Culture, Prose

Cyclic Perspectives

by Aidan Chivers Some of the most charming moments of big family events are the retelling of old, familiar and utterly worn-out stories of past times. Told with delightful precision – and often, it is vaguely suspected, highly fabricated plot details – these family favourites resurface year after year, with no innovation or variation in […]

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Comment, Culture, Prose

Periods, Taboos and Female Shame

by Emma Gilpin It was a secret that we all had and we kept it, ashamed, embarrassed, scared about what it all meant. I suppose that’s because it meant adulthood, but it also meant something much more intimidating than that: womanhood. I got my period when I was twelve. I didn’t, couldn’t, tell anyone about […]

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Culture, Prose

Is there life after your Year Abroad?

by Christy Callaway-Gale The beginning and end of everyone’s year abroad (yes, I am about to generalise, which in Oxford’s terms is the bait for your tutor to rip your essay into unbelievably miniature shreds) can be summed up by the question, how are you feeling about leaving? Surprisingly, I think both my answers, although […]

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Comment, Diary, Prose

Slow Travel: Changing China

by Tobias Thornes A wide and enticing country brews, always, just beyond our western comprehension, like a cauldron of constant change the taste of whose broth we never can be sure. Such is the allure of tantalising China: a rich civilisation veiled behind a mist of mystery. And I, like so many awe-stricken adventurers, am […]

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Culture, Prose

On Dignity

by Alec Siantonas In what we now call the Ancient Near East, beards were a sign of dignity. Beards adorned the virile and the vigorous, the warrior and father of warriors. I myself have small desire to sire warriors, but I sympathise with the viewpoint. I delight in my hair, in all its luxuriant abundance. […]

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