UPDATE 5.15pm

Oldfield has pleaded not guilty to a charge of causing a public nuisance.

Appearing at Isleworth Crown Court today the protester entered his plea, and was granted bail until September 24th, when he will stand trial.

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Trenton Oldfield, the man who stopped the boat race, is to appear in court today.

Oldfield, 36, is charged with causing a public nuisance on April 7 in the Thames near Chiswick Eyot, after he swam in front of the boats in the 158th annual race.

His first court appearance, exactly a month ago, saw heavy bail terms imposed, preventing him from entering the City of Westminster on certain dates, or the Olympic torch route, to prevent further protests. His conditions prevent him from entering Cambridge to take part in the Anarchist march planned for next month. At the time he entered no plea.

Oldfield, an LSE graduate who lives in Central London, claimed to be protesting about elitism when he disrupted the famous race by swimming between the boats.

Trenton interrupting the race

A website said to be written by him includes “manifesto for civil disobedience”, whilst his tweets after the race said he was prepared to do jail time in order to change the system. That now looks like a reality.

He continued: “Still waiting for someone to show me when elitism (seeing oneself above another) hasn’t lead to oppression and tyranny?”

The interruption was widely condemned as a dangerous and pointless stunt, with the Oxford captain tweeting Oldfield to tell him “this was the culmination of our careers and you took it from us.”

Students, who reacted angrily at the time, will be hoping for a stiff sentence. James Sheldon, a second year engineer, told The Tab that “The man is a knob. He screwed up those guys day to make a point, now the court should make a point of him.”

There are many Cambridge traditions that I still haven’t mastered in the 18 months that I’ve been here.

Take the ubiquitous student bike for example – my dad bought one for me because he thought that Cambridge students were compelled to ride them to lectures. I have tried to make use of this conveyance, but so far without any success.

Last time I took the bastard out for a ride, I attempted that ‘one arm in air, other arm on bike’ indicating move that most students seem to pull off with relative ease and swerved into a car on the other side of the road.

Favouring life, I now opt to walk to my various appointments.

Walking around Cambridge is pleasant enough, but without a bike (and looking a bit older than most of my contemporaries) I am convinced that I am often mistaken for a tourist. This matters to me, although I am not sure why it should – besides being asked if I’d like to go for a punt every time I pass through town.

In any event, to avoid such confusion I make sure that I always scurry purposefully, head bowed, carrying a file and/or books in the manner of someone late for a lecture – and appearing to mull over some profound and obscure academic hypothesis of which only a Cambridge student is capable.

Then there’s the UL.  I am probably completely on my own here, but I cannot understand the appeal of the libraries. How can anyone conduct serious research in these God forsaken places?

Yes, I know that most students say things like – “I can’t work in my room” or “I’m too easily distracted anywhere else”, but please tell me what could be more distracting when composing an essay than a room full of complete strangers, routinely clearing their throats, sniffing and shuffling their books.

Moreover, in the unlikely event that you should find yourself sitting in view of someone attractive, you risk losing the whole day.

I have to confess as well that the sight of dozens of people appearing to be working hard and fully focussed makes me panic. At least at home, in my room, I can pretend that trying to beat my high score on Temple Run and taking sporadic afternoon dozes is the normative approach to attaining a respectable degree.

To me, attending the library is an ordeal. For about one hour, every week, it’s like participating in a game of Supermarket Sweep – rushing about the aisles, checking the spine to see if the book has the 10-digit code that’ll lead you onto the next one. Guerrilla warfare tactics typically ensue.

I have also had to hand over upwards of a hundred quid in fines since I started here, returning books late since it takes me a least a day to work out which chapter I’m supposed to be reading and longer still to read it through and take notes. By the time I leave this place, I shall probably have contributed in fines sufficient to fund the new Mitchell wing of the UL.

So there we have it – I don’t like bikes and I can’t stand libraries. Should I just leave now?

ADC Theatre, 22nd-26th May, 7.45pm, £6-10

Directed by Charlie Parham

5 out of 5 stars

If you’ve ever been a victim of a modern absurdist play – A-level students screaming in the dark corners of your soul – then it’s probably Samuel Beckett’s fault. Waiting for Godot may well be the most important play of the last century, but 60 years of wankers missing the point makes it one hell of a challenge to find the play’s heart. Thankfully, Charlie Parham’s witty, perceptive interpretation, delivered by an exuberant and formidably talented cast, sweeps self-indulgence aside and capitalises on Beckett’s humour as much as his elusive depth.

For the NatScis and plebeians among you, the play centres on two tramps, Vladamir (Jack Hudson) and Estragon (Theo Hughes-Moran). As you might have guessed, they’re waiting for Godot, a mysterious figure they hope will save them, and you probably don’t have to read Varsity‘s review to work out that he never turns up.

A general despair at the hopelessness of the human condition permeates the play, but crucially our focal point in Parham’s hands is the relationship between the tramps, and the warmth of Hudson and Hughes-Moran’s fluid performances is the foundation of this production. Their friendship is entirely believable despite its abstraction, and they bring alive the subtle tonal shifts of Beckett’s dialogue with humour and physical sensitivity.

The play shifts up a gear and the comedy takes on a much darker edge with the introduction of a master and his slave. The power held by Pozzo (Edward Eustace) over Lucky (Guy Woolf) becomes a source of horror and fascination for tramps and audience alike, and Eustace’s barely-contained explosive energy trembles constantly under the surface, rendering Pozzo’s presence threatening and unpredictable. It’s a gripping performance.

Lucky is mostly stationary and silent, but the play reaches an apex of hilarity and deep pathos when he is commanded to dance. A fusion of dad-at-the-disco, cabaret girl and mental patient, his dance sums up the production – funny with notes of horror the first time round, horrific with an underlying funniness when repeated. His speech and the implication of Vladamir and Estragon actively helping Pozzo in silencing him is a powerful dramatic climax. And either a completely different person comes out to take his bows at the end, or whoever did Woolf’s make-up is incredible.

At root this production’s success is down to Beckett’s script – all you can do is respond to it. Beckett clearly hated the idea of a cretin like me imposing particular readings onto the play (a furious exchange between the two tramps culminates in the ultimate insult: ‘Critic!’) so I’ll keep my private interpretations to myself, but the reason this is a must-see production is that by focusing on the full dramatic and comic potential of the script, Parham imposes no readings on the audience. You’re free to make it your own, or just enjoy the raw drama.

Professional clowns might have brought a little more unity to the production’s physicality. Professional stage-hands might have used a lot less stage-dust (my lungs are still rattling). But this is as close as a student production gets to being unmissable.

ADC, 22nd May, 11pm, 

4 out of 5 stars

What a jolly lovely evening of jolly lovely comedy.  Except for that loud bellowing bastard in the audience.  Seriously. Shut up.  I mean, my laugh is obnoxious but, like, your laugh is even worse.  You know who you are.  I really wanted to kill you – we all did.

But about the show. We’ve been treated recently – spoiled some would say – by such high concept, well-fit sketch shows as The Pin, Pretty Little Panic, Pick Me Up, and Donors. And call me heteronormative, but entirely male sketch shows can often lead to brash one-upmanship, and an evening of desperately vulnerable young men trying to defeat one another with jokes.  How refreshing it was to see a boring set, a bad wardrobe, and two guys who looked like they were doing it for the love, not the pussay.

And it was a really funny show.  Normally bad acting grates on me and detracts from the sketches.  But Frimston and Rowett bellowed and blundered their way through with the hammiest of stock faces and movements and didn’t pretend they were capable of anything else.  It was beautiful.  Rowett in particular had a way of standing and delivering a line which I would like to endearingly christen as the ‘Bemused Professor’.  I don’t think it mattered since they had so much commitment and belief in what they were doing that it just couldn’t help but be enjoyable. Rather than conniving to sculpt the audience into laughter, they were just trying to tell great, funny stories. And we loved them for it.

The style of writing and performing is really out of date now too, but that’s what we loved too. Sketches about the moon landing, gangsters, and gameshows – I mean we’re talking decades out of date – yet somehow every sketch seemed fresh and funny. A few were not to my taste: the gangsters’ names sketch was too long, the sun sketch was too repetitive and ‘random’, the bird sketches were just – not funny to me. Again, though – I don’t think it matters, as there was enough variety that the audience was always on side even if a few sketches let you down just on personal preference.  I spent most the show gurning and slapping my thigh with the best of them.

So to Misters Frimston and Rowett: I wish you all the very best success, for you have put a lovely big smile on my face just when studying the Book of Revelation was looking its bleakest.  (A ton of people die in that book, you know.)  So if you want to put five stars on your Edinburgh poster that’s fine by me.  So is saying “astonishing… the best comedy at the Fringe”.

You look like two lovely guys who are in it for the comedy and not the glory and that’s why we loved it. I vote more of that for Cambridge.

Corpus Playroom, 22nd- 26th May, 7pm, £5-6

Directed by Niall Wilson

4 out of 5 stars

Rum and Vodka, as you can guess, is the story of one big ‘booze-a-rama’. It’s a one-man show, detailing the lash-fuelled long weekend of a young, married man in the Dublin suburbs. Jacob Shephard, as its one man, is excellent. He’s even excellent before the show begins. Emerging busily to meet, greet, and take our tickets, Shephard revels in his pre-act act. I recommend arriving early.

The improv melts nicely into Conor McPherson’s pithy, acerbic script. Shephard lilts his seedy story with the sort of confident comic brio of a great stand-up. Like any good comedian, Shephard quickly forges a strong sense of audience/performer intimacy. Details such as, ‘I got sick in her shoe’, or, ‘I’m not going to go into the sordid details’ are shared with a cheeky, knowing grin, inviting us in on the joke. We willingly complied.

In his school-boyish getup of white shirt, badly-tied tie and black plimsolls, Shephard embodies the naïveté underlying his character. He guffaws when talking about his sex life, summarises an intensely depressing anecdote with, ‘that’s real bonkers!’, and grins artlessly when remembering the business venture his friends devise on a piss up: ‘we were going to be gardeners.’

But much as I enjoyed the company of this cheeky chappy, his delivery occasionally clashed with the script. Granted – his boyish charm is necessary to explain many of the situations recounted. But the story also demands something more frightening. When the hero comments early on that his life is ‘one big sordid detail’, we giggle along with him. Some of the details, however, are too big and too sordid to be giggled at. Playing a misogynistic, racist alcoholic nurturing a class-grudge, Shephard was too often just a bit too endearing.

He did have one killer weapon to counteract the cute with though: eye contact. This was worth a star in itself. Shephard not only looked at each member of the audience – not a big claim, unfortunately – he really bored into each eyeball, drilling in the discomfort. He was able to draw reactions out of his audience, as well – when, staring right at me, he commented, smiling, ‘the girl smiled… she smiled at me’, I smiled at him.

There were a couple of minor quibbles. Considering the grotesque quantity of alcohol involved in the hero’s botched-up adventures, greater fun could have been had making Shephard look more booze-battered. In a show of so few props, it slightly bothered me that the wedding ring was on the wrong hand. But this is pedantry. Shephard’s is a witty, memorable performance, rounded off with a terrifically atmospheric final moment. I urge you to see for yourself. Rum and Vokda is a great antidote to exam-term sobriety.

Well done guys, Cambridge is on top for another year.

By all means enjoy the inevitable warm feeling of knowing how great our alma mater is, but ask yourself: what does our latest accolade even mean? I’m not denying that Cambridge’s success is deserved – it produces some fantastic people and I’m assured that our time here sets us up for life – but can you really convert three years of supervisions, study and Cindies into a number and pit it against the rest of them?

I’m no statistician so I’ll leave you to analyse the nitty-gritty of their methods yourselves, but certain aspects of these league tables just don’t add up to me.

Firstly, graduate prospects: most of the league tables use figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s Destination of Leavers from Higher Education survey which notes employment figures six months after graduation. Immediately this discriminates against budding solicitors, barristers, doctors, vets and academics, all of whom will be in further study for at least a year before entering their chosen profession and so won’t contribute to a high score in this category.

Then there are the categories themselves: in the Guardian league table, three out of eight of them are essentially different manifestations of student satisfaction. This is problematic because the table is based on results from the National Student Survey which, let’s be honest, hardly anyone actually fills out. Therefore, I’m willing to bet that their sample size is rather small and not all too representative of the majority.

In addition, the disparities between the rankings of different tables show just how unreliable they are. Take Imperial, for example, which ranks fourth in the Complete University Guide and the Times but thirteenth and fourteenth respectively in the Guardian and the Sunday Times.

Stats aside, I don’t think we even need to be reminded that we’re the best. Oxbridge’s reputation is entrenched in British culture, and I know that I’ll have the same amount of affinity with this place and just as impressive a CV whether Cambridge ranks top, second behind Oxford, or anywhere else for that matter. The same goes for the guys at the Other Place, who are going to be in exactly the same fortunate position as us regardless of what happens year on year.

You might argue that the tables are a good way of recognising rapidly improving universities, and some other universities do indeed seem to revel in tiny increments year on year: I have it on good authority that there was a quasi-party in the LSE library when they overtook Oxford in the Complete University Guide last month. Surely that’s just a little bit petty? I think we’re much better off celebrating respective niches and the achievements that come with them rather than exposing blatant insecurity.

At the end of the day, we all have a rough idea of what the better and worse universities are, and that’s all you really need to know. Education is a subjective concept, so trying to plot the position of every university in the country with respect to the others is quite simply absurd. I fear that putting it plainly and unequivocally is only going to risk inferiority at the bottom, insecurity in the middle, and complacency at the top.

Every house has little niggles that give it character. For my flat in North-West Moscow, it’s the occasional appearance of phosphorescent paint on my bathroom walls, the low number of kitchen appliances that perform any useful function whatsoever and the fact that I have to sleep on my bed like a starfish.

Some niggles are more than niggles though, and can push you to the brink of moving out. For me, this isn’t the grunting and animal noises that come through the wall while I’m trying to sleep, and it’s not even the general experience of living with someone flirting so heavily with insanity I feel like a constant third wheel.

My landlord is one such huge niggle. Born and raised in the flat in which I currently reside, he has inherited it without any clear idea of how to manage it. This includes paying the utility bills, meaning that people come round knocking on the enormous leather bound door that separates us from the relative sanity of the outside so violently that it creaks on its hinges.  We then go into blackout mode, drawing the curtains and hiding out of sight, a bit like the time my sister asked me to watch Twilight with her.

It also means that the cold water is randomly turned off every month (not the hot water, that’s strangely fine), invariably when you’re in the shower, leaving you with no cold water to relieve the second degree burns you’ve just got from the sudden temperature explosion.

The problem is that he thinks it’s absolutely fine to rock up for a few nights occasionally, in the knowledge that he’s undercharging us and if we say no, he can threaten to raise the rent. This would be fine if he was cracking company and had great chat, but he is not cracking company and does not possess good chat. In fact, he’s a complete ass.

This is my landlord. He is based in Jerusalem where by day he works as a security guard, “so [his] life is one constant high” but by night transforms into a self-styled “hip-hop terrorist” called Sayaf and enters rap battle competitions where the only possible winner is Israel’s version of You’ve Been Framed.

I can’t put my finger exactly on what it is he looks like, but my best estimation is the white Jewish lovechild of Mr Pepperami and Cyril Sneer from classic 80s TV show The Raccoons. He recently came back to Russia to record that notoriously difficult second studio album, so there are a lot of nervous Sayaf fans around hoping he doesn’t sell out.

I first encountered him when I was putting the finishing touches to my floor bed via the absurd number of sofa cushions that Olesya has managed to accumulate without accumulating a sofa. He strolled into the apartment with his album collaborators, Spliff Blazer and 2-Zap, who sound like a hilarious parody act but are in fact totally serious.

I mostly managed to steer clear of him by avoiding the flat at all costs in case he would try to tell me about his various women again, because the last time that happened I failed to suppress my snorts when he told me that he couldn’t be monogamous because he “just had too much love to give” and I didn’t know the Russian word for “perennial rhinitis”.

The strangest thing though was the debris that stayed when he left, and what he had taken from my room. Missing were the router for the house and the power lead to a charming novelty lamp. Found, however, were ten Toblerones, three solvent-free gluesticks, two size XL lingerie onesies draped over a broken bed spring, and his phone. Maybe he’s not so bad after all.

This week at Jesus a group of what can only be described as communist lesbians tried their upmost to push the college into the Maoist nightmare we all know they want.

The attempted coup came in the form a of JCR motion suggesting the establishment of a ‘women’s empowerment scheme’.

Well I think we can all agree that the only thing that should be empowering women around here is our cocks; am I right boys? Good thing there were plenty of ‘Top Lads’ there to let those women know just how ridiculous they were being. I for one know exactly where they can stick their empowerment – in their vaginas, with my cock.

For those of you who aren’t, let’s say, the sharpest spires in Cambridge, and haven’t yet seen through my carefully crafted dramatic persona, please do not adjust your sets. I do, of course, think that so called ‘lad culture’ is nothing but a festering misogynistic turd, in desperate need of being flushed back into the prehistoric jelly of evolutionarily stunted slime where it belongs.

Jesus’ male dominated JCR, on the other hand, seems a little less clear on this issue and has found itself caught in the crossfire of numerous allegations of endemic sexism. These allegations followed in the wake of a JCR meeting in which male members reportedly shouted down women in attendance for being “ridiculous” to propose the empowerment scheme.

Meanwhile, as you chaps get bombarded with bomb hoaxes, Brasenose has been, as I am told the young people say, ‘kicking it old school’ in the hoax department.

A minor media frenzy was stoked up, with the BBC, The Telegraph and The Daily Mail all on the scene after a number of insidious posters were spotted around the college banning the wearing of pyjamas at breakfast, which read: “This practice evinces a failure to distinguish between public and private spaces in college. There is a clear distinction between night wear (private) and day wear (public). I trust that this slovenly practice will cease forthwith.”

Alas, all this turned out not to be the work of one of the College’s more draconian Dons finally losing it with his students’ deficiency of Harris Tweed and pith helmets to go on a poster based rampage.

Brasenose insists the posters were the work of students and not official college policy.

On Saturday, Cambridge University Athletic Club sent a 90-strong team to Iffley Road, Oxford, in a bid to repeat the 4-0 Varsity whitewash of 2011.

The day got off to a perfect start. In the Men’s Blue match, Rhys Hodnett won the Hammer Throw with 46.20m, his maiden blues standard, and Christian Roberts triumphed in the opening track race over 400m Hurdles with a 55.37s season’s best. Matthew Houlden won the Long Jump before Onakeno Mario-Ghae produced the performance of the day in the High Jump. Having to equal his personal best of 1.95m to stay in the competition after Oxford’s jumper took the lead, he then nailed 1.98m, 2.01m and finally 2.04m to rapturous applause.

Jonathan Cook cruised to an effortless victory in the 800m, before facing off, two hours later, in the Mile against Oxford’s Shelley and Frith. He faced stiff competition from experienced runners who hadn’t yet raced that day. In completing the double win for Cambridge, Jon added another chapter to the history of epic Mile races at Iffley Road, and now aims for GB selection in the European Championships to be held in Helsinki in June.

Jonathan Cook of Jesus completes a historic 800m-Mile double victory in 1:52.15 / 4:13.09.

As the afternoon progressed, Oxford tried to mount a comeback. Tom Watkins won the 3000m steeple chase with a personal best, and Matt Houlden, with the wind behind him, set his new personal best to win the Triple Jump. Toby Haseler and David Allwood rounded out the field events with wins in the Shot Put and Discus Throw.

The Men’s Blues match, which had remained finely poised throughout the day, finally went the way of Cambridge by 105 points to 99 after a victory in the 4x100m relay. Oxford were favourites in this race, and had the faster runners on paper, but Amin Ahmadnia, Onakeno Mario-Ghae, Matt Houlden and Ross Elsby had worked on their changeovers for over a month, organising extra training sessions to search for those precious tenths of a second. Make no mistake; those extra tenths were what won us the Varsity Match.

Blues 4x100m relay: Changeovers win Championships.

The Women’s Blues Match began with Aussie postgrad Jennifer Lovell, fresh from breaking the CUAC record in the pole vault at BUCS, winning with an outstanding vault of 3.30m. Women’s Captain Rose Penfold led from the front on the track, easing to victory in the 800m. CUAC poster girl Lizzie Thompson had a day to remember winning the Long Jump, Triple Jump and High Jump with new personal bests of 5.08m, 10.67m and 1.55m, as well as coming second in both hurdles races. CUAC’s throws squad leader Helen Broadbridge won the Discus Throw and Hammer Throw comfortably.

 Jennifer Lovell of Jesus clearing 3.30m to take victory in the Women’s Pole Vault.

Despite winning fewer events overall than their Oxford counterparts, the determination and depth of the women’s blues team was evident in their picking up enough 2^nd and 3^rd place points throughout the day to keep the competition alive. Heading into the final event, the 4x400m relay, the match still hung in the balance. Despite a storming final leg from Helena Wace, the women’s team was beaten on the line by just a quarter of a second, and they lost the overall match 102-97.

Lizzie Thompson of Trinity Hall, who won three events, en route to second place in the 400m Hurdles.

The Men’s Second Team Match was won by Cambridge 109-103, with Felix Schaaf winning the High Jump and Discus Throw. Angus Fitchie won the Javelin Throw with a 48.65m PB – a mark that would’ve been good enough for second place in the Blues match. The Women’s Second Team was beaten 115-85, with Sarah Williams setting a new match record in the Pole Vault with 2.50m.

With pretty bleak conditions but no rain, the Cambridge Ninety Nines regatta allowed for some gutsy side-by-side racing. With quite a few returning blues, it provided a final indication of colleges’ progress before bumps.

Though this was a shorter course, most colleges looking to bump will be aiming to do so less than a kilometer into the races. The side-by-side element this weekend also showed which crews can respond to the direct competition they’ll face in less than a month.

Selwyn M1 beating Lady Margaret Boat Club M1

The regatta experienced a fairly unenthusiastic turnout from many colleges, allowing relatively weaker crews a chance in many of the finals. With both Caius and Downing M1s absent, LMBC and Selwyn were able to push through to the men’s final, where Selwyn won by a persuasive length – incredibly promising as they stand a staggering 17 places below LMBC in the bumps positioning. They will also have gained even greater security from the regatta, having beaten Caius II in the semi-finals, who will be chasing them on the first day of bumps.

In the men’s second division Christ’s M2 triumphed over Sidney Sussex (M1) by canvas, which also bodes well for their chances of moving out of the sandwich-boat position in bumps.

On the women’s side competition was equally depleted, with reasonably predictable outcomes from the various races and little indication of what will happen around the top-end of the bumps tables. Emmanuel, who start fifth this Mays, rowed well but were beaten in the final by a tough Caius crew.

The latter repeated the success they’d seen at the Cam’s last side-by-side races, – Pembroke regatta – winning the final by a length. The rest of the division entrants are clustered together, one after another, in the line-up for bumps, ranking low. There may be a bit of re-shuffling, but the final this weekend was a relatively unsurprising one.

Caius W1 

Murray Edwards II won the women’s second division – a strong result considering six of the seven boats competing with them are ranked above them in bumps. Racing against them in the final was Queens II, who were beaten convincingly by two and a half lengths.

With the absence of a lot of the Cam’s top-ranking crews, the 99s regatta still leaves a lot to be guessed at in the run-up to bumps.

May Bumps will begin on Wednesday 13th and run till Saturday 16th June.