Archive

  • Where there’s a will there’s a way for panto

    THE Sheriff of Nottingham and his two henchmen are hatching a plot to kill off the Babes in the Woods and cash in on their inheritance in Hanney Drama Group’s latest production. The 23-strong cast will be performing the pantomime at Hanney War

  • Helping fight cancer is a piece of cake

    WANTAGE charity champion Ray Collins is offering people the chance to raise money for good causes. Mr Collins has taken over the town’s new community shop, The Mix, for two weeks, selling cakes and other items for charity. The 44-year-old,

  • International fair attracts 125 artists

    MORE than 125 artists from the UK and around the globe will arrive in Oxford this weekend to showcase their work. The first Oxford International Art Fair opens from today to Sunday in the Town Hall on St Aldate’s. It has attracted exhibitors

  • Town is likely to be chosen as logistics centre, says MP

    BICESTER’S MP Sir Tony Baldry is “confident” the town will be chosen as the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) central logistic hub, saving hundreds of jobs. The MoD is currently looking into privatising its supply chain, which includes Bicester Defence

  • State children blow their trumpets at private school day

    STATE school pupils got a chance to show off their musical talents at an Oxford private school. The Dragon School, in Bardwell Road, North Oxford, invited musical children from local primaries to a day of workshops and improvisation sessions.

  • The Carbonfools are ‘Hungary’ for success

    Tim Hughes meets one of Hungary’s biggest bands, now making waves over here - The Carbonfools. SUPERSTARS in their home country, The Carbonfools can’t walk down the road without being mobbed. Among Budapest’s biggest bands, they effortlessly

  • How complex science deals with our waste

    WHEN dustmen collect household waste the general view is that it’s thrown into a giant hole in the ground and left to rot. But there is more going on than initially meets the eye. Behind the scenes at any landfill site is a complex operation

  • RUGBY UNION: Captain May returns for top-table battle + Video

    Team captain Tom May returns to the London Welsh starting line-up for the top-of-the-table clash with leaders Rotherham Titans at the Kassam Stadium on Sunday (2.30pm). May was injured for Welsh’s 36-15 defeat at Plymouth last weekend – a loss

  • Foster caring shop opens in £70m square

    Another unit in Bicester’s £70m town centre development Pioneer Square has opened. Fostering Solutions, which gives advice and support to people looking to foster children, was opened by deputy mayor Lynn Pratt last week, pictured. Staff relocated

  • ‘Holocaust should never be forgotten’

    A HOLOCAUST survivor shared his story with pupils at St Birinus School for Holocaust Remembrance Week. John Fieldsend, of the Holocaust Education Trust, spoke to Year Nine pupils at the school on Mereland Road, Didcot, about his experiences of

  • Woodstock by-election result

    A NEW town councillor has been elected following a by-election in Woodstock last night. Louisa Maybury, of Market Street was elected with 416 votes. Her only opponent, Christopher Harris, received 68 votes. Mrs Maybury said: “I’m very,

  • Seven schools hold talks on multi-academy trust

    SEVEN schools are hoping to become a Multi Academy Trust before the end of the school year. Bartholomew School in Eynsham, already an academy, is looking to join up with six primary schools in the area, who are already part of the Eynsham Partnership

  • Charities fight mental health taboos

    MENTAL health is often still seen as a taboo subject. But with more people diagnosed with such illnesses, a new project has been set up to try to tackle the stigma surrounding mental health. Yesterday, to coincide with national Time to Talk

  • The Delegators: make way for the rocksteady crew

    SERVING up a heady rum cocktail of rocksteady, 60s soul, Motown and early reggae, The Delegators are rapidly acquiring a repuation as one of the most exciting live acts around. And to the delight of Oxford reggae fans, Janet Kumah’s band - who

  • Christmas lunch is better late than never

    SIX women were treated to a pub lunch after being unable to attend a Christmas party hosted by a charity which works with the elderly. The lunch took place last Tuesday at the Bay Tree in Grove, near Wantage, and was hosted by the charity Age UK

  • Oxford Fashion Week - Beauty of an event for a beautiful city

    Alison Boulton digs beneath the city's dreaming spires Quaffing chilled Champagne among the beautiful, lissom young is a hazard of the job, but any distraction is welcome in the dark days of February – and I could be persuaded to do it again, anytime

  • 'I've finally got a real weight off my mind'

    Rebecca Moore has a revelation when she stops worrying about the scales...and then starts losing pounds I have a confession to make. Don’t get too excited though because it’s not a very great confession, I imagine most women in the western world

  • Fashionista: OMG! I can't wait for OFW!

    Anusha Couttigane is excited for Oxford Fashion Week Oxford Fashion’s Night Out; LiveFriday at the Ashmolean; four retail events; three exhibitions and a live photo shoot. Yes, OFW has given us its fair share of stylish events. And now it’s back

  • The age of living Appily ever after

    Oxford singletons have gone all hi-tech, with a wave of new apps designed to find love at the swipe of a smartphone. But do they really work? Jaine Blackman reports Love changes everything, so they say. But it seems the digital revolution is also

  • Lifestyle highlights for this week

    Take a look at some of the top stories from this week's edition of Friday Life Britain’s greatest ever female track cyclist Victoria Pendleton opens up about her sporting achievements, life after cycling, and why she’s still not putting her

  • Half term romance

    Alison Boulton digs beneath the city's dreaming spires One of my first trips to the cinema as a child was to see Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. Even as an eight year old, I was blown away

  • The Good Life - Cruel business of life exports

    Journalist and part-time shepherd Tim Metcalfe urges a ban on animal transport Campaigners against cruelty to farm animals are continuing their battle to end live exports from UK ports. It is distressing to see cattle and sheep packed into trucks

  • Oxford’s Olympic hero

    SLALOM skiing is not usually associated with Oxford, but the winter sport was the invention of an Oxford University graduate. Sir Arnold Lunn, who was a student at Balliol College, created the popular Winter Olympics event, one of the sporting

  • Cutting through the beauty trap

    Two headlines this week caught my eye, mainly because they were sitting awkwardly side by side on the page. The first story declared – almost happily – that cases of cancer will continue to rise over the coming decades. According to the World Health

  • Stay at home Dad - I'm not just a dad but a person too

    My life changed after becoming a parent. Weekends spent drinking in pubs or playing golf were phased out and replaced by trips to play centres, farms and parks. I’ve no complaints about this at all. I enjoy the changes that this new life stage

  • Too long in the tooth to tweet

    The world is changing so fast, it’s hard to keep up. It seems only recently that we have been faced with the onslaught of technology changes. During my five years at university, I had never been on the Internet. The world wide web was a unheard

  • Off with the gloves - The magic of mushrooms

    Sheena Patterson of Oxford Garden Design gets prepared to grow some gourmet fare As we have larger premises, we have more space to try some exciting things, and the next thing on our agenda is to grow some gourmet mushrooms. As fungi, mushrooms

  • Second time round and it doesn't seem to get any easier...

    I’m not sure I have the hang of this parenthood thing yet. You’d think I would be a model parent having done it once but that’s no qualification at all. It’s not the same the second time around and I did things differently nearly two decades ago. A

  • Everybody was a winner in eye-opening dance contest

    What people in their right minds would agree to judge a dance competition of pupils at 20 primary schools in Oxfordshire? What hard hearted Dickensian character would be prepared to crown the winners and disappoint all the others. Well, I was one of

  • Girls empowered by performance

    YOUNG girls in Oxford have been learning about strong, empowering women as part of a month-long project. Last night the 10 youngsters, from the Blackbird Leys area, put on a performance at Ruskin College in Old Headington, using poetry, spoken

  • I despair over these new developments

    WHY can I see another ‘Castle Mill Flats’ fiasco occurring with Oxford City Council’s decision to build the ‘Northern Gateway Project’ (along with the Barton Park project)? I suspect that despite the offerings of ‘public consultation’ (read tick

  • A princely start to a national flood appeal

    WELL done Prince Charles for visiting the Somerset levels and donating £50k to help local people and businesses. HRH Prince of Wales The whole country is awash with floods. If this was happening far away then surely many organisations

  • Closing pool down does not make sense

    THE one thing missing from your recent article on Temple Cowley Pools was that the campaigners had taken the trouble to go round all the leisure facilities noting their energy efficiency details. Of all the facilities it turned out that Temple Cowley

  • Please support animal sanctuary with funds

    WE have two rescue cats from the Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary. We know that it is in financial difficulty and trying not to close down – things have been made worse by the recent storm damage. I looked at their website for recent news and noticed

  • Ashby's joy at five-year pro contract with Oxford United

    A DELIGHTED Josh Ashby admitted it was a “dream” to sign professional terms with Oxford United. The club rate the youth team midfielder highly, as shown by the length of contract. Ashby, 17, has put pen to paper on an initial three-year deal

  • Lewis not afraid to be Oxford United's Mr Nasty

    HIS more relaxed approach may have gone down well with Oxford United’s players, but caretaker manager Mickey Lewis has no problem with displaying a harder side if necessary. It is almost a fortnight since the 48-year-old stepped into the void left

  • Connolly calls for Oxford United to keep looking upwards

    DAVID Connolly has urged Oxford United to do everything they can to claim automatic promotion this season, after finding out the hard way how agonising the play-offs can become. The striker’s debut goal last Saturday against AFC Wimbledon secured

  • COMMENT: Knee-jerk reaction to county flooding

    THERE is nothing worse than government by knee-jerk. While any flooding prevention announcements are to be welcomed, why are 10 schemes for Oxfordshire only being announced now, coincidentally three weeks after that catastrophic start to the year?

  • James Beattie climbs up in Oxford United manager betting

    JAMES Beattie was the big mover in the betting markets to become Oxford United manager yesterday. All bookmakers quoting prices make the Accrington Stanley boss (pictured), who is yet to attain his UEFA B licence, the favourite. Elsewhere,

  • Radio gains and losses

    The latest local radio figures show JackFM Oxford gained 32,000 listeners last year. The Woodstock Road station reached 86,000 people in December compared to the 54,000 in December 2012, according to Rajar. BBC Oxford weekly figures show the

  • By-election result due

    A new Woodstock town councillor is due to be announced today following an election yesterday. Christopher Harris, of Church Lane, Charlton-on-Otmoor, and Louisa Maybury, of Market Street, Woodstock, were the only candidates in the election, called

  • Rail delays on Sunday between Oxford and Didcot Parkway

    Buses will replace trains between Oxford and Didcot Parkway for the whole day on Sunday, due to planned engineering work. As a result, some trains on the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester will not run at the scheduled times. For more

  • Collision closes A34

    A collision involving a lorry closed part of the A34 at Milton yesterday. The lorry lost its trailer and hit the crash barrier, closing one of the two lanes on the A34. The delays were just north of the Milton Interchange. There were no

  • Sledders re-buffed

    An Oxford University contestant narrowly missed out on the chance to represent Britain in the Naked Sledding Championship 2014. Language student Francis Thomas took third place in the public vote, behind the two Brits heading to Germany to sled

  • Castle Quay centre in Banbury gets planning okay

    Plans to extend Banbury’s Castle Quay shopping centre were yesterday approved by councillors. Cherwell District Council’s planning committee passed the plan for development around the Oxford Canal. It will include a supermarket, cinema, restaurants

  • Fourth fatal car accident on Didcot road

    A WOMAN has been killed in a crash on a stretch of road near Didcot where there have been a series of fatal accidents. The 68-year-old woman from Wallingford was pronounced dead at the scene, on the A4130 at Hadden Hill, yesterday morning.

  • Motorbike fire tackled

    A motorbike was found on fire near a field. Firefighters from The Slade were called to the scene at about 9.20pm on Wednesday between Marston and Elsfield. The road between the two was closed while they dealt with the fire. The motorbike

  • Boy, six, fights for life after collision

    A six-year-old boy was last night fighting for his life after a collision with a car near Faringdon. The boy was airlifted to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital with life-threatening head injuries following the collision with a white Audi Q5 in Faringdon

  • Taylor named as Oxford United Women's boss

    LES Taylor will take charge of Oxford United Women’s debut Super League season. The former U’s midfielder has been part of the club’s backroom staff since 1992 and will head up the women’s side with Richard Blackmore, who will be the general manager

  • Ex-colleagues were plagued by defamatory internet posts

    An “OBSESSIVE” computer expert has been warned she will go to jail unless she stops trolling her former colleagues in a five-year online hate campaign. The High Court heard that web designer Irena Ponomareva lost her job with Milton Park-based

  • February 7, 2014

    12:28pm Crown Prosecution Service in Thames Valley is one of the worst in the country, this week's damning report reveals. There is also a link to the full report for you to read.

  • Firefighters called out to 30 flood incidents this morning

    FIREFIGHTERS have been called out to about 30 flood incidents – including flooded houses – since 4am this morning. Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service this morning said it has been called out to areas including Sutton Courtenay, the Hendreds, Watlington

  • FIXTURES: February 8-12

    SATURDAY  FOOTBALL SKY BET LEAGUE TWO Bristol Rov v Oxford Utd. SKRILL NORTH Oxford City v Telford Utd. CALOR LEAGUE Premier Div: Banbury Utd v Biggleswade Tn. Div 1 South & West: Didcot Tn v Wimborne Tn, North Leigh

  • Scavengers go off exploring the sights around their campus

    STUDENTS at Oxford Brookes University have been doing some studying of a different kind, to find out all about their main campus. On Wednesday, the Oxford Brookes Road Trip society held a scavenger hunt across the campus in Headington. Society

  • Thailand-based councillor Steve Hayward in resignation U-turn

    A DISTRICT councillor who said he would resign after moving from Oxfordshire to Thailand has now decided not to do so. Steve Hayward still represents Ducklington on West Oxfordshire District Council despite having lived in Thailand since June –

  • RUGBY UNION: Goode demands Chinnor end discipline problems

    MATT Goode has demanded his Chinnor side improve their discipline ahead of tomorrow's game at Bishop’s Stortford. Chinnor had four players sin-binned in their last National 2 South game at Hartpury College a fortnight ago, and player-coach Goode

  • TENNIS: Unbeaten girls edged into second

    OXFORDSHIRE’S Under 18 girls starred in the 12 Counties Tournament at Corby. The four-strong squad of Patricia Valimaa, Alice Atkins, Lizzy Shortis and Aoife Miller were unbeaten in their three matches to share top spot with Northamptonshire –

  • BADMINTON: Richens and Carvel strike triple gold

    Rebekah Richens and Katie Carvel, from Bartholomew School, Eynsham, both won three gold medals at the Oxfordshire Association’s annual schools’ tournament at Radley College. Richens took the under 15 singles title before teaming up with Lizzie

  • Alcohol a possible factor in student’s tragic death

    A POPULAR Oxford University student who survived two brain tumours as a child died after falling down stairs, an inquest heard yesterday. Conor Robinson fell at the Longwall Annexe of Magdalen College following a night out with friends on October

  • RACING: Harristown is 20-1 cracker for Longsdon

    Harristown, trained by Charlie Longsdon at Chipping Norton, defied his 20-1 starting price to land the 32Red Juvenile Hurdle at Huntingdon yesterday. Kielan Woods got a good leap out of his mount at the last flight, while Baradari blundered, handing

  • Eco-park rail bridge in Oxford ‘should have ramps’

    A COMMUNITY eco-park and allotments should be provided with ramps as part of Network Rail’s plans to replace footbridges in Oxford. The company is planning to replace the bridge off Whitehouse Road to allow its electrification of the railway line

  • FOOTBALL: Sinnott fired-up for Didcot role + Video

    Andy Sinnott says he can’t wait to get started after he was appointed as assistant manager-coach at Didcot Town. Sinnott, 62, who left his position as coach at Skrill North side Oxford City, said he enjoyed his time at Marsh Lane, but felt the

  • Eco-park rail bridge ‘should have ramps’

    A COMMUNITY eco-park and allotments should be provided with ramps as part of Network Rail’s plans to replace footbridges in Oxford. The company is planning to replace the bridge off Whitehouse Road to allow its electrification of the railway line

  • Pupils start the school day with a hearty breakfast

    PUPILS at Middle Barton Primary School tucked into a hearty meal of porridge, baps and juice as part of Farmhouse Breakfast Week. Harry Belcher and Natasha Denton, six, enjoyed a hearty meal before they started school. Harry chose a bowl of

  • FOOTBALL: Angry Stein won't accept another poor show

    Furious Banbury United boss Edwin Stein says he will not tolerate a repeat of Tuesday’s horror show at Chesham United which saw them crash to an 8-0 defeat. It was their worse loss since November 1983 when they slumped 8-0 at Shepshed Charterhouse

  • RUGBY UNION: Chadbone asks Quins for more of the same

    OXFORD Harlequins name an unchanged team for their top-of-the-table clash at Windsor. Quins are 17 points clear at the top of South West 1 East after last week’s thumping 73-5 win at Reading. Head of rugby Steve Chadbone knows that victory

  • TENNIS: Veterans in semi-final exit

    BANBURY'S John Spratt and Rennie Johnston lost in their semi-final of the over 65 men’s doubles at the British Senior Open Championships. After losing the first set 6-2 to top seeds Gerd Dahmen (Germany) and Jeremy Woods (GB), they fought back

  • Universities’ staff in third pay walkout

    UNION members rallied in the centre of Oxford yesterday as they again went on strike in a dispute over pay. It was the third time members of the University and College Union (UCU), UNISON and Unite have formed picket lines since October. Members

  • Vomiting bug leads to part closure of school

    PART of a West Oxfordshire secondary school will be closed today, after a winter vomiting bug struck a quarter of its teachers and more than 100 pupils. Henry Box School in Witney is having to close classes to Year Nine and Year 10 pupils – aged

  • New exhibition brooches the subject of ancient treasures

    TREASURES from Oxfordshire’s ancient history go on show from tomorrow at a county museum. The exhibition, entitled Unearthed, at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock, features more than 20 items, including this Anglo Saxon saucer brooch from 500

  • FOOTBALL: Guy sits it out for Wantage

    Wantage Town will be without Richie Guy (unavailable) should their Premier Division game away at Holyport tomorrow survive the deluge expected to hit the area. Wantage Tn (v Holyport, away): Noice, Howe, McCready, Sadler, Butler, Davis, Webb, James

  • Oxford United keeper Clarke's top of the stops + Video

    RYAN Clarke has dedicated his player of the month award to the rest of Oxford United’s defence after going through January without conceding a goal. The goalkeeper was recognised as Sky Bet League Two’s top player after four successive clean sheets

  • TENNIS: Sports storm on at the top

    OXFORD Sports’ 8-0 win at Bicester increased their lead at the top of the Thames Valley Winter League Men’s Premier Division after second-placed North Oxford could manage only a 5-3 success over Woodstock. RESULTS Men’s Premier Division: Abingdon

  • New arts space is created

    A FORMER museum in Oxford’s Town Hall in St Aldates has been turned into a space for arts and cultural events. The new venue is the first stage in a three-year plan to refurbish the former Museum of Oxford. Oxford City Council is staging shows

  • Tesco Express taking shape on site of pub

    STORE giant Tesco is pressing ahead fast on its new store in South Oxford. The Tesco Express store will replace the former Fox and Hounds pub at the junction of Abingdon Road and Weirs Lane. Demolition of the derelict pub, which was badly damaged