A project completed and a splendid day in Oxford

I have spent a great deal of time lately producing a video on CS Lewis’ Oxford, well in fact its a mini series of three covering his arrival at Oxford, his earlier years as a fellow and tutor and then his later years living at The Kiln. Here’s the link to part one.

I admired Lewis through his books long before I knew anything about him, and I admire him still and would have dearly loved to take a pint or two with him in the watering holes of Oxford.

Finishing a project like that is inevitably anticlimactic, but now the series is done I will return to a writing project that has been neglected for some time.

Meanwhile the entertainment scene in Oxford is good, though I think that the lockdown years have subtly and sometimes drastically changed the pub scene here (four of them are still closed, three belonging to colleges). Nevertheless I had a wonderful day following the launch of my CS Lewis series. A tour in the morning then an afternoon spent in Jericho sitting beside the canal appreciating live music from a tethered barge followed by pie and chips and a few pints in the nearby Victoria. All of that was capped by a wonderful open-mike evening of incredibly varied music at another local pub. If only you could cask a day like that, and tap it when needed.

Rob’s Bookshop moves to Amazon

 Though I’m not writing much nowadays video production continues, as does the amount of guiding. I am soon starting work as a Bodleian Guide (working for the University) which allows access to the beautiful Divinity School, Oxford Uni’s oldest building. That’ll be nice. Not been in there for a few years.

I’ve also just bowed to progress by moving all of my book descriptions onto Amazon rather than doing my own in the robsbookshop website. It had become a pain making changes and most of the info is on Amazon anyway. I’ll keep the website going but mostly point it at Amazon.

On the video front I’ve just passed the 500 subscriber mark for my Rob’s Oxford channel which is great. Only another 500 and I will have reached one of the criteria to be paid by YouTube based on the number of clicks generated! However, you also have to accumulate 10,000 hours of watch time per year as well and I don’t think that I will ever get there. Still it’s creative and the occasional plaudit and the satisfaction of creating videos keeps me going OK.

I’ve just recently launched another one. It’s called Oxford University: top university in the world. It explains how the ratings are done by the Times Higher Education team and gives a glimpse of the most prominent buildings in Oxford. Have a look here.