#wadham college

[orwellsunderpants]

When the Earl of Rochester received his official plaque at Wadham College, Oxford, where he had been a student, they had to put it in the cloister between the hall and the chapel, because there was no way they were going to put it in the chapel, where all the other famous-alumni plaques are. They did give a big banquet for the College Worthies on plaque-unveiling day, but they very much did put the plaque in the cloister.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, was a wonderful poet and a very poor role model. He died of syphilis and alcohol at 33. His life was like a mad romance, and he wrote some astonishing poetry on the way. I loved being the guest reader, and reading some of Rochester's poems on this glorious Betwixt the Sheets podcast about his life and work. WARNING they are very rude.

Kate Lister and Rebecca Rideal do all the work. I get to be the guest reader.

[magicaloxford]

An enticing Oxford college garden in winter 🌿. In the seventeenth-century, the gardens of Wadham College were filled with such wonders as a talking statue and a rainbow-maker 🌈.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Quid ergo dicemus, cum et silentii et orationis magna utilitas sit? *

- Sallust

What then should we say, considering that there is great utility in both silence and in speaking? *

Prof Kathleen Stock, a university professor of philosophy was hounded out of her post by trans activists for her gender critical views. In her work she tackled the relation between sex and gender identity, arguing among other things that: womanhood and manhood reflect biological sex, not gender or gender identity; the claim “transwomen are women” is a fiction, not literally true; sexual orientation (being gay, being lesbian) is determined by same-sex attraction, not attraction to gender identity; spaces where women undress and sleep should remain genuinely single-sex, in order to protect them; and children with gender identity disorders should not be given puberty blockers as minors. For holding such views she was subject to torrential abuse and subsequently hounded out of her academic position by a vocal minority of student trans right activists for holding such ‘transphobic’ views.

Stock was invited first by the Cambridge Union and later the Oxford Union to debate her views. At Oxford, trans activists tried to get her invitation rescinded on the basis that her views constituted ‘hate speech’. The Oxford Union was threatened by the Student Union to deny her a platform. To their credit, the Oxford Union held fast to their free speech principles while a petition signed by many Oxford academics, including Richard Dawkins and Nigel Biggar, came out in support for Prof. Stock.

Trans activists did their best to disrupt the event outside with a march while also offering ‘safe spaces’ for triggered Oxford students in a nearby college room complete with energy bars, ear plugs, and bottled water.

Inside the chamber, one activist, Riz Possnett, glued her hand to the chamber floor, in an attempt to disrupt Stock’s talk, until she was removed by police. The privately educated Possnett (£41,000 year private school in Hong Kong) reading PPE at Wadham College, Oxford, is no stranger to controversy as ‘they’ was known to be an Extension Rebellion activist and Republican agitator, having previously broken into Windsor Castle to frolic on King Charles’ bed with ‘their’ partner.

Prof Stock told the Union that some universities were “becoming propaganda machines for a particular point of view”. She said she did not find it “traumatic” to have protesters outside the event and said that students in her generation staged similar protests. “Generally what I find more worrying is when institutions listen to protesters and take that voice through into the institution and basically become propaganda machines for a particular point of view and then everyone else in that institution feels that they can’t say what they want to say,” she said. She said that had happened in some universities. She told the Union said it would “take courage” for people to realise that “the world does not end” when you have disagreements.

Photo: Prof Stock brought the severed head of a trans activist to display in an attempt to trigger her critics. Is there no end to this woman's evil?

[theuniversitychallengereview]

Oxbridge Avalanche

I was going to write this intro about CJ doing the Jackal, a famous scene from the West Wing.

But I have seen a load of tweets about the fact that Oxford and Cambridge are allowed to enter multiple colleges on Uni Challenge, so I've changed my mind.

Multi College Entries

To replace The Jackal, I am going to recycle a post I wrote on the subject in 2016.

I am doing this because:

We are in the midst of a climate crisis and any kind of reuse helps out. Think of the energy it would take to generate an entirely new post.

It slaps, and says pretty much everything I would say now, but if anyone complains about it I can say that they were the words of a snot-nosed 20 year old who didn't know what they were doing. Giving me some sort of diplomatic immunity.

Anyway, this originally formed part of the intro for a post about the first round match between Wadham, Oxford and Robinson, Cambridge in 2016.

Let me know in the comments if you disagree (or agree) with any of it.

Sign up for The University Challenge Review

Intro to Wadham vs Robinson

August 2016

I consider myself to have a reasonable grasp of how to use Google in the mission of finding answers to tricky questions, but I have thus far failed to find a satisfactory reason as to why Oxford and Cambridge Universities were ever allowed to enter multiple teams in the first place. Durham also has a collegiate system, for example, but they get just the one team, which flatly debunks the only logical point ever put forward. The reason generally given is that each of the colleges are distinct entities, because tutorials for each college are held separately from the rest.

But that, frankly, is a nonsense non-explanation. Lectures for each course are attended by students from all of the colleges. This is the same as for all Universities and all courses at all other Universities are then split down into tutorial groups too. The only difference is that outside Oxbridge you don’t live with your tutorial groups or under any kind of collegiate label. Another reason given, I think entirely seriously, was that each college has its own individual library…

The Manchester team of 1975 famously protested the bias by answering every question with either ‘Trotsky’, ‘Lenin’ or ‘Marx’, which, while in its own precious way was quite noble, surely must have been a most dreary half hour of viewing. This achieved nothing, as evidenced by the eleven Oxbridge entities competing in this years series. Perhaps a better protest would have been to, like their recent counterparts, win the series. I think the main reason that this is still the situation nowadays is the classic ‘its-always-been-this-way-so-why-would-you-change-it’ argument, rather than anything that actually makes logical sense.

So why, in this enlightened era when even the most corrupt of organisations in FIFA have been persuaded to initiate goal line technology has nothing been done to change this? 

The explanation most commonly given is that were the two Universities to field a singular team they would both produce invincible monsters, and sweep aside all comers in what would surely become the most boringly predictable of spectacles. Splitting them into colleges makes the competition fairer to the other, less prestigious institutions, who would undoubtedly stand no chance against either Oxbridge ‘Superteam’.

This argument though, falls short on all counts. Oxbridge Universities may have won 54.5% of the 22 series since Jeremy Paxman became presenter, but when you consider that they have comprised 39.3% of all competitors that statistic doesn’t seem so impressive. If you let Novak Djokovic enter both himself and forty nine clones into Grand Slams (39.3% of 128) then he would have won more than the twelve he already has, and that would then have prevented less high-profile players (or Universities) from taking part. Manchester University, meanwhile, have won 18.2% of these series with only 2.5% of the entrants, though that comparison is probably a tad facetious.

As stated at the start of this post, this series features three Oxbridge matches in the first round alone, which guarantees them three teams in the second round (including one Cambridge team specifically, given the Cam-Cam match in week four) and eight chances in total for a team to make that stage. All other entrants only have one chance, so part of their success has to be attributed to the advantage they both already have before a question has even been asked.

2024 Retrospective

Reading this back, I can quickly pick holes in the Djokovic analogy. If it were to be a fair comparison then the 49 Djokovices (Djokovici?) would need to be lesser than the one true Djokovic, making it unikely they would outperform the expected number of grand slams.

But in general, I think it mostly stands up. There aren't really any good reasons as to why there are multiple Oxbridge teams other than 'that's the way its always been done'.

And the 'Superteam' argument can be more readily disputed nowadays, given that non-Oxbridge universities have won each of the last six series, with no Oxbridge teams making the final in the past three years.

Other unis have developed stronger quiz scenes, taking away some of the Oxbridge advantage.

Maybe they are in need of a superteam in order to compete with the new wave of quizzing behemoths.

Pre-Match Analysis

Anyway - let's get on with this episode, which was between Exeter and Christ's.

Exeter made the quarter-finals in 1997, but haven't been on since 2009, which is the only year in which both Exeter and Exeter, Oxford appeared on the show.

Here's your first starter for ten.

Christ's, Bethlehem gets us off to a good start with Clara Schumann. I had my most viral tweet of all time yesterday, pointing out how fantastic a combination of college and contestant this is.

Christ's, Bethlehem.

I wonder if he chose the college because of the potential for amusing situations like this.

When I was at uni, I picked my halls based on the fact I shared a name with one of them, and that brought plenty of mild hilarity, so I can only imagine the sheer ecstatic joy brought on by anyone at Cambridge discovering that Bethlehem goes to Christ's.

Folks, we may just have the best ever contestant/team name combination tonight #UniversityChallenge Christ's, Bethlehem CHRIST'S, BETHLEHEM pic.twitter.com/R4ISoTSYRG— Starter for 10 (@TheUCReview) October 14, 2024

Doing numbers

They take a hat-trick on pairs of kings (three (times two) wise men), with Bethlehem displaying some impeccable recall.

Do Not Despard

His captain Despard, who looks like he's time travelled from the 80s, takes the next starter with cilia, but they struggle with a bonus set on German cinema.

Another for Despard puts Christ's 55-points clear, before Gray takes a picture starter to get Exeter off the mark. They are denied a bonus because they use a verb in the present tense rather than the perfect, which seems needlessly persnickety. I get that the meaning is subtly different, but come on.

Bethlehem loses 5-points with an incorrect buzz, but makes up for it immediately with Doctor of the Church on the following starter.

Vemuri hits back for Exeter with interpreter, but they can't build any momentum and Despard takes another with the Pritzker prize. A fourth for the Christ's captain puts them 60-points to the good, before Gray - the multimedia star of the episode - takes the music starter to keep Exeter in it.

O Little Town

The Klein bottle gives him a third starter, but Bethlehem once again stops Exeter in their tracks with Croatia.

The fantastically named (indeed, in an episode which didn't feature Christ's, Bethlehem he may have got more screentime in this blog) Schuyler Colfax brings Exeter to within 20-points, but the last five or so minutes of this game belong to Bethlehem, and he notches up another four starters to end the game with seven.

Exeter 110 - 205 Christ's

Christ's join Wadham and Oriel, Oxford and Darwin, Cambridge in the second round. They can be joined at most by one more Oxbridge college - St Edmund Hall, Oxford, who face SOAS in the final first round match up.

Could this be the year the Oxbridge drought is ended?

Join me next week as St Andrews take on Cardiff.

In the meantime I'll be thinking of Bethlehem references for Christ's second round appearance.

[richwall101]

Bristol UK - The Red Lodge

The Red Lodge Museum is a historic house museum in Bristol, England. The original building was Tudor/Elizabethan, and construction began in 1579–1580, possibly to the design of Sebastiano Serlio. The main additional building phases are from the 1730s and the early 19th century.

The Red Lodge is a free museum but runs on donations, and is managed as a branch of Bristol City Council.

The artworks on display at the Red Lodge are listed on the Art UK website

The Red Lodge was originally built at the top of the gardens of "ye Great House of St. Augustine's Back". The Great House was built in 1568 on the site of an old Carmelite Priory, later still the site of Bristol Beacon (formerly named Colston Hall), by Sir John Young/Yonge, the descendant of a merchant family and courtier to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

The Red Lodge would have originally been used as an additional guest house and entertainment pavilion, so that the Young family could promenade their guests through their eight ornamental gardens and orchards to wine and dine them.

Sir John Young died in 1589, and the Red Lodge was completed in 1590 by his widow Dame Joan. From an ancient Somerset and Devon family, Dame Joan was a sister and co-heiress of Nicholas Wadham, co-founder with his wife Dorothy Wadham of Wadham College, Oxford. She was married firstly to Sir Giles Strangways (1528-1562) of Melbury Sampford and then to John Young, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I when she stayed with the Youngs at The Great House on her visit to Bristol in 1574, and the arms of Young impaling Wadham are carved above the porch entrance to the Great Oak Room at the Red Lodge. A fine monument to Joan Wadham (1533–1603) with her recumbent effigy lies at the west entrance to nearby Bristol Cathedral.

Their son, Robert Young inherited the entire estate. Robert quickly spent his inheritance and had to convey the Red Lodge to his half-brother Nicholas Strangways to avoid seizure. By 1595, the building was rented out to various tenants as a residence separate from the Great House. Robert Young eventually sold the Great House to Sir Hugh Smyth of Ashton Court. It is now a museum in the care of Bristol City Council...

[obsidian-daydreams]

Looking out a window at Wadham College, Oxford.

Follow @obsidian-daydreams​

[heavenboy09]

Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 To You

The Beautiful & Captivating English Actress 🇬🇧 🌹 Of Stage Theater 🎥 & Entertainment In Cinema 🎥

Born On January 27th, 1979

Pike was born in 1979 in Hammersmith, London, the only child of opera singers Julian Pike and Caroline Friend.

She attended Badminton School in Bristol, and while appearing as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet at the National Youth Theatre, she was noticed by an agent who helped her embark upon a professional career.

After being turned down by every stage school to which she applied, she gained a place to read English literature at Wadham College, Oxford. She graduated with an Upper Second-class honours degree in 2001, having taken a year off to pursue her acting career, gaining stage experience in David Hare's Skylight, Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and several plays by William Shakespeare.

She is an English actress. Pike studied at Wadham College, Oxford and began her acting career by appearing in stage productions including Romeo and Juliet at the National Youth Theatre. She had her breakthrough for her film debut as Bond girl Miranda Frost in Die Another Day (2002), and had supporting roles in the period dramas The Libertine (2004), Pride & Prejudice (2005), An Education (2009) and Made in Dagenham (2010).  In the next decade, Pike had mainstream film appearances in Johnny English Reborn (2011), Wrath of the Titans (2012), Jack Reacher (2012) and The World's End (2013). Her starring role in the psychological thriller Gone Girl (2014) earned her nominations for the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Actress. Pike then portrayed Ruth Williams Khama in the biopic A United Kingdom (2016) and Marie Colvin in the war film A Private War (2018).

Pike won a Primetime Emmy Award for her role in the comedy miniseries State of the Union (2019) and a Golden Globe for her leading performance in the black comedy film I Care a Lot (2020). In 2021, she began starring as Moiraine Damodred in the Amazon Prime Video fantasy series The Wheel of Time. She received further BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for her supporting role in the black comedy film Saltburn (2023).

Please Wish This Iconic English Actress Of Amazing & Brilliant Acting In Cinema 🎥 A Very Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊

The 1 & The Only

MS. ROSAMUND PIKE 🌹🇬🇧

HAPPY 45TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 TO YOU MS. PIKE & HERE'S TO MANY MORE YEARS TO COME

  #RosamundPike

[newwallpapershd92]

Felicity Jones hollywood actress HD wallpapers

Felicity Jones is a charming and talented actress renowned for her roles in Hollywood. Her recent film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has captivated audiences and topped the charts. If you're a fan eager to see more of this Hollywood star, we're excited to share a collection of the latest HD wallpapers featuring Felicity Jones.

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Born on October 17, 1983, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, Felicity Rose Hadley Jones began her acting career in 1996 with the TV movie The Treasure Seekers. She completed her studies in English at the University of Oxford, graduating with honors in 2006. Her early roles included appearances in college theater productions, and she has since become a celebrated figure in the industry.

Jones made a significant impression in 2011 with her performance in the romantic drama Like Crazy, alongside Anton Yelchin. Her career continued to flourish with roles in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and The Theory of Everything, where she portrayed Jane Wilde Hawking. Her role in The Theory of Everything earned her critical acclaim and several award nominations, including Golden Globe and BAFTA nods.

After attending Kings Norton Girls School and King Edward VI Handsworth School, Jones took a brief hiatus before studying English at Wadham College, Oxford. Her acting journey included notable performances in student productions and theater, such as Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors and Attis. She also appeared in films like Souled Boy and Julie Taymor's The Tempest.

Jones received the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for her role in Like Crazy and starred in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. In The Theory of Everything, she played the role of Jane Wilde, the first wife of renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking.

For a closer look at Felicity Jones, her profile and HD wallpapers are available here. Enjoy browsing through stunning images of this Hollywood actress.

Felicity Jones Profile:

Birthday: October 17, 1983

Birth City: Birmingham, England, UK

Education: Norton Girls' School

Alma Mater: Wadham College, Oxford

Height: 5’3″ (1.60 meters)

[newtonian-tragedy]

An episode of Churchill's People about the Earl of Rochester being tasked to retrieve a corpse from plague-ridden London for the Royal Society to dissect.

Featuring a meeting at Wadham College with Charles II, Boyle, Hooke, Wren, Petty, Evelyn, and Wallis.

Boyle looks very Boyle (cute and awkward)

Wren only has one line and just sits there looking pretty

Evelyn looks okay. Honestly I would've cast him as Hooke instead 'cause I dig the hair.

And Hooke is, well...

[luisasequeira]

The Three Marias: This was no country for young women

Cinema expandido

Foi um privilégio estar na Universidade de Oxford ao lado de mulheres incríveis para apresentar a palestra/ performance com cinema expandido “The Three Marias: This was no country for young women” no congresso internacional 25 April 1974: Unfinished Revolutions in Portuguese Literary and Visual Cultures.

Um espaço de liberdade que me foi concedido para activar esta performance no WADHAM COLLEGE/ UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

[literarytourist-blog-blog]

Michael Schmidt on 50+ years publishing poetry

Here’s how the Carcanet Press website describes him: Michael Schmidt FRSL, poet, scholar, critic and translator, was born in Mexico in 1947; he studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford, before settling in England. Among his many publications are several collections of poems and a novel, The Colonist (1981), about a boy’s childhood in Mexico. He is general editor of PN Review and founder as well as managing director of Carcanet Press."

Michael has been applying his judgement publishing poetry and fiction for more than fifty years “discovering” and rediscovering, along the way, many of the greatest writers of our age.

We met at the Carcanet offices in Manchester to talk about, among others things, what he does; Germans in Mexico; the love of poetry; The Harvard Advocate; magazines as good tools for book editors; the importance of the past; the difference between editing books and magazines; poets John Ashbery and Edgell Rickword; writers starting on the left; generous patrons: Baron Robert Gavron; prosody; syllabics; leaving room for the reader; overproduction being a straight path to bankruptcy; an education at Oxford; Milton; the��Understanding Poetry anthology; writing letters; the centrality of politics; notions of balance and continuity; principles of permanence and change; the difference between taste and judgement; catalysts; the Yiddish saying: “One word is not enough, two is too many.” Changing literary culture; Wallace Stevens; enhancing, extending and revitalizing the language…all this in tandem with a chorus of Manchester trams piping in, in the background, throughout the conversation.

Check out this episode!

[english-history-trip]

Yes, I can't speak for Cambridge, but Oxford's cloisters really are lovely. The colleges do also have the usual seas of brushed grass, but the cloisters are usually much older, and you can see that they are more akin to walled gardens than lawns.

New College:

Christ Church:

Corpus Christi:

Wadham:

Oxford also has expansive public parks which do feature frisbees and picnics, and Christ Church even has a sprawling meadow:

In 2020, for the first time since being laid in 1772, a section of a King’s College lawn the size of just half a football pitch was not mown. Instead, it was transformed into a colourful wildflower meadow filled with poppies, cornflowers and oxeye daisies.

[Researcher Dr Cicely Marshall] found that as well as being a glorious sight, the meadow had boosted biodiversity and was more resilient than lawn to our changing climate. The results are published today in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence. Despite its size, the wildflower meadow supported three times more species of plants, spiders and bugs than the remaining lawn - including 14 species with conservation designations, compared with six in the lawn.

The meadow was found to have another climate benefit: it reflected 25% more sunlight than the lawn, helping to counteract what’s known as the ‘urban heat island’ effect. Cities tend to heat up more than rural areas, so reflecting more sunlight can have a cooling effect - useful in our increasingly hot summers. “Cambridge has become more prone to drought, and last summer most of the College’s fine lawns died. It’s really expensive to maintain these lawns, which have to be re-sown if they die off. But the meadow just looked after itself,” says Marshall.

[bacteriorage]

Ayo kids, just sticking this in the tag in case people are browsing - I'm a biology student at Wadham College, Oxford going into my second year, and I'm happy to answer any questions people might have if they've applied or are considering applying! And I'm not affiliated with the uni so I can be honest lol.

Also, I will be reviving this blog a little over the summer hopefully! One more exam to do and then I'm free. Yippee!

[verbalists]

Wadham College English Summer School - Experience the best of British education and culture

English language Summer School – academic OXFORD Program (ages 16-17): Join the elite at Wadham College! Our exclusive partnership with Dukes Education enables us to offer English learning programs hosted at the UKs most acclaimed school locations and supported by inspirational teachers. One of those exceptional programs is delivered at famous Wadham College. (more…) “”

[raenparade]

weekly update #4 - 13/03/23

So it’s been a couple of weeks! A couple of long, slow weeks. And unfortunately I don’t have a lot to show. Going home for Consolidation Week meant I was being a bit more of a parent than I anticipated, but I’m still going to show off the few things I did do!

I started off with some designs for Jamie and JJ’s parents, who are both top-level physicists working on the Excalibur Project. I’d like to do some colour keys/change things up a little bit, as I need to remember that the more I refine an idea, the more I’ll like it! 

I also started another podcast - called Wolf 359. It’s set aboard the fictional USS Hephaestus, orbiting the titular red dwarf. It starts off like the Golden-Age of radio shows, but evolves into more of a thriller when there’s a glimpse of potential extraterrestrial contact. After listening to a lot of horror-themed media, something that was science fiction but still has the same level of narrative enthusiasm was really fun, and it prompted me to do a few character studies! It made me want to pinch some of these designs for TSTSU, so I might just do that. 

I managed a few little sketches/notes of potential characters, and I think I’m going to need to set a bit of a limit, especially because I don’t want to spend a lot of time developing characters who won’t appear at all in my storyboards.

I only boarded something small, to try and shake off the dust that tries to settle on my brain. I used a character belonging to a friend of mine, just to get over any perfectionism I’m still feeling using Jamie and JJ. I spent about an hour and a half on this, and was pretty happy with the result!

Finally, during Consolidation Week I attended a short Zine Workshop at Wadham College at Oxford University. It was run by Imperfect Bound, an Oxford-based queer zine collective, and it was both something different and something fun! With it only being an hour and a half I had to work pretty quickly, so I cut my pages down by binding (no pun intended) my zine with some fabric I’d found!

While not really anything to do with TSTSU, this is another example of experimenting with different types of media, and I intend to make another blog post about what I’ve been getting up to! 

This isn’t a lot of work for two weeks, so I’m hoping being back at uni will instil that routine in me once again, and I’m looking forward to what I come up with!

[obsidian-daydreams]

Looking out a window at Wadham College, Oxford.

Follow @obsidian-daydreams​