A new video on Britain's strictest headmistress plus a beery, bluesy night out in Oxford

Just released a new video on Robs Oxford. This one is about a school teacher who turned the tables by starting a strict and very successful free school in inner London. Her name if Katharine Birbalsingh and, naturally, she was a student at Oxford, attending New College in the 90’s. It was there that she realised that she wanted to be a teacher and a decade of plying her trade in inner London taught her that something was fundamentally wrong, so she started a school to fix it.

It’s a short video of about ten minutes concentrating mostly on the years she spent at her college in my city, but also providing a brief introduction to her Michaela Community School.  Have a look, there are mentions of a couple of famous music groups that were just beginning in her time plus a rather sweet picture of a poodle!

On a more personal note, here’s a recollection of a good night out with Margaret in this city of dreaming spires. We returned to Oxford from Stow on the Wold to visit the Gardner’s Arms which is just a minute or so from our flat. Lee Bo, a man I much admire, holds an open mike session there and attracts some excellent acts. But he wasn’t there! It was just five pm and the place was full of youngish people shouting loudly at each other. The nonchalant barman told me that Lee was at the Jericho Fair so we ventured into nearby Jericho where we expected to find a street fair, but there was none. We had a very good pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord in the Bookbinders which was also full, but the people there were not so shouty. There was however a group of sozzled senior men huddled together attempting to sing “What shall we do with the drunken sailor” but did not know the words. I could have helped, but at that time of day – no!  Even though the beer had begun to take hold – no!

We went in search of the fair, but walking alongside the canal realised it was not in Jericho at all but  in Aristotle Lane, a good way away. Also, by the look of the people returning, it was clearly mostly for kids and not for us. However, a quick probe with my phone revealed that Lightning Willy and the Poor Boys were playing at the Harcourt Arms later that night! We are fans of the blues and Willy is a true blues man so that looked great.

We walked to the nearby Victoria pub with a vague intention to eat there. However, the place had only one ale on that evening and it was not good, plus the pie menu was restricted and more than double the price that we used to pay. So we went home, grabbing the nearest thing to fish and chips from the local Sainsburys plus a few bottles of Landlord.

Replete, we straggled back to Jericho and the Harcourt at about nine and squeezed into the packed pub. There, Lightning Willy with his Poor Boys were already banging out beautiful blues whilst looking like a crowd of out-of-work cowboys: he with his bristling thick white moustache and all. They were great, we managed to find a spot in the crowd where we could see the performance, and there was certainly no problem hearing them. I stuffed in the usual bits of tissue to protect my ears and was carried away by the music plus more beer whilst watching the crush of dancers in front of that excellent band.

What a night. I love it when things start badly, then inexplicably turn into an unmissable event. Could it, I wonder, be beer that makes this possible?

 

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.

Cotswold Way: The end at last

 I’ve done it! I had hoped to complete the 100 plus mile trek in two sessions, but on the second leg I was rained off at Cheltenham and when I resumed the walk I only managed to reach Winchcombe from where I had to return home by taxi after the disastrous ejection of my tent and belongings from a farmer’s field.

On this, hopefully, the last leg, I left Stow on the nine o’clock bus to Cheltenham with my trusty golf cart (GT) and changed there for Wincombe bus, which was packed full of people heading for the Way. Not really, they were mostly travelling to the town to visit its major attraction: Sudeley Castle.

My Way was the next turning after the Gloucestershire Way where my tent had been forcibly ejected on the last visit and this and it had an interesting name, Puck Pit Lane. After a while the lane became a  trail across a field and it was soon after that I lost my Way.  Puck it, I said to myself, but fortunately I spotted some walkers who were following the Way going south and took my lead from them. It rose steeply. At one point I was almost flat on the ground gripping tree roots to heave up the GT behind me.

Gaining height was rewarding though, the view expanded enormously as I headed north towards Stanway. The Way then dipped deeply down into a steep valley which embraces that tiny village and its eponymous  House. By the way, Winchcombe to Stanway by road is a mere 2.5 miles, by the Cotswold Way it is more than six and at times offers very strenuous hiking.

Next came the village of Stanton which is so lovely for a moment I imagined that I would like to live there. I was soon dissuaded by an elderly local decorator who informed me proudly that the house he was working on was worth £2.1m, and his next job was a place that was for sale at £2.1 m! According to him, all of those characterful Cotswold stone villas that I passed  were worth £2.1m.

Walking became more demanding as I headed towards Broadway and the GT developed a mind of its own, occasional slipping out of its essential quick release linkage then lying stationary on the ground. I think it  was along that I met yet more Americans walking the Way. This couple were about my age or a bit younger, she had been a librarian and he a lawyer  (semi-retired). We had a good old chat about books and writing and of course Trump. The lawyer had not voted for him but had some sympathy for those who did.

I had good reason to avoid Broadway, the quintessential rich persons’ Cotswold village, but I could not. Fortunately, I came across the perfect wild camping spot less than a mile outside the village, fairly quiet, private, and no bother to anyone. Took the usual hour or so to set up camp, have a quick shave and shower (joke!) then walked through a friendly sheep field, past the church and straight into a pub, the Crown and Trumpet. Three handpumps, friendly landlord and discount for CAMRA members (but even then, an expensive pint). Took my perfect pint of Shagweaver outside and made some notes of the day. I then went back in to order some food.

“Kitchen closed at 7.30pm,” said the landlord proudly. “You might get something at the Swan around the corner if you’re quick.”

“OK, I‘ll probably call in for another pint on the way back.”

“Not likely,” he replied proudly, “we close at 9.30pm”. What!!!

The Swan was a swish hotel on the main drag. I wanted something cheap and basic but they did not cater for the likes of me. Well, beggars can’t be choosers so I ate their sophisticated and expensive meal swilled down with a costly pint.

Afterwards I walked along the main street passing priceless art shops, sophisticated book shops and such. I despaired at the lack of cheap and ordinary outlets. Fortunately the Horse and Hounds was not bad, some real people there and a choice of beers at less than a fiver. The barman was a young Frenchman who sounded entirely English but, he told me, when in France he sounded entirely French. We talked about travelling through his country and he told me of a village that had been taken over by the rich!

That night it rained heavily and some water crept into the tent. Also I experienced the worst cramp ever, whole leg cramp. Good job I was isolated, I howled. At six I packed the wet tent and sleeping bag and headed through the town and up the very steep hill towards Broadway Tower. Gosh that was hard going after a night of little sleep and much cramp, but the tower and the scenery was absolutely great. In fact I think that the northern end of the Way is the most visually stunning.

Finally, I crossed the main road at the top of the notorious Fish Hill and followed the Way down towards Chipping Camden. It passes the famous Dover’s Hill (strange sports) and there, right at the end of my trek, I missed the turning down to the town. The only sign I found was marked Cotswold Way Circular Walk so I followed that . Down and down it led into a dense forest with no glimpse of the town. The only person I met was walking her aggressive Pit Bull Terrier. She shouted to me that it was a bit emotional and she was correct, when it saw me with the GT it went berserk. She was literally rolling on the forest floor in an attempt to control the bloody thing. I like dogs, but I confess to being really, really worried by that one. I could hear it barking and snarling for ages afterwards. I finally completed the circular walk by climbing up through the steep forest back to where I had started on Dover’s Hill! It was then an easy descent into the rather lovely, but traffic infested, centre of Chipping Camden.

I had completed the Way at last. This last section had been a hot trek but I did feel happy that I had finally finished. A kind and helpful young lady took a photo of me and the GT outside the lovely Market Hall a few metres from the end point of that long and fascinating Cotswold walk.

A nice thing happened to me in Oxford

 

It’s now 20 years since I qualified as an Oxford guide and there have been many happy experiences, however a recent Bodleian tour will stay with me forever. A teenage girl and her family were on the tour, and towards the end I noticed that she was busily drawing in her notebook. Later I asked her what she had drawn and, smiling, she said, “You”. She tore the sheet out of her notebook and gave me the portrait. I was touched and insisted on giving her one my books on the Rogues of Oxford which she asked me to sign. A creative exchange of sorts.

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.

 

 

Spain and home again

My last blog left things pretty much in the air, as we arrived in Spain. Our arrival could have been a real come down after whistling through twelve countries in the motor caravan, but for various reasons it was not.

After happily leaving the ferry following a crossing which was both dull and without incident, we were thrown into the madness of the race track which is outer Barcelona, and it was getting dark. However, we survived and soon left the southbound motorway for Sitges. I knew little of the place so here’s a quote: “Renowned for its LGBT-friendly atmosphere as well as its world-famous horror film festival”. Yet we loved it, but not for those reasons. Rather for its attractive narrow pedestrianised streets near the beach, the beach itself, the nearby church and one of the best meals of the whole trip.

After Sitges, we passed over the coastal mountain range via L’Hospitalet de l’infant, then crossed the River Ebro where it makes its last surge towards the Med having traversed most of Spain, then on to our little village of La Fresneda in the province of Aragon.

That might have been a bit of a down-swing after dashing through twelve European countries, but it was not. We both felt happy to be there once I had carefully negotiated the narrow, steep and curvaceous tracks that lead to a carpark which is fairly near to our home. It is clearly signposted “No campervan” but we, after all, are locals and we both felt very pleased to be “home” again.  Here's a rather special view from the little terrace at the top of our house.

There were things to be done to the house and the caseta, as ever, but they were jobs that mostly had a beginning and an end and that nursed a sense of achievement. We spent time with our old friends, Willy and Dolores, we drank in the bar and greeted and were greeted by other villagers. Strangers in the village smiled and said, “Buenos Dias”. The bakery had ceased operation, but a friendly young woman now sold bread there which was baked in a nearby town and was just as crunchy. Sadly Ramon, one of the characters of the village had died in a fire in his own home, a house stuffed with “antiques” most of which were flammable. There were also many items of less sad news to catch up with.

Though we were there for three weeks, it seemed no time at all before we were on the road again - this time crossing Spain with stops along the way but always heading for Santander where we would take the ferry to Plymouth. And, though we had to spend one whole day in the motor caravan because of the pouring rain, we were well away from the chaos suffered by the poor people of Valencia.

We left the ferry in darkness at Plymouth and had no wish to drive all the way to the Cotswolds in pelting rain. So, I found a pub called the Skylark to the north of the city and the landlord was happy to have us sleep in his car park – provided we supped and drank in his bar. And what a bar, the perfect English country pub serving perfect real ale – nectar. I had three pints before I could be persuaded to eat.

Home the next day, having had a wonderful two months of travel and adventure, I patted the bonnet of my aging motorcaravan. We had driven 7,500 kilometres together without a major hitch and my notes of the adventure amounted to 35,000 words. What on earth am I going to do with that lot?

The long way to Spain

 

The long way to Spain

For various reasons I am not too good at keeping in touch with family and friends: I suppose this blog is my main means of keeping doing so and quite a few of my previous blogs have been about Spain. This year I decided that it was about time I visited an old Swedish friend that I met through my work as a consultant, he lives in Stockholm. So, an obvious thought occurred: why not visit him on my way to Spain? A little out of the way of course, but this seemed like the foundation for an adventure. I had always wanted to visit those three intriguing Baltic States that border Russia and discovered that there was a ferry between Stockholm and Estonia – this journey was clearly meant to be.

The first time I visited Sweden was in the 1960s when my teenage friend William Lefebve and I decided to go there in search of the claimed availability of free love. In those days there was a ferry directly from Immingham to Gothenburg but sadly there are now no direct ferries so we made for the Hook of Holland. That ferry starts from Felixstowe where I have another neglected old friend so we visited him and his wife along the way. Talk about a trip down memory lane.

Naturally I wrote notes as we travelled the 3,000 miles in our motor caravan and one day I might write them up as a book or something, but here’s a few brief recollections. I had a travelling `companion, Margaret of course, but also Thomas Mann via his fascinating book The Magic Mountain.

We visited 12 countries in total and took the whole of September 2024 to do it. The most memorable part of our Dutch experience was crossing the Zuiderzee, driving over a 19-mile dam with salt water on the sea side and fresh on the lake side.

Margaret had a strong desire to visit Denmark inspired by her favourite Scottish aunt’s love of the country and its friendly people. So we went there and found that auntie was quite correct. Interestingly, the least friendly country in our experience was the Czeck Republic. In Sweden we made fours stop including Taaby where my friend Bjorn lives in that nice suburban town, so neat and well run, very Swedish, very Viking.

The ferry to Estonia was a highlight. Parking at the head of one of the queues waiting to board I glanced at the driver of the van at the head of next queue and saw the father of our Spanish grandsons!! This was one hell of a coincidence. We had not seen each other for years and there we were thrown together by fate. We had a great time on the boat, drinking and dancing (the entertainment was stunning), recalling old times and catching up with the current lives of Jordie and his Swedish wife Boodil.

The three Baltic countries were flat and pretty boring to drive through. However, the capital towns of Tallin and Riga made up for all of that and our accidental visit to a small impoverished village in Lithuanian was educational.

In Poland the highlight was Warsaw where it rained, no, poured. We had a pretty lousy campsite but with easy access to the city by bus. There we were impressed by the traffic free centre with its grandiose churches and castle. So difficult to countenance that the Nazis destroyed 75% of this place. I thoroughly enjoyed a visit to the Marie Curie museum and to a simple church with a pure white interior nearby.

Next day we entered the Czeck Republic and were roaring along at the usual 60-70mph regularly overtaking lorries and being over taken by cars when something odd happened, the road emptied of traffic and then suddenly was blocked by a barrier and we were forced off it. The cause was the flooding that affected much of central Europe just then and that finally landed us at Frydek Mistret where we were greeted by avoiding eyes and downcast faces. Still the beer was good and the food served in overly generous quantities.

We moved on to Olomouc which we both agreed was our favourite city with its two connected ‘squares’, wonderful buildings and spirited street art. We passed on to stay the night at a highly commercial campsite alongside Lake Musov then, next day, we entered our favourite country Austria. There we found the small town of Illmitz next to the beautiful Neusieder Lake, a town surrounded by nature parks. I cycled out to one and met a man from near Witney in a hide, and he shared his telescope with me. More bird watching and an overnight stay in a small Hungarian village whose only restaurant was fully booked for a private party, then continued along that country’s van rattling roads to Sofron where we enjoyed a view of this Hungarian city from its tall fire tower.

Then we were back in Austria and were brought to tears by the wonderful buildings and courtyards of the city of Graz backed up by the pealing of many bells from its many wonderful churches. As we travelled south blue mountains appeared on the horizon and grew to dominate our journey. We were much taken by our stay in the long lakeside village of Portschach until we discovered that almost all of the lake’s edges were inaccessible, privately owned. So we moved to Villach where the camping ground had its own lake into which I dived after a long and somewhat scary walk in the adjacent mountains.

After this we entered Italy spending one night in a small village parked within a line of rotting camping cars, a graveyard we will never understand. We followed this with the seaside town of Caorle just above Venice, a pleasant place with boats parked almost alongside cars in the centre of the town. Next the big one, Florence, and our largest and most expensive campsite of the whole journey. I believe we had become over churched by this time and the Duomo struck me as being somewhat over the top, excellent as it is, so we were glad to divert to the pretty seaside village of Le Grazi on the Mediterranean side of the country followed by the lakeside town of Marta where we had a smashing spot beside its small port and spied rather rare red-faced pochards. I took my longest bike ride of the trip there alongside the lake, claimed to be the largest volcanic lake in Europe.

Next day we visited the stunning town of Tuscana on our way to Rome’s ferry port and then, after a disappointingly boring crossing of the Med, disembarked at Barcelona. From there it was just about four hours to our second home, La Fresneda.

 

Cotswold Way, August 2024: Cheltenham to Winchcombe

 

This was to be my final leg in the 100 miles trek, and I had three days in which to do it. More of a home country leg this one and I started by taking the early morning 801 bus from Stow on the Wold. The driver dropped me off close to the old Reservoir Pub near Cheltenham. It is now a foreign restaurant of some sort, and, to my relief, when I crossed the road there was the fingerpost to the Cotswold Way

This was to be my final leg in the 100+ miles trek, and I had three days in which to do it. This was more of a home country leg for me and the weather was good, though very hot in the sun. However, the ascent from the reservoir was mostly through well-wooded slopes so not too bad. Unfortunately I lost the usually plentiful Cotswold Way signs somewhere so I had to ask advice from a young lady with six dogs (not her own apparently). Over the barking of those dogs as they strained on their leads towards me, she said that this was not the Cotswold Way but I could rejoin it via a road at the top. I took her advice and headed west along the road and soon arrived at the place she had suggested where the Way crossed the road.  Full sun for a while as I crossed a path at the edge of field and hence very open. That was where I met Richard going in the opposite direction, he was a camper like myself but did not have a GT. He told me that he wished he had one. I reached a road and then looked down onto Cheltenham to my left and Leckhampton Hill on the other side of the town: the site of my recent wash out. I had that view for a very long time and was soon able to see beyond Cheltenham towards Gloucester. the Severn valley and the Malvern’s.

I lost the Way again later but was fortunate in spotting the Surveyor. He was busy taking photos of butterflies but offered to take me to a path that rejoined the Way. It turned out that he was not a Building Surveyor but an opinion collector for the likes of local government. This surprised me since he was definitely a one-way act. If I did manage to interject something like “I own a field” but he just carried on with his stream of thought concerning the growing of garden produce, the shortage of butterflies, problems with runner beans and so much more. His interest in my background or views was zero, so odd in a surveyor. But I must thank him for setting me back onto the Way.

After passing through a golf course where I managed to avoid the balls, I entered a cooling treed area at the exit of which I ate my lunch beneath a tree and there discovered that I had lost a sandal.  Following that I entered a gruelling stretch through steep wooded areas that wandered to the south before finally swinging back north where I emerged onto a flat hayfield where I met a couple from Tasmania, probably about my own age. She was particularly interested in the GT and wanted her husband to see how it attached to the haversack. Their travel agent had sold them a trek from Stratford to include the Way. Why he did that, they or I did not know.

I reached Bellas Nap burial mound which was not particularly impressive apart from its vast age and location. After that some more woodland and two steeply sloping fields towards Winchcombe where the Way then edged along the town to the south with good views of the attractive church. I took a diversion to follow the River Isbourne to the lane which led to my old camping spot from my Berkeley trip.

That spot was further up a lane off the Way and the farmer had kindly left the gate open for me and the field had been recently mowed: a piece of machinery was still within it. It was a perfect camping spot, secluded and in a corner which was not farmed, yet not far from the town centre. I soon had the tent up and retraced my steps before taking the main road into the town. I passed the White Hart which looked busy and then ended up my previous drinking hole, the Plaster’s Arms. It was closed (Mondays and Tuesdays) but notices suggested it still had a life. I had a few excellent pints in the other two Winchcombe pubs and a fairly interesting conversation with a local about university life in one of them. However food was either at a premium or unavailable so I ended the evening by consuming a couple of mini pork pies beside the river as I returned to my secret camp site.

I felt happily intoxicated as I walked up the dusky lane, but a was a little surprised to find the field gate now locked. I climbed over and walked around the corner in the growing darkness and increasing drizzle to find that my tent and everything else had vanished! No sign of my camp at all. I could not believe it, yet had to do so. Clearly the farmer had removed all of my stuff and presumably dumped it somewhere. I stood frozen for a while trying to think what I should do. My only option seemed to be to walk back into Winchcombe itself.

As I walked dispiritedly past the entrance way, I saw a pile of stuff on my left which I had not noticed as I entered. This untidy pile contained my stuff: the tent, the GT, and who knew what else. It was all very wet of course and I was getting wet too. I had no idea whether the tent was usable, it seemed in a terrible state. Besides that my chances of finding an alternative wild camp in the dark and the rain were remote to say the least.

I spent an age untangling the tent and its various poles, so that I could stuff it and the rest of my belongings into the GT bag and my haversack. Apparently, everything was there, even my Kindle. I then walked sadly back to the centre of Winchcombe to endeavour to get transport back to Stow. I stopped near the main T junction of the town and took out my phone. Everything I tried: Uber, local taxis, whatever all met with failure.

Despairingly, I walked along to the White Hart. It was closed of course. but there were people inside: the staff having a last drink, I supposed. Also the window onto the street was open and a young couple sat within the pub on the sill beside it. I explained my dilemma to them, and the young lady of the pair took over my phone and after some time managed to contact a taxi company based in Cheltenham. The charge to Stow would be £65, ridiculous but I had no choice. I booked it and those two kind youngsters invited me into the pub to wait.

The taxi driver was from Bangladesh and had little English so most of the journey took place in silence. It seemed a very long way and I arrived around midnight. I had no keys and though I could see that our bedroom light was on I could not make Margaret hear my knocking and ringing, so I retrieved my secret key entered the house and went up to our room. As I opened the door Margaret looked shocked and perhaps frightened and for a short while I was struck dumb. Then I briefly explained my reason for being there and she was wonderfully understanding, even making me a rum and coke which I sorely needed, and so to bed in the comfort of my own home!

Next day it rained all day so I could not examine my hastily packed camping kit. But the following day was fine and I was surprised to find that there was no obvious damage to my stuff. I had presumed that the farmer had angrily ripped the tent from the ground and threw it outside the field. In fact he had unzipped the door presumably to remove my stuff, then removed the pegs and placed them inside and only then collapsed the tent. Given that, I resolved to return to Winchcombe sometime to continue my journey, wild camping and all.