SUNSHINE can bring out the best in most of us. Tuesday was such a day.

Take the man who sustained a painful blow to the head as he stepped aside to allow a frustrated young mum herd her lively pre-school trio through the scaffolding jungle that is Magdalen Street.

She apologised and asked if he was all right. He simply rubbed his soon-to-swell forehead, smiled and thanked her for her concern.

Or the bag-loaded grandma who rather than barge through a group of foreign visitors thoughtlessly blocking the entire pavement, stepped out into the busy High Street only to drop a heavy bag when a bus horn sounded only feet behind her.

Two of the group leapt into action to help collect her scattered groceries.

Hardly convincing proof of my sunshine theory, but seeing both made me feel brighter.

* BUT late evening brought rain – and a change of attitude. No one was enjoying waiting for the park-and-ride bus.

One had moved off minutes before and the wet and cold made the wait seem longer. What’s more, we were a ready target for the city’s homeless.

I couldn’t bring myself to refuse a soaked-to-the-skin woman wanting a few bob to help pay for something warm to drink or somewhere dry to stay. I gave her a little loose change as did a young couple who were snuggling together. OK, so we are advised to resist beggars, but she seemed desperate. And after all she was somebody’s daughter.

Standing alongside in the queue was a man of ripe years. He shook his head disapprovingly.“You know they are brought here in a minibus. She’s probably better off than you,” he said. Others mumbled in agreement before resuming their complaint that the bus was taking its time.

Ah well…

* WHY was this superannuated grandfather in Oxford late at night when TV and hot chocolate offered so much at home? I had been to see Evita, the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber masterpiece musical, on this week at the New Theatre.

It was an outstanding production deserving and earning the first spontaneous standing ovation I’ve experienced in years. The audience rose as one adding a second spine tingle to the first already inflicted by the amazing show.

“Do you remember Eva Peron? What was she really like?” asked the 40-plus woman who had been sitting next to me throughout.

True, I was wearing a suit and tie as is my habit when theatregoing; even so, surely she didn’t think I was that old. I confessed that as a puberty-approaching 13-year-old, I knew a famous blonde from faraway Argentina had died. But she was ancient. She was 33!