Tag Archives: Oxford

It is only this kind of thing that will save us all

Here’s a serendipitous picture of Parliament I found on my camera

I DON’T KNOW how this media stuff works. All I did was light a fag and take a picture of the Palace of Westminster. I understand you can smoke legally inside the Palace of Westminister, in prisons, but not in prisms, and in submarines…

Oxford Mail puts toilets on the map

THE OXFORD MAIL which I’ve started to read because I live here in the watery city, has been running some really great stuff about Oxford City Council. Forget Kate Middleton, she is a never was.

It is all about toilets. According to this report on the OxMail, people flock to have a wee in Oxford from around the world. John Tanner said: “It is an international toilet,” he added. “People come from all over the world to use the Gloucester Green toilets and I think they look a bit dreary.” We dunno if Kate Middleton used the bogs on Monday when she visited a school here in Ox, but, somehow, we doubt it.

This produced some lovely responses from locals, according to today’s OxMail (42 pence, well worth it). Oxford is going to spend millions on the bogs and no doubt people desperate for a wee will welcome the fact that the current bogs shut at 9PM, sharp. And stink. ♣

Oxfordshire traffic managers get their own hut

I NOTICED at the beginning of last week that two geezers attired in orange tops and dubbed “traffic managers” had set up shop outside Mick’s Café and the YHA at the end of my road.

What were they doing, I wondered? They just seem to stand around doing not very much at all and presumably getting paid for it.

The weather got a bit cold last week so I was amused to see that the guys – two of them, had been supplied with a garden shed (pictured) – but it is still entirely unclear what they do.

I picked up a copy of the daily Oxford Mail yesterday – it had the alarming splash that cyclists had lashed out against plans for Frideswide Square – “It will be a death trap”.

I asked a few local residents what the function of these two traffic managers and their hut was.  We’re all a bit puzzled. We think that they’re there to arrest cyclists for not having lights and that.  We’ll put in a freedom of information request. (Dhera Dun, Ed.)

Meanwhile, plans to build a three storey atrocity at the bottom of our gardens get appealed at Oxford Town Hall on March 7th at 9:30AM. We’ve seen workmen attired in radiation suits stalking around at the bottom of our garden in the last few weeks.  Unfortunately, we’ll be at SnowBIT (CeBIT) – bit of an inconvenient time for working people, we’d suggest…  maybe the traffic managers will tip up. We are sure that the winsome Nicola Blackwood, our very fragrant Tory MP, will make her representations and defend the residents from voracious developers. Sure as eggs is eggs, one of our two councillors is up for re-election this year. ♥

The robin is first

the robin is first.
It makes way for the waves of dunnocks, of blue tits and sparrows and
finches of every hue.
The harlequins are dying
Like pebbles washed onto a foreign shore
The precursors of spring, the waves of birds and butterflies and bees
The waves that wash against this island in Oxford.
The waxwing that dashed itself to death against my window
The nuthatch, the firebrand, the waves of birds,
The geese that fly low, the berries that burst, the apples
Apples saving the blackbirds, the wren, the sacred wren
The nuthatch, shy of publicity and PR
The colin cook that shows up, from time to time to time;
The wheel of time, the kalachakra, the revolving of the seasons;
The Kite, the wheel, the sun and the moon and the sacred stars,
Marooned on my little island in Oxford,
The wheel turns, the apples fall, the dusty dons arise.

 

Truly, awareness without attributes is Kameshvara