I shaved my moustache in Movember
In the face of an identity crisis, a failed attempt to be Bashar al-Asad for Halloween, motherly disapproval, and being told that ‘bops aren’t for 24-year-olds’, I decided to shave my moustache, hell my entire facial hair, in the middle of Movember. That’s right, I caved. It would b
Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon: A Review
Thomas Pynchon’s history is flat. If anything, historians tend to think the periods of history they study are the turning point; Pynchon does the opposite. His novels are most often historical fiction, but they use history in odd ways. His characters—no matter whether they’re in the 18th centu
I Dated Oxford Men So You Don’t Have To.
Eight weeks into my Oxford term, after enough pints to kill a Victorian child and enough small talk to power a minor political campaign, I have conducted an experiment. A social one. Or maybe just a nosy one. The guiding question: What are Oxford men like? My curiosity stemmed from the susp
Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons: Pre-Show Interview
We sit on yoga mats in Wadham’s Moser Theatre on a rainy Tuesday of Week 0 as I speak to Lighthouse Productions about their debut show, Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons. The play imagines a world in which speech is regulated by law, but it quickly becomes clear that its real concerns are subtler
In Conversation with the EICs
When I meet with Editors-in-Chief Finn Currie and Gruffydd Price to discuss the MT25 issue of The Isis, they arrive in accidentally matching outfits. The pair, who began with opposite visions—Finn, a self-declared maximalist from the fiction team; Gruff, a minimalist with an eye for negative space
Interfaith static in the Klang Valley
On Thursday, 15th August I stepped out of St John’s Cathedral into the sweet, warm darkness of evening in Kuala Lumpur. It was the Feast of the Assumption and I felt grateful for the obligation to go to church, a place where smells, songs, images, gestures and words were so familiar. Will and I ha
Why Oxford’s shitty phone service is more than annoying, it’s dangerous
Oxford’s shitty service is such a boring topic it doesn’t even merit pub chat. And yet we’re all constantly trying to decipher the robotic voices on the end of our phone calls; or waiting, white-knuckled, for the blue line to make it across the screen on Safari. When I first move
Bygone dreams: a review of Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’
‘If inclinations toward slavery and racism, misogyny and violence are connected—as individual character and human history, as well as cross-cultural studies, suggest—then there is room for some optimism. We are surrounded by recent fundamental changes in society […]. Women, patronised for mi
IOTW: Ballroom Emporium
Situated at the Cowley head of Oxford’s most treacherous roundabout—an arena where pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles alike engage in transitory games of chicken, all to make their way in and out of the City Centre—sits Ballroom Emporium. The gilded, serif lettering displaying the boutique’