Protesters have forced a delayed start for the controversial Free Speech Forum, due to be held this evening at the Oxford Union. The event, scheduled to begin at 8:30 pm, was delayed by nearly two hours.  Five hundred protesters gathered outside the gates of the society, blocking members from entering the grounds for the event. Approximately thirty protesters then climbed over walls and pushed through barriers to enter the chamber, staging a sit-down protest. Irving and Griffin had already arrived at the building several hours prior to the scheduled time of the event. The Union has been under fire from anti-fascist groups for the invitation of Griffin, the leader of the BNP, and Irving, previously imprisoned for holocaust denial in Austria.
 

An Oxford MP has spoken up in defence of the Union's decision to keep open its invitation to Nick Griffin and David Irving at the controversial Free Speech debate which takes place later this evening. Dr Evan Harris, who has agreed to take part in the debate tonight, rejected the claims made by Dr Julian Lewis that the debate would give the speakers "an aura of respectability". Speaking earlier on Radio 4's Today Show, Harris claimed that he was making a stand against the "pick and choose mentality" used to support no platform policies, saying that it was reasonable within a university setting to give the speakers an opportunity to speak.Harris described Irving as a "horrible, discredited historian" and both of tonight's controversial speakers as "deeply unpleasant" but raised concerns over where the line would be drawn once platforms start to be denied. He told Radio 4: "I wouldn't be attending tonight if there wasn't this huge campaign for no platform […]"I'm making a stand to say that no platform policies are wrong."

Did you hear the one about the hacks, the socialists and the huge tombola prize? Well here you go.

Friday night saw the Bundespresseball, Germany's annual media ball, which took place at the InterContinental in Berlin. It’s been a regular event since 1951, and the centrepiece is a tombola intended to help fund cash-strapped journalists. All a very benevolent undertaking, you’d think.

Well, that is other than the top prize — a seven-day trip to New Orleans, including tickets to the NBA All-Star Game, plus an Apple iPhone with a two-year T-Mobile contract. The winner? None other than Dietmar Bartsch, the top man running the financial workings of Die Linke, Germany’s left-wing party.

Observers were quick to point out that Bartsch, as a socialist, was (just slightly) contradicting his own principles by taking advantage of three capitalist-driven prizes. As the blog of Germany’s leading evening news programme, Tagesschau, reports, Bartsch had a snappy retort: “It’s the just distribution of wealth from the top to the bottom.” Apparently he whizzed off to the hotel bar to have a cigar as soon he’d said this, presumably to avoid further probing. I don’t blame him; his party has this to say about America:

The aims of imperial policy under the leadership of the United States of America are a world totally subordinated to capital exploitation, unhindered access to raw materials and sources of energy, and the expansion of domination and spheres of influence

and holds this stance on the aftermath of the Cold War:

When the greatest counterweight ceased to exist with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the destructive tendencies of the unbridled capitalist market were able to develop more and more.

Hold off with the wealth distribution for the moment — will a man with these political affiliations even be let into the USA?

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Protesters are expected to swamp the streets of Oxford tomorrow as the controversial Free Speech debate takes place at the Oxford Union.More than 1000 people are predicted to arrive in protest which will take place tomorrow at 8:30pm. The decision to go ahead with the debate was finalised last night after Union members voted 1062 to 640 in support of the invitations. Anti-fascist groups have condemned the decision to invite BNP leader Nick Griffin and David Irving -convicted of holocaust denial by an Austrian court – as irresponsible and dangerous, while OUSU President Martin McCluskey has expressed concern over the platform it will give to BNP views. Irving has been invited to speak at the Union before. In 2001, he was to take part in another free speech debate, but this event was cancelled. At the time, Thames Valley Police raised public order concerns surrounding the event. In a statement made earlier, they said that they were aware of the issues surrounding the event and reassured students and the public that they will be closely monitoring the event.
Chief Inspector Dennis Evernden said: “Our role in this event is to prevent any breech of the peace, facilitate any lawful protest and reassure the general public.

“We are very used to dealing with protest in Oxford and will deal with this event in a sensitive and professional manner.”

Dr Julian Lewis, MP for New Forest East and shadow defence minister, has resigned his life membership to the Oxford Union in protest at the invitation of David Irving and Nick Griffin to the society. Dr Lewis wrote in a letter to the Union's officers and standing committee that "Nothing which happens in Monday's debate can possibly offset the boost you are giving to a couple of scoundrels who can put up with anything except being ignored."In an open letter to Union members on 15 October 2007, Union President Luke Tryl maintained that "Stopping them from speaking only allows them to become free speech martyrs."
The extension of invitations to Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, and David Irving, a historian jailed for three years in Austria for holocaust denial, has drawn widespread criticism. A poll was added to the ballot at Union elections on Friday, in which members supported the invitation of the speakers by a margin of 1000 to 600.
The sold-out event is scheduled to take place at the Union Monday, November 26th at 8:30pm.

A new student media phenomenon, a satirical paper called The Tart, has hit universities across the country. It is the first free student newspaper of its kind that is available nationally.

The project, masterminded by Tobes Kelly (22) an ambitious recent graduate from Bristol University, has a print run of 60,000 and is distributed to Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Bristol, Warwick, Bath, Sheffield, Reading, Cardiff and several London law colleges.

Kelly describes the paper as “a blend with wit and observation, put in a tabloid format” aiming to give student writers a national audience where they can share their satirical work and was keen to emphasise that satire “should never be destructive; paradoxically, I think it should be constructive”.

The Tart has already sparked controversy and disapproval among other student publications. A spokesperson for Epigram, Bristol’s student newspaper, dismissed Kelly and his work, saying: “before too long, most readers will have grown bored of student attempts at satire and wit.” However, Kelly does not appear to be hindered by this.

The project is funded by a private benefactor who Kelly is keeping quiet about: “he believes in me, to be frank. He believes in the product”.

The Tart’s website details plans for expansion into radio and TV, and perhaps even a global distribution. Kelly admits that he is “tempted to send the paper out of the UK”. Given his own media background, coupled with his ambition and apparent enjoyment of controversy (he delighted in installing a page three in Bristol’s student paper Sanctuary), global domination is perhaps on Kelly’s agenda.

The results of the MT2007 Union elections for officerships are as follows:
 
President:
Krishna Omkar, Merton

Librarian:
Edward Waldegrave, Christ Church

Treasurer:
Corey Dixon, Oriel

Secretary:
Charlie Holt, LMH

by Fraser RaleighCries of ‘shame!’ rang through the chamber as it half emptied before the debate itself had even commenced, after yet another Free Speech diversion; heaven forbid the issues at hand are the main attraction any more.

Ed Waldegrave, by his own admission, bumbled through his first paper speech with an acceptable overview of the issues delivered with a likeable style. Austin ‘Haddock’ Mitchell, however, served as an example of what happens when you throw an eccentric speaker into a potentially boring debate. Charismatic and over the top, he bought up questions central to European integration such as: ‘Do British fish carry passports?’ and ‘Do they go on holiday to Spanish waters?’

As entertaining as he was dogmatically simple, he was one of the few speakers who managed to bring a smile to the face. Corey Dixon made some good points, speaking of how the advantages of the EU serve as a carrot for development and improvement with a slightly irritating, though earnest style. In a well argued riposte, Alex Betts spoke logically and in great detail but was far too long and somewhat grating.

Sometimes, it seems like Union debates are two speakers away from perfection and this was one such occasion. Eight speakers can often yield the appropriate variety of style, content and depth but when two of them are uninspiring and repeat arguments already made the debate feels disjointed and overly long. Lord Pearson, UKIP peer, delivered an interminably boring summary of previous points while David Curry was similarly forgettable. The surprise of the night, however, was Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP. While many didn’t subscribe to his politics, few could refute his stylistic competence. Bestriding the chamber like a cross between Hugh Laurie and Jeremy Clarkson, his voice carried through the chamber, his rhetoric was persuasive and his delivery smooth, articulate and off the cuff.

Despite these criticisms, however, the debate was a well balanced approach to a complex and divisive issue; it’s just a shame that so many felt the need to walk away from such discussion and debate. We have our politicized Union back, but at what cost to its fundamental purpose?

by Josh GlancyThere comes a point during every term at Oxford when most students simply don’t want to be here anymore. Whether it is ‘fifth week blues’ or seventh week ‘please let me go home now’ syndrome, it is the reward of a long holiday that motivates many to the finish line. A month with nothing to think about but Christmas presents, New Year parties and what to watch on television. Of course all too soon collections loom large and it begins again, but ignoring that harsh reality for at least a month is the best part of the Christmas holidays. There is barely a student in Oxford who doesn’t set themselves the same deadline, ‘I will start work in January’. So in the meantime, after a long, cold and fairly high-pressured Michaelmas term, some form of holiday is in order, in-fact it is richly deserved. Many go on the Varsity Ski Trip, an opportunity for very cheap skiing, very heavy drinking and an introduction as to why we all ‘hate’ Tabs. This year’s “fastest ever selling trip” will take over 1500 students from Oxbridge for a week of snow-based revelry. But if you missed the deadline, didn’t have the cash or would rather spend another week in the Rad Cam than careering down slopes of ice on planks of titanium and being dragged up button lifts nursing a hangover then there are plenty of alternative ways to enjoy the new-found freedom of early December.

One option is simply to stay at home. Aside from the obvious catching up with old friends and seeing family, across the country there is plenty to do in December. If you are in London then I certainly wouldn’t dream of missing Mika at the Brixton Academy, although I might not wear my official Mika T-shirt and hair band on the tube home. Other options include Marilyn Manson, UB40 and Rihanna all playing at Wembley arena. Tempting as these may be (rumours continue to abound that Marilyn Manson can perform oral sex on himself), the dominant performance in London over the holidays will undoubtedly be The Spice Girls at the O2 Arena on the 15th December. An unmissable opportunity for an outpouring of early 90’s nostalgia and the stark realisation that you still know all the words to ‘2 Become 1’.

Away from music everyone loves a Christmas Blockbuster. It’s like going to the cinema normally except its more crowded and they have tinsel in the foyer, possibly even a tree if your nearest cinema is a super duper megaplex. Beowulf has been praised for its ‘subtle choreography’ and ‘power and depth’. The opportunity to see Ray Winstone fighting a Dragon certainly appeals. A slightly more cultural option would be the screen adaptation of Brick Lane. At a time when many in the media and around us are so quick to judge immigrants it is useful to understand that for many England is not the land of milk and honey the Daily Mail would have us think.

Of course there is a simple enough reason why there is a lot to do in England in December. It gets dark at four o’ clock, it rains a lot and it’s piss cold, if there was nothing to do it would be like…well, Scotland. If you do feel yourself suffering from SAD, there are places to go for sunshine and joy, but they aren’t very near or very cheap. The Sunday Times is offering a chance to win a holiday for 2 to the Red Sea worth £7,000. My recommendation would be to win the competition but if you don’t then Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab, and Eilat offer some of the best diving weather to be found in the Northern Hemisphere. Other places that are a lot sunnier than Oxford and popular over the holidays are Barbados, Cuba and South Africa. Needless to say these aren’t necessarily compatible with student loans and battels payments, but if you think about the fortunes that might lie ahead as an Oxford graduate it could be worth extending the overdraft, just a little bit. So not going on the Varsity trip isn’t the end of your December. There is still a plethora of opportunities to fill the weeks before Christmas, wherever you live and on any budget. At the very least there is no excuse to complain about missing fun times in Oxford (it always feels better when you aren’t here). And if this article feels like it came out of TimeOut magazine then go and sit in the pub and enjoy the fact you don’t have an essay to do.

by James LoweCaravaggio was one of the first artists to appreciate the power of the guitar. Not surprising really, considering he could brawl with the best of ‘em, prefiguring seventies rock excess by 350 years. He was arrested and fled Rome in 1606 for killing a young man. But his art was something else. There’s one of his paintings, ‘The Lute Player’ (c.1596), where a typical Caravaggian boy is sitting at a desk, concentrating hard. He’s looking outside the picture, as if waiting for someone to surprise him doing something slightly illicit. His hairstyle and his expansive white, blouse-like dress are not that far off seventies rock chic. What make this painting important in terms of its relationship between youth and the guitar are the other musical instruments that litter the desk. There’s a violin, a wooden recorder and what looks bizarrely like a mini-piano. The Caravaggian tenebrism is at full whack in the background, so that the boy and the exquisite detail of the lute leap out from the darkness, making a bold statement. This is a boy. He’s in love. He’s not chosen the old-fashioned, boring, fuddy-duddy, granddad, traditional methods of complaining about it. He’s strapped on his lute and he’s going to write a song. The youth-guitar concept, so important in twentieth century culture, starts here. The physicality of the lute, with its comfortable size that sits just above the waist, is a precursor to the solidity of the guitar. The lute shows us that the boy in the painting is equipping himself with protection against love and life. He’s a rebel without a clue, but with a lute. The size of the other instruments is not sufficient. The boy needs security against life and love. He’s clutching the only instrument that can do that, like Springsteen on the cover of ‘Born to Run’.

The guitar, developed from the lute, was traditionally used, acoustically and pretty insignificantly, in jazz and solo classical pieces. Not loud enough to make its mark as a virtuosic or particularly powerful instrument, it was relegated to rhythm in jazz groups or the refinement of a little room for the entertainment of small numbers of politely clapping people. Before amplification, the guitar was just a bit boring. That’s not to say it wasn’t an expressive instrument, merely the constant, reliable backup tool, not exotic on its own, a mere functional spade in the hierarchy of music.

Of course, what the guitar needed was some kind of revolutionary context. Always looking for definition against something else, the guitar had to find a volume of its own. To shuffle off the symbolic protection of the instrument, it needed power. And amplification provided this impetus to move the guitar onto such a level of culture-defining importance.

But amplification wasn’t the only key to its success. The guitar itself is a very responsive instrument. Even the pain of the fingers cutting into the strings connects the hands of the player to the vibrations of the guitar in a primal link that creates and sustains empathy between player and instrument which, once felt, makes other instruments feel like Vauxhalls beside Porsches. There are no holes to simply press down and toot through like an idiot child with a recorder: the player’s gradations of pressure and the range of skills from hammer-ons to pull-offs, to the process of string-bending, have a potentially catastrophically brilliant effect on the sound. And the fact that it is two hands that together make the noise, not the combination of breath and fingers, mean that playing the guitar is very much a psychologically satisfying physical experience. The hands are such an integral part of human interaction with the world, and are linked to all sorts of creation, all sorts of jobs, from hunting to carving to caressing, that the employment of them in making music, when the strings themselves cut into the skin, holds a direct and primal appeal. This ties in with the use of the hands, since music on the guitar fulfils both the traditional experience of making and shaping with them, from cooking food to simply picking objects up, and the mental impulse of creation. It is this key link that makes the guitar an unparalleled extension of the creative spark, due to the physicality of the object and the control of the sound the player has. The piano operates on similar lines, but there the hands are at a remove from the strings, and the vibrations are at a slight, but significant, remove from the artist. With a guitar the fingers suffer for being so close to the pain of incision, but wire the vibrations to the heart in a way that links the physical experience of playing the instrument to the thought process that goes into deciding what to play in a visceral way.

The guitar, like television and latterly the Internet, is effectively behind the most exciting cultural movements of the second half of the 20th Century. If Caravaggio saw the guitar as protection, the 20th Century saw it as power and liberation. If a black musician from the south could play the blues with an instrument that he could carry around with him and call his own, like B.B. King with his ‘Lucille’, he could make the guitar an identifying tool that was a branding symbol. Blues was based around out of tune pianos and the expressiveness of the guitar. Cheaper than a piano, and portable, the guitar became the symbol of blues music. All in one, the guitar represents liberation, protection and power.

Liberation was what black musicians were seeking. Liberation from classical standards, and an object that could define them as musicians solus. Brass instruments were, of course, the absolute foundation of black music, being key in jazz, but the guitar can be played effectively and enjoyably on its own, with singing. This is a crucial aspect, and a key factor in its importance and development; the fact that you can sing at the same time as playing. An instrument that requires nothing else. This characteristic takes us back to the liberation/protection/power trope that the guitar represents. It liberates the player from the constraints of playing within a group; it protects the player both by covering his torso (surely a factor that gives the guitar a satisfying nestle in the human body, where vital organs are almost covered by the guitar); and by allowing the player to express himself through music and not his own speech, it gives the literal power to sing and play at the same time.

This was a power of expression but also of emancipation. The guitar was claimed by black musicians such as Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson as the symbol of their talent, and without it, they were simply conventional. The ability to sing while playing also makes the lyrics more important, along with the generally low volume at which early blues music would be played, compared to jazz or classical. The guitar thereby allowed musicians to write social commentary to be sung, in itself a powerful skill and method of disseminating knowledge or reinterpretation of cultural standards.

Of course, the advent of amplification raised the profile of the object itself to new heights. The merits of the shape of the instrument are key to its success as an object of desire, and it is remarkable that such a geometrical construction could have such a large impact on culture in general.

The body of the guitar is a comfortable size for an adult to fit their arms around, and its nestling in front of the torso enables the guitarist to hold and surround it. This protection concept links to psychological dimensions of control, and empowers the player because he or she feels that they have complete mastery not simply of the sound it makes, but also of the unit itself. The neck stretching off towards the sky suggests a thrusting power in itself, and the balance of a well-made guitar forces the body to settle in the lap, with the headstock on the end of the neck pointing upwards. An exception to this is Gibson’s SG, which is weighted at the headstock end, which gives the body an unsatisfactorily light feel, although still giving a full sound.

The holding of the instrument in such a position empowers the player, but the crucial point about the aesthetic of the guitar is that the shape itself is satisfying. The design of the guitar has not changed much over the years, apart from Ibanez and other such manufacturers wresting the body into ever more exotic shapes. The most popular guitars with the consumer are instruments that employ either the shape of the Fender Stratocaster or the Gibson Les Paul. These designs were first made by Leo Fender and Les Paul in 1954 and ‘51 respectively, and considering the changes to electronics, amplification and general cultural aesthetical appreciation that has taken place in the last fifty years, to have hit upon a design that fit the bill instantly was quite a feat.

The iconography of the guitar links back to the lute of Caravaggio and Vermeer, and got a shot in the arm from the blues musicians, before finding its most powerful expression in the ‘60s with the advent of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The explosion of rock music into more than simply a musical, but also a cultural force, shown at Woodstock and the hippy communes of the late ‘60s, meant that the guitar, for many people, was in itself an icon of cultural revitalisation, not simply an instrument that sounded good. It was perhaps inevitable that the guitar itself would be cheapened by advertising, and placed on children’s clothing and on billboards. Using rock and roll to sell stuff was unavoidable once it made money. But in a way that’s a salute to the kids that made it good, that made it big. There’s no greater honour than when the man who’s been telling you you’re no good for years suddenly joins in with what you’ve been doing. And that’s what happened to the guitar. Putting it on baby’s socks, on cereal packets, on children’s drinks, turning it into an object divorced from its musical context, made the guitar one of the most recognised shapes in modern culture.

There’s a new film out called Air Guitar Nation. It looks awfully unfunny. But the title hits on something. If a film is being made, not actually about the object, but about people imitating the object, we’re looking at something that’s rarely happened before in culture: where the object itself is so recognisable that it no longer needs to be shown in order for it to be understood, imagined and accorded worth. The idiots playing along in the air to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, not even guitar players themselves, know how to hold the thing. Such cultural iconography is a bit odd. If the guitar does not need to be represented, only hinted at, in order to have an effect, where can its status as a real product go?

The guitar is the great aesthetic object of our age. Stupid, sure, to say, but if we take its influence on popular music, its liberating force, we can track it right up to the present. When Britney Spears and Madonna have guitars on their T-shirts, and the latter even resorts to playing one on stage, we know that the object itself is at saturation point in our culture. The fact that it has been claimed by ‘uncool’ people has had no effect on its sales. The guitar is still the most-purchased instrument per year, topping £100m worth in the UK in 2006, and this suggests that the instrument is so powerful that it can be remoulded and re-imagined by each new player within his or her generation, not simply as a musical instrument but as a symbol of the individual versus the world. Sure it’s clichéd, but then in an age where every new, initially cool thing (think iPods) is so quickly saturated within the media, it’s inevitable. The guitar is ageless: each generation reclaims it, to the point where it doesn’t even need to exist in order to have an effect, and surely that’s the most liberating, protective and powerful ability any object can have.