Oxford’s Billionaire’s Borough: Where the uber-rich endow and the University enlarges

Hello there. I’ve just launched a new video on my RobsOxford YouTube channel. This ones about a part of Oxford that has seen a hell of a lot of change by the University over recent years and here’s the link and below is the blurb and, thumbnail that goes along with it. Have a look.

Sitting between the Woodstock Road and Jericho’s Walton Street, Billionaires Borough is an exciting area in Oxford where new buildings grow and the dollars and pounds flow. This video takes a quick look at what's going on in this location where many rich men have dug deep to pay for an Oxford University building bearing their name.

The video begins with John Radcliffe, who set the ball rolling, and ends, with Ratan Tan. Along  the way it touches on Landon Clay, Leonard Blavatnik and Stephen Shwartzman: all rich men, all contributors to Billionaire’s Borough. It may make you curious as to their motives, and it will indicate where the riches they have endowed originated.

In the video you will see massive changes taking place as an old hospital is transformed into a very  modern university research and teaching centre specialising in Humanities, Mathematics and Government, much of it underground.

Finally the video speculates on the future of the remaining parts of Billionaire’s Borough. Are other rich persons waiting in the wings or is the Borough complete?

Upton downtown blues

Years ago we made a couple of annual visits to the Upton-on-Severn blues festival. It was great, no central stage but there were blues musicians performing in most of the pubs. There was no entrance charge, though you, of course, were expected to drink and eat in those pubs. There was just a simple list of what was on where and when. Also a good-sized car park with no restrictions on overnight sleeping in a motorcaravan, which we did. One of the groups was really excellent so, of course, we all cheered and cheered  and cried for more. The female lead singer took the microphone and said “Sorry, we don’t know any more songs, we only got together at the beginning of the week.”

After a long respite we decided to revisit Upton, and it had fundamentally changed. It was still ‘free’, but cost £95 per person to stay in the official parking area which had a stage.

We wanted the pubs not the stage so arrived on spec on the Friday. The camping site was absolutely huge and littered with closely packed vehicles. We drove on, as planned, to a public car park where we expected to stay for the night. It too was absolutely jam packed, unbearably so.

Fortunately I had a back plan. We drove on to Ledbury, a rather lovely town graced with its stunning black and white Market House on stilts and its impressive Feathers Hotel, also black and white. I knew the town quite well having shone shoes there during my adventures as a shiner. We parked, had a wander around then dined in the Feathers which was quite swish. On my previous visit the manager did not allow me to offer my shoe shining service. He said that his guests would not like that! This time I was a guest and really appreciated the ale brewed in the town itself, and the meal - I was allowed to select three sides rather than having a main meal.

Afterwards we strolled around the corner to the Talbot where, in the large open-air courtyard, a local group played live music to an interesting looking crowd of locals who smoked pipes and roll ups. We had found our place in Ledbury, crowded Upton was not for us.

A little tour of South Wales and a literary scam

 

Took a trip to Wales recently to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We first went to Tenby which was great, though wet. We had a wonderful anniversary evening there in the Five Arches pub, where a talented singer/guitarist called Simon Grey played all evening and was excellent. After the third return to the stage prompted by enthusiastic calls for more, he shouted back “I can play all night if you want.”  We did want, but the pub’s management did not.

Then off to St Davids, the UK’s smallest city. Just two thousand residents yet with a cathedral large enough and imposing enough to grace a city of many thousands, it is the exemplar for the recently bygone definition of a city – having a cathedral.

Then to Crickhowell, a lovely village nestling in the Brecon Beacons. It was there that I received an astounding message from a very well-known publisher stating, much to my surprise, that they wanted to publish my latest book: Rolling Stones in Spain: Solo Loco. Crikey.

Unfortunately. this turned out to be a scam. Go to robsbookshop.com and click on Book Publishing Scam for the exciting email interchange in which I scammed the scammers.

A ghostly experience

New video: a ghost story!

Thought I would try this for a change on my Youtube channel – Robs Oxford. I took one of the stories from my book Haunted Oxford and made it into a ‘creepy’ video.

 It’s called: The Digger of Jesus College, and the outline is below. Have a look, let me know what you think. I may go on to videofy some of the other stories from that book.

 

In this video the author relates a ghostly tale from his book Haunted Oxford. The tale originates with  the wife of a Principal of Jesus college who, one dark night, observes from her window a strange and  oddly dressed  figure digging holes in the Principal’s garden! Incredibly, when they rise from their bed the next day, there are no holes to be found! She investigates and discovers a gruesome reason for the haunting which reaches all the way back to the 17^th century and the era of the Civil War during which Oxford was the Royalist Capital of England. Furthermore she determines why the digger of Jesus College will never find the corpse that he is seeking.

Spain 2026: Drawn by drums, an Easter trip to La Fresneda and more

I love to witness drumming and our village in Spain is a great place for it. This time we flew over, then took a bus from Reus airport to the Catalan city of Tarragona – famous for its human towers and more. We had a hotel very near to the Mediterranean coast, the sun was shining, and just around the corner lay the superlative Roman amphitheatre. What’s not to like? Graffiti, that’s what. Every spare vertical surface was covered in the stuff.

We were also near the old quarter which has at its centre a marvellous cathedral with that rare, but to my mind excellent, combination of both gothic and classical architecture, plus a sun filled  cloister with orange trees and the ripe fruit hanging from them.

On our second night we were making our way to the old quarter to drink and eat when Margaret stopped me and said, “Something’s going on”. And it was. The streets were free of traffic and people were lining up along the pavements. Then I heard it: drumming. This was an unexpected surprise and I was soon overwhelmed by the repetitive drum rolls and the sight of the everlasting parade of men, women and children dressed as soldiers, plus others seemingly dressed like members of the Ku Klux clan in black or white robes and hoods. There were also many troops of drummers, plus the wonderfully large religious displays carried by many men, some labouring beneath their heavy loads: you could just about see their feet! All wonderful and a complete surprise.

We travelled to our own village on a series of buses and over seriously impressive mountains, finally slogging up the steep hill to our house in La Fresneda. It was cold, so cold. But I found some firewood stored in the garage and soon got a blizzy going in our open fireplace Then, once again we heard drums. The local troop were practising for what we call Good Friday outside the church above us.

The following day the whole village including returning locals and visitors crowded into our imposing plaza (square) at a little before noon. Then the drummers entered and formed a large circle. There were about 70 of them all dressed in shiny black smocks and toting a whole mixture of drum sizes from huge ones that took a strong man to bear, to tiny ones carried by little children. The leader stood as if frozen in the centre with his sticks raised and, at exactly noon, he gave a signal and the sticks and cudgels crashed down onto the drums. The “hour was broken”. Thrilling is not a strong enough word for the emotion that I felt as they continue their drum rolls and the tears coursed down my face. They then began to parade this way and that under the command of the leader's raised sticks The whole performance lasted about an hour.

But this was not the end of the drumming, they were at it again in the evening parading down Santa Aguada, the street in which we live. We could look down on them from our lounge window and watch the vicar singing some hymns accompanied by his little choir of village women: he garbed in red, they in white.

There was more, much more. During the weekend the streets were filled with stalls selling antiques and such and here there was a smaller, more exotic, drum troop touring through the village creating a wholly different set of rolls and trills. They were wonderful too.

Then it was Monday and our village became our own again, the masses had departed and the drums were tucked away until the next Semana Santa. I walked down to our huerto and began attacking the brambles and energetic fig trees that believe the place is theirs. We managed to plant another tree, a Kaki, to add to our beleaguered orchard and I got my irrigation system working to help the trees through the hot arid summer.

A great trip, but soon over. We do love our village and do feel part of it in some distant way. By the way this little account is just a precis of the notes that I write whilst I am over there. Scribble, scribble, scribble.

 

My most successful book ever.

 Though I enjoy writing books, I can in no way claim to be a financially successful author. If I and my family had been dependent on my income from the twenty or so books I have written so far then impoverishment would have been inevitable. In my writing I have dabbled in fiction and non, technology and travel, children’s and adult, fact and fantasy, autobiography and more. However, only two of my books have been truly financially successful, and that mostly indirectly. What is more, it is from those two books that AI, or rather the abuse of AI, is now promising me even more money!

I wrote the very first book to be published on Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) back in 1993 and followed that up with the grippingly entitled Computer Telephony Integration a few years later. Note the ‘Telephony’ in the second title, it was important at the time. Those books had respectable price tags so I did make a bit of money from their publication and yet more from the enhanced profile they gave me as a consultant, conference speaker, etc in the CTI world.

That income died away, of course. But then, quite unexpectedly, I had a call from a New York  law firm (I was in a pub at the time and remember it well). The lawyers were acting for clients making use of CTI and they were being chased by companies claiming they had patents on the technology and demanding royalties for the use of it! My first book predated those patents and thus could be used to nullify the royalty claims. The lawyers paid me quite well for preparing reports on the early days of the technology and suggested that I might appear in court as an expert witness at the proceeding, something that I quite relished. However, I believe the dispute  didn’t ever go to court for whatever reasons. The lawyers paid me twice for my last report and, though I queried this apparent act of generosity, I didn’t hear from them again. I did not have my day in court, but I did appreciate the fees that they paid me.

Now, CTI has come back to kiss me again, and this time it’s all about AI. Artificial intelligence was not suddenly created, it, like us, had to learn. We learn from experience, from our parents, schooling, reading, and more. AI learns by stealing information from books  as well as other sources and, in the case of Anthropic, they did not pay for access to those books. This is wrong. A recent court case (Bartz v Anthropic) has confirmed that and has published a list of books that were utilised in the training of Anthropic’s AI: and my two CTI books are amongst them! Apparently, the settlement provides for $3,000 per work, less costs, so I am now awaiting my check, or, as we would say, my cheque.

Lucky me. I do wish that some of my other books had gained sufficient royalties for me to repeat that financial success, but it’s not all about the money you know. What we little known authors really want is to be read. Read, that is, by people not just AI information leeches.

 

 

Rolling Stones in Spain: Solo Loco

The title has no connection with the famous music group, but I did get a lot of ‘satisfaction’ from  transforming an old stone hut (called a caseta) into a liveable space near our Spanish village. Hence, I wanted to share what was a challenging and fascinating experience for Margaret and myself by creating a short video which compresses five years of hard graft into fifteen-minutes. That took some doing, but it’s now available on YouTube and friends who saw the rough cut really liked it. I truly hope that you will watch and enjoy  and pass it on.

The release coincides with the launch of the second edition of my book of the same name. Yes, Rolling Stones in Spain: Solo Loco is now available in these formats: Paperback, eBook and Audio

I’m really hoping that this video will stimulate interest in the book which, in addition to the building work, encompasses the human side of this crazy venture. Many in our village helped with advice and encouragement whilst  welcoming us into the social traditions of the community. And that’s not to forget the help freely given by a number of expats living thereabouts.

Have a look at the video, it might persuade you to buy the book , and if you enjoy it do a review. I need reviews!! Here's the video link again.

https://youtu.be/6QSEwMoDzs0

 

I’m finally a yesterday’s man

Many years ago at the tender age of sixteen I began work as an apprentice telephone engineer. I started on “poles and ‘oles”, which meant learning about the business of connecting the telephone in people’s houses to the telephone exchange. There calls were steered to their destination at the touch of a dial. It was all very physical in those days, but much has changed. I was part of that change as were thousands of workers throughout the UK and the world.

Just today, as I write this, the final nail (copper I hope) has been nailed into my career coffin.  I have gone over: I have a new router and have plugged our two old fashioned analogue telephones into a little thing moulded onto a conventional electricity plug. Henceforth my calls, the few that I do not make or take on my mobile, will be carried across the Internet in packets.

I have many tales about my early experiences during those long-forgotten bygone days, but they will be safely lodged in the growing list of word files that I have titled ‘Remember Me’ and I will someday bequeath to my offspring. They will know what to do with them.

So, very briefly, I have enjoyed the journey from clunky old electromechanical switches carrying analogue telephone calls, through to the miniature chip-based switches carrying digital calls. After that came the integration of telephony and computing and, believe it or not, I wrote the first book on that, yes, and the only song! I then ploughed my furrow through the introduction of the new mobile telephone system that could carry goodly quantities of data as well as voice and  finished up by writing a book about the beautiful film star Heddy Lamarr who is sometimes claimed as its inventor.

Tiring of treading down the upward escalator of technology I switched and became an Oxford tour guide and an author of books on many different things, anything but technology. Along the way a marketing-oriented friend once asked me why I didn’t write books that people wanted to read. Dumbfounded, I did not reply just then.

Whoops, sorry, got to finish here, my analogue telephone connected to the lump on an electrical plug is ringing. Maybe this is the call from the Internet that will provide me with the answer.

The warmth of a Spanish village

What do people think when I let slip that we have a place in Spain? Sun, sea, villas, sangria and tapas perhaps. However, an overriding feeling that comes to mind when I am in our village (which is nowhere near the sea) is warmth. Not of the climate, which is quite variable and sometimes vicious, no not that: I mean the warmth of the people.

Well, our village of La Fresneda is small so that could account for the residents open friendliness, something you could hardly expect in a city. However, we often overnight in villages on our travels and reactions to the presence of strangers such as ourselves can range between outright suspicion, wariness, ignorance and just the occasional friendliness. In La Fresneda it is the norm to warmly greet a passing stranger. The locals even tolerate the crowds of Spanish visitors that teem out of coaches below, then struggle up the steep hill on their way to the church and tiny ruined castle. Those visitors usually pass our house along the way and some of them pull the cord that rings the bell in the shrine to Santa Agueda just outside our main windows. I have plans for that cord.

Of course, having visited regularly for 25 years and despite my declining ability to speak or understand Spanish and their inclination to converse in their own local language, we do know quite a few people by sight and association. On this trip “the man who looks like his dad” was surprisingly friendly, even inviting me to steal beer from the tap whilst Vincente, the bar owner, was busy in the kitchen. By the way that man’s dad passed away some time ago so we are thinking of renaming him.

Margaret has a much better memory and much greater interest in the reproductive side of the place than me. She can identify adults who were toddlers when we first came and seems to know their lineage. This time our grandson and his very nice girlfriend came to stay and we dined in the wonderful Mataranya Restaurant: wonderful both in its architecture and décor plus its unusual menu which owes a lot to the fruits of local hunting. I had jabali which is wild boar. The original owners and waiters were still there, and we regard them as friends, and they now employ their sons as servers and probably future inheritors. Many years ago during the village fiesta, one of those sons was the guilty party in inducing our then fourteen-year-old grandson to imbibe some “special water” thus sending him home to us quite drunk.

On this trip we visited many French and Spanish villages on our way to and from our own, but none so warm and welcoming as ours. That aside the main memory of the two thousand plus mile trip was the colours.

October is a great month for autumnal forest glory, and we observed the most outstanding greens, browns, yellows, orange and reds was as we crossed the Pyrenees on our return journey. Stunning, though the photos barely portray what we saw.

“Pubs aren’t only about food, you know.”

 

Did you know that? It is a quote from a visitor’s review of a ‘pub’ that’s not that far from my Cotswold home, though not too near, thank the stars. I am hardly likely to go to a pub started by a rather mouthy media personality who was sacked by the BBC for thumping the producer of Top Gear. However, dogs are welcomed there, I gather. The following picture of a pub sign is not from that pub, but I like it and the Two Fat Blokes kindly gave me their permission to use it here. You can find more of their excellent signs at https://twofb.com/.

Now, I really thought I knew what a pub was, after all I have spent a significant proportion of my adult and teenage life in them. Why, I even came quite close to running one once, and both my wife, Margaret, and I have served behind bars. Ha!

But perhaps I’ve got pubs all wrong, so I looked up the definition in that source of all knowledge: Wikipedia. And this is it:

A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises.

Hmm, so perhaps the reviewer is correct and pubs are not all about food. Following that the Wikipedia article quotes from CAMRA, an arcane organisation that started in the 1970’s and which should know a little about the pubs of today. It states that a pub has four characteristics:

• ·        is open to the public without membership or residency
• ·        serves draught beer or cider without requiring food be consumed
• ·        has at least one indoor area not laid out for meals
• ·        allows drinks to be bought at a bar (i.e., not only table service)

I would add this to that last point …and perhaps consumed there whilst chatting to the bar staff, other customers, and anyone else willing to indulge in alcohol-infused conversation.

Often when I am in non alcohol-infused company the conversation turns to pubs and I listen to these interchanges very carefully. The basic format is something along these lines:

“Have you been to the Loyal Oak at Aylesbury?”

“No, what’s it like. Is the food any good?”

“Its really nice, the chairs are comfortable and the service is good.”

“And the food?”

“Excellent, they have a famous chef there now, you know that chap who comes on the telly talking about grilling acorns.”

Then someone (me) intrudes on the conversation by asking:

“What about the beer? Do they have handpumps? Did they have a guest ale or are they tied to a brewery? Are dogs allowed?”

They both look at me shocked and, after a puzzled silence, the person who had been to the Loyal Oak in Aylesbury replies:

“Well, I don’t really know. We don’t drink much – driving you know. Just a glass of red or white with the meal perhaps. Oh, and we don’t have a dog.”

It is odd to recall that most pubs did not serve food in the past - bag of crisps or a pork pie if you were lucky. Eating out for most people was a rarity and took place in a restaurant or a hotel or a café often for birthdays or a wedding anniversary.

When we first moved to the Cotswolds (actually back to the Cotswolds for Margaret) the nearest pub was the Cold Aston Plough, and my wife informed me that in the 1960s this was the first pub in the area to serve food: that much remembered delicacy called chicken in the basket. By the 1990s, when I briefly became a local there, it was very much a food destination until we drinkers arrived later in the evening. The then landlord told me that it was a soulless place before the drinkers arrived, no sound to speak of except the clinking of cutlery and muffled conversations.

So what did that man who wrote in his review, “Pubs are not all about food, you know,” refer to? No, it wasn’t beer or alcohol or dogs. Pubs, he claimed, are “about how they make you feel”.

Now, I thought that this was what the alcohol was for! It makes you feel good, gets you talking rubbish to other drinkers and lets you go home happy. However, I must now concentrate more on my feelings, or get a dog.