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11th March 2015    13th March 2015

  • Young actors' Elvis show raises £20,000 for charity

    FOUR HUNDRED young performers from Stagecoach Oxford centres stepped into the limelight on Sunday night for a charity musical extravaganza. The youngsters, aged from four to 19, played roles in Looking for Elvis, a variety show epic penned by Stagecoach

  • Youngsters encouraged to go for construction sector places

    APPRENTICESHIPS will play an important part in the Oxfordshire construction industry in the short term, according to Matthew Hancock, the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Energy. He said: “There are 22,000 people needed in construction in

  • Guides rethink plans to upgrade centre

    IT’S a common theme in Girlguiding to make the best of what you have to hand. Girlguiding Kidlington District has spent five years trying to raise £300,000 to rebuild its centre. After only being able to raise just a third of that, rather than

  • FOOTBALL: Barrow hold no fears for us says, Oxford City boss

    Oxford City boss Justin Merritt is relishing tomorrow’s long trip to Vanarama Conference North leaders Barrow, writes Matthew Bruce. With 13 wins from their 16 home games this season, City’s hosts have a formidable record at Holker Street.

  • Minister visits RAF Benson to highlight defence successes

    HELICOPTER fleets at RAF Benson took centre stage during a visit from the Defence Minister today. Philip Dunne visited the base to meet personnel, crews and engineers, while admiring helicopters at the site. He was there to highlight the different

  • Scientists showcase search for a meningitis vaccine

    THE FIGHT to tackle meningitis was highlighted at a Vaccines and Deadly Diseases Day. The all-day event for young people on Friday at Oxford University Museum of Natural History was part of this year’s Oxfordshire Science Festival. Among those

  • Traffic on A34 slowed by vehicle fire and two-car crash

    A VEHICLE fire on the A34 is causing delays near Islip, according to traffic reports. The incident, which happened earlier at the Islip turnoff, is causing delays and has partially blocked the northbound carriageway. There has also been a crash

  • Founding fellow played key college role

    A FOUNDING fellow and dean of degrees of St Catherine’s College has died aged 91. John Simopoulos was a philosophy don and son of Charalambos Simopoulos, the Greek ambassador to London during the Second World War. From 1953 he was one of four

  • Charity founder campaigned for the ordination of women

    LADY Penelope Nairne, who passed away aged 87, was a campaigner for the ordination of women in the Church of England and the founder and president of family charity Home-Start Oxford. She was married to Sir Patrick Nairne, a respected former civil

  • Machine glitch parking tickets are cancelled

    MORE than 100 parking tickets issued over Christmas by Didcot’s Orchard Centre had to be cancelled after a technical glitch. The centre’s parking contractors have written to residents to say they will cancel every ticket issued, correctly or not

  • Oxford United loanee Kemar Roofe extends stay from West Brom

    KEMAR Roofe has agreed to extend his loan at Oxford United until the end of the season. The forward joined from West Bromwich Albion on an initial 28-day arrangement last month, which is due to expire next week. Roofe, 22, has made five appearances

  • Literary festival launches with array of authors

    BOOK lovers will flock to the city today for a sneak peek at what the Oxford Literary Festival has in store for its 19th year. Award-winning authors, politicians, historians and journalists from across the world will appear at the festival between

  • Must we sometimes forget?

    Kate Whiting welcomes the return of a literary giant with his tale of post-Arthurian Britain Never mind book of the week, The Buried Giant will quite possibly scare off competition to be my book of the year. A decade after Kazuo Ishiguro’s last

  • Treat mums’ tums to show your love

    Helen Peacocke finds places vying to make Mother’s Day special on Sunday How things change. Mother’s Day was once celebrated with a Simnel cake baked by daughters working in service and away from home. This cake, which was presented to mothers

  • You need to wait for right weather

    Val Bourne says it’s crucial to delay until night-time temperatures improve before you start sowing seeds It’s so easy to buy a packet of vegetable seeds and, having noted that the packet says sow in February or early March, to take it seriously

  • Oxford print exhibition is making a mark

    Anne James views a display to mark four decades of a print collective Four decades ago, a group of artists formed one of the city’s most enduring artistic ventures. Marking its 40th anniversary next year, the Oxford Printmakers Co-operative

  • Are all the colleges on board with expansion?

    OXFORD University is a major player in the drive to increase the county’s housing stock by 40 per cent by 2031, saying that more housing is essential to help with its staff recruitment and business expansion. Yet it seems that some of the colleges

  • A disastrous mistake that caused shocking damage

    RECENT events show that it is now accepted by pretty much everyone on all sides that the Port Meadow flats development was a disastrous mistake that has caused shocking damage to Oxford’s priceless protected heritage, and the Save Port Meadow Campaign

  • Poet-inspired new work is job Donne

    Alex Symcox, winner of the Oxford Symphony Orchestra’s composition contest, tells Nicola Lisle about his latest piece Alex Symcox started getting into music, he says, “really late”, but since then the 21-year-old composition student has been making

  • Soundbites - Festival news and Arthur Brown

    * After last week’s announcements that Tom The Voice Jones and Martha Heatwave Reeves are on their way to Cornbury Festival, we didn’t think the county’s roster of festival bills could get any better. That was until those nice people at Truck festival

  • For Art's Sake with David Leddy

    Inspired by histories of fakes and forgery, theatrical maverick David Leddy explains how he created Long Live The Little Knife In 2010, I chanced upon a book called How Pleasure Works, written by Yale professor of psychology Paul Bloom. In the

  • Connecting with your inner Byron

    Poet wannabe Marc West finds his verse remains more Spike Milligan than Andrew Motion after a workshop Poetry, they say, is food for the soul. If this be so I’m prepared to commit the deadly sin of gluttony to fill my boots with the joy of text

  • Nibbles - Ted & Co, The Big Feastival and more

    * Ted & Co – The Dinner Show, is coming to The Beacon in Wantage on Saturday night, a parody of the cult TV classic sitcom. The unique and interactive comedy dining experience debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with an evening of high-energy

  • Suite Francaise - Gallic affair of heart under the jackboot

    Damon Smith sees a French wife fall for a Nazi, then a maths prodigy fail to work out what adds up to love Heartbreaking truth is more compelling than fiction in Suite Française, Saul Dibb’s adaptation of the novella Dolce by Irene Nemirovsky.

  • Claire Sweeney's date with destiny

    Actress Claire Sweeney talks to Katherine MacAlister about the joys of motherhood as well as staging her show Sex in Suburbia That Claire Sweeney is in a good place right now is obvious. In fact, she can scarcely conceal her contentment, almost

  • An overnight success at 56

    Maggie Hartford talks to a North Oxford author about her debut novel, The Well Catherine Chanter was teaching in an acute mental health ward for seriously disturbed teenagers in Oxford when news came that publishers from all over the world were

  • Should we dig for victory again in the quads?

    I’ve been surveying the beautifully manicured lawns of the college quads this early spring and thinking to myself: vegetables. When I explain to visiting American students that they cannot repose on these acres of grass they are bemused to find

  • Playwright’s mistake over wrongly titled aristocrat

    There is in Tom Stoppard’s splendid play Arcadia a small error that has niggled me on every occasion I have seen it, perhaps five or six times since its premiere at the National Theatre in 1993. I noticed it with irritation at Aylesbury Waterside

  • Daily Mail invents angle on Oxford sex case

    It has been a habit of mine, through most of my adult life, to every so often buy (a good split infinitive that) a copy of the Daily Mail, just to remind myself what a dreadful rag it is. I bought one on Wednesday of last week, with the additional

  • Machines make a meal of an unloved car park

    A hungry beast. This was my observation to a fellow spectator as we stood awestruck watching giant teeth, like those of a fearsome dinosaur, chomping their way through Oxford’s unloved and soon to be no more Westgate car park. The sight was strange

  • Food review - The Kingham Plough is where flavour rules

    The Plough now boasts a hi-tech kitchen but the quality food is still gloriously rustic, says Katherine MacAlister Emily Watkins is eating lunch with her family at a big round table at the Kingham Plough when we visit, even though it’s her day

  • Take mum for day out in Chilterns

    Discover the beauties of woodlands and views in the Big Chiltern Weekend, urges Wendy Tobitt of the local wildlife trust This year’s Big Chilterns Weekend, promoting all that is beautiful, delicious and amazing about the glorious Chilterns countryside

  • Age doesn't add up

    I READ Keith Brooks’ letter in the Oxford Mail on February 24 regarding the Second World War veteran who was having trouble getting his new blue badge. Has the gentlemen’s age been written wrong because if the war ended seventy years ago, the gentleman

  • Traffic levels in the West End would be worse

    WEST Oxfordshire District Council has passed its 2015-2031 Local Plan which will now go for public examination by a Government inspector. WODC is adamant that this plan is evidence-based. This, despite 12 of its councillors speaking out within

  • Thanks for purse return

    I HAD the misfortune to lose my purse in Welch Way in Witney outside Costa on Tuesday and just wondered if you could print this letter to say thank you to the very kind lady who handed it in at the police station. SYLVIA SHAW Eynsham

  • The Honey Man is buzzing

    Giles Woodforde meets the actor and playwright bringing together generations parted by a digital and analogue divide Tyrone Huggins was born on the Caribbean island of St Kitts, then moved to Birmingham when he was five. He first appeared on stage

  • Learn to rejoice in stimulating drama The Hard Problem

    Christopher Gray has plenty of praise for NT boss Nicholas Hytner’s final gig Tom Stoppard tackles weighty matters in his new play, The Hard Problem, and they might have been weightier still but for his fear of an intellectual deficiency on the

  • A general election is our only chance where we have a voice

    AMERICAN President Franklin D Roosevelt once said “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” Election fever is now heating up and the

  • Review - Mary Stuart @ Oxford Playhouse

    Charisma, duplicity, spin: a description of a 21st-century election campaign? Possibly, but those same forces are also at insidious and timeless work in Mary Stuart, playwright Friedrich Schiller’s account of the monumental confront ation between Protestant

  • Spirit wakes in beautiful moves from the Sonia Sabri Company

    Ash Mukherjee has been hailed by Dance Europe magazine as the best Indian dancer in the UK today and you can see why as soon as he steps on to the stage. He has a striking and beautiful presence, with a fine technique. A versatile dancer and choreographer

  • Paul Carrack is not only looking back over his shoulder

    Humphrey Astley finds Paul Carrack keen to play his hits from all eras, including the present Paul Carrack is one of those artists who seems to have done everything. He’s played with Roxy Music, Squeeze, Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters

  • Home Front stars on putting together First World War play

    Giles Woodforde hears how a play telling real life tales from First World War Oxford was put together It was an enormous undertaking; to unearth, examine and then devise a play from Oxford residents’ recorded First World War experiences and then

  • Teen Taste @ Brewers Fayre, Bicester

    * What did you think? It’s the kind of place where you know what to expect. The food arrives quickly, it has big portions and a menu packed full of meat and chips. It was perfect for me because I just wanted to eat as much meat as possible

  • Posh nosh with parents? Hello to Grub Club

    An apprehensive Erin McDonald takes her toddler for a ‘fine dining’ experience and is pleasantly suprised The thought of eating out with a toddler can be enough to send shivers up the spine of the most practiced of parents. Unless your little

  • Delivering the finest of dining to doorstep

    Starting Up with Jeremy Rawlinson @ Deliveroo My name is Jeremy Rawlinson, and I work for a company that’s just launched an exciting yet simple concept in Oxford, designed to revolutionise the dining scene. It does this by delivering quality

  • Enter the crazy world of Arthur Brown

    Humphrey Astley meets the eccentric, pyromaniac 60s legend Arthur Brown Singer, rocker, raconteur, performance artist, collaborator extraordinaire – they don’t make them like Arthur Brown anymore. The good news is that the self-styled ‘God

  • Mind games from Derren Brown

    Katherine MacAlister meets the psychological showman who is giving nothing away as he prepares to take the stage with a new show Derren Brown may be back, but he’s not giving anything away except the title of his new show. “Miracle refers to

  • Science lessons are now sociable

    Steven Farkas is not a scientist, but he has met lots of fun ones First off, let me state for the record that I am not a scientist. That may be an odd way to start considering this is an article about science communication, but it does make the

  • Co-op wants to take on pub site

    A DERELICT pub site in Cowley could be transformed into a mini supermarket employing 25 people. The Nuffield Arms, in Littlemore Road, has sat empty since last September, but supermarket chain The Co-operative Food want to revamp the twostorey

  • The Insider column: Need a super sleuth? We've got Melinda

    IF Thames Valley Police every find themselves in need of an extra sleuth, The Insider would suggest they look no further than Oxfordshire Council Council. Cabinet member for Education Melinda Tilley already has a hefty workload in her day

  • Talk is a first step to child's safety

    Last week, Oxfordshire was the subject of local and national press and media coverage as a result of the publication of the Serious Case Review Report on the Bullfinch case. In the same week, a group of six men were convicted of very similar offences

  • Oxford United boss unfazed by Danny Hylton's suspension

    MICHAEL Appleton felt Danny Hylton’s suspension was inevitable, so had no regrets over keeping him on the pitch long enough to collect a tenth booking. United’s top scorer triggered a two-game ban with a late yellow card in the 1-0 win at Bury

  • Man taken to hospital after boat fire at Castle Mill

    A MAN was taken to hospital after a fire on a canal boat last night. Fire services were called out at 10.50pm to calls that a canal boat had caught fire near the William Lucy Way towpath. Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service spokeswoman Rachael

  • First signs that spring is on its way in Garden

    WARM weather has led to spring flowers blooming at Oxford’s Botanic Garden and brought out the bees and birds. Botanic horticultural trainee Virginia Vargo said there had been a noticeable change in the garden off High Street following sunny spells

  • Join Magnus on the start line as we race for record number

    MORE than 1,000 people have signed up to the Oxford Mail’s OX5 Run to raise money for the children’s hospital. And with just over two weeks to go until the big day, the Oxford Mail is hoping to smash last year’s record number of 1,200. The

  • FOOTBALL: Freak goal ends North Leigh's cup run

    A FORTUITOUS early goal halted North Leigh’s hopes of reaching the Red Insure Cup final as they lost 1-0 at Corby Town. The winner came after just four minutes, when an intended cross from Claudio Hoban drifted into the top corner past a surprised

  • BOWLS: Oxfordshire bow out at the double

    Oxfordshire's two teams in the English Short Mat Bowling Association's Plate competitions bowed out in the semi-finals. Oxon's Premier side lost 27-13 to Dorset, while the A team fell 28-12 to Norfolk A. Oxfordshire 130 (13pts), Dorset 168

  • Help needed to aid visually impaired with IT skills

    COULD you help a visually impaired person with IT skills?  Imagine not being able to use your computer, tablet or smartphone.  Think how much harder it would be to get information, keep in touch with friends and family, book tickets,

  • ATHLETICS: Megan Humphreys claims top-20 spot

    Oxford City’s Megan Humphreys continued her fine form to become Oxfordshire’s top performer at the Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships in Birmingham. Humphreys finished 19th in the under 17 girls’ race over 5k at Cofton Park in a time of

  • BOWLS: Katherine Hawes helps England to magnificent seven

    Oxfordshire's Katherine Hawes helped England lift the Clara Johns Trophy for the seventh successive year with victory in the British Isles Women’s International Series at Stanley IBC, Durham. The Oxford & District star played at No 2 alongside

  • RACING: Somersby's super run delights Mick Channon

    West Ilsley trainer Mick Channon was thrilled to see Somersby bounce back to his best to chase home Dodging Bullets in the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. Running at the Festival for the seventh successive year, the

  • ICE HOCKEY: Oxford City Stars suffer back-to-back defeats

    OXFORD City Stars suffered two crushing defeats in consecutive days in English National Ice Hockey League South Division 1, conceding a total of 17 goals. An 11-3 home defeat at the hands of league leaders Chelmsford Chieftains was followed by

  • Alzheimer's threat to young and old

    IT is easy to dismiss Alzheimer’s disease as something that affects old people. Why would someone in their 30s or 40s worry about it? But the story of Chris Graham, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s aged 34, shows the condition can affect those seemingly

  • Decorated ex-soldier celebrates 105th with his ‘angels’

    A FORMER Army brigadier believed to be Oxfordshire’s oldest resident is celebrating his 105th birthday with a surprise party today. Great-grandfather Rupert Crowdy will enjoy a glass of bubbly to toast the landmark with carers he nicknames ‘angels

  • Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 12/3/2015)

    Cinema has a curious habit of repeating itself. In 1967, Julie Christie was cast as Bathsheba Everdine in John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Wessex novel, Far From the Madding Crowd. Christie had become an international superstar two years

  • Parky at the Pictures (DVD 12/3/2015)

    At the height of the heritage boom of the 1980s, the name of Marcel Pagnol was sufficient to pack arthouse cinemas across Britain. Claude Berri's Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources (both 1986) and Yves Robert's La Gloire de mon père and Le Château

  • Families praise hospital 'one-stop shop'

    A NEW service at Oxford Children’s Hospital which helps children with spina bifida has been officially launched after a successful trial. The clinic is described as a one stop shop and means young people suffering from the condition need only visit

  • University dons thanked by Castle Mill campaigners

    CAMPAIGNERS have said they are grateful to the 460 Oxford University dons who voted to remove top floors of the controversial Castle Mill new student flats. Save Port Meadow Campaign issued its statement following the vote by Congregation, Oxford

  • RUGBY LEAGUE: Oxford's cup win delights Rumford

    HEAD coach Tim Rumford said Oxford Rugby League fully deserved to record their first Ladbrokes Challenge Cup win with a 22-10 victory at Hemel Stags. Andrew Hoggins (2), Marcus Brooker, Josh Scott and Aaron Jones Bishop crossed to put Oxford into

  • Maths is fun with penguins

    MATHS was made more fun for John Henry Newman pupils, who found the key to getting to grips with the subject was penguins. Three weeks ago, head of maths at the Littlemore school Rowena Martin discovered a book called 365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental

  • Dad, 21, in court charged with murdering his baby

    A 21-YEAR-OLD man charged with murdering his baby son has appeared at Banbury Magistrates’ Court. Jordon Saxton, of Untons Place, Faringdon, is accused of the murder of 11-week-old Jayden Saxton on November 18 last year. In his first court

  • Barbers cut it as brain tumour charity supporters

    BARBERS in Kidlington collected more than £200 as they donned red and white bandanas for the Brain Tumour Charity. Central Hair and Barbers in Oxford Road got involved in the Bandanas For Brain Tumours Day in response to their close ties with three

  • BAR BILLIARDS: Light work for Sheard in last eight

    DEFENDING champion Steven Sheard turned on the style to beat Chris Bateman 2-0 in the Johnsons Buildbase Oxford League men’s individual quarter-final at Headington Conservative Club. Sheard reeled off a break of 9,550 in the aggregate score of

  • Area allocated for GPs at new centre could become offices

    AN AREA earmarked for a GP surgery in the new Rose Hill Community Centre could become office space rather than being used for healthcare, residents fear. It was revealed last month that the new centre would not house a GP surgery under new proposals

  • Why four walls in Jericho will see you pay around £500,000

    YUMMY mummies sipping Prosecco and swish two bedroom terraces costing about £500,000 have made Jericho one of the trendiest neighbourhoods in the UK, locals have said. A national newspaper survey said Jericho was one of the 30 most fashionable