Look inside our cupboards!

As j4 has explained, there was some, ah, miscommunication about the emptying of our new house. Fortunately, we weren't moving in on the day of completion, so I was able to take lots of photographs and we invited the Internet to help us clear up. (In fact, the seller has now removed the larger items from the garden.) The ( Read more... )

We'll soon be moving out of our flat, with fingers crossed, and as it's been such a good place to live we thought we should ask on behalf of our landlady whether anyone was interested in a large, cheap, shabby flat in west Oxford. Details here.

We didn't make it to the bicycle bell concert after our birthday party. Other things I didn't see last week were Dawkins, Death and Dissection - don't get your hopes up, that's two events, not one - and Dr Ben. As hatmandu observed, 'Someone ought to open a university round here!'

But we did have a party, so thank you to all who came. juggzy bought Maltesers to ( Read more... )

Our birthday party is still on for Saturday.

Do bring yourselves; do please take away from our decluttering box some clothes and old books and bike bits and craft stuff...

For those of you who'll be in Oxford on Sunday, we're planning to join the bike bell orchestra (rain permitting).

I took j4 on a badger watch for her birthday.

The University owns ancient woodland at Wytham on the outskirts of Oxford. The woods are intensively studied but they are open to walkers (after obtaining a free permit). They are also open to badgers, and each spring, the public is invited to take part in a badger census.

OX2 8QQ should get you there ( Read more... )

This year's birthday party: our house, Oxford, Saturday 9 May. I can't do better than repeat j4's invitation from last year:When: Tea/cake/faff from 3pm, proper party from party o'clock. [Last year we wrapped up at 2am.]
Where: HERE. If you don't have our address and/or you want directions, email/comment.
RSVP: would be helpful so we know vaguely how ( Read more... )

For many businesses, staff are not only their biggest assets but their biggest liabilities. That's why supermarkets provide self-scan checkouts instead of counter staff; banks offer online service instead of branches; and theatres ask the audience to read the script instead of actors. Wait, what?

On Friday j4 and I went to Etiquette. This is a half- ( Read more... )

[A comment reposted from a locked post elsewhereI am so institutionalised in Oxbridge - first as a student, now as an employee - that I find it hard to look critically at that institution. So the anecdata in your posts and your comments have been extremely interesting ( Read more... )

Note the punctuation: the Westway is the A40 out of London. West Way is a road leaving Oxford; or, from my perspective, leading there ( Read more... )

Truck Festival 11, 19-20 July 2008

After two years of rain at Glastonbury (that is, two occasions on which it rained, when each time it seemed like two years' worth), I decided not to go this time. Instead I went to Truck. It's nearer, just south of Oxford, so I knew I could pack up and leave if the predicted rain got too much; and it's smaller, ( Read more... )