OXFORD Mail journalists have been valiantly trying to raise awareness of male cancer by downing their razors and sprouting hair on their upper lips for Movember.

Some have been more successful than others and Didcot and Wantage MP Ed Vaizey was particularly unimpressed by one effort.

He asked: “What’s this? It’s been two weeks already and that’s still rubbish.”

Our reporter bristled at the jibe.

AFTER his suggestion of a huge bust of Oxford City Council leader Bob Price atop the new Westgate Centre was laughed down at one meeting last week, councillor John Tanner, pictured below, pursued his mission to make it into this week’s Insider at the next.

At West Area Planning later that same day, he quipped that he “wouldn’t dream” of making chairman Oscar Van Noijen’s life difficult by making awkward suggestions, leading the icy chairman to joke: “Councillor Tanner is constantly offering up material for the yet-to-be-published Quotable John Tanner, but perhaps we could get on with the meeting...”

Rest assured, Councillor Tanner, when you come to publish your memoirs, the Mail’s archives are heaving with your timeless eloquence.

MR Tanner, the city council's board member for a cleaner, greener Oxford, deserves a second mention after he momentarily forgot the city’s recycling rate when a dog ran into his garden while he was being interviewed on the subject of food waste. But he soon recovered his poise to recall that the rate is now a solid 45 per cent.

The former Lord Mayor also informed us that he has opted for something a little more bijou than the usual green food waste caddy – a white ceramic pot.

POLICE and Crime Commissioner Anthony Stansfeld is obviously not a dog person, after raising concerns about the cost of looking after prisoners’ pets. At a public meeting last week he pointed out that Thames Valley Police spent £400 in four years on managing dogs belonging to criminals.

Mr Stansfeld said: “That’s a significant amount of money. We’re not paying for them to be kennelled all of the time, surely?”

Amidst laughter officers reassured him that police do not look after prisoners’ pets. Although no one seemed to know what did happen to them once they left the force’s responsibility...