Thursday 17th July 2025
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Two heads are better than one

Aleks Klosok
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Two heads are better than one

Two is company but three’s a crowd. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

It has often been said and deemed an unwritten rule in football’s law book that joint management in the game has, does and will never work. With famous cases of joint stewardship dismally faltering – Liverpool fans look no further than Roy Evans and Gerard Houllier in the 1998-1999 season – and few success stories to talk of, the odds are stacked against this form of management. Yet, the Non-League managerial pair of Paul Hurst and Rob Scott are increasingly proving the doubters wrong.

Like the majority of managers in the Non-League and Npower Football League, both Hurst and Scott spent their playing careers exclusively in the Football Leagues in England. Whilst early on in his career Scott moved from one club to another, most notably having a two year spell with Fulham, Hurst spent his entire career at Npower Football League Two side Rotherham United. The two became united at United when Scott eventually made the move to The Millers in the 1998 season. From that point on the two established a strong defensive-duo in the United backline forming an integral part of the team’s successes on the pitch. They achieved successive promotions in the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons and guided the club from the old Division Three all the way, and very much against the odds, to the dizzy heights of Division One. After a successful partnership lasting seven years, Scott set off for pastures new, eventually ending his career at Halifax Town, whilst Hurst, after a wonderful fifteen years spent at The Millers, was released by the club at the end of the 2007-2008 season. Nevertheless, having amassed nearly 800 appearances between them during their playing careers – a venture into management, albeit joint, provided them with the ideal opportunity to further progress their careers in the sport.

Somewhat ironically, the pair, who originated from different parts of the country to play for Rotherham United, hadn’t originally set their sights on a career in management. After all, both had jobs outside of football which they could fall back on having finished their careers. Nonetheless, being in football, albeit part-time, was no comparison. Their careers began in the glamorous surroundings of Ilkeston Town in Derbyshire. Despite the team being tipped to struggle in the Northern Premier League Division, the ambitious duo, playing an attacking 4-3-3 formation, defied the odds to get the club promoted to the Blue Square North following a historic play-off victory over Nantwitch Town. Their success was at Ilkeston was mirrored, to a certain extent, at Boston United where the pair took over for the 2009-2010 season. Like Ilkeston, Boston gained promotion to the Blue Square North via the play-offs – this time a victory over Bradford Park Avenue. They went a step further by winning the FA Trophy again by playing with an inventive 3-4-3 formation. The fact that in the space of just three years the duo had managed to drastically turn the fortunes of these two clubs from relegation battlers into promotion winners spoke volumes for their instant achievements. Therefore, the prospect of cutting their teeth in full-time management with Blue Square Bet Premier Team Grimsby Town was an opportunity they simply could not let slip through their hands.

When we talk about clubs in this country with a defined history and heritage then one can look no further than The Mariners, Grimsby Town. As Scott said at the duo’s official presentation at their press conference on Thursday, ‘It’s a proper football club; you can see that with the surroundings at Blundell Park [Stadium]…it’s a big club and has a lot of potential’. Despite recently under-achieving, it remains one of the most successful clubs in Lincolnshire being the only one to play top-flight football as well as reaching an FA Cup Semi-Final on two occasions in 1936 and three years later in 1939. Notable figures have passed through the managerial door at Grimsby Town, including the late Bill Shankly who went to guide Liverpool to, amongst other things, three League Titles and Southampton’s 1976 FA Cup winning manager Lawrie McMenemy, another one of the great post-war English managers. Whilst the club has enjoyed a successful past, the club’s demise in recent years has led to instability and, most notably, fans being driven away. Enticing disillusioned fans back to Blundell Park is just one of the many projects facing the management duo as they look to lead the club back to the glory days of the past.

Although the duo weren’t the front-runners for the Grimsby Town job, their ages (Hurst at 36 and Scott at 37) along with their ambition of enhancing their careers and their previous experience in the Blue Square Conference fitted in with the board’s criteria. Whilst this will be their first ever taste of top-tier Non-League football, their appointment has been met with enthusiasm by the fans. The club currently lie outside the play-off places – a full 10 points behind fifth placed Kidderminster Harriers, however, with two games in hand. Their recent form has stuttered. A 2-1 defeat at Batch City was followed up by a frustrating 2-2 draw against mid-table Gateshead after being two goals up. If the duo can, in the ten or so games that they have until the end of the season, replicate the successful attractive, attacking football that they managed to develop at Ilkeston Town and Boston United then the team still has an outside chance of making the play-offs this season. Whilst a return to the Football League at the first time of asking would represent an instant repayment in the faith shown to them by Chairman John Fenty, a second season in the Blue Square Bet Premier looks like being a more realistic prospect.

Whilst I earlier highlighted the disastrous joint management case at Liverpool, success stories, though far and few between, do exist. Alan Curbishley and Steve Gritt helped to lay the early foundations at Charlton Athletic in the early 1990s. Curbishley eventually went on to enjoy a highly successful sole reign at the club, which included keeping The Addicks in a very credible solid mid-table position in the Premier League for five and a half seasons. Whilst Curbishley and Gritt’s partnership is one of the more high-profile successes, successful joint management has worked in the Lower Leagues. In the case of Hurst and Scott, the statistics certainly back up their previous successes. As Fenty stated at the press conference, ‘Since going into management their successes have been remarkable, win percentages of 65%, 61% and 58% in successive seasons’. Sharing the work load has meant more time for coaching and developing skills whilst simultaneously prompting discussion as to team selection, tactics, training and so forth. Although there may be no set criteria for management, they can be assured that in their position both will come to receive equal respect on an equal level.

While both Hurst and Scott may not have been the most enthralling players to watch, up to this point they have managed to carve out a successful joint managerial career, helped out in no small part to an excellent grounding in the Football League. No, there hasn’t been a wholly-successful spell for a top-flight club under joint management for a period of time with the duo singing from the same hymn sheet in being equally as ambitious as the other, but Grimsby Town fans can come to expect an exciting future ahead of them. They may be a viewed as a one off, but Hurst and Scott are so far proving that two heads really are better than one.

Why James Blake is wrong

Remi Graves
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Why James Blake is wrong

So it’s more than two weeks into the vac, you miss your dose of Cherwell and have started to fill the gaping void in your life with all sorts of unhealthy habits. You stay in pyjamas day and night, watching iPlayer and 4oD until your eyes are red with twisted satisfaction and eating everything under the sun that requires no actual preparation. Stop, take a look at yourself and make a change! RemiX is here to put you on the straight and narrow providing you with a healthy injection of great music – new and old – from all over cyberspace, the real world and any other realm that may exist. Put down that fifth bowl of Crunchy Nut, brush your guilt-caked teeth and let the music cleanse your soul. I hear that James Blake compared remixing to prostitution, claiming that it is “cynical and vacuous”. Well brace yourselves for a whole lot of naked flesh and gratuitous vacuousness as I take you through some remixes that should be heard no matter how dirty, cheap or heroin-hinted they may be.

 

First up, the Jamie xx remix of Adele’s Rolling In The Deep. To avoid disappointment I advise you to do things the right way round and listen to the original before the remix. I suffered a slight blow when I realised how tame the original was in comparison to Jamie’s more-ish clap clapping beast of a track. If you like music at all you will love this, it’s as simple as that. I have difficulty closing my laptop when this one is playing, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjiswvTXdzA

 

This is an old one but definitely worth a re-listen: Diplo’s remix of Sunday Girl’s Four Floors is a tower of sound, buoyed up by a bubbly wobble or two but fear not as it is gentle on the ears. Sunday Girl’s smooth and smoky vocals sit wonderfully on the flitting beat that Diplo has created. Before you know it you’ll be cranking this in your parents’ car, making that Volvo look like the most pimped up ride Hampstead Heath has ever seen. Please excuse this last comment – I’m just bitter that I don’t own a car, or live in Hampstead…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aNmqk7ixx0

 

Cue Segway into some of the hippest hop, DJ Emz’s remix of Leyendecker by Battles will give you that thrill that shoplifting from Primark never could. DJ Emz, like the loveliest of mothers, has chewed up a tough track by Battles and turned it into an easily digestible purée of drums and echoing police sirens. Rapping over the top, Joell Ortiz leaves just enough space for us to hear the rippling Battles guitar below, giving us a Hovis-style Best of Both experience. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBbDfiFZFvk

 

If you’ve ever had trouble digesting Jazz (or just hated its guts) then this track is for you. 4Hero’s remix of John Coltrane’s Naima might be just the thing to spark your Jazz appetite, or it could cement your hatred for it – either way it’s worth a try. The gradual build up on this song makes it a drawn out delight as each layer of sound gently places itself on top of the previous one. These Heroes have managed to create a subtly engrossing track that provides the perfect backdrop to Coltrane’s soaring saxophone. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q02uBRLHO7w

 

Kings of Leon My Party remixed by Kenna and Chad Hugo. A blast from the past, I know, but a chance for you to listen to KOL without enduring the torture that is Come Around Sundown or compromising your integrity. This version is sped up, beefed up and just generally bigger and badder (that sounded better in my head). Kenna and Chad have stripped away the distortion and reverb leaving us with a clean track that will have you hip jerking your way to the trash can with KOL’s latest album of which – I’m sure you’ve guessed – I’m not the biggest fan. 

http://hypem.com/#!/item/bbks/Kings+Of+Leon+-+My+Party+Kenna+Chad+Hugo+Remix+

 

So there, JB. I love you but had to disagree with your comment. Remixes rule and I won’t have a bad word said about them. Enough of my chat, enjoy this week’s playlist: old school chill out meets new feel trip hop at a club – this is their illegitimate baby and its cousins.

http://open.spotify.com/user/redremi/playlist/3cSGRc0ZnmawBRmzIn7C5x

 

 

Review: You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Jacob Williamson
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Review: You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Woody Allen may be a nihilist, but it seems that he has judged himself to have at least one obligation in an otherwise meaningless universe: he must, apparently, beat us over the head annually with a new film re-emphasising his philosophy of life. Nobody would deny that he has adopted magnificent ways of doing so in the past, but anyone who sincerely judges the likes of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger to be as worthy of praise as Husbands and Wives must, in some sense, be kidding themselves. The cast may be as impressive as ever, but this London-based drama adds so little to the Allen portfolio that it\’s actually quite embarrassing. I feel sorry that, in his old age, this past genius has swapped compelling, neurotic cinema for what can only fairly be described as boring twaddle.

The problem is the pointlessness of the whole exercise. The themes Woody explores here feel decades old now, and over time they seem to have slowly had all of the life drained out of them. From failed writers to marriage breakdowns, nothing is new except the actors and locations and no aspect of the film is even remotely of interest. There\’s no humour in the unfolding of a melodramatic, personal existential crisis as was so well crafted in Hannah and Her Sisters, and there are certainly no insights into relationship trouble as was common in Allen\’s earlier work. Instead, we are just given the brute portrayal of these things transpiring all over again, without any justification for the revisiting of these themes in such a bland way.

Just consider Anthony Hopkins\’ strand of the film: he plays a man who divorces his wife in old age, experiencing a late-life crisis and remarrying a gormless young cockney hooker who\’s evidently just after his money. Seriously, Woody? This is pathetically cliché and just plain stupid. What on earth is the source of satisfaction or appreciation supposed to be here? The same goes for Josh Brolin\’s character, Roy, who falls for Dia (Freida Pinto) by observing her guitar-playing Rear Window-style across a quad and taking her out for lunch a few times, whilst his wife (Naomi Watts) is similarly flirtatious with her boss (Antonio Banderas) who takes her to the opera. The actors on board here deserve better than this. They are all worthy of playing the kind of rich characters that Woody created with ease in the 80s but seems to have no interest in working on today.

This film reminds me of what it is like to see Bob Dylan play live nowadays: the man is, and always will be, a legend, but for what he did in the past and not for what he does today. He no longer performs with passion. It\’s almost as if he sings and strums for the mere sake of having something to do. When Woody comes out with junk like this, it is, tragically, tempting to think of his modern filmmaking in a similar way.

 

Easter Vacation/Spring Break

Alyssa Grossbard
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Easter Vacation/Spring Break

For Oxford students, the period of time between the gloom of Hilary Term and the sunshine (one fervently hopes) of Trinity Term is known as the Easter Vacation. The university itself is quite strict about the stipulation that this vacation not end and 0th Week begin until Easter Sunday has come and gone.

As a national holiday in the United States too, it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that vacations at schools and universities on this side of the Atlantic follow a similar policy. But writing from home in Connecticut, I can assure you that it’s not the case. Most of my friends at university have had their ‘spring breaks’ already, during the weeks of early and mid-March. Some will get a few days off around Easter, but no more so than they would have over President’s Day Weekend in February or might at Memorial Day Weekend in May, if their classes are still in session.

But that last mention is a big ‘if’. With only a few exceptions, most American universities will have let out for the summer by mid-May. And this point is a mere blip in the disparate universe of scheduling in Britain versus in the United States. The differences begin with the pronunciation of the word itself, with a hard first syllable stateside in contrast to the softer elocution across the pond. They extend to the objects used for timetabling, commonly a calendar in America as opposed to a diary in Britain.

And they occur all year round. This is partly due to the fact that in the United States, public education is run by a patchwork of federal government oversight, state governments, and in some cases either counties or individual towns within each state. Each sets its own schedules, meaning that children in some parts of the country begin school at the grammar and secondary levels in early August and others follow suit until the last trickle in to start in mid-September. While Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring breaks of varying lengths are the norm, they can occur at varying times.

As a result, some will finish the school year in early May, and others not until late June. The only general rule is that school does not happen in July – either a finish or a start. I grew up in the northeastern part of the United States, where schools generally began at the beginning of September and let out in June. Universities in the area follow a slightly earlier pattern, from August to May. So at times, the Oxford term schedule can be disconcerting. When I return to England in late April, it will be only a week or two before many friends from home come back for their summer vacations.

In order not to make any mistakes in my own scheduling, I’m constantly aware of the vagaries of differentiation. Whether marked on my calendar or penned into my diary, it’s all part of being an Oxford student and speaker of the American tongue.

 

 

Politics, Plays and Power

May Anderson
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Politics, Plays and Power

For many decades past, the theatre has been relegated to the cultural backseat by other more ‘relevant\’ forms of cultural expression. In the Western world, cinema has long been the ascendant art form of the masses. However, in at least one respect, theatre has had a more pertinent effect on British culture. That arena is political relevancy. The noughties saw a slew of films that seemed to directly criticize the inadequacies of American and British involvement in Iraq, among them Lions for Lambs, The Hurt Locker, and In the Valley of Elah. Apart from garnering a modest number of awards from the film establishment, these films achieved little in awakening public consciousness to the injustices of Western involvement in Iraq. If they set out to provoke public outrage or consternation, they failed where journalistic endeavour had already triumphed.

Theatre is one of the spaces in which we most readily (and most effectively, some might argue) challenge the status quo. From Aristophanes\’ critique of the Peloponnesian War in Lysistra to Joseph Hare\’s 2004 play Stuff Happens, playwrights from the distant past to the present have used current affairs as building blocks for drama – and theatre has proven itself capable of changing society for the better. In 1910, the Home Secretary Winston Churchill changed the law regarding solitary confinement in prisons due to the overwhelming public discontent roused by John Galsworthy aptly-named play Justice. Galsworthy\’s play, a melodramatic tale of the effects of solitary confinement upon a lovelorn fraudster, changed the tide of public opinion against a needlessly draconian punishment. Elsewhere, theatre has changed contemporary life in a less spectacular manner. The relentless national soul-searching and taboo-busting of the past five decades of post-Look Back in Anger British theatre has seen powerful articulations of discontent and protest. British verbatim theatre particularly, among them Philip Ralph\’s Deepcut which brought a gross military injustice into the public eye, has paved the way for theatre as political space.

The stage seems uniquely placed as a forum for communities to come together and connect over issues that have affected their lives. Any healthy democracy must cultivate a space for peaceful dissent and I would argue that in modern Britain one of the spaces that this is most powerfully demonstrated is on stage. In a recent interview, the South African playwright Athol Fugard berated modern playwrights for failing to tackle contemporary injustices. Yet, British playwrights seem to be impressively tackling these injustices on the stage. State-of-the-nation drama has had a long and rich history in Britain and the British appetite for self-enquiry and mockery has not waned (as one might see from Rebecca Tatlow\’s recent article on Theatre Uncut).

Even seemingly inocuous drama such as Laura Wade\’s Posh can have political ramifications. Posh followed the antics of a group of Oxford students in the ‘Riot Club\’ – a thinly veiled allusion to the Bullingdon Club. The play caused controversy in its decision to play at the height of the recent electoral campaign (polling day fell in the middle of the play\’s Royal Court run). Wade\’s play called to attention the privilege and entitlement that the likes of David Cameron and George Osborne had been part of and in running simultaneously with an election perhaps highlighted the apparent inconsistency of electing to the most powerful office in the country men who had partaken in a society notorious for its brand of mayhem and money.

Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail called the play \’a political attack\’. Whilst this might be an overstatement on the part of Mr. Letts, it demonstrates a play\’s continuing power to unsettle the establishment. More deeply concerned with the symbiosis between spectator and spectacle than any other cultural medium, theatre has the power to move public opinion like no other art form. The visceral intimacy that can be achieved between stage and audience is unique in its potential to shift attitudes and change opinion. And therein lies the power and the relevancy of the British stage.

Back in Black?

Josephine Sarchet
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Back in Black?

Yohji Yamamoto became internationally renowned as an avant-garde fashion designer with his minimalism in the 1980s and since then has collaborated with everyone from Adidas to Hermès, from Sir Elton John to German dramatist Heiner Müller. This month, the V&A in London opens its retrospective on Yamamoto\’s work, which will be open until mid-July.

The curators of this exhibition have clearly aimed for the deceptive simplicity of Yamamoto\’s own minimalist designs: they are housed in one room only, a large area with grey walls, a bright white floor and steel fittings. The whole space can be walked through in under three minutes and there is not much to read in the way of captions and blurbs. This can, at first, make the exhibition seem rather underwhelming, but there is more to it than initially meets the eye.

You can spend a sizeable amount of time swotting up on the finer details of Yamamoto\’s career if you follow the multimedia timeline of headphones and plasma screens around the edge of the room. Watching his designs on the small screen does not, however, seem all that exciting when confronted with the real pieces themselves, scattered across the centre of the exhibition space. These are modelled by free-standing busts so you can get right up close to them and examine the fabric, the stitching and every other detail, tempting visitors to touch the pieces. The effect is that the exhibition feels more like a high fashion boutique than a museum and the designs seem all the more exciting and modern. This is an imaginative and unobtrusive way of presenting Yamamoto\’s retrospective which leaves it to the designs themselves to make an impression.

Yamamoto\’s pieces have been selected carefully to exhibit his full breadth of vision: therefore, although he is often associated with black which he is said to believe is the only genuine colour, you would not guess this from the exhibition alone. Some of the most striking pieces are a man\’s floral suit and a bright red dress with an ingeniously engineered and almost gravity-defying skirt. However, the black pieces which do make the cut are some of the most notable designs in the exhibition: a stunningly simplistic evening dress with a glittering purse built into the back, and a trouser suit featuring an enormous plait of fabric over the torso. Even with the black pieces, minimalism may not be the first word that springs to mind when you see this selection of Yamamoto\’s work. Above all else, his designs smack of imagination and innovation. Yamamoto is as important for the influence he has had upon the fashion world as he is for the actual pieces he has designed and this exhibition allows you to take a very close look at the careful engineering and the creative detail of his work which has so inspired contemporary design.

Dons defy Clegg

Stephen Dunne
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Dons defy Clegg

The University of Oxford is preparing to take a firm stand, following an interview with the BBC in which Nick Clegg stated that it is “not up to them [universities]” to decide whether they can charge the maximum tuition fees of £9,000 a year.

It was reported that a recent meeting of the Oxford Congregation, the university’s parliament, had “set a tone of defiance” after discussing of Clegg’s claims. Of particular controversy was the suggestion that universities such as Oxford should lower their entrance requirements, to increase the number of state school entrants.

Tim Gardam, the St. Anne’s College Principal, said, “Oxford should resist any idea that there should be some trade-off between the setting of an undergraduate tuition fee and our agreement to conditions aimed at socially defined outcomes that are not rooted in independent academic judgment.”

The disagreement arose after Oxford joined the growing group of universities which have decided to charge the maximum tuition fees of £9,000 under the government’s new University funding scheme. Clegg claimed in December that it would be “an exception for universities to charge the maximum amount”.

During the recent BBC interview, Clegg appeared defensive, stating, “they can say what they like….they’re only going to be given permission to [charge £9,000] if they can prove that they can dramatically increase the number of people from poorer and disadvantaged backgrounds”.

These remarks were described by one Oxford academic as “bollocks”.

Many Oxford students were also “furious” at Clegg’s proposals. Stephen Bush, a former Chair of Oxford University Labour Club, commented, “If Nick Clegg was really serious about increasing the number of state school pupils at Oxford, then he wouldn’t be supporting a government that is abolishing schools building, reducing spending to the most deprived schools, and abolishing EMA.”

Ed Knight, a student at Keble, agreed with many of the academics that “Oxford must not lower its academic standards due to the inequities of the English education system, but must nonetheless take into account the serious advantage which most privately educated students have.”

On revealing that it would be charging £9,000 tuition fees to most students, Oxford also announced a package of bursaries and fee waivers targeted at students from lower income backgrounds. The Vice-Chancellor stated in his termly message that the government “expects us to devote around 35 percent of additional income above £6,000 to student support and outreach, a figure that Oxford will exceed by a very wide margin.”

OUSU president David Barclay supported the university’s proposals, commenting, “Oxford will be the most generous University in the country in its offer to the poorest and most under-represented students”.

Over the past 10 years applications from state school students have risen by 73%, whilst there has only been a 31% rise in applications from privately educated students. In addition, Oxford is on course to admit its highest ever proportion of state school pupils this October, with just 41.5% of offers made to private school pupils. However, it remains the case that only 7% of students attend private schools.

The view that there is still a lot to be done to widen access at Oxford, and even to acquiesce to Clegg’s demands, was echoed by some academics. Dr Rowan Tomlinson, of New College, said, “The state school percentage, of which some of us seem bafflingly proud, is deceptive.

“We need to stop hoodwinking ourselves and others, and admit that many of those who make up the intake from state schools are actually from selective schools, which operate not through some kind of pure academic meritocracy but through social and cultural exclusion and elitism.”

A St. Peter’s student agreed, “Oxford loves to claim that they base everything purely on meritocracy and simply take the best applicants, regardless of social upbringing.”

He added, “We need to institute mechanisms, such as the affirmative action program suggested by Clegg, in order to re-balance society in light of the social barriers experienced by thousands of those who are less lucky by virtue of their social circumstances.”

However, a spokeswoman for Oxford University said that downgrading entrance requirements for disadvantaged students was unrealistic. She stated, “We are already turning down thousands of high-achieving students every year – 33,000 people a year get AAA at A-level and we only have 3,200 places.

“The priority has to be, therefore, to attract students from diverse backgrounds who are already getting top grades and give them good information about the selection process so they can show their full potential.”

 

 

Video Milled the radio star

Helen Pye
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Video Milled the radio star

Scott Mills sounds surprising perky for a man who returned two days before from a gruelling 5-day, 100km trek in temperatures reaching 48 degrees Celsius across the Kaisut Desert, all to raise money for Red Nose Day. ‘Well, I’ve got a bit of a bleurgh stomach, but it was an amazing experience. There were moments of ‘this is so brilliant,’ and ‘this is so awful,’ but it was incredible.’

Mills was joined by eight other celebrities on his challenge, including Lorraine Kelly, Craig David (where has he been since 7 days?!) and the perpetually chirpy Ollie Murs – a trio with a combined irritation factor that would push a Buddhist monk over the edge. Scott laughs, ‘At the beginning everyone was like, ‘Oh, we’re getting on so well!’, and I was like, ‘Hmm, well, let’s wait ‘til the end of the trip’. But actually it was exactly the same all the way through. It wasn’t like a reality show or one of those ‘I’m a Celebrity’ things where they choose really clashing characters. We were there to raise as much money as possible and it was hard enough as it was without any bickering.’

Mills has spent a lot of time in Africa recently, having filmed a documentary in November about gay rights and the treatment of gay people in Uganda, which was recently shown on BBC3. Despite hiding a little behind comedy, it became clear that Mills’ experience out in Uganda, where fervent homophobia grips the country, had truly shaken him. While interviewing the prominent Ugandan MP David Bahati, who has called for a bill to be implemented which would place couples enjoying consensual gay sex in prison for up to 14 years and demands the death penalty for ‘repeat offenders’, Mills revealed his sexual orientation. Mills and his crew were forced to flee from the interview and Bahati sent armed police to their hotel to arrest them, but thankfully went to the wrong hotel. ‘It was scary. I didn’t know before I started researching that any of this went on, and to such an extreme. It’s a lovely place – people are generally very friendly – that is, until you start discussing homosexuality. It’s an old-fashioned, very scary attitude they have, and as you can see in the documentary there’s a widespread rippling effect of that. When we went out, our brief was to provide a balanced view of what was happening, and of course I knew there were people trying to implement these horrendous anti-gay bills, but the reality soon sunk in that everyone, everyone, thinks this. That was what I was most surprised by. I expected it to be the prominent, vocal people, but I thought the average Ugandan person wouldn’t think that, and they really do. It’s what they get taught. It was a real eye-opening show to do, but there were times when I thought, I am actually in quite a lot of danger here’.

Mills’ television career hasn’t always been quite so life-threatening. Outside of the studio, Mills has made some memorable bit part appearances, including in the aspiring actor’s holy-trinity-training-ground of Casualty, The Bill and Hollyoaks. Stepping out of the studio must be a welcome relief for Mills, who started his radio career at the tender age of 12 on hospital radio. Since becoming the youngest ever radio presenter at 16 on Power FM, Mills has constantly been on air and now stands as one of the most popular radio DJ’s in the country.

And with 3 hours a day to fill, Mills accepts that a lot of his life will inevitably be laid bare for his audience. ‘When you have a personality radio show, you kind of have to accept that a lot of your life is going to be on the air. That’s why people, when they come up to you in the park or the street or anywhere, do feel they know you but that’s why I like radio, because it is so personal. Obviously not all of my life goes on the air but it’s just something you get used to. People will pick up on things you’ve forgotten you’ve said, like if you had a conversation yesterday, you probably can’t remember what was said, but someone will come up to you in the street and say, ‘Oh, you remember that conversation about blah blah’, and I’m like, ‘of course not, it was 6 months ago!’ That happens a lot but you just have to be prepared to give a little bit of your life over because otherwise there’s no connection with the audience. I know some people who’ve been properly stalked, and as soon as you start appearing more on TV, it begins to happen. I haven’t really had a stalker, just a few people who perhaps email a little too much, but generally they get bored with me and want someone else. I can’t imagine what it’s like to get photographed by the Paparazzi all the time either. Fearne, for instance, cannot walk in or out of Radio1 without being photographed, and I mean every day. I’d quite like to turn up in my pyjamas because no one can see me, but you just can’t do that with photographers!’

Mills’ popularity and success has come at a cost, however, and he freely admits that his determination to succeed left him missing out on some of the most important years- his student ones. ‘It didn’t occur to me at the time because I was so focused on getting onto the radio, and as I got my first radio show at 16, I missed out on not just student life, but life life – all life that you do at that age. I was in radio studios at stupid o’clock in the morning when I should have been getting drunk. But I don’t regret it because if I had done that then I wouldn’t be where I am now. I play a lot of student gigs and I like doing that because I feel like I’m living my student years now, really late, and I’m getting an idea of what it’s like, a little snapshot. It’s quite cool. Playing student gigs is as close as I can get, but they can be a bit weird. I sometimes get underwear thrown at me though, that’s a bit odd. Someone threw a firework once and then got arrested. You’re always going to get some drunk lad who’s like, ‘Waheyyy, let’s throw something at Scott Mills,’ but don’t, literally, because that’s why they have security. You see it happening in a flash; they’ll throw something at me (which doesn’t happen often by the way, just the occasional gig), and then they’ll look really surprised when they get removed from the venue.’

Despite Mills’ reassurances to me that he won’t be giving up his radio show anytime soon in search of the shining lights of, well, TV (‘I love doing my radio show and that will take precedence over any TV show that could come along’), he seems a little jaded about the whole process. ‘At the moment, and it may change, it’s hard to get on the radio right because a lot of networks are coming from a centralised place, there’s not so much local radio, and it’s harder to get in. It’s not just something you can say, ‘I’ll get into radio’, because you’ll get a reply, and sometimes quite a nasty reply, saying ‘No, you’re not any good’. I think a lot of people, not everyone, want to get into it because they think it’s a doss, when it’s hard work. If you’re on student radio, either commit to it and do it, or don’t; I’ve seen so many student DJs not turning for their shows, and it’s like, in the real world, you’ll be fired. You need to be committed and prepared to work hard. And if you get rejected, don’t it personally.’ I remind Mills that there have been a few times when he hasn’t exactly followed his own advice. ‘Yeah,’ Scott laughs, ‘there have been times I haven’t turned up for my show, back in the bad days, in my Charlie Sheen days. I mostly always turn up; it was just when I was doing early breakfast for a number of years that I missed a couple of alarm clocks. But I think that’s fair enough.’

Bollywood and the Bodleian

Alice Kinder
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0
Bollywood and the Bodleian

Bollywood has come to Oxford this week, as the university is to feature in the set of an upcoming movie.

The film, entitled \’Desi Boyz\’, is a Bollywood action comedy directed by Rohit Dhawan.

It stars Akshay Kumar as a new student at Trinity College, with John Abraham, Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Chitrangada Singh all having leading roles.

The Physics lecture theatres, Sciama and Lindemann, alongside other areas in the university, are being used in the production.

Many details of the film are being kept secret. However, one scene features Kumar arriving at the doors of Balliol College with a backpack and suitcase.

The filming, which begun in Oxford on 14th March, is to continue until next Saturday, when the set will move to London. Shooting will also take place in Mumbai.

Andrew Steele, a physicist at Christ Church, said in his online blog, \”it was only when I approached the Clarendon Lab, my place of work, that I realised quite how serious this was.\”

He wrote of \”triple-parked vans chock-full of scaffolding tubes and cable were blocked in by posh rides with besuited execs leaning on them, nattering in Hindi and smoking cigars.\”

Emails were sent to Oxford students last week giving them the opportunity to star as one of the hundreds of extras in the film. One sent to students at Lincoln College said that it was \”urgently in need of white extras\”.

\’Desi Boyz\’, Rohit Dhawan\’s directorial debut, is expected to be released in late November 2011.

Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Harry Tuffs
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Review: The Adjustment Bureau

 

It was perhaps inevitable that The Adjustment Bureau would end up being compared, by some reviewers, to last year’s Inception. Both films are big-budget thrillers with elements of the supernatural, starring rugged men with tragic pasts who willingly struggle against impossible odds for the sake of their children/the woman they met in the public loo (delete where appropriate). It doesn’t help that The Adjustment Bureau is also based on a short story by sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick whose work inspired the peerless Blade Runner among others. All told, then, The Adjustment Bureau has a hard task ahead of it in living up to such expectations. Perhaps wisely, it doesn’t even try.
The film follows an oxymoronically honest politician, David Norris (Matt Damon), who is well on his way to becoming the youngest senator in history. After losing his early lead in the polls, he retreats to the men’s toilet, where he meets the enigmatic Elise (Emily Blunt) and promptly falls in love. However, the mysterious forces of fate, personified by a group of men in shady suits and hats, are out to stop him from ever seeing her again. What ensues is the action-packed, Bourne-esque struggle of one man against a vast conspiracy, interwoven with a burgeoning romance.
It’s not a film with any of the intellectual rigour and cinematic bravery of Inception, and it doesn’t raise the complex questions which Blade Runner does. Nevertheless, it works for two reasons. Firstly, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. This isn’t to say it’s a barrel of laughs, but it’s brash, colourful and clearly aware, though unashamed, of the fact that it’s telling a somewhat hokey story. From the pleasingly satiric take on bureaucracy to the stricken cries of ‘Hat! Hat!’ as one of David Norris’s supernatural pursuers drops his headwear and panics, the tongue-in-cheek element saves a film which could have been insufferable if it had pretended to be deep and thought-provoking. Secondly, the main characters’ developing relationship is actually handled very well indeed, with enough on-screen chemistry to overcome the slight whiff of cheese around the ‘love at first sight’ cliché.
Damon and Blunt are more than capable of injecting an ever-so-slightly suspect script with enough genuine warmth and charm to support the film’s premise – you can really believe that Damon would be willing to fight for this woman who he’s only just met. Not only that, but the most interesting questions raised by the film come from this relationship, not from the over-emphasised ‘fate vs. free will’ theme. Is David Norris willing to sacrifice his potential love’s career for the sake of her being with him? Is he really that egotistical? It’s a question which can easily be seen applying to real-world situations, but here is given an interestingly fateful edge. Ultimately, then, it is this love affair which is the fundamental core of the film – not the supernatural men in hats – and it works very well.
Don’t rush out to see The Adjustment Bureau if you want to see a film as complex and daring as Inception. Inception may have proven certain Hollywood executives wrong and shown that mainstream films can pander to an intelligent audience and still be successful – The Adjustment Bureau, by contrast, has a vaguely original premise, but still feels like something we’ve seen before. However, The Adjustment Bureau is certainly worth a watch if you want something light and entertaining which nevertheless doesn’t assume that its audience is stupid.

It was perhaps inevitable that The Adjustment Bureau would end up being compared, by some reviewers, to last year’s Inception. Both films are big-budget thrillers with elements of the supernatural, starring rugged men with tragic pasts who willingly struggle against impossible odds for the sake of their children/the woman they met in the public loo (delete where appropriate). It doesn’t help that The Adjustment Bureau is also based on a short story by sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick whose work inspired the peerless Blade Runner among others. All told, then, The Adjustment Bureau has a hard task ahead of it in living up to such expectations. Perhaps wisely, it doesn’t even try.

The film follows an oxymoronically honest politician, David Norris (Matt Damon), who is well on his way to becoming the youngest senator in history. After losing his early lead in the polls, he retreats to the men’s toilet, where he meets the enigmatic Elise (Emily Blunt) and promptly falls in love. However, the mysterious forces of fate, personified by a group of men in shady suits and hats, are out to stop him from ever seeing her again. What ensues is the action-packed, Bourne-esque struggle of one man against a vast conspiracy, interwoven with a burgeoning romance.

It’s not a film with any of the intellectual rigour and cinematic bravery of Inception, and it doesn’t raise the complex questions which Blade Runner does. Nevertheless, it works for two reasons. Firstly, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. This isn’t to say it’s a barrel of laughs, but it’s brash, colourful and clearly aware, though unashamed, of the fact that it’s telling a somewhat hokey story. From the pleasingly satiric take on bureaucracy to the stricken cries of ‘Hat! Hat!’ as one of David Norris’s supernatural pursuers drops his headwear and panics, the tongue-in-cheek element saves a film which could have been insufferable if it had pretended to be deep and thought-provoking. Secondly, the main characters’ developing relationship is actually handled very well indeed, with enough on-screen chemistry to overcome the slight whiff of cheese around the ‘love at first sight’ cliché.

Damon and Blunt are more than capable of injecting an ever-so-slightly suspect script with enough genuine warmth and charm to support the film’s premise – you can really believe that Damon would be willing to fight for this woman who he’s only just met. Not only that, but the most interesting questions raised by the film come from this relationship, not from the over-emphasised ‘fate vs. free will’ theme. Is David Norris willing to sacrifice his potential love’s career for the sake of her being with him? Is he really that egotistical? It’s a question which can easily be seen applying to real-world situations, but here is given an interestingly fateful edge. Ultimately, then, it is this love affair which is the fundamental core of the film – not the supernatural men in hats – and it works very well.

Don’t rush out to see The Adjustment Bureau if you want to see a film as complex and daring as Inception. Inception may have proven certain Hollywood executives wrong and shown that mainstream films can pander to an intelligent audience and still be successful – The Adjustment Bureau, by contrast, has a vaguely original premise, but still feels like something we’ve seen before. However, The Adjustment Bureau is certainly worth a watch if you want something light and entertaining which nevertheless doesn’t assume that its audience is stupid.

 

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