A Film Fuelled Birthday Celebration

 

My birthday is on June the 3^rd and since living in Oxford I have usually celebrated it with my wife by attending a few lectures in the city, a musical gig or two and hearty few pints of real ale. This year there was nothing on: no lectures of interest and no music – the only thing to be relied upon was the beer. Then I clicked on the film section of the local event guide and soon had my day sorted!

First off was a viewing of The Salt Path at our nearest cinema: the Phoenix in Jericho. This was our first outing to an actual cinema to view an actual film for years, and I hated it. Almost an hour of adverts and previews before the film actually started, and the two women next to me were eating, talking and spilling parts of themselves onto my seat, we moved.

Then the film started and I was transported. The big screen, the powerful sound system plus a film based on a true story that I could relate to: a mature couple walking the South West  Coast Path. They were walking to escape from the awful reality of losing their home. I could not of course relate to that, but I had walked part of the path myself some years ago. The film tells a tale of great hardship but has a happy ending. I did smirk at some of the details such as the lightness of their backpacks and choice of camping spots, but that, I suppose, was nit-picking.

After that we had a cup of tea then rushed over to the Beecroft Physics Building on the edge of the University Parks for something called Quantum Apparitions. It began with weird readings by a motley assortment of students/academics accompanied by equally weird sections of film. Then we were given coloured pencils (water soluble) and paper and encouraged to draw the person next to us! That was a great ice-breaker of course. My partner was a hirsute young post-grad from Greece (theoretical study of two-dimensional materials!) with long black locks and matching beard. Our drawings were then doused in water which apparently introduced us all to the concept of uncertainty. Here’s mine!

We rushed uncertainly to the Internet Centre of the University in St Giles to watch a film called Life in Oxford. The title was misleading; in fact we were shown a series of unconnected clips which centred very much on a seemingly shunned or neglected section of the city characterised by colour or poverty. There were interviews with people who originated from other countries who wanted a place of their own where they could celebrate their own culture and more with people who had dropped out of society and were now sadly on the streets.

We left early for a celebratory birthday pint in the Grapes where we met a stranger who was also celebrating his birthday. He wanted to buy us a drink, but we walked on to the Orange and Lemons for another nice pint of the real stuff.

Then up to the James Street Tavern on the Cowley Road, a road which must be one of the most racially diverse in the city. A man at this pub was showing short films, but he spent over an hour getting ready to do so providing an opportunity for more beer and casual conversation. First chat was with a lady from Austria who did not like her home country and had settled in Oxford. She had excellent English but told us that she was studying the language under the man who ran the films. Then a man that I know from the music scene came in. He has an unusual curly moustache and hails from Georgia. He insisted on buying me a birthday pint! Good man.

The short film finally ran. It was a close up, full strength, interview between a fictional female interviewer and someone pretending to be the President of America. Hmmm. The next film was of no interest so we left.

We had a nice tempura meal in Sushi Corner, a Japanese restaurant in the Cowley Road, then wobbled home. That was a really good way to spend my birthday – I was filmed-out by the end of it. I also lost my knapsack containing our umbrellas somewhere along the way. That’s a sign of a good birthday.

Pintless Science

 

I ventured out to the St Aldates Tavern last night for a scientific update! Sounds odd but I have enjoyed Pint of Science sessions over many years now. They are held across the country and apparently in many European countries too.

My first shock was that the session was sponsored by Oxford North, a monstrous ongoing development lining the city’s main trunk road that I have to traverse on my many journeys to the Cotswolds. The second was hardly a shock at all: I was probably the oldest person of the forty or so present.

Anyway, I sat there sipping my pint of Prospect, a rather nice local beer at a rather excessive £6.15, and listened with interest to the hydrogen problem: it leaks. Worse still, because it is such a small atom it works its way between the metallic atoms of pipes and containers and wreaks havoc. They crack up.  The speaker told us of various solutions to the storage and transport of this wonderful fuel of the future, though without a single conclusion.

Then came the break. I was one of the first at the bar for a refill, after all this was a Pint of Science and all of its adverts, plus a little badge they give you on entry, feature a brimming beer mug. I need not have rushed, there was no queue before or after me. By far the majority of the audience were still in the lecture sipping at their first, and presumably only, drink of the two-hour session. They were waiting for the quiz, a science jamboree conducted through mobile phones.

The next session was an interesting one based on the use of ultra-sound. It included the use of sound to transform an injected liquid into a failed vertebra to transform it into a soft cushioning membrane. Also its use in removing plaque from teeth and monitoring the development of a foetus.

Both lectures were lively and used images which were themselves enlivened by embedded videos and animations, a far cry from the slides of my day as a presenter.

Plenty of questions and applause at the end so I rushed to the exit to avoid the inevitable rush to the bar. In fact there was no rush at all, so I took myself off to the Blenheim where the beer is more varied and much cheaper. There I met Richard who told me of his work in a company which supplied very simple diagnostic aids for diabetics. We were of a similar age and naturally our conversation led to the drinking habits of the youth of today and, of course, I told of my Pint of Science experience where the audience were so extremely moderate in their consumption. Of course neither of us  could censure the young for their abstemious ways, but we did think that the title of the event needed modification. Half Pint of Science perhaps?

I love pubs, or at least I did

My last blog focussed on pubs and live music, and thinking about that I feel I have neglected quite a few of my favourite drinking holes, including the Harcourt Arms in Jericho, Oxford, an energetic stones-throw from my flat. We were there just recently on Sunday night when Nigel Brown runs what must be the longest running open-mike night in the city. I reckon that I have been an irregular customer there for at least ten years and have experienced some wonderful musical interludes. Also on other nights of the week where individual bands play to an often-packed audience, so packed that the place sometimes runs out of glasses.

Anyway on that particular Sunday night two acts stood out. One was a young man playing a square bodied instrument somewhere between a guitar and a banjo which he claimed to have made whilst living in the Mississippi Delta. He played, and sang, a wonderfully evocative blues song. The evening ended with a young couple: he playing violin and guitar (not at the same time) and she playing that majestic, and so difficult to transport, instrument: the harp!  

On the way home we happened to meet the landlord of the Harcourt, Ian, who was on his way to another Jericho pub, the Victoria, for a nightcap and invited us along. There he told us the interesting story of how he came by his own pub and he bought us a pint!

There is another pub, the Rose and Crown, even nearer to my flat which also has live music, but the music is not to my taste – jazz. However, the beer is great: four handpumps of real ale one of which is an ever-changing guest: a beer drinker’s perfect combination. And the company is good, hosted by Andrew Hall who is a great raconteur and who’s main job seems to be to entertain his guests and facilitate their mingling. And he too buys me the occasional pint!

I have made videos of both these establishments for my YouTube channel, Robs Oxford and they have vied for viewing numbers. They are mostly neck and neck, but as I write both have passed the one thousand mark.

On top of these, and the many other musical pubs in Oxford, we now have good musical scene at our other base in Stow-on-the-Wold. Here the Talbot has live music at weekends and serves a decent pint of Wadworths. The musicians there do a paid evening session and are mostly excellent – and the atmosphere is near riotous with fervent dancing in a rather limited space, spilled and broken glasses having to be mopped up, and the antics of the drunken jockey who dances as if he is nearing the finishing post in a close race.

But, there is a but. Part of my love of pubs has been to wander into them on my own, buy a pint of real ale and maybe, just maybe, just arbitrarily, get chatting to another drinker hanging around the bar. I have experienced some really interesting and even revelatory conversations that way. Sadly it does not seem to happen much anymore and I am less and less likely to do it. Perhaps it’s my age, or maybe society has changed, or could it be that drinking in a pub has become too expensive (Wetherspoons excepted of course). Whatever, I am venturing out on my own less and less, but still thoroughly enjoying a few pints of the real stuff backed by some live music.

Music and beer, north and south.

 I love live music, well at least most of it, and I also love beer, particularly real ale. And sometimes I get both together. Take a recent Wednesday evening at one of Oxford locals: the Bookbinders Arms. The session is run my Lee Bo, himself a very talented musician and singer and there is always a selection of ales at the pub. The place was pretty well packed by eaters, drinkers and musicians but we managed to squeeze ourselves into a space pretty near to the action.

Regular performers Julie and Mark gave a great performance of two of their own unique combinations of strings, percussion and voice. They had a hard act to follow. Two chirpy young girls of about eight years old gave a giggly but rather nice performance of a couple of songs accompanied by recorded background music. They were great and loudly applauded.  Next, an extraordinary young man called Luke gave his guitar a thorough beating whilst pumping out choice vocals. It was a most unusual performance and musically very exciting. He uses his guitar as a drum whilst striking the strings and sliding the notes. I found it quite thrilling. A group of three young men then gave a great upbeat jazzy number on keyboard, trumpet and guitar. That done the the smiling keyboard player vamped out a number based on an odd but infectious song concerning poisoning pigeons in the park! This was followed by a big man doing a solo on guitar whilst singing, very, very powerfully. He sang two songs that were completely new to me. Riveting. And the beer was good too.

Later that week we travelled up to Wick to visit Margaret’s ailing aunt (they are the same age) and broke the journey at Inverness. We had been there before, predominantly then to take our sons to Loch Ness. This time we arrived so late that the hotel called to say that we would have to let ourselves in – so we took a circuitous route searching for food, beer and music along the way, and we found it all. The place really throbs and is also rather beautiful especially near the River Ness. And yes, there was live music. Quite a few pubs in Church Street advertise it and the one we ended up at, the Highlander, featured a man playing the piano accordion and singing very enthusiastically whilst accompanied by an electric guitar. It was powerful stuff with a good admixture of Scottish folk. The beer however was awfully cold and fizzy. Quite a few of the Inverness pubs had decorative handpumps, but, disappointingly, very few of these actually dispensed real ale.

However, we liked Inverness so much that we spent another night there on our way back. This time we started in the Hootananny where a constantly expanding group of musicians played folk music on a selection of instruments. It seemed very Irish to me, but there are of course strong connections between the Highlands and that island. There we ate Balmoral Chicken, which is chicken breast stuffed with haggis, wrapped in bacon and served with a whisky or peppercorn sauce together with mashed spuds. Great, my sort of food. Again we finished off at the Highlander where there was frantic dancing which included crawling between women’s legs. I was not allowed to do that.