Oxford: Search and Destroy

Search: Jude the Obscure, and the weird, beautiful graveyard in Jericho.

Destroy: the Zodiac starting and ending all its gigs ridiculously early (some people on the Clinic list were going to come across to see them on Thurs but they probably won't because of that). The way everybody in the music scene just sneers at you if you're plump and big-haired and they think you're not indie enough even if they like Oasis, Placebo and Menswear and think Massive Attack are the future of dance music, but then that's what scenes are all about, I guess, plus this is more a reason to hate myself than anyone else. Groups of French schoolkids taking up the entire pavement and wearing fluorescent anoraks and rucksacks. The university computing course, heh. Prices, especially of accommodation and booze. And really I think all of George St except possibly the Grapes can go now Chalky's and Haagen-Dazs have gone. But mainly the way I don't live near enough any more (see wished destruction of accommodation prices and moans elsewhere about unemployment) and there's no bloody public transport. Grr!

Chris - you say destroy the students and the tourists, fine, but surely we should also destroy all the annoying townies?

I like the funfair.

Were they really in the old First Division 15 years ago? Good grief.

The STUDENTS, on the other hand...

"Zoe Samuel, an undergraduate at New College Oxford, wrote to our letters page recently arguing that student poverty has been 'exaggerated' because students waste vast amounts of money on cigarettes and alcohol. But how much does the Hon Zoe Samuel - as she is properly known - know about hardship? She is, after all, a daughter of Viscount Bearsted and [a] direct descendent of the founder of Shell Oil."

Throw a stick at Broad Street and you will hit a dozen arrogant sanctimonious fools such as the "Honourable" Zoe Samuel. At least they don't wear their hair in dreads and consider themselves "alternative" like the new tall elegant rich kids in Brighton.

Ciao.

What should I do in Oxford/Oxfordshire today?

There are probably only so many times I can walk around Otmoor.

Wittenham Clumps is good for a walk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenham_Clumps

Megalith Hunting at Wayland's Smithy!

(turn right at the White 'oSs)

There was talk recently of doing another rolling psychogeographical ramble on the Upper Thames. Do any of that lot still post/read ILX any more? Mark H, are you around? I can't remember what Johnney B calls himself these days. Dutch Rhubarb Wars? Anyone?

*I* can't remember what Johnney B calls himself these days and he's told me twice in the pub already. Any more times and he'll think I don't listen to him or something.

I've been meaning to sort out a walk from Abingdon south towards Dorchester for some time now (Wallingford might be too much of a trek, I'm not sure). Mrs Genie would be up for this too, I'm sure. This would involve getting the Oxford Tube or train to Oxford then a bus to Abingdon first but these are super mega quick, at least at weekends.

How far is Dorchester from Abingdon? How far is Wallingford? (I've looked on googlemaps but it's hard to tell) I don't think I've walked any of that bit of the river. That seems like it's a hop to Wittenham Clumps from Dorchester, though, which would be good.

Could you meet us at Oxford because you know what I'm like with local busses? Do you have a good map? (Trying to do walks without Ed and his million maps has been, um, problematic.)

Maybe I should just email people who don't post to ILX any more but ugh, herding cats. Really want to do this, though, it's been far too long.

National Trail's a good website for this sorta thing:

<a href="http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/thamespath/downloads.asp?PageId=70";>National Trail</a>

so 13.5 miles from Abingdon to Wallingford but with Dorchester a useful stopping off point for Wittenham Clumps.

I'll have to check to see if my Ordnance Survey map covers that area. Actually *finding* the OS map may be a bit of a problem since we moved house.

I also have something which is like an A-Z of all Oxfordshire, which is useful but somewhat frustrating, as there are pages which have VIRTUALLY NOTHING ON THEM.

E-mailing always good, belt and braces approach. Or e-mailing, ILXing and tweeting, belt, braces and piece of string approach.

oops, where did that semi-colon come from??? whatever....

Blimey, 13 miles might be a bit ambitious. Now I see why you wanted to make Dorchester the destination.

Is there a bus back from Dorchester? And more importantly, is there a pub? I suppose we can just cart a bottle of brandy up the hill and drink on the Clumps.

I don't actually know that I have anyone's current email address any more. Perhaps if we just shout "ASTON TIRROLD!!!" 3 times aloud Johnney B will reappear.

(Or perhaps we should start a new "Rolling Psychogeographical Walking" thread for ppl who don't care if Oxford is classic or dud.)

(revived for the weekend)

Any one recommend any walks within an hour's travel of Oxford/Kidlington?

was peppers burgers once an entirely different phenomenon or what

It's changed hands at least once since this thread started. I went a few years ago when it had just reopened with new management (there was a tick-with-biro poll on the wall about whether to keep selling burgers or to do kebabs instead) and it was distinctly lacklustre so I've never been back, but I think it's changed hands again since.

I'm going to guess it's not what it was, but what it was was from a different time before meatwagons and the rehabilitation of the burger anyway.

Someone told me the new Byron's burger place on George St was good but I haven't got round to it yet and am additionally suspicious because a) it's on George St and b) there's a p. huge student discount, but I'm not a student

(looks upthread, winces, scrolls back down, never speaks of it again)

Any one recommend any walks within an hour's travel of Oxford/Kidlington?

You can get a fair distance in an hour! But how about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenham_Clumps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernwood_Forest

(Just places I used to as a kid, too young and too long ago to remember details of actual walks)

places I used to go. Or get taken to, rather.

Thanks Dog the Puffin Hunter.

I ended up on a circular walk from Icomb (which I suspect is just in Gloucestershire rather than Oxfordshire).

Bernwood Forest looks intriguing.

Where should we go within 90 minutes of Oxford, in the next three days, that won't be flooded?

Otmoor supposed to be good for starlings/murmuration at the moment - apparently from 1530 onwards.

Oh yeah, I definitely want to see that someday.

They may have gone ... we saw an owl though.

The in-laws want to stay in a hotel for their anniversary treat.

Due to their not great health, it would be ideal if it was some where with downstairs rooms and within about 20 minutes of North Oxford (so we can take them out in the day).

Any suggestions?

No mention in this thread of the Oxford comma?

I always thought this hotel looked nice... http://www.bathplace.co.uk

At least from the outside anyhow - I've never actually been in. It's on a lovely street though.

Plus it has ground floor rooms and is in the right end of town for your requirements.

Thanks Barnaby.

yeah i have a friend who puts her parents there, it's supposed to be really nice and cute

Or anywhere between, say, Summertown and Woodstock?

Sorry in advance for repeatedly hijacking threads with holiday requests.

A slight change of plan to the above: we're looking for a weekend break for the in-laws. They are suggesting the Cotswolds. Due to their health, they'd need a downstairs room. In an ideal world, they would enjoy evening entertainment of the Sinatra-impersonator type but that isn't essential. Ideas on places to stay and place to visit (given mobility is an issue) would be appreciated.

Anyone?

the cotswolds are a mystery

Anyone walked the Oxford Canal north of Banbury? Trying to work out where is manageable to walk to to fit with public transport.

I can't believe it's been two whole years since the last Oxford walk. We didn't even climb the lumps, we just shuffled quickly past them in the dusk on the way to find a bus.

Any nice places to ear near The Ashmolean?

http://www.ashmolean.org/

xyzzzz__ if you like Italian why not try Strada in Little Clarendon Street? A short walk from the Ashmolean, up the other end of St. Giles. Was there a week ago for lunch, it was great:

<a href="http://www.strada.co.uk/italian-restaurant/oxford";>http://www.strada.co.uk/italian-restaurant/oxford<;/a>

for traditional pub fare, there's always the Eagle and Child, in St Giles itself.

Are you going to the Cezanne exhibition?

I used to work at the Eagle & Child.

Hi Grandpoint - yes I am. Eagle & Child looks ok.

I met Stevie Winwood and his wife in there once.

Right then, what should I do in Oxford(shire) tomorrow?

lol http://www.mrporter.com/mens/designers/iffley_road

Repeated ahead of the bank holiday weekend:

"Where should we go within 90 minutes of Oxford, in the next three days, that won't be flooded?"

The starlings are incredible at Otmoor, at the moment. I reckon you need to be by the hide/reed beds by 1500.

What would someone standing on the Water Eaton Park & Ride bridge, over the A34, be hoping to see? They were there, with binoculars, for at least four hours today.

weird wide loads being delivered to didcot?

Seems the most likely answer.

Anyone care about the proposed erosion of Green Belt around Oxford?

i am pretty much pro housing development all the time, anywhere anyone wants to. and the university has serious medium/long term problems if it's not allowed to develop out or up. but i haven't lived in oxford for years so would be interested to hear what's new.

http://www.cpreoxon.org.uk/news/item/2581-consultation-on-cherwell-local-plan-part-1-have-your-say

you don't think it's important to keep some green spaces in cities?

xp

There's always the traditional plan of just bunging another 20,000 houses in Bicester and hoping for the best, of course.

imo you can't have a green belt the diameter of oxford's and such a low limit on building height without it become a sclerotic tourist trap where only students and the fabulously wealthy live. green belt or height limit: POO.

the limitation on building height is a bit crazy -- the tallest building in Oxford is the spire of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin at 55 metres, completed 1641! Next up are the two residential tower blocks in Blackbird Leys, both at 48 metres, completed 1962. If it was OK to build tall buildings in the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, then why not today? It's a nonsense.

There's always the traditional plan of just bunging another 20,000 houses in Bicester and hoping for the best, of course.

- I imagine that within two decades Oxford will just meet Bicester except perhaps broken by the Oxford-Cambridge road link (I haven't been able to work out the imagined/proposed route for this).

Bicester is currently nipping at Chesterton's ankles, so I can see that.

(on my annual visit home and seeing what's changed)

Any suggestions for good things to do in Oxfordshire on ... well, tomorrow?

That's a vague question, I know.

Or any weekend, for that matter?

I occasionally swim in the Thames in Oxford, at the midpoint(ish) between the Trout and the Perch pubs, from the opposite bank to Port Meadow. Are there nicer bits? I'm wondering if there's anywhere slightly north of the Trout??

No help here, though we did swim a very short walk north of the perch last summer. As children we used to swim virtually right in the middle of town, by the old railway bridge south of the ice rink - can't imagine anyone doing that now.

i swam in the river at the bottom of port meadow on the way to the perch. also probably not a good idea in 2018.

Ta.

Why so, Caek?

river traffic is up i think and that's already a very slow bit of the thames, so i'm assuming there's more diesel in the water? but maybe its fine!

new westgate centre: classic or dud? i'm no lover of shopping centres - stratford westfield is my idea of hell on earth - but i don't hate the new westgate. maybe it's because i visited in summer and got to appreciate the light and the views over the town, maybe it was the appealing mystery of trying to figure out how it fitted into the old westgate (visiting for the first time from the south entrance, one level below the old westgate and through what was the no-mans land of the multi storey car park, was very confusing). or maybe it's just an improvement on the extension of the centre that has appeared remarkably consistently in recurring dreams of mine over many years, a long wide dark tunnel, largely empty and somewhat ominous, stretching out over the oxpens road.

Westgate: I sort of ... can't be bothered with it.

well fair enough it is just a shopping centre. I'm probably a wee bit more interested because it's not so far from my parents/my old house & route into town, and it is at least an improvement on a car park.

I could see how it would be interesting in a "route into town" sort of way. It doesn't suit me as it has pulled stuff away from my route to/from work and, I suppose, the feel of it isn't very me.

I have a table at the Oxford Guild of Printers Wayzgoose at the Headington campus of Oxford Brookes this coming Saturday, if any of you fancy coming to say hello:

https://www.wayzgoose.info/events/oxford-guild-of-printers-wayzgoose/

There will be quite a lot of very brilliant printed matter on display, also a table with me sitting behind it (I'm "The Half Pint Press").

Couldn't decide on a better thread to ask this but any idea how long Covid-19 tests are taking in Oxfordshire, specifically the Oxford Parkway site?

Gah! 5+ days, seemingly ...

anyone here from oxford & environs, what do *you* call the M40 cutting on the way to london officially known as the "Aston Rowant Cutting, also known as the Stokenchurch Gap or Aston Hill cutting"?

this: https://goo.gl/maps/9wAaamF8GKA23j456

"The Cut" is what we called it (I'm originally from Bicester)

What I really want to know is, does anyone call it chicken shit canyon, or similar? Supposedly because they sprayed the sides with the stuff to help grass grow and stabilise it. Don't know where I picked up the name from, I remember a teacher calling it chicken muck pass, not sure if he was bowdlerising it for our benefit. This information isn't on Wikipedia, I feel it needs to be saved for posterity but there are only a handful of references on the web in a couple of random forums.

morning bump for this crucial investigation.

Any recommendations for Oxford(shire) Brutalist/Modernist buildings?

I've had the slightly wine-fuelled idea that I should compile myself a tour.

St. Catherine's College, the Denys Wilkinson Building, the Garden building at St. Hildas, the Florey Building, the Margery Fry House for a start?

DWB is a banger

wolfson college too?

Maybe a little recent for you but the Bishop Edward King Chapel, Ripon College (in Cuddeston, just outside Oxford) is somewhere I’d like to visit.

St Cross building?

Wadham college library?

Not brutalist but tooling around in google maps I just noticed the Blavatnik School of Government building next to Freud on Walton St which is pretty neat and passed me by (unsurprisingly as I haven't lived in oxford for over twenty years).

There was a time (when I first moved to Oxford) when I thought Frevd's was a place of wonder. And then it suddenly seemed to be a waste of an amazing space. Haven't been for years, so don't know how it is currently being used. I guess it is airy?

I was never 'cool' or clued in enough to go there much at all, glad it's still there though.

This looks good for mooching:

https://bluecrowmedia.com/products/modern-oxford-map

looks good, I bet there are some hidden gems. the monstrously mysterious denys wilkson building may have been a formative influence on my penchant for brutalism, along with the nazi fortifications in guernsey, where we often holidayed.

I was disappointed to find out (online, not in person) that the nosebag had closed. is georgina's in the covered market still open? google says yes but no reference on the covered market website.

Did my PhD in the DWB. sat at the top of the tower for the last year.

was it a phd in opening a dark portal to the non euclidean realm of the elder gods?

I was disappointed to find out (online, not in person) that the nosebag had closed. is georgina's in the covered market still open? google says yes but no reference on the covered market website.

Was never a fan of the Nosebag and didn't mourn its passing.

Georgina's is still there, although the character of the Covered Market is very different now, ledge. There are two pop-up pubs now, for example.

Oxford Cheese Company is my main reason to visit it these days.

It's great that the Grapes is back open on George Street, complete with 3D bunch of grapes sign. Too bad they've taken away the wooden divides, but they now have a turntable and a stack of records which you can leaf through and ask them to play.

was it a phd in opening a dark portal to the non euclidean realm of the elder gods?

x-post - the Covered Market is a curious thing. Like, there's a wine shop (an off-shoot of Eynsham Wine Cellars) and a pizza place side-by-side, with shared tables and a seeming agreement that you'd probably buy from both ... but it doesn't quite work with the utter grimness of the nearest toilets.