THE two diminutive young women and the strapping young man were having no difficulties in keeping together the 40 or so Embassy CES Summer language students as they crossed Magdalen Bridge.

He was delivering an interesting commentary on places of interest.

However, Mark – for that was the young man’s name – seemed different from your usual tour guide.

This Lancashire lad was living every second of what he had to tell.

He was finding it as interesting as the students themselves.

“I just love the place,” he confessed.

Where was he studying? I expected to hear the name of one of our university’s famous colleges.

“I’ve just finished my third year at Manchester,” he replied and he did not mean Harris Manchester College, but the university of that northern city. It’s my third year working here for Embassy,” he said.

“You can’t help but enjoy working in Oxford .”

I knew what he meant.

BROHNAN was waiting for the door of Cycloanalyists in Cowley Road to open. He works there. We got talking about modern-day cycles, all multi-geared and streamlined – a far cry from my long gone BSA with its three-speed Sturmey Archer gears.

His machine had 27 gears, he said.

How could he tell one from another and was it necessary to have so man?

Seventeen-year-old Brohnan – his name is Irish – sparkled as he told me about both road and off-road cycling; the excitement of it all, how the many gears helped progress, particularly off-road.

This coming weekend he was cycling to Abingdon, meeting up with a friend before heading for London where several off-road venues beckoned.

His enthusiasm got me thinking.

Should I leave the Peugeot at home more often and take to the two-wheeled, 16-geared cycle I bought 10 years ago in a bid to ward off late middle age?

Just then, a chap of similar vintage, rode past,his face a deep scarlet. The thought was returned to ‘pending’.

WHATEVER the wrongs of the News of the World phone hacking scandal and whether former editor Andy Coulson should face punishment in the courts of law, I have some sympathy for him.

This is not because I remember him as an outstanding non-graduate trainee reporter at the Westminster Press Journalists’ Training Centre in Hastings where I was a lecturer more than 20 years ago.It’s more to do with the fact that he seems to have been abandoned.

A fortnight ago, the Witney MP, our Prime Minister David Cameron, was unreservedly declaring the man was his friend.

Days later he threw him to the wolves, the word ‘friend’ noticeably absent when confronted by MPs in the House of Commons.