OUR councillors come up with some ambitious ideas for taxpayers’ money – a monorail, a tram system for central Oxford, and now it seems virtual reality games may be on the cards.

While running a public consultation on its “community engagement”, Oxford City Council asked residents for their suggestions on how they could be better involved with the council’s work.

One anonymous respondent helpfully suggested “alternate reality games”.

In response, the council officer in charge of the consultation wrote “This will be added to the Consultation Toolkit”.

Virtual planning application, anyone?

  • Paddington station in London was closed off on Friday afternoon as police investigated a suspect vehicle.

When asked how this would affect trains in and out of Oxford, a First Great Western spokesman responded that he was sat in his office at Paddington station but knew nothing of the incident happening outside his window.

The Insider suspects his delayed reaction may have been due to signalling problems.

  • Former Arsenal and England footballer Lee Dixon was due to talk at the Oxford Union on Tuesday until his slot was taken by Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman, below.

Oxford Mail:

The ITV pundit tweeted: “The legend that is Morgan Freeman is doing his stretches. Dixon looks over at the bench nervously. He sees the number 2 go up. He’s off. Gutted.”

While The Insider is a fan of both titans in their field, it suspects it was not a close call for the Oxford Union over who to stick with.

  • Wantage MP Ed Vaizey, below, offered an amusing response when Madam Deputy Speaker Eleanor Laing referred to the Culture minister as “Eddie”.

Oxford Mail: Ed Vaizey

In the Commons debate on last week’s football governance bill he replied: “Your use of the name ‘Eddie’ indicates how long we have known each other.

“I have gone from being Edward at school, Eddie at university, to Ed today, as Hansard will record.

“As Stephen Doughty says, it is only a matter of time before I move on to Teddy.”

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