The Rustat hearing at Cambridge should be a turning point in the war against woke
Without intending any disrespect, I think one can say that a judgment in the Consistory Court of the Diocese of Ely would not normally affect our public…
The Rustat verdict is a humiliation for woke activists
Representatives of Jesus College, Cambridge, have declared themselves “shocked” at the verdict that, despite the strident demands of campaigners, Grinling Gibbons’s monument to Tobias Rustat should remain…
Cambridge college told to keep slavery-linked memorial of Tobias Rustat in court victory against cancel culture
Deputy Chancellor Hodge acknowledged that this did not excuse Rustat’s willingness to invest in the slave trade, but, quoting LP Hartley, noted that: “The past is a…
If the Bishop of Ely’s woke idiocy prevails, he’ll have to demolish his own cathedral
I am sure the bishop would not be so stupid or crass as to suggest that these poor people mattered less because they were not black, or…
Simon Keenlyside interview: ‘Don’t ever say that opera is irrelevant to everyday life’
Now Keenlyside, fiercely self-critical and often quite scathing about his own performances if he feels under-prepared, is taking on Verdi’s sinister, manipulative Iago. “I was going to…
Gatecrashers impersonate students to infiltrate prestigious Cambridge black tie dinner
A female-only Cambridge college has threatened to expel undergraduates after staff discovered gatecrashers at a three-course black tie dinner Newnham College, which counts Mary Beard and Emma…
Woke student puritans care more about themselves than history
I was an undergraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge in the very early 2000s. While I vaguely understood that there were a small number of Christians in college,…
Starstruck’s Emma Sidi: ‘I am not interested in making comedy from trauma’
Had Emma Sidi not got the part of Kate, the lovably neurotic flatmate to walking calamity Jessie in the BBC’s hit rom-com Starstruck – this week back…
Are monument topplers so pure that they won’t be cancelled, too?
An unusual event will soon be taking place in Cambridge: a hearing in the beautiful chapel of Jesus College by the Consistory Court of the Diocese of…
A Class of Their Own by Matt Knott, review: laugh-out-loud confessions of a private ‘supertutor’
In Plato’s Apology, Socrates sees a blissful afterlife as one spent in eternal tutorials with his pupils, who, like those of Matt Knott, the author of A…
I’m a lifelong feminist – so why can’t I get along with Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own?
Anyone considering him or herself well-educated should have read Virginia Woolf. Yet she has always seemed to me one of the most troublesome literary figures of the…
Could it be the end for boys-only choirs?
The arguments are contested: Sarah MacDonald, who conducts the lively mixed choir at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and the girls’ choir at Ely Cathedral, has drawn attention to…
Half of drinkers cannot tell if they are too drunk to drive
Half of people are unable to tell when they are too drunk to legally drive, according to research from the University of Cambridge. Drink driving is a…
‘White thought crimes’ are resurfacing at Cambridge
In the past 12 months, freedom of speech at Cambridge University won two important battles, after several years of losing ground. The first victory was that the…
‘Super jelly’ that can survive being run over by a car could replace cartilage in knees
A “super jelly” created by scientists which can withstand enormous compressive forces, despite being soft and flexible, could one day replace cartilage in people with ailing knees….