by Tobias Thornes With the Mediterranean Sea shimmering silkily around me in the soft spring sunlight, it is difficult to believe that there could ever be anything but peace and tranquillity between those quiet coasts, blessed with a beauty beloved since ancient times and hardly diminished in our own. As if in some delicious dream […]
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A pdf of the print version of Issue #3 – Translation – can be downloaded here: Issue #3 – Translation
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by Sam Wilkinson The first video ever uploaded to YouTube didn’t offer much of a hint as to the future popularity of the platform, although it did predict the style of its many successors. ‘Me at the zoo’ stars YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, who offers his thoughts on the elephants at the San Diego Zoo, […]
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by Ashok Menon Access is a hurdle that the computing industry has been struggling to overcome for many years. With no mandatory teaching in schools and tangentially related subjects, like ICT, providing a skewed and often unfavourable impression of the subject, many leave school with at best a mild disinterest and at worst an active […]
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by Chloe Cheung Picture this: it’s 1984 and the Two Minutes Hate is raging. A huge supra-stage screen shows an enemy of Big Brother being shot in the head. That was the Oxford Playhouse’s critically acclaimed production of George Orwell’s 1984, but even the most sporadic of theatregoers might be familiar with the growing […]
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by Elizabeth Stell & George Prew How often have you found that ‘computer literacy’ is a requirement for this or that internship? How often have you written on your CV that you possess this skill, or at least some of its aspects? And yet everyone has a different view on what ‘computer literacy’ really means. […]
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by ZX The recent flurry of trade deals between China and the UK has drawn criticism on several fronts. Critics are concerned that Britain is in danger of making itself too reliant on one country at the expense of other relationships, and at the risk of compromising national security. They also accuse Britain for being […]
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A pdf of the print edition of Issue #2 – Digitality – can be downloaded here: Issue #2 – Digitality
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by Peter Gent My MacBook stares at me, one eye open, but seemingly not awake. Once it did awake, unexpected, and its green eye burned as it judged me. Panicked, I jumped up, trying to hide from its gaze, unsure if I was fully clothed. I realised a moment later that it was just FaceTime […]
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by Jacob Warn Born in the 90s, companies of men adored him even before puberty. Siri prophesied longevity: and didn’t he know it, as he watched it on his own fair skin, white blushed with the blood-red digits of his own heartbeat. A heart throb. A nymphomaniac unto himself, himself unto nymphs. The light down […]
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by Giorgio Scherrer “The green light’s looking at you, kid.” “Here’s looking at you, kid”, Humphrey Bogart famously told Ingrid Bergmann in Casablanca, and even if you haven’t seen the movie (shame on you), one thing’s clear from that line: it was shot in the pre-Skype era. Innocent and foolish as they are, here’s what […]
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by Rory Turnbull A human need ensures that we shall leer At Fortune’s favours, others’ joys unreal; And yet, when others too begin to jeer At our denuded privacy, we feel The need to curse, to curse computers then. We mourn how emails pester us until Our fingers always fix themselves again Upon our phones, […]
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by Zixin Jiang Aristotle once declared that it is unfit for a young person to learn political science, ‘for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life’. [1] I do not know if Aristotle had in mind teenagers or whether his statement would apply to modern undergraduates as well. But I do know […]
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by Tobias Thornes ‘Could I have your number, please?’ said the young woman behind the desk. Her hands hovered over her keyboard in anticipation. ‘My number? What number?’ I asked, feeling somewhat perplexed. After all, it was getting late in the evening and the weariness of a long day’s travelling lay upon me. ‘Your telephone […]
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‘Organic Chemistry’ by Fran Donnellan ***
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In keeping with this fortnight’s theme of ‘digitality’, Vicarious Living brings you an insight into the weird and wonderful WordPress world of that most inevitable of linguist clichés, the ‘year abroad blog’. You can keep up with Christy’s adventures at https://gringachilena.wordpress.com *** A True #Blogging Testament from a Real Live #YearAbroadBlogger Christy Callaway-Gale (aka #GringaChilena), […]
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A pdf of the print version of Issue #1 – Beginnings – can be downloaded here: Issue #1 – Beginnings
Read moreBy Francesca Donnellan This is, I hope, the first of many interviews with scientists from Oriel’s JCR, MCR and SCR. The aim is to both showcase the range of research conducted by fellows, graduates and undergraduates and to have a poke around what it is like to be a scientist within the university and our […]
Read moreby Katherine Wood The new Oriel Art Society, founded by second-year Medicine student Frankie Satchwell, marks an important development in the university’s art scene. Providing an environment for students to mix with fellow art dilettantes, consummate artists and complete beginners will be brought together to produce, exhibit and discuss all manners of artistic endeavour. As […]
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by Anna Wawrzonkowska Over the course of the week before Freshers’, I learnt exactly what it meant to be a Foreigner: the odd one out. I felt alien. I felt not myself. And I couldn’t understand why. Surely I wasn’t turning into some kind of a social disaster? As I felt my confidence wane, I […]
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by Tobias Thornes Forgive me if I start at the beginning. You might prefer to know the ending first, and judge from the conclusion whether setting out was worth my while at all. Or perhaps you’d rather have a taste first of the adventure that lies between the outset and the end, that you might […]
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Ianthe Greenwood, Culture Editor Abroad is a foreign country: they do things differently there. As another year starts, a dozen fourth-year linguists readjust to Oriel life after the mythical Year Abroad™, swapping lidos for libraries, finding half the clubs we know have gone and getting mistaken for freshers (ok, just me then). But for the […]
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by Peter Gent I’ve sometimes wondered, if I were hit by lightning, would I too get superhuman powers? Every time it rains or thunders, I find safe cover—most would say wisely—not hiding under a tree or standing in the middle of an open field, so I am not likely to know. I did once get […]
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by Jacob Warn Here is a little philosophy of memory, or, a treatise on how to die well. When I was two months old, every November day I woke, cried, swallowed, and occasionally perceived this or that. Then I slept. Those verbs just about encompass the entire scope of my quotidian existence. Ah yes: on […]
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by Rory Turnbull How to begin? How do we make a start? With all those expectations driving me To take my turn and try to play my part In writing something, somehow, easily, I do not know; I know not what to write, Since I’m ungifted, and in rhyme untaught. ‘Fain would I, but I […]
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by Sam Wilkinson Ada Lovelace, the brilliant mathematician widely regarded as the first computer programmer, has proved to be one of the most powerful symbols for women in technology. Earlier this month, global celebrations marked the seventh Ada Lovelace Day, dedicated to inspirational female figureheads in the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). […]
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by Jacob Warn Welcome to a world of music, of love, and of language. This is a world of drunken revelry and cross-gartered madness, overwriting a history inscribed with the vestiges of war, loss and social change. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is just a comedy. Some say. But it is this kind of thinking that results in the generic […]
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by Jacob Warn The final few weeks of Trinity term provide the perfect opportunity to capitalise on some of the fine weather we finally get, to take work outside, or to share a beer once exams are over, al fresco. But Oxford, despite its many quads, eateries, pubs and beer cellars, often seems to lack the […]
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by Maks Adach Is Oriel College where all the celebs hang out? Or is it just graced with the identical twin of many a famous face? Maks Adach draws attention to a number of these bizarre coincidences… Or are they…? *** Dear Mr Warn, Was that Stanley Tucci (of Devil Wears Prada Fame) preaching at […]
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by Serena Yagoub The busker’s voice is one of the most prominent and defining sounds of Oxford’s centre; their melodies have wafted between Cornmarket’s side roads and become engrained within their stone-walls. But this music is not simply a characteristic of the city, it is an intrinsic part of the musicians that produce it. This […]
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2014 by Ianthe Greenwood Our Eurovision correspondent checks out the talent in Vienna. Love it or loathe it, the Eurovision Song Contest has become a cultural institution over the decades since its first tentative broadcast back in 1956. Over the decades since, it has become synonymous with an annual outpouring of patriotism, extremes of tactical voting […]
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This entry was the winner of the Oriel Writing Awards: Poetry Category for 2015. Congratulations! *** Eating Disorder – Jade Tinslay Wear me on your lips, your delectable hips, my opulent weight a fine coat draped over your craving bones. Let me nestle about your thighs, glaze your eyes. Let me taste you, […]
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This entry came 2nd place in the Oriel Writing Awards: Poetry Category for the year 2015. *** Sonnet – by Kat Wood Earth lies as barren as dry winter air, Corsets of concrete and brick pin her down, Jealous of radiance, features so fair, Workmen are covering her with a gown. Not one of autumn leaves, dew drops […]
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by Chloe Cheung ‘A heap of broken images, where the sun beats | And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief’. Thus wrote T.S. Eliot in The Wasteland – but would Britain become a similar cultural wasteland in the wake of a break with Brussels? Brexit doomsayers have long been stressing the financial and […]
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This entry was the winner of the Oriel Writing Awards: Prose Category for the year 2015. *** Gandalf, Apparition and Wellies – by Sophie Barnes I sat in a world. Only two things I knew. It was good, and Gandalf was there. Next thing, we all apparated back to this world. Except it wasn’t apparition. Everyone kept […]
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by Zixin Jiang Background Ngok Fei (1103-1142) was a Chinese general in the Song dynasty. In 1126, the northern Jurchen civilisation invaded the Song dynasty and captured the Song capital Kaifeng and the Song emperor. Ngok Fei led the Song army in wars against the Jurchens and was about to recapture Kaifeng when the reigning […]
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by Rebecca Leigh For its duration, the intimate chapel at Nuffield College will become your TARDIS, transporting you through time and space to the events on British and German soil that lead to the staging of one of the most daring plot of the German resistance in the Second World War. Sensitive direction and sound production, […]
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by Lizzie Searle All through Oriel Arts Week 2015, we’re providing a daily shot of musical inspiration to set you off to a good start! Make sure you come back daily for your music recommendation & explanation provided by Oriel College Music Society members. 14th century song does have the potential to sound pretty dry […]
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by Edward Wren All through Oriel Arts Week 2015, we’re providing a daily shot of musical inspiration to set you off to a good start! Make sure you come back daily for your music recommendation & explanation provided by Oriel College Music Society members. Intelligent and soulful, ‘Neon’ and Mayer’s debut album Room For Squares […]
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by Jacob Warn A Review of Oxford Unlocked: Object-Handling & Tour at The Ashmolean, an Oriel Arts Week 2015 event. During Oriel Arts Week 2015, two groups of Oriel students spent several hours in the Ashmolean Museum with Dr Mallica Kumbera Landrus. As part of an Oxford Unlocked series – designed to reveal the secrets of a […]
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The Poor Print 