Thursday, May 8, 2025
Blog Page 481

Oxford finalists ask for a say on exam re-arrangements in Covid-19 outbreak

Violeta Perea Rubio
-
0
Oxford finalists ask for a say on exam re-arrangements in Covid-19 outbreak

Finalists at Oxford have been compiling an Open Letter directed to Professor Martin Williams, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education at Oxford University, concerning their final exams in light of the Covid-19 outbreak. It has received over 1,200 signatures in one day.

Their central appeal is “that the University allows student choice with regard to the upcoming assessments.” They urge that students are given options on how they will be assessed that consider the varying ways the pandemic affects each student.

The letter emphasises that “imposing any one formula on the entire student body will unfairly disadvantage a significant number of its members as the pandemic affects us all differently.”

The Open Letter comes as a response to the Pro-Vice-Chancellor’s statement, sent to all Oxford students via email on Tuesday 17th of March, wherein he confirmed “that wherever possible, teaching and learning will be moved to an online format” and “that planned written paper examinations will not go ahead in their normal format in Trinity term.” Instead, they intend to replace traditional exams with “an online approach.”

Finalists have raised issues of access and equality regarding this “online approach”. The letter lists various different situations that display the inequality inherent to remote exams: “For instance, some students may not have a quiet environment in their homes to take a timed online exam and would prefer take-home exams. Yet others may need to take care of their ailing family members and have to delay their exams entirely.”

They present three main suggestions for examination arrangements: remote, postponed and cancelled assessments. Under each option, the Open Letter provides different assessment arrangements ideas.

For students wishing to be assessed remotely, the Open Letter suggests an array of options: “Open-book exams completed online with conventional time limits; Vivas through video-conference; A portfolio of essays; coursework that replaces exams”.

For students wishing to postpone their assessment, they suggest “postponing exams and coursework deadlines until social distancing and quarantine measures have been sufficiently relaxed” or “giving finalists the option to restart the year in Michaelmas 2020, Trinity 2021”.

For those “unable to undertake any further assessment at all in light of circumstances”, they suggest either receiving a grade based on previous work (for example: tutorials, grades already achieved, and previously submitted work) or “Graduating ‘declared to have deserved honours’ with an unclassified degree”.

In response to the Open Letter, Prof. Martin Williams told Cherwell: “I appreciate the considered and constructive tone of the Oxford Finalists letter and as rightly noted in the content the pandemic is having a huge effect on students who have been forced into an academic limbo through no fault of their own, and I sympathise.

“Without question these are extraordinary times that are having unprecedented impact on the way we live. There are a lot of unknowns for us all but the University is working hard to alleviate some of the stress and uncertainty that our students are feeling and will provide more information to our community about Trinity term teaching and exams in the next few days as the situation becomes clearer.”

The letter highlights a precedent for option in the English Faculty at Cambridge University’s creation of a “2020 Tripos Survey for Part II students”, where Cambridge English finalists could voice their preferred options from a discrete list. Nevertheless, the Letter urges for an even more flexible approach to arranging new forms of assessment.  

One of the creators of the Open Letter, Luci Dennewill told Cherwell: “this is an anxious time for all of us finalists, and we are looking to make our voices heard and get clarity on the exam situation

“We understand that this is a really difficult decision for the university administration and the various faculties to make, so we didn’t want the letter to be an airing of grievances but rather a constructive expression of what we see as a feasible solution. We want to make sure our concerns are considered and that the solution the university arrives at is beneficial to as many finalists as in any way possible.” 

Zhenghong Lieu stresses that the letter is not a “list of demands”, but is “merely a non-exhaustive list of suggestions for the University to consider”, highlighting the conciliatory tone of the letter that understands that “these are extraordinarily difficult times for all”, students and the Univerisity alike.

Luci Dennewill, who co-wrote the letter with Zhengohong Lieu, emphasises the collective effort behind the Open Letter: “we had a lot of help from other finalists who wanted to make the project work”.

Similarly, hundreds of Cambridge students have signed an Open Letter calling for finals to either be postponed or for finalists to retake their final year.

For more clarification or comment on Oxford’s Open Letter contact either Luci Dennewill or Zhengohong Lieu.

Photography By Ellie Wilkins

Oxford student founds Coronavirus help group

Tilly Walters
-
0
Oxford student founds Coronavirus help group

An Oxford University student has set up a global initiative to provide food and supplies to those that are self-isolating due to Covid-19. 

Frederik Filz von Reiterdank has co-founded Students Against Corona, a student led initiative with the aim of helping vulnerable members of local communities, such as those in isolation, or in high-risk groups. 

The initiative is the central point of guidance and contact, and aids individuals in starting their own groups in their local areas; Facebook groups for Oxford, Loughborough and Amsterdam – among numerous others – are already in existence. 

Speaking to Cherwell, Filz von Reiterdank emphasised the need for volunteers to follow “the necessary hygiene precautions”. They are providing “hygiene guidelines for specific tasks. For example, for grocery shopping, we’d have a video and textual explanation of the safest way to carry it out”. 

Their rules, which volunteers are asked to sign before involvement include: always carrying out tasks with a partner; set hygiene guidelines, such as carrying hand sanitiser and cleaning any items touched (e.g. dog leashes) and taking on tasks solely through representatives for safeguarding purposes. 

They have reached out to health officials to ensure their rules to volunteers are consistent with current medical advice, and within the UK are working closely with two NHS directors. 

Filz von Reiterdank stressed that many of the issues with current community led initiatives is the reliance on “individuals helping individuals” – he hopes Students Against Corona can eliminate the potential issues that “could harm people”. He wants to harness the community spirit, but provide the necessary infrastructure and advice for this volunteering effort to be carried out safely. 

The initiative has seen huge popularity, with 400+ volunteers committed in just 24 hours. In Oxford, they hope to partner with local groups including charities and food banks, as well as with colleges. Signups for both volunteers, and those needing the services, are open via their website, and a GoFundMe has also been set up. 

Website

Facebook group

Oxford specific group

Oxford Big Data Institute developing mobile app for coronavirus instant contact tracing

Catherine Dema
-
0
Oxford Big Data Institute developing mobile app for coronavirus instant contact tracing

A team of researchers at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute provided evidence for the potential efficacy of a mobile app for instant contact tracing of COVID-19. The team is supporting several European countries in exploring the feasibility of such an app. The infectious disease experts believe that such an app could significantly help contain the spread of coronavirus, if quickly and widely deployed.

The scientists working on the project have expertise in epidemiology, medicine, virology, immunology, mathematical modelling, phylogenetics, behavioural economics and ethics. They have suspended their usual research on the spread of viruses to direct efforts toward modelling and halting COVID-19. They researched whether it is mathematically possible to stop the outbreak – and determined that if contact tracing is sufficiently fast, effective and widespread, the pandemic can be stopped. 

Professor Christophe Fraser from the Big Data Institute, Nuffield Department of Medicine, explains why a contact tracing app could be deployed with urgency: “Coronavirus is unlike previous epidemics and requires multiple inter-dependent containment strategies. Our analysis suggests that almost half of coronavirus transmissions occur in the very early phase of infection, before symptoms appear, so we need a fast and effective mobile app for alerting people who have been exposed. Our mathematical modelling suggests that traditional public health contact tracing methods are too slow to keep up with this virus.”

Fraser continues: “The instant mobile app concept is very simple. If you are diagnosed with coronavirus, the people you’ve recently come into contact with will be messaged advising them to isolate. If this mobile app is developed and deployed rapidly, and enough people opt-in to use such an approach, we can slow the spread of coronavirus and mitigate against devastating human, economic and social impacts.”

Dr. David Bonsall, a researcher at Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Medicine and clinician at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, said: “Our findings confirm that not everybody has to use the mobile app for it to work. If with the help of the app the majority of individuals self-isolate on showing symptoms, and the majority of their contacts can be traced, we stand a chance of stopping the epidemic. To work, this approach needs to be integrated into a national programme, not taken on by independent app developers. If we can securely deploy this technology, the more people that opt-in, the faster the epidemic will stop, and the more lives can be saved.

“At the current stage of the epidemic, contact tracing can no longer be performed effectively by public health officials in the UK, and many countries across Europe, as coronavirus is spreading too rapidly. Our research of early data from other countries shows that patient histories are incomplete – we don’t know the details of the person we sat next to on the bus. We need an instantaneous and anonymous digital solution to confirm our person-to-person contact history.”  

The pandemic requires an expedient and urgent response. Fraser explains, “There are currently more daily cases in many small European countries than the whole of China. Our team is now preparing simulations for this mobile contact-tracing approach that could stop the epidemic with far less disruption than national or Europe-wide isolation. Our hope is to support communities with life-saving information as the pandemic worsens, or alternatively it could be used to release communities from large-scale isolation.”

The researchers are aware of and addressing the ethical implications of their work. Professor Michael Parker, Director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics & Humanities and Ethox Centre, in Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Population Health recommends: “The use of any coronavirus mobile application requires high ethical standards throughout the intervention, including: guaranteeing equal access and treatment; addressing privacy and data usage concerns; adopting a transparent and auditable algorithm; considering digital deployment strategies to support specific groups, such as health care workers, the elderly and the young; and, proceeding on the basis of individual consent.”

The researchers emphasize the need for the app to be a part of an integrated approach to combat the spread of the virus.

Bonsall continues: “We need a variety of measures to slow the spread of infection before vaccines and antiviral treatments become available. A significant number of infections are being transmitted before symptoms start, so we need a fast and efficient system for alerting people when they have been exposed. Regular handwashing and hygiene remain important; in addition, people should follow any recommendations to reduce close contact with others, especially in densely populated areas. Combining these measures will help to reduce onward transmissions, which in epidemiological terms, reduces the reproductive number R; the average number of transmissions from infected individuals. If a country reduces R to less than one, the epidemic will decline and eventually stop.”

Fraser concludes, “Current strategies are not working fast enough to intercept transmission of coronavirus. To effectively tackle this pandemic we need to harness 21st century technology. Our research makes the case for a mobile application that accelerates our ability to trace infected people and provides vital information that keeps communities safe from this pandemic.”

More information on the research can be found at https://045.medsci.ox.ac.uk/.

PETA rates Oxford University vegan-friendly

Catherine Dema
-
0
PETA rates Oxford University vegan-friendly

The animal rights group PETA announced a list of the 31 most vegan-friendly universities – and the University of Oxford has made the list. The designation was made based on the availability of plant-based dining options and initiatives to promote vegan eating.

The menus at most university cafes are fifty percent meat-free, and almost seventy percent of hospitality food options are vegan or vegetarian. PETA praises the number of vegan options at all forms of dining at the university – in cafes, hospitality and residence halls – in addition to praising the Student Union’s annual Veggie Pledge, which challenges students to go vegan or vegetarian for a month. According to the Student Union, last year 1500 students took part in the challenge, saving thousands of animals and over 5 tonnes of carbon.

“Students in the UK are going vegan in huge numbers, and it’s great to see universities joining the revolution,” says PETA Director Elisa Allen. “PETA commends the University of Oxford for offering healthy and delicious vegan food options that everyone can enjoy.”

One of the university’s initiatives to encourage meat-free eating is the Future of Food programme at the Oxford Martin School. Directed by Professor Charles Godfray, the programme is “an interdisciplinary programme of research and policy engagement concerning all aspects of the food system, based at the University of Oxford”.

Worldwide there is over 300 million tonnes of meat consumption per year, which could rise as much as 75% by the middle of the century. The rearing of livestock for meat, eggs and dairy products generates 15% of total global greenhouse gas emissions and uses 70% of agricultural land.

A 2014 paper by Oxford researchers first provided quantitative evidence that going meat-free can dramatically reduce the impact of our diets on the environment. Since then, further Oxford studies have demonstrated that adopting more plant-based, ‘flexitarian’ diets globally could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the food system by more than half.

Oxford Forgets Its Duty of Care

Helena Murphy
-
0
Oxford Forgets Its Duty of Care

These are difficult times, unprecedent times. I’m sure that as little as a week ago few of us would have imagined that we would be where we are today. The streets are emptying, more and more of us are self-isolating, borders across Europe are closing, Italy is under lock-down, the number of those infected is rapidly increasing. Who could have predicted this? I didn’t, and Oxford University certainly did not. 

At such a surreal moment in our lives many of us are unsure what to do and where to turn. Just look at the empty shelves in Tesco, the panic hoarding is getting worse by the day. It has not been helped by the confusing, mixed, and at times isolating responses of the Oxford colleges.

Last week St John’s College had assured its students that they would be able to remain in their accommodation if need be and were prepared to support them throughout this troubling period. On Sunday afternoon, in an email from the Senior Tutor, the college rescinded its former position: ‘I am now requiring you to leave to go home unless there is a pressing reason not to do so.’ According to the Senior Tutor’s email, all UK students, barring special exceptions, should return home by Wednesday 18thof March.

This came as a shock to many of the students of St John’s, and has created further distress and anxiety at an already trying time. Students have contacted the college individually disputing the decision and expressing their own individual concerns and fears. Furthermore, a letter drafted by a postgraduate student, signed by 60 undergraduate and postgraduate students, was sent to the college expressing opposition to the decision to instruct students to leave. The letter details the concerns shared by many students about endangering elderly and vulnerable relatives at home, as well as their confusion as to how the college decision is intended to fit with the government’s current plan of action.

While St John’s has told postgraduate students that they understand that they might not want to return home because of elderly parents, the college told its undergraduate students via email: ‘you are the very people they [elderly relatives] may need and this is another reason why you must return to your local community.’ 

One student at Johns has said that they are ‘honestly distraught’ by the college’s handling of the situation, and feel as if they are being forced to endanger the welfare of their family, their mental health, and their degree by being forced to vacate their room at short notice.

Another student of the college has said that they feel as if the ‘boilerplate copy-and-paste messages’ from college have made students ‘feel angry, anxious, and condescended to.’ 

St John’s has not been alone in encouraging or forcing students to leave. Queen’s College has advised that all students who are able to return home should do so. Likewise, Wadham College has asked all UK students to leave college accommodation unless they have a ‘compelling’ reason to stay. University College have also requested that all UK students should leave if they do not have a ‘compelling’ reason to stay.

The issue is, what does ‘compelling’ really mean? Compelling for the student or for the college? Many students at St John’s felt that they had compelling reasons to stay in Oxford, but their objections were widely met with a generic copy-and-paste email, ignoring the differing situations of individuals. 

In times of crisis cracks start to show. There are many students who come to Oxford in the first year of their degree and began to make a home for themselves here. Not everyone has a safe home to go to. Many have relatives that they risk endangering by returning. Not everyone has a home conducive to the work demanded by an Oxford degree. What the last week has shown is that many colleges are only prepared to be a home to its students when it is clear skies and smooth sailing. 

Now that students are being forced to leave many of us are feeling lost and frankly abandoned by the institution which we have dedicated ourselves to, the institution we depended on. For some, this experience may well have ruined a relationship with the university that has been built over several years.

Undoubtedly the college staff are under an extreme amount of pressure, and I am sure that the decisions made by colleges have not been made lightly. But given the sheer surreal nature of reality right now it is of the utmost importance that we treat each other gently, and kindly, and with understanding. St John’s may well have good reasons for forcing its students to leave but those reasons have been poorly communicated. The college has told its postgraduates one thing, and its undergraduates another. It has failed to respond to the individual concerns of students, and it has failed to make its students feel safe. 

I sincerely hope that when Johns students return to the college that their relationship with the college will be able to be salvaged, for those who may never return to the college I can only hope that this has not tainted their memories of their degree and their time at St Johns.

St John’s College decline to comment.

Mayday celebrations cancelled

Florine Lips
-
0
Mayday celebrations cancelled

Oxford City Council has announced this morning that this year’s May Morning Event has been cancelled.

The Council said that: ‘While we do not know what the situation will be in May, the emergency services who normally support the event need to be available for priority duties relating to coronavirus. The preparation times for the event mean decisions about the commitment of money and resources need to be made now. Given the uncertainty ahead, we have decided that it is prudent to cancel the event which will also mean the resources can be used elsewhere if needed.’

This follows Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s advice against mass gatherings, especially those that would require emergency workers to ensure public safety. He said in his March 16th press conference that ‘we’ve also got to ensure that we have the critical workers we need that might otherwise be deployed for those gatherings, to deal with those emergencies.’ 

Last year, over 13,000 people attended Oxford’s historic May Morning event, which usually involves a 6am start, with citizens and students congregating to hear Magdalen College choir sing.

Moran seeks to legalise rough sleeping amid Covid-19 fears

Mark Robins
-
0
Moran seeks to legalise rough sleeping amid Covid-19 fears

Layla Moran will present parliament with a Bill to repeal the Vagrancy Act, a law passed in 1824 which criminalises homeless people for rough sleeping and begging. Moran, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, has said that the outbreak of Coronavirus means that “now more than ever, we need a compassionate approach to homelessness”.

The Vagrancy Act has already been repealed in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and Moran’s bill will extend its repeal to England and Wales. There were 1,320 prosecutions under the Act in 2018.

Prior to the presentation of her bill, Moran said: “Rough sleepers urgently need accommodation, health checks and support in the face of Coronavirus. I am concerned that homeless people will be disproportionately affected by the detention measures in the new emergency legislation.”

“A new compassionate approach must include scrapping the Vagrancy Act. It is a cruel, Dickensian law that criminalises people just for sleeping rough. Being homeless should not be a crime. We should be caring for people who end up on the streets, not locking them up.”

Moran has also called for safe spaces to be provided for homeless and vulnerable people to self-isolate. “The government should seek to care for homeless people and set up special services for them in disused buildings or vacated offices in cities,” she said.

“These facilities should provide a sanitised place to eat, drink water and use the toilet. And, they should provide safe spaces for vulnerable people to self-isolate with dignity, as opposed to within a detention facility following arrest.”

Moran’s bill has cross-party support and is co-sponsored by six MPs, amongst them former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas.

A Bleak Night from a Student’s View

Ben Gray
-
0
A Bleak Night from a Student’s View

I have not always been the biggest fan of Oxford University. I have often thought that if I was to write about it, I would be having a right go, lampooning the privilege, the access failings, the ugly residue of the old world. But now I am stunned to find myself writing about how tough a time it is for Oxford students. Half of us do not know we are born (and a gentle reminder to some of the woke freedom fighters reading this – that applies to you too). For many people around the world, the effects of this crisis will be far more visceral than most of us can ever imagine. And yet, we are hurting right now. At the end of the day, a huge chunk of our lives is at university. While we are here, fatuous though a lot of it honestly is, some friends become family. Girlfriends and boyfriends might turn out to be the one we’ll spend the rest of our lives with. So, with the Vice-Chancellor indicating that Trinity term will probably take place remotely and the government advising people to stay put, the night of Monday 16th left a lot of final year students suddenly feeling adrift.

Last weekend down by the river, as a torrent of students poured out of the city, you could feel worry in the air. Back at home on Monday night, a storm broke with hail and thunder. My mum comes home from work, she’s shattered. She’s admin staff at a secondary school and spent the whole day taming chaos. And she’s frightened too, for her own mum, who has a lung condition. My little brother has no idea what’s happening with his GCSEs. He’s trying to act big, but I can tell he’s nervous.

Dad comes in, as always very late in the evening, his inbuilt rant kettle coming to boil on the drive back. He’s a veteran of 2008 and steeled for a recession. There’s no new business coming in and he’s very worried about how we will cope if his wages are cut. He’s not direct about it, but I’m an anthropomorphised cost to him now – with my unfinished masters and a growing pile of rejection letters. I start to feel small, an inconvenience. Without a Trinity term to go to the lack of certainty about my future now seems very real. My student’s airs and pretentions – the poetry, the jackets, the cigarettes and soul records – are melting away before the spectre of what happens next.

And it’s the same for everyone. Social media reads like the Book of Revelations and the messages are flying in. On top of not knowing what’s happening with their degrees, everyone’s family is in meltdown. One friend’s parents are arguing over whether to bring his sister home from uni in the north, and his asthmatic Dad may even try to get to France, believing he has more chance isolating there than at home. Tumult in that house. Another one pops up, she’s at risk and stuck in isolation in her college. There are deep problems at home, and all her friends have left town. She’s utterly alone. While others worry about the practical things, one mate is saying goodbye to his new girlfriend. She’s going back home overseas while she still can, maybe for good. His first romance, he worries, obliterated overnight.

I’m quite lucky at home in Stevenage, with friends I have known since before I can remember. They’re working lads who will take the brunt of this if things go south, but they are the ones picking me back up like they always have. But for a lot of finalists, their entire social lives are at Oxford, and they’ll be thinking of lost moments with the people that matter. The new people they’d give anything to spend more time with. The people they’ve known the whole way through, proper goodbyes cut dead – the things they needed to say still unsaid. The people they forgot and wanted to get to know again, now probably always a regret. It’s going to take a bit of coming to terms with.

We will cope with what is happening because that’s the only thing we can do. We will support our families and help others too, I’m sure. We will get used to the situation and the isolation. But right now, it must be said, the mental health of the student body is reeling from a sucker punch. And that is why it’s going to be important to touch base.

Let your mates know they matter, get the silly Skype calls in, keep dropping your weird memes. A lot of people will be feeling pretty dark in the coming weeks but staying in touch will really help. Because the people in our lives help make us who we are, and we’re not going to lose them, even if, for the minute, we only get to see each other’s mugs on a screen.

In Conversation: Enter Shikari’s Rou Reynolds

Hope Hopkinson
-
0
In Conversation: Enter Shikari’s Rou Reynolds

Born out of the early-2000s rock scene in the unsuspecting St. Albans, Enter Shikari have spent the best part of the last two decades taking the UK rock scene by storm. With their unique genre-bending sound and politically driven message, they are a constant on the lineups of major festivals – playing no less than five sets over the weekend at Reading & Leeds 2019.

The four-piece’s last record, The Spark (2017) set a precedent for high-concept rock music, an era that was as stylised and slick as it was gritty and unapologetic. As a band who are constantly in the business of outdoing themselves, Shikari announced that their sixth album, Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible is set to release on 17th April 2020, calling it “the most definitive Shikari record to date”. Sharing a name with a novel by Peter Pomerantsev about the ‘surreal heart of the New Russia,’ the record is set to navigate the intrigues of the surface level yet uncover the darkness lying beneath in the very same way. 

Ahead of the record’s release, I had the opportunity to chat with frontman Rou Reynolds. An outspoken advocate for mental wellbeing and social justice alike, Reynolds has been at the forefront of Shikari’s evolution from hard-hitting post-hardcore to genre-defying music with an authentic soul. We talked the morning after the late-night release of the second single from NIT&EIP, ‘Thē kĭñg’ – a track that he described as a “lesson in patience and forgiveness”, coated in a melodic and intricate electro-rock shell.

 ‘Thē kĭñg’ came a month after the release of the album’s lead single, ‘The Dreamer’s Hotel’. Both are equally stylised and classically Shikari, yet showcase their ability to jump seamlessly from one sound to another. “The theme of ‘The Dreamer’s Hotel’ came through quite early,” Rou told me. “The music and lyrics got developed at the same time which is quite different for us. The idea behind it was there, and the music came with it. It offered a juxtaposition between this idea of a ‘hotel’ – this place of peace and optimism and community, and then outside the hotel – the normal and furious world that we’ve come to know.”

“It was a case of matching that contrast with music. That’s why the verses are quite stark really, it was quite dramatically unharmonic for us. Normally harmony is so important to our music, but it’s just these lo-fi drums and horrible screeching,” Rou laughed. “We open the doors back up to the hotel with the more slick and melodic sound that really contrasts.”

This imagery is even more vivid still in the video for ‘The Dreamer’s Hotel,’ released just under a month after the song itself. Featuring technicolour effects and absurdist imagery alike, there’s an almost neo-Lynchian element to its execution. “The effects are something that just worked so well,” Rou told me. “We wanted to go for almost a 90s Britpop sort of style, but in a very analogue way. Almost all the effects were made with joysticks on little machines behind the camera – it was all very real and very old school, and made for a really fun experience.”

Beyond the two singles that have already been released, NIT&EIP is perhaps Shikari’s most experimental album thus far. Whilst they’ve never shied away from breaking down musical barriers, the new record signifies how effortlessly they do so.

Track 5, ‘modern living…’ is a seductive and swingy anthem with a carefully handcrafted flow, Reynolds citing “almost a grunge influence. It’s very slow-paced for us, and is really just a track taking the piss out of ourselves and the world that we live in. We’re going through political shock after political shock, and have got very much into that ‘it’s the end of the world and we’re all fucked!’ mindset.”

“It’s very easy to get into a pessimistic – almost nihilistic – way of thinking. We use the portmanteau ‘apocoholic’ to sum that up basically. I’ve very much felt like that myself, but sometimes it’s good to just step back and get some perspective, also just to use humour. It’s something central to what Shikari have always done, it really is a defence mechanism. It’s a way of saying ‘I’m not dead yet,’ showing fortitude, something that we’ve always enjoyed injecting into the music.”

Whilst much of the new record expresses similar feelings about the world in which we live, Shikari are no strangers to inventing fictitious worlds of their own within their music. Whilst they act as vivid caricatures of our turbulent society, tracks like ‘Revolt of the Atoms’ from their previous album are a welcome distraction and fascinating delve into Reynolds’ creative psyche. 

Tracks 11 and 12 play such a role on NIT&EIP – ominously named ‘Marionettes (I. The Discovery of Strings)’, and ‘Marionettes (II. The Ascent)’. Talking of these and the band’s general love of the dystopian, Rou said “sometimes, I like going into quite self-indulgent ways of creating, and just using music to create a piece of fiction. Because of the ominous theme, it allows us to explore different styles of instrumentation. There’s all sorts on this one – it’s a proper journey, a strange sort of opera in a way.”

“The only difficult thing was trying to make it flow. The introduction is a sort of prickly and ominous, almost Radiohead-esque sounding thing, and then evolves into almost an homage to early house and rave culture. There are lots of points on the album where we’ve been inspired by rave culture actually – I think it’s something that’s quite important at the moment. We’re in a time that feels very similar to the late 80s, early 90s; the country is divided by a shift back to neoliberalism, and it’s taken such a grip. Rave was almost apolitical to start with, but with the rise of Margaret Thatcher and ‘society is dead,’ rave almost became the fight back, if you like. It became people longing for community as it was taken out of working life, especially with the death of the mining industry. It was a death of a way of living, and rave culture became a response to that. That’s why you can hear it throughout the album as a major influence, because of the real atmosphere that’s reminiscent of all that.”

This is indicative of just the type of band that Shikari are. Whilst they reliably produce punchy festival anthems, there is thought embedded into every inch of the creative process; the catchy tunes being made all the more wonderful knowing they’re crafted with power and intention. “It’s not something that we really ever chose,” Rou told me. “I grew up with lots of influences that kind of pushed us in this direction – to use the tool to explore and unite, it just feels quite natural.”

“I grew up on Motown and Northern soul; my dad was a DJ in that respect. After the death of MLK, that became quite a politicised scene. I was always part of the punk and hardcore scenes too, and that was just normality, the idea that music brings communities together. I couldn’t be running around on stage and putting all my energy and passion into something that didn’t feel worthy of my passion, y’know? It has to be an honest gesture of communal passion, otherwise I don’t really know why I’d be on stage, I’d probably prefer to be in an orchestra or something.”

“But then, as you said, using music by itself is something that’s quite important as well. On this album more so than anything we’ve done before, the use of music without overt lyrics to convey a message has been really prevalent. The most obvious case is ‘Elegy for Extinction,’ an instrumental piece that uses program form to convey the evolution of life on this planet. It starts off with a very sprightly section with brass, strings, and woodwind – trying to convey the birth of a new species. It goes onto the second part in a sort of march, which you can imagine as the branches of the evolutionary tree. Eventually it all comes to a rather dramatic and rather terrifying crescendo, trying to convey the anthropocene and the fact that we’ve lost 50% of our species – the fact we have all sorts of terrifying possibilities brought about by climate change and human influence.”

“The process of writing music like this has become quite important to me – as sometimes, especially in the last few years, there’s been a lot of political music. Often it can be quite banal and obvious, and I think we always try and not just settle for the ‘football chanting politics,’ y’know, where you’ve just got a mantra and are shoving it down people’s throats. We want to encourage people to think for themselves, and hopefully this comes across in the record.”

Whilst Shikari’s run of small venue UK dates in April has since been cancelled due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the band plan on announcing a full tour for late 2020. Commanding large and impressive venues is what they do best, their immersive set design and 4D ‘quadraphonic sound’ creating a live atmosphere like no other. “We’re actually starting to build the set today,” Rou told me. “We’re not actually playing any UK festivals this summer for the first time in our career because we’ll need the summer to rehearse and build the staging. It’s a lot of work but we can’t wait.”

“There’s just so much scope; there are so many different emotions conveyed on the album so we can really build on that live – build a world and an atmosphere to absorb you all in. I just can’t wait to be honest.”

Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible is released worldwide on 17th April 2020.

Bodleian Libraries to close

Tilly Walters
-
0
Bodleian Libraries to close

As a result of university wide policy changes due to Covid-19, the Bodleian Libraries will be closing tomorrow. These changes were announced in an email to Modern Languages students, and the information is expected to be released university-wide later today.

In an email to Modern Language students, the faculty wrote:

“All Libraries / Reading Rooms  – including the Taylor Institution Library – will close to readers for the foreseeable future, at 5pm today. All public spaces (e.g. Weston Library and Old Bodleian) are closed with immediate effect (alongside all GLAM public spaces e.g. Ashmolean Museum). All book deliveries and loans will cease from 5pm today. Existing books on loan will be auto-renewed until 19 June.

“We are already scaling up our digital services in order to support readers, including a greater focus on ebook provision and enhanced scanning services for open shelf material. The majority of these services will be supported by staff working from home. We will maintain the Scan-and-deliver service from the BSF, and a new ‘Scan-and-deliver+’ service from Oxford library locations. This will be operated by small teams working on rotation. Further details will be provided in due course.”

The Bodleian Libraries later shared this information on Twitter.

Speaking to Cherwell, they stated: “From Tuesday 17th March onwards The Ashmolean Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University Natural History Museum and History of Science Museum are closed to the public.These steps are part of the University’s continued steps to prioritise the health and welfare of staff, students and the local community in the light of the UK’s escalating coronavirus situation.

“The Bodleian Libraries also closed their library sites from 5pm on 17th March but readers will still be able to access a wide range of online resources for remote working, including access to eJournals and ebooks, a scan-and-deliver service, the Oxford Reading Lists Online (ORLO) service, and an expanded Live-Chat service for enquiries is available at https://bit.ly/BodleianOnline .

“The University parks and Botanic Garden and Arboretum will remain open. Updates will continue to be posted on the University’s coronavirus advice webpage: http://bit.ly/coronavirus-advice. More information on The Bodleian Libraries online services can be found here: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/news/2020/keeping-the-university-reading/_nocache.”

Further information will be updated if and when it becomes available.

This article has been updated at 13:23 to reflect the statement shared on Twitter, and again at 18:06 to reflect their comment.

1...480481482...2,491Page 481 of 2,491

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by James Ashley