Monday 20th April 2026
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College policies vary after easing of national restrictions

Jill Cushen
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College policies vary after easing of national restrictions

Following the easing of national Covid-19 restrictions on May 17th, Oxford Colleges have begun to update their policies on teaching and college life. All students are now permitted to return to Oxford for the remainder of Trinity term but residency requirements are still suspended. 

In an email sent to all students on Friday, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Martin Williams outlined the University’s updated guidance and arrangements for Trinity term. The University asked students to “enjoy Oxford responsibly as the restrictions ease” and reminded them that they “must continue to follow all health guidance to protect the community. While the outlook is more optimistic and restrictions are gradually easing, the pandemic is not yet over”.  

Current government guidelines on social gatherings state that outdoor gatherings are limited to 30 people, while indoors, two households can meet or people can gather as a group of six. In emails seen by Cherwell, colleges have outlined how the easing of these restrictions will impact college life for the remainder for Trinity Term.  

While people from two households will be allowed to meet indoors, St Hugh’s students were advised not to “rush into each other’s households” and were reminded that “the driver behind this easing is to enable families and loved ones to be able to more freely spend time together – the ‘household’ definition used by the Government is probably not best suited to our student ‘households’ where we have large numbers and not much shared social space”. Households will be permitted to have visitors from a single other household. 

St Peter’s students will not be allowed to enter areas of the College not allocated to their own household and students will not be allowed to invite guests onto the College site. The College said: “We appreciate that this is less permissive than the national-level rules in place from Monday 17 May, but a review of our covid risk assessment has identified significant logistical and health and safety concerns should we relax the current rules.” However, groups of six students, regardless of household groups, will be allowed to sit together in the dining hall. A similar rule around household mixing will remain in place at St Catz where indoor gatherings will continue to be limited to one household in College accommodation and staircases. 

The household bubbles implemented at the beginning of the term will remain in operation at Regent’s Park but students can “freely mix within and between [their] current bubbles”. At Hertford, households will be permitted to have other Hertford members as visitors but the College “strongly suggest[s] that the rule of six is still useful as a guide”. Non-college members will not be permitted on the College site in Hertford, while at Regent’s Park, guests can access the College’s public areas and can attend meals, but will not be allowed to stay overnight.

Overnight guests will also not be permitted at St Hilda’s or Jesus but will be allowed on the colleges’ grounds. At St John’s College, individuals will only be allowed to meet with one other visitor in the College Gardens. Students at Pembroke were asked to avoid inviting visitors and to only do so if it is “essential”. 

Guests will be allowed to stay overnight at Balliol, Univ and St Edmund’s Hall, but students are reminded that government guidelines means that only one person per household may be permitted to have an overnight guest at one time. 

Colleges have also updated students on vacation residency in 9th and 10th Week of Trinity term. Students at St Edmund’s Hall are “welcome” to remain in college residence for 9th Week of term and will be charged “at the normal room rate”, and at St Hilda’s, students can also stay in 9th Week at normal vacation residence rates. All undergraduates at Hertford will be permitted to remain in College residence “for a period beyond the end of 8th Week”. Teddy Hall and Hertford have also outlined arrangements for events in 9th week which include BBQs, garden parties and formals. 

Univ told its students that any undergraduate may remain in College accommodation until July 3 and that additional accommodation will be charged at the College’s “lowest nightly rate”. Students may also apply for financial assistance with the cost of accommodation. The College also said that if “practical constraints allow” continuing undergraduates may return to College “one week before Welcome Week next year”.

Image Credit: Jill Cushen

In Conversation with George Robinson

Amelia Horn
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In Conversation with George Robinson

Series three of Sex Education cannot come soon enough.

The hit show had over forty million households tune in to its first season, and I was one of the many fans who fell for a viral fake poster on social media which said that the third season would be out in January. We will, unfortunately, have to wait a little longer.

A highlight of the second season was the introduction of Isaac, Maeve’s sarcastic neighbour in the caravan park, who we all love to hate for deleting that voicemail. Cherwell sat down with actor George Robinson, who plays Isaac, to discuss his career, Sex Ed, and disability in the television industry.

Robinson, now 23, has had an interest in acting since his school days. ‘When I was in year 9, the school I was at were doing a production of Les Mis and I was doing drama at the time but I wasn’t 100% sure, and I didn’t audition for it… and then when I watched the production I got really annoyed at myself for not getting involved, and I vowed to myself never again. I just kept on pushing for it, and did a few of the school plays.’

At 17, Robinson sustained a spinal cord injury playing rugby. His neck was broken between the C4 and C5 vertebrae. He describes how this affected his interest in a future in drama.

‘I had been wondering about going to drama school, before that, but again, this injury made me sort of reconsider where I was at. When I came out of hospital, I finished my final year of school and considered trying for drama school, but at that time I wasn’t really sure of myself, and of myself as a performer. So I decided to go to university to study philosophy.’

I ask Robinson how his experience at university had been as a disabled student. He describes the transition as a difficult one, with acting providing him with a distraction from some of the challenges he faced. ‘My experience at university, I wouldn’t say was particularly amazing.

‘I don’t think that was necessarily the fault of the university at all, but because it came too early for me, in terms of adjusting. I had this hugely life-changing event, and then I went back to finish my final year at school, but that was my old school, with people that I knew, teachers that I knew, buildings that I knew. I knew which buildings I could get in and out of. And going to university, all of a sudden I was in a much bigger city, in places that I didn’t know, with people I didn’t know, and it was a bit of a shock.

‘So I think I became more insular, perhaps. And that’s where the drama and the acting helped me to sort of escape a bit of that.’

While at university, Robinson began to explore the possibility of acting as a career: ‘I did a few plays with the Guild of Students, and then I took a screen acting class locally, and applied for an agency, and it all seemed to spiral from there. My second audition was for Sex Education.’

‘The casting call that went out for Isaac was essentially a list of characteristics, you know – witty, dark sense of humour, plays off negativity with sarcasm and stuff.

‘And I sort of read that and went yeah, I can do that.’

Robinson’s wry smile makes it clear that despite Isaac’s flaws, he is very fond of the character.

The casting call specified a disabled actor, but gave no requirement for a specific disability. ‘They basically said, as part of the call, we will write the character based around who we cast. The script that I initially read for was for someone who was an amputee.’ George explains that such a call made it clear that Netflix would handle what he terms the ‘boring logistics’ of a specific disability.

I ask if this type of casting call – where the disability is written in after the actor is cast – was becoming more common, and more generally about the challenges faced by disabled actors in casting decisions. Robinson links the problem to the type of content being produced.

‘Recently, there have been a lot of things based around old material, and often it’s harder to rejig something that’s already established to make it accessible, because there are boring plot elements that someone with a disability needs adaptations to make work.

‘But with [Sex Education], they obviously said that they would make sure all of that was sorted out, and it seems like it’s moving in the direction where writers are far more open-minded about not only casting people with disabilities but also following through and making it accurate and positive.’

More broadly, Robinson talks about the importance of inclusion in improving the representation of disability in film and TV: ‘Inclusion, but not only in terms of casting – I think casting is a great way of doing it, and I’m so incredibly grateful for the people at Sex Ed for the fact that they’ve got Isaac as a character at all – but also inclusion within the creative process itself. Because one of the first things you hear if you want to be a writer, is ‘write about what you know’ and a lot of the time writers don’t know disability, and that’s not necessarily a fault with them, but it’s something that hasn’t necessarily come into their thoughts so you see bits where writers reach out to charities, ask around.

‘They included me in the creation process of Isaac, for example. It’s definitely getting there, but we just need to remind ourselves that there’s some ways to go.”’

When asked if he felt pressure auditioning for the second season of such a wildly popular show, he shrugs it off. ‘I sort of demoted it to the back of my head to “I’ve got an audition for a Netflix show, that’s good enough in itself”, so that helped me relax into it.

‘And also I sort of ignored my uni work, so I was really prepared for it!

‘In terms of coming onto Sex Ed, I was just excited to be a part of it, really, and just join in with these people that I’d seen. Part of my audition process was a chemistry read with Emma Mackay and she was really helpful in that process.’

Sex Education is known for breaking taboos and for transgressing the boundaries of what is shown and talked about on television. Speaking about this, Robinson says: ‘When I watched the first series, I got it [the concept] immediately, in terms of what it was going for, and I guess maybe with the benefit of hindsight, it seemed obvious that if there was going to be one show to [represent disability accurately], it was going to be Sex Ed, with its wonderful diverse cast and frankness about things we haven’t necessarily seen before.

‘Sex Ed is a show that approaches all sorts of taboos. And you can see it in terms of how other shows since the release of Sex Ed have actually been inspired by Sex Ed to sort of, branch out and approach those as well, and you’re starting to see the entire narrative surrounding disability open up across TV. And it’s just really exciting to be a part of that.’

In response to my questions about season three, Robinson remains tight-lipped, saying only that filming was ‘going good.’ It was reported that filming had finished on the third instalment a couple of weeks ago, with a crew member posting an Instagram story with the caption ‘That’s a wrap!’.

The series was announced in February 2020, but filming was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking about his experiences throughout the pandemic, Robinson gives an optimistic ‘It’s been alright.’

He describes feeling lucky that his continuing role in Sex Education has meant that he hasn’t faced some of the struggles other actors have had as filming for many programmes has been disrupted.

‘For me personally, a lot of the issues that actors have had is the uncertainty of ‘there’s nothing on, I don’t know when I’m next going to get a job, when I’m next going to get paid, and stuff.’ But, knowing that I have got a job in Sex Ed has really sort of eased the financial anxiety and knowing that that is there has been really helpful.’

The season two finale saw Robinson’s character Isaac deleting a voicemail from lead Oti (Asa Butterfield) to Maeve (Emma Mackay). Bizarrely, some fans of the show chose to lash out at Robinson for this, and he was subject to online hate. He seems to have dealt with it with a sense of humour.

‘When I read the script initially I did think “Okay, Isaac isn’t going to be the most well-loved character” and I think that when this – outcry let’s say, and I started receiving a lot of messages of people – well, luckily, they searched my name, which is good publicity, I guess – yeah so they searched George Robinson, and then proceeded to message George Robinson with the profile of George Robinson saying “Hey Isaac, I hate you.”

‘I screenshot the funniest ones and send them into my mate’s group chat.’

He is aware, however, that this approach doesn’t always work, and debates the potential for these messages to have an ableist sentiment behind them.

‘I don’t want to seem glib about it. That’s just the way I personally process these things. And initially when [the hate] did start coming through, I hadn’t been in that position before, so I did flag it up to my mates in the cast, just saying, this is happening, just so you’re aware.

‘I have been wondering, you know, “Had any character done it, what would the response have been?” – regarding whether I was in a chair or not.

‘I think a lot of it is ingrained with the current state of meme culture; there’s a lot to unpack with it.

‘A meme is a very superficial form of communicating – you essentially add the context that you want onto this image. Isaac is a wheelchair user, but the reason people hate him or dislike him is for reasons outside of that. However, a meme superficially wants to get across what you want. And visibly, you know, looking at Isaac, he is a wheelchair user, and therefore – “Right, I’m going to send a picture of a wheelchair on fire” or “Wheelchair being pushed down a cliff.” So it’s hard to gauge whether that is in itself ableist.’

These are important questions, ones that will no doubt be further explored in the upcoming series of Sex Education. 

Sex Education series one and two are available to stream on Netflix.

The Undercurrent: Student Union election time!

Lucas Jones
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The Undercurrent: Student Union election time!

It takes a special kind of confidence to look at the last Students’ Union election and think: “that looked like fun, I’ll give it a go next time!” However, seemingly unaware of the unmitigated disaster that unfolded over last term, a jaw-dropping 11 candidates have thrown their hats into the ring to become our new SU President. Their manifestos can be found here. 

One lucky candidate will become our new supreme leader on Thursday night, assuming charge of a groaning bureaucracy that claims to run everything that happens in Oxford while giving off the unnerving impression that it does absolutely nothing. I have to admit that I’m not entirely what the SU actually does. I know it supports The Oxford Student as well as Oxford Raise And Give, making it responsible for two rags. Other than that, however, I must admit that I remain blissfully ignorant of its role in student life. 

For the sake of some clarity, I turned to the SU website, which apparently contains a plethora of information about this immense student body . The first page I visited was entitled ‘who we are’, and opens with one of the most banal lines I’ve ever read: “We’re called the Students’ Union because that’s what we are; a union of students.”

 I briefly wonder who could possibly have gained any clarity from that statement, before deciding that it simply isn’t worth it and moving on to the ‘what we do’ section. I would recommend browsing the ‘Covid’ priority page, which lists the names of several key SU members under the atrociously worded heading “who’s making it happen”. Tragic, really. If only the WHO had known sooner. 

There still doesn’t seem to be any obvious incentive as to why you would want to become President. Other than a £21,326 salary and the privilege of sitting on dozens of student councils, there aren’t any real perks. That seems irrelevant, however, given that so many people are clearly happy to take that chance. 

The lineup of candidates is pretty varied, ranging from empty-chair candidates to people who seem to have made a concerted effort to join literally every student society at Oxford. Some of the manifestos are incredibly detail-oriented and delightfully pretty, others seem to take a more brutalist approach to design. For each of these plucky candidates, the last obstacle on the road to the Presidency is a deeply undignified wave of grovelling messages to dozens of people they’ve never met. 

Perhaps I’m being too cynical. I’m constantly put to shame by the students who channel their optimism and passion into improving all our lives at this university, given that I can barely convince myself to write a sub-par Cherwell column without a ‘reward wine’ perched in my periphery. I hope whoever is elected as the next SU President does a great job, especially if they can do it without messaging me first.

Art by Justin Lim.

Election results: Balliol Student wins Labour seat in Oxfordshire County Council

Matilda Gettins
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Election results: Balliol Student wins Labour seat in Oxfordshire County Council

The May 6th election results for the City Council and County Council, as well as the Police and Crime Commissioner have been released. 

Labour won the City Council election, with a total of 34 seats. The Lib Dems received nine seats, the Greens three. Two independent candidates were elected. The City Council tackles issues such as housing, parks and mobility.

No party won a majority in the County Council elections. Of the 62 seats, 22 went to the Conservative group, 21 to the Lib Dems and 15 to the Labour Party. The Greens Party won three seats, and the two remaining seats went to the Henley residents group and an independent candidate. The County Council provides infrastructure and manages issues such as street lighting and bin collection. 

None of the Police and Crime Commissioner candidates received a majority in first votes. However, Conservative Party member Matthew Barber won in the second preference poll, receiving almost 80,000 more votes than his closest competitor, Laetisia Carter from the Labour Party.

The Oxford Mail has reported that a significant number of ballots cast for the City Council only had one cross. In past years, voters could only vote for half of the council at once, while this year voters were allowed to vote for the whole council. This meant that this year, they could choose two candidates. 

The Oxford Mail has also reported an “administrative error” in the County Council election of Banbury Ruscote ward, which was won by a candidate of the Conservative group. It writes that Labour is planning to make a “legal challenge”. If won, both the Lib Dems and the Conservative group would have 21 seats in the County Council. 

Amongst the elected Councillors is student candidate Michael O’Connor, who ran in a central ward covering 25 colleges. O’Connor is currently a graduate student at Balliol, and ran on behalf of the Labour Party. Speaking to Cherwell, O’Connor cited COVID-19 restrictions as one of the most difficult elements of his campaign. “Until late March, we couldn’t knock on doors. That was a big restriction and meant that the campaigning period was very compressed. Additionally, we couldn’t hold events in colleges.”

“Nonetheless, we knocked on pretty much every door in the residential areas of the division during April [and] early May and ran quite a good social media campaign with the help of a huge network of supportive students. In the end, turnout was really quite good. Labour increased its vote share in University Parks and won all of the overlapping city wards. We’re alive and well in Oxford!”

Concerning how he will represent this student body, O’Connor said: “I’m keen on engaging students with county policy-making through assemblies or consultations or just being quick to respond to emails!” Talking about his future plans in the role, O’Connor stated: “I’ll still be a student and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. I think I’m expected to spend 2-3 days a week on council duties but realistically I’ll probably spend much more than that as these kind of things tend to overflow the boundaries of working days”.

OULD and OUCA have been contacted for comment.

Image Credit: Jill Cushen

The Spin Jazz Club announces move to the Old Fire Station

Jill Cushen
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The Spin Jazz Club announces move to the Old Fire Station

The Spin Jazz Club, Oxford’s leading contemporary jazz club, has relocated to a new venue at the Old Fire Station, a performing arts centre on George Street. The club was previously located at the Wheatsheaf pub on the High Street. 

The club has been closed since the first national lockdown in March 2020 and faced uncertainty around its reopening amid plans for the Wheatsheaf’s first floor to be converted into student flats. 

The planning application to convert the first-floor concert venue of the Wheatsheaf was withdrawn on April 9th 2021. ‘Save the Sheaf’, a Facebook group, was set up to raise awareness of the potential closure and attracted almost 3,000 members. The group urged people to show their support and oppose the application by submitting objections. 

Oxford Civic Society also submitted a letter to Oxford City Council objecting to the planning application. The letter read: “The applicant should be encouraged to withdraw the application and continue the music function in some way, or join forces with the music community and others to look for an alternative site. Encouraging the Wheatsheaf’s previous activities somehow to continue would be firmly in the spirit of both the national and the local planning systems. It would also be consistent with the city’s COVID recovery efforts and its ambition to enhance the attractiveness of the city centre to visitors.” 

Oxford City Council received more than 1500 objections to the application. An email from the Council’s Development Management stated: “The application was withdrawn following concerns from officers as we were likely to recommend refusal of the application on the grounds of the loss of community facility, the poor quality of accommodation proposed, harm to a local heritage asset and inadequate consideration of refuse storage.” 

Following the planned conversion of the pub’s first floor, acclaimed guitarist and founder of The Spin set about finding a new location for the club. The Spin has previously been named the Best Jazz Venue in The UK by the All-Party Parliamentary Jazz Awards, the industry standard awards group. 

Oxley set up The Spin with drummer Mark Doffman and bassist Raph Mizraki in 1999 and now runs the club alongside Stuart Miller. The club officially relaunched last night, May 13, at the Oxford Fire Station with a streamed concert, on the day which marks 22 years since the club’s first live gig in 1999. The online event was recorded and filmed at the new venue and presented the Oxley – Meier band of five virtuosi musicians performing in OFS’s black-box theatre. 

Speaking to the Oxford Mail, Pete Oxley said: “Whenever rules permit us to open to the public, we want the audience to enter a room, full of magical expectations. The lighting in the venue is second-to-none; there will be candle-lit tables awaiting you with waiter-service. The bar will be equipped with an interesting choice of tipples designed by The Spin, and on the stage, the seductively lit instruments will portent a great night ahead!”

He added: “It was a complete joy for the band to play there, and this has been superbly captured in the recording and filming. Although the film will be available for a limited period after Thursday, we would like to encourage anybody interested in supporting this new collaboration by ‘being there’ – albeit in the comfort of your own home – at 8.30pm on May 13, in the hope that we will feel a collective spirit of positivity for the future of The Spin!”

Jeremy Spafford, Director at the Old Fire Station told Cherwell: “We’re delighted to begin a new partnership with The Spin. Supporting local music is so important, especially now when it is under threat from grassroots venue closures across the country. Our first gig with The Spin [was] online, [on] Thursday, and we look forward to welcoming audiences back in person soon.” 

Image Credit: Martin Junius / CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0

Five Book that Shaped My Life: A Biblio-Biography

Tara Robinson
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Five Book that Shaped My Life: A Biblio-Biography

Books have always taught me things about myself. I once learned that the best kinds of books are the ones that feel as if they are reaching out to you, through a channel of time and thought, to hold your hand and show you who you are.

However, upon sitting down to write this article, the immense prospect of narrowing down my entire life’s reading experience to five books suddenly seemed to stare at me, chasm-like. Life does not always present itself to us in such neat sequences. I spent many minutes perusing my bookshelves, hoping some books would jump out at me, screaming “I changed your life!” Then I realized that I was approaching this from the wrong direction: I ought to work backwards. Instead of starting with the books and figuring out how they shaped me, I should examine the most essential parts of myself – those pieces that shape the puzzle of my being – and then find the five books that I believe most helped form such soul-stuff.

I suppose I should begin in chronological order. I was thirteen years old when I read I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. It was the first book that ever moved me to tears, and I suppose this fact contains its own significance. But this book shaped me in many other ways; it was the first book to truly spark my interest in reading, because it was the first time I found that some books can have a very unique way of making you feel things. It was the first time I felt that hand reaching out to me, and found myself wanting to reach out too and take it. There were many reasons for this, but mostly because this book is about being young and having a complicated, messy family, about discovering who you are, and it is a beautifully written exploration of art and passion. The sibling relationship in the book reminded me of my relationship with my own sister: that unique sort of fraught allegiance to somebody you have shared a womb with. This book taught me to see the magic in the ordinary, and made me want to become a writer so I could craft the kinds of sentences I found within it. I remember feeling a strange sort of jealousy at the fact that somebody else had written something I found so beautiful, but I treasured the pleasure of experiencing it the way I did, the first time reading the finished product, like a beautifully wrapped present made just for me.

To preclude the collective eye roll I imagine will occur when  I talk about the next book, I would like to remind readers that we were all teenagers once. I suppose that is what keeps me coming back to The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger. There is something so quintessentially adolescent about Salinger’s magnum opus. It captures the profound mix of arrogance and earnestness, confidence and vulnerability, age and youth that comes with being on the  cusp of adulthood. I first read it when I was fifteen, and gloried in the explosion of teenage angst. It made me feel less alone, knowing that others experienced the volatile cocktail of frustration, excitement, fear and repression that I too was feeling. Coming back to it five years later, I feel a strange sort of protectiveness over Holden Caulfield. He is pure, distilled teenagehood, immortalised forever in the uncanny, frustrated limbo of adolescence. He wants to catch children before they fall over cliffs, but now that I am older than him, I know that he is the one who needs catching. 

When I was sixteen, we studied a poetry module for my English Literature class. This was what brought me to Ariel, a collection by Sylvia Plath. I had never felt a keen interest in poetry before, always finding it frustrating, inaccessible, and distant. This all changed with Ariel. For the first time in my life, I felt that special connection to poetry that I had been missing all my life. Plath’s visceral and vicious depiction of female oppression and mental health, and her unique, explosive way of crafting verse helped me to finally get poetry, to understand what it is all about. I finally had words to express the depression that I, myself, was feeling, and I am forever grateful to Plath for giving me such a gift. Poetry is a way of expressing what is often unexplainable, emotions that prose can’t adequately capture, and Ariel will always be the book that I turn to when my heart feels too heavy for my chest.

Being a young woman in a political world is at the heart of Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney, a book that I read when I was eighteen and full of precocious political ideas. It is about two young women newly graduated from university, and as somebody who was just about to enter the world of university, I was desperately drawn to this book. I thought it would tell me who I was – or at least who I could be – but this book ended up teaching me that the act of discovering who you are is a lot harder than you think it will be. It taught me to be patient with myself, and to recognise my own naïveté. Ultimately, this book is about growing older, the importance of being politically aware while living in a world where politics informs every aspect of life, and learning that it is okay to be aimless, to not quite have everything figured out. It is also about relationships and connection, and taught me to realise that the people around me are the most precious things in my life. 

A year ago, I read The Waves by Virginia Woolf. It felt like being thirteen again, and like I was discovering the wonder of a perfectly-crafted sentence for the first time. I had never read anything like it before; the writing was so beautiful, experimental, fragmented and human. For the first time in seven years, I once again felt that potent mixture of awe and jealousy for  a piece of writing that was so unmatched in its beauty and creativity. I decided that it was finally time to realise that dream of becoming a writer. It had rested on the back-burner for years, this dream of mine, and reading The Waves was the final push I needed to pick the dream back up. Life sometimes comes around in circles, and The Waves came to me at the exact moment I needed it to: when it was finally time to circle back to the beginning, helping me to remember that feeling of wonder and connection that first brought me to literature. A feeling I would one day like to emulate with my own writing.

In truth, there have been many more than just these five books that have meant many things to me at many different moments in time. But I consider these the monoliths: the five giants in my memory. These are the ones that felt like hands reaching out to me. They are a snapshot of the first twenty years of my life. I’m sure, as I grow older, there will be many more.

Image Credit: Heffloaf (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

EXCLUSIVE: Sensitive alumni data made available in Pembroke College telethon leak

Sasha Mills
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EXCLUSIVE: Sensitive alumni data made available in Pembroke College telethon leak

Sensitive data about some of Pembroke College’s alumni from the 2021 telethon was made available to current Oxford University SSO users in a data breach. This included the full names, ages, addresses, and telephone numbers of alumni, alongside notes taken during calls held between telethon workers and alumni. The calling sheets also held information about previous donations made to the college by the alumni named, and the amount that the telethon workers were told to ask alumni for at the end of calls.

Alongside the alumni data, information about Pembroke College’s telethon training processes and admin was also made available to Oxford University SSO users. This included their gift form template, an information pack for telethon callers, the script that telethon callers were asked to follow, and the college’s training material. Cherwell could not find evidence of a similar telethon leak for any other Oxford colleges. 

In their data protection policy for alumni, Pembroke College states that: “Our shared relationship management system, DARS, is hosted on infrastructure within the University of Oxford’s network and is protected by logical access controls. Access is limited to individuals who need to see and use the data to carry out their duties, and access rights are restricted according to individual job roles in order to ensure that users only see information that is relevant to them. All DARS users receive appropriate training, including training on data privacy, before being granted access.” The breach violated this policy.

A Pembroke College spokesperson told Cherwell: “On being alerted to this breach, which we now know arose out of a technical issue when the site was created, the College immediately secured the data and launched an urgent internal investigation. The source of the problem was identified as the technical set-up of a Teams site where alumni data sheets were shared with our student telethon callers.”  

“The limited number of individuals, outside of the authorised group, who have been identified as accessing the data will be contacted to remind them of the consequences of the misuse of data, and we are contacting the alumni involved to apologise for this breach.  Reports have been lodged with the ICO and will be lodged with the Charities Commission in line with our statutory duties. The College deeply regrets this incident. We take data protection very seriously and all relevant procedures are under review to ensure that they are robust for the future. The investigation continues.”

The University of Oxford has been contacted for comment.

Image Credit: Dave_S. / CC BY 2.0

Why I’m still disappointed by How I Met Your Mother’s finale

Deepra Sinha
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Why I’m still disappointed by How I Met Your Mother’s finale

Spoiler alert!

The finale of How I Met Your Mother aired in 2014, and its discordance with everything that came before it and unexpected direction has forever marred its legacy in my view.

In case you don’t know, the premise of HIMYM is centred around Ted Mosby, in the year 2030, telling his children the story of how he met their mother, beginning in 2005. Over nine seasons Ted narrates the tale, telling every story under the sun about his life, his group of friends (Marshall, Lily, Barney, and Robin), and romantic relationships, detailing every small choice and experience that led to him eventually meeting the titular Mother. Then at last, in the show’s finale, Ted meets the Mother at a train station, and they live happily ever after… until it cuts back to 2030. It turns out the Mother has been dead for six years, and the point of Ted telling the story to his kids was actually to explain that he was in love with Robin. The show ends with him recreating the big romantic gesture he had made for Robin in the very first season.

To say this was a surprising ending is an understatement, given it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the show would simply end with the long-awaited meeting of Ted and the Mother, but it was one that also frustrated me to no end. It was revealed that the show’s creators, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, had envisioned this ending since the show’s conception, going so far as to film the contribution of Ted’s kids to the ending around the time of season one so that it would not appear that the actors had aged. This demonstrates that Bays and Thomas were committed to having this ending, but disappointingly, they were not committed to it enough to actually lay down the groundwork for it to make sense within the narrative, following nine seasons’ worth of story and character development. Instead of producing a worthwhile twist to what most of the audience thought would be the endgame, they offered a finale full of unearned emotional whiplash.

This is especially a shame since HIMYM often engaged in unique, interesting, funny storytelling throughout its run that set it apart from other sitcoms. The show made excellent use of jumping between different time periods of Ted’s life and hinting at things to come in future episodes; there were running gags across seasons that were executed with finesse, and the show could have such broad humour yet frequently pack an emotional punch that hit perfectly almost every time. For HIMYM to stick the landing and have a legacy filled with goodwill, all they really had to do was have Ted meet the mother in an emotionally satisfying way. For a finale to be considered good, especially that of a sitcom, I do not think that it necessarily has to have unexpected twists.

Ted and Robin had been the show’s main will-they-won’t-they classic sitcom couple for much of the show’s run, even though it was made abundantly clear from the very first episode that Robin was not the Mother. But the final season of HIMYM centred on – and indeed was entirely set during – Robin’s wedding to Barney, and there was even an episode in this season that directly addressed Ted’s continued love for Robin and had him finally letting her go, like letting a balloon float away into the sky. It was a lovely way to end the whole saga, even though we’d seen them go through this before. But this is all the more reason why usurping all of this in the last hour of the final season and having Robin and Barney unexpectedly divorce and Ted apparently still harbouring love for Robin seem even more nonsensical – it came in direct contradiction to everything that had happened earlier within the same season.

Some may view Ted and Robin getting back together after over a decade apart as a realistic reflection of life and appreciate it for that, which is a perspective I can understand. However, when it comes to the actual narrative of the show, their return to each other after so many seasons of Ted and Robin being portrayed as not meant to be together simply does not follow. While Carter and Bays may have envisioned this ending from the start, the fact is that after the extent of their meandering story that often strayed from the show’s original premise and became more about the main characters’ growth, this ending just did not make sense for where the characters ended up. While the finale ending on Ted holding up the blue French horn to Robin’s window – in a recreation of the romantic gesture he did for her in the first season – could be seen as poetic, as Ted and Robin coming full circle, to me it simply exemplifies how the show ignored the sitcom’s narrative progression and the characters’ narrative arc, and brought the characters right back to where they started.

This ending could have still worked if the show had not constantly dangled the mystery of the Mother over the audience’s head for the entirety of the show, reinforcing the notion that meeting her would be the endgame. If she had been introduced sooner, and Ted carried on narrating the story as their relationship progressed, to her eventual death, and then we saw him getting back to a point where he could be with Robin again (and saw the decline of Robin and Barney’s marriage over multiple episodes, rather than shoe-horned in during the last hour of the show), it would have been much more palatable. But Ted meeting the Mother after nine years of the audience waiting, only to kill her off minutes later, and then immediately tell us that Ted is ready to be with Robin again is just an unwelcome shock. Frankly, if Carter and Bays wanted this ending so badly they should not have let HIMYM carry on for as many seasons as it did, adding ever more character development and relationships that would require even more work to make their planned ending justifiable. And while my main gripe with the HIMYM finale is the abandonment of Ted’s and Robin’s development throughout the seasons, I can’t say that I’m entirely satisfied with how the other main characters’ stories ended either.

I truly believe that it would have been relatively easy for HIMYM to end on a sweet, positive note with Ted finally meeting the Mother, even if it was predictable – but its predictability would have been precisely why it would have been satisfying, since that’s what the audience had eagerly been anticipating for nine years. Ultimately though, the finale of HIMYM is a story of how the show creators’ insistence on an ending that did not make sense nearly a decade down the line means that the show’s legacy will always be slightly tarnished, no matter how good its earlier seasons were. Or at least, it will always be tarnished to me.

Image credits: vagueonthehow via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Sexual violence in Oxford Sport: in conversation with Sofia Baldelli, President of Atalanta’s Society

Ariana Rubio
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Sexual violence in Oxford Sport: in conversation with Sofia Baldelli, President of Atalanta’s Society

CW: sexual violence and rape

Sarah Everard’s tragic passing in March of this year and the ensuing interest in the @everyonesinvited Instagram account, which shares anonymous testimonies of sexual harassment at secondary schools and universities, catalysed a chain reaction of discussions. From top government officials to family and friends, everyone was talking about women’s safety. Shortly after Everard’s death, Home Secretary Priti Patel stated that “every woman should feel safe to walk on our streets without fear of harassment or violence”, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson took to Twitter to express his “shock” and “sad[ness]” at the “horrifying crime”. In the context of these recent events, I was able to meet with Sofia Baldelli, third year medic and President of Atalanta’s society, to discuss issues of sexual harassment and assault in sport at Oxford.

Atalanta’s is a society that “promotes and supports” women in sport at Oxford. The club was initially founded in 1992, partly in reaction to Vincent’s Club which, at the time, accepted only male members. While Baldelli acknowledges that the social dimension of the society, which enables sportswomen to meet each other, is “commendable”, she emphasises that Atalanta’s “creates” a mutually supportive “community” that aspires to improve the general environment for women in sport at Oxford. For example, they provide financial aid for both teams and individual players, promote matches via social media, and carry out outreach work. In addition to raising funds for various charities, members join forces with Vincent’s Club to run an outreach sporting camp for school-age children annually. Baldelli stresses that Atalanta’s strives to become a “force for change”, and make “room to keep trying to push” Oxford sport, which was originally built for men, in the “right direction”.

Recently, for instance, Baldelli is “most proud” of their work on issues of sexual harassment. At Iffley Road Sport Centre, Atalanta’s spearheaded a scheme to put up posters in bathrooms that detail steps one can take after experiencing sexual harassment. The society is also working with the Sports Federation and “It Happens Here”, an anti-sexual violence campaign associated with the Student Union. One of Atalanta’s aims is to establish a specific reporting system whereby whole sports teams and even clubs can be held accountable when an incident of sexual harassment or any form of discrimination occurs. This is not, she is careful to say, a system in which everyone would be castigated for the actions of a few individuals. Rather, this shifts the emphasis from punitive retribution to collective accountability. Captains would have to provide evidence that they had acknowledged the incident and held a team wide discussion to identify what they need to do differently. “Peers holding each other accountable is really important”, Baldelli says, and an effective method of ensuring that there are consequences for inappropriate behaviour. As she emphasises, this is about “all women and gender non-conforming individuals in Oxford” who interact with sports players and deserve to feel and be safe. She notes that such a reporting system, as well as the posters at Iffley, seem like “common sense” necessities, and is proud that Atalanta’s is at the forefront of such grassroot efforts to change sport at Oxford for the better.

In a sense, however, any such change for the better is bittersweet because it was so desperately needed earlier. In a discussion with one of Atalanta’s trustees, Baldelli learnt that she (the trustee) had established a sexual violence charity in Oxford in the early 2000s, and that she could not believe that the situation had not improved almost twenty years on. While Baldelli is appreciative of the recent emphasis on women’s safety, this is tinged with a “slight resentment” because it is so long overdue. She also draws attention to the fact that this is a mainly female-driven enterprise, describing being in a meeting full of women to discuss these issues and wondering where the men are. That said, she points out that Vincent’s Club has recently come out with a no tolerance policy for sexual harassment, and that Atalanta’s male members, who are all involved in women’s sport in some way, are leading the way by implementing changes and leading discussions. Baldelli stresses that men should use their platforms in this context and that, equally, there should be space for the voices of historically marginalised socio-demographic groups to speak out.

Earlier this year, Atalanta’s compiled a small pool of testimonies of incidents of sexual harassment and assault that occurred within the context of sport at Oxford. In addition to a number of reports about groping, there were over ten reports of non-consensual sex. While unsure of the scope of circulation and uptake, the fact that such a large number of rapes happened in contexts tied to Oxford sports teams is, as Baldelli said, “harrowing”. Another common theme of the testimonies, which mainly occurred in nightclubs and other social settings, was the lack of response and sense of powerlessness in the face of injustice. Many did not know where they could report the experience to and, when they did, were “blatantly ignored”. In contrast to Boris Johnsons reaction to Everard’s murder, Baldelli maintains that this is “not shocking”, but rather, to be expected. The poor structural support for reporting incidents of sexual assault and even poorer response to those that are reported make such experiences common. This is not exclusive to the university reporting system: only 1.5% of reported rapes, which represent just a fraction of those which take place, result in legal action. This lack of accountability has reached endemic proportions, and the testimonies, for Baldelli, “really highlighted that things need to be done in the sport setting” at Oxford and in society at large.

On an individual front, Baldelli emphasises the power of discussion as a force for change. This can be as simple as reading the posters at Iffley, or talking about these issues with family and friends. “There is no individual without the collective”, Baldelli summarises, and the impact of even one person taking note and demanding accountability cannot be overstated. Again, this is not simply an issue of women’s safety, but applies to all forms of harassment and discrimination. As students, we all live in Oxford for a significant proportion of the year, and should all take responsibility for making it a safe place. Societies and sports clubs should enact this on a larger scale. On the 27th of March, Atalanta’s released a statement urging university sport captains and presidents to join them in standing “in solidarity with those who have been affected by acts of sexual violence” or “discrimination based on their gender, sexuality or race” and “bring about changes within their clubs so that everyone can feel safe and supported within Oxford sport”. Ideally, Baldelli explains that every club would release a similar letter acknowledging what has been done wrong, what has not been done, and what can be done to improve the situation. In addition to vocalisations of support, however, she emphasises the necessity of concrete action and a more general change in the ethos of sporting culture at Oxford. Baldelli believes that, at the present moment, there is “too much of a culture” where individuals feel pressured to “let [cases of sexual violence] slide”. With the cumulative efforts of Atalanta’s, other clubs and individuals, she hopes to engender a culture of increasing accountability.

While Baldelli stresses the positive effects of discussion, she is cognisant of the fact that this can sometimes feel like a burden. As well as personal experiences of sexual violence, the general ubiquity of distressing news on this topic can, in her words, be “exhausting”. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this, or perhaps even a solution, but Baldelli suggests that one should “take comfort from friends”, from “the people around you” and from “the fact that you know that there are people out there” trying to change things. And Baldelli herself believes that “things are changing”, like the small but tangible example of posters in the Iffley bathrooms. Ultimately, one needs to find a “balance” between promoting discussion and one’s own welfare because, “when it comes down to it”, this movement is essentially about health and wellbeing.

In terms of Atalanta’s short-term goals, Baldelli explains that they aim to design and produce final posters with comprehensive flowcharts that outline the steps of a robust reporting system. At their general meeting at the end of this term, the society is introducing a welfare representative, which will hopefully allow Atalanta’s to support even more members and non-members in situations of sexual harassment and assault. In the long-term, and more abstractly, the society aims to create a space for these kinds of issues be talked about, particularly those to do with women and women’s sport. In terms of more general, structural changes, Baldelli would like to see a complete “overhaul” of the university’s sexual harassment reporting and welfare system.

While the prevalence of manifestations of rape culture in sport at Oxford are distressing beyond measure, it is heartening to see that societies like Atalanta’s and people like Baldelli and their other members are so committed to combating this. I follow Baldelli in maintaining “hope that things will change”, and in personally taking measures to contribute to making sport and life at Oxford safer and more supportive.

Image courtesy of Sofia Baldelli.

Return of the silver screens: Oxford indoor cinemas to reopen starting today

Yan Chen
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Return of the silver screens: Oxford indoor cinemas to reopen starting today

The vast majority of Oxford cinemas are planning to reopen today, Monday 17th May, after going dark for months since the last national lockdown began in December. These include the Oxford branches of film chains Odeon (George Street location), Curzon, and Cineworld, as well as Oxford’s only and oldest independent cinema Ultimate Picture Palace on Cowley Road. Phoenix Picturehouse, owned by Cineworld and located in Jericho, will reopen on 19th May.

Both Phoenix Picturehouse and the Ultimate Picture Palace are making up for their closure during the film awards season by unveiling a slate of award-winning and award-nominated films. These include Oscar-winning biographical drama Judas and the Black Messiah, about the betrayal of Black Panther Party activist Fred Hampton, and Sound of Metal, the story of a drummer coming to terms with losing his hearing. 

Additionally, Phoenix Picturehouse will serve up a mix of action, comedy, and vibrant solo melodrama, screening Godzilla vs. Kong, Peter Rabbit 2, and Pedro Almodóvar’s The Human Voice with a recorded director Q&A, starring Tilda Swinton and filmed during the pandemic. 

The Ultimate Picture Palace will also screen Chloé Zhao’s Best Picture Oscar winner Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand as a jobless, “houseless” woman wandering through the American landscape, and Lee Isaac Chung’s Golden Globe-winning Minari, the story of a Korean family trying to set down roots in rural Arkansas. To complement the two works, it has curated a series of classic films about pastoral America from David Lynch, Terrence Malick, and Bob Rafelson. Romances historical (Francis Lee’s Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan as a couple) and suspenseful (German director Christian Petzold’s latest, Undine) add an arthouse touch to the programming. 

Representatives from Odeon and Curzon pointed viewers to their websites for soon-to-be-available screening schedules. Anticipated screenings over the summer and autumn include blockbusters Fast and Furious 9, Black Widow, Top Gun: Maverick, and the latest Bond film, No Time to Die. 

Cinemas are offering new discount schemes in the wake of reopening. Odeon has reduced the price for myLIMITLESS, its unlimited viewing scheme, to £9.99 per month. Its free-to-sign-up membership scheme, myODEON, allows audiences to see films for as low as £6 on its “Member Mondays” and selected showings Tuesday through Sunday. A representative stated that Curzon will offer a discounted membership for patrons under 25 and concessionary tickets available for students on some films. 

Phoenix Picture House continues to offer a £14 annual student membership which includes two free tickets, discounted food and drink, and priority booking. The Ultimate Picture Palace’s new free-to-sign-up Five Pound Film Pass allows 15-to-25-year-olds entry to all its screenings (barring special events) for £5. It also continues to offer its £20 annual student membership scheme. 

In accordance with government guidance, cinemas will follow COVID-19 guidance, with masks required indoors except when eating and drinking, social distancing measures including limited seating, more rigorous cleaning, and staggered starting times for screenings. 

Image credit: Motacilla / CC-SA 4.0

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