OXFORD has hit back at comments made by a leading think tank criticising the University for falling behind on admissions targets.
Findings by the Institute for Public Policy and Research, which have been released ahead of a full report due out next year, show that Oxford is far short of hitting its target of admitting 62% of its students from the state sector by 2011. Present admissions figures for state school pupils stand at 54%.
IPPR Co-Director Lisa Harker condemned the figures and said that Oxford “must stop blaming a lack of applications for their failure to make progress”.
A spokesman for IPPR said, “On current progress, Oxford is going to take ten years to meet the access benchmarks that the University agreed with the Office for Fair Access. That is twice as long as the five years they pledged it would take.”
He added, “Oxford will need to radically rethink their approach to attracting students from state schools…and stop waiting for talented state school students to apply but seeking them out and making them offers.”
Oxford University attacked the allegations and criticised the analysis behind IPPR’s investigations, which it claimed was misleading.
A spokesperson for the University Press Office said, “Not all students gaining 3 As want to do a subject offered by the University of Oxford. Nor do they all have the right combination of A-level subjects to gain entry even if they are interested in one of the courses on offer.”
She said that three As alone are not enough to guarantee a place, pointing out that A-level results are only one of the criteria that tutors take into account when selecting candidates, as they also consider GCSEs, aptitude tests, interviews, personal statements and written work.  
OUSU Vice President for Access and Academic Affairs, James Lamming, said, “The University of Oxford does not offer degrees in every subject, nor will all students find an Oxbridge learning environment best for them.
“Any assumption that all students who get three A grades at A-level will therefore apply to Oxford or Cambridge is flawed. However, we would certainly aspire to encourage all pupils who have the potential to come to Oxford to consider an application,” he added.
Cambridge is faring marginally better than Oxford with state school numbers at 57%, but it will not attain its targets for another five years.
Harker said that both Oxford and Cambridge “need to be more proactive”. She said, “Students getting three ‘A’ grade A-levels at state schools are significantly underrepresented at both universities.
“Oxford and Cambridge must stop blaming a lack of applications for their failure to make progress. It does not matter how many bursaries they offer or how many students visit their campuses if students from non-traditional backgrounds are not applying.”
IPPR’s full report, Universities Challenged, will be published in 2008.By Natasha Vashisht

Aikido

A Japanese physical and spiritual discipline designed solely for self-defence, without weapons. It is essentially non-violent and non-competitive, with no bouts of sparring or contests.

Boxing

Participants of similar weight fight each other with their fists. Victory goes to the boxer left standing, or with the highest judges' score. OUABC has had the longest winning run in the Varsity record of any Oxford sports club with 16 consecutive wins, ending in 2001.

Fencing

The modern Olympic sport, essentially swordsmanship, has evolved from the art of armed combat involving weapons manipulated by hand. Three different swords are used today: foil, epie and sabre.

Jitsu

A Japanese martial art based on a system of striking, locking and throwing techniques, with emphasis on the use of an opponent's body weight and momentum. Students do not spar but take turns to attack each other with the emphasis being on developing defences to realistic attacks.

Judo

Punching, kicking and gouging are not allowed, the object of this Japanese martial art being to throw the opponent largely onto their back with considerable force and speed, which scores “Ippon” and ends the contest. Emphasis is placed on mastering the several methods of breakfalling.

Karate

A martial art and system of self-defence which uses only the hands, feet and body. The aim is balance, harmony and spirit through disciplined training.

Karate-do-shotokai

Teaches skills like how to move in a fast, yet physically relaxed manner; how to punch, kick or deflect attacks. Training is systematic, leading from fitness and flexibility exercises to pre-arranged and limited sparring, before free fighting.

Kendo

'The way of the sword' in Japanese, it involves a handful of basic moves which have been preserved from the ancient art of sword-fighting in Japan.

Kickboxing

A practical martial art of many varieties which is practised for fitness, to build up the major muscle groups, and for learning useful self defence skills. Essentially, sport-fighting using kicks and punches and sometimes throws and bows representing a certain martial art In full contact versions of the sport, such as Muay Thai, the male boxers are bare chested, barefoot and wear boxing trunks.

Shorinjikempo

A self-defence martial art that originated in Japan, with roots in Buddhism and the practices of the Chinese Shaolin monks. Techniques (including punches, kicks, throws and even massages for healing) are directed at one or more of the many pressure points that line the human body, exploiting an opponent's weaknesses regardless of his strength or size.

Sulkido

A Korean martial art that combines strikes, throws and locks in a single system for self-defence which does not involve competition training.

TaeKwon-do

Translated literally, 'Tae' means to jump, kick or smash with the foot. 'Kwon' means to punch, strike or smash with the fist. 'Do' means art, method or way. Developed from Korean martial arts, it is 'the scientific use of the body in the method of self-defence' which also emphasizes self-discipline, humility and a sense of justice. OUTKD coach Master Gary Miller (VII Dan) is former World and European champion and England coach.

Tai Chi

An ancient Chinese martial art and exercise system, thought to have originated in Taoist monasteries on Wudang Mountain, based around the concept of the yin and yang symbol. It can be practised martially for self-defence or with the focus on the tai chi hand form to promote health and relaxation.

THE UNIVERSITY has denied allegations published in a national newspaper on Sunday that Vice-Chancellor John Hood was engaged in a fight with police last month.
Oliver Marre, a writer for The Observer’s ‘Pedennis’ column, claimed that Hood had an “altercation” with Thames Valley Police after he tried to park his car.
“I was contacted by a disinterested bystander at last month’s St Giles’ Fair in Oxford, who says he witnessed an ‘altercation’ between the VC (who has a business background rather than an academic one) and the local constabulary over his attempts to park in a closed-off street,” Marre said.
A spokesperson for the University claimed that the story was “malicious rubbish”, adding, “There are people who would happily mouth off about the Vice-Chancellor, but I wouldn’t want to accuse them of anything.”
Hood has continued to face pressure from dons angry at his determination to reform the University’s governance structure. Hood finally abandoned his plans in March 2007, writing to the  Chief Executive of HEFCE and announcing that his reforms had been shelved. Despite this, opposition to Hood has persisted among rebellious academics.
Marre said, “Surely Hood doesn’t believe that his debates with dons over the governing of the University are leading them to brief newspapers against him? With relations this bad, can it be long before it turns into a case of fisticuffs in the Bodleian?” By Peter Wright

PLANS to establish a Varsity airship have been announced by a new company.
Using the ‘SkyCat Hybrid Air Vehicle’, World SkyCat Ltd will directly link Oxford with Cambridge, cutting commuting time between both cities by two-thirds.
The SkyCat will transport up to two coach-loads of people at a time, at a cost of less than twenty pounds per passenger in under an hour.
The planned airship uses a combination of technologies which, according to Gordon Taylor of Hybrid Air Vehicles, means it can land on a variety of terrains including water and fields. Taylor suggests that this will save money by not requiring any expensive ground infrastructure; and could offer an alternative to existing forms of transport between the two cities by offering a direct connection.
Currently, the only direct connection between the two university cities is by National Express coach, a journey that takes over three hours, while the quickest train routes are via London and take over two and half hours.
“There’s a significant market for point-to-point travel that negates the need to travel to London,” Taylor said. “We think there is a market for our product to do something linking Oxford and Cambridge.”
The SkyCat is also environmentally friendly, using less fuel than existing means of transport. “The aerodynamic shape makes the craft very lift efficient and therefore it has both a big body and is very light, meaning it needs very little power to make it go,” Taylor added. “It produces at least one-fifth less emissions than if the equivalent passenger numbers were on an aeroplane.”
So far, however, lack of finance has hampered the company’s attempts to begin the project.
Michael Stewart, Chief Executive of World SkyCat, cited the expensive collapse of a similar programme as an example of the idea’s dangers. “The light-aircraft service that recently started up from Kidington but sadly folded was quite expensive, and perhaps that contributed to its failure,” he said.
Stewart hopes that the programme may go ahead in the future. “If you could be sure the market existed, though, it could be really good fun,” he said. “These airships are quite spacious and with a new design we’re working on, you could have bars, viewing galleries and entertainment areas as well as just seating.”By Jake Whittal

By Sebastian Atay  8pm outside the Purple Turtle. It is cold, grey and distinctly sleazy. All in all, the exact opposite of the sunny, spirited melodies produced by my six interviewees: the members of promising Oxford band, Jonquil. Jonquil started life in Hugo’s kitchen, a reunion of sorts between Hugo and his ex-band members, Kit and Ben, who had now been joined by Jody. “Nothing that exciting, unfortunately.” Hugo apologises. United under the Try Harder label of a good friend, they released their first record, Sunny Casinos, last year, picking up a number of positive reviews on the way. Where does the name come from? Was it, as Google seemed to suggest, a sort of Spanish flower? “We like flowers,” Hugo says, and before he has a chance to go on, Sam continues: “We’re all just as gay as fuck.” Jody explains that the name reflects that they’re a summer band. “We used to have this thing that whenever we used to play, the sun just came out, all the time. It actually did. So, it seems fitting, I guess.”In the year between the release of Casinos and their new album, Lions, Jonquil have developed significantly as a group. “The first album was done before we’d ever done gigs, or played live”, Hugo tells me. “Since we got together to play live as a band, there’s been a fundamental difference.” Whereas Casinos has a more abstract, distant feel, concerning itself more with impressions and atmosphere, Lions is an album of discrete songs, branching out into some powerful, upbeat pieces which make for a completely different experience.Do they enjoy playing live? A resounding ‘yes’. The sensation of the audience participating in the music and the freedom of reworking songs on stage transformed what the band feared would be dreary gigs in the middle of nowhere into nights to remember. “In Preston,” Jody recalls, “we thought we were going to be playing to two people in a social club, but it turned out to be one of our best gigs.”Jonquil remain optimistic: Whilst they have a marked dislike for bands who undermine the positive collaboration and interchange of talent that goes on between groups, “the sort of people that brown nose the bands who get out of Oxford,” they think that the new Academy is, on the whole, a change for the better. “Bigger bands coming to Oxford would be a good thing,” says Hugo, encouraging enthusiasm and promoting activity in Oxford’s budding musicians. “It could be exciting.”

THIEVES made off with thousands of pounds in electronic equipment after breaking into two student houses in the Cowley Road area last week.
Police have urged vigilance against “opportunistic” criminals after two houses, both rented by Wadham students, were burgled while their occupants were out at parties.
In the first incident, which took place last Saturday, thieves entered through the front door without causing any damage.
One girl, who wished to remain anonymous, said she only noted valuables were missing when her housemate couldn’t find her laptop the morning after a night out.
“We all went out to a bop, and it was the first time we’d all gone out at the same time,” she said. “We came back and all went to bed. There was no sign of forced entry. One girl noticed a laptop was missing the next morning and came to my room. We noticed that three laptops and an iPod were also gone.”
The house did not have the correct level of security demanded by the insurance policy, meaning they may be unable to claim compensation for their losses. “We’re not sure if we can claim insurance,” she said. “There’s a certain grade of lock that you need in order to claim, and its quite a big issue.”
The other burglary occurred in a house nearby, during which thieves entered through an open back window.
According to one occupant, the house was empty at the time of the theft. “We went out at 11 and someone came back at 12 and the front door was open,” she said. “They took four laptops, a wallet, four MP3 players and a jewellery box.
“The police came round and fingerprinted the house but they said there were glove marks, and so weren’t sure if there was much chance of catching the thieves.”
Police have warned the students’ lax attitudes to security were partly to blame.
Graham Milne, a Crime Reduction Advisor at Thames Valley Police, said, “Most burglaries are opportunist and happen due to insecurities. Something has probably been left open. Nine times out of ten its due to students.”
Milne added that thieves were attracted by student houses due to the prevalence of expensive electronic equipment. “Students have what criminals want. Our advice is to keep everything out of sight and mark up your PC using UV pens so that if we recover it we can return it.”By Jake Whittal

It’s perhaps understandable that there are a lot of symbols that are used to indicate gay pride. The whole concept of being closeted seems to indicate a need for a code, a covert way of indicating we’re-here-and-we’re-queer, whether or not that symbol will register in wider society. But if there’s a gay pride symbol that everyone in the western world knows, regardless of their own orientation, it’s the rainbow flag. Seen hanging out of pubs, clubs, bars and bookshops, it’s an unashamed proclamation – this is a place where queer people are welcome.
With that in mind, it’s probably unsurprising that the first time a rainbow flag was used as an unambiguous symbol of gay pride was in San Francisco.
In 1978, local artist Gilbert Baker designed the first version of what would become the rainbow flag. The initial version had eight stripes, hand-dyed, with hot pink and turquoise in addition to the commonly-seen six colours. Later in the year, the city responded to the murder of its first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, by draping that year’s Pride Parade with a modified version of Baker’s flag. This new version, a symbol of the city’s defiance, was modified to enhance its symmetry, and the subsequent six-striped flag became the one most often seen today. As for why rainbow stripes were used at all – history seems a little reticent on that point. But it seems clear that the bright colours have taken root in queer cultural consciousness since.

So much so that the self-proclaimed “queer nation”, the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands – which claims to be a country in its own right, having seceded from Australia, complete with its own mail service, currency and national anthem – has, perhaps inevitably, claimed the six-striped rainbow as its official flag. There are other pride symbols – notably, the pink triangle, originally used by the Nazis as a symbol to be worn by homosexuals in concentration camps, and reclaimed as a queer symbol afterwards, and the black triangle, used for lesbians specifically. There are other flags, too, denoting bisexual pride, transgender pride, family pride, even leather pride – but the rainbow flag did it first. There is no permanent settlement on the Gay and Lesbian Islands, so no embassies or ships fly it, but do they need to? It’s bright, it’s eye-catching, and it’s already flying in hundreds of places all over the world. 
By Iona Sharma

 The word ‘genteel’ seems appropriate to the point of cliché when talking about Cheltenham. A town of Regency terraces and horse racing, antique shops and tea rooms. Hardly the ideal place to test the waters of feminist thought, we might think.
But every year in October Cheltenham is shaken up – just a little – as the famous Literature Festival rolls into town. For nine days the pristine Imperial Gardens bristle with leading figures from the worlds of art, broadcasting and politics.
This year the theme is ‘What does change mean to us?’ and investigations into attitudes towards women are high on the agenda. Stripy tights and silver pumps are the order of the day as Germaine Greer strides onto stage in the ornate Edwardian auditorium of the Town Hall. The windows are covered with long velvet awnings and a warm light from under the balconies provides an intimate atmosphere. She talks for an hour on her latest book, Shakespeare’s Wife.
 “Every time I hear a man at a dinner party tell his wife to ‘shut up dear’, I want to take him outside and shoot him” she begins. Well-natured laughter ripples through the audience. Her introduction soon gives way to the argument. Gesticulating passionately, she outlines a radical biography of Anne Hathaway; speculative, controversial, and persuasive. A broad sense of revelation follows every new piece of conjecture. Presumptions they may be, but Greer’s claims that Hathaway had a significant impact on Shakespeare’s work seem no less valid than those of the scholars who see this mysterious character through the filter of chauvinism.
In the course of the hour, Greer piles on the questions. Was Hathaway really illiterate and uncultured? Did Shakespeare really write his plays away from home? Was the model of accomplished, emotionally intelligent womanhood portrayed in Portia, Cleopatra and Silvia really a work of pure imagination? Greer describes how Hathaway is perceived by academics: “Shakespeare, an innocent youth, is skipping down the lanes of Stratford when out comes Anne Hathaway, a big, hairy, randy old woman who wraps her legs around him and gets herself pregnant.”
Of course Greer is following a feminist agenda with her reappraisal of this image. She owns up to a temptation to claim that it was Hathaway who wrote the plays, “but I’m not as brave as that”. Nevertheless, Greer’s ideas are all supported by what is known about society in Stratford at the time; it is hard not to agree with her that this has to be a better approach than groundlessly disregarding Hathaway’s relationship with the Bard. She admits that her conclusions are but guesswork, adding that “some guesses are better than others”, those ‘others’ being “informed with a casual contempt”.
Her speech is met with resounding applause from the audience, Greer moves onto the questions and the lights are raised in the auditorium. Here we see hints of her tendency to play up her own image: “Who’d like to go first? I’d rather it not be a man”.
“What about the bed?” chirps in an elderly lady near the front, alluding to the main weapon in the armoury of the Hathaway-detractors, the fact that in his will, Shakespeare bequeathed to her only his second-best bed. Here the strength of Greer’s arguments come to the fore, as she explains that it was typical for a husband to leave his widow the ‘everyday’ bed, on which conceptions, births and deaths took place, rather than the more lavish but less emotionally significant guest bed.  
The next question is from a man. The questioner stands up, takes hold of the microphone and, in a self-satisfied voice, asks “What about those women who tell their husbands to ‘shut up dear’?” There is a pause, and Greer bites her lip, the audience awaiting her response on tenterhooks. “It should be possible for spouses to communicate” she responds calmly, “This is why I can’t watch the Jeremy Kyle Show”, and points out that in Shakespearean drama women and men tend to communicate well, noting that this too could cast light on the marriage.
As Greer leaves the platform at the end of the hour she is swamped by middle-aged women in cork sandals, the water pitcher is refilled for Douglas Hurd, and the hall is alive with conversation as the audience files out. Snippets such as “I had no idea”, “What I don’t like about her is…”, and “But I thought she didn’t like him?” indicate the strong impression she makes on the public.
She revels in controversy, provokes inspiration in some and loathing in others, and is perfectly aware of this.
But whatever you think of Germaine Greer, an hour in her electric presence leaves you unable to deny her energetic sense of purpose in questioning assumptions, unexamined truisms and the lazy acceptance of ungrounded dogma. Genteel she ain’t, but that just wouldn’t suit her. by Jeremy Cliffe

Homer’s Iliad remains an excellent introduction
to poetry for the under-fives; its
language proves accessible, and the available
Greek translations help you encourage
children to foreign languages at an early
age. Split into bite-size 1000 line chunks
(easily readable, say, at bed time) this classic
nonsense anthology has lasting appeal.by Chris McCartney 

Elenor Matthews defends the rights of those who want to travel for less 
If Ryanair was a night-club it would almost certainly be Filth: only after the inevitable mix of binge drinking, Justin Timberlake, kebabs and casual sex do we remember that it’s trashy and vulgar, and will inevitably leave us feeling somewhat grubby. So why do we still do it?

Cheap-flights certainly aren’t good for the environment and there’s no point in kidding ourselves that we’re not contributing to the speed up of global warming when we use them. However there is nothing which makes a flight on Easyjet more inherently polluting than on Silverjet, and business-men commuting back-wards and forwards from New-York twice a week are as much to blame for the climate crisis as groups of chavs or, for that matter, students going to Ianapa for the weekend. In fact, I sense a rather unhealthy air of snobbery under all the cheap flight hysteria which seems to suggest that you have to pass some kind of financial litmus test to leave the country. Basically a kind of horror that now almost anyone can get to that Villa in Tuscany.

We may groan at stag groups in Prague; however, in the modern world a society that travels is far healthier than one that doesn’t- just look at the number of citizens of the US who don’t have passports. Travel is one of life’s greatest levellers and without cheap flights those who need it the most – the young and the terminally bored – will struggle to get further than Calais. Although travelling on a big bright orange plane is admittedly less romantic than on the Marrakech Express, surely it’s better that now the vast majority of people can go and see Eastern Europe or the Arab world before they start whining about ‘all of them over here’.

If we are really dedicated to cutting CO2 than perhaps we should ban aviation all-together, but getting rid of cheap flights is as half-arsed as David Cameron’s stupid bicycle helmet and private jet combo. It will not stop people who can afford to fly. In fact it will probably just lead to stagnation in the fuel-saving technology that airlines must develop to stay competitive and which are constantly making flying greener. More people are flying, but more people are also driving, and just as cars have become less gas-guzzling so have flights become 70% more efficient than forty years ago. Much like Filth, this is a case of something sordid being so wrong it’s almost right. So by all means offset your carbon footprint, but don’t knock Ryanair until you’ve stopped eating apples from New Zealand.

Rhion Harris attacks plane users who are destroying the environment.
Fifty pound flights to Dublin, seventy pound flights to Paris and just ninety to Prague… Cheap flights have become so commonplace that for five years we have been able to jet across the world at rock-bottom prices. And directly as the price of flights has diminished the cost to the environment has increased. UK airports recorded an 120% increase in the number of passengers between 1990 and 2004. How, then, are we going to reach the Kyoto Protocol’s target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010?

Everyone knows about the carbon dioxide emissions from aeroplanes which, after their release in the upper troposphere, trap long-wave solar radiation and lead to global warming. Fewer people are aware of the extent of the damage caused by contrails. Contrails are formed when humid air expelled by aeroplanes meets cold air in the upper atmosphere and condenses to form thin cirrus clouds. These trap heat in the atmosphere, just like carbon dioxide but with three times the strength. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forecast a temperature increase of between 1.4- 5.8 degrees Celsius by the next century.

It’s understandable that people would want to take advantage of going on a nice holiday for less money. The problem is that people see the prices and then find a reason to travel; it ought to be the other way around. There are also less environmentally damaging modes of transport – cars, ferries and coaches. What’s so wrong with holidaying in the UK? Some people have begun to try to reduce the negative environmental impact of their flights using ‘carbon offsetting’ schemes, where they pay to have trees planted on their behalf, but there are doubts about its efficacy, and these schemes do not provide the change to the underlying behaviour that is so badly needed.

Another psychological problem is that the rapid expansion of airports at the moment. The plan to expand 30 airports in 30 years is sending completely the wrong signals to the public about the morality and impact of flying. As an aside, airport expansion also causes loss of green land, noise and air pollution.
It is now time for us to start taking the threat (or, in fact, the reality) of climate change seriously. Soon everyone will be forced to take action, whether it be flying just once a year, offsetting our carbon emissions, or even opting for a holiday in Britain instead of abroad. Forget SAD – guilt will soon make you feel worse.