Oxford: Search and Destroy

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.

which I bet was nice :)

you could eat at the restaurant on top of the ashmolean. it's fairly decent in terms of passable-food-to-overpricedness, as far as oxford goes.

to be fair, pretty much everything in oxford centre is 'near the ashmolean'.

http://www.edamame.co.uk/

http://www.turlstreetkitchen.co.uk/menu/current

i think turl st is the one i'd come closest to recommending wholeheartedly. their coffee is awful, be warned

it was slightly baffling xpost. he talked about his studio in his home - some mansion near Oxford. His wife was v nice, American, and they'd just had a baby, who was with them. but I was only dimly aware of him, so spent much of the time secretly trying to locate who he was and some music I might know.

this sounds ok - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/24/magdalen-arms-oxford-restaurant-review-jay-rayner

but is on the other side of town. (not exactly far tho)

Thanks for the additional choices thomp and Fizzles - that Japanese does look nice, pass these onto friend I'm going with.

May stay @ Ashmolean restaurant - depends on the weather.

The trouble with Edamame is that it is hardly ever open (even when it's supposed to be).

magd. arms was pretty good a couple years ago certainly

there's a good chinese (rated by er giles foden?) and ok korean near the train station, ok, will stop now

i realised i was going bald in the eagle and child

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?

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.