wnbr schedule 2026

The UK's World Naked Bike Ride season kicks off in 3 weeks time with the Manchester ride, so I'll compile some relevant info here. I typically get the tip-offs from this page but don't find its alphabetical order very helpful, so I am sorting everything in chronological order, as long as it can be reached from Oxford in a day trip using public transport (also including some rides abroad in places where I might be passing through by coincidence). No guarantee, obviously, do check other sources and local info.

As time passes and rides happen, I'll update the list with links to photos, press reports, and whatever I find about them.

12.6. Manchester

14.6. London - flickr group

20.6. Chelmsford (I usually don't include the Essex rides but I just noticed that this one is not too far out from London), Brussels

28.6. Cardiff

4.7. Edinburgh,

11.7. Amsterdam; Clacton - special mention because it happens to fall into the campaign for the byelection featuring Count Binface against that joker.

18.7. Cambridge

9.8. Cardiff second ride; Berlin - wow, that's a surprising comeback, details here.

15.8. Bristol - see Mark Gilbert's album on flickr. Looks like 40 riders, which is a bit disappointing compared to the Bristol rides of 2015-17.

12.9. Brighton (moved from original date 13.6.)

Own photo taken at the 2024 London WNBR as the ride passed the Victoria Memorial shortly before reaching the endpoint at Wellington Arch. .

My list of the 12 rides I participated in:

2015 Bristol (I'm here)
2016 Bristol (I'm here), London
2017 Bristol (hey that's me), Brighton
2018 London
2019 London
2023 Oxford, London (hey that's me)
2024 London (I'm here and here and here - look for the green flag)
2025 Bristol. Mark Gilbert's album contains quite a few photos of me (look for the green flag). I'm also here and here and here.
2026 Cardiff

Click on the city to see my specific Flickr album of the ride. All albums are combined in this Flickr collection.

on the origins of Femen

Some thoughts on

Oxana
France/Ukraine/Hungary 2025
Charlène Favier

The Ukrainian protest group Femen denounced the tyranny of Putin and Lukashenko long before it was fashionable, but has been widely ignored and belittled in the UK media. Even now, while everybody loves to hate Putin and love the Ukraine, we don't hear much about them. I have occasionally looked up their activities, if only because as a veteran of WNBRs, I have a cultural interest in naked protest activities, but without that, I wouldn't have heard anything about them in the last ten years.

So I was grateful to stumble over this biopic of Femen founder Oksana Shachko (1987-2018) and found it very enlightening in that it taught me a lot about the history of the organisation that I hadn't known.

In a nutshell, Shachko and two friends founded Femen in their home town of Khmelnytsky (western Ukraine) in 2008 to protest against the marketing of Ukraine as a destination for sex tourism. According to the film, a radio competition in New Zealand was about to send a man to Ukraine for a week's worth of free adventures with a local escort of his choice, and Femen's underwear protest succeeded in getting the trip cancelled. A year later, the activists moved to Kyiv and started using bare breasts as their main means of protest - and the space to write their slogans on.

They attempted protests in Belarus and in Russia as well, which led to violent persecution from the KGB. The three founding members fled to Paris to seek asylum there, and found that one of their members, Inna Shevchenko (who had joined the group in Kyiv in 2009), had set up a Femen training camp there and styled herself as the leader of the global Femen movement without consulting the founders (the film seems to suggest). Shachko returned to her career as an artist, combining the aesthetics of orthodox iconography with "blasphemic" content. The film sets glimpses of the last day of her life against flashbacks to her life in Femen.

All in all a very moving and tragic life story, and very timely too, as the issues haven't gone away. Released in Germany on July 24, 2025 (trailer). I don't have much hope for a UK release (therefore added it to the films not shown list), but would watch it again if it happened, if only because I had to put up with the dubbed dialogue in the German version.

Film poster for the release in Germany, X-Verleih.

PS: there's also a documentary with the real Oxana, called "Je suis Femen" (2014). Stop press, just found it on YouTube. This film gives the impression that as of 2014, the three founders were still ok with Inna Shevchenko's role as supreme leader. Separately, she talks about her art (in faltering French) here - and mentions that she left the Femen movement in 2015. This was filmed less than two weeks before she died.

Update 13.8.2025: My first attempt at catching the original version failed - it turned out that the cinema (in Germany) only had French or Ukrainian subtitles for it, and after it started running with the French ones, one of the five spectators complained. I'm sure the rest of us would have been fine, but the cinema insisted on switching to the dubbed version, so I left.

it's the season for naked cycling

The UK's World Naked Bike Ride season kicks off in three weeks time with the Cardiff Ride (aka DiffWNBR), so I'll compile some relevant info here. I typically get the tip-offs from this page but don't find its alphabetical order very helpful, so I am sorting everything in chronological order, as long as it can be reached from Oxford in a day trip using public transport (also including some rides abroad in places where I might be passing through by coincidence). No guarantee, obviously, do check other sources and local info.

As time passes and rides happen, I'll update the list with links to photos, press reports, and whatever I find about them. See also this flickr group covering all 2025 WNBRs globally (in theory - so far I've seen only pics from London and Brussels there).

8.6. Cardiff
14.6. London flickr group
21.6. Brussels - flickr album by Alain VDP
5.7. Brighton - flickr album by trgrimes
6.7. Eastbourne
12.7. Amsterdam
19.7. Portsmouth
27.7. second Cardiff ride
2.8. Cambridge
30.8. Bristol - news story in Bristol 247 - I've uploaded my photos to this flickr album. Mark Gilbert's album contains quite a few photos of me (look for the green flag). I'm also here and here and here.

Own photo taken at the 2024 London WNBR as the ride passed the Victoria Memorial shortly before reaching the endpoint at Wellington Arch. .

My list of rides I participated in:

2015 Bristol (I'm here)
2016 Bristol (I'm here), London
2017 Bristol (hey that's me), Brighton
2018 London
2019 London
2023 Oxford, London (hey that's me)
2024 London (I'm here and here and here - look for the green flag)

Links lead to the specific Flickr albums. All albums are combined in this Flickr collection.

PS Elsewhere, the Fremont Solstice Parade, although not officially a WNBR, appears to have a similar vibe and some spectacular body art. Here's a flickr album with lovely pics from the 2025 event (and another one). I don't know much about it but apparently the ride is just a part of a bigger solstice event happening in Seattle.

it's WNBR season again!

The UK's World Naked Bike Ride season kicks off in two weeks time with the Portsmouth Ride, so I'll compile some relevant info here. I typically get the tip-offs from this page but don't find its alphabetical order very helpful, so I am sorting everything in chronological order, as long as it can be reached from Oxford in a day trip using public transport (also including some rides abroad in places where I might be passing through by coincidence). No guarantee, obviously, do check other sources and local info.

As time passes and rides happen, I'll update the list with links to photos, press reports, and whatever I find about them.

25.5. Portsmouth
2.6. Oxford - the website the ride has been cancelled without explanation, unfortunately.
8.6. London - my photos, more in this Flickr group, see also this album by Dariusz.
9.6. Brighton
15.6. Cambridge; Brussels - photos here and here.
29.6. York
7.7. Bristol
13.7. Amsterdam
14.7. Cardiff
20.7. Portsmouth 2
27.7. Folkestone
3.8. Romford (East London)
24.8. Folkestone 2
25.8. Cardiff 2
September TBC Bristol 2

Own photo taken at last year's London WNBR.

My list of rides I participated in:

2015 Bristol
2016 Bristol, London
2017 Bristol, Brighton
2018 London
2019 London
2023 Oxford, London (hey that's me)
2024 London (I'm here and here and here - look for the green flag)

Links lead to the specific Flickr albums. All albums are combined in this Flickr collection.

it's WNBR season

The UK's World Naked Bike Ride season kicks off this Saturday with the Portsmouth Ride, so I'll compile some relevant info here. I typically get the tip-offs from this page but don't find its alphabetical order very helpful, so I am sorting everything in chronological order, as long as it can be reached from Oxford in a day trip using public transport. As time passes and rides happen, I'll update the list with links to photos, press reports, and whatever I find about them. Updated 3.7.2023

27.5. Portsmouth - haven't seen any pictures yet?
4.6. Oxford - a small ride but perfect weather. My photos are now in this flickr album (most are rated as "moderate" which may mean you have to log in to see them).
10.6. London - it was amazing as always. Perfect weather and I suspect a record number of participants. My gut feeling says it may have been 2000 (1000 would be a normal attendance for the London ride). My flickr album is now complete with 72 photos covering the ride from Regent's Park to Wellington Arch. I also found a photo of me on the ride. These require you to be logged in (although twitter amazingly showed a preview of the latter photo when I shared a link).
11.6. Brighton -
17.6. Cambridge, Bruxelles - some Cambridge pics here; some pics from Brussels here (mostly blokes) here (mostly one woman) The relevant relevant flickr group (all years) is here.
18.6. Bristol - I couldn't attend this time, but here's a press report and here is a huge flickr album by Mark Gilbert
2.7. Hastings
8.7. Cardiff - album by flickr user Dariusz, only started 22.8., am hopeful there will be more!
23.7. Portsmouth (again, after 27.5. looks like they're really planning two rides this summer)
5.8. Romford (East London) - rescheduled to 9.9.
2.9. Coventry (cancelled)

Outside my range, there will be several other rides in Essex and the north of England, check the WNBR Wiki for dates.

own photo, taken at the London WNBR 2019.

Sadly I didn't make it to any of last year's rides, so my list of rides I participated in has a significant gap:

2015 Bristol
2016 Bristol, London
2017 Bristol, Brighton
2018 London
2019 London
2023 Oxford, London

wnbr comeback

World Naked Bike Rides are definitely back to normal this year, as the photos from last weekend's rides at London and Brighton demonstrate (eg here and here). (Some rides may also have happened last year as well, not sure what went ahead and what was cancelled, and in any case I wasn't ready to attend any mass events last summer.) See this blog entry for my pre-Covid WNBR ravings.

So if like me you missed the big rides that have already been and gone (London and Brighton clashed with my travel plans), here's the schedule for the rest of this naked cycling season in the UK and neighbouring countries (once the rides have happened, I'm adding flickr links):

18.6. Edinburgh - Brussels
19.6. Bristol
25.6. Chelmsford
2.7. Portsmouth, Eastbourne - Amsterdam
9.7. Ipswich
16.7. Cardiff, Colchester The DiffWNBR had ideal weather and I was meaning to go, but had committed to play music that day and the timing didn't work. I can't find a flickr group for this one but there are flickr albums here and here.
23.7. Clacton
30.7. Folkestone
6.8. Romford
20.8. Cambridge
27.8. Cork

(I got the dates from here and sorted them chronologically rather than alphabetically, and threw in a few international dates too.)

As the weather forecast looks a bit unpromising this weekend, I'll skip the much-loved Bristol ride. I am speculating that it will be better by the time the Cardiff ride rolls along. In the past, Bristol and Cardiff were often on the same weekend, which is no use, if one has bad weather the other has too, and if not, it's awkward to travel to both. So anyhow, fingers crossed, and here's the lovely poster for Cardiff:

Nicked from their twitter feed. I love their twitter handle @DiffWNBR - it took me years to figure out that they took the Car out of Cardiff. Oh, and the source illustration of their cyclist is here.

Special shoutout for Tony Grimes's amazing album of London 2022, with 200+ pics, many of which are portraits of individual riders. They are also in the group WNBR London 2022.

PS On one ride, I saw a guy who had the dates of his WNBR adventures tattooed on his back (maybe a dozen or so?). I'm not quite as crazy (yet) but here's my modest list of seven rides:

2015 Bristol
2016 Bristol, London
2017 Bristol, Brighton
2018 London
2019 London

I just discovered that Flickr user "Sunny days6" has albums with lots of crowd photos from four of these rides (the London and Brighton ones), so I need to go through and play Where is Wally? Might be tricky to find pics I'm in as I don't even remember what hat I wore on which ride.

At Oxford, there has only been one ride, in 2014, and I only found out about it when it whizzed past me.

I mentioned the WNBRs in my 2016 feature A planet with two billion cars and used one of my photos of the ride - one of the occasions when fun magically turns into research. That two billion figure was an extrapolation made for 2030 - I should probably check up on that some time and write an update. Even if electric vehicles get a lot of press coverage these days, the growth that leads us to two billions will happen in the developing world, and it will comprehensively be fuelled by with diesel.

oxford's black history

Today there is a STEM / academia strike going on in support of Black Lives Matter, and even Nature is supporting it. So I'm not doing any science news today. Instead I'll use this entry to collect some local (and possibly wider academic) issues relating to the matter. Let's see what I can find.


gown

Rhodes Must Fall - the statue at Oriel College has been the focus of attention after the toppling of Colston at Bristol, but there is Rhodes House, the Rhodes scholarships and all that. (Although personally, I am more offended by the building hidden behind Rhodes House, the Vere Harmsworth Library of the Rothermere American Institute. Both were named after an actual fascist and his lovely family clan, and not in a distant past, but in this century.) Here is a comment from an Oriel alumnus.

The Codrington Library at All Souls. Endowed by Christopher Codrington (1668–1710) with the spoils of slave work on sugar plantations in the West Indies. Then again, it's a library accessible to all members of the university, so we don't really want to burn it down. Maybe a shift of collection emphasis could do the trick?

A 2015 campaign to decolonise Oxford's curriculum. Which is where I found out about Codrington. Bit disappointing though, surely there must be many more skeletons in Oxford's closets?


town

The Black Boy in Headington - I discovered this pub and hotel when I was looking for a new pub to hold Galician sessions near the London coach stops, so I specifically looked around Headington. While the Black Boy looks nice from the outside and has a great location, the name put me off so much that I didn't even look inside. This local history page tells me that the niche above the entrance had a sculpture of a black servant until it was destroyed in 1990. Then there was painting of a chimney-sweep to replace it, now the niche is empty and there is an image of a black horse above, in an attempt to pretend the name doesn't mean what everybody understands it to mean. The name is old (documented in 1805) but not the first name this pub had, and the current building only dates from 1937, so history isn't much of an argument for keeping the name.

Update: Oxford Mail reports the owners of the pub will not change the name.


further afield

I hear the De la Beche Society at Imperial College is going to get a new name, considering that the patron, geologist Henry de la Beche (1796-1855) owned slaves in Jamaica. However, I am also told that he "inherited slaves and wealth from plantations yes, but abolished corporal punishment, gave them better working conditions, was criticised by other slave owners, and was not opposed to abolition." I gave a talk at the De la Beche society many years ago (on Life on the Edge), and have to admit that I only remember the name because I was amused by the literal meaning "of the shovel" which was very fitting for a famous geologist.

And Tower Hamlets council have removed the statue of slave trader Robert Milligan that previously stood at West India Quay yesterday, sending Tory imperialists into convulsions ...



Photo: Caitlin Hobbs - via Wikipedia

The empty pedestal of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, the day after protesters felled the statue and rolled it into the harbour. The ground is covered with Black Lives Matter placards.

buy nothing day

I hear that yesterday was Thanksgiving in the US, which means that today there's very little science news in my inbox, which is just as well as I can use today's entry to rave about my favourite holiday of the year, namely


BUY NOTHING DAY

Buying nothing is guaranteed 100% cheaper than everything you might have bought otherwise.

Buy Nothing Day is increasingly observed around the world and in many languages, so we have:

Dia de no comprar res

KAUF-NIX-TAG

Día de no comprar nada

Journée sans achat

Giornata del non acquisto

Niet-Winkeldag

Dia mundial sem compras

День без покупок

(Only including languages that I can read sufficiently to check I'm not promoting the wrong entry. Looks like I'll have to write the Galician entry myself.)

Below are some imaginative examples of promoting and observing this holiday which I discovered during the day. Let's do it all again next year.



source

The Guardian, disappointingly, fuels the black friday hype with a live blog but has also run a couple of opinion pieces warning against consumerism:


Before you jump on the Black Friday sales train ask yourself: do you need this?
Eva Kruse


Mass consumerism is destroying our planet. This Black Friday, let’s take a stand
Alan Bradshaw

I hear Aberdeen Social Centre had a stall with free books to take, bring or swap.

And Extinction Rebellion in New York wheeled empty shopping carts around.

stupid useless vain

as today's global wave of climate demos were held, I happened to be in Düsseldorf. Starting point for the local demo was Corneliusplatz, and I didn't know the way there all that well, so I was really glad that this cyclist overtook me as I was cycling into town:




and I only had to follow her. The demo here was huge - this is what I saw on arrival at Corneliusplatz, clearly more than 10k people:





I've posted these and a few other quick picks from today on flickr, more to follow at a later date.

bare as you dare

I referenced the World Naked Bike Ride in my 2016 feature on A planet with two billion cars, when I called it "possibly the most vocal criticism of car culture today". Since then, thankfully, we have seen a wider spectrum of protests against the continuing dominance of fossil fuels and the vehicles that burn them, including Extinction Rebellion and the school strikes "Fridays for Future".

Still, there's nothing quite like a few hundred naked cyclists to get people's attention for a range of good causes also including cycling safety and body positivity, so it's good to see that the UK rides are still going strong (there are at least 14 happening this year) and Extinction Rebels have joined some of them. In continental Europe, on the other hand, the impetus seems to have ebbed away a bit. In Germany, police and courts have bullied the cyclists into submission to the extent that the one surviving ride in Berlin is now billed as a swimwear ride (Berlin Bikini & Badehose Bicycle Ride), supported by the alternative transport club VCD. The cyclists club ADFC, of which I am a member, seems to be taking the line of ignoring WNBR altogether.

There are around eight other rides surviving in European countries outside the UK - I am still slightly puzzled about why this is a so much bigger phenomenon here than in the rest of Europe.

What has also changed in the last few years is that the last three rides I have been to have encountered far-right demonstrations en route. Am I to conclude that these are now so widespread that you can't cycle around a city on a weekend afternoon without bumping into one? Or are they targeting WNBRs in some way?

At this year's London ride I took this photo of which I am quite proud, which I think of as the WNBR version of Liberty leading the people (complete with an Extinction Rebellion flag):



(this ans 77 other pictures are also in my flickr album)

This year's UK and rest of Europe dates:

1.6. Nottingham
7.6. Manchester - Thessaloniki
8.6. London, Edinburgh, Cardiff - Cork, Madrid
9.6. Bristol, Brighton
15.6. Cambridge - Brussels, Zaragoza
22.6. Chelmsford, York
29.6. Exeter , Folkestone
6.7. Ipswich - Amsterdam
13.7. Colchester
14.7. - Berlin
20.7. Clacton - Helsinki

(see also the global list of rides and check with local organisers)

If you missed one near you, the dates are also a reasonable approximation re. at what time in the season the ride may repeat next year.


Oh and next year's London WNBR (the 17th) has already been announced for Sat 13.6.2020 (TBC). Don't miss.

two billion cars

Earlier this year I stumbled across economists' projections that there will be 2 billion motor vehicles on the roads by 2030. We passed one billion some time around 2010. So the car population will double within 20 years. Maybe the scariest part of this is that those economists seem to think that this is a good thing, and how lovely that people will have to buy fuel for those (because the vast majority will still run on fossil fuels!) and what opportunities that will bring for economic growth.

Well, put that together with the facts that nearly all Diesel cars emit more than they are allowed to, the ongoing scandal of VW's emission test cheating, and that people in cities like London are actually dying prematurely due to this pollution, and the road building that destroys the rest of the natural environment left on this planet, and all that gets me quite angry enough to write a couple of thousand words in a few hours. For comic relief I have thrown in a photo from last year's World Naked Bike Ride - virtually the only visible protest against car culture these days.

My feature is out today:

A planet with two billion cars

Current Biology Volume 26, Issue 8, 25 April 2016, Pages R307–R310

FREE access to full text and PDF download.

People look much nicer without cars (and clothes) - Bristol WNBR 2015

Related materials:

Data from our nearest air quality measuring station are here, nice interface to play around with the results and create graphs ...

The relevant EU standards are here.

A news feature from Nature magazine, June 2016, on pollution in New Delhi.

busking protest

We had great fun last Thursday busking "non-compliantly" to protest against Oxford City Council’s plans to use a new Public Space Protection Orders (PSPO) to attach the threat of large fines and a criminal record to “non-compliant busking” i.e. anything that their staff consider to be in violation of the busking code. Much like the notorious ASBOs (Anti Social Behaviour Orders), the PSPOs are a malicious trick to criminalise behaviours that were previously considered minor misdemeanours. (They also wanted to do the same to criminalise rough sleeping and charge homeless people fines, but the public outcry made them reconsider that part of the plan. NB they're not even the only Labour council to try that.)

The code as such isn’t all that bad. Apart from the much-ridiculed requirement to smile while you're playing (impossible for flautists and other wind players!), I think the ban on CD sales should be removed. It’s been ignored for years, but when the council started to police it last summer, they scared away some of the best busking acts we had, including PerKelt.

Green Party councillors were very supportive and patient listeners. I think the council is still going to debate the changes on June 11, so maybe the Greens can still persuade the Labour majority to fix the problems and withdraw the threat of criminalising harmless musicians?

own picture. A selection of seven pictures appears on my street music blog on tumblr.

 

Further info and updates (newest at the top):

On 11.6., the scheduled decision day, as we held another protest busk, the news broke that a legal intervention from Liberty delivered the same morning had succeeded in persuading the council to think again. Let's hope they arrive at a better conclusion when they're done with it. Oh, and here's a recording of the busking protest orchestra performing "Creep" by Radiohead. I think this was the first attempt, it got better by the third time round.

2.6. The scrutiny committee has unanimously passed the recommendation that the code of conduct should be reviewed before it can be hitched up to the PSPO. However, only 3 (out of 12 or so) members supported a motion to remove non-compliant busking from the PSPO altogether.

ITV coverage broadcast regionally on 29.5.

The next busking protest jam session will be on June 11, meet Cornmarket Street at 3pm.

Scrutiny committee meeting on PSPOs will take place on Tue June 2nd, 6 pm, town hall.

BBC news item with a photo of me tooting my flute

Daily Telegraph coverage - I understand this was on the front page of the paper on the day after our protest.

21.5. event page on facebook

Keep Streets Live

online petition

Paula Cocozza about PSPOs.

oxford alumni divest

In my recent feature on “25 years of climate change failure” I reported among other things the ongoing campaign of Oxford students to persuade the University to divest its massive £ 3.8 billion endowment from all fossil fuel investments.

After deferring the decision in March, the university’s governing body has last Monday chosen a path of the smallest possible action which, with a lot of good will, could be spun as “doing something”. Specifically, the university has asked its money people not to buy any investment in coal or tar sands in the future, as these are the dirtiest kinds of fossil fuels. As I understand it, the university doesn’t hold any such investments at the moment anyway, so it’s not divesting from anything, it’s just promising not to commit any major crimes against our climate in the future. (While they’re sorting out their ethics, maybe they could also pledge not to buy or sell any slaves?)

Nearly 70 Oxford alumni have now protested against this failure to act more decisively by handing back their degrees. The photos below are from a slightly improvised reverse degree ceremony held today outside the University Offices in Wellington Square (proper degree ceremonies are held at the Sheldonian Theatre hence the pun “Shelldonian”). The 59 degrees sent in beforehand were lined up at the start of the event, to which the nine participants added theirs in the course of the ceremony. At the end, the alumni successfully divested from the black stuff, namely the gowns and mortarboards.

Prominent alumni who have pledged to hand their degrees (although I’m not sure if they already have) include environmental campaigner George Monbiot and solar entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett.

All photos my own.

Further reading

Other reports on the university's decision:

Damian Carrington in the Guardian

Miriam Chapman on Fossil Free UK

Similar problems elsewhere:

• Edinburgh

when, where, and why people riot

I've rounded up some experts to explain the science behind the "English riots" that happened in London, Birmingham, Manchester, and some other cities at the beginning of August. Geography, social issues, crowd psychology, network science all have something to say about it, though detailed research, such as the Guardian's collaborative effort with the LSE, Reading the Riots, is only just beginning.

My feature about all this is out in Current Biology today:

Why do people riot?

Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 18, R673-R676, 27 September 2011
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.09.015

FREE access to full text and pdf file

PS: Results of the detailed study of the 2011 riots are published here.

broken britain 2011

"exceptional" fees

both Oxford University and the former polytechnic, Oxford Brookes University have now announced that they will charge tuition fees of £9000 per year, the value introduced by government as an "exceptional" option, while most universities were expected to charge "up to" £6000, i.e. £6000 exactly. Over 30 other universities have also announced the £9k charge (listed here). Even the lowest-ranked university of all has announced a fee of £8450, well clear of what was supposed to be the standard.

Now I do understand that the universities feel they can't carry on without the exceptional fees, seeing the government is pulling the funding rug out underneath their feet. But in my limitless naivete, I would have hoped that instead of rushing to milk the students, the universities might have united in protest and made it clear to the government that they can't do their job of offering education to the people if they aren't getting proper (state) funding for it. I have a dream ...

march for the alternative

metropolitan police are expecting guests next week, I'm sure they are putting the kettle on ...



But seriously, it's important to keep the protests going, this government needs strong opposition, or else it will wreck the country in no time.

PS Speaking of which, welcome back to Science is Vital, the movement against research spending cuts.

fighting education cuts

My news feature about the UK protests against the savage cuts to higher education funding suggested by the government is out in this week's issue of Current Biology:

Fees hike leads to UK student riot pR999
Current Biology, Volume 20, Issue 23, R999-R1000, 7 December 2010
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.11.043

summary and restricted access to pdf file

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who should demonstrate tomorrow?

Vice-chancellors, profs, lecturers, schoolkids, parents, … that’s who.

I don’t really read the right-wing papers, but have heard rumours that they are trying to dismiss the current wave of student protests against education cuts and tuition fees as “self-serving.” Which is of course a blatant lie, as the current students of year 2 and higher will not be affected by the changes, and those who have just started will only be affected in their final year.

The student protest is very much based on the principle that higher education is a public good that serves society as a whole and should therefore be funded by the state and free to those who have a sufficiently large brain to soak it up. The students’ side of the deal, of course, is that they are investing three years of their lives into the improvements of their minds, when they could just go after the money (the schoolgirl with the placard “Fine – I’ll be a stripper” comes to mind here).

Seeing that the government is trying to demolish this fundamental principle of higher education, the professors and lecturers should be first in line to man the barricades. The message the government has for them is that their work is really not in the public interest but only helping the individual customer. Now if I were a vice-chancellor of a UK university, I would have a word or two to say about this presumption. (And I am sure that if the Oxbridge VCs had spoken out on this issue, the world would have taken notice.)

Then, if we have to think materialistic thoughts, the school-children now under 16 will be hit hardest. If they are from below-average earning households, they stand to lose the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), and on top of that have to face the prospect of up to £27k tuition fees (plus the student loan they will need to cover living costs. Those who will be hit hardest may not have started following political events yet, so it’s their parents who should demonstrate on their behalf.

As the old Manics tune said so fittingly: “If you tolerate this, then your children will be next” (and yes I know where the slogan comes from, but that’s how bad the situation is).

So, if people think this through, the students may have some company during tomorrow’s demos.



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Oxford occupied

I visited the Radcliffe Camera today, the historic library building occupied by student protesters since yesterday's demo. Situation looked rather grim, as police aren't letting anyone in, and a represeantative of the university read a statement threatening consequences to the education prospects of the occupants. As if their education wasn't threatened enough already by the government. Also not clear why Oxford University students shouldn't be allowed in their own library (at least during opening hours).

Here are some photos I took today:



A rather fierce looking police cordon sealing off the building.



Communicating with balloons.



A don discussing with students in front of the occupied building.

See protesters' blog with links to other occupation events around the country, and their twitter feed.

According to BBC Radio Oxford the students were evicted from the library around 5pm today, after police managed to get in.

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fight education cuts

We had a nice little demo here at Oxford this afternoon, starting from Carfax tower and culminating in an occupation of the Radcliffe Camera, which has been declared a "public library" by the occupants (see their statement, twitter feed). Clever to occupy a library complete with lots of computers and fast internet access ...

Here are a few pictures I took:






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Meanwhile, events in London are a bit more scary, see Laurie Penny's report.