Paul ’Silk' Silcock, landlord of The Gardener’s Arms in Plantation Road, leading by example. The Old Bookbinders is a ‘friendly, nook-and-cranny-filled’, ‘slightly shabby lovable’, ‘good solid Jericho pub’, ‘full of locals, posh students and OUP workers’. (That, at least, is what the reviews in Daily Info used to say.) Its name and its location tell ... CONTINUE READING
Young Conservative, socialist worker, country gentleman, healthy snack, community policing, military intelligence, traffic improvement scheme, banking service … The list of Morris Oxford MOxymorons grows longer by the day. And to its ignoble ranks we were just about to add ‘museum upgrade’. Until … The old Museum of Oxford, founded fifty years ... CONTINUE READING
May Day! May Day! Not a plea for emergency rescue: in Oxford it's a call to revelry and celebration, a summons from on high! As dawn breaks crowds begin to gather, many of them still reeling from the excitations of the previous evening. Their focus is the mighty tower of Magdalen College, with its soaring octagonal turrets and ... CONTINUE READING
John Copcot of The Queen’s College, Oxford, was wandering through Shotover Woods one fifteenth-century day when he heard a strange rustling in the undergrowth. He swung round and was horrified to behold a wild boar hurtling towards him. Armed only with a leatherbound volume of Aristotle (or was it Thucydides? legends vary) the quick-thinking student thrust it into ... CONTINUE READING
Spluttering over a split infinitive? Seething about a semi-colon? Literally reduced to gibbering paroxysms by misuse of the word ‘literally’? … Few debates are as incendiary as those to do with grammar and punctuation. Small wonder that Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (2003) was a book sensation, selling over three million ... CONTINUE READING
‘Good God!’ said Peter, suddenly. He peered with an air of alarm into the dark green water. A string of oily bubbles floated slowly to the surface, showing where the pole had struck a patch of mud; and at the same time their nostrils were assaulted by a loathsome stench of decay. ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘I’ve struck something ... CONTINUE READING
In 2015 the New Bodleian Library reopened to the public after a four year make-over. Redesigned, reshaped, and renamed, it is now known as The Weston Library in honour of its major benefactor. The metamorphosis (by architects Wilkinson Eyre) has been spectacular. In the words of one ecstatic reviewer the dreary ... CONTINUE READING
A year ago, on the centenary of his departure to the great darkroom in the sky, we published a Story in honour of Henry Taunt (1842-1922). Author of richly illustrated guidebooks and publisher of countless picture postcards, he was, without doubt, our city’s most prolific photographer. He also happens to have sported of one of Oxford’s finest ever ... CONTINUE READING
There are certain, special places where the modern world feels very far away. As you pass through the wooden gate into St Margaret’s churchyard, Binsey, the relentless thrum of the ring road seems to recede into the distance, and time starts to slip … For centuries pilgrims have made their slow journey to this sacred spot. Walking it ... CONTINUE READING
It’s always worth reminding oneself of the benefits of a philosophical education. Parson’s Pleasure is a secluded stretch of grass embankment leading down to the River Cherwell at the point, just before you reach the land known as Mesopotamia, where the water curls south and makes for Magdalen Bridge. It was here, boarded off from the public gaze ... CONTINUE READING
