gates, the last American Defence Secretary, called Russia an ‘oligarchy run by security services’ and it’s true – the apex of the state are often ex-KGB and come with all the ideological baggage you’d expect. The Guardian interviewed the prominent ex-patriot Boris Berezovsky and he claimed to be plotting a revolution against Putin. Purely because I was a Guardian journalist I was summoned to the infamous Lefortovo prison. They genuinely believed I was some sort of James Bond figure and from then on I was followed around by young guys in leather jackets every day: they’d sit so close in restaurants they’d practically be on your lap. They created a whole catalogue of psychological soft torture for me and my family – break ins, strange alarm clocks going off at 4am, a sex manual left on the bed, central heating disconnections, deleted emails. The idea was to wear me down until I couldn’t take it anymore – they decided disappearances and murders were no good if you wanted to be a respectable regime.

How much power do the FSB really wield, and how do their tactics affect the population?

 

The Orange revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia in 2004 and 2003 respectively terrified the Russian elite. That’s when the FSB budget was really stepped up. Since Putin’s premiership it’s become the most prominent agency in Russia, used against opposition leaders and human rights workers. The bravest people are Russian journalists and human rights workers, those in Chechnya, the Caucasus. Anna Politkovskaya’s murder inquiry was of course inconclusive.

Scare tactics work differently on different people. They are particularly effective on single women – they did it to one of my assistants. I was just furious. It made my writing tougher because I knew that the gap between public pronouncements about modern Russia as a democracy and the rule of law and the observance of human rights were in fact a joke. Putin sets the tone. He believes that corrupt authoritarian methods are more efficient that democratic ones. He doesn’t even believe the West are real democracies. We know from Wikileaks he’s bought Berlusconi and Gerhard Shroeder.

 

How would you describe the current political climate?

 

The whole Russian system is decorative: of course Putin is coming back to power. The decision has already been made by the elite and it’ll be passed off as a democratic choice but of course it’s not. Russia is sliding towards a central Asia style dictatorship – they’re isolated from the global conversation. These are people whose minds were forged in the Soviet era but who are now trying to deal with a world of Twitter and Livejournal. Russia in the 1990s was chaotic and Yeltsin was very unpopular but the state was at least quasi-democratic. The problem now is that there is a very cynical, very clever and deeply corrupt vertical system. All real opposition is squeezed. That’s not to say it’s the Soviet Union, because it’s not – there are bloggers and one or two independent newspapers but the regime is sophisticated. Putin’s great genius is realising that you don’t have to control private space. People can have affairs, behave badly, get drunk, and that’s OK. Previous Soviet dictators wanted to control everything. Putin gets it: this is new school.

The one place this regime is vulnerable is monetary. Not through diplomatic pressure, or what Cameron might say in Moscow, or students protesting outside the embassy, but the threat of visa bans and losing all their money. The money of the Russian elite is filtered off and spent in the west, and that’s the only lever we have.

 

Mafia state was published by Guardian Books on 29 September and is available on Amazon.co.uk and in all major bookstores

Shake-up in the Premier League

Michael Peet
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Shake-up in the Premier League

Barely a week goes by when some football bigwig can resist blurting out some vague comment about the structure of the Premier League – or rather, how it could and might change in the future. A round of interviews usually follows with a few too-public chairmen (I’m thinking of football royalty like Bolton’s Phil Gartside or Wigan’s David Whelan), and eventually, nothing changes at all.

But this week’s news from the League Manager’s Association (LMA) that several club owners are in favour of abolishing relegation could be a different story. It comes direct from the LMA boss, Chris Bevan, who fears that if fourteen owners grouped together they could force through changes to the way the current league system works, and even scrap relegation completely.

It’s easy to see why people like Rao brothers, who own Blackburn Rovers, could be in favour of such plans. Relegation to the Championship is a costly business: TV revenues plummet and attendances tend to dwindle. You lose your best players. Perhaps worst of all, you face the daunting task of having to win back the favour of the fans – harder still when you live in India.

With Blackburn sitting 20th in the league table, their owners in particular would find it hard to resist supporting changes which potentially could guard an asset they spent in excess of £50m on late last year.

Such changes, however, would be a disaster for the top division. The relegation scramble is a central part of the way the league operates and seems to get more nail-biting every season. Indeed the whole system of promotion and relegation is what props up the English football league ladder. It is what makes the bottom fifteen teams in the Premier League competitive. I support Middlesbrough, and had to endure relegation three seasons ago. After two tough seasons in the second flight we finally appear to be heading in the right direction.

We’re all secretly dreaming of hosting United and Liverpool next season, and it would be tragic if that were ever to change.

The imperfection of Muhammad Ali

Monish Kulkarni
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The imperfection of Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali: three time heavyweight champion of the world, the 1960 Olympic gold medallist, the 1999 “BBC Sports Personality of the Century” and one of the youngest and oldest men to hold the heavyweight championship of the world. The list is endless. The man’s face was at one point the most recognized on the planet and truly no sportsman has proved as integral to popular culture since.

But has this global adulation for Ali got far too out of hand? There is absolutely nothing wrong in awarding Muhammad Ali a place in popular culture as his achievements in and out of the ring are most deserving of it. But when I see article after article of lightweight documentary and biography cultivating the “Ali Myth”, the idea that Muhammad Ali was some sort of larger than life, social enigma and learned intellectual, it is too much to accept.

Are we really to accept the notion that Ali was some sort of hero in the Civil Rights movements in the 1960s, standing side by side with Dr King as a symbol for non violence and peace? The legions of hagiographers tend to understate the enormous contradictions and imperfections which made up the man, and it is important that we do not forget them.

Look at Ali’s boxing rival “Smokin’” Joe Frazier, with whom he shared three memorable and celebrated bouts in the 1970’s. The two first met in the late 1960s when Frazier was giving Ali a lift. While Ali’s famous “I ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong” statement, and his subsequent refusal to participate in the Vietnam War, was dividing American public opinion, Frazier actually supported Ali financially when he was temporarily banned from boxing.

In return, Ali was less forthcoming. Ali bullied, teased and dissected Frazier on the world stage once it came to boxing. He called Frazier a gorilla, an Uncle Tom and an uneducated fool. Of course, insult and trash talking is nothing new to boxing; in fact Ali was a famous exponent of it, but he went too far. Using his articulacy and personality, he cast Joe Frazier as the “White Man’s Champion”: a figure to be scorned and rejected by the black community.

Frazier, without the eloquence and stage presence of Ali was continuously humiliated and ridiculed. He could not even walk the streets of his own hometown of Philadelphia without being called an Uncle Tom. Ali’s treatment of Frazier was brutal and seemingly inconsistent with the image of Ali as a deeply affectionate and kind human being. But it is a reflection on the bullying and nasty side of Ali’s personality often played down by his barrage of 21st century supporters.

Moreover, Ali was no intellectual. Somehow his entertaining but rather lightweight poetry (“I’m so mean I make medicine sick!”) and his conversion to the Nation of Islam in 1964 have put him on some absurdly elevated pedestal of social importance. But when interviewed Ali could discuss the doctrines of Islam only on a simplistic and artificial level and in the 1960’s he advocated segregation between black and white communities, arguing it was the only way that violence could be avoided.

Yet paradoxically, Ali had no qualms in surrounding himself with white promoters, trainers, doctors and celebrities over the course of his career. Biographers particularly highlight Ali’s devotion to Islam; yet Ali has had four wives, with his unfaithfulness being well documented and publicized.

A BBC article calls Ali “a powerful activist for black rights, both in America and around the world”. This is surely overstated. Yes, Ali was brave in resisting the US government who stripped him of his livelihood in the years of his prime, but a powerful activist for black rights? Really? Even the change of name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, the allegedly iconic moment when the man removed the shackles of slavery and ended his subjugation from the white slave masters, was not his decision. It was the decision of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, because Cassius Clay was not an appropriate name for his star promoter for the Nation.

I am not trying to “expose” Muhammad Ali. He is only human and is not a particularly awful one either. I simply think we should re-assess the man and appreciate him for what he really was. His abilities as a sportsman were astounding. He boxed long into the early 1980s and despite being years detached from his prime, Ali was the crown of the heavyweight division going through its golden age with such greats as Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Earnie Shavers and Ken Norton. Ali was, and still is today, the centrepiece and it is not difficult to see why. Ali was witty, extravagant and lively. He was “a photographer’s dream” for Neil Leifer; a man who could floor you with his humour just as much as with his left jab.

His greatest achievement in my mind was his smashing of the race barrier which opposed many black sportsmen of the 20th Century. While men like Joe Louis were slavishly and diligently trained to conform to the acceptable image of what a black sportsman should be in white America, Ali carved out his own image: one of dynamism and charisma. He was, in many ways, the first real personality in American sport. Some of boxing’s most famous stars including “Sugar” Ray Leonard and Mike Tyson have publicly voiced their praise of Ali for making it possible for boxers and indeed sportsmen to achieve fame, recognition and wealth.

It is precisely for these reasons that Ali should be acclaimed. Not for the political, the social, the personal or whatever the cultivators of the “Ali Myth” would have us believe.

Cherwell Sport tries out Korfball

Caspar Eliot
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Cherwell Sport tries out Korfball

It is a little known fact that I was once star centre for the highly unsuccessful New College assault on the mixed Netball cuppers trophy back in the heady days of Trinity ‘09. We lost every match. This was clearly not due to a total lack of talent on my part (or from the rest of the boys who gave it a go), but due to the massive pressure to perform in front of a group of girls who actually knew what they were doing.

Thus, I approached Korfball with great hope of achieving redemption, via a ball and hoop (or at least hoop-shaped object – more on that later). To put the previous comment into context, Korfball was invented in 1902 by a teacher from Amsterdam who wanted to create a game where both boys and girls were able to compete on an equal footing, thus avoiding the problem of boys being generally bigger, stronger and faster, while also more prone to silly macho behaviour and having a tendency to play like idiots.

Each team is composed of four boys and four girls, with the twist that boys can only mark boys and girls can only mark girls. The other rule that differentiates it from the slightly heightist games of basketball and netball is that you can only shoot when unmarked, giving those not blessed with about eight feet of height an even playing field.

The ‘Korf’ itself comes from the Dutch for the wicker basket that was originally used as the hoop, although my slightly bizarre Christopher-Lee-and-pagan-rituals-on-remote-Scottish-island train of thought was derailed when it turned out that the thing, perched on top of a 3.5m pole, had met the 21st century head on and was now made of plastic anyway.

The general game itself is very similar to netball: no moving with the ball, no contact, and players restricted to a section of the pitch. Each team is split into two sets of boy and girl pairs and can move anywhere in one half of the pitch, the attacking four trying to score goals while the defending four unsurprisingly defend, and to avoid anyone getting too bored teams switch roles after every two goals (so attackers become defenders and vice versa).

Everything is reasonably simple and easy to pick up, so after a bit of time practising shooting and getting used to the feel of the ball (football size and weight with basketball grip) it was straight into a proper, bona fide game.

And it was here that I got caught out slightly. I come from a rugby background, where you have an opposite man but spend most of your time only vaguely aware of where he is, and hit him occasionally (at least, that’s how I passively play full-back). In Korfball, there are only two opponents in your area of the pitch you can really have anything to do with, you have to know where they are at all times, as a single second unmarked can lead to a goal, and you know that when you have possession they’ll be all over you like a rash.

It makes for a frantic game, although the nature of the two halves of the pitch does at least give you a bit of time for a breather. I also enjoyed the end switching aspect giving everyone a go in both attack and defence as opposed to the rigid roles in netball (I always thought Wing Defence seemed quite dull and a bit pointless).

Although, as the International Korfball Federation website informs me, it is a global sport with 60 member countries from all corners of the globe, the World Championship final has, since its inception in 1978, been contested exclusively between the Netherlands and Belgium. This is the mark of a niche sport, and I think it will remain as such as it struggles to break out of the shadow of basketball and netball, existing as a slightly bizarre mix of the two. This is a pity, as I feel it genuinely has something to offer as the only full team sport I can think of in which men and women can compete as equals.

If you are interested in playing Korfball please email [email protected].

Keble curtail Anne’s ascendancy

Ollie Waring
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Keble curtail Anne’s ascendancy

After 3 years out undergoing an intense scouting and training program aimed to create the perfect balance between Barcelona’s passing prowess and Leeds’ version of ‘hoofball’, the St. Anne’s 3rds marked their return to the Oxford reserve league with a surprise 3-0 victory in a fourth reserve division clash with now local rivals Keble.

After spending all summer meticulously preparing for the game, the 3rds were left broken and distraught when they discovered that the match had been cancelled at the last possible moment.
“One minute I was walking out of the shower bellowing ‘Big Bang’s on the shirt’ at the top of my voice,” explained captain Ollie Waring “and the next my sense of decency was violated by the news that ‘we’re going to have to call the game off as we haven’t got enough players.’ I haven’t been this disgusted and angered by humanity since the last time my homepage was changed to a video of Iniesta’s Champions League semi-final winner over Chelsea.”

After hours spent persuading the opposing captain to muster enough men for the game, the 3rds were left with no choice but to take the 3-0 victory by default. Yet despite starting the season with a comfortable win, the victory proved hollow for some members of the St. Anne’s faithful.
“A victory in this manner disgusts me,” alleged an anonymous member of the side. “We even offered to go to their college and recruit players for them but they still couldn’t muster even enough for 5-a-side. It goes against everything this team was formed for. I probably put more effort into getting out of bed this morning than their captain did into producing a team.

“We set up this team to provide your average, uncoordinated, two-left footed college member with an opportunity to enjoy a stress free kick about in the park every week,” he continued. “This kind of behaviour is absolutely despicable: we want to see players play with passion for their side. It’s the same reason we refused to offer Carlos Tevez a deal earlier this month. The lads just wanted to play. We’re taking the three points, but still, it’s nauseating stuff.”

Captain and founder Ollie Waring claimed a brace for his time, effort and passion invested in arranging the match; the pick of the bunch being an absolute thunderbolt curled in from 40 yards.
“It was virtually unstoppable. No goalkeeper in the world who was lazing about in his room watching the latest episode of Glee instead of turning up to the match could have saved that. I couldn’t even dream of a better goal.”

“It’s always nice to score on your debut,” added Waring. “The scoreline flattered them really. We had a couple of great penalty shouts which the ref didn’t see, and were caught offside quite a few times when we were through on goal. To be fair to them, they did use the offside trap well.”
The best goal of the game was accredited to temporary goalkeeper Mark Hannay. “No-one wanted to play in goal for our first match, yet Mark unselfishly stepped up to the plate,” explained Waring. “He fully deserved his goal. The way he picked up the ball in his own box before mazing through their entire team as if they weren’t even there was truly a sight to behold.  It’s a shame Keble weren’t around to see it really; Mark certainly won’t forget that one anytime soon.”

Anne’s host Lincoln 2nds next week and hope to continue their unbeaten record, despite still not possessing a player who has played a full 90 minutes yet.

South Sudan struggles to develop

Oliver Park
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0
South Sudan struggles to develop

 

n  9th July 2011 South Sudan, after years of chaotic civil war, finally achieved independence. It immediately became one of the poorest countries in the world, with a literacy rate of below 30%, according to some estimates, and an overwhelming dependence on revenue from the oil industry. While these revenues are, and have the potential to be, an enormous source of income, predictably the wealth oil generates is concentrated in the hands of a few. At the declaration of independence there was enormous hope amongst the people of South Sudan that this marked the beginnings of a glorious new dawn for the country. The international community too was keen to pledge its support to make sure that South Sudan did not join the ranks of Africa’s failed states.
   Yet only two months later, the UN was warning that within the next year South Sudan would face severe food shortages, warnings that by and large went unremarked upon and unnoticed. Inflation in August was at 9%, with food prices rapidly escalating out of the reach of many of South Sudan’s poorest. This problem has been further exacerbated by the flood of refugees into South Sudan from the north. The emergency food programmes that were in place simply didn’t and don’t have the resources to feed so many people for so long.
   As if this wasn’t bad enough, the South Sudanese government and the UN have been unable to restore order to much of the fledgling nation. The border between Sudan and South Sudan remains highly volatile, with the Northern Sudanese government intent on destroying what it calls ‘rebel strongholds’ on its territory. Militias and bandits have also taken advantage of the disorder to profit, with the UN warning that new mines have been laid and humanitarian efforts disrupted by such groups in the months since independence. Hundreds of people have been killed in cattle raids or skirmishes between tribal groups in the few months of South Sudan’s existence and the UN and South Sudanese authorities seem unable to check the tide of violence.
  Avoiding outright civil war may also prove to be a challenge. Amongst South Sudan’s estimated eight million people, no more than one million are from any particular ethnic group. Traditional tribal rivalries and the long legacy of instability in the region could mean South Sudan is ripe to rip itself apart. This was something the CIA recognised in 2010 when it listed the country as one of the places in the world where a genocide was most likely to happen in the next five years.
   Economically, the situation also looks fairly bleak for the world’s newest nation. Timber forms an export industry, but overwhelmingly the country’s economy is centred around agriculture. This, however, provides very little in the way of taxation for the government with 98% of the South Sudanese government’s budget coming from oil. In the long run this is clearly not sustainable. Dependence on oil also leaves the country extremely vulnerable in the event of hostilities with Sudan, its northern neighbour, as all of South Sudan’s oil is refined and exported via the country.
   The lack of any sort of infrastructure perhaps poses the most obvious immediate obstacle to South Sudan’s progress. The country lacks anything that could be called a transport network, something which will make the process of nation building considerably harder. Consequently for most South Sudanese life will, due to poor communication networks, remain very locally focused, something which can only hinder the creation of a national community. Perhaps the direst statistics for South Sudan’s state of development can be found with regards to health and healthcare. In some regions there are as little as one doctor per 500,000 people and maternal mortality is the highest in the world.
   In many respects therefore South Sudan seems to be well on the way to joining the list of Africa’s failing states. The frustrating thing is that, despite the enormous challenges facing the country, this doesn’t have to be the case. Sanctions imposed on Sudan have hampered South Sudan’s economic progress, and while America is keen to become involved in the South’s lucrative oil industry, and the World Bank has promised significant funds, little in the way of investment or aid has reached the ground. Natural resources such as iron ore, copper, silver and hydropower are to be found in abundance in the area. The international community could make an enormous difference in securing the future of South Sudan by ensuring that these resources’ economic potential is quickly harnessed and an infrastructure is built in which to do this.
   The lack of action from the international community has meant that instability in the region has only increased in the months since independence, something which will only hamper future attempts at rejuvenating the country. This in turn will only lead to greater instability. People around the world were quick to share in South Sudan’s joy at independence. It would be a great shame if South Sudan and its people were allowed to drift remorselessly into the realms of anarchy and further impoverishment because this intial enthuasiasm turned into indifference.

On  9th July 2011 South Sudan, after years of chaotic civil war, finally achieved independence. It immediately became one of the poorest countries in the world, with a literacy rate of below 30%, according to some estimates, and an overwhelming dependence on revenue from the oil industry. While these revenues are, and have the potential to be, an enormous source of income, predictably the wealth oil generates is concentrated in the hands of a few. At the declaration of independence there was enormous hope amongst the people of South Sudan that this marked the beginnings of a glorious new dawn for the country. The international community too was keen to pledge its support to make sure that South Sudan did not join the ranks of Africa’s failed states.

Yet only two months later, the UN was warning that within the next year South Sudan would face severe food shortages, warnings that by and large went unremarked upon and unnoticed. Inflation in August was at 9%, with food prices rapidly escalating out of the reach of many of South Sudan’s poorest. This problem has been further exacerbated by the flood of refugees into South Sudan from the north. The emergency food programmes that were in place simply didn’t and don’t have the resources to feed so many people for so long.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the South Sudanese government and the UN have been unable to restore order to much of the fledgling nation. The border between Sudan and South Sudan remains highly volatile, with the Northern Sudanese government intent on destroying what it calls ‘rebel strongholds’ on its territory. Militias and bandits have also taken advantage of the disorder to profit, with the UN warning that new mines have been laid and humanitarian efforts disrupted by such groups in the months since independence. Hundreds of people have been killed in cattle raids or skirmishes between tribal groups in the few months of South Sudan’s existence and the UN and South Sudanese authorities seem unable to check the tide of violence.  

Avoiding outright civil war may also prove to be a challenge. Amongst South Sudan’s estimated eight million people, no more than one million are from any particular ethnic group. Traditional tribal rivalries and the long legacy of instability in the region could mean South Sudan is ripe to rip itself apart. This was something the CIA recognised in 2010 when it listed the country as one of the places in the world where a genocide was most likely to happen in the next five years.  

 Economically, the situation also looks fairly bleak for the world’s newest nation. Timber forms an export industry, but overwhelmingly the country’s economy is centred around agriculture. This, however, provides very little in the way of taxation for the government with 98% of the South Sudanese government’s budget coming from oil. In the long run this is clearly not sustainable. Dependence on oil also leaves the country extremely vulnerable in the event of hostilities with Sudan, its northern neighbour, as all of South Sudan’s oil is refined and exported via the country.  

 The lack of any sort of infrastructure perhaps poses the most obvious immediate obstacle to South Sudan’s progress. The country lacks anything that could be called a transport network, something which will make the process of nation building considerably harder. Consequently for most South Sudanese life will, due to poor communication networks, remain very locally focused, something which can only hinder the creation of a national community. Perhaps the direst statistics for South Sudan’s state of development can be found with regards to health and healthcare. In some regions there are as little as one doctor per 500,000 people and maternal mortality is the highest in the world.

  In many respects therefore South Sudan seems to be well on the way to joining the list of Africa’s failing states. The frustrating thing is that, despite the enormous challenges facing the country, this doesn’t have to be the case. Sanctions imposed on Sudan have hampered South Sudan’s economic progress, and while America is keen to become involved in the South’s lucrative oil industry, and the World Bank has promised significant funds, little in the way of investment or aid has reached the ground. Natural resources such as iron ore, copper, silver and hydropower are to be found in abundance in the area. The international community could make an enormous difference in securing the future of South Sudan by ensuring that these resources’ economic potential is quickly harnessed and an infrastructure is built in which to do this.  

 The lack of action from the international community has meant that instability in the region has only increased in the months since independence, something which will only hamper future attempts at rejuvenating the country. This in turn will only lead to greater instability. People around the world were quick to share in South Sudan’s joy at independence. It would be a great shame if South Sudan and its people were allowed to drift remorselessly into the realms of anarchy and further impoverishment because this intial enthuasiasm turned into indifference.

Oxford Blues sting Wasps

Caspar Eliot
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0
Oxford Blues sting Wasps

On the back of a strong attacking performance away to Richmond a week ago, the Blues were looking to notch up their first home win of the season as they entertained a combined Wasps/Henley Hawks XV at Iffley Road on Monday. With club captain John Carter reinstated at Number 8 having dropped himself for the Richmond match, the coaching team were hoping for another morale-boosting win as the countdown to the 131st Varsity Match at Twickenham reached 50 days this week.

It was nigh-on perfect autumn rugby conditions as Oxford kicked off, but for the first half-hour the match itself was a very scrappy affair. The Blues showed flashes of danger in attack, with Carter consistently gaining ground from the base of the scrum and fellow back-rower Derek Asbun keeping himself busy with good support play around the park, but there were far too many handling errors from both sides for any continuity to appear, and neither the scrums nor line-outs from either side were consistently clean. As it was, Oxford slightly had the upper hand, their stronger pack forcing a number of breakdown penalties and allowing left wing Cassian Bramham-Law to kick three penalties and give them a 9-0 lead as the half-hour mark passed.

With five minutes to go in the half, Oxford finally strung some phases together and gave the near-capacity crowd something to cheer about. First, good work from ex-England Sevens player Tom Mitchell at 10 gave Bramham-Law the chance to sneak over in the corner, but he knocked on under pressure. Then, after Carter had cleared up the back of yet another messy scrum, a menacing dummy run from returning blue Sean Morris gave outside-centre (and Hong Kong international) Sebastian Perkins the chance to break through the Wasps midfield and he then neatly offloaded on his inside for Morris to stroll over under the posts and give Oxford a 16-0 lead at half-time, following Bramham-Law’s easy conversion.

Disappointingly, the second-half started in much the same way as the first, with a rash of knock-ons and forced miracle-passes scuppering Oxford’s chances of putting more points on the board. An unfortunate injury to scrum-half Sam Egerton gave Ruairi O’Donovan a chance to impress, while the management also made four changes in the pack, presumably to give everyone enough game time to stake their claim. By this point fifty-odd minutes in, Oxford’s strong ball carriers were starting to make replacement lock Tom Evans and double-blue Karl Outen putting in the hard yards.

The big men also went to work on the Wasps line-out, which was shaky throughout the evening, and this resulted in Oxford’s second try, substitute hooker A.J. Connor pouncing on a loose ball from a poor throw to barrel over, the ever reliable Bramham-Law adding the extras.
Oxford were clearly in the ascendant, even without captain Carter who had come off just before the second try having been Oxford’s best player up until that point. His aggressive ball-carrying and obvious affinity with the ‘Caveman’ look make comparisons with cult-hero Sebastien Chabal easy to draw, and he will be a key player if Oxford are to secure a second successive Varsity match victory in December.

 Fresher fly-half Matt Janney, on for Mitchell, showed some excellent distribution to get Oxford deep in the Wasps half soon after the restart, and when they turned down a kickable penalty to go for the corner it was clear the Blues were going in for the kill. The subsequent line-out was scrappy, again, but wing Sean Morris hoovered up a poor clearance kick to allow all-action seven Derek Asbun, who showed tremendous work-rate all night, to pop up on his shoulder and charge over under the posts. It was now 30-0 with fifteen minutes to go, and the writing was on the wall for a tired-looking Wasps side who were appeared dead set on keeping the ball alive at all times, often to their detriment.

Oxford seemed determined not to rest on their laurels, and after their opposition were reduced to 14 men for the last nine minutes after one breakdown infringement too many, Oxford used their numerical advantage in the scrum to gain a useful attacking platform. Bramham-Law, solid in all aspects of his game throughout the match, came off his wing into the midfield and drove hard before neatly offloading to centre Scott Fernquest  to touch down in the corner. Bramham-Law was unable to add the extras from a tight angle, and with no more points scored that was how the match ended: a 35-0 victory to the Blues. Centre Perkins was awarded man of the match for his good link-play and defence, but that award could easily have gone to Asbun or Carter, while replacement prop Andrew Grounds made a strong impression in the loose when he came on.
After the match, Captain John Carter told Cherwell Sport, ‘We’re working towards being 100%. There were a few errors in the set piece, but keeping them scoreless showed the defence was excellent and I was pleased with the way we wore them down as the match went on’.

And that sums it up neatly. This was a fairly limited Wasps side, and there are definite improvements to be sought in the scrum, line-out and general handling, but this was a job well done for Oxford. Tougher tests lie in their path, starting next Tuesday with a tricky away fixture to National League 1 side Ealing, in the lead up to the 8th of December, where a date with the oldest enemy of all awaits.

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