PENSIONERS are having to let their eyesight get worse before getting an operation because of changes to NHS policy, charities have warned. They said a decision to introduce a threshold for cataract surgery – which replaces lenses in the eyes – was damaging
A STEEP fall in flytipping could be reversed when two recycling centres are closed, campaigners were warning last night. There were about 3,000 reports of flytipping across the county last year, which cost taxpayers about £100,000 to clean up. Oxfordshire
A COUPLE will be manning a stall in Banbury market on Saturday to raise cash to help build a school in Africa. Luke Froude is heading off to Kenya in October as part of a team from his employer Bibby, to help change children’s lives by building a classroom
YOUNGSTERS at Finstock Primary School have taught parents and local residents about the village’s history. All 52 pupils at the School Road primary, took part in the event. The children spent the last term learning about the Finstock’s history and
PLANS for student accommodation in Jericho have been approved by Oxford councillors. But the move has left the future of four popular business in the lurch. Oxford City Council agreed plans to renovate a building on the corner of Walton Street and Little
AN OLYMPIC silver medallist praised the sports stars of the future at Oxford Academy’s Sports Personality of the Year awards ceremony. Rower Katherine Grainger, who won silver at the Sydney, Athens and Beijing games, spoke to the young athletes about
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A BOMB disposal team is investigating after a jogger discovered a “cylindrical object” buried in the ground at Dalton Barracks. Police closed off Honeybottom Lane in Dry Sandford briefly this morning after the find was reported about 11.30am. It
OXFORD’S only lapdancing club has found a new home in the city despite church claims that it “undermines God’s gift of marriage”. The Lodge has been granted a sexual entertainment licence at The Coven, in Oxpens Road, by a committee of city councillors
WE still have copies of the Oxford Mail from Saturday, July 23 that carries with it a free copy of our 124-page Oxfordshire Heritage magazine. The magazine, a wonderful souvenir edition, is packed with pictures that will rekindle memories of
I have just eaten the quickest meal I have ever ordered. And it was a wham, bam, thank-you ma’am culinary triumph which proves once again that fast food doesn’t necessarily have to come with fries and a side order of coleslaw. Yes, the staff wore uniforms
Who was “that old fool Claudius in Hamlet”? I harrumphed last week in a point-scoring put-down of the Sunday Times for its leader writer’s mistake in confusing the Danish Prince’s murderous uncle with Polonius. Even as I did so I was about to prove myself
In the days when I used occasionally to weekend near Chipping Norton — a regular highlight being the Sunday joint bought from R. Sole’s butcher’s shop — the area was notoriously insalubrious. The taxi we summoned to pick us up at Kingham station often
The word pesto is a generic term for anything made by pounding in a pestle and mortar. Although it is often made from parsley, be assured the best pesto is made from basil — particularly if you have grown it yourself and it is freshly picked. Some recipes
When an amateur gardener and allotment holder such as Anne James speaks with such enthusiasm about basil, I just have to listen. Mention basil and Anne’s face lights up. It is her favourite herb — and for good reason. Anne is not just a gardener
What is the connection between Christ Church, Oxford, and Christchurch, New Zealand? Answer: the leader of the group of colonists who founded the latter in 1850 was a graduate of the former — and wanted to replicate some its attributes, notably
It was clearly coming. Disney Pixar, the most consistently dazzling animation studio on the Hollywood block, was always going to struggle to top the misty-eyed farewells of Toy Story 3, the highest grossing film of 2010. Cars 2 falls short
Teacher of Dance is the first UK show by Seoul- and Berlin- based Haegue Yang. (b1971). When I viewed it, I was pleased that a group of sixth-formers were there too. I enjoyed watching the way they interacted and responded to her work. Visitors of my
Award-winning Temple Theatre Company brings its new production Unmythable to the Ashmolean on Wednesday. The show forms part of the museum’s ongoing Greek Season, featuring the groundbreaking exhibition Heracles to Alexander the Great, and will take place
The keynote of this exhibition is fluidity. Penny Hardy studied art and is now a self- taught sculptor, having followed courses in welding, hot metals and ceramics; her figures display expertise together with a refreshing vitality, directness and love
Cimarosa’s first major opera is an engaging and light-hearted romp, and Bampton Classical Opera’s production at The Deanery Garden last weekend teased out the silliness of the plot to great effect. The story takes place in a single day at a somewhat
Creation Theatre Company is back in the outdoor amphitheatre at the Said Business School — a stunning setting that is itself a star of any production it hosts — with a fast-paced and lucid account of Shakespeare’s tragedy Antony and Cleopatra. The headlong
Touring a Shakespeare play in the Bard’s own lifetime certainly wasn’t dull for the actors. As Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, put it in an Oxford Times interview: “I think it was very kick, bollock and scramble, it was very
Stanislav Shmelev combines his expertise in ecology (he is an ecological economist) with his fine art training to create photographs of natural environments, the impact man and his artefacts have on those environments and the interfaces between
The ambitious summer programme at Holland Park is composed partly of familiar favourites (Le nozze di Figaro, Don Pasquale, Rigoletto) and partly of rarely heard operas, in which category La Rondine definitely belongs. A late work by Puccini, it has something
The personal choice of a local artist gives a different slant to the latest exhibition of Old Master drawings at Christ Church Picture Gallery. And it makes it all the more interesting when there’s also a show of the artist’s own works on in the gallery
Oxford Town Hall, which dominates the centre of Oxford, is easy to take for granted and just pass by without entering its magnificent interior. This Grade II listed building has much to offer and visitors are always welcome, especially in the little
‘It’s Alice in Wonderland,” exclaimed a small boy as a girl dressed in white skipped across the Radcliffe Square cobblestones. And he was right. “I’ve escaped from my garden,” Alice (Bryony Neilson) explained. But in spite of its title, Mapping Wonderland
For oldies in the audience, Grease offers a night of blissful nostalgia. But for the majority of those at the New Theatre this week the show supplies a glimpse of ancient history. That this scintillating musical exerts such powerful appeal for young
EYNSHAM Community Primary School’s unusual design has helped shape the whole feel of the school. Instead of conventional classrooms, the school has three big open-plan rooms, where 90 children across three classes must work together to share
BARTON children who spent the year learning ancient Greek and Latin have put on two ancient world plays. Bayards Hill Primary School worked with Oxford educational charity The Iris Project. To mark the end of the project’s first year, Year Six pupils
REAL ALE and real fun proved a recipe for success at Eaton’s music and beer festival. The event attracted 500 people to the Eight Bells pub and organisers hope to raise £2,000 for Helen and Douglas House Hospice in Oxford. Twenty real
IF THERE’S one man in Oxford who doesn’t make a pest of himself, it’s Tony Brind. As the city council’s pest controller, it’s Mr Brind’s job to answer calls for help from homeowners worried about infestation. During his 23 years working
PERHAPS we are reading too much into it but the fact there has been a near 40 per cent drop in rat treatments since Oxford City Council began charging most people for this service seems more than a coincidence. The council says there could
RAIN did not stop the fun as Banbury’s second old town party proved a success with shoppers and traders. Parsons Street, Church Lane and Market Place were alive with music, dance, and even a bicycle piano as shops and businesses enjoyed some
DRIVERS in Didcot will face traffic gridlock for months once work gets under way on a new £6.7m railway station forecourt, a leading councillor has warned. Earlier this year, Oxfordshire County Council approved a plan to landscape the forecourt at
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Graham Thorner, part-owner of Marching Song – one of the two horses killed by electrocution in the paddock at Newbury’s Totesport Trophy meeting in February – has described an offer of compensation as “insulting”. Thorner, who runs a livery stables at
The Home Counties Premier League Twenty20 finals day has been rearranged for Sunday, July 31 at Roman Way. Oxford, Henley, Welwyn Garden City and Harpenden have all made it through, but were unable to play at the weekend due to the rain. Wayfarers CC
Paceman Chad Keegan’s instant impact for Oxfordshire this season has been recognised with the award of a county cap. The 31-year-old former Middlesex and Sussex seamer only made his Minor Counties Championship debut for Oxon in the draw against
DOZENS of parking spaces could be lost from East Oxford if a cycle lane along Iffley Road is built, say people living in the area. The news comes after a decision on whether to allow a controversial student accommodation block to be built on
Olympic champion rower Zac Purchase, who lives in Wallingford, is set to return to the British squad for September’s World Championships in Slovenia after illness. Wheatley’s Frances Houghton is also back, but not yet sure which boat she will be in.
Oxfordshire's women have been relegated from AEGON Summer County Cup Group 5B after a disastrous 9-0 defeat at the hands of Gloucestershire in their final match of the week at Poole. It means they finished their campaign bottom of the group with three
Lee Steele and Steve Basham scored in Oxford City’s 2-2 draw against Northampton Town in their friendly at Court Place Farm last night. The League Two side’s goals came from Tadgh Purcell and Michael Built.
Hans Adielsson ended a long wait for his first winner since setting up as a trainer at Kingston Lisle, near Wantage, when Karate struck at Wolverhampton. The 67-year-old Swedish handler, one of the leading trainers in his homeland from 1972 to 1988,
traffic will keep moving despite 18,000 cars descending on Woodstock this Friday. That is the pledge from the organisers of this year’s CLA Game Fair as they prepare for the mammoth country show. The last time the event was held in Oxfordshire
The name of Witney Town will again grace football pitches in Oxfordshire after the club was reformed as a registered charity. Witney Town, who were first established in 1885, folded in 2001 when they resigned from the Southern League. Witney United
ACTOR Ben Lamb has returned home to appear in an outdoor performance of a Shakespeare classic. Mr Lamb, pictured, from North Oxford, is playing four characters in a production of As You Like It in the historic surroundings of the Old Schools Quadrangle
Chinnor will be demoted to the bottom division of the OCA league and start the 2012 season with a huge points deduction after they were found guilty of fielding several players under false names. The club were charged with four counts relating to their
David Smith took 7-120 to send Oxfordshire Development XI to a ten-run defeat in their two-day game against Free Foresters at Radley College. Playing for the nomadic side, the Oxfordshire all-rounder picked up 5-87 in his first spell of 30
TWO men have been jailed for a total 14-and-a-half years after carrying out “terrifying” gunpoint robberies. Akeem Williams, 18, has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years, while Jordan Marks, 20, faces six years for two attacks in Witney.
A ROAD was closed by police after chemical had to be removed from an East Oxford house. Police, ambulances and fire engines were called to the house in Rectory Road at about 12.30pm on Monday following reports chemicals were being kept in a room. A
Seacourt Bridge’s Dan Brown suffered heartbreak as he finished three short of a maximum 18 dolls in their 3-0 win against The Cricketers Littleworth in Section 4. It was looking good for Brown as he clanged off a double sixer with his first
Oxford United chief Kelvin Thomas was last night surprised why the U’s were listed as a possible target in a television investigation about football investors. But he admitted that being talked about as one of the nine football clubs in
TV chef Jamie Oliver wrongly sacked a Banbury couple who lost £200,000 of his money which he invested in an events catering firm they ran for him, a tribunal was told. The celebrity chef joined forces with Glen and Susie Chadwick, of Berrymoor
FOR any new bride selecting just the right photographs to immortalise the biggest day of your life is almost as important as choosing the right dress or flowers. But Jill Bali will have to rely on only her memories, because every single image
THOUSANDS of householders are being targeted in a Health Protection Agency (HPA) campaign to cut exposure to a cancer-causing gas. It is thought thousands of homes in West Oxfordshire could be exposed to dangerously high levels of radioactive
THERE is an important message to remember amid the warnings about dangerous levels of the gas radon in West Oxfordshire: don’t panic. Today we report that the Health Protection Agency is going to write to more than 9,000 households warning them of concerns
ONE lane on the M40 north of Banbury remains closed this morning following a lorry fire overnight. Fire crews were called to tackle the blaze on the southbound carriageway between junctions 12 and 11, Gaydon to Banbury, at about 3.30am. Fire
Thousands of Ford enthusiasts will be celebrating 100 years of Ford UK at the Old Ford Rally on Sunday at the Heritage Motor Centre, at Gaydon, near Banbury. To celebrate this milestone, the organisers are hoping to assemble a display featuring every
A MOTHER from Blackbird Leys hopes an image of her late daughter will raise awareness of the rare childhood cancer which cut short her life. Ann Woodward said her life fell apart last year, when three-year-old Chintzia died after battling neuroblastoma
THE man in charge of May’s shambolic local elections could face calls to hand over the responsibility tomorrow. David Buckle, returning officer for Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire district councils, is to answer questions at a meeting of both
A YOUTH centre in Witney has been saved thanks to support from Oxford Mail readers, businesses and the Prime Minister. Last month, Base 33 in High Street faced the prospect of cutting 75 per cent of its work within weeks. Support for teenage mothers
