Volume 22 No 3 | TRINITY 2010 Oxford Today The Universi t y M a g a z i n e

Helping politics go with a swing David Butler on television elections

Food for thought Rick and John Stein on boosting brains

The men who shaped science Melvyn Bragg on Oxford and the Royal Society 01111 297x210 Oxford Today CAP3_Layout 1 22/04/2010 09:57 Page 1

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THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD: EDUCATING LEADERS FOR 800 YEARS Editor: Greg Neale Designer: Richard Boxall Head of Publications and Web Office: Anne Brunner-Ellis Editorial Assistants: Janet Avison, Martin Harrington, Anthea Oxford Today Milnes, Elizabeth Tatham The Universi t y M a g a z i n e Picture Editor: Joanna Kay Editorial Advisory Board: Trinity highlights Alan Bell i

Anne Brunner-Ellis d David Clary, 7 16 45 48 President, Magdalen College Paddy Coulter

Sue Cunningham, christian sinibal Director of Development jens ressing/Dpa/corbus pt of engineering science

Mary Dejevsky, The Independent e d Zoe Flood

Katie Gray, Member, e d ita ita greer/

Oxford University Society r Jeremy Harris, presi nt & fellows of st john’s college Director of Public Affairs Nancy Kenny, Director of Alumni Relations Oliver Rawlins, UK Film Council Gillian Reynolds, S ecuring her future: S cientifically thinking: E lizabeth Fallaize: Looking back: a The Daily Telegraph getting girls to school 350 years of the RS a scholar of renown novel view of Oxford Rachel O'Kane, Wiley-Blackwell Editorial enquiries: Janet Avison Public Affairs Directorate University News Features Tel: 01865 280545 Fax: 01865 270178 2 News 12 Going with the swing [email protected] www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk University plans to meet funding cuts; The Oxford Today interview: David Butler, psephologist and Alumni enquiries, including School hits $100 million target; from the political statistician, tells Greg Neale about six decades of election change of address: Brontës to the Beatles; Tutu’s call to end broadcasting – and an unforgettable evening with Winston Claire Larkin conflict; Editorial: a new publisher for Churchill Alumni Office Oxford Today Tel: 01865 611610 16 Interrogating Nature – to reveal God’s way? [email protected] 11 Appointments and awards Melvyn Bragg celebrates the 350th anniversary of the Royal www.alumni.ox.ac.uk 23 Science findings Society with an examination of the links between religious University of Oxford The toothless ocean giant University Offices thinking and the ideas of the men who laid the groundwork for a Wellington Square 26 Sport/Student scene new scientific understanding of the world Oxford OX1 2JD How Oxford helped put a woman Advertising: into Wisden’s five; Boat Race blues and 20 Idle scholar who brought local language to book Landmark Publishing Services bouquets Hold on to your Haggle-Cart and Larrup a Codnopper at Hynny For advertising enquires: Marie Longstaff Pynny, or I’m a Matter-Fangled Nuppit. Possibly. Chris Sladen Future Plus delves into dialect studies at Oxford, and salutes the Yorkshireman Beaufort Court Arts and Ideas who laid the groundwork 30 Monmouth Street Bath BA1 2BW 34 Museums and galleries 24 The Broad view 01225 822849 www.futureplc.com 36 Distractions 48 My Oxford Publisher: Prize crossword, bridge and chess Naomi Alderman, one of Britain’s brightest young writers, tells of Wiley-Blackwell 9600 Garsington Road 37 Reviews her student highs and lows, and how a novelist’s Oxford stills owes Oxford OX4 2DQ The term’s new books a debt to Brideshead Revisited Tel: 01865 776868 40 Poetry Fax: 01865 714591 www.blackwellpublishing.com Printed in Great Britain by Volume 22 No 3 | TRINITY 2010

seum

Headley Brothers Ltd, Kent Oxonian Extra u

COVER PICTURE M issn 0954–1306 Oxford Today As the Ashmolean Museum The Universi t y M a g a z i n e Oxford Today is published in 28 Oxonians at large

underwent a £61 million hmolean February, June and October. It The academic and the celebrity chef; the s redevelopment, its Chinese artist Helping politics go A is free to Oxford graduates and Martian explorer and the micro-credit with a swing is available to non-graduates in residence Weimin He was David Butler on organiser – Oxonians making their mark television elections on subscription. For further recording the work in a series of information and to subscribe 32 Alumni Office news Food for thought drawings, sketches and woodcuts, Rick and John Stein contact Janet Avison Come to this year’s Alumni Weekend – on boosting brains (see page 43 for further details). including this image (the original full booking details © The Chancellor, Masters and is monochrome) of a builder Scholars of the University of 33 Travel Photography Competition against the Oxford skyline. The Oxford 45 Obituaries book is reviewed on page 40 – The opinions expressed in and you can win a copy as the Oxford Today are those of 46 Letters prize for successfully completing the contributors, and are not The men who Using and abusing history; human this issue’s crossword, which shaped science necessarily shared by the Melvyn Bragg on Oxford University of Oxford. perfectability; Oxford dramatics; using appears on page 36 and the Royal Society Advertisements are carefully and abusing Latin vetted, but the University can take no responsibility for them. OXONIANUNIVERSITY EXTRA OxonianNews olonski m University cuts spending S eg r as education funding G constraints begin to bite

The University is planning to reduce the cost challenges we need to do two things’, he of administrative services and Academic said: ‘our best to mitigate the impact of cuts, Services and University Collections (ASUC) and all we can to maximise other sources of by 10 per cent over three years, in light funding available to us.’ of the constrained funding environment. Professor Hamilton stressed the ongoing Latest estimates indicate that Britain’s higher importance of the Campaign for the University education sector is facing cuts totalling nearly of Oxford. ‘So far as the second challenge £450 million. of maximising all of our income streams is Constraints on capital expenditure and concerned, it is heartening to report that staff recruitment imposed in October 2008 the Campaign for the University of Oxford remain in place, meaning that leavers are continues to do well in what are obviously says that maintaining the exceptional quality not automatically being replaced and more difficult circumstances and now totals over of Oxford’s provision will be a formidable stringent criteria are being applied to the £780 million’, he said. (It has since passed £800 challenge, if fee income is capped at the current creation of new posts and new buildings. The million: see page 5.) level, while public funding is cut. University is also encouraging staff to take The Vice-Chancellor’s letter followed It also states that Oxford has not seen a advantage of the Oxford Mobility Incentive the University’s first submission to the decline in applications from under-represented Scheme (OMIS), which offers them the Independent Review of Higher Education groups since higher fees were introduced opportunity to retire early. Funding and Student Finance, chaired by in 2006. In fact, the University has seen a At the same time, the University is Lord Browne of Madingley. The purpose significant increase in applications from state reviewing teaching provision, and there are of the review is to assess how much the school students, suggesting that the higher fees proposals for a ring-fenced endowment fund beneficiaries of higher education – graduates, have not threatened broader access to date. for joint teaching posts, funding for colleges, employers and society as a whole – should The University’s second submission to the and deficit support for humanities and contribute to the overall cost of provision. Browne Review in May, which addresses future mathematical, physical and life sciences. The University’s first submission in policy on fees and funding, recommends that In a letter to members of the University January, which focused on the impact of the cap on tuition fees – currently £3,225 per in February, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor current fees and funding arrangements, says annum – should be lifted. Similar pleas were Andrew Hamilton, outlined the financial that the average public funding per student made by Cambridge University and the Russell challenges facing Oxford over the coming fell by 40 per cent in real terms during the Group, which represents 20 of the country’s top months and years. ‘In the face of these 1990s, although it has risen since the 90s, and universities.

Alumni aid ‘helps colleges weather the storm’ seum u M Oxford’s 36 independent colleges reported a addition to the £53 million contribution to 7 per cent fall in endowments during the year endowments, colleges received £18 million s to 31 July 2009 – a substantial reduction, but in income gifts and £8 million in capital gifts. A hmolean less than that experienced by many North Conference profits contributed an estimated American universities. £10 million. The colleges’ financial statements, Commenting on the results, Frances published in February, show a surplus for Lannon, Principal of Lady Margaret Hall and the year of £6 million, on a total income of Chairman of the Conference of Colleges, £281 million. Donations grew strongly. In said: ‘Many colleges are fortunate to have, serving on their investment committees, yer a

S Old Members who have highly successful il h

P careers in fund management. This has undoubtedly helped us weather the storm. It is also encouraging to see strong growth in donations to colleges, up from £60 million in 2007/08 to £79 million in 2008/09. Almost all of these gifts come from Old Members. ‘Without endowment income, the support of Old Members, and the surpluses from conference activities, it would be impossible to maintain the unique academic environment, teaching methods and support for research activities that the collegiate system provides. Even with these great Frances Lannon: alumni support vital for advantages, the next few years will present colleges to maintain academic environment major challenges.’

2 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 OXONIANUNIVERSITY EXTRA OxonianNews

Turning a new page Oxford Today’s Trinity Term issue appears as the University year moves towards its formal end. For students reaching the conclusion of their undergraduate careers, it is a time of final examinations, celebrations and (infrequently, we hope) commiserations, of friendships toasted and the future embraced. Meanwhile, Oxford life continues its seasonal way, as preparation begins for the year to come. Oxford Today is also at a turning point. After 22 years, this issue is the last to be produced in association with the publishing company Wiley-Blackwell. From next term, the magazine will be published by Future Plus, a Bath- and London-based company, which will In an interview with The Oxford Student some losing up to 14 per cent of their state be responsible for its production, distribution newspaper, Lesley Simms, the University’s funding. head of planning and resource allocation, The University’s teaching grant has and general management. suggested that, were tuition fees to be raised, decreased by 7.5 per cent, mainly due to Oxford, however changeless it may a fund might be established to support the withdrawal of a historic buildings grant. seem to the outsider, is - as is any successful graduates who go into less well-paid jobs such However, Oxford’s research grant will grow by institution - in a state of constant evolution. As as teaching and social work. 5.5 per cent to £126 million. we report in this issue, the University is facing Lord Browne’s inquiry is due to report This is largely due to growth in research up to economic challenges. Plans are being later this summer. funded by charities, topped up by HEFCE, made for new development. Research studies and to a change in the way ‘quality research’ are taking the University’s academics into ever ■ The Higher Education Funding Council for funding is rewarded, with more weight placed England (HEFCE) released details in March on research rated 4* (the highest level). more challenging engagement with the wider of how individual university budgets are to A statement issued by the University said: world. And as one generation of students and be cut for the coming academic year. Oxford ‘In a very difficult funding environment we are academics moves on, new faces emerge to will see a 1 per cent increase in state funding, pleased to see that our overall HEFCE grant build on their predecessors’ achievements. which is a small decrease in real terms, has not dropped. However, the underfunding So, too, Oxford Today is changing, as receiving a grant of £188.1 million next year of teaching remains a significant problem. well as its management. From next term, compared to £186.6 million this year. Other We therefore welcome the Browne Review’s while the printed magazine will continue, the institutions have fared much worse, with detailed examination of the issues.’ online version will expand, which should allow for an increase in news, articles and reader involvement. Eastern art collections go online It’s appropriate, at this time, to thank departing colleagues who have contributed The Ashmolean Museum has launched a new Web-based initiative, to Oxford Today’s success over the last two decades, whether as publishers, advertising Eastern Art Online: Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian agents, editorial contributors or advisers. Art. The Online Centre provides access to the University of Special thanks are due to Richard Boxall, our Oxford’s Islamic and Asian Art collections held at the Ashmolean. designer, who over the years has elegantly The collections encompass art from the Islamic world, the Indian interpreted the ideas of our editors (or gently subcontinent, Southeast Asia, China, Japan and Korea, and include showed us their shortcomings). Thanks, too, for the founding work of Christina Hardyment ceramics, textiles, sculpture, metalwork, paintings, prints and other and Georgina Ferry, my predecessors. Whoever works. To see the collection, go to www.jameelcentre.ashmolean.org. takes on the editorial baton (a decision had The centre was made possible by a generous gift from the not been made when we went to press), will philanthropist Yousef Jameel. ‘Knowledge should be accessible to also inherit another rich resource: our readers, everyone, everywhere, at any time’, he said. ‘The Online Centre whose views reflect their wide range of for Islamic and Asian Art will be a major step towards achieving this interests and opinions. For all technologies and personnel may goal. I envisage the centre as the hub of a future worldwide network change, the heart of Oxford Today remains. exploring how different cultures learnt from each other and enriched To reflect - objectively, entertainingly and people’s lives as a result.’ independently, I hope - the life and work of Oxford and Oxonians around the world is to tell A late-13th-century Iranian calligraphic tile bearing words a rich and diverse story. Long may it continue. from the Quran Greg Neale Editor, Oxford Today

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 3 THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD SHOP Luxury Gifts & Exclusive Alumni Products from the University’s Official Shop. All products 10% cheaper online than in store.*

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Trinity2010.indd 1 22/04/2010 12:09:56 OXONIANUNIVERSITY EXTRA OxonianNews

James Martin 21st Century School University campaign hits $100m research funding target passes £800m mark The University’s fundraising campaign,

Oxford’s James Martin 21st Century School NSKI O Oxford Thinking, passed the £800 million

has defied the economic downturn by raising ol m $100 million to finance research projects S mark in April. The largest fundraising eg r aimed at tackling some of the world’s most G campaign in European university history, pressing problems. it aims to raise a minimum of £1.25 billion Last year, Dr James Martin, one of to support Oxford’s research, teaching the world’s most influential computer and facilities. scientists and an alumnus of Keble College, committed to donate up to $50 million if other donors would match it. A year later, 30 donors, including philanthropists, charities, The £800 million figure has been corporations and research bodies, have had their gifts matched. The funding will support achieved in less than six years: the 19 projects on subjects as diverse as the future campaign, which was formally launched in of cities, brain manipulation, forecasting May 2008, began its ‘quiet phase’ in the economic shocks, and vaccine design, Pledge made good: James Martin’s $50 million summer of 2004. The Vice-Chancellor, together with food and fuel security and the donation has been matched within a year Professor Andrew Hamilton, said: ‘To have impact of the growth of ageing populations. raised £800 million in such a short time, in The pledge built on Dr Martin’s gift economic meltdown in history – you’ll a difficult economic climate, is testament of $100 million in 2005, which went to set never get people to give’. Instead, he added, to the extraordinary generosity of Oxford’s up the James Martin 21st Century School. ‘some foundations and wealthy individuals donors …. We are grateful to the thousands Martin commented that when he made the give money in bad times if the cause is of alumni, individuals and foundations who pledge, ‘most people said this is the biggest exceptionally important.’ have chosen to support our work.’ George Soros backs new institute for economic modelling

George Soros, the billionaire investor and of Economics. It will also be affiliated with Ian Goldin, director of the James Martin philanthropist, is to fund a new institute for the New York-based Institute for New 21st Century School, said: ‘Part of what economic modelling as part of the James Economic Thinking (INET), founded the School is trying to do is to broaden the Martin 21st Century School at the University. by Soros last year to promote reform in debate and get a plurality of voices and think Soros has donated US$5 million to support economic thinking and policy worldwide. of different ways of modelling.’ a five-year research programme, a sum that ‘The reality is that economies are George Soros, who was born in Budapest will be equalled by James Martin under the subject to large shocks that alter previous in 1930, co-founded the Quantum Fund, matched funding scheme announced last relationships and lead to poor forecasts, and which created the bulk of the Soros fortune. year. the institute will play a key role in advancing He played a significant role in the transition The new institute will be led by David research to confront such issues’, said Sir from communism to capitalism in Hungary Hendry, Professorial Fellow at Nuffield David, who is a also a member of the INET in the 1980s, and also contributed funds to College, and former head of the Department Advisory Board. support Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003.

It was 20 years ago today … and summer courses are going strong

New courses ranging from ‘The Beatles and ages brary i m I L Sixties Britain’ to ‘The Battle of Britain Revisited’ t r A and ‘Contemporary British Fiction’ are part

eman of the Oxford Experience summer residential s g A d i

r programme, delivered by the University’s B r n/ Department for Continuing Education, which P ess sociation o d n

o celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The L programme, which takes place over five weeks llery, a and offers a range of more than 50 accessible G courses in the humanities, attracts 500 students rtrait

o of all ages from all around the world. P In addition to the new courses, perennial

tional favourites include those on the Brontës, Jane a N Austen and Shakespeare. Participants also enjoy evening lectures, concerts and theatre visits. For further information go to www.conted.ox.ac.uk/ oxfordexperience.

From Brontës to Beatles: summer courses attract all ages

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 5 Could this be

the ultiMate villa holidaY?

Palladio’s Villa Malcontenta, from an 18th-cent. etching (adapted).

round 1540, a young Italian Many of the villas are privately- This makes everything more manageable, a mason named Andrea di Pietro owned and need special permission increases social cohesion and at the same della Gondola designed his first to visit, which adds to the exclusive time allows everyone greater access to the country residence, and in doing so nature of the tour. (The roman lecturer. began a career that profoundly baths-influenced Palazzo Thiene, for altered Western architecture. example, is now a bank, and normally In fact, it’s just one of around 180 closed to the casual viewer.) cultural tours that we operate, all Palladio, as his patron dubbed him, was a designed for people with enquiring devoted student of Roman antiquities. He As this is a Martin Randall tour, your minds and an eagerness to learn, took the austere classical forms of religious lecturer will be someone who is steeped in understand and appreciate. And buildings and refashioned them for Palladio’s life and work. (We say ‘lecturer’ all meticulously planned to ensure domestic purposes. rather than ‘guide’ because, as professional a smooth-running, well-paced and academics and curators, they impart enjoyable experience. (Hence, on our Palladio’s Villas tour, you’ll information of a different hue from that of perhaps, our 2009 AITo Award for be based for five days in the beautiful a traditional guide.) Travel Company of The Year.) city of Vicenza, visiting some of the renaissance palaces and country And, like all our tour leaders, the You’ll find each of these holidays is described retreats that made Palladio’s name as person sharing their scholarship with in considerably more detail in our much- the greatest housebuilder in history. you can be relied upon to enlighten fêted brochure. If you’d like a copy, please and inspire, not merely to inform. call us on 020 8742 3355. Alternatively, visit The Villa Rotonda is a highlight, of course. Which incidentally makes them a www.martinrandall.com But you’ll also see how he first applied his great travelling companion too. Here is an example of another itinerary, The Art History of Venice: Day 1: fly from London Heathrow to Venice; cross the lagoon by motoscafo to the hotel; late afternoon introductory walk. Day 2: the morning the 2: Day walk. introductory afternoon late hotel; the to motoscafo by lagoon the cross Venice; to Heathrow London from fly 1: Day Venice: of History Art The itinerary, another of example an is Here includes S. Zaccaria and S. Giovanni in Bragora, with altarpieces by Vivarini, Bellini and Cima; in the afternoon, the incomparable Doge’s Palace; a special after-hours private visit to the 11th-century Basilica 11th-century the to visit private after-hours special a Palace; Doge’s incomparable the afternoon, the in Cima; and Bellini Vivarini, by altarpieces Bragora,with in Giovanni S. and Zaccaria S. includes island vast the the to vaporetto by view 5: 6: Day Day Canal. Gesuiti. Grand the on the by paintings in palace Carminiceiling withGrande dei Scuola magnificent afternoon Lawrence the visita the Assumption;in St Rezzonico, FrariTitian’s withGloriosaMaria dei S. Ca’ of Titian’s Franciscanchurch the the see to to GrandCanal the afternoon visit cross Venice, Accademia; 3: Day the Marco. in S. in of morning back the cathedral; spend Veneto-Byzantine 4: Day palace. magnificent private a the to see visit a p.m. to 4.30 with finish around Tiepolo; Heathrow Torcello London to at arriving continue back, altarpiece; fly morning; Bellini free its with 7: Martire Day Pietro Redentore. S. Il see and Murano; Maggiore Giorgio of S. Palladio, by masterpieces two visit afternoon the in Paolo; e Giovanni SS. of church gothic genius to relatively humble structures And one final thought: if you find (a ‘villa’ in sixteenth-century Italy was Palladio’s Villas takes place 3 times in 2010 Palladio’s Villas is full by the time you actually a farm) before progressing to such and twice in 2011. It’s a small group tour, call, why not try The Art History of spectacular buildings as the Palazzo which means that the numbers are strictly Venice (see column on the left)? or Chiericati and the Teatro Olimpico. limited to between 10 and 22 participants. Gardens of the Italian Lakes? or... Martin randall travel

MR207 Ultimate Villas Oxford tod1 1 6/5/10 08:50:53 OXONIANUNIVERSITY EXTRA OxonianNews

Charity offers hope W

for Aids orphans TOM ilkinson

These South African children from the Cape Flats, outside Cape Town, are among those being helped by a charity co-founded by an Oxford graduate to provide employment and training for the adoptive mothers of Aids orphans. Linda Scott (Somerville 1975) who is chair of the OxCam Society in the city, helped set up the Mothers for All charity to provide the adoptive mothers, together with women in neighbouring Botswana, with a sustainable income through making bead jewellery from scrap paper, a social support network and training in life skills. The project is one of many examples of Oxford alumni at work in communities around the world filmed over the past year by two graduates, Hannah Madsen (Hertford 2000, behind the camera) and Tom Wilkinson (St Catherine’s and St Antony’s 2000), as part of a project, Alumni Faces, that is to be found on the University’s website this summer. Visit www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/alumnifaces for more details. Mothers for All can be found at Hannah Madsen films children near Cape Town as part of an international project in which she www.mothersforall.org. and Tom Wilkinson have been documenting alumni engaged in community activities Sanitary protection boosts girls’ schooling, study shows bis

A new study carried out by social scientists r Qualitatively, almost all the girls using O C

at the University reveals that giving sanitary a/ pads reported that they were better able p d pads to girls in developing countries may be / to concentrate at school and better able to a cost-effective way of improving their school socialise, participate in sport and help at ESSING R attendance. home. They also reported a reduced sense of Keeping girls aged 12 and over in JENS embarrassment, shame or isolation. education is critical because of the positive Scott points out that the provision of effect it has on economic development, sanitary products is only one factor in helping fertility rates and child mortality. Yet the to keep girls in education, but it is, it seems, a study, carried out in Ghana by Professor significant one. Longer-term studies are now Linda Scott of the Saïd Business School, being planned, spanning Africa and Asia. together with colleagues Professor Sue The study was funded by Oxford Dopson, Dr Catherine Dolan and Dr Paul University Press’s John Fell Fund and Green Montgomery, found that typically girls were Templeton College. Ground support was missing up to one week in four at school as a provided by CARE International, FURDEV result of poor provision for menstruation. of Ghana, Afrikids, and CENSUDI of Ghana, Poor schoolgirls in Ghana often as well as by the Ghanaian Ministries of cannot afford sanitary pads and use cloth Education and Health. Procter & Gamble rags instead. But many schools don’t have Learning for life: a Ghanaian schoolgirl provided sanitary pads. toilets, or if they do, they are not private, discouraging the schoolgirls from changing or washing these improvised pads. ‘And in really poor areas you may have to walk two hours to Flash floods destroy elephant research centre get to school. So, many girls just decide not to Flash floods have demolished a major African elephant research facility where go’, Scott explained. Oxford scientists are based. Researchers and staff managed to reach safety, some In the study, one group of girls was supplied with free sanitary pads for six within seconds of the flood waters surging through the Save the Elephants research months, with education about menstruation facility in the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya, but key research data, computers, and hygiene, while another group received equipment, food, lodging and personal effects were lost. education alone. After six months, Although it is too early to assess the cost of the damage, Lucy King, operations quantitative results showed that absenteeism manager at the facility, estimates it will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to among the first group was cut by more than rebuild the facility. To donate to STE’s rebuilding effort, please go to half. Absenteeism also dropped in the second group, but less quickly. www.savetheelephants.org.

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 7 OXONIANUNIVERSITY EXTRA OxonianNews

Plans to redevelop chitects r A

Iffley Road sports own r centre unveiled B ulkner a F The University has revealed plans for the redevelopment of its sports centre on Iffley Road. If the plans get the go-ahead, the existing sports centre will be redeveloped to provide new facilities for a range of indoor sports, as well as a new grandstand, cricket school and indoor tennis centre. For the first time in years, the whole site, including the famous running track where Sir Roger Bannister completed the first sub- four-minute mile in 1954, will be visible to pedestrians on Iffley Road. The existing sports centre will be redeveloped to provide new facilities for more than 80 sports. Securing the £40 million required for these facilities is a major element of the Oxford Thinking Campaign. It is estimated that some 75 per cent of Oxford’s students take part in sport during their time at the University. A design for the new sports centre, by Faulkner Brown Architects

New DNA analysis funding speeds the race for the ‘$1,000 genome’

Oxford Nanopore Technologies, a spin-out brary i of the University’s chemistry department, has L raised a further £17.4 million from investors to accelerate its development of a new DNA ience photo analysis technology, which may bring the cost c S of sequencing a human genome under $1,000. lmes/ o

The cost of sequencing an individual’s H

genome has fallen dramatically in recent i K years. The first, mapped by the Human a Genome Project (2003), cost approximately J mes ng- $3 billion, the second $100 million, and the third, that of the DNA pioneer James Watson, $1.5 million. However, the process still costs around $20,000–$50,000 per person, which is too high for most large-scale genetic studies. The high cost is perhaps not surprising when you consider that a human genome has 3.2 billion base pairs, the same number of letters as 2,000 copies of War and Peace. If Oxford Nanopore, founded by Professor Hagan Bayley and run by CEO Dr Gordon Sanghera, wins the race for the ‘$1,000 genome’, their technology is expected to accelerate the development of genomic knowledge and genomic medicine. The A computer-screen display of a human DNA sequence, represented as a series of coloured bands technology uses nanopores (tiny holes in membrane proteins that are one nanometer in New funding has come from Oxford support from our existing shareholders and this diameter) to identify DNA bases directly. The Nanopore’s existing investors, including important vote of confidence from new ones. electronic technique avoids the amplification, Lansdowne Partners, IP Group and Invesco ‘The common elements of our technology chemical labelling and fluorescence-detection Perpetual, new undisclosed US institutions, platform are now developed enough to merit that make the current methods complex. The and the company’s DNA sequencing exploring new applications. In addition to our same technology can also be applied in other marketing partner, Illumina UK Ltd. ‘This lead programme in DNA sequencing, we are areas; the company is currently investigating new investment recognises our progress in now initiating a project in nanopore protein a similar method for identifying proteins, 2009 and highlights the potential impact of analysis.’ which may be used in drug discovery or our nanopore-based sensing platform’, said The company has raised £49 million since diagnostic tests. Sanghera. ‘We are delighted to have strong its formation in 2005.

8 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 OXONIANUNIVERSITY EXTRA OxonianNews brary i

L Brighter new look l d for Bodleian in o B eian £78m development Plans for the restoration and renovation of the New Bodleian Library in Broad Street were unveiled by the University in March. The project is designed to create new, high- quality storage facilities for the library’s Special Collections of manuscripts, books and maps; develop facilities to support advanced research work; and expand public access to the Bodleian through new exhibition galleries and other facilities. The project, at an estimated cost of £78 million, is expected to take five years, during which time some 3.5 million books will be moved. The building will be renamed the Weston Library, in honour of the £25 million donation given by the Garfield Weston Foundation. The new ground floor (shown left, in an architect’s impression of a proposed design) will be named the Blackwell Hall, honouring a donation of £6 million An artist’s impression of the proposed view from Broad Street of the redeveloped New Bodleian pledged by Julian Blackwell.

Laughter, tears and cheers N news i brief greet Desmond Tutu It’s an ill wind: fall-out Oxonians take their seats A packed audience in the Sheldonian Theatre keeps Magna Carta in NY… around new Cabinet table stood to applaud the Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus One of the earliest originals of the Magna David Cameron, of Cape Town, after he gave Kellogg College’s Carta, belonging to the Bodleian Library, pictured right, the urn/pa wire urn/pa Bynum Tudor lecture in May. was ‘grounded’ by the disruption to Conservative party b d The veteran clergyman, who was one international air travel caused by the leader, became Britain’s eruption in April of the Eyjafjalljökull 26th prime minister of the leading figures in the struggle against chris ra apartheid in South Africa, was speaking volcano in Iceland. educated at Oxford, on the theme of ‘Lessons from the truth The document, dating from 1217, had after May’s general and reconciliation process for 21st-century been taken to New York as a centerpiece of election resulted in a challenges’. His discursive, largely unscripted the North American Reunion of University Conservative–Liberal address ranged from an account of the horrors Alumni at the city’s Waldorf Astoria hotel. Democrat coalition. and indignities of apartheid to a call for After the flight on which it was due to be The new Cabinet includes eight reconciliation of conflicts around the world. returned to Britain was cancelled, Bodleian Oxonians. In addition to David Cameron, It was also sprinkled with the 78-year- authorities, and those at the Morgan Library who read PPE at Brasenose, they are George old Archbishop’s characteristic humour: if in New York, arranged for it to go on public Osborne (Magdalen), Chancellor of the many of his listeners were at times moist- display throughout May. Exchequer; William Hague (Magdalen), eyed, there were also moments when the It was the first time that the manuscript, Foreign Secretary; Theresa May (St Hugh’s), Sheldonian resounded to laughter. one of four held by the Bodleian, had left Home Secretary, and Minister for Women The Archbishop, pictured below, Britain. and Equalities; Chris Huhne (Magdalen), who chaired South Africa’s Truth and Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Reconciliation Commission, said renewed … as Oxford scientists Change; Michael Gove (LMH), Secretary of State for Education; Danny Alexander (St efforts were needed to conquer poverty, and track volcano cloud its consequences. Anne’s), Chief Secretary to the Treasury; He also praised Oxford scientists have been among those and Jeremy Hunt (Magdalen), Secretary of topfoto what he said studying the ash cloud generated by the State for Culture, the Olympic Games, Media was the idealism eruption of the Eyjafjalljökull volcano. and Sport. David Willetts (Christ Church) is of successive Adam Povey of the Department of Physics Minister of State for Universities and Science, generations of was among those working on measuring the also attending Cabinet meetings. Among students. ‘Don’t thin layer of ash above southern England at other Oxonians appointed to senior positions allow yourself to the Chilbolton Observatory in Hampshire. are Sir George Young (Christ Church), Leader be corrupted by Povey and his colleagues used a ‘LIDAR’ of the House of Commons; and Dominic cynicism’, he said. system to measure scattered and reflected Grieve (Magdalen), the Attorney-General. light from a thin layer of ash material in the Out of the 650 MPs in the new House of The lecture can be viewed at: http://www.kellogg. sky some 10,000 feet above ground. Commons, 117 have an Oxford background. ox.ac.uk/news/index.php

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 9 OXFORDTODAYtrinity_ROSL_100510:Historic House 270x180 Advt 10/5/10 12:00 Page 1

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Feature

Professor Ian Tyrrell Professor Jeremy Waldron Professor Sir David Watson Mark Damazer Dr Adrian Stokes

Energy Materials London, has been elected Principal of Green Contemporary British History, a vice-chair Templeton College, to succeed Sir Colin of the International Press Institute Executive Thomas Marrow, Reader in Physical Bundy, who is retiring. Sir David’s academic Board and a fellow of the Radio Academy. Metallurgy and Director of the Materials interests are in the history of American Performance Centre at Manchester ideas and in higher education policy. He has Chief Scientific Adviser University, has been appointed to the James contributed widely to UK higher education, Martin 21st Century School Professorship Bernard Silverman, Professor of Statistics including as a member of the Committee of Energy Materials in the Department of and formerly Master of St Peter’s College, was of Inquiry chaired by Lord Dearing in Materials with effect from 1 September. Dr appointed the new Chief Scientific Adviser 1996–7. Between 1990 and 2005 he was Vice- Marrow will be a fellow of Mansfield College. to the Home Office with effect from 1 April. Chancellor of the University of Brighton. Professor Silverman is also a fellow and German Language and More recently, he chaired the Commission of member of the Council of the Royal Society. Inquiry into the future for lifelong learning, Literature He is relinquishing his presidency of the which reported in September 2009. He is Royal Statistical Society to take up the post. Ritchie Robertson, Professor of German a trustee of the Nuffield Foundation and a at Oxford and fellow of St John’s College, member of the Advisory Board for the Higher American Academy has been appointed Taylor Professor of the Education Policy Institute. Sir David, who was The American Academy of Arts and Sciences German Language and Literature, with effect knighted in 1998 for services to education and has elected three Oxford figures among its from 1 October. Professor Robertson will be a awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2010 list of 211 new Fellows and 19 Foreign fellow of The Queen’s College. 2008, will take office on Honorary Members, including the Vice- 1 October. Continuing Professional Chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton. In addition to Professor Hamilton, Professor Development St Peter’s College Daniel Walker Howe, Rhodes Professor of Dr Adrian Stokes, Director of Masters’ M ark Damazer, currently Controller of History, Emeritus, who was Rhodes Professor Programmes and Continuing Professional BBC Radio 4 and Radio 7, has been elected of American History at Oxford from 1992 Development at the Institute of Clinical Master of St Peter’s College with effect from to 2002 and is an Emeritus Fellow of St Education, Warwick Medical School, took 1 October. Mr Damazer was appointed Catherine’s College, and the Archbishop of up the post of Director of Continuing to his current role in 2004, having been Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, a former Professional Development in the Department Deputy Director of BBC News since 2001. Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at for Continuing Education and became a He is a board member of the Institute of Oxford, have been honoured by the Academy. fellow of Kellogg College on 1 March. ES G D U J American History Ian Tyrrell, Scientia Professor of History ROB at the University of New South Wales, has been appointed Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History for the academic year 2010–11. Professor Tyrrell will be a fellow of The Queen’s College. Social and Political Theory Jeremy Waldron, University Professor at New York University Law School, has been appointed to the Chichele Professorship of Social and Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations with effect from 1 October, initially on a 50% basis, while retaining his association with the New York University Law School. Professor Waldron will be a fellow of All Souls College. Green Templeton College Professor Sir David Watson, currently Appointment with the examiner. As Trinity Term examinations loom, these students take Professor of Higher Education Management their books to a college lawn for some last-minute revision at the Institute of Education, University of

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 11 tx h e o f o r d t o d ay i nterview David Butler BC g B d Going with rob ju es the swing He arrived in Oxford in wartime, and was in at the birth of television coverage of British elections. Now, as he prepares to hand over a weekly seminar that has become as much an institution as he has, political scientist David Butler reviews an ‘extraordinarily lucky’ career. Interview: Greg Neale

Number crunching: a young David Butler (circled), analysing the results on the BBC television election-night programme of October 1959

12 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 tx h e o f o r d t o d ay i nterview David Butler

am’, reflects David Butler, ‘an hereditary Hammond was my hero; I saw him make In turn, David Butler would become a BBC Oxford don’. He is musing on his fam- 240 against the Australians in 1938, and I highly influential figure in Nuffield’s develop- ily background, but such have been the can still recall some of the scores he made.’ ment. For Robert Taylor, the author of the ‘ length and achievements of his own When the Second World War came, But- recently published Nuffield College Memories, I career at the University that it might be con- ler’s school, St Paul’s, was evacuated to the ‘more than any other Fellow in the College, sidered of dynastic proportions itself. In country. He arrived at New College in 1943, except for [Norman] Chester [Warden 1954– Oxford, in the world of political studies and spent two terms in Oxford, then went into 78], his name become synonymous with the political journalism, he is an institution in the army. After Sandhurst, he was commis- first half-century of Nuffield’s life’. This was in his own right. sioned into the Staffordshire Yeomanry, and part due to his academic work, but also for Now, almost seven decades since he he became a tank commander, taking part his emergence as a figure who took political arrived as an undergraduate, Dr Butler is in the crossing of the Rhine in 1945. ‘The science into the public arena via the then- relinquishing another Oxford institution – war in Europe lasted just long enough for me infant medium of television. the weekly seminar he established to bring to see a little bit of blood and thunder’, he Again, Butler characteristically describes students and academics face to face with dis- comments on his experience. the process as ‘a bit of luck’. In 1949, while tinguished practitioners of government, writing his DPhil thesis on the British elec- politics and journalism. toral system between 1918 and the The move comes as Britain ‘I had four hours 1940s, he came across a document in topfoto digests the results of May’s general the Radcliffe Camera: the minutes of election – itself a landmark in David alone with Churchill, a Royal Commission on the subject. Butler’s career, for it was 60 years less than two weeks ‘They were very musty and obviously ago that he became involved with before the general hadn’t been touched for forty years’, the first BBC television coverage of he remembers. ‘In them was a note of an election night. The young don election. He had a politician who in giving evidence would become something of a cult nothing to do but had said that a friend had suggested figure for viewers and political afi- show off to a there was a fixed mathematical rela- cionados, drawing upon recondite tionship in a single-member con- knowledge of elections past to com- 25-year-old nobody.’ stituency system between seats and ment on the voting figures and their votes. I remember, after reading this, likely consequences. He would also establish He expected to be posted to the Far East, I went back to Nuffield’s temporary buildings himself with a series of books, some co- but was demobilised – ‘an administrative in the Banbury Road, and using an old- authored, that would detail every subsequent mistake’, he speculates – and returned to fashioned calculating machine, applied this election, becoming required reading for New College to complete his PPE degree. formula to the previous three elections. It politicians and political scientists alike. ‘Not a very good degree’, he says, but during worked, virtually spot-on.’ How did it all come about? This is where his second and third years, he had followed Later that year, Butler submitted an arti- the heredity comes in. ‘My father and both up his interest in political statistics and con- cle to The Economist, called ‘Electoral Facts’, my grandfathers were Oxford dons, but my tributed an appendix to a book on the 1945 in which he described the so-called ‘Cube father moved from being a fellow of New general election in Britain, written by the Law’ formula. ‘It was an anonymous article, College to be professor of Latin at University Pembroke College historian (and later Mas- which appeared in January 1950’, he remem- College London, so I grew up in the 1920s ter) Ronald McCallum, which helped win bers. ‘One person who read it was an old man, [he was born in 1924, suitably an election him a scholarship to Princeton. sunning himself in the Canaries. On his year] and 1930s in London’, he explains. His He returned to Oxford in 1949 (having return to Britain, he got hold of the Editor of childhood was not only in an academic envi- witnessed the celebrated Truman–Dewey The Economist, and asked him who’d written ronment, however; it was also one in which presidential election) ‘not quite knowing it. As a result, in February 1950, I got a tele- politics played a strong part. what I was to do’, applied for a studentship phone call: could I come down to Chartwell ‘My grandfather, A F Pollard, was the at Nuffield College and has been attached to that night?’ Thus it was that the young David Liberal candidate for London University in the college ever since. ‘That was the last time Butler found himself summoned to a private 1924, but was on a lecture tour when the I had a job interview’, he smiles. The student- audience with Winston Churchill. election of that year was called, and couldn’t ship led to a research fellowship, then a per- ‘I had four hours alone with Churchill, get back. In a sense, my mother brought me manent fellowship in 1954. Save for a year less than two weeks before the general elec- into the world while she was helping to run spent working at the British embassy in tion. He had no handlers with him, a secre- an election campaign – and I cannot remem- Washington, he taught at Nuffield for the tary came in once, I remember, but 12 days ber not being interested in them ever since. next four decades. before the election, he had nothing to do but I remember standing outside the polling sta- ‘I loved the time in the Fifties, when Nuff- show off to a 25-year-old nobody. tion in 1931, when my mother went to vote, ield was really beginning to get going as a ‘The wonderful moment that evening and being tremendously interested in 1935, college’, he recalls. He had eight years as Dean came when a little radio was brought in. when we had a mock election at school. I and Senior Tutor, and recalls a succession of Anthony Eden was giving a party political used to look at The Times Guide to the House ‘intelligent and extremely well-behaved stu- broadcast. Churchill had four brandies – I, of Commons when we visited my grand­ dents’, many of whom – they include John prudently, had just two – and after we’d lis- father; we talked about politics at home. But Curtice, Richard Rose, Anthony King, tened to Eden, Churchill leaned forward and I think the statistical side of it came from Michael Pinto-Duchinsky and Michael Steed said, “There! What do you think of that?” my interest in cricket statistics: I was a – have gone on to become prominent political Well, I said that I thought that it might have Gloucestershire supporter as a boy. Wally scientists. been a good Oxford Union speech, but I

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 13 tx h e o f o r d t o d ay i nterview David Butler g d u J running the seminars in tandem with Vernon o R b es Bogdanor at Brasenose College (who retires as Professor of Politics and Government this term), and then took them on with the sup- port of the newly formed Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, bringing a closer look at the relationship between politics and the media to the seminar room. Five former or future prime ministers – Edward Heath, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, John Major and Tony Blair – have been among the speak- ers, as has every Cabinet Secretary since Burke Trend (1963–73, and later Rector of Lincoln College). The Labour politician Tony Benn – Butler met him when they were Two lifetimes in politics: Tony Benn and David Butler first met as wartime undergraduates undergraduates at New College, and they have been friends ever since thought it was rather a poor broadcast. His slide-rule became an – has made the journey 25 Churchill thought a bit and said: “Ah. He essential and ubiquitous times. ‘Remarkably few peo- wasn’t talking down to the British people, instrument for calculation on Five former or future ple I’ve written to have said was he? I could never do that.” general election nights on prime ministers – no’, Butler says. ‘Then he went on, talking about Free television.’ Heath, Wilson, When this term’s semi- Trade and tariff reform in 1908, and then If David Butler’s broad- nars are done, Butler will gave me a run-through of his famous “blood, casting career – he covered Callaghan, Major hand over the reins to the toil, tears and sweat” speech. At that point, I elections for the BBC on tele- and Blair – have been Reuters Institute’s director told him that I’d only been 15 in 1940 when vision and radio until 1992, among the speakers David Levy. ‘I’ve told David that while I’ll still be attend- I had first heard the broadcast of the speech. and worked on subsequent at his weekly seminars He said: “What? Only 15 in 1940?” – count- polling nights for commer- ing, somebody else can do the ing on his fingers – “Now you’re 25? Better cial television – made him a letters and so on – it will not hurry up, young man – Napoleon was 26 public personality, it also had be my show’, he insists. ‘I when he crossed the bridge at Lodi!” He other rewards. In 1961, while working on a don’t want to be valedictory, but I suspect that paused, and gave me what was probably broadcast, he met a BBC journalist, Marilyn while I can perform quite well now, I wouldn’t another party piece: “What a small man Evans, who he subsequently married. She necessarily be in 18 months, or whenever.’ Napoleon was! Why, he could sit on his horse left journalism for academic life and eventu- Even so, there is still work to do. ‘At the at Waterloo and see all the armies of Europe ally became a Cambridge professor of Eng- moment, I’m feeling I’m sort of ending a deployed before him. How much bigger was lish literature, then Rector of Exeter College career – partly because I’m finishing the sem- that evil man in Berchtesgaden, his troops (1993–2004), the first woman head of a pre- inars, partly because this May’s general elec- spread from the Urals to the Channel!” Then viously all-male Oxford college. tion is the first for 50 or 60 years that I haven’t he dropped his voice, and said: “I hate tyr- David Butler formally retired from been writing a book about – but because I’m anny”. It was altogether extraordinary. I Nuffield as a teaching fellow in 1992. An just doing the tenth edition of British Political wasn’t a Conservative voter, but I did think emeritus fellow since then, he has been work- Facts, which is a bit of a grisly thing to do’. that I was in the presence of someone who I ing no less assiduously. In addition to the Butler’s middle son, Gareth, who worked on could see was the greatest man in the country.’ mass of books he has written and co-authored, four editions of the book with him, died sud- It was the first of many encounters David his weekly seminars have become part of the denly in 2008. ‘I’d handed the book over to Butler would have with British politicians – landscape of Oxford political science, attract- him and when he died I had to resume it, and he has met every prime minister since ing a galaxy of distinguished figures. I’m now struggling with proofs. We are hop- Churchill and Attlee – and served as a cur- ‘In 1957, I started a seminar on British ing that Macmillan will get it out in time for tain-raiser for his career as an election politics’, he recalls. Since then, the event has, the party conferences in the autumn.’ broadcaster. Luck, again, played a part. ‘The in Robert Taylor’s assessment, ‘influenced The work ‘has been a hell of a slog’, he BBC wanted to broadcast that year’s election generations of research students’, as politi- concedes, but one to which he has brought results as they were declared, and asked cians, civil servants, journalists and others his customary diligence. And as we walk to McCallum, who said he wouldn’t go on have made the journey to Oxford. ‘In the the Nuffield lodge, and our conversation unless he could have me beside him.’ beginning, two or three times people either turns to the possibility of – who knows? – From the first, Butler’s intuitive under- prepared something too elementary or too another general election in the near future, standing of the medium, as well as his mas- advanced’, he concedes. ‘After a while, I his enthusiasm for his subject is as evident as tery of political psephology, brought him to decided: don’t invite them to write a paper at any time in a remarkable career. the public eye, with a lasting benefit for Nuf­ or give a speech, but to open a discussion. field and Oxford. For Robert Taylor, ‘he was It’s guaranteed to be all off the record, and The BBC is to sponsor an annual lecture in honour of David the pioneer of psephology in Britain, the I’ve never been let down on that.’ Butler, Mark Thompson, the Corporation’s director-general, inventor of “swing” in explaining general The themes have changed over the years. announced when he was Dr Butler’s final seminar guest, at elections and the rediscoverer of “Cube Law”. When Butler retired in 1992, he carried on the end of May. It will be hosted by the Reuters Institute.

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In this edited extract from a lecture given here’s a fair claim that the Royal Society saw its first shoots just over the road from the at the Sheldonian Theatre in March as Sheldonian Theatre, in the gardens of Wad- part of the 350th-anniversary celebrations T ham College in the 1650s. The young Warden of Wadham, Dr Wilkins, had written a paper called of the founding of the Royal Society, the ‘How One Might Fly to the Moon’. And he was no broadcaster Melvyn Bragg examines how mean politician. A Cromwellian through marriage, he attracted young Royalists to his college and later the early scientists of the 17th and 18th nipped over from Cromwell to Charles II without any centuries were aware of the theological recorded angst. Wilkins encouraged a group of like-minded young implications of their work gentlemen to take on the new philosophy of the obser- vation and testing of Nature, as distinguished from theory alone. To inquire. To experiment. To interrogate Nature. One thing that did come from Wadham, as well as the men who went on to London formally to start the Interrogating Society, was the idea of a collegiate group: the notion of sharing ideas and of working as a group, and of com- menting on and examining each other’s ideas. This was Nature– key to the Society. When Christopher Wren and the others moved to London to greet the new king, the group congregated around Gresham College. This had been founded by an to reveal Elizabethan philanthropist. It became a unique mix of high learning and public availability: the prototype of the Open University. At Gresham College, seven hand- somely subsidised professors gave academic lectures God’s way? that could be attended by anybody at all. That too became one of the guiding principles of the Society: that knowledge was free, open and available to all. These men looked back to the great Elizabethan lawyer, courtier and essayist, Francis Bacon. He famously declared that ‘knowledge is power’ and he saw two books in the world, Nature and the Scriptures. To get knowledge from Nature it had to be questioned in the court of the mind; ‘tortured’ was another word he pt of engineering science e

d used. And that knowledge would reveal God’s way and add to the relief of Man’s estate. The Royal Society was not the first of its kind. In the rita rita greer/ immediate past, there was the Academy of the Lynxes, formed in Rome in 1603, led by Frederico Cesi, to which Galileo belonged. Then there was the Academy of Exper- iment formed in Florence in 1567 by the Medici princes. One can trace these organisations back through the courts of the Caliphs in the early mediaeval Arab world, to the Academy of Plato in Athens. In all cases, these

left: Thinking allowed: clockwise, from top left, Hooke, Ward, Wilkins, Wren and Wallis advocated scientific speculation. Also shown is Hooke’s drawing of his microscope. Top: Hooke’s drawings of the Hipparchus crater on the moon, and a louse, from his Micrographia, published in 1665.

16 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 itv

This is an edited extract from the annual Wilkins– Bernal-Medawar Lecture, ‘Notes from an Amateur on the History of the Royal Society’, given by Lord Bragg of Wigton at the Sheldonian Theatre on Wednesday 17 March and organised together with the Royal Society. Melvyn Bragg (Wadham, 1958, left), the broadcaster and author, has also been involved in the 350th-anniversary celebrations of the Royal Society, as well as this year’s 400th anniversary of the founding of Wadham College (pictured, left, in an engraving of 1675) groups of inquirers had been small in num- nies – Christianity – to what appears to be its ture, as their tutelary figure, Francis Bacon, ber. Most had been in immediate contact great successor – science. had said. And they believed the best way to with their patrons. Then there was the Pari- Long gone, I trust, are the days when the make sense of this book of Nature was by sian Royal Academy of Science, officially to work of the mediaeval schoolmen could be conducting many different, instrumentally be commissioned to discharge projects in the dismissed. Men like Aquinas, who tried to directed, observations and experiments on interests of the Crown. integrate Aristotle with Augustine, were it. Put Nature to the question. Interrogate it, The Royal Society was not like any of clearly persons of the highest talent. That said Bacon the lawyer. these. It was there ‘for the Promoting of they were working on material now by many The Civil War had taught men such as physico-mathematico experimental learning’. discredited does not take away from the John Wilkins and Robert Boyle that public And ‘Nullius in verba’ was its motto. ‘Take no strength of their minds or their processes of religious controversy led to conflict, and the man’s word.’ Experimenting was believing. Its thought. They worked on what they had. aim of the Royal Society, as its first historian open collectivity, its focus on experimental It does, though, show us what power Thomas Spratt put it in 1667, was to show ‘an demonstrations, its assurance that these trials there was in church thinking and also in the unusual sight to the English nation, that men would reveal the works of God, its sense that intense experience of faith. It was such an of disagreeing parties and ways of life have economic and commercial experience that brought forgotten to hate, and have met in the unan- projects are part of the Aquinas to silence in the imous advancement of the same works’. divine plan and its literary The Royal Society Charter last few months of his life, These were the early men of observa- determination to describe after a vision that con- tional and experimental science, yet Robert these trials and observations said it was devoted ‘to the vinced him of the reality of Boyle, in the late seventeenth century, one of in such a way that they can glory of God the Creator faith more than all his rea- the geniuses of the group, whose Law – be followed by all readers and the advantage of the soning had done. And the Boyle’s Law – proved early on that the Society and trusted by them, makes overlapping of the two sys- could do Big Science, published at enormous it unique. Above all, it was human race …’. Yet the tems – Christianity and length on the intimate relation between independent. Crucial then Fellows were forbidden science – illustrates how admiration of the works of God and the great as today. The monarch never to meddle ‘with divine slowly institutions guard- advantages experimental philosophy would attended its meetings. ing the levers of knowledge bring to religious faith and vice versa. metaphysics and morals’. One thing that strikes allow themselves to be dis- Joseph Priestley, another Fellow, in the me about all these groups placed or even modified. late eighteenth century saw a direct link and many other key influen- Christianity itself carried between the right religion (in his case Dissent- tial intellectual groups in science, art and within it pagan acts and polytheistic and ing Protestantism) and the right kind of natu- philosophy, is how small was their member- classical practices that were even carried ral knowledge. He used his chemical and ship. In our age of mass education it seems over into the New Testament. electrical experiments to promote his dissent- almost against Nature that so few so often The Royal Society Charter said it was ing views about the character of divinity. In accomplished so much. Is there something devoted ‘to the glory of God the Creator and the twentieth century, Arthur Eddington, in smallness itself, as the man claimed, that the advantage of the human race …’. Yet the another Fellow, was clear about the basic unity is not only beautiful but, on significant occa- Fellows were forbidden to meddle ‘with of his own spirituality as a Quaker and the sions, uniquely effective? It has happened divine metaphysics and morals’. Nor were principles of modern physics. He argued that rather often. In fifth-century bc Athens, in politics allowed. But all the key players in sci- mystical religious experience and modern the Florence of Michelangelo and Leonardo, ence around that time – Copernicus, Galileo, physical science were consistent and indeed in Shakespeare’s London, the Edinburgh Kepler, Descartes and Newton – understood supported each other, as he made clear in Enlightenment, in mid twentieth-century what was at stake in the revolution they were public lectures. Cambridge, in the music of the Big Five in engineering. This was the place and fate of Others were more careful in their public late-nineteenth-century Russia. Is something the soul. Newton’s proof that all space obeyed statements. Newton was the most significant given to a small clique of brilliant and dispu- the same laws abolished the essential sepa- example. He was worried about the public tatious contemporaries to dig deeper? rate and different space kept by Aristotle and reaction to his unorthodox religious views, The fact that we are in Oxford, famous in Augustine and Aquinas for God and the soul. which were very close to a Unitarianism that the Latin-speaking Christian world in the Where now could God and the soul actually would have had him cast out of Cambridge, thirteenth century for its own small group of exist? Therefore, what place did God and His so he kept quiet about them. Some of his philosophers like Duns Scotus and William Faith have in the new philosophy, the new closest allies, like William Whiston and Sam- of Occam, brings me to a core subject in this knowledge? uel Clarke, got into terrible public trouble by observational history: that it charts the From the beginning, the Royal Society expressing these views. Newton saw God as movement over centuries from one great insisted that Nature must be studied closely, the direct cause of gravity. And he said of dominating system in Europe and its colo- since it is God’s other book, alongside Scrip- space that it was ‘as it were, God’s sensorium’

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 17 FATUREE Interrogating Nature – to reveal God’s way?

– seeing space as the realm of divine ideas. uncovered, perhaps science will indeed live through the Bible stories and parables and Finally, Michael Faraday, similarly cautious, up to its almost mythical status that it can instances in the Bible. The freedom-fighting was a Sandemanian, and that rigorous sect’s solve everything and save everything. But pamphlet wars of the 1640s could never have views informed his science and that of many these two unresolved problems – the unique- happened had the Bible still been in Latin. other eminent Fellows of the Royal Society. ness of it and the origin of it – and the Language became free for all. The Word of Non-Brits, especially the French, were visceral, mystical, hitherto inexplicable expe- God was now in the common tongue and always puzzled by the religious component riences that came and come to people can could provide material for powerful, fateful in the thinking of British scientists, often the still give us pause. I think it’s not enough nor argument. It was a liberation. As was the greatest British scientists through the centu- is it respectful merely to dismiss this. execution of King Charles I in 1649. ries. Even Darwin was sure that his account This is not for a minute to accept Cre- After all, if you could kill a king, one who of speciation with natural selection as one of ationism as a science. It is, though, worth had ruled by Divine Right, the representative its engines was not logically connected with mentioning, in these observations, that the of God on earth, then all things were possi- atheism. obsession with the First Cause, a prime mover ble. The new knowledge suggested by Francis Indeed, Simon Schaffer, the eminent – an imaginative and mythical reality in so Bacon and spurred by many thinkers in Cambridge historian of the Philosophy of many civilisations was transferred directly Europe burst out in force in the seventeenth Science, has developed this. from religion into science. century, with the language to service it and He sees three techniques Newton, a religious man, the confidence to overthrow the old order characteristic of the Royal Today’s scientists spend needed a first cause, a source, and argue for the new. Most of all, it set out Society Project: a social billions on the still elusive a beginning. Today’s scien- to discover by experiments the secrets of that technique (work together, tists spend billions at CERN other great book – Nature. trail of the first particle witness together, trade on the still elusive trail of the It’s significant that this was later explored together); a material tech- with an intensity on the first particle – with an inten- by Coleridge and Wordsworth, close friends nique (use instruments and invisible that makes the sity on the invisible that of one of the Society’s most brilliant presi- machines, dissect, experi- study of angels dancing on makes the study of medieval dents, Humphry Davy. In fact, Wordsworth ment, analyse); and a liter- the point of a needle seem angels dancing on the point and Coleridge entrusted the editing of their ary technique (describe of a needle seem perfectly precious Lyrical Ballads to Davy before pub- these trials and observations perfectly comprehensible. comprehensible. lication. It is a work shot through with a pan- in so much detail that the Why this yearning, this theistic notion of the world and contains lines descriptions can be followed obsession with a first cause? that Davy appears to have accepted from by all readers and trusted by them). And was the Big Bang the beginning or the Wordsworth, who wrote, in ‘The Tables Schaffer suggests that we can find some end of something? And is a particle without Turned’: reasons for all this within the specifics of thought or meaning or intention? These and One impulse from a vernal wood early modern providentialism. He argues other questions, it seems to me, duck and May teach you more of man, that there is an aspect of natural theology dodge between the mystical and the physical. Of moral evil and of good, that characterises the emergent function of The God of institutions and the luxuriant Than all the sages can. the Royal Society. myth of resurrection and personal parlance … It is a strand worth exploring. Paul Davis with a deity are to be deeply questioned. But Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; seems to come near the core of it, when he the Christian metaphor is magnificent, the Or surely you’ll grow double ... … writes ‘man at last knows that he is alone in morality of the Beatitudes is the essence of [We have] a world of ready wealth, the unfeeling immensity of the universe’. He goodness, the mysticism still intriguing and Our minds and hearts to bless – goes on: ‘The grounds for this scepticism unfathomed. Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, stemmed from advances in molecular biol- There’s one sense in which the Bible has Truth breathed by cheerfulness. ogy and the growing understanding of life’s been jolly useful for the Royal Society. It is a extraordinary complexity, suggesting to most convenient and happily vulnerable Science coupled with a new natural theol- many that the origin of life here must have punchbag; the Enlightenment, once it began ogy. The two horses pulling the one chariot. involved a statistical fluke of stupendous pro- to roll, pummelled away at the Christian God It seems to me that it was at that time not portions unlikely to have happened twice.’ A and built up its muscles in the process. It is a difficult for some of the greatest minds to unique intervention. wonderful hone to new thought. hold that two or even more truths about life Davis insists that ‘we still lack an accepted On the other hand, science owes a great were self-evident, that no one theory about theory of life’s origin’. ‘In 1859,’ he writes, deal to the Bible, especially in Britain to the life could be comprehensive enough to ‘Charles Darwin gave a convincing theory of King James Version, finally translated in 1611 describe it. Only a life itself can do that. how life has evolved over billions of years into the English language – and what lan- It seems a long way from Wadham Gar- from simple microbes to the richness and guage! William Tyndale had worked on the dens, and you might remember that the bril- diversity of the biosphere we see today. But he Bible before that of King James, who relied 80 liant and politic Warden, Dr Wilkins, wrote pointedly left out of his account how life got per cent on Tyndale’s translation. But it was a paper in the 1650s on ‘how man might fly started in the first place.’ Some of the ques- when the Bible came into the native tongue to the moon’. tions religions seek to answer are the ques- at the beginning of the seventeenth century Well, if spirits hover around (and if they tions science seeks to answer by other routes. that it had an effect that was to rumble do, Oxford is one place they will hover), we There is a similar mystery surrounding through to the Fellows’ Gardens in Wadham could tell the Warden – it took a little time, the notion of what made the Big Bang. Per- College in the 1650s. but the descendants of your young experi- haps that will be solved in the tunnels of Politics and other matters like science mental natural philosophers got there. Yes, Switzerland, perhaps the origin of life will be could be talked about vividly and openly they got to the moon; and far, far beyond.

18 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 SM0347_OxfordToday_24Jun:Oxford Today FP 7/5/10 14:24 Page 1

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‘Hynny-Pynny’ ‘Blubber-Gudgeon’ game of marbles a simpleton (Worcs.) (Somerset, Devon)

As dialect studies continue to fascinate linguists, Chris Sladen salutes an early Oxford pioneer ‘Larp’ a wasp (Cheshire) ‘Keckle-Heckle’ poor quality ore (Derbyshire) Idle scholar who ‘Matter-Fangled’ ‘in incipient dotage, confused’ brought local (Cumberland) ‘Larrup’ to beat soundly language to book (many counties)

hanks to Simon Winchester’s The Sur- dialect poems at library ‘penny readings’. brary i geon of Crowthorne (1998) and The During a shut-down at the mill in 1876, and L Meaning of Everything (2003), the having saved the substantial sum of £40, he stitution

image of James Murray, trimly bearded visited Heidelberg to improve his German. n T I Victorian editor of the Oxford English Diction- Back in England, Wright combined ylor a ary, seated in his Banbury Road scriptorium study at Yorkshire College of Science (later T g d

while his assistants toil over piles of ‘slips’ sent the University of Leeds) with school-master- u J o

in by contributors, is familiar across the ing. A pupil recalled how ‘with a piece of R b es/ world. By contrast, Joseph Wright, an equally chalk [he would] draw illustrative diagrams hirsute Banbury Road resident and editor of at the same time with each hand, and talk the English Dialect Dictionary, published as a while he was doing it’. part-work between 1898 and 1905, has had In 1882, having passed the London Uni- little public exposure; the 80th anniversary of Joseph Wright: passion for words versity Intermediate BA exam, Wright his death earlier this year passed virtually returned to Heidelberg. He was intending to unremarked, save, as we shall see, in his native Wright had been born in 1855 in Idle, study mathematics but switched to com- Yorkshire, yet his story was as remarkable, his near Bradford, hence his frequent boast: ‘I’ve parative philology, obtaining a PhD three output as prodigious, as those of Murray. been an Idle man all my life, and shall years later, and continuing his study of lit- Joseph Wright arrived in Oxford in 1888, remain an Idle man till I die.’ The Wrights erature and phonetics at Leipzig. He did aged 33, as lecturer to the Association for the were a poor family and, like the Scots Cal- translation work for German publishers; Higher Education of Women (lucky blue- vinist Murrays, a dour lot: no drink, card- then, back in London, he was recruited (by stockings got Gothic, Anglo-Saxon and Old playing, dancing or theatre-going. When, as Professor Max Műller) to Oxford. German), and deputy lecturer in German at a young man, Joseph brought home a copy Wright published many works of gram- the Taylor Institution. Other University of Shakespeare’s plays, his mother threw it mar, often with his wife Elizabeth, whom he appointments followed: Deputy Professor of into the street (but, says Joseph’s wife Eliza- had taught as a student at LMH; most of Comparative Philology in 1891; Professor 10 beth – also his biographer – ‘her Yorkshire them were of the German, Middle English years later. During his early years in Oxford, pudding was food for the gods’). and Old English, Gothic and Greek lan- he also taught in local schools and, crucially, Joseph started work aged six, leading a guages, although, perhaps perversely, he published in 1892 a grammar of his native donkey cart loaded with tools from the claimed: ‘From a linguistic point of view I dialect of Windhill, in the West Riding. nearby stone quarry to the smithy for sharp- love the Lithuanians more than any race Although Oxford colleagues may have ening. A year later he became a mill worker under the sun.’ But it was the dialect diction- thought this book an oddity, it caught the at Saltaire, the ‘model village’ founded by ary that captured his imagination. He feared attention of the Cambridge philologist W W Titus Salt, earning an extra sixpence (2.5p) that the spread of education and the speed of Skeat, founder of the English Dialect Society, per week for working in what locals called modern communication were bringing which, in 1884, had voted to produce a dialect ‘t’slave ‘oil [hole]’. about the death of ‘pure dialect speech’, even dictionary. By 1890 a million slips of paper Wright learned his numbers and alpha- in country districts, and determined to stem had been accumulated, each bearing an indi- bet at Salt’s factory school, but claimed it was that disappearance. vidual dialect word, its meaning, pronuncia- not until he was nearly 15 and earning over A room was provided by the officials of tion, county of origin and an illustrative £1 per week as a wool-sorter that he could the Clarendon Press for Wright and his team sentence. Skeat persuaded Wright to take over read a newspaper. He then embarked on of part-time assistants, mostly female, one of as editor. By 1893 the material – slips for the French, German and Latin at night school; whom later described its long, bare tables letter ‘S’ alone weighed more than two hun- mathematics and Pitman’s shorthand at the and shelves as ‘like an empty workshop, not dredweight (102 kg) – had arrived in Oxford mechanics’ institute. He also ran his own a scholar’s den. The floor was strewn with and Wright had embarked on the ‘one thing’ night school, charging workmates twopence packing cases filled with the accumulated by which he would wish to be remembered. (1p) each a week, and recited Yorkshire slips … and the dust of 20 years!’ Wright

20 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 ‘Thummel-Poke’ a cloth bandage ‘Ligger’ a stitch or ‘Zwodder’ a to protect a sore thread (Herefords.) dreary, stupid state finger’(Cumberland) of mind (Somerset) ‘Haggle-Cart’ a horse and cart let out for hire ‘Gradely’ decent, (Oxfordshire) ‘Keckle-Heckle’ orderly, of a good sort ‘Nuppit’ a simpleton’ poor quality ore (Lancashire, Yorkshire etc.) (West Yorks.) (Derbyshire) ‘Chad’ a turn of rope’ (‘Put a chad in the horse’s mouth’ - ‘Haggle-Tooth’ Codnopper Cornwall). a tooth belonging to a foolish fellow ‘Tissicky’ asthmatical, the second set which ‘Farrantly’ good (West Yorks.) wheezing, short of breath looking, handsome, in (Yorks., Lancs., Cheshire, appears through the gum good health (Lancs.) Notts., etc.) prematurely (Devon)

himself thought the communal tea-breaks after Joseph’s birthplace. But their two With the syllabus under review, however, the worth recording: ‘The porter … supplied children both died young and there are signs second-year language paper will disappear good tea … at a very reasonable price per of differences of opinion between Wright after 2011–12, and language work will move head. Cakes we each bought in turn.’ and other academics. to the first year, with perhaps an option for Wright personally supervised the slips’ Wright was an active supporter of further work later. The future of the special- transcription and the correspondence with degrees for women, but argued they should ist language and medieval course is currently hundreds of contributors; over 12,000 que- not become voting members of the Univer- under discussion. ries went out during the production of the sity because they were, ‘… less independent More hopeful is a planned Master of first volume, 150 of them dealing with the in judgement than men and apt to run in a Studies (MSt) postgraduate course, elements words ‘by’ and ‘by(e)’ alone. He found con- body like sheep’, an unsurprising simile for a of which will include dialect and non- tributors enthusiastic in the North and West Yorkshireman, but not likely to endear him standard language. Meanwhile, the street- of England, but in Kent and Surrey ‘there is to his female students. wise end of the informal language market is no such anxiety on the part of the natives’. In the late 1920s, the University turned catered for by OUP’s Susie Dent from TV’s Difficulties arose over finance. The Uni- down Wright’s offer of £10,000 towards Countdown, whose periodic ‘language versity Press, already stretched by the cost of improvement of the Taylorian; he sensed a reports’, such as Larpers and Shroomers The Oxford English Dictionary, declined to plot to hand over the Taylorian and adjacent (2004), analyse gangsta rap and online lingo. publish Wright’s dictionary, fearful that his buildings to the management of the Ash- Tangible evidence of Wright and his team might never finish. Commercial pub- molean, his sworn enemies, and the money work is less easy to spot than that of James lishers also turned it down; Wright is said to went instead to the University of Leeds. Murray and his OED team. Murray’s house have invested £25,000 of his own in the end. When he died, in February 1930, the sub- ‘Sunnyside’ and its famous red letter box still He also wrote to hundreds of potential sub- stantial obituary notice promised by the stand in the Banbury Road; ‘Thackley,’ how- scribers, who paid one guinea (£1.05) for Oxford Magazine failed to appear. ever, was demolished years ago and replaced two 300-page ‘parts’ each year, which were Wright’s name is kept alive in his native by brutalist flats named ‘Thackley End’. eventually bound into six volumes. county, both by the Yorkshire Dialect Soci- New editions of the Wrights’ grammars When the work was completed in 1905, ety, which had 80th-anniversary celebrations continued to appear late in the 20th century one reviewer aroused Elizabeth Wright’s fury on the agenda for its Spring 2010 meeting, and may be found in college, faculty and by focussing on possible errors and seeking and by a number of academics at the Univer- major public libraries as well as Bodley, to ‘enhance the value of his superior knowl- sity of Leeds, notably Clive Upton, Professor along with OUP’s 1981 reprint of his diction- edge of those unimportant details by cap- of Modern English Language. A Leeds stu- ary. If you want to handle Wright’s original, tious criticism of the whole work’. Joseph was dent has also been working on the dialect leather-bound edition, you face a steep climb more phlegmatic: ‘I do not care a snap of the dictionary’s original slips. In 2004 the British to the Taylorian’s ‘Linguistic’ room. His por- finger for the charge of the reviewer that … Library posted a sound archive of northern trait by Ernest Moore hangs in the main hall. the work … shows signs of haste and per- English speech on the internet and, yet fur- For serendipitous enjoyment I recom- functory treatment …. Our motto has been ther afield, the University of Innsbruck is mend an afternoon in the Upper Reading “Ohne Hast und Ohne Rast”. ’ working to digitise Wright’s dictionary. Room with Wright’s dictionary, even if cloth- Wright’s final years at Oxford were not In Oxford, Wright’s passion for dialect bound (and now printed in Japan); only uniformly happy. He was elected to the Brit- has not gone unappreciated since his death. those in a ‘zwodder’ (a dreary, stupid state of ish Academy in 1904, and accumulated hon- Lynda Mugglestone (Professor of History of mind – Somerset) would fail to judge his orary degrees and distinctions from British, English, now working on a new book about life’s work as ‘gradely’ (decent, orderly, of a European and American universities. He and dictionaries) says lexicography has been a good sort – Lancashire, Yorkshire, etc.). Elizabeth continued to publish philological popular option for second-year undergradu- works and became comparatively wealthy, ates doing the language course, with Wright’s Chris Sladen (Christ Church 1953) is an occasional building themselves a handsome detached work having special interest for those study- contributor to Oxford Today. Further reading: E. M. Wright, house in Banbury Road, named ‘Thackley’ ing the use of dialect by Victorian novelists. The Life of Joseph Wright (1932) OUP

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 21 I nvesting in Oxfordshire: Free advice consultation

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Science findings is edited by Georgina Ferry

Vaccine technology can ntre e C

stand the heat RIB FM Scientists at Oxford’s Jenner Institute have iversity

worked with Nova Bio-Pharma Technologies to n U

prepare vaccines so that they do not have to be d for refrigerated. The method, described inScience x O

Translational Medicine in February, involves ith/ m mixing the vaccine with a sugar solution before S drying the mixture slowly on a membrane. t Health workers can store the membrane at S ephen temperatures of up to 45°C for several months before rehydrating the vaccines, ready for injection. ‘You could even picture someone with Resting-state fMRI can help to produce a map of the functioning brain a backpack taking vaccine doses on a bike into remote villages’, says Dr Matt Cottingham of the Blank minds make connections Jenner Institute. Scientists in Oxford have joined forces with the Brain. ‘With resting-state fMRI, you others around the world to map connections don’t necessarily have to know what you’re in the brain revealed by functional magnetic looking for.’ resonance imaging (fMRI). While the The study, published in the Proceedings technique has traditionally been used to of the National Academy of Sciences in see which parts of the brain ‘light up’ when February, looked for variation in images from people carry out a particular task, the new more than 1,000 resting individuals. They study asks subjects simply to rest in the found that they could begin to see differences scanner and let their minds go blank. in the patterns of connections between ‘If you’re interested in a specific group of different parts of the brain that related to the people or patients – those with Alzheimer’s, age and sex of the participants. They point Cool: hope for new vaccines for example – you want to find any differences out that being able to gather fMRI data from in brain activity that might be of interest, not many different centres in this way holds Flightless female mosquito just those involved in a specific task’, says great potential for future studies looking for Dr Steve Smith of Oxford’s Centre for changes in brain connectivity due to disease bred in fight against fever Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of or genetic make-up. Luke Alphey and his colleagues in the Department of Zoology and the spin-out company Oxitec reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they Toothless ocean giant have successfully engineered a mosquito that discovered can father only flightless females. The female Aedes aegypti mosquito transmits dengue An international team of scientists has fever, which affects 100 million people a taken a fresh look at fossil fish remains

year worldwide. If released in affected areas, and discovered that a previously i N the genetically altered males would father unrecognised species of giant plankton- o

daughters that were unable to fly (and were eater cruised the oceans while dinosaurs R bert cholls,www.paleocreations.com therefore unable to reproduce or transmit the walked the Earth. The discovery, infection), but sons that fly normally while published in Science in February, solves themselves passing on the mutation. the mystery of what filled the plankton- eating niche between an earlier giant Slime moulds make tracks fossil fish called Leedsichthys and modern baleen whales and whale sharks. Dr Mark Fricker of the Department of American scientists first described The giant plankton-eating Plant Sciences has worked with Japanese the new species, discovered in Kansas Bonnerichthys scientists to understand how efficiently one and named Bonnerichthys, and dated it of the simplest forms of life, the slime mould to the Cretaceous period – the age of the as we recognised that these animals had Plasmodium polycephalum, builds networks dinosaurs. Cleaning the skull of what a longer history than anyone thought, I of thread-like structures. They reported in they expected to be a kind of swordfish, started examining museum collections Science in February that the performance of they were surprised to discover that the and found more examples that had been these organisms compared very favourably 9-metre specimen had no teeth in its overlooked or misidentified’, he says. ‘We with the rail network designed by Tokyo’s massive jaws, and instead had the bony used to think that the seas were free of best engineers, yet was based entirely on gill arches of a filter feeder. big filter feeders during the age of the local decision-making rather than central This initial discovery sent Dr Matt dinosaurs, but our discoveries reveal planning. Having modelled the process Friedmann of Oxford’s Department that a dynasty of giant fishes filled this mathematically, the researchers hope to apply of Earth Sciences delving into fossil ecological role in the ancient oceans for the principles of self-organised network- collections around the world. ‘As soon more than 100 million years.’ building in areas from cancer biology to communications.

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 23 The Broad view MakingOne over the a Eights present of the past New visitors, as well as returning former students, are discovering the treasures of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a series of special events, including lectures, performances and exhibitions. The expansive Victorian Gothic building with its atmospheric main court – photographed for Oxford Today by Greg Smolonski – was once threatened with demolition. It has survived to be recognised as one of the finest examples of its style, and drew more than half a million visitors last year, with exhibits ranging from towering dinosaurs to smaller wildlife specimens in illuminated jars and cases. One of the museum’s most celebrated treasures is also helping scientists make new discoveries about the past. Oxford is home to a mummified head and foot of a dodo (Raphus cucullatus). European sailors first encountered the flightless birds on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius in 1598. Within a century, the dodo had been driven to extinction through hunting, the introduction of predators and the destruction of their habitat. The Oxford remains contain what is believed to be the only surviving soft tissue from the bird, and scientists have been able to extract DNA fragments that have thrown new light on the bird’s evolution. An exhibit (inset) including a composite skeleton of a dodo is testimony to this poignant symbol of wildlife lost through human activity.

24 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 FATUREE

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 25 UNIVERSITY NEWS S port/Student scene

Oxford women’s cricket gave Claire Taylor ages m a chance that has led her to world-class I tion c status. Steven Casey reports A own/ r B ilip h The non-professional P e rethink that took R uters/ Claire to the top

Walk into the Hall of Fame a key reason why England have at Lord’s cricket ground, and swept all before them since their alongside posters of international 2008 Ashes victory (in which superstars Brian Lara and Sachin Taylor top-scored, naturally). Yet Tendulkar, you’ll find one of curiously, when the game is at Claire Taylor (Queen’s 1994), long last professionalising itself, whose 156 is still the highest-ever Taylor attributes her success to score in men’s or women’s one- moving in the opposite direction. day internationals at the ‘home ‘For four years, I tried to of cricket’. Last year, the revered be a “professional cricketer” ’, almanac of the game, Wisden, she explains. ‘I played here in made Taylor its first-ever female England in our summer, then Striking out: Claire Taylor, first woman in Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year choice as one of its five ‘Cricketers went to New Zealand for theirs, of the Year’. Taylor promptly so I played seven seasons in a celebrated by top-scoring in row. It was a hand-to-mouth stopped, because personally, I those big quadrennial events, I June’s Twenty20 World Cup Final, existence’ – and Taylor gave up couldn’t link my self-esteem to had to reassess everything.’ As a winning another Player of the a well-paid Procter & Gamble just one activity.’ result, she returned to work part- Tournament trophy to match the graduate job for this – ‘I lived Taylor found that other, time as a management consultant one she won at the 50-over World with my parents until I was 30, valued elements of her life with a higher education Cup in March. I got a small grant and I did fell away as she got deeper consultancy at Reading Taylor has become a temping jobs. In New Zealand into cricket. ‘Then I was University, which allows her time dominant batsman (the preferred I had a 20-hours-a-week admin really disappointed with my off for cricket tours. She picked term) in the fast-developing job with the Canterbury Cricket performance in the 2005 World up her violin again and joined women’s game, and her form is Association. But in the end I Cup, and like many people after a dedicated amateur orchestra.

heart-shaped one that appeared Light Blue year for A week earlier, Oxford’s Cambridge win on to be two ring-shaped galaxies women rowers upheld Dark Blue the Boat Race, but the silver screen merging. ‘The two rings appear to honours, winning the Women’s Days after the Boat Race defeat, be mirror images of each other’, women shine Boat Race at Henley by four another Oxford team suffered, she explained. Georgia is working Oxford’s hopes of a third lengths, as well as the other two when St John’s College was beaten on her astrophysics project with successive Boat Race victory women’s events. 315–100 in the final of the annual Galaxy Zoo, a team headed by Dr were dashed at Easter, when Magdalen topped the University Challenge television Chris Lintott. Cambridge won one of the most women’s tables and Christ competition by Emmanuel closely fought contests in recent Church kept their position at the College, Cambridge. Oxford is still BNC writer scoops years. Oxford started the 156th top of the men’s tables at Torpids the programme’s most successful Boat Race as favourites and held this year. drama award university, its colleges having had a slight lead for much of the Magdalen’s women’s first boat Richard O’Brien, a student from 14 successes since the quiz was event, but could not establish a bumped twice, putting them in Brasenose College, has won first broadcast in the early 1960s. commanding position. first place ahead of St Catherine’s the Oxford University Drama Cambridge colleges have won Cambridge, rowing on the and Christ Church. Society’s (OUDS) New Writing seven times. northern, Middlesex station, In the men’s tables, boats Festival for his play Instead of eventually overhauled the Dark from Christ Church, Pembroke Physics student Beauty. Four student scripts are Blue boat and went on to win by and Magdalen maintained their performed in the week-long just over a length, in a time of 17 positions as first, second and finds new galaxy festival at the Burton Taylor minutes 35 seconds. The result third. Balliol’s men’s first boat A student reading for a Master’s theatre in Hilary term. means that Cambridge leads 80– moved from eighth to fourth in Physics at Trinity College 75 in the annual encounter on the place by bumping Exeter, New has discovered the first heart- To celebrate its 125th anniversary, OUDS is Thames, which dates from 1829. College, Oriel and St Catherine’s. shaped galaxy. Georgia Barrie holding a showcase at the Oxford Playhouse Cambridge’s Goldie won the race http://www.ourcs.org.uk/files/file/ was looking at a collection of ring on 13 June, hosted by Diana Quick. between the reserve boats. racing/t10/satend.pdf galaxies when she discovered a www.oxfordplayhouse.com

26 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 Reuters/Philip Brown/Action Images

A lligator Online to publicise production the at Oxford the Playhouse theatre. at Wadham, toplay. the discuss He for interviewed was Cherwell also director Dan Rolle, an undergraduate studying French and Philosophy Roger Granville, an undergraduate at Church, Christ and marketing production of his play, The Invention Loveof . Stoppard met director The playwright Tom Stoppard involvedbeen has in an Oxford student Stoppard gives a helpinghand Christ Church student Lou Stoppard at the Oxford Playhouse Tom Stoppard, the dramatist, interviewed is by his namesake and with entirely challenges; new this Englandthe under-19 player men’s college cricket presented sheerthe strength of and speed nothing subtlety, intechnical While women’s cricket lacks aweektimes and really improve.’ men’s college team two or three I could play cricket with the I’d played at previously, whereas Blues hockey was below level the of her effort into cricket. ‘Even at Oxford, she put much more hockey at women’s Blues level cricketer. While she captained club) and an England under-19 player (with famous the Reading as anational hockey league important for nursery talent.’ The universities are a still hugely like mine, or you are astudent. understandingneed employers, international level, you either to build your towards experience says Taylor. ‘So ifyou are going just isn’t aprofessional pathway’, ‘But below that elite level, there creating atiny ‘professional’ elite. playing commitments, effectively moulded around international developed coaching contracts cricketing authorities have had spaceto blossom. training, aweek, 10times finally her four years of concentrated When she de-professionalised, Taylor arrived at Oxford Since English the then, rugby player Anton Oliver. nationality to the New Zealand I wrongly ascribed Australian point out that in our Hilary issue, who wrote from Wellington to David Stevens (Pembroke 1968) Steven writes: Casey My thanks to the World Cup. It’s a team game!’ Colvin hitting the winning runs in straight to the boundary. ‘Holly more, and in a flash she drives it pretty cool’. I press her for one Australian total – ‘yeah, that was a seemingly insurmountable of the tournament, chasing 2009’ – the outstanding innings the world Twenty20 semi-final in Zealand in 2008; and the 76 in in Christchurch against New England side. ‘Then a century after, Taylor broke intothe senior champions watching.’ Not long coach of England’s 1993 world 1996 Varsity Match, with the says. ‘There was 150-odd inthe performing under pressure’, she organised. ‘I’d take the theme of mirrors her batting – instantly career, and her revealing answer few highlights from her long against aboys’ schoolfirst XI. playteam will practicematches Even today, England the women’s second team, Authentics. the trained with University the men’s was Taylor’s hothouse. She also I ask her to pick out a RINGS & GRADUATION MATRICULATION building. the high-tech all modern, a and of expect would periods you facilities notice month one as little as with agreements flexible accommodation, serviced laboratory and office of range a offers Centre The in whichto grow. high-tech start-up companies a unique environment offers Oxford, central from miles five only located Enterprise, and BegbrokeInnovation CentreforThe WWW.EVALONDON.COM/OXFORD www.cie.ox.ac.uk OX5 1PF Yarnton Sandy Lane Begbroke Science Park Centre for Innovation andEnterprise Order your personalisedringnow insilver orgold from £59. (0)1865 988 332orvisit Calluson+44 Innovation and Enterprise Begbroke Centre for FORD R O F O x Email: [email protected] 01865854801 Fax: Phone: 01865854800

T o day

. TrinityIssue 2010 27 OXONIAN EXTRA Oxonians at large

John and Rick Stein followed different paths to distinction in their careers. Now the academic and the celebrity chef are finding common ground in a shared enthusiasm, reports Alicia Clegg A fishy twist in the tale of two brothers

he older brother scooped all the what John calls ‘the dead hand of the grey The next two years were spent travelling. prizes, sailed into Oxford with a suits’ – and the family likeness is At one point, he became ‘a ganger’, repairing scholarship and is now a don. The unmistakable. railway tracks in the Australian bush. Most of T younger flunked his A-levels and ‘Health and safety, that’s one of my bug- his workmates were ex-offenders or criminals worked as a navvy, but has ended up as a bears’, John laments. ‘Take my college [Mag- on the run. Some, he worked out, were best famous chef and TV presenter. With a back- dalen]. It’s a wonderful place, but it’s bloody avoided. Others, such as ‘a highly intelligent, story like that, you might think that Profes- festooned with notices. You’d better not write imaginative young man’ who became his clos- sor John Stein (New College 1959) and his that …. Oh, yes, do.’ ‘[Offi- est friend in the camp, had sim- fish chef brother Rick (New College 1971) cialdom] does my head in’, ply got off to a bad start. couldn’t be more different in their outlooks expostulates Rick in the Take my college. It’s a For much of his travels, on life. In fact, they share a web of overlap- same vein. wonderful place, but however, he was solitary. For ping enthusiasms that range from student John Stein originally company, he immersed himself partying to a belief that the world would be planned to become an engi- it’s bloody festooned in books and formulated a plan a better place if we all ate more fish. neer. But when their father with notices. You’d to give education another shot. ‘My father was very keen on academic became ill with manic better not write that ‘Reading became my antidote to pursuits’, says Rick. He is visiting Oxford and depressive psychosis, he …. Oh, yes, do.’ loneliness.’ we meet, at his suggestion, at the stylish Old decided to study ‘the Once back in England, he Bank Hotel. ‘John was naturally academic mechanics of the mind’ and sat the Oxford entrance exam and incredibly bright. My reaction was to feel swapped his A-levels, at for a place to read English. As inadequate and refuse to go down the same Winchester, midstream in order to read luck had it, one of the questions was ‘describe route. I had to prove myself in other ways.’ physiology. The area in which he has since a landscape’. He wrote, evocatively, about the Collaboration has long since replaced specialised applies engineering models to railway vistas between Adelaide and Alice sibling rivalry. One of Professor Stein’s the neuroscience of coordination. Springs. The unusualness of his answer, he research interests is the neurology of dys- Rick’s route from Uppingham to Oxford suspects, won him his place. As someone lexia. Rick, who has a dyslexic son, lends was more tortuous. After failing A-levels – ‘it who got in on a wild card, he regrets that fraternal support. ‘I use Rickie, shamelessly’, was the time of the Beatles and the Rolling such ways of gaining admission no longer chuckles John. I ask for examples, and he Stones and I was bit rebellious’ – he scraped exist. mentions ‘auctioning’ his brother to cook at a couple of E-grades at a crammer. No point ‘To my mind, the obsession with triple private dinner parties to raise money for the in pursuing academia any further, it seemed. A-grades and the massive pressure on stu- Dyslexia Research Trust. ‘The first person So, he joined a hotel management scheme dents to perform, goes against the point of who won him paid fourteen thousand quid.’ and learned kitchen skills alongside chefs at Oxford, which is to allow people the space to I interview Professor Stein in his over- the Great Western Hotel, Paddington. Then develop intellectually and personally while stuffed office in the Physiology Department. their father committed suicide. Rick says he availing themselves of all the superlative Their paths have been very different. But was thrown into turmoil and ‘kind of ran opportunities the University offers’, he muses. mention the dread word ‘bureaucracy’ – away to sea’. ‘To tell you the truth, as an alumnus, it pisses

28 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 OXONIAN EXTRA Oxonians at large

offenders in prison – a high proportion of rnstein

e whom suffer from developmental disorders B – could reduce the incidence of antisocial e

R becca behaviour. His theory is that fish oils improve the functioning of the magno-cells that govern how we process social signals. ‘If someone frowns at you, you will probably back off. But, if your magnocellular system doesn’t work properly, you are more likely to react impulsively and thump them.’ The trial, which reports this summer, builds on a study led by his research assistant Bernard Gesch. This found that inmates who received supplements committed almost a third fewer offences than those on a placebo. If the new study tells the same story, Profes- sor Stein hopes to persuade the government to make nutritional supplements freely avail- able to prison inmates and perhaps, ulti- mately, to the wider community. ‘My own view is that we should go back to what hap- pened during the war, when all expectant mothers and children under the age of eight were given free vitamins, minerals and omega-3 fish oils by the state’, he says. How does all this medicinal dosing stack up with his brother’s celebration of the joys me off. But, then, I’m in my sixties and grow- fell back on his chef’s training and reopened of fresh ingredients and peasant-style cook- ing ever grumpier.’ it as a restaurant. ing? As it turns out, their starting point is I ask both brothers what they made of At various points in their careers, the much the same. In an ideal world, says Pro- their student days. For John, liberated from brothers’ paths have crossed. Their first col- fessor Stein, everyone would enjoy fresh, the ‘senseless rules’ of 1950s public school, laboration was raising money for dyslexia healthy foods. But, such is the damage life as an undergraduate doing a subject he research. Later, John became wrought by the ‘industrialisa- loved and found easy was a dream. ‘I actually interested in the role played by tion of food production’, that found I didn’t have to work that hard. I did damaged magnocellular neu- Their first people brought up on diets far less work at Oxford than I was accus- rones in dyslexia and related loaded with saturated fats and tomed to doing at Winchester.’ conditions such as dyspraxia collaboration on the sugars often choose badly, For Rick, obediently turning up at lec- and attention deficit hyperac- fish oil front was even when healthy options are tures and writing weekly essays was more tivity disorder. staging a ‘fish fest’ at on the menu. problematic. And, after five years rubbing ‘There was a whole litera- the Royal Institution, His brother Rick cares shoulders with the world, he found ‘the rar- ture coming out on how good later reprised at an more about ‘the quality and efied manners’ of his post-school peers hard omega-3 fish oils were for the taste’ of food than its politics. to stomach. On the other hand, the extracur- brain. I put two and two alumni event in the That said, he has publicly ricular life was ‘marvellous’. Editing Cherwell together and thought, maybe, US. John talked championed the trial, which was a high point. But the best fun he had was the magnocellular system is about fish, while he sees as a way of giving writing for ‘John Evelyn’, the newspaper’s particularly vulnerable to lack Rick cooked it. youths, like his ‘ganger’ friend gossip column. For John, by then a junior of fish oils’, Professor Stein from the bush, a better chance don at Magdalen, and recently separated recalls. With a doctoral stu- in life. And who knows, if you from his first wife, there were spill-over ben- dent, Alex Richardson, he ran can get a rough, tough boy to efits from Rick’s socialising. ‘Rickie was in studies that showed that giving fish oils to make the link between nutrition and fitness, with the younger set and introduced me to children often improved their reading ability he might think differently about his diet or all the great parties. He was a great help.’ and concentration. The discovery connected perhaps feel motivated to train as a chef. ‘If How did Oxford lead to fish dinners? with his brother’s culinary interests and they you can introduce youth offenders to cook- After graduating, Rick went home to Pad- revived their double-act. ing and get them inspired, my feeling is that stow. Finding himself at a loose end, he con- Their first collaboration on the fish oil you can do an awful lot with them.’ verted a mobile disco, which he had run as a front was staging a ‘fish fest’ at the Royal Before saying goodbye, I ask both men if student, into a quayside nightclub. When the Institution, later reprised at an alumni event they envy the other. ‘Oxford is such a magi- nightclub lost its licence – ‘we were totally in the US. John talked about fish, while Rick cal place for me. I really envy him having inept and it turned into a rowdy house’ – he cooked it. Now, Professor Stein’s research has lived here most of his life’, replies the chef. ‘I taken a new turn. Two years ago, he launched wouldn’t want to be a celebrity like him’, says above: The one that got away: chef Rick a major trial to see if giving fish oil and vita- the Professor. ‘But I wouldn’t mind having Stein with his brother John min and mineral supplements to young some of his money.’

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 29 OXONIAN EXTRA Oxonians at large

Oxonians at large is edited by Alicia Clegg

Engineering envoy has her head in the stars, but her feet are firmly on the ground

‘I still can’t believe that stuff I made has sat on research. In the long term, she has her eye on the surface of another planet, and that I sat the next planned mission to Mars in 2018, as in mission control telling it what to do’, says well as other possible missions to the moons Hanna Sykulska-Lawrence (St Catherine’s of Saturn and Jupiter. College 2000). Her other big professional enthusiasm is Two years ago, while she was completing encouraging more young people to become her PhD at Imperial College, Sykulska- engineers. At the end of 2008, she won the Children’s cello club Lawrence spent the summer at NASA Institution of Engineering and Technology’s strikes a chord online instructing microscopes, which she and Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award her colleagues had built, to collect samples and spent last year as its ambassador, ‘As a child, I felt music was a club that I of Martian soil for analysis. ‘It was all very attending party political conferences and couldn’t belong to’, says Deborah Sacks (New exciting,’ she says of her role in NASA’s Phoenix promoting engineering to the public and College 1990). Now, as a parent, she has set up mission to Mars, ‘especially being the first schoolchildren. littlecellist.com, a playful online club aimed at person to see new images sent back to Earth.’ ‘In continental Europe the word for ‘demystifying’ music, which any child can join. Now ‘back in Earth time’ – for the engineer is associated with ingenuity of Sacks started the club after watching her duration of the project she had to adapt her thought and the idea of genius’, she observes. daughter, Sarah, trying to master her cello. ‘I body clock to the Martian day, which is over ‘But in Britain, people still picture an engineer was shocked at how difficult it is. It is such a half an hour longer than an Earth day – she as a man in overalls with a spanner. It’s an lovely instrument, that I really wanted to do has returned to Oxford to do postdoctoral image that we have to overcome.’ something to encourage children to play.’ On one level, the online club serves as a

G noticeboard for courses, concerts and master D J classes. On another, it is simply a place where ROBU es children have fun. One section links to cello games and videos. Another has interviews with children’s writers and such famous cellists as Julian Lloyd-Webber, Yo-Yo Ma and Steven Isserlis, the club’s honorary patron. There is also a ‘Your Space’, where children share their compositions and swap jokes and stories, and a section with ready-to-print resources, including a practice calendar recommending ‘top tips for getting out of your cello practice and tricking your teacher’. The site has gone down a storm with the music press and bloggers. Now, Sacks is launching a new project, ‘getcomposing’, which Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is backing, to A life on Mars: Hanna Sykulska-Lawrence is researching new technology for measuring conditions encourage children to compose their own music. on the Red Planet www.littlecellist.com A combat survivor turns life-rebuilder

For his DPhil, Rhodes Scholar Eric Greitens The Mission Continues, which Greitens (LMH 1996) worked with survivors of ethnic started in the United States and hopes to take cleansing and genocide. Now, as the founder around the world, challenges veterans to work of a not-for-profit organisation, The Mission for a charity doing something that plays to Continues, he is using his understanding of their strengths. As an example he mentions the psychology of recovery to help injured Mathew, a naval veteran ‘who liked kids and servicemen and women rebuild their lives by horses’. Through the organisation’s fellowship serving their communities. programme, Mathew spent six months at an Three years ago, Greitens was serving as equi-therapy centre, mentoring physically a naval sea, air and land officer in Iraq, when and mentally disabled children. He proved a suicide truck bomber hit his unit. He got so good at the job that the centre hired him off with minor wounds. Others were not so on a full-time basis. Other veterans have lucky. Having suffered disabling injuries, they worked with elderly people, supported former were no longer fit to serve in the military and comrades in hospital, mentored teenagers and found themselves facing an uncertain future retrained as teachers and nurses. as disabled civilians without jobs. ‘When ‘In the past, injured veterans were seen wounded veterans come home, they are often as problems’, says Greitens. ‘Our ambition for the recipients of much well-meaning charity. this generation is that society will see them as But, what they most need is to find a way of assets.’ rebuilding a purposeful life’, Greitens says. www.missioncontinues.org Helping the wounded off the ropes: Eric Greitens

30 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 OXONIAN EXTRA Oxonians at large tson a W a M lcolm

Robert Hollingworth (left), in performance with other members of I Fagiolini Now hear this: singers bridge the centuries

How do you get a 21st-century audience to involve itself in music One challenge in which I Fagiolini revels is bringing back to from 500 years ago? Spectacle, surprise and an exuberant delight in life the lost emotional contexts in which Renaissance music was its beauty are possibly as good a starting point as any. ‘The accepted written. In 2000 the ensemble recorded a collection of 16th-century norm is just to stand there and sing,’ says Robert Hollingworth (New Venetian carnival pieces, which Hollingworth likens to Private Eye College 1985), director of the solo-voice ensemble I Fagiolini, ‘but satire. Similarly, concert-goers who attended their show, The Full often the music needs a helping hand to cross the centuries.’ Monteverdi, had the unforgettable experience of seeing couples seated Hollingworth founded I Fagiolini – which began life performing around them start to bicker, only to segue into emotionally charged in the Holywell Music Room – with fellow undergraduates. In 1988 performances of the composer’s madrigals. they won the UK Early Music Network’s Young Artists’ Competition. ‘If you are performing Renaissance music, there’s a danger the They have since made 17 recordings and toured the world. audience will just drown in rich sound. That isn’t enough – the music Forthcoming performances include an appearance at this year’s is more profound than the noise it makes’, Hollingworth says. Proms on 21 August. www.ifagiolini.com Microfinance, pulling village families from poverty

Olivia (Olly) Donnelly (St Edmund Hall offices. To finance herself, she does 1999) always knew she would work in consultancy work on corporate social

ly Donnellyly development. But then, she had had an responsibility projects. ‘That way, I l O inspiring start. ‘My grandfather, who can guarantee that nearly every penny worked in Calcutta, bought Mother donated goes to the villages.’ Teresa her first ambulance. I grew Shivia does more than lend money; up watching home movies about her it also teaches villagers the basic communities’, she recalls. literacy and money-management skills Now, Donnelly has achieved her they need to turn their start-ups into ambition. Last year, she set up Shivia sustainable businesses. A loan might Microfinance, a charity that helps buy a goat for a family or a hand- villagers in India and Nepal pull loom, allowing a young widow to eat themselves out of poverty by providing Cheep at the price: Olly Donnelly with West Bengali women every day and send her children to them with the training and capital to who use microfinance loans to buy and breed chickens school. ‘Seeing a mother’s excitement start businesses. when she sees her skill can earn money She planned her career with where she picked up business skills and made is extraordinary. Many women have precision, spent her gap year in a village contact with possible sponsors. amazing talents as craft-workers. But they orphanage and returned every summer and Since January 2009, Donnelly has worked don’t realise it. They just think of what they Easter vacation. After Oxford came a stint full-time on Shivia, which is staffed by do as a household chore.’ at the World Bank, then a spell in the City, volunteers operating from pro bono London www.shivia.com

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 31 Join us for the 2010 Oxford Alumni Weekend as we celebrate Highlights Oxford’s peerless collections. Inspired by the recent award of the Highlights of this year’s programme include: The Future of Museums – Challenges and Queen’s Anniversary Prize in recognition of the quality of Oxford’s Opportunities: A number of the world’s great museums, libraries and archives, we will be bringing many of the artistic institutions are run by Oxonians. This year, we are joined by alumni Tom Campbell, University’s treasures to the fore and uncovering some of those Mark Jones and Sandy Nairne, Directors of the ‘hidden gems’ you may never have seen as a student. Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the V&A and the National Portrait Gallery respectively, to explore the challenges facing What does the Alumni What will I need to book? museums worldwide. The Presence of the Past in Modern China: Weekend offer? To book, you will need your Oxford Alumni Card number. All Cards were reissued with Join Professor Dame Jessica Rawson, expert in Held each September, this three-day event the Hilary issue of Oxford Today. If you don’t Chinese art and archaeology, as she describes some of the most exciting archaeological finds aims to highlight some of the ground- have your Oxford Alumni Card, you can of the last few decades, including the Terracotta breaking research carried out by Oxford’s contact the Alumni Office to find out your Warriors. academic staff, as well as draw attention to number, which will enable you to book, and Early Tudor England: the achievements of many of the University’s arrange for the Card to be sent to you. The A People’s Reformation: alumni. With more than 120 sessions on number also appears on the reverse of your A lecture by Church historian Professor offer, and virtually all Oxford’s colleges and Diarmaid MacCulloch, who presented the Oxford Today cover sheet. To request your y halls participating, the Alumni Weekend is Oxford Alumni Card, please contact: BBC television series The History of Christianit . [email protected] your chance to interact with experts in your Email: Science News and Views: A series of sessions field, participate in talks and discussions, Telephone: +44 (0)1865 611610 by Oxford scientists. Learn about topics as reconnect with old friends and make new Website: www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/get_your_card diverse as earthquakes, volcanoes and Greek ones, and explore behind-the-scenes Oxford. civilisation, pulsars, biodiversity, diabetes and Which events can I attend? Richard Doll’s research into lung cancer. Our Our 2010 event, ‘Meeting Minds – Shared speakers include Professor Dame Kay Davies Treasures’, was partially prompted by the Part of the appeal of the Alumni Weekend on human genetic disease, and author and recent reopening of the Ashmolean and is being able to re-live your student days. television presenter Dr George McGavin on Pitt Rivers museums. This year, we will be So we have a wide range of lectures and exploration. unearthing some of the millions of objects in panel discussions, a series of small-group The Future of the Past – The Bodleian’s the University’s collections, as well as learning interactive sessions, from demonstrations Great Acquisitions: Oxford’s libraries are about how they are conserved and shared. The to walking tours, and, of course, drinks among the most celebrated in the world for theme of ‘sharing’ is continued by looking at events and dinners in typical Oxford style. their collections of books and manuscripts. This some of Oxford’s exciting interdisciplinary A number of themes also run through our talk by Richard Ovenden, Keeper of Special research and the growing success of projects 2010 programme. These include: Collections; Collections, will explore some of the Bodleian’s that encourage academics from different Interdisciplinary Research; Music; Hidden unique acquisitions. disciplines to share their experience and Gems; Humanities; Social Sciences; and Behind-the-Scenes Oxford: approach problems from a new angle. Sciences. Our ‘hidden gems’ strand includes a whole range of new There is also a wealth of events and social Who can come? talks and tours - from ‘Unusual Oxford’ to activities outside the main theme to ensure Inspector Morse, college silver to the University broad appeal. Whether you left us five years All alumni of the University of Oxford Herbarium, ‘literary treasures’ to college ago or fifty, the Alumni Weekend aims to are welcome to attend the 2010 Alumni archives. include something for everyone. Weekend. Alumni may register themselves Why Can’t Presidents Govern the United How do I book? and up to three guests for an Alumni States? A lecture by Dr Nigel Bowles, Director Weekend Pass. There is a charge of £65 for a of the Rothermere American Institute, asks Booking will close on Monday 23 August. Weekend Pass, but if you matriculated after whether the US has a ‘constitutionally hung’ Places will be allocated on a first-come, first- 2000 or before 1960, you qualify for a £10 government. served basis. You can book online via the discount on this price. (Please note that this The Art of Biography: www.alumniweekend.ox.ac.uk Oxford has a number website at , or discount is for alumni only and does not of celebrated biographers among its alumni. by completing the paper form enclosed with extend to non-alumni guests.) This year we Our panel of authors, including Ffion Hague, the Weekend brochure. Brochures can be are also offering single-day tickets; please will discuss the art of biography, access to requested via the website or by telephoning see the Alumni Weekend website for further letters, manuscripts and diaries, and biographers’ us on +44 (0)1865 611621. details: www.alumniweekend.ox.ac.uk. work in the archives.

32 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 OXONIAN EXTRA Alumni Office news

Alumni Travel Photography Competition 2010 Entries are invited for this year’s Alumni Travel Photography Competition. The theme is ‘Alumni perspectives: off the beaten track’. We would encourage you to submit travel images that capture an unusual destination or portray a well-known sight from a different perspective. ACE Study Tours, one of the Oxford Alumni Travel Programme tour operators, is offering £200 of book vouchers as first prize. A second prize of a £100 Jessops gift voucher, a third prize of copies of the travel books reviewed in the Oxford Alumni Travel Newsletter 2010 and a fourth prize of a £30 Blackwell gift card are being offered courtesy of IMA, Distant Horizons and Blackwell respectively. Twelve winning photographs chosen by our panel of judges will also be made into an Oxford Alumni Travel Programme calendar for 2011. The deadline for entries is 1 October 2010. Photographs must be submitted electronically and accompanied by a completed application form. Further details about the competition, as well as the entry form, Wathumba Creek by Shan Liu (Green Templeton 2005), winner of the can be found at www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/travel_competition. 2009 competition

Help students graduate to the world Pgeoni holes Sam Gordon (Trinity 2007) reports on the Oxford10 mentoring scheme Students coming to the end of it rewarding to make the Oxford Your Oxford Alumni Card Alumni networks their time at university face many alumni community stronger. Y our new Oxford Alumni Card at home … problems. The change from study The mentoring scheme adds was enclosed with the Hilary to work is a big one, and it can to the services of the Alumni The Alumni Office is hoping issue of Oxford Today. The Card to start a branch in the Milton be hard to know what to expect. and Careers Offices. There are identifies you as a member of What sort of experiences have now around 50 mentors, and 21 Keynes, Bedfordshire or the University’s international Cambridge area and is looking other people gone through? students were each matched with body of alumni and friends, and What’s more, how would you find a mentor in Hilary Term. New for volunteers who would be carries your unique identification interested in helping with this this out? alumni or finalists wanting to find number. A growing number of mentoring@ initiative. If you would like to be To address these problems, out more should email benefits and discounts – from oxford10.com involved, please register your an alumni–student mentoring . accommodation and restaurants to scheme was launched last year. interest at: Hear Sam talk about the scheme and read books and continuing education www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/uk_groups. The idea is simple: by linking – are available to card-holders, up finalists with recent Oxford profiles of some of our mentors at www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/mentoring redeemable in Oxford and beyond. ... and abroad graduates, we create a platform Some are available online. for sharing advice and experience A new alumni group has formed about working life. This should Oxford10 For further information about the benefits in Central America. Based in associated with your Card, or to request a help students be better prepared Oxford10 is our programme for Costa Rica, the group is looking Card if you have not yet received one, please for what they do next. graduates of the last 10 years. Based for alumni across the region. For see www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/alumni_card. Run by volunteers, the in London, Oxford10 is run by a details of the group’s activities, Alternatively, please contact the Alumni mentoring scheme is a joint volunteer committee, headed by and to get in touch, please visit Office to request a printed list of benefits informal venture between the president Dr Tarun Gupta (New www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/central_ Oxford10 alumni programme (see College 1998). In addition to the america. right) and OxSAS, the Oxford mentoring scheme, the committee Student Alumni Society. Alumni organises events throughout the Varsity rugby Contact the mentors are matched to one or year. These include wine tastings, The highlight of the winter is more students and are in contact Alumni Office art exhibitions, informal drinks the alumni event at the Varsity during one term. This can take the I f you have any questions about evenings and a series of high- rugby match at Twickenham on 9 form of small informal meetings the information included on this profile speaker events. December. Join us for a great day as well as structured social events. page, or would like to find out out, including sampling game pie The scheme is open to second- more about the alumni relations and cake from Oxford’s Covered year and final-year students from programme at Oxford, please Save the date! Market. Cheer on the Dark Blues every college, and benefits from contact us at: enquiries@alumni. On Saturday 12 December join with an excellent view from our a diverse group of mentors. From ox.ac.uk, telephone +44 (0) 1865 other Oxford10 members for our block of seats. marketing to music to medical Christmas Party at an exclusive 611610, or write to the Alumni writing, they represent a wide London venue. To hear about forthcoming alumni events, Office, University of Oxford, range of sectors and perspectives. join the mailing list at www.alumni.ox.ac. University Offices, Wellington Several of the mentors have To hear more about this event and other uk/events_mailing_list Square, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK. mentored before. Most just want Oxford10 activities, join the mailing list at to give something back and find www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/oxford10

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 33 An R T S a d i d e as Museums and galleries

Ashmolean Museum drawings are many with a military topic. The exhibition will show more than 30 drawings, Util n 15 August ranging from a depiction of the war-god Mars Thet Los World of Old Europe: The Danube by Rubens to whole compositional drawings Valley, 5000–3500 bc of battle scenes by the Florentine artist This unprecedented exhibition, prepared Niccolò Circignani. by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, has been 25gust Au –19 December made possible through loan agreements Sacred Faces – Icons in Oxford (co-curated

by Dr Georgi Parpulov) seum with museums in Romania, Bulgaria and u Moldova. On display in Britain for the first M

1ptember Se –19 December unty time are more than 250 artefacts recovered o C by archaeologists from the graves, towns and Henry Aldrich – an Oxford Universal Man villages of Old Europe, a period of prehistoric o cultures that achieved a peak of sophistication M f useum o the History of Science B toşani and creativity in south-eastern Europe until eptember 5 s between 5000 and 3500 bc. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work We spend much of our lives at work – but 16ptember Se –5 December surprisingly little attention is given to what The Pre-Raphaelites and Italy makes work both one of the most exciting The Ashmolean Museum presents the first and most painful of all our activities. Alain major exhibition in Britain dedicated to the de Botton’s new book, The Pleasures and Pre-Raphaelites and Italy. The exhibition, in Sorrows of Work, is an exploration of the collaboration with the Ravenna Museum of joys and perils of the modern workplace, Art, Italy, will feature more than 140 works beautifully evoking what other people get up from the Ashmolean’s collection, as well as to all day – and night – to make the frenzied loans from museums and private collections contemporary world function. His book in the UK and USA, many of which have contains over 100 original images specially never been on public display, exploring how commissioned from the documentary Italy – through art, landscape, literature and photographer Richard Baker. This exhibition history – was the central inspiration of Pre- presents a selection of these images, from Raphaelitism. rocket science to biscuit manufacture, from the individual to anonymous infrastructure. Christ Church Picture Gallery Util n 29 August M odern Art Oxford The Firing Line – Depictions of Conflict in Util n 5 September the Collection of General Guise Howard Hodgkin: Time and Place The collector and military man General A new major exhibition of painting by John Guise (1683–1765) left his impressive Howard Hodgkin explores the acclaimed art collection to Christ Church, his former British artist’s use of abstraction as an college. Among the almost 2,000 Old Master expression of subjective experience. brary i Bodleian Library L

Util n 31 OctOBER l A female figurine, made of fired clay, d o

‘ My wit was always working’: B eian Cucuteni, Drăguşeni, dating from 4050–3900 John Aubrey and the Development bc, on display in the Ashmolean Museum’s of Experimental Science ‘Lost World of Old Europe’ exhibition The summer exhibition examines the intellectual world of the English 17th- century scientific and cultural figure, Pitt Rivers Museum John Aubrey (1626–97). As one of the Util n 21 November founding fellows of the Royal Society of The Burial of Emperor Haile Selassie: London, Aubrey lived a rich life in the Photographs by Peter Marlow great decades of the British scientific When Emperor Haile Selassie was revolution. A keen mathematician, finally buried in Addis Ababa in 2000, pioneer biographer, natural philosopher 25 years after his death, only a few and antiquary, Aubrey manifested European journalists and reporters were a broad and deep range of scholarly there to witness it. Renowned Magnum interests, from the study of ancient photographer Peter Marlow was one of megaliths to the creation of a new artificial them. The 21 photographs in this exhibition language. The exhibition features Aubrey’s document an extraordinary event and its papers, which are held in the Bodleian. colourful participants, from former soldiers right: John Aubrey: an inquiring mind to priests and dignitaries of the Eastern Orthodox Church, dressed in bright robes.

34 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 Botoşani County Museum

ceptional E ur f ew ersity ‘A The Wilfred E H of one of major the benchmarks history inthe contributing fundamentally to our understanding south-westChengjiang The China. fauna is year-old Cambrian fossils from Chengjiang, important fossil assemblages, 525-million- the This exhibition features one the of world’s most Thesiger andlater donated the to museum. Kenya. on Also show are by collected objects from Ethiopia, Sudan, Morocco, Tanzania and to his life and travels including inAfrica, images shows of selection awide his photographs relating Sir Wilfred Thesiger’sthis major birth, exhibition Marking centenary the of traveller the and writer within museum. the by and people work the who described selected The quirky, the unseen theand wonderful, as E 14 N 14 TIL U GUST A TIL U J 5 TIL U A flat, Nocturne in F T The 12th Oxford Philomusica International Piano Festival and Summer Academy Summer Festivaland OxfordPiano International 12th Philomusica The Philomusica Oxford C minor, Waltz in Gflat considered one of Britain’s most catalogue. His brilliant technique conductor and composer 20.00 GUST A 3 ersity U ersity U Olli MustonenOlli is aworld- Chopin: Fantasie –Impromptu in Chopin: Impromptu No. 1in Mustonen: Jehkin Iivana, O Michael is Roll widely with an impressive recording 20.00 GUST A 2 Sonata for piano distinguished pianists and has Haydn: Sonata in CHob 48 established acareer as adeeply B M renowned Finnish pianist, Scriabin: Etudes,Scriabin: Op. 8 Schumann: Fantasy in C audiences worldwide. and startlinginterpretations have challenged and fascinated probing and expressive artist. x xhi a n n n

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FORD R O F O x Opening times/contactsOpening Ashmolean Museum Ashmolean to T 01865 305305 01865 T 84501060 020 T 305305 01865 T 10.00–17.00 i to T T wn T to T 12.00–17.00, i to T T T T T T T T T T The Bate Collection of Musical of Collection Bate The The University Museum of of UniversityMuseum The S S S S S S contact individual museums individual contact ( www.chch.ox.ac.uk/gallery www.botanic-garden.ox.ac.uk www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley/about/exhibitions www.bate.ox.ac.uk www.ashmolean.org www.ouml.ox.ac.uk www.prm.ox.ac.uk www.ouphil.oums.org www.ticketsoxford.com www.ouo.org.uk www.ticketsoxford.com www.oxfordphil.com www.ticketsoxford.com www.oxfordbachchoir.org www.museumoxford.org.uk www.modernartoxford.org.uk www.mhs.ox.ac.uk C Christ Church Picture Gallery PictureChurch Christ Oxford UniversityPhilharmonia Oxford UniversityOrchestraOxford Philomusica Oxford Choir Bach Oxford Museum of Oxford of Museum Oxford Art Modern Science of History the of Museum Instruments Harcourt ArboretumHarcourt Garden Botanic Library Bodleian Pitt RiversMuseum Pitt Daily 9.00–17.00 Daily R B of y F B please times opening holiday bank F Daily 10.00–17.00 Daily ks P ks P E oke P B i 10.00–17.00 i to M 9.00–17.00 i to M 14.00–17.00 i to M 12.00–16.30, M to M Natural History Natural

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S at 10.00–17.00 at un 10.00–16.30 un i un 12.00–17.00 un d e S A 35 Atsn r a d I D E AS Distractions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Crossword Editor: Mark Thakkar (Balliol 1999) 10 11 12

13 H igh Camp 14 15 Answers to the six asterisked clues must be entered with a single 16 17 (checked) misprint; consideration of the effect of these misprints should allow the six unclued names to be identified. 18 19 20 21 22 23 Andrew Fisher, Trinity 1984 Please send your solution by 13 September to Distractions, c/o Janet 24 25 Avison, Public Affairs Directorate, University Offices, Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JD. This issue’s prize is a copy of Building the 26 27 28 29 30 New Ashmolean: Drawings and Prints by Weimin He (Ashmolean, £20). Frhe o t sOLUTION to the hilary puzzle, see page 43. 31 32 33

ACROSS 34 2 First of drivers in cabs getting caught – without this? (3,4) 35 36 7 Shed kinetic energy with endless sun around (4) 13 Nerds demanding a note about ‘Planet of the Daleks’ (7) 37 38 14 One more fish to be found here, amid the seaweed (4) *16 Jewel wanted? Solution follows appearance of dole cheque (7) DOWN 17 Leaders of Sonic Youth involved in music as a 1 Absolutely no good, overwriting months of *18 Express disapproval of China getting more propaganda ploy (5) marketing emails (5) prosperous (7) *21 Roselike shrub’s stalk finally embedded in jagged 2 Adjust your set, with time to break ennui (4,2) 19 Once recognised, I could be broken down with rock (7) 3 Naughtily offered kisses for two francs; did it rod (7) *24 Mercury freesheet’s leader prepared for again? (7) 20 A c-competitor’s getting there (7) publication? (7) 4 Pairs of tree-nymphs losing sight of rook (5) 22 Backyard training area? A goal’s converted (7) 26 This colonial boor could be detained by man for 5 Leading clansman in pink hosiery (7) 23 Idle scribbles from head of department – jeering (5) 6 US fish reportedly of poor quality (7) a shedload (7) *28 College Presidents in hysterics after press 7 Blow investment, ignoring conclusion of audit 25 New Deal developed, avoiding a zigzagging release (7) (4) decline (6) 33 Art movement emphatically accepted in 8 Something to cover heads: keep under fabric, 27 Flexible means of beating bad acne (4) Moscow? (4) if you are hot (7) 29 English phone company scrapping a capped 34 Roper’s tool purling colour behind yarn (7) * 9 With professionals involved, you’ll find this fare in Japan (5) 37 Nelson, perhaps, demonstrating a spiral crystal is soon diffracted (7) 30 Garment with oomph, one that may sequence (4) 12 Little reptile making a big noise, then nothing accompany ruff (5) 38 Leo embraces Aries regularly in such an affair (7) (4) 32 Authority not associated with the setter (4)

Bridge Barry Rigal (Queen’s 1976) Chess Jonathan Levitt (Magdalen 1982)

Ed Jones, who has just finished his MMath After a complex auction, Jones played at Balliol, is the youngest player to appear in Six No-trumps, and West led a top club. Ed this column. He was in the English Junior could see that he needed a favourable break team that won a silver medal in the under-21 in either or both of hearts and clubs. What championships in Beijing and regained the was the best way to develop tricks? The most under-25 Channel trophy last year. Here he is logical line appears to be to win the first club at work in the World Championships. and play a spade to the queen. However, if this fails, the contract is basically hopeless. So Dealer South E/W Vul Ed took a different approach: to duck the first ♠ Q 6 4 2 trick, discarding a diamond from dummy. If ♥ K Q 10 8 7 clubs are 4-4, this would develop an extra trick; if not, it allowed for the possibility of a ♦ 5 4 3 2 squeeze. ¨ --- West continued with a second club (no switch works any better) and Jones won ♠ J 7 5 ♠ K 10 8 in hand and cashed all the club winners, ♥ 9 6 5 ♥ J 3 2 pitching two spades, then a diamond from H Rinck 1st Prize, Le Temps, 1929 ♦ 6 ♦ Q J 10 9 8 dummy. Then he took the two top diamonds, White to play and win ♣ J 10 9 8 7 6 ♣ 5 2 and played hearts from the top. As he cashed the fifth heart, dummy had The elegance of a fine endgame study such ♠ A 9 3 the doubleton spade queen left, Jones had the as this (by Henry Rinck) is something ♥ A4 ace-nine of spades and the diamond seven in quite distinctive to chess and can give true ♦ A K 7 hand, and simply had to watch East’s discard. delight to the mind capable of grasping it. ♣ A K Q 4 3 That player had to surrender control of See if you can work out how White, to play, either diamonds or spades, and whatever he wins a piece and consequently the game. discarded, declarer could take the rest. Solution: page 43. 36 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 Atsn r a d I D E AS Book reviews

Books and CDs reviewed in Oxford Today all have an Oxford connection: their subject-matter is the University or city, and/or the author is a current or former student or academic. We welcome suggestions from authors and publishers. Please send brief details to the Editor, at [email protected]. We cannot mention every book or CD, and choose those likely to be of general interest, rather than specialised academic texts.

S tatistics save lives Susana Raby reviews the biography of a medical pioneer

Smoking Kills: It was during his time at London’s St Thomas’s Hospital Together with the father of medical statistics, Austin The Revolutionary that Richard Doll had his eyes opened to the role Bradford Hill, he brought in the randomised controlled of poverty in ill health: delivering children at home trial, an innovation that has revolutionised clinical Life of Richard Doll in Lambeth, he was appalled by the conditions he medicine. Conrad Keating encountered. A committed ‘democratic communist’ Doll’s later research uncovered the association Signal Books from his schooldays until 1957, he visited Moscow as a between asbestos and lung cancer; X-rays and 9781904955634, £17.99 young man; walked with the Jarrow hunger marchers, leukaemia; and the contraceptive pill and blood clots. tending their blistered feet; and fought for better He is credited with single-handedly saving millions, housing. perhaps tens of millions, of lives. Politics is the first of the ‘revolutions’ around which In 1969 Doll became Regius Professor of Medicine this painstaking and very readable life is constructed, at Oxford, and in 1979 was a founder of Green College. the others being medical science, academia and public But the plaudits were somewhat overshadowed, health. In truth, this is a biographer’s convenient especially after his death in 2005, by accusations of conceit, for the four spheres overlapped during the partiality and doubts about questionable bedfellows. whole of Doll’s 60-year career. He set out wanting to Always a formidable expert witness, Doll gave evidence ‘find a place in the world’, was a lifelong pioneer in on behalf of British Nuclear Fuels and Monsanto, social medicine underpinned by statistics, campaigned among other bogeys of the environmental movement, for the setting up of the NHS and continued to advocate and was paid consultancy fees by chemical companies. sweeping public health measures to the end. He himself considered it necessary to work with Doll’s career-defining achievement was establishing manufacturers in order to gain access to information the link between smoking and lung cancer, in 1950, that might prove their products to be dangerous, and when British men had the highest rate of lung cancer felt there was no conflict of interest. Call it arrogance in the world. The finding attracted immediate hostility, or naivety, but no one has suggested that his scientific from doctors, politicians and the tobacco industry, or moral integrity was compromised. The ‘foremost but later became highly influential. Significantly, Doll physiologist of the twentieth century’ can hang on to his established not only the link itself, but also the way laurels. in which such causal associations are made. As the BMJ noted: ‘More than anybody else Richard Doll has Susana Raby (LMH 1963) is a freelance writer and editor based in stopped doctors pontificating without any evidence.’ London Jonathan Levitt (Magdalen 1982) R oads to freedom Malcolm X, the charismatic and controversial African-American radical of the early 1960s, pictured (centre) during a visit to Oxford in 1964 – one of many evocative episodes during the struggle for civil rights in the US recalled in We Ain’t What We hulton archive/getty images Ought To Be: The Black Freedom Struggle from Emancipation to Obama (Harvard University Press, 9780674036260, £22.95), by Stephen Tuck, University Lecturer in American History at Pembroke College. This extensive study of one of the dominant – and continuing – themes in modern American history examines the tensions within different strands of the movement for emancipation, from the Civil War to contemporary popular culture in the US, and Barack Obama’s political career from Chicago community organiser to the White House. Tuck deploys his material with enviable skill, blending analysis with anecdote to produce a volume that is both scholarly and readable. A fine primer on a subject that has helped define the modern US. Greg Neale

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 37

An R T S a d i d e as Book reviews

Brought, handsomely, to book Josie Dixon enjoys an ambitious reference work on books and publishing

This magisterial pair of slip-cased volumes represents histories underway, such as the ongoing multi- The Oxford the culmination of a vast project involving the volume Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. collaboration of over 400 scholars worldwide. Such But for non-specialists in search of elucidation on Companion to works are notoriously difficult to bring to fruition, bibliographical matters great and small, this is a the Book and reaching publication is in itself no mean feat. treasure trove. Edited by Michael F Suarez, The editors offer a rich reference guide to the field The Companion’s subject is a moving target, SJ, and H R Woudhuysen now known as history of the book, which emerged and the perennial problem of reference works Oxford University Press out of the somewhat drier and dustier discipline of becoming dated even before they are published is bibliography under the influence of scholars such as here compounded by seismic shifts in the ground 9780198606536, £195 the late D F McKenzie (fellow of Pembroke 1983–99), on which it stands. The editors have opted for a whose work is commemorated in the annual Oxford wide definition, from the earliest writing systems lectures bearing his name. on cuneiform tablets, through manuscript culture McKenzie’s concept of the ‘sociology of texts’ and the familiar Western codex, to the digital – exploring the social processes surrounding their environment that threatens to dissolve their subject production, transmission and reception – was altogether. Here the hazards are greatest, not simply transformative, opening new channels for the wider because of the speed of progress (Wikipedia and and deeper influence of bibliographical scholarship Google were consulted for their entries in 2007 on mainstream literary criticism and cultural history. and 2008 respectively) but because ‘the radical While the Companion is rooted in textual and dismemberment and reassociation of content’ archival erudition, it is this broader concept of book online challenges the very notion of the Book. In history that underpins its claim to a wider readership this context, these handsome volumes represent a beyond the bibliographical diehards. nostalgic luxury: the electronic edition available from Although it bears Oxford’s familiar Companion the Oxford Digital Reference Shelf will surely provide brand, the slipcase proclaims it ‘A History of the Book the most practical means of usage (and updating) in throughout the Ages’. It is in fact a hybrid, combining the longer term. over 5,000 A–Z entries with 51 essays attempting generic, geographical and historical coverage. The Josie Dixon (Univ 1983) is a freelance publishing consultant. She slipcase strap-line belies the boldness of its claim was formerly Publishing Director of the Academic Division at Palgrave with the indefinite article, acknowledging that Macmillan and Senior Commissioning Editor at Cambridge University there are other, more detailed if less wide-ranging, Press

Gardeners’ worlds Michael Pirie reviews a horticultural history inspired by a painting in the Ashmolean

Margaret Willes takes a Dutch still-life painting by include in this pretty bunch was in part decided by Pick of the Bunch: Ambrosius Bosschaert as the starting point for her their popularity in opinion polls. To some extent, the The Story of selection of ‘twelve treasured flowers’. In telling us choice indicates not so much a constancy in public Twelve Treasured that one of the objects of this genre of paintings appreciation as an historical survey of their periods of was to provide the owner with a ‘visual treat that being in vogue. The auricula, for example, was widely Flowers could be savoured through the winter months’, she is grown in the 18th century by enthusiasts, or ‘florists’ Margaret Willes ingeniously implying a purpose of her book. as they were then known, but is a rarity nowadays. Bodleian Library There is a sense that, just as a Bodleian reader The dahlia, on the other hand, embraced upon its 9781851243037, £19.99 may conjure up an image of stack requests being introduction in the 19th century by the emerging mined in the process of their retrieval, so the author horticultural societies, was considered somewhat has unearthed material from books and manuscripts gross a hundred years later, but now finds its place in within the library’s collections that she has then the colour border of the early 21st century. carefully sifted, organised and set down. The depth of It is appropriate for an in-house publication those resources is demonstrated in the way in which that the entirety of the pictorial content, apart from the idealisation of the flowers represented covers the the reproduction of Bosschaert’s painting from period from the medieval to the modern. the Ashmolean Museum, comes from within the Some information will be new to all readers, be Bodleian’s own holdings, especially those in Plant it the origins of a particular cultivar of rose or pink, Sciences. The almost modernist botanical drawings or the etymology of a plant name. Fritillaria, from by A H Church, from his Types of Floral Mechanism ‘fritillus, a dicebox’ was pleasingly apt news to me. I of 1908, are particularly striking and the book has was fascinated, too, by the hostility to double flowers an attractive stylistic consistency, reinforced by an shown by Linnaeus, confirming a suspicion I have absence of modern photographs. always had that botanists and gardeners are two different species. Michael Pirie is Head Gardener of Green Templeton College and The overall tone of the book is deliberately a part-time tutor at Oxford University Department of Continuing accessible. Indeed, the very choice of flowers to Education

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 39 An R T S a d i d e as Book briefings

Book reviews are edited by Jenny Lunnon

immensely ambitious and complicated this laudable new tradition of artists project. More than 300 of his pictures are recording major University building projects, reproduced in Building the New Ashmolean: Weimin is now drawing at the Radcliffe Drawings and Prints by Weimin He Observatory Quarter site. (Ashmolean, 9781854442451, £20). During Another Oxford artist, Sarah Simblet, demolition and construction Weimin was who is Tutor in Anatomy at the Ruskin often to be found outside, recalls museum School of Drawing and Fine Art, has director Christopher Brown, ‘standing amid produced a beautiful new ‘how to do it’ swirling dust and dripping rain with sketch book: Botany for the Artist: An Inspirational pad in hand’, and his pictures of the skeletal Guide to Drawing Plants (Dorling Kindersley, new building, a mass of scaffolding, cranes 9781405332279, £25). There is clearly no and perilously dangling concrete slabs, have better way to learn the science of plants than an epic quality. through the practice of close observation Such unpromising subjects as ‘clearing required by drawing. Simblet has compiled the screed pipe’ provide fascinating insights striking examples of botanical art from the into the workings of a building site. The past, including Albrecht Dürer’s revolutionary portraits are also wonderful: anyone who has study of a humble patch of weeds; bold, high- ever sat through a long department meeting definition photos by Sam Scott-Hunter; and or leaned wearily against a wall after a day’s her own fluent and sensitive drawings from hard labour will appreciate their insight and life, including from many fragile pressed An unexpected pleasure of the Ashmolean humour, the subtle clues of posture hinting specimens in Oxford University Herbaria, reopening was an exhibition of ink drawings at the sitter’s character and mood. Here is to illustrate a text that takes the novice artist and wood block prints by Chinese artist project director Henry Kim, tapping away at carefully through each step involved in in residence Weimin He, which celebrated his laptop with his feet on the table, and here developing a deep understanding of nature. the vision, ingenuity and physical strength is gangerman Vince Finn on his tea break, his The story of Adam von Trott zu Solz, of the people who worked together on this workman’s hands cradling a mug. Continuing a leader of the July 1944 plot to assassinate y d Poetry lid conquest

Oxford Poetry is edited by Peter Dale

Robert Conquest John Turvey Born in Malvern, Worcestershire in 1917, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the John Turvey left Oxford in 1955, having been a Robert Conquest is American on his father’s British Academy and the American Academy Merton Postmaster reading Modern History. He side and English on his mother’s. He was of Arts and Sciences. He lives with his wife in has lived almost all his life in Cyprus and the educated at Winchester and Magdalen California. The following poem is taken from Arabian Gulf. Although he has intermittently College, where he took his BA in politics, his new collection, Penultima, printed by written poetry, he admits to the ‘solitary vice’ of philosophy and economics and a DLitt in permission of The Waywiser Press. ‘writing for the drawer’. Major themes in his work Soviet history. include childhood recollections – as indicated in Throughout the Second World Placerville the poem published here – human affections and War, he served in the Oxfordshire and the topography of Oman. (California mining country) Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. In 1944 After the temblor the strata settle he was sent from Italy on military missions Non Angli Sed Angeli What was gold-dust in a slowing stream with the Soviet Third Ukrainian Front, and More Nordic it was hardly possible to be. Falls from that suspended gleam later with the Allied Control Commission in How Hitler would have smiled to see a family Into solidities of lode-metal. Bulgaria. From 1946 to 1956 he worked in So effortlessly blond and azure-eyed! the British Foreign Service. Subsequently, his And yet he filled their little sky with planes Shock, aftershock – over in days, career varied between freelance writing and To cut their living thread: they bled and died Consolidation of gold – eons: academic appointments. For lack of sticky tape across their window panes, But on our conceptual screens Winner of a poetry prize in the 1951 The human debris of a routine bomber run Time knows its place. Festival of Britain, he has since published On Angel Hill in nineteen-forty-one. seven volumes of verse. His two New Lines In ten minutes a couple buy anthologies became famous for launching Occasionally I think about these people and their At the store where such are sold the so-called Movement grouping of poets. rotten luck; A ring struck from that gold He was also influential in exposing, in his Especially I think about the boy and girl, stuck Engraved Eternity. 17 books on Soviet Russia, the full horrors There in history while I went on ahead; of Stalinism, and in 1990 presented a And though their names and faces start to fade, television documentary series, Red Empire. I see them round the wireless, nearly time for bed, His honours include the CMG, the OBE and With Ovaltine, iconic family life displayed, the Presidential Medal of Freedom; he is a A snapshot just before that fatal burst of breath, Only a shutter-stop away from family death.

40 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 An R T S a d i d e as Book briefings Book reviews are edited by Jenny Lunnon

he had to escape. Between 1929 and 1933, 1955) argues that, as at least four out of five von Trott was a theology student at Mansfield British people live in suburbs, they merit and a Rhodes Scholar reading PPE at Balliol. serious study, and should be recognised as a Writing to his father as he prepared to leave source of innovation and vibrancy rather than Oxford, he reflected: ‘It has given me more dismissed with ‘wrong-headed condescension than perhaps I shall ever be able to tell.’ and hostility’. His journey around the land of New research also underpins The Escape pebbledash and wheelie bins, car boot sales of Sigmund Freud (J R Books, 9781906779238, and fanatical gardeners, includes a meditation £18.99) by David Cohen (Keble 1965). Its on the ‘optical-illusion hamlet’ Bicester primary subject is the dramatic last two years Village as a site of modern pilgrimage. of Freud’s life, from the time in 1938 when the Nazis appointed chemist Anton Sauerwald – a secret admirer of Freud’s work – to investigate his business affairs. But, as befits a biography Hitler, was told in semi-fictional form by of the father of psychoanalysis, Cohen also Justin Cartwright in his novel The Song Before looks back to his early life, considering what it is Sung, but in Opposing Hitler: Adam von effect being born into a complicated extended Trott zu Solz, 1909–1944 (Sussex Academic step-family had on his thought. Press, 9781845192822, £29.95), Kenneth Many Jewish intellectuals who fled A E Sears (Lincoln 1945) has compiled a persecution in the 1930s settled in the North careful historical account that offers many Oxford district of Summertown and pursued new insights – gained from his access to von distinguished careers in academia; proof, if Trott’s personal papers, friends and family – any were needed, that suburbs are not always into the life of this brave man who died for what they seem. In his thought-provoking his principles, having chosen to stand trial The Freedoms of Suburbia (Frances Lincoln, rather than take any of several opportunities 9780711229785, £25), Paul Barker (Brasenose

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Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 41 DIRECTORY Trinity 2010:OXFORD 20/5/10 17:45 Page 1

DIRECTORY

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b) Sheldonian – Degree Ceremony d) Balliol – Garden Quad

r) Christ Church – Tom Quad h) Oriel – College Front r) Pembroke – Pembroke Square ARTISTS’ OXFORD Over the past seventeen years Contemporary Watercolours has commissioned distinguished members of the Royal Watercolour Society and Royal Scottish Watercolour Society to produce definitive views of Oxford Colleges. The artists include [b] Cliff Bayly, R.W.S., [c] Jane Carpanini, c) Somerville – Darbyshire Quad h) Exeter – Front Quad R.W.S., R.W.A., [d] John Doyle, P.P.R.W.S., [f] Dennis Flanders, R.W.S., R.B.A., [h] Ken Howard, R.A., R.W.S., and [r] Dennis Roxby Bott, R.W.S. These works are available as high quality limited edition prints (350/500 copies) each signed and numbered by the artist. They are priced at £99 each incl. delivery to the UK. Overseas delivery please add £15 additional postage. The image size is approximately 12"ϫ18" presented in an ivory hand cut mount, the overall size being 17"ϫ23" and can be ordered by using the order form below or by telephoning 01474 535922 with Credit/Debit card details. To access our catalogue of prints and recently published book, “Artists’ r) Hertford – Jackson Spiral Staircase Oxford” visit our website www.contemporarywatercolours.co.uk d) Trinity – Chapel

h) Jesus – Turl Street c) St Anne’s d) St John’s – St Giles Front c) Univ – Radcliffe Quad

r) Keble – Chapel ✁ c) St Hilda’s – South Lawn c) St Peter’s – Emily Morris Building f) Wadham – Garden Quad FP T/10 Send to: CONTEMPORARY WATERCOLOURS, 57 WINDMILL STREET, GRAVESEND, KENT DA12 1BB or telephone 01474 535922 Balliol – Garden Quad...... □ New College – Holywell Quad ...... □ St Peter’s – Emily Morris Building ...... □ Christ Church – Tom Quad ...... □ Oriel – College Front ...... □ Sheldonian – Degree Ceremony ...... □ Exeter – Front Quad ...... □ Pembroke – Pembroke Square ...... □ Somerville – Darbyshire Quad ...... □ Hertford – Jackson Spiral Staircase ...... □ St Anne’s ...... □ Trinity – Chapel ...... □ Jesus – Turl Street ...... □ Keble – Chapel ...... □ St Hida’s – South Lawn ...... □ Univ – Radcliffe Quad ...... □ Merton – Front Quad ...... □ St John’s – St Giles Front ...... □ Wadham – Garden Quad ...... □ £99 each inc. delivery to U.K. Overseas orders add £15 extra postage d) Merton – Front Quad NAME ...... ADDRESS ...... POSTCODE ...... TELEPHONE ......

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f) New College – Holywell Quad SIGNATURE ...... DATE ...... OXONIAN EXTRA Obituaries

Elizabeth Fallaize llege o Professor Elizabeth Fallaize, tutorial fellow of St John’s, held a personal chair in C hn’s o J

French from 2002, and from 2005 served as a Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University. t She died of motor neurone disease on 6 December 2009, aged 59. S A graduate of Exeter University, with early teaching experience at llows of

Wolverhampton and Birmingham, she came to St John’s in 1989 as the college’s first e F woman fellow. She was a specialist in modern French women writers, particularly d on Simone de Beauvoir, and even when seriously ill arranged to contribute to several e recent centennial conferences. Her publications included the Oxford Book of French d r Short Stories (2002), as well as studies of de Beauvoir and of recent French fiction. P esi nt an In the wider University, she served a year as junior proctor and later as chairman of the Modern Languages Faculty Board. She was particularly responsible for the development of graduate studies, and there were many committees that felt the benefit of her skilled chairmanship. She was also a Rhodes Trustee. Her scholarship was widely recognised in France, where she was appointed Officier (2002) and later Commandeur (2009) of l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques. Right: Portrait of Elizabeth Fallaize by Bryan Organ, 2009

Joan Austoker distinguished fellowship in 2004, and he 1952, studying for a DPhil, and becoming Dr Joan Austoker, a leading expert on cancer received a knighthood in 2009. a fellow of St Edmund Hall in 1956, where communication, died on 19 January 2010, he served as a memorable tutor in English aged 62. Since 1996 she had been Reader in John Burrow Language until his retirement from teaching Public Health and Primary Healthcare, and Professor John Burrow, FBA, who was in 1987. His researches continued beyond that was a member of Green Templeton College. Professor of European Thought and a fellow date, and had included a two-volume treatise A biochemistry graduate of the of Balliol, 1995–2000, died on 3 November on Old English Syntax (1986) and an edition of University of the Witwatersrand, she took 2009, aged 74. He was a Cambridge graduate Beowulf (with F C Robinson, 1998). a PhD at University College London, who spent much of his career at the University and then an MA in science and health of Sussex as Professor of Intellectual History, J R Pole education at Chelsea College. In 1991 she and moved to the Oxford chair after a year as Professor Jack Pole, FBA, who for 10 years founded for Cancer Research its Primary a visiting fellow (and the University’s Carlyle from 1979 held the Rhodes professorship of Care Education Research Group, dedicated lecturer) of All Souls. American History, died on 30 January 2010, to the early detection of cancer through The constant theme of his research was aged 87. After six years of army service, he screening, and to the importance to women the history of historical scholarship, which read Modern History at Queen’s from 1946, of ‘breast awareness’, using new techniques he investigated in a series of books that and in 1949 moved to Princeton for doctoral and ensuring that relevant new information extended from A Liberal Descent (1981) to the study. Afterwards he spent 10 years lecturing is published promptly and accessibly in main product of his retirement, A History of at University College London, followed by a evidence-based leaflets. Histories (2007), a fine survey that took the further decade at Cambridge, where he was theme from ancient Greece to the present Reader in American History and Government Ian Brownlie day. Even more broadly, he explored the (and fellow of Churchill College), before being Professor Sir Ian Brownlie, CBE, FBA, development of European thought in the 19th elected to the Rhodes Chair at Oxford (with a QC, fellow of All Souls, where he held the century, in The Crisis of Reason, 1848–1914 fellowship of St Catherine’s College). Chichele professorship of International Law (2004). He became a fellow of the British His writings included a textbook, from 1980 to 1999, died in a car accident in Academy in 1986. Foundations of American Independence (1973), Egypt on 3 January 2010. He was 77, and still and Political Representation in England and the vigorously engaged in international litigation. John Cowdrey Origins of the American Republic (1966), the Born and educated in Liverpool, he was The Revd H E J Cowdrey, FBA, medieval first of a series of important studies of major at Hertford as an undergraduate, reading law, historian and fellow of St Edmund Hall from themes that led to his election to the British and did a year’s advanced work in Cambridge 1956 (and since 1991 an emeritus fellow), Academy in 1985. before lecturing at Nottingham and then died on 4 December 2009, aged 83. He came returning to Oxford as a fellow of Wadham in up to Trinity College in 1947 after wartime Erich Segal 1963, also starting in Bar practice in London. naval service, and in 1948 – after training Dr Erich Segal, supernumerary fellow of He became Professor of International Law at for ordination – became tutor in medieval Wolfson College from 1979 and an honorary LSE in 1976, taking silk in 1978, a year before history and college chaplain of St Edmund fellow from 1999, died on 17 January 2010, returning to Oxford and the Chichele Chair. Hall. His scholarly interests lay in medieval aged 72. He was known to Oxford mainly In addition to a full teaching programme, ecclesiastical history (especially of the Abbey as a classical scholar, and author of several he had several major books to his credit, of Cluny), and in Archbishop Lanfranc, well-received general books, including Roman including the much-cited Principles of Public and culminated in a massive study of Pope Laughter: the Comedy of Plautus (1968) and International Law, and was also for 25 years Gregory VII (1998). He was elected to the The Death of Comedy (2001). To the world editor, then senior editor, of the annual British Academy in 1991. at large, however, the fame of this Harvard- British Year Book of International Law. trained classicist lay in his 1970 ‘weepie’, Love Admitted a barrister in 1958 (and a QC Bruce Mitchell Story, and his involvement with the Beatles’ from 1979), he began in public order cases Bruce Mitchell, emeritus fellow of St Edmund early animated film, Yellow Submarine (1968). before specialising in international law work. Hall and a leading scholar of Old English, The celebrity his hobby-writing brought him He became a fellow of the British Academy in died on 30 January, aged 90. An Australian, made a tenured position on the Yale faculty 1979, and had been a longstanding member he served in the Australian Army throughout difficult to sustain, but a move to London and of the International Law Commission in the war, before graduating from Melbourne attachment to an Oxford College enabled him Geneva. All Souls had elected him to a University in 1948. He came to Merton in to continue his classical work.

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 45 OXONIAN EXTRA Letters

O xford Today welcomes letters for publication, which can be sent either by post or by email (see p. 1 for addresses). We reserve the right to edit them to meet space constraints; the best way to avoid this fate is to keep letters to 200 or fewer words. Unless you request otherwise, letters may also appear on our website www.oxfordtoday. ox.ac.uk.

Using, and abusing, history

Margaret McMillan suggests (‘History – n o handle with care’, OT 22.2) that 11 September d 2001 marks a change of direction in US strategic policy; in particular, she cites ‘its long history of opposition to imperialism’. Certainly, the US has been consistent in i K

its opposition to the imperialism of other d v A nations; there is little or no evidence of D i ng collection, lon antipathy to imperialism as a principle, and a good deal of evidence to the contrary. As Professor McMillan says, it is dangerous to assume ‘that there is only one possible way of looking at things’. She could as well reason that US policy post 9/11 is, in all essentials, simply a continuation of what has gone before. David Culver Exeter 1956 bewildered if they knew that Pearl Harbor was covert terrorist attacks in northern Vietnam an unannounced strike? Does that fact make (1956–64). Margaret MacMillan dismisses President Pearl Harbor an act of terrorism? What is the The American war against ‘North’ Bush’s ‘war on terror’ by claiming that wars lesson to be learned from this comparison? Vietnam was as much a terrorist attack as any ‘are made on enemies, not on ideas’ and Oxford Today: a delightful addition to perpetrated by those extremist ideologues that wars have ‘defined goals’. Excuse me? my Canadian household and all because my who purport to follow the teachings of The ‘war on terror’ is aimed at those who daughter S Bronwyn Graves (St Anne’s 1999) Mohammed. pursue their objectives through terrorism, had the good fortune to study there. Dr R H Findlay such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban, very Professor Donald Graves SEH 1968 specific enemies, and their elimination is a Dean of Arts (retired), Sheridan College, very defined goal. Again she claims that the Wyoming Margaret MacMillan writes that ‘history Bush administration used the attacks on 11 was there to remind Americans of how their September ‘to decide whom to attack when Dr MacMillan writes, ‘Nor was the attack country tended to behave in the world and in it pleased without consulting its allies … or on the World Trade Center anything like the face of threats’. the United Nations’. This is factual nonsense, Vietnam. There the United States was As an academic freely pursuing her which simply pretends that Bush’s diplomatic carrying the war to the enemy’s country, and research in a European university and a efforts did not take place and which simply again, it had a solid enemy in North Vietnam’. fortiori as a historian, she is surely more aware ignores the many countries which have sided I beg your pardon? than most of just how the US responds in the with us, in both Iraq and Afghanistan (the The undeclared American war against face of threats. Had the US not responded in latter, I might add, officially a NATO war). ‘North’ Vietnam was as much a war against an the way it did in the face of the 20th century’s MacMillan claims our invasion and ideology as was the war of the fundamentalist threats to freedom, fascism and communism, occupation of Iraq undermined our ‘long Saudi Arabians who flew the airliners into her own employment opportunities would history of opposition to imperialism’. No. It the Twin Towers. Had Ho Chi Minh and his now be seriously curtailed, not to mention her was the removal from power of a singularly friends followed the corrupt political ideology liberty to practise her favourite subject. murderous dictator and the nurturing of a of Ferdinand Marcos and his political cronies, Just as the US actually did something nascent democracy. there would have been no American war about the communist threat, while academics MacMillan ends with the advice to against northern Vietnam. Instead, there demonstrated against US missiles in Europe, ‘always handle history with care’. She might would have been bars and brothels in an so the US is now attempting to do something try doing so; she might also pay attention to American naval base in Hai Phong, and Ho about Islamism. Academics who treasure their the news. Chi Minh would have been our good friend jobs should not consider the current struggle G T Dempsey against Chinese communism. alien to their real interests. St John’s 1971 Dr Macmillan seems to imply that ‘North’ Paul McGregor Vietnam was a nation, separate from ‘South’ St John’s 1974 The article, ‘History – handle with care’ (OT Vietnam, making war against the USA. A 22.2) was thought-provoking and certainly historian would recall that northern and Margaret MacMillan’s book on handling enhanced the saying, ‘those who pay no heed southern Vietnam were temporary political history with care doesn’t mention, or include to the lessons of history are bound to repeat entities created by the then Great Powers in her recommended reading list, the classic them’. However, I question one comment and for their convenience at the 1954 Geneva book on this subject by Basil Liddell Hart. realise it might be considered nit-picking. Convention, when France had just received Her apparent anti-Americanism is simplistic, When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor there was its colonial come-uppance at the hands of and Niall Ferguson explains Iraq better than not a state of war between two states. First the Vietnamese. ‘North’ Vietnam was never a does Paul Schroeder. came an unannounced strike against the separate nation in Vietnamese thought, and Colin Alexander USA, followed by a formal declaration of war. it certainly posed no threat against the USA Magdalen 1959 Would those two men in the bar be as at the time when the USA was arranging

46 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 OXONIAN EXTRA Letters

I enjoyed the article, ‘History – handle with care’. However, I am not so sure that four Wrongs for Latin lovers classical scholar of Wadham to keep a howler people were expunged from the original The Alumni Office has sent me a like that on file: Bowra would turn in his April 1925 photograph to leave only Frunze, document assuring me that ‘Your data is grave – thus becoming a ‘turnee’ I suppose. Voroshilov, Stalin and Ordzhonikidze in 1939. held securely ...’ . Ye gods! and Di meliora No. I know a neuter plural when I see one; Except for Frunze, the backgrounds differ piis! : if the University of Oxford can no and a hawk from a handsaw! between the two pictures. How would one longer recognise a neuter plural in broad Neil Cheshire manage to change the backgrounds? Perhaps daylight, what hope is there for the rest of Wadham 1954 there were simply two different photographs civilisation? It will be telling me next that in the first place. ‘Your fellow alumni is meeting in College This is either trivial or it’s a significant Ivor Kenna on Thursday’, or similar. deterioration of standards, I’m not sure St Catherine’s 1949 Nor will I be browbeaten by talk of which. Either way it’s sad that a magazine ‘collective nouns’ or ‘accepted usage’, or by the name of Oxford Today would publish Were the photographs on pp. 16–17 of Oxford by appeal to the Shorter Oxford; for that an article about the all-women’s Atalanta’s Today, Hilary 2010, a deliberate test of your timorous arbiter sold out long ago to the club (‘Blues brothers and sisters go clubbing readers, or was Margaret MacMillan ill-served populists, the trendies and the rappers. apart’ OT 22 .2) – an excellent article, by by the picture editors? The accompanying My goodness, it even sanctions – can the way – and refer to the membership text correctly refers to there having been nine you believe it? – the insidious solecism of as ‘alumni’. It seems to me that with Latin figures in the original Soviet photograph of calling someone who attends a meeting an words we have two choices: We either go the April 1925, but your purported reproduction ‘attendee’, as if (by analogy with ‘employee’, all-English route and say alumnuses (like of it shows only eight figures. What happened ‘nominee’, ‘trainee’, ‘payee’, etc.) he or she hippopotamuses), which clearly in this case is to M. Lashevich who, in the original had been attended. What hope is there for horrible; or we follow the classical Latin rules photograph, stood on M. Frunze’s right-hand the nation’s thinking if we don’t care about of alumni for men, alumnae for women, and side, and was the ninth original figure? the difference between active and passive alumni for co-ed. However you cut it, and Professor N H Gale any more, never mind singular and plural? even in an article about equality, alumni for Nuffield College None. an all-women’s club is tough to swallow. Professor Gale’s surmise is correct: Lashevich’s But something must still be done about Jeremy Hyland figure was inadvertently cropped during the these data. You cannot expect a sometime St Catherine’s 1963 production process – Editor hall d Changing times Woe, Superman? m d The cover of the Hilary edition (OT 22.2) In the article ‘Woe, Superman?’ (OT 22.1), st e un has a fascinating conjunction of headlines: Peter Snow attributes to Julian Savulescu the wonders of the new Ashmolean, plus an assertion that the arguments against Margaret MacMillan on the abuse of history. embryonic stem cell research ‘are so weak I’m not sure that it counts as history abused, I see no reason to stop it’. Later in the but one case in the new Ashmolean displays a article, objections to human enhancement Terry Jones: acting up at Oxford Greek bowl showing a young boy and an older are discussed. The first of these objections man rather close together. The label carries concerns the infringement of the rights Bouquets and brickbats the caption: ‘Paedophile and victim’. Quite of those not yet born. It is amazing that a heavy 21st-century interpretation of the Savulescu considers this objection to be In your interview with Monty Python actor encounter, turning the representation of an ‘weak’. Further, while over 70 diseases are Terry Jones (‘A Python’s Progress’, OT, 22.2), ancient convention into a peril of the present, currently being treated successfully using you referred repeatedly to his involvement not the past. Presumably it used to say adult or umbilical cord blood stem cells, not with the ‘Oxford Review’. When I was at something like ‘Master and pupil’. a single embryonic stem cell line has been Oxford, my involvement was with the Peter Day produced from cloned human embryos. Oxford Revue. Call me picky, but I think that SEH 1964 Many scientists are abandoning embryonic I was involved with the one better spelt. stem cell research. Objections to embryonic Rowan Atkinson Exit, replaced by a bear stem cell research have been expressed Queen’s 1975 I was surprised at the action of the Queen’s forcefully over a period of some years, and notable campaigns against it have been led by I entirely share the warm feelings expressed College administration in removing the various organisations. by Terry Jones when recalling his days President of the JCR (‘Teddy bear protest at David Kay at Oxford. I only differ from him on the Queen’s’, OT 22.2). The election to that post is St Peter’s 1968 question of Anton Chekhov’s authorship of in the hands of the student members of that A Month in the Country. albeit junior body, and I would have thought The ‘Breakthrough in IVF Technology’ John C Q Roberts that only grounds on which the college announced in the Hilary issue (‘News’, OT Merton 1953 could exercise such authority would be for reasons of discipline. No such reason was 22.2) leaves me cold. Aren’t there too many people in the world The author of A Month in the Country disclosed in your report. The student passed already, each and every one of them adding was Turgenev, not Chekhov. I remember his preliminary examinations, and if the class their little bit to global warming and resource enjoying a performance of this play at the obtained was lower than expected, that is a depletion? Oxford scientists should be better Playhouse Theatre. This must have been the matter for advice from his supervisors. employed helping as many people as possible production in which Terry Jones appeared. Next term’s meetings of the JCR will no not to have children, rather than the reverse. Richard Still doubt be something of a picnic. Stephen Conn Keble 1958 Jeffery L Shaw Lincoln 1950 Corpus Christi 1961

Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 47 No a m i Ald e r m a n ( L i ncoln 1 9 9 3 ) My Oxford Lessons in life Naomi Alderman’s novel, The Lessons, draws on mixed experiences of university life, she tells Greg Neale

Why did you apply to Oxford? What about your tutors? a weird sexual culture – weird to me, anyway. This is terrible: my teachers at South Lucy Allwood was amazing. She taught me There were lists of ‘who’d snogged who’, that Hampstead High School in London, an more, I think, than I learned at any other would get put up in the loos … I don’t know all-girls school – said that I ought to be an point about what philosophy was, and why whether I would say it was sexist, but it was Oxbridge candidate. My father had been at we were studying it. When the tutorial system odd … And, at a time when some colleges Lincoln College in the 1960s, so I thought, I works, it is a conversation with an adult who had only recently started to admit women, might as well apply there. takes your brain seriously. At that time, that there was some resentment. In my second was a big deal. year, the Jewish Society even decided to What were your first impressions? revive an all-male dining society. I felt that I remember going for interview in the depths But there were less happy times? was a betrayal. of winter, worrying about what I was going It wasn’t all wonderful. At the end of one of to be asked. But the interview was the most my first terms one tutor said, ‘Well, I think Oxford stimulated your feminism … enjoyable part – talking to bright, interested we’ve really wasted this term’s work.’ At the Absolutely. A friend bought me a copy teachers who wanted you to be clever. I time, I felt guilty. Now I think I would storm of Backlash by Susan Faludi, and we had remember being offered a cup of tea in this into the college offices and say, surely it is his great conversations about it. In The Lessons, glorious old building and thinking, this is just job to make sure we don’t waste a term? But another character says: ‘Oxford is hell, but the charming. rather like James, the narrator in The Lessons, people make it heaven’, and this is the thing – I became convinced that I was a bit thick. I met people with whom I could discuss my You read PPE … Perhaps I was also distracted by social life. concerns, my worries. Actually, I wanted to read English, but my English teacher said she didn’t think I would What was social life like? Did Oxford shape you as a writer? pass the entrance exam. So I thought: OK, I’ll I was the treasurer of my college Ball, I was I met a girl in my first week who said: I want try PPE. an editor of a college newspaper, I wrote to write novels. So I told her I wanted to be a for Cherwell, I worked on a production of novelist too; I wrote a novel over the summer What kind of a student were you? The Prisoner. I was heavily involved in the after my first year. My friend thought it was I liked philosophy, didn’t like politics, didn’t Jewish Society, which – certainly in my first rubbish! But it was important to dream that really like economics. I think – another thing, year – was my home. They provided kosher widely. I’m remembering it now – I was not very food, and at that time I was very Orthodox, capable of accepting that I was fairly average. so that was the only place I could get a hot In The Lessons, I found echoes of That was really hard, and I think I’m not alone meal! If you’d asked me then what I thought Brideshead Revisited … in that. A lot of students may have been the of Oxford, I’d have said, I absolutely love it. It I didn’t set out to write that, but that’s how best in their class at school, but may not have is only subsequently I’ve come to think that it’s been described. It seems to me that developed the greatest social skills. They hang maybe not all elements were brilliant. Brideshead informs students’ relationships their social self-esteem on their academic with Oxford, so that it is very hard now work, and then they arrive at Oxford and What were they? to write about Oxford without having that’s taken away, because almost everyone at After primary school, Oxford was the first Brideshead in it. But at the same time, I Oxford is going to be strong academically. place where I made male friends. I remember suppose partly it was written as a response to Brideshead. i d How do you think of Oxford now? I left with a 2:2: I felt I had failed. It’s funny: I got a distinction for my Masters at [the christian sinibal University of] East Anglia, and that was like, alright, you’re not completely thick. It shouldn’t still trouble me any more, but it does. It’s sad, for years I couldn’t go back to Oxford; I thought I had let it down. And then I won a couple of literary prizes and I found I was able to go back … . It might be a little bit about my relationship with my father. Yeah, you go to your father’s old college – that is about your relationship with your dad!

Naomi Alderman’s novel Disobedience won the Orange Award for New Writers in 2006. In 2007 she was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. The Lessons is published by Penguin Viking

48 Ofordx T o day . Trinity Issue 2010 Ourpast. Theirfuture. Yourlegacy... 

“TostudytheHumanities,fromart,musicandliteratureto languages,philosophyandtheology,istostudythebeliefs,values andnatureofhumanexistence–andtounderstandmorefully whatmakeslifeworthliving.” Professor Sally Shuttleworth, Head of Humanities, University of Oxford

The tutorial is at the core of Oxford’s How your legacy can help educational mission in the Humanities, and its A gift in your will can do so much to support the preservation is fundamental to our continuing future of the tutorial system, by contributing to the success. Through rigorous examination of past endowments that fund teaching posts across the and present cultures under the guidance of University. If you would like to find out more about expert tutors, we prepare agile young minds leaving a legacy to Oxford, or specifically to the to address the most pressing and complex Humanities Division, please contact: challenges facing their generation. Luke Purser, Head of Development – Humanities To maintain Oxford’s world-leading position in this University of Oxford Development Office key area of scholarship, we need to attract and retain Email: [email protected] the finest tutors who can illuminate and promote our Tel: +44 (0)1865 611543 understanding of contemporary civilisation. Legacies Officer University of Oxford Development Office Email: [email protected] www.giving.ox.ac.uk/legacies Tel: +44 (0)1865 611529

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