The Problem with Facebook
Like most people my age, I used Facebook throughout my teens. I still check the site every day, several times a day. Realistically, I check it several times an hour. Yet using Facebook never sat easily with me. It put me on edge, and I always vaguely meant to consider the exact reasons for these [&h
On Jerusalem
You don’t have to have strong views on politics, or Donald Trump, or the Palestinian question, to acknowledge the sheer idiocy of the US president’s latest bout of verbal diarrhoea. In 1995, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, a law for the purposes of initiating and funding the relocatio
Civil Rights and Black Panther
‘I don’t remember when exactly I read my first comic book, but I do remember exactly how liberated and subversive I felt as a result.’ – Edward Said When the fictional superhero Black Panther debuted in Fantastic Four #52 in the summer of 1966, the Civil Rights movement was in full swing
Women of the Left Bank
Paris in the 1920s: bohemian, artistic and sexually liberated. This impression of the ‘les années folles’, as the French call it, is a well-established one and ingrained in our conception of Modernism. Even today, the idealised myth continues in popular culture. The success of Woody Allen’s f
Build-a-bear identities: the quest of finding home for the third-culture kid
“So where are you from?” Fresh-faced in a foreign country, the question pops up as frequently as you might imagine. Likewise, a definite answer usually follows. “I’m from [insert country here].” However, for the people who identify as a “third-culture kid” an answer would necessarily n
THROUGH THE ARCHIVES #2: Hassan the Kebab Man
“Hassan is such an icon. Situated in a prime vending position on Broad Street this man purveys everything an inebriated/stressed/starving member of the community could wish for, without having to venture into the grubby details of our country’s licensing laws.” An old article by Mi
The Instability of Perception
We went looking We went looking for permanence, all around the edges of the graves, Inside our mouths, between tongue and cheek; some fine seriousness. The falling leaves turned away on the wind, We heard only whispers, though they shouted all together All brawled out, rotting in the g
Cyril Connolly and Horizon Magazine
Back in September, I was browsing The Last Bookshop on Walton Street when I came across a sun-damaged stack of Horizon magazines. The covers were simplistic; only the colour of the logo changed with each issue between brilliant greens, blues, pinks and purples. The economical design seemed
Through the Archives #1: Evelyn Waugh and a Union hopeful
“Jeremy was in my house at school; he has what would be known in North Oxford as ‘personality’. That is to say he is rather stupid, thoroughly well-satisfied with himself, and acutely ambitious. Jeremy purposes to be President of the Union.” English novelist Evelyn Waugh as a