#plus the point of comparison is dean who is incredibly involved with every man ever

[kidrat]

obviously people can have headcanons. zero hate toward the relevant crowd. but u have to admit its pretty funny when people call sam winchester queer coded. like why because he's nice? my man doesnt have a single male friend, how'd you expect him to be homosexual if he's not even homosocial

[cvrnewsdirectindia]

Man City title hopes fading fast, Tottenham rotten to core

Keeper howlers, injury crises and chef Brendan Rodgers serving up some delightful delicacies. Buckle up: It’s Nick Miller’s Premier League weekend review.

JUMP TO: Liverpool the new United? | United no longer United | Spurs are rotting | Keep an eye on Villa

Have Man City already lost title?

It’s the end of the first week in October, and already the title race might be over after Man City’s shocking loss to Wolves on Sunday.

That’s a little hyperbolic, of course — particularly when we know what Manchester City are capable of. Plus, they still have to play Liverpool twice, so that lead could disappear in a hurry. But since three points for a win were introduced in 1980, only one team has ever been eight points clear at the top after eight games in the English top flight

Oh, yes, that other team to lead by eight points: It was Manchester United in 1985-86. They ended up finishing fourth, 12 back from champions Liverpool, and manager Ron Atkinson was sacked the following year. It’s a cautionary tale.

An old Pep Guardiola quote from Marti Peranau’s book “Pep Confidential” has been doing the rounds this weekend. “League titles are won in the last eight games, but they are lost in the first eight.”

Of course, there are lots of sage maxims from the game’s most learned figures that might not ultimately mean anything, but there is truth in what he said: City have, at best, made things extremely difficult for themselves. It adds further spice, if further spice was needed, to the game between the two sides in a few weeks: If City win, we have a proper title race, but if Liverpool win, it could genuinely be all over.

Have City become too predictable?

In terms of points, City are currently closer to Brighton in 14th place than they are to Liverpool. They’ve already dropped more points at home this season than they did in the whole of last. For the first time in a long while, they should be worried.

How to explain this one? The absence of Kevin De Bruyne was a factor, but you struggle to weep for them, considering they had David, Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez and Raheem Sterling while leaving Phil Foden on the bench.

The common factor in their adverse results is that the longer you manage to frustrate City — and there are various ways to do that — the less they seem to know what to do. You can almost see their players looking toward the dugout when things aren’t going well, baffled as to why the plan isn’t working, as if there’s some sort of glitch in the system.

They aren’t going to change, and Guardiola has a body of work to justify that. But it’s possible that this super-charged automation, the machine that is City, has become predictable and too easy to combat.

Assist of the weekend

Among all the picking over City’s performance, a word for Wolves, who look back to their big boy bothering best of last season. A word for Nuno Espirito Santo for maximising their threat on the counterattack by shifting Adama Traore into the middle; for Traore, who carried out that plan; and for Raul Jimenez for his two brilliant assists, the first of which featured an outrageous shimmy that you can watch over and over.

Liverpool the new United?

A comparison such as this is probably premature, given the respective trophy hauls, but there is something about this Liverpool team that is reminiscent of Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in the 1990s. Like that United, Liverpool are relentless until the end, and any accusations that they consistently get lucky with late goals or penalties can be countered by that fact that they just keep going, aggressively pushing and putting themselves into positions to benefit from luck or “seen them given, seen them not given” penalty decisions.

Liverpool will go into their next game with the chance to equal Manchester City’s record for consecutive league wins at 18. Their next game is at Old Trafford. It should be spicy.

Luckiest moment of the weekend

As mentioned, it’s not that the penalty awarded to Sadio Mane against Leicester was necessarily an incorrect decision. It’s more that it was a coin flip. It could have been a penalty, but Liverpool could not have seriously complained if it hadn’t been given. Such luck is required to be champions.

– ESPN Premier League fantasy: Sign up now! – Luck Index 2019: Man United worse than sixth? – VAR in the Premier League: Ultimate guide

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1:30

Steve Nicol says Liverpool deserved the win against Leicester despite the sides being level for 94 minutes.

United no longer United

It really is difficult to think of new ways to describe how desperate Manchester United are, so let’s keep this brief after another bad loss, this time to Newcastle at St James’ Park.

Many have pointed to the players available to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, suggesting that he can’t do much more with them, and indeed nobody could. That is nonsense.

This is a distance from being a vintage United squad, but they have somehow looked less than the sum of their parts this season, which is almost impressive in its ineptitude. Sure, not many managers could make these players title contenders, but most coaches with a bit of nous and experience could at the very least do better than this.

Appointing Solskjaer was understandable, given the sentiment and the results in his first couple of months, but it’s clear now that it was a mistake. Keeping him for much longer would compound that mistake further.

A little respite for Newcastle

The only good thing that Manchester United did was give Newcastle a bit of respite. There were plenty of elements to encourage in Steve Bruce’s side’s win, not least Matty Longstaff’s performance and goal, but this victory doesn’t solve the problems that were apparent in last weekend’s defeat to Leicester.

They’re still there and won’t be solved by this one win. A long season still lies ahead for Bruce and his team.

Spurs aren’t stale — they’re rotting

There are so many problems with Tottenham at the moment that it would take far too long to discuss them all. Let’s just pick one of them: Spurs looked so incredibly passive in their 3-0 defeat to Brighton. This used to be a team that was utterly relentless, that would take charge of games, smothering and throttling the opposition. On Saturday, they were tentative and completely unassertive, they barely looked dangerous, and they were absent-minded in defence, conceding three avoidable goals.

This time Mauricio Pochettino couldn’t use the line that “everything they hit went in,” as he did in the 7-2 loss to against Bayern Munich. If that was a spectacular flaying, this felt much more mundane, a relatively routine home win by a team that on the day looked superior. Yet this was a team that at the start of play were a point off the bottom three and had won only once at home in 2019, which was against Huddersfield.

It has becoming increasingly apparent that Spurs haven’t gone stale. Rather, they’ve been rotting. When things go stale, they just sit there slowly going bad — nothing sudden happens — but when something rots, eventually it just collapses. Since around February, Spurs have been like a rotting roof beam that someone put a few coats of paint on as they progressed to the Champions League final: on the surface. Things looked OK, but beneath that they weren’t, and now the beam has collapsed.

There’s no easy answer to the question of where they go from here: It involves Pochettino leaving, the squad being torn up and painstakingly rebuilt, a combination of the two or some other, no less painful option. There could be grim times ahead.

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Craig Burley says Frank Lampard has rejuvenated Chelsea with youth after the Blues’ 4-1 win over Southampton.

Old boys’ act

The narrative around Chelsea this season has broadly, and rightly, been around the excellence of the young players, and while Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount scored brilliant goals against Southampton, the driving force behind the 4-1 win over Southampton was the old guard.

Willian was exceptional and singled out for praise by Frank Lampard, Cesar Azpilicueta has regained some of his form after a troubling spell early in the season, and Jorginho has grown in influence to become the still point around which everything else spins.

Bouncing back

A week ago, Dean Henderson let a weak shot squirm through his grasp to cost Sheffield United their game against Liverpool. This weekend, he produced a string of brilliant saves to earn a point at Watford. That’s being a goalkeeper for you.

Misplaced confidence from Marco Silva?

Turf Moor is a bad place to go if you’re a manager under pressure. Not necessarily because Burnley are such an overpowering proposition on the pitch but more because if you lose, you have to walk past the away fans to reach the tunnel.

That fate befell Marco Silva at the weekend, and those Everton fans made their feelings clear, but it doesn’t seem to have made him doubt his methods too much. “We’re not worried at the moment,” he said. “I have the same confidence I had at the beginning of the season. The same confidence about our quality and what we’re doing every single day.”

One suspects his confidence might be very slightly misplaced.

Will Villa’s win loosen the jar?

Aston Villa’s performances had been better than their results suggested before this weekend, and you suspected that someone was going to get a hiding at some point. That someone turned out to be Norwich, and perhaps the 5-1 win will be the equivalent of that first bit of ketchup to come out of a troublesome bottle. Plenty more could follow after this.

from CVR News Direct https://cvrnewsdirect.com/man-city-title-hopes-fading-fast-tottenham-rotten-to-core/

[brendagilliam2]

How to design a contemporary book cover

The fine art of book cover design is a tricky one to master. Consider: when the graphics on the packaging of Heinz baked beans are changed, or the typography is modified on the wrappers for Kit Kats, the alterations are barely noticeable to the untrained eye. The design of household brands is tampered with as little as possible.

26 books every graphic designer should read

An even more stringent, no-tampering rule is applied to album covers. No record label would dare think about changing the covers of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Dark Side of the Moon or Nevermind.

It appears that the packaging design of baked beans, chocolate bars and pop music is treated with more reverence than the jackets of literary fiction. 

Literature is universally accepted as high art, which might lead us to think that the covers of literary classics are free from the need for frequent stylistic updates. Not so. It is common practice amongst publishers to update the covers of the classics almost constantly, in much the same way that Nike updates its trainers.

One of Suzanne Dean’s collaborations with Julian Barnes (left); David Pearson’s 1984 cover (right)

Book cover design challenges

Sinem Erkas has been designing book jackets for eight years, and her typographic covers for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels are a lesson in putting a fresh spin on a classic text. 

“At the time, Fitzgerald’s stories were out of copyright, so loads of publishers were republishing his books, and I imagined many of them would end up as pastiches. I wanted to avoid that, so instead took the opportunity to draw inspiration from beautiful Art Deco typography and the Jazz Age, but making my own custom typefaces that felt contemporary and hinted at Art Deco rather than looking like they were from the 1920s. There was no budget for finishes, so we decided to stick to a monotone colour palette and uncoated stock.”

The challenge of designing a new take on a ubiquitous text is good news for designers. And even if designing a cover for a new edition of On the Road may not be as financially rewarding as tweaking the Kit Kat logotype, I know which I’d rather do. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald series By Sinem Erkas

Designing book covers is in one way like designing album covers: most people do it for love rather than reward. I spoke to some book cover designers to find out more about working in the field.

Why be a book cover designer?

David Pearson is one of the UK’s leading book jacket designers. He studied at Central Saint Martins, and after a period working as a text designer at Penguin, he now runs his own studio. “My inclination to overthink, fuss and fiddle could only be accommodated by the relatively slow-moving nature of publishing,” he says. “Working within constraints – be they because of brief or budget – also seems to speak to my nature.”

Pearson’s career in publishing began while he was at university. “I was fortunate to be asked by my tutor, Phil Baines, to lay out a Phaidon book. Part of the job was to present our ongoing work to the great Alan Fletcher – at that time, creative director of Phaidon – for his feedback.” 

Later, during his time setting the type for the interiors of Penguin books, Pearson was to discover that he was working in what he describes as, “a nice, sedate job.” There was room to focus on the detail and lose yourself in the book. Plus: “Nobody really had an opinion on your work, unless you did it wrong.” But this all changed when Pearson began to design book covers.

Jamie Keenan’s typographic illustration for this Franz Kafka cover (left); David Pearson’s design of The Communist Manifesto (right)

In contemporary publishing, the cover is subjected to the same intense scrutiny as any consumer product. It’s also the case that many authors care deeply about the covers of their books. In his acceptance speech on receiving the 2011 Man Booker Prize for his book, The Sense of an Ending, the novelist Julian Barnes paid generous tribute to the book’s cover designer, Suzanne Dean. 

He said: “Those of you who’ve seen my book – whatever you may think of its contents – will probably agree that it is a beautiful object. And if the physical book, as we’ve come to call it, is to resist the challenge of the e-book, it has to look like something worth buying and worth keeping.”

Not only must a book cover attract attention by reflecting the content, it must do this online, in bookshops and as an e-book. It must also satisfy the demands of publisher, author and designer – not to mention the book buyer. This is quite a lot to demand of a few square centimetres of card.

Next page: Do you need to read the book to design a great cover?

To read or not to read?

Erkas stumbled into cover design after a “frustrating job as a junior designer working in corporate branding”. Does she always read the book before designing the cover? “Ideally I would read the whole book, if the deadline lets me,” she says. “What I sometimes like to do is read the book only halfway, or three quarters of the way through, before I start sketching some ideas, and then I’ll finish reading it before I complete my first round of roughs.”

For Pearson, reading the text first is desirable, but not always possible. “Ideally, you would read the book – key themes and ideas present themselves so readily that way – but it’s important to remember that the book isn’t always written by the time a designer is summoned,” he explains.

 “Often we receive only the vague promise of a book, with design work regularly taking place even before a title is settled on, which is one of the disadvantages of the cover having to be produced so far in advance. In this instance, I would look to speak to the book’s editor or, better still, the author, to try and build a sense of the book’s tone and temper.”

Éditions Zulma By David Pearson

The covers for Éditions Zulma presented Pearson with a particular problem. “It’s important to point out that I’m not a French speaker, and as a result I have to lean on some incredibly visually literate editors who convey the essence of the books to me,” he says. 

“This process [of discussing books] plugs everyone into the design process and makes us feel collectively responsible for the outcome. It also ensures that I don’t shoulder all of the blame when the books fail to sell!” Pearson adds that the French book market is less visually aggressive than in the UK, which allows him to create more quietly suggestive covers.

When designing a cover for a fiction title, Faber & Faber in-house designer Eleanor Crow, insists that reading the text is always essential. “I would find it impossible to get the tone of the writing, and a sense of the readership, without it,” she claims. “Also, small details and less obvious, but still significant, strands in the novel might lend themselves to a cover.”

Jim Stoddart at Penguin Press also advocates a close reading of the text. But he adds a caveat. “With new books, the ideal set-up is to be given a finished manuscript 12 months before publication, which allows three months to read, digest, come up with ideas, create visuals, get approval for one chosen route, and complete final artwork.

However, it would also be wrong to design a cover that only makes sense once you’ve read the book. The people we are aiming to appeal to are those that haven’t read the book, that may be browsing in a bookshop and literally know nothing about the book – you may have only two or three seconds to grab their interest before their eyes drift to the next book.”

Next page: Design considerations for shelf appeal and online thumbnail

Books as merchandise

As with any commercial project, the merchandising of books is paramount. Although bookshops were widely tipped to be on the way to oblivion a few years ago, they are making a comeback, and regardless, book covers are designed to have shelf appeal, even if the ‘shelf’ is a page on Amazon.

For Pearson, being aware of related titles is becoming ever more important, since books are often grouped this way in bookshops. “Knowing what you are siding with – or indeed kicking against – can really help get the design process moving,” he says. 

“Time-honoured classics are invariably sat alongside alternative editions of the very same book. This can present some exciting possibilities, since your own edition can do something the others are not prepared to, making them look plain by comparison.” You can even remove key content from your own design since it will be ‘filled in’ by those around it, Pearson adds.

Everyone is keen for something visually arresting, rather than giving away every last plot detail on the cover

David Pearson

While many designers complain about the restrictions imposed by retail conventions, Crow strikes a more upbeat note. “It’s quite liberating now,” she notes, “as there has been a great deal more press coverage for book covers than in the past. Everyone is keen for something visually arresting, rather than giving away every last plot detail on the cover.” 

This means that covers can be more reductive, and smarter, than in the recent past, Crow continues. “Retailers are keen for things that will look striking in the window, as well as be legible in a tiny thumbnail online.”

Penguin Modern Classics By Jim Stoddart

In developing an update of the Penguin Modern Classics series, Stoddart and his team worked through 100 book covers, a job that involved new picture research as well as new imagery. “I’ve really enjoyed consolidating the covers for John Updike’s Rabbit series by reviving iconic Penguin covers,” he says. 

“In fact, the 1960s Rabbit, Run cover featured an illustration by Milton Glaser, which we’ve put back on the cover. We also asked Milton Glaser (now aged 88) to do a fresh illustration for the last in the Rabbit series, which he was kind enough to do for us, completing the circle 57 years later,” he explains.

Next page: Creative media ideas for book shelf appeal

Illustration, typography or photography?

Looking at current book designs, it’s hard not to conclude that illustration is enjoying a fertile period. Coralie Bickford-Smith is widely celebrated for her illustrated covers, which use naturalistic patterns and motifs.

When asked whether she thinks her work is representative of a preference amongst book buyers for illustrated covers, she says, “It is more likely a trend that is coming from the number of illustrated covers coming out of the publishing houses that end up adorning the bookshops, rather than the book buyers making a deliberate aesthetic choice.” Bickforth-Smith adds that the use of photography and illustration on book covers seem to go in cycles of popularity.

Although she has previously used photography in her cover designs, Bickford-Smith isn’t keen on doing so. “A shoot is usually over in a day, and the results are final, bar some great Photoshop work,” she says. 

“I like to work slower than that. I like time to consider the idea. I need to stare at rough work a lot. I really think it’s a personal thing. Also, given how I’m obsessed with pattern, right now illustration is a perfect way for me to express those ideas visually.”

The Fox and the Star, written and illustrated by Coralie Bickford-Smith, who also designed Penguin’s Clothbound Classics series

For Pearson, the choice is easy: “I cannot illustrate covers – I have to rope in others to do that – and I’m terrified of photography – cropping other people’s art to fit a cover shape makes me feel sick. That leaves typography, and I tend to lean on it for everything. Using lettering in place of representational imagery can also help to activate reader interpretation – I think we enjoy working for answers.” 

Pearson adds that typography also presents a lovely challenge for a designer – to sum up an entire book using such limited graphic means.

“I think typographic covers are great for being timeless, not revealing too much, and they work particularly well if the title is just brilliant,” says Erkas. “Illustrated covers are great for capturing feelings that photography can’t. And photographic covers are great for showing something real, but can also be dreamy, abstract and illustrative.”

Books online and e-Books

Just as record cover designers had to adjust to the loss of the 12-inch square album cover, replaced by the reduced canvas of the CD, book jacket designers are learning to adapt to the e-book format. But what is the role of a cover in publishing e-books?

In Pearson’s opinion, “beyond working as a thumbnail at the point of sale in the online shop”, there is no role for a cover in electronic format. “When the e-book is purchased and installed, there seems no good reason for a cover image at all, especially if it takes up more memory than the book itself,” he argues.

Crow takes a similarly stringent line. “I have never read an e-book. I read manuscripts on an iPad, but a paperback isn’t much heavier than an e-book reader, and I prefer real pages. Our covers are used to sell e-books online in any case. It would be less interesting to buy a book from a list of titles without some visual trigger to hint at the contents,” she says.

An Eleanor Crow’s cover design for Faber & Faber (left); Design by Emily Mahon, art director at Doubleday (right)

For Stoddart, the need for a book to have an online presence is factored into his thinking from the start. “One recent project I’ve been very excited about is an update to the Penguin Modern Classics series, initiated with a casual discussion about whether we could make [the series] more visible as online thumbnails.” 

“This is a contentious issue – many people will argue that more and more books are bought online and their visibility at a small size is fundamental. Yet books listed on websites are usually accompanied by text, a reiteration of title and author, and a bucket of metadata.”

To find a solution, Stoddart turned to colour. “A recent update of the Modern Classics template uses Penguin ‘eau-de-nil’ – a muted light turquoise which has evolved from other parts of Penguin’s history. This eau-de-nil is a beautiful colour that works well in the flesh and online. I’ve moved it onto the spines (which were an all too crisp white) and the back covers, and have used it as a brand note on the front cover titling.”

It’s flashes of creativity like this that keep the field exciting. “If all bookshops ended up having to stock books with giant titles and images, the world may as well be over,” Stoddart concludes.

This article originally appeared in Computer Arts magazine issue 270. Buy it here.

Related articles:

How to design the perfect book cover

10 great uses of type on book covers

How to design a book cover in InDesign

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from Brenda Gilliam https://brendagilliam.com/how-to-design-a-contemporary-book-cover/

[itendswhereitallbegan]

The biggest question on most prospective applicants minds is: which college should I apply to? There is no correct answer to this question and there is no point trying to “beat the system” by applying to what you think is a less popular college (more tips on how to choose an Oxford college here). Christ Church is one of the most famous (and definitely most touristy) colleges at Oxford but I’m guessing most people don’t know much about it apart from the fact that it’s the “Harry Potter” college. After four lovely years at Christ Church, I thought I’d share some of the other perks of attending this college that you won’t find out until you get here.

Free Cake

I thought I’d start with the most important. When I arrived at Christ Church we used to receive a free cake every term. That’s three free cakes a year. Unfortunately, it has now been reduced to one free cake per year but free cake is still free cake so you can’t complain really. All you have to do is email the cake rep with your choice of cake (yes, we have a cake rep) and within a week your selected cake will appear in your pigeon hole. Magic.

Free Bops*

Ok so this is sort of a lie because since a certain newsworthy incident involving a flamethrower a couple of years ago, Christ Church bops are no longer completely free for students. There is now a charge of £1 for 3 drinks at bops but that’s hardly going to break the bank. Plus, knowing just how much vodka goes into each and every one of those drinks (about 80% vodka, 20% mixer), you can’t complain. It’s completely and utterly disgusting but you’ll grow to love it if you end up at Oxford.

*Bops are fancy dress parties that occur twice a term at Christ Church. They’re a large part of life at Oxford University and every college will hold their own throughout the term.  

A Beautiful (and Enormous) Library

One of my absolute favourite parts of Christ Church is the library. The building is absolutely gigantic and it’s full of books both old and new. On the lower levels you’ll find the East and the West Wing, one of which has a dark, traditional feel whilst the other is white, bright and airy. Upstairs you’ll find ancient books dating back centuries. You’re not allowed to access these books without special permission and if you step an inch too close to them you’ll set an alarm off. The upper floor isn’t used much but when you’re in your final year, you can go up there to study in the peace and quiet.

The library is both large and well stocked. For some subjects, such as Classics, you’ll rarely have to leave ChCh library to find the books you need for your essays. For others, you may have to find some at your faculty libraries but a large number will be at Christ Church. What’s great is that as of last year, they’ve also started stocking up on lots of the latest fiction reads so you’ll find all the nominees for the Man Booker prize, Bailey’s Prize etc. on the shelves too! Most colleges don’t have a general fiction section so this is really cool.

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Dine in the Harry Potter Hall EVERY Night

If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll probably know that one of my main reasons for applying to Christ Church is that numerous Harry Potter film scenes were shot here. I am a HUGE Potter fan so I have no shame in admitting this. One of the most magical parts of going to Christ Church is that every evening you climb the steps (used in the Harry Potter films) to get to the Hall (which the Great Hall is modelled on). I basically spent the four years of my degree pretending that I was a Hogwarts student and I loved every second of it.

Fun story: To celebrate Halloween in 2016, Christ Church hosted a Harry Potter dinner for charity. We all dressed up as witches and wizards and the hall was decorated to be more festive. Dumbledore gave us the welcome speech before we began the feast and at the end, Quirrel ran in screaming “Troll in the Dungeon”. Hands down one of my favourite ChCh memories EVER.

Read about all the different Harry Potter locations at Oxford University here.

Cheap Food

Ok so the food at Christ Church is nothing to shout about. I’d say the quality of food is definitely something that Christ Church could improve on in comparison to other colleges, but they more than make up for this with super low, student-friendly prices. Once you’re on the meal plan, you’re signed up for a three course dinner each evening for only £146 per term. With 8 week terms, that works out at roughly £2.50 per meal. That’s right, £2.50 for a three course meal. In the Harry Potter Hall. Every night.

Peck Sets

A huge perk of attending Christ Church is that you’re guaranteed accommodation for all three or four years of your degree. During that time, the option of living in a “Peck Set” is made available to you if you’re lucky enough to rank highly in the room ballot. Unfortunately, I was not. I was placed at number 82. Fortunately, one of my best friends was ranked number 6 in the ballot and he pulled me up the ballot, landing us both one of the best Peck Sets in college. A Peck Set consists of three rooms: one living room and two bedrooms. The bedrooms contain a sink, a bed, a wardrobe etc. and in the living room there are at least two large sofas, two large desks and a fridge.

The great thing about Peck Sets is that each and every one is slightly different. Some still have dark mahogany walls, others have been painted white. Some have old fireplaces, large bookshelves, decorative mirrors and more. My Peck Set was definitely the grandest accommodation I’ll ever live in in my life and as all students at Christ Church pay the same amount for accommodation no matter which block you get put in, it’s a real bargain!

If you look at the picture below, our room can be found behind the two long windows on the far left. Our room was straight opposite the library which is a blessing at Christ Church because the library is so god damn beautiful.

Generous Grants

Whilst many applicants who come from poorer backgrounds are put off applying to the grander, richer colleges because they assume they’re full of “posh” people, what they often don’t realise is that these are the colleges with the most resources and grants to help people. Christ Church has many generous grants and also offers rewards based on great exam results. There are travel grants, sports grants, yearly bonuses for scholars and more. Being a literature student, my favourite has to be the book grant which gives you £240 to spend during your time at university.

It’s also worth noting that a new initiative has just come into place at Christ Church as they try to broaden diversity at the college. Four new scholarships have just been announced to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds as well as summer bursaries to help these children carry out internships. There will also be new subsidies for accommodation and food, making living at Christ Church (which is already cheaper than at many other colleges), even cheaper. Find out more about these initiatives here.

Beautiful grounds

Christ Church has some magnificent architecture but what is possibly even more lovely are the Meadows just outside and the Masters Gardens inside. The Meadows will lead you down to the boathouses and the river where rowing competitions occur or you can do a lap round the whole thing and end up back at Christ Church. When you’re walking around the Meadows it’s easy to forget that you’re in the middle of a city so it’s lovely to have this peaceful haven right outside your door!

There are also a number of smaller gardens inside Christ Church which are open to the students during the summer. Here, you can play croquet with your friends, kick a ball around, read a book, sunbathe – it’s like your own personal (and very beautiful) park.

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Location

Christ Church is located very centrally in Oxford and it’s proximity to Tesco, Pret, itsu, Jericho Coffee Traders etc. is worth noting. My boyfriend went to LMH which is notorious (alongside St Hugh’s) for being incredibly far out of the centre (in Oxford terms that’s still only a 25 minute walk!), and I can’t even begin to explain how frustrating it is when you want to dash to the shops or when you’re coming home from the club at 3am. Oxford is a walking city so I’d highly recommend picking a college that is fairly central so you can get everywhere quickly and easily.

Pizza Artisan 

An artisan pizza van, suitably named, Pizza Artisan, stops outside Christ Church every. single. evening. It’s genuinely the best pizza in town and the hour long queues are all the proof you need. These pizzas are hand made and cooked in the van so it’s always fresh and hot when it gets to you. There are loads of different options available and it caters for vegetarians and vegans too!

Side note: there’s also a kebab van for when you get back to college after Parkend at 3am.

So there you have it, 10 good reasons to apply to Christ Church, Oxford. I could make an even longer list but I think I’ve already written quite enough! A couple of other ChCh highlights include: the pet tortoise, the Dean’s dog, the best Oxford balls and the best guest dinners. I absolutely loved my time at Christ Church and would highly recommend applying but at the end of the day college choice is a very personal thing. Check out this post for more tips on how to choose the best college for you. As always, if you have any questions about Christ Church or life at Oxford University, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Find out more about Christ Church on the website here.

For more posts about my time at Oxford University, check out the following:

8 Do’s and Dont’s When Choosing an Oxford College

How Many Books Did I Read For My French Degree At Oxford University?

What is it like to study French at Oxford University?

The Harry Potter Tour of Oxford University

3 TV Shows To Prepare You For Life at Oxford University

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10 REASONS TO APPLY TO CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD UNIVERSITY The biggest question on most prospective applicants minds is: which college should I apply to? There is no correct answer to this question and there is no point trying to "beat the system" by applying to what you think is a less popular college (more tips on how to choose an Oxford college…