As Trinity Term comes to a close, it marks the end of one of the most stressful periods in the calendar of the Oxford student. After weeks, if not months of panicked, clammy handed revision, last minute doubts, inexplicable euphoria and deep black despair, the conclusion of Finals brings with it a cathartic release of emotion for the average scholar. As the scratching of quills slowly ebbs into silence, as the Examination Schools shuts its doors and recedes to lick sore wounds inflicted by razor-sharp wits and mighty flashing pens, the streets are filled with students dancing, singing, laughing, crying, bedecking each other with garlands of flowers, crowning victors with laurels and liberally distributing champagne and strawberries. What a beautiful, heart-warming sight; the next generation of thrusting young minds catapulted on a soaring arc towards greatness, towards creating a better world as they put their talents to use in the common cause of humanity. But there is a dark heart t ...

If anybody was still under the impression that the blogosphere was but an entertaining sideshow to political life, the events of 11 April 2009 have conclusively established that internet activism has finally matured in this country. Paul Staines, aka. Guido Fawkes of Order-Order, in his orchestration of the downfall of Labour spinner Damien McBride over particularly insidious e-mailed plans for an anti-Tory sleaze campaign, has shown how one man, a keyboard, and a bit of noise can accomplish greater change than thousands throwing themselves against the riot shields of her majesty's constabulary. The Easter weekend news vacuum has been filled by this juiciest and most gratifying (for some) coup against the government. Of course, Staines is well versed in the little scurrilities and dirt-sifting which are the everyday occupations of the Westminster insider, having established himself as the broadest and deepest receptacle of every leak which drips out of the Downing Street and the Hou ...

It is difficult to know where to start with Frank Zappa. One could easily talk for hours about the huge scale and crowning importance of his work in the context of 20th century music, his position as a unique cultural commentator and critic of modern American society, or how most musicians of the 60s, 70s and 80s were in some way indebted to his groundbreaking approaches to studio recording. Much wanton spilling of ink could accompany a slobbering hagiographical account of Zappa as a man who ‘pushed boundaries’, musical, ethical and aesthetic. Books have been written about the way in which Zappa expressed the inner hypocrisies of postwar American culture in its totality. I could go on at length about his campaigns for the importance of free speech in the music business, his refusal to ingest the banalities and falsities of the commercial music industry, or his uncompromising attitude to total musicianship and quality of artistic endeavour above all else. This would still leave sp ...

Historical analogies are like black socks; they may never get dirty, but the more you wear them, the worse they smell. In his recent article, Tom Bird makes such an analogy between the campaign against 'mind-enhancing' drugs such as Modafinil, and the activities of the loom-smashing Luddites of the early 19th century. At best, his comparison is strained, at worst, deeply flawed and misguided as to the nature and role of performance drugs in the academic marketplace. This is true even if one takes a decidedly non-scientific approach to the matter at hand. Apart from fundamentally misinterpreting the effects and nature of such substances, Bird falls into a subtle trap of his own devising, resulting in a stinker of an argument which highlights the problems of reductive thinking in the name of equality. The first issue to be raised is the nature of Modafinil and other such performance drugs. Bird assumes that the effects of these drugs will be to increase cognitive capacity, or at leas ...