BADGERS and cruise missiles have much on common,” declared the man with both the cut-glass appearance and cut-glass accent to an equally smartly turned out gent in a Little Clarendon Street restaurant.

Perhaps there was something to learn. I kept quiet and listened.

It would appear badgers had come into the frame earlier in the evening as the two men and their wives drove to the New Theatre to see Dreamboats and Petticoats. One of the black-and-white furry fraternity had lost its battle with a heavy vehicle near Barnard Gate and lay dead at the side of the road. The sight had clearly affected the speaker.

“There are those who love badgers, going out of their way to protect them, and others who would wish to cull them to the point of extinction because, they claim, they carry diseases that are passed on to cattle,” he said as he perused the wine list.

“What has that to do with missiles?” asked the other man who was trying to see the connection.

“Some see them as a deterrent and worth every penny while others view them as an unnecessary extravagance that only create fear and unrest,” replied the first.

A tenuous comparison.

PERHAPS he had reached this conclusion while watching the show. If he spent more than a few minutes on the subject he missed a treat. I admit I entered the theatre as a 73-year-old and came out a youthful 18. This was the music of my late teens and early 20s. I could happily see it again.

Repeat visits would be something Christine Dean, a 65-year-old from Bradford, would approve of. I met this small, modestly attired and quietly spoken woman while having a cuppa in New Road Baptist Church on Tuesday morning.

For the past four years she has seen the show scores of times and this year alone she would have seen it 60 times when the curtain fell last night.

Christine makes a point of seeing five performances a week and this year has followed it to Sunderland, Blackpool, Bristol, Scarborough, Brighton, Torquay, Eastbourne, Derby, Skegness, Dartford and now Oxford. In the next three weeks she’ll go to Southend, Southport and Stoke-on-Trent.

At weekends she goes home to see her husband!

It must have cost her a small fortune in fares, tickets and hotel bills. Why the fascination?

“They are all our songs,” said this former school classroom assistant without offering further explanation.

ASK anyone with a camera and they will tell you there is a lifetime of clicking in Oxford. Colleges, public buildings, churches – we’ve got the lot.

So why the Chinese visitor should wish to capture several shots of the unattended Crêpes O Mania van in Broad Street I am at a loss to know.