News – Page 2 of 32 – The Orbital

Disconnection Is The Theme, Making Money Is The Dream

21Jun

By Jethro RobathanNo Comments

News, Opinion

Disconnection Is The Theme, Making Money Is The Dream

The government’s announcement of intent to privatise Channel Four isn’t news. Sadly, this song has seemingly been played since time immemorial. Earlier iterations of privatisation plans were blocked in the House of Lords in 2016 with hope for a repeat performance soon. Back on 4th April 2022, Boris Johnson’s unscrupulous government revealed that ongoing discussions were taking place in the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) to sell Channel Four Television Company. This has been met with widespread public backlash from the creative industries and politicians alike. Even other Conservative MPs have denounced the government’s plans for privatisation, instead requesting additional support for public service broadcasters. Sir Peter Bottomley acknowledged that C4 was in ‘the best st...

21Jun

By Sofia BajerovaNo Comments

News, Opinion

Marking the Study Abroad Experience

The Connection Between Person and Place After tasting the cuisine, meeting, and befriending local people, walking through the streets and immersing yourself in a new culture and country, you make a connection to a place. Positive or negative, a connection is formed. This can take seconds, days or years and can change and develop as time progresses. An amazing weekend somewhere can leave you longing to return for the rest of your life. Multiple years in a place can leave you wanting to run away and never look back. When students study abroad, some form a connection with their country of study that can only be described as a second home: an intense emotional connection that leaves them planning their return before they even leave. In society we often make specific emotional conn...

Uvalde School Shooting: Where does it stop? Gun Control has Proven to Fail once again

1Jun

By Ilayda KaplankiranNo Comments

Features, News

Uvalde School Shooting: Where does it stop? Gun Control has Proven to Fail once again

Another school shooting has occurred. Significant lives have been lost. And yet, it only serves as a rehash of a story we’ve all heard before. The latest figures provided by BBC confirm that “nineteen young children and two adults have died in a shooting at a primary school in south Texas”. Because the ‘right to bear arms’ is constitutionally protected, the 18-year-old perpetrator was able to walk freely into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. In fact, the problem resides within this constitutional right itself. No matter how hard politicians or activists try to put provisions in place or change the narrative that we are all too familiar with, these atrocities will not be prevented. As seen in the Supreme Court’s ruling, from 2008 to the pre...

Street Racing: The middle finger to motorsports

17May

By Peter VighNo Comments

News, Sports & Socs

Street Racing: The middle finger to motorsports

The Midnight Club, Drifting, Fast and the Furious, NASCAR, and booze. Yes, booze. The staple ingredient to university life and the warm friend when life all goes south. This legal drug is weirdly responsible for arguably the most outlaw of sports– street racing. Between the 1920s and 1930s, during the Prohibition era, a cult emerged of bootleggers, otherwise known as moonshine runners. They were the alcohol transporters, who drove like mad men to outrun the cops when smuggling alcohol. Sounds like a blast if you ask me. These moonshine runners would buy the latest and greatest cars of the era, modifying them to give them that extra bit of umph to outrun the police. This was the accidental birth of street racing, and believe it or not, would later ...

University is No Longer About the Degree Alone

12May

By Accalia SmithNo Comments

News, Opinion

University is No Longer About the Degree Alone

How to Tackle the State-Private Education Divide, an Interview with the 93% Club. By Accalia Smith At the 1996 Labour Party conference, Tony Blair infamously stated that his three top priorities when coming into office were “education, education, and education”. Indeed, it was a large part of New Labour’s manifesto and although largely adopting the previous Conservative education policies, he did make many changes whilst Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007. This included increasing support and teacher training schemes, and crucially “a 50 per cent target for university participation among young adults”. This emphasis on the importance of education caused a huge influx in university attendees. Choosing university was no longer the exception but rather the expectation. Blair’s son, Eau...

12May

By Jessica WoodNo Comments

News, Opinion

Defining Class

Defining Class: is it about what you earn or how you act? By Jessica Wood Society is ordered; people, places and possessions are constantly being put into boxes. Have you ever seen a movie and not had the desire to place it into a genre? It is a human instinct to name and sort things, that’s why we have an entire literary category called nouns. But what effect is this having on how we view the people around us? Does it explain why I was once told by a ‘friend’ that they would “only be friends with someone who went to a boarding school”? What defines this elusive term ‘class’? Why am I considered to have a lower status in society than them, even though my household income might actually be higher? This made me think that status in society is much more than what lands in your ba...

12May

By Laura BloomfieldNo Comments

News, Opinion

Studytube: Helpful or Dangerous

By Laura Bloomfield In the last few years, StudyTube has boomed, with videos gaining thousands and thousands of views. However, it’s worth wondering whether StudyTube advertises unhealthy study habits which viewers may feel they have to copy in order to achieve certain grades. The ‘Study with Me’ videos are some of the most potentially damaging videos I’ve seen on YouTube. Content creators post up to 12 hour study sessions. This has the possibility of making students feel like they need to study for equally long to achieve the same grades as these StudyTubers, which is not the case. These long study stints aren’t always healthy. We need breaks. On the flip side, these videos do have the benefit of making viewers feel like they have a study companion which can motivate people to cont...

12May

By Emma HollyNo Comments

News, Opinion

Dying For Help

People are being ignored amidst a mental health pandemic By Emma Holly There’s nothing quite like the feeling when you hear that the waiting list is eighteen months long. A molten liquid spreads through you, and you think you might vomit. You are the little person waving from their desert island, realising that your S.O.S. message got washed away by the sea. You don’t quite know if you can make it through today, let alone the next 547 of them. It feels as though you are the sole being on the planet who is experiencing this. Of course, you are not. In the wake of the pandemic, the demand on the NHS for mental health help has been at an all-time high. An estimated ten million more people are predicted to need help within the next three to five years as a result of th...

12May

By Hannah ArmourNo Comments

News, Opinion

Strategic Schooling

It was the first day of sixth form and in they came, an influx of kids from all of the surrounding private schools. One, an all girls school, was only across the street from ours. They arrived in their pre-made cliques, ready to learn and ready to get into Oxbridge. Since acceptance rates are higher for state schools, their parents had moved them to us. Their movement was strategic. To the parents, it was simply a stepping stone. For their children, it was two years of their life. Now, don’t get me wrong, my state school might as well have been a private one. Sure, we didn’t have the one-on-one attention private schools do but we had some fabulous teachers. I’m tempted to say the best in the country. Situated slightly outside the city centre of Oxford, we all had some connection ...

12May

By Madelaine GrayNo Comments

News, Opinion

The Mystery of the Missing Middle Class

Erasing middle class identity in modern society. In recent years, the previously referred to ‘middle class’ has been shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. The rising cost of living and salary stagnation have contributed to this, as well as sky-rocketing wages for the upper echelons of the working world. In short, the rich have got richer, and the poor poorer. This change has happened recently – incredibly recently. It used to be that the descriptor of “middle class” was used as a bit of a put down in certain circles, in response to seemingly frivolous statements made by young people. Now, this has been replaced by the assumption that anyone with any disposable income whatsoever is a member of the 1%. So, how did this happen? There has never been a clear and universally accept...