Former Oxford United striker Aaron Woodley has joined Abingdon United from Banbury United. Woodley, who turns 20 tomorrow, signed for The Puritans this season after being released by the U’s in May, having been on loan at Oxford City. Manager
It’s well known for its pies The Victoria. And I was in the mood for a good pie. It was raining hard outside, and any hopes of an Indian summer or even a brisk autumnal day had vanished, leaving me in no doubt that we had progressed straight from
PUSHER (18) Thriller/Action/Romance. Richard Coyle, Bronson Webb, Agyness Deyn, Zlatko Buric, Mem Ferda, Neil Maskell, Paul Kaye. Director: Luis Prieto. Luis Prieto’s self-consciously cool English-language remake of Nicolas Winding Refn’s coruscating
HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA (U) Animation/Family/Comedy/Romance. Featuring the voices of Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Adam Samberg, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, Cee Lo Green, Jon Lovitz. Director: Genndy Tartakovsky
FORTY bands across four venues in one night. When it comes to live music, evenings don’t get much more exciting than Oxjam. This celebration of local music has in the space of a year become one of Oxford’s biggest nights of music. Starting last
YOU know you’ve made it as a musician when your fans start offering you livestock and treasures. As one of Africa’s greatest female singers, Rokia Traore has seen it all. Treated as musical royalty in her native Mali, Rokia has been showered
RUBY SPARKS (15) Comedy/Drama/Romance. Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Chris Messina, Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening, Deborah Ann Woll, Elliott Gould. Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris. Art imitates life imitates art in this delightfully offbeat
HAROLD Shukman, a Russian historian at Oxford University who wrote books on Lenin and Stalin, has died aged 81. Mr Shukman was University Lecturer in Modern Russian History and a Fellow of St Antony’s College. He wrote books on Rasputin and
AN OXFORD economist who promoted liberal trade policies and advised the World Bank has died at the age of 93. Ian Little was considered one of post-war Britain’s finest economic minds. He is credited with helping to lift millions out of poverty
A special event covering a wide variety of issues surrounding financing start-up businesses is taking place on November 14. Financing Technology Start-ups will hear from industry experts from organisations including Isis Innovation and the London
The rise of businesses starting up and the theory that many of them are being launched by our bright young things can only be encouraging for the local economy. New figures show a record total of 591 companies started in Oxfordshire in the first
All organisations need to look to the future but it seems odd that Scouting headquarters is planning to evict the museum from Youlbury Scout Camp. With a history dating back 100 years, there are surely lessons from the past that can be passed
Sir – In his article on Didcot Power Station, Chris Koenig calls for a clear energy policy (The energy gap issue, September 27). While Germany and Japan shut down dangerous nuclear and coal power stations and embrace clean solar, ocean, geothermal
Sir – What an extraordinary city Oxford is. It is blessed, in Broad Street, with one of the great urban spaces of Europe. Nicole Rahimi realised this would make a fantastic venue for a Christmas Market and hoped that 200 traders would run the
Sir – I congratulate Rodney Rose for the speed with which he successfully found replacements for all bus services operated by RH Transport. Many of the routes affected service rural areas and villages with no other public transport links, such
Sir – Thank you all UK taxpayers. Because of you, when my optician found something worrying last week, he didn’t say he couldn’t help, he booked me an extra appointment at the end of his day to double check. Because of you there is an eye hospital
Sir – Your letters page regularly demonstrates the willingness of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians to blame each other for the tragic rise in cyclist fatalities and injuries on our roads, when the blame clearly lies equally with us all. As an
Sir – I’ve been looking at the county’s statistics on cycling injuries in more detail. There are some positive trends. Serious injuries to child cyclists in Oxford are notably down, with none in 2010 and only one last year. This is probably not
Sir – As the debate over whether cyclists should be taxed to use the roads that motorists pay for continues, Chris Day (Letters, September 20) is disingenuous when he states that there is no such thing as road tax. We know the tax is officially called
Sir – Like John Tanner (Letters, October 4), I would like to look forward to a low-carbon future. However, he is living in a fantasy world if he thinks we can do without power stations — gas, nuclear or coal — to replace Didcot A. To replace
Jenny Twist, a former recruitment consultant in Abingdon, met Tara Fox Hall, from the USA, when they both contributed to an anthology of speculative fiction. Now they have compiled another anthology called Bedtime Shadows. For many years she was a
Sir – Your report and editorial (Time to think, September 27) were based on the planning inspector ‘approving’ the proposed Northern Gateway development within the city council’s core strategy. This is technically correct but somewhat misleading
Sir – I was very pleased to read the news about the indefinite delay to plans for the Northern Gateway business park around Wolvercote (Report, September 27). I lead the group Engage Oxford which opposed it and so I know many thousands of others
Although at least 12 UK pubs are closing each week, the rate of closure is slowing slightly. What’s more there are 1,008 breweries in Britain now, (18 in Oxfordshire), so it’s not all doom and gloom. The 71 Oxfordshire pubs featured in the 40th
Sir – Your article (October 4) featuring the return home of Royal Logistic Corps soldiers from their recent tour in Afghanistan stirred some deep emotions in me. The soldiers and their families all highlighted in their quotations the trials and
Sir — Professor Gerald Elliott’s regret (Letters, October 4) that Oxford City Council has not encouraged “the incorporation of a concert hall and performance facility in the new proposals for the Westgate Centre redevelopment” is well made.
Sir – Your statement (Property, page 1, October 4) that Professor Edward Thomas Hall “analysed the remains of the Piltdown Man and unmasked it as a fraud after finding iron filings in the jaw” is inaccurate. Professor Hall used X-ray chromatography
The Country Girl by Edna O’Brien (Faber, £20) First, tales of two taxis. Edna O’Brien took one to Kensington Palace during the Swinging London period of the 1960s, having been invited there by her friend Lord Snowdon. “The driver, who happened to be
Sir – Christopher Gray’s vitriolic attack on Downton Abbey (October 4) is definitely beyond the pale. A very high percentage of viewers watch this series and gain much pleasure from doing so. There’s no intention to deprive Gray of his personal
Sir – I read with interest that Christopher Gray “certainly knew” about Jimmy Savile’s “unhealthy interest in youngsters” (Gray Matter, October 4). My question to him is why did he and the other “people in the media” do nothing about it? If
Sir – Reason and critical judgement are clearly beyond the capacity of Christopher Gray and will probably remain so. This week he has surpassed himself, for buried within his pompous potpourri of the banal and inconsequential is the statement that
Sir – I suspect I am not alone in regretting the significant reduction in local concert reviews in the new-style Weekend section of The Oxford Times. Those of us who are involved in amateur music used to welcome the impartial views expressed in
Sir – Through your pages I want to thank the driver of a black Polo. On Friday, October 5, as I returned from the John Radcliffe Hospital, she jumped out of her car and managed to return my wing mirror to its proper position; it had been unceremoniously
As a garden writer I do try to keep up with plants old and new. However there is one trio that races ahead of me all the time — heucheras, tiarellas and their hybrids the heucherellas. Just when I’ve told myself the darkest heuchera of all is ‘
FAMILIES were treated to a reading by author David Benedictus at Cokethorpe School near Witney. The author of Hundred Acre Wood, which is the first authorised sequel to the original A A Milne stories, is the writer-in-residence at the school.
AN enthusiastic group of Oxford bellringers desperately wants young members to continue the tradition that dates back centuries. The bellringers in Iffley meet every Wednesday evening at St Mary the Virgin, where the tower has six bells – the oldest
OXFORD’S Ruskin College is facing accusations of destroying a historic archive, with the records of former students being needlessly shredded. The row over the fate of student records broke out as the college completed its move from its central
STAFF and bosses at an award-winning family engineering firm are celebrating a move into new premises. Norbar Torque Tools has officially opened its new 170,000 sq ft factory at Wildmere Road, Banbury, which will allow manufacturing of torque wrenches
A BOTLEY-based courier service has been bought out for a “six-figure” sum and has moved to Milton Park. DCS Sameday, founded in 1986, has been bought by The Swift Group, which has a £10m turnover and employs 150 people. The Oxford firm, which
YOU can imagine the discussions which went on at Muse hq when they decided to start work on their new album. “Do we carry on the way we are, writing epic, if formulaic, stadium rock..." the conversation must have gone, "or push the boat out and do
What better place to store wine than in a labyrinth of chalk corridors where the temperature is a consistent 12C and there is no sunlight or vibrations to spoil or disturb the stock? I am speaking of the Old Chalk Mine in Knowl Hill, near Henley
The word ‘legend’ is wildly overused these days. One figure who genuinely deserves the epithet, however, is king of the blues Riley B King — better known by his stage name BB King. A new autobiography seeks to tell the story of a musician described
Keen gardeners are invited to view a property with four acres of beautiful grounds.The gardens of Brook Cottage in Alkerton, near Banbury, have been transformed over the last four decades from original rough pasture. The west-facing areas are divided
Luis Prieto’s self-consciously cool English-language remake of Nicolas Winding Refn’s coruscating 1996 thriller has style in abundance. Transplanted from the streets of Copenhagen to present-day London, Pusher imagines the capital as a rat-run
Art imitates life imitates art in this delightfully offbeat romantic comedy, which ponders if the man or woman of your dreams is exactly that: a fantastical creation. Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who collected a mantelpiece of
Theatre A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE Oxford Playhouse Until Saturday, October 13 Tickets: £10.50-£15.50 01865 305305 or oxfordplay house.com Life has been breathed into this classic American tale of illegal immigration set in 1950s New York by the University
Mike Shepherd is emphatic about one aspect of his portrayal of rag-and-bone man Albert Steptoe in a new stage version of the celebrated television sitcom Steptoe and Son. It is that he will not — repeat: not — be giving an impersonation of Wilfrid
Plays change lives. This inspiring idea lies at the heart of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, concerning the transforming effect on the convicts of Botany Bay of staging a production — Australia’s first — in 1789. Doubtless it has been
That there is a gentler side to Caliban in The Tempest — “filth” though he be to Prospero and “monster” as he becomes to the tosspots Stephano and Trinculo — is clear from the beauty of some of the things he says. Perhaps his most famous speech
If you find theatre too contained and fancy something a bit different then The Quiet Volume is for you. It’s about reading, encapsulating the world of books through words, talking, noise, visuals, touch. It’s about breaking reading down into its barest
Birdwatching is invariably something to be enjoyed as much for its scenic and wild habitats as for the birds. From seashore to mountain top via marsh, meadow, and wood it seems to complete the picture of nature at its very best whether the bird is
A VITAL community advice centre needs more staff and more room because of the rising number of cases it is dealing with. The Rose Hill and Donnington Advice Centre in Ashhurst Way helped 1,619 people from April 2011 to March 2012, up from 1,489
AEA Technology 0.045 BMW 4843 Electrocomponents 205.9 Nationwide Accident Repair 59.25 Oxford Biomedica 2.6 Oxford Catalysts 96 Oxford Instruments 1339 Reed Elsevier 599.75 RM 83.1 RPS Group 243.3 Courtesy of Redmayne Bentley,
Oxfordshire's Sian Piret joined Howard Webb and Danny Mills at Wembley to help launch the FA Carlsberg referee awards. The aim is to reward referees and encourage them to stay in the game, as well as attracting new talent. It includes an award
OXFORD: Plans to install 40 foldable bikes for hire at Oxford Station have been delayed. Ruth Hardy, of Brompton Dock, the firm behind the plan, said paperwork had been given to First Great Western, which manages the station, for an unveiling next
OXFORDSHIRE A made it two wins out of two in the English Short Mat Bowling Association’s Inter County Competition with a 21-19 points victory over Herefordshire at Ross-on-Wye. Oxon came out on top 176-167 on shots to top their group. OXFORDSHIRE
ASTON Rowant’s Wesley Morrick and Chris Watling will represent the MCC on a 12-day tour to Tanzania. The pair are included in a 15-man squad alongside Ireland wicket-keeper/batsman Niall O’Brien, Northamptonshire’s Matthew Spriegel and former Pakistan
GOSFORD All Blacks are targeting victory in the Dubai Sevens as they look to build on last season’s Oxfordshire Shield success. The club have entered the tournament’s social section, which runs alongside the IRB international series from November
THE hunt to find the next generation of football referees starts at Abingdon United FC on October 15 (7.45pm). The North Berks branch of the Referees’ Association are inviting all potential match officials to attend an open evening where they can
There was just a glimpse as I hurried to my seat in the New Theatre... but it spoke volumes. Waiting for 1980s funk legends Level 42 to hit the stage on Sunday night, one member of the audience sat there quietly reading her Kindle. You don’
WITNEY: A white Volkswagen campervan was stolen after a burglary at a house in Pinkhill Lane. The house was broken into on Monday between 1.35pm and 3.55pm, and a laptop, two bikes, a mobile phone and jewellery were also taken. Anyone with
TWO houses will be the centre of a study to see if their green features actually make a difference. Sanctuary Green Technologies has teamed up with a group at Oxford Brookes University to do the work after winning a £50,000 Government grant.
Acoustic ALASDAIR ROBERTS St Michael at the Northgate Church Wednesday, 7.30pm Tickets £10 on door or £8 from wegottickets.com The historic St Michael at the Northgate Church provides the setting for an atmospheric night of
A PRIVATE collection from a country estate sold for three times the expected £1m price tag after a “frenzied” auction. A huge plaster centaur, a bronze and rock crystal chandelier and a rocketship were among 449 pieces that went under the hammer
With a mobile phone at his ear, Charlie Longsdon strides into the office at his Hull Farm stables, near Chipping Norton. Having completed the call, a warm welcome is granted and it’s quickly down to business. Longsdon may give the impression of
CHRIS Webb was in magnificent form for Masons B, scoring 19,920, including a break of 14,760, but it wasn’t enough to earn his team victory in the Johnsons Buildbase Oxford League, writes PETE EWINS. Webb at least saved a whitewash as his team
WANTAGE: Two laptops, a Kindle, two iPods, two digital cameras, two watches and £250 were all stolen by burglars from a ground-floor flat in Lloyd Court, Portway, between 8am and 9.15pm on Sunday. Anyone with details should call police on 101.
PLANS have been announced to spend almost £1.3m to resolve problems at a traffic hotspot. The Department of Transport has revealed it will make changes to junction 10 of the M40, at Ardley, to improve traffic flow. At the moment, northbound motorway
THE summer washout has taken its toll on Oxfordshire’s wheat farmers, with crop yields down by nearly a third. A heavy summer rainfall saw county wheat yields plummet 20 to 30 per cent compared to a national average decline of 14 per cent, it has
PEOPLE in Blackbird and Greater Leys have a real opportunity to help shape the future of their estate. It may not seem the most enticing prospect at this time of year, but it is important. Oxford City Council has shown real intent by joining
EAST Oxford CC are on course to be elected to the Cherwell League. The Oxfordshire Cricket Association champions’ application has the backing of Cherwell chiefs as they “appear to meet all of the criteria for membership”. Now clubs will vote
OXFORD: Members of the Oxford Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) are hoping people will join them for a pint or two tonight. The 2012 Oxford Beer Festival starts from 5pm at the Town Hall in St Aldates, running through to 11pm. It will
KENNINGTON: A caravan on a travellers’ site was destroyed by fire on Tuesday night. Fire crews were called to Redbridge Hollow shortly after 10.30pm. The cause of the fire is being investigated.
BANBURY: Metal thieves have stolen historic aluminium gates from a former factory that helped build parts for Spitfires during the Second World War. Police said the gates were taken from the former Alcan site in Southam Road sometime around last
OXFORD City’s Julian Richardson will compete for England in the British and Irish Masters Cross Country International at Stormont, Belfast. Richardson was selected in England’s vet 45 team for the November 10 event after a string of good performances
FORMER Witney junior Darrell Griffin could not hide his joy after helping Leeds Rhinos to victory in the Super League Grand Final. Griffin came off the bench as Leeds battled back to defeat Warrington 26-18 and retain their title in a pulsating
A MULTI-million pound regeneration project to transform Blackbird Leys has been launched. For the first time, Oxford City Council has brought in specialist help to ask residents what improvements they would most like to see on Oxford’s biggest
North Leigh threw away a great chance of progressing in the FA Carlsberg Trophy as they let slip a 3-1 lead to lose 4-3 in their first qualifying round replay at Sholing Sports. After being forced to wait a week due to floodlight problems following
A SIMPLE spelling error has moved Wantage MP Ed Vaizey’s constituency surgery almost 140 miles south. In an itinerary circulated to members of the press about the movements of the junior minister, right, details of the surgery are revealed.
I WAS recently in conversation with an associate who, for many years, has contributed to the vision and development of Bicester and surrounding villages. He suggested to me that Bicester Village had put the town of Bicester firmly on the map. My
AN Oxfordshire golfer has been quick to make the most of a golf scholarship in the United States – winning in only her second tournament. Abi Laker, who represents Frilford Heath, won the Marilynn Smith Sunflower Invitation by a massive eight strokes
JAMES Wade says Oxford University’s coaching team have no clue who their Varsity Match XV will be, but he is far from panicking. The Dark Blues have selected more than 40 players for their three matches so far this season, even without captain
As one of the world’s greatest bands, Radiohead don’t do things by half. Their current world tour has seen them sell out gigs at some of the biggest arenas on the planet. Tonight and tomorrow that includes the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy – a 17,000
WAS surprised and disappointed that there was no report of the Acker Bilk concert in the Town Hall on October 5, in either the Saturday or Monday issue of the Oxford Mail. Considering that Bilk – who recently received a lifetime award for services
HAVE any of your readers been lucky enough to secure a place in the 2013 London Marathon through the public ballot? Or would they like one of our guaranteed charity places? World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) is appealing to those who have their
WE were sad to read about the RH bus, which went to the hospitals, going into administration. We will miss this bus a lot as we have a lot of hospital appointments – we are also thinking of the time when Mum was in hospital for three months. There
WHY is it that, the moment you get a 50mph speed limit sign crop up, some drivers will hit the brakes and will not travel any faster. Yet that very same driver will not see or stick to any other speed limits, be it 20, 30, 40, 60 or the national speed
OXFORD University student Fabian Downs held off Woodstock Harriers’ James Bolton to win the Hanney 5 road race. The 26-year-old Chiltern Harrier battled it out with 39-year-old Bolton for much of the fast five-mile course. But Downs eventually
The kids on the allotment club need volunteers to dig with them. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Volunteers have been helping with activities at the Community Centre in the Cutteslowe area for many years. Cutteslowe Community Association
FRILFORD Heath’s Eddie Pepperell moved up a place to 15th on the European Challenge Tour money list after tying for seventh in the Allianz Open de Lyon on Sunday. The top 20 on the money list at the end of the season qualify for next year’s main
Acclaimed author Will Self will give a talk about his new novel when he visits an Oxford city centre bookstore tonight. The novelist will read passages from Umbrella at Waterstones in Cornmarket Street, with the talk starting at 7pm. For further
A MAN, understood to be in his 60s, was found dead at a property off Limborough Road, Wantage, yesterday morning. Police are treating the death as unexplained but not suspicious. Officers were called to the scene near the Willow Grange retirement
A WEST Oxfordshire cancer campaigner has been referenced in a speech by the Prime Minister. As he addressed the Conservative party conference in Birmingham yesterday David Cameron cited the Cancer Drugs Fund, which was launched at the house of
VOLUNTEER archaeologists in Blackbird Leys had a shock on their second day of digging yesterday, when they stumbled upon a 4,000-year-old artefact. Around 20 people started digging near the Kassam Stadium on Tuesday, as part of a five week project
WYCHWOODS: Arson has been ruled out as the cause of a major fire at a DIY factory in Milton-under- Wychwood. Six fire crews were called at about 4.30am on Tuesday to tackle the blaze at Alfred Grove and Sons in Shipton Road. The cause is still
OXFORD: Fire crews tackled a shed fire in Littlemore in the early hours of yesterday morning. They were called to a property on Cowley Road and found the shed well alight. The fire is being treated as arson.
CARTERTON: More than 4,000 homes were without water for several hours yesterday morning. Thames Water engineers were called to a burst water main in Dovetrees, off Upavon Way, in the early hours. Company spokesman Craig Rance said about 4,300
Students gathered on their own stairway to heaven at an Oxford study centre created following a Led Zeppelin concert. The 16 graduate students have been chosen as the first to benefit from a £26m donation to Oxford University from Mica Ertegun,
BICESTER’S new £70m town centre development is to be named Pioneer Centre to honour the town’s links to the Army. The move comes months after 23 Pioneer Regiment, based at St David’s Barracks, Bicester, was told it would be disbanded as part of
JUNIOR club champion Will Preece holed the winning putt as Chipping Norton beat Witney Lakes 2-1 in the semi-finals of the Shaw Gibbs Oxfordshire Foursomes League KO Cup. Preece and partner Shaun Kench defeated Andy King and Neil Clayton by one
TRANSFORMING the Kassam Stadium from a football to rugby ground can happen in just an hour and a half. And these photos and the accompanying timelapse video, taken by our picture editor Jessica Mann after Oxford United’s home game against Gillingham
James Constable is desperate to play more regularly for Oxford United after ending the longest goalscoring drought of his career. The striker made the most of a place in the starting line-up, scoring in a 4-2 win away to Cheltenham Town in the
FOR most of us city folk, the fortunes of farmers is of little interest. The washout summer caused far more concern about miserable school holidays for the kids, ruined social occasions and just general drudgery of looking out of the window at
TICKETS have gone on sale for the annual Spirit of Christmas concert at Christ Church Cathedral. The candle-lit concert on Wednesday, December 5, raises money for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, funding groundbreaking research into treatments
SOME of the biggest new bands in Oxford will give up their time in aid of a very good cause on Saturday as the city holds its second Oxjam takeover. The event, which started fairly modestly last year, has mushroomed into an impressive one-night
There's one thing that the producers of drug movies keep forgetting: scenes of simulated hedonism are crashingly dull. Even the maestro of screen sin, Cecil B. DeMille failed to make viewers wish they were in the midst of one of his extravagant orgy
A clutch of British features produced between the mid-1930s and the late 1970s occupies us this week. Ranging from low-budget horrors to lavish musical biopics, they make for an eclectic mix. And, just to top it off, we come up to date with a romantic
WHAT better way to celebrate Oxfam’s 70th birthday this year, than with a music festival in its home town? For the past six months, a team of six dedicated volunteers have given every spare second to organising a one-day musical takeover of Oxford
FORMER Senior Aircraftman Sean Allerton pushed himself past the half-way point on a 500-mile charity challenge when he visited RAF Benson. The 47-year-old, who lives near York and has used a wheelchair since he broke his neck in a motorbike crash
