Oxford
The heart of the matter
Kathleen Stock describes how four women undergraduates in 1940s Oxford challenged an arid, modish philosophy
Oxford should not accept money that is tainted by fascism
Dons and students at Oxford have in recent years been deeply exercised about Cecil Rhodes, who died 120 years ago.…
Oxford, ‘sensitivity readers’ and the trouble with safe spaces
The list of things that students must apparently be protected from grows longer every day. Controversial speakers, rude comedians, sombreros…
Cancel culture, Roman-style
The mob is at work again in Oxford, protesting against the existence of Oriel’s statue of Cecil Rhodes. But this…
Why the Oxford Queen portrait row matters
The sheer scale of the outrage over Magdalen College Oxford electing to remove a portrait of the Queen from the…
What happens now that Rhodes didn’t fall?
Oriel College, Oxford’s decision to retain the statue of Cecil Rhodes has generated the usual voluminous fury. It has also shown it…
Is AstraZeneca’s Covid jab effective against the South African variant?
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been under attack ever since the results of its phase three trials were announced in December.…
Why is going to Oxford being held against me?
Should going to Oxford be held against you? In my experience, some employers think it should. A month before the…
Oxford’s remarkable vaccine success
It is worth taking a moment to stand back and applaud Sarah Gilbert and the Oxford vaccine team’s achievement. The…
Statue wars: what should we do with controversial monuments?
Secretary of State for Communities Robert Jenrick’s pledge to protect monuments and statues from mob iconoclasm with new laws and…
Ivy league
Oxford is not an easy city to homogenise; but that doesn’t mean you can’t try. I found a vast shopping…
The vaccine goalposts have shifted
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock provided a vaccine update this morning London time, reporting that the chances of the Oxford…
Juggling a hot potato
Melancholy pervades this novel: a sense of glasses considerably more than half empty, with the levels sinking fast. This is…
What is a ‘tergiversation’?
Last year, someone at US dictionary Merriam-Webster noticed that lots of people were looking up the word tergiversation online. It…
The lessons I learned at my Oxford gaudy
I went to a gaudy last weekend. Several British universities now host these splendid events; mine was at Worcester College,…
It’s so easy to go mad in Oxford: Chiang Mai Kitchen reviewed
Oxford is a pile of medieval buildings filled with maniacs, and is therefore one of the most interesting places on…
The objects that sound witchiest on paper just look sad: Spellbound reviewed
Just in front of me, visiting Spellbound at the Ashmolean last week, was a very rational boy of about seven…
The English clergy at their oddest – a compendium
As the wordy title of this book and the name of its author suggest, this is a faux-archaic, fogeyish journey…
Our great universities are struggling – but not because of Brexit
British universities have serious problems. The recent strikes protesting against a sudden reduction in pension rights were unusually effective, and…
We’re all poorer for the loss of our small rail lines
To me, the strange words ‘Marsh Gibbon’ once meant I was nearly home. My heart lifted as we creaked and…
The Queen and Prince Philip’s 70th anniversary party sounds glorious
Windsor Castle on Monday night sounds like a children’s party magnified. The rooms were filled with golden-leaved trees. A giant…
Gleaming pictures of the past
If you think you know what to expect from an Alan Hollinghurst novel, then when it comes to The Sparsholt…
A poet in prose
Literary reputation can be a fickle old business. Those garlanded during their lifetimes are often quickly forgotten once dead. Yet…
Tales out of school
In 1952, the five-year-old Michael Rosen and his brother were taken on holiday along the Thames by their communist parents.…
Greater Oxbridge
Oxbridge is an ivory-tower state of mind, perhaps, or at least two ancient rival universities, but how about this: in…
