The Oxford Times - Stories for 19 July 2007

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Oxfordshire | Archive | 2007 | July

Stories for 19 July 2007

Abingdon

Attack victim 'minutes from death'

A MAN who was taken to hospital with a serious injury to his throat was minutes from death say police. more...

'Secrecy' over Gaol

SECRECY still surrounds the names of development companies bidding to buy and redevelop Abingdon's Old Gaol and associated buildings including the former police station. more...

Attack victim 'minutes from death'

A MAN who was taken to hospital with a serious injury to his throat was minutes from death say police. more...

Abingdon News

Throat injury

A 51-year-old man who was attacked and suffered an injury to his throat was minutes from death, police revealed. more...

Care worker heads for Peru

The peaks of Peru are in the sights of a fundraiser, who is planning to trek through the Andes for charity. more...

Ready to truck

More than 5,000 festival-goers will be descending on a south Oxfordshire farm tomorrow, for one of the county's best-loved celebrations of live music. more...

Art

Geoff Clifford and Granville Heptonstall, Broad Canvas, Oxford

Two artists who work in completely different ways have joined forces to show their paintings at the Broad Canvas Gallery, in Broad Street, Oxford. What you see as you reach the top of the narrow winding stairs of Broad Canvas are faces, large faces, and pictures of people, walking, sitting and just being. The individual faces are highlighted in some and the colour of the sky in others. more...

Faces of Oxfordshire, Turrill Sculpture Garden

It's hard to imagine the tranquil Turrill Garden behind Summertown Library as a Wild Wood where - Kenneth Grahame fans won't need reminding - poor Mole wandered fearfully until rescued by a businesslike Ratty. But this is where The Faces begin, beside a bush, propped near a shrub, disembodied halfway up a wall, some familiar, all striking, and not at all threatening. more...

Glorious shadows cast over art and our world

THERESA THOMPSON visits The Shadow and George de la Tour, Master of Candlelight exhibitions at Compton Verney Vampires cast none. Pilgrims in ancient Greece who lost theirs on entering a temple of Zeus would die within the year, they said, and in Equatorial Africa some dreaded going out at noon for fear of discovering theirs had gone. The shadow - that ever-elusive and ever-changing phenomenon - is an integral part of a human being: to lose it is to die. So informs us Italian academic and critic Lea Vergine, curator of The Shadow, the latest high-quality exhibition at Compton Verney, near Banbury. more...

Bicester News

Dad dies after falling from van

Family and friends have paid tribute to a popular Bicester father-of-four who died after falling from the roof of a van. more...

Rail operator may be sold

Chiltern Railways could be heading for a takeover by another train operator, it has been reported. more...

Books

Andrew Motion poetry reading, Warborough

Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, strode slowly across The Green at Warborough and then headed straight for the drinks tent. He appeared to be slightly nervous and in need of some Dutch courage before embarking on his reading in front of 200 poetry enthusiasts. Unfortunately, the preparations for his arrival at the Warborough Festival on Friday night had not been thorough, and he was forced to address the crowd on a sound system which would have struggled to cope with a kids' disco. more...

Romance of the table

The romance of King Arthur's Round Table, illustrated here in a 14th-century manuscript, continues to capture every generation. Julian Munby, of Oxford Archaeology, was asked by the TV show Time Team to explore the evidence that Edward III built a House of the Round Table at Windsor, which was pulled down just 16 years later, then vanished without trace. more...

Book choice

Cook With Jamie Jamie Oliver (Michael Joseph, £26) Profit from Jamie Oliver's latest book, Cook With Jamie, will be going to Fifteen Foundation, an organisation this enterprising chef began several years ago to get disadvantaged young people from tough backgrounds all over the world to have a career in food. No doubt the hundreds of youngsters who have benefited from this scheme will use it as one of their basic textbooks. Jamie Oliver makes cooking seem so easy and such fun. His enthusiasm is infectious, and just as apparent in this book as it is on television. The exciting, easy-to-follow recipes include a superb salad section encouraging the use of fruits such as clementines, aiming for contrasting textures and tastes. The fish section works well, too, as it contains information on buying and preparing raw fish as well as classic fish dishes such as grilled trout. more...

Ensuring we remember

Last week, the Queen visited Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the start of the First World War Battle of Passchendaele. That cemetery is just one of thousands cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which looks after about 23,000 cemeteries in 150 countries. more...

Cimena

It's a drag being sexy

We've seen him in some weird and wonderful guises, from cool 70s disco king to slobbish hitman, but John Travolta's latest big screen incarnation is a little hair-raising to say the least. more...

FIREHOUSE DOG (PG)

Director Todd Holland ignores the well-worn advice about never working with animals and children to craft this gentle comedy for the whole family. more...

Cinema

Hairspray and Firehouse Dog

Inspired by the 1988 John Waters film and the smash hit 2002 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Adam Shankman's all singing, all dancing spectacular Hairspray is proof positive that size matters - the size of your heart, that is. Set in 1962 Baltimore - a city riven by racial tension - the film isn't just a feel-good fairy-tale, it's a feel-absolutely-blinking-marvellous fairy-tale, putting a sassy, hip-swivelling spin on the Cinderella fantasy. more...

The Seventh Seal, Private Fears in Public Places, Buy It Now and Ghosts of Cité Soleil

All four of this week's arthouse releases have a distinctive look and feel that sets two of them apart as instances of superior cinema, one as a powerful piece of reportage and the last as a good try that doesn't quite come off. more...

Columns

Cabbages and Kings

She wore a dated tracksuit, red trainers and pink headband. He was in baggy shorts, dirty white trainers and a Manchester United T-shirt that groaned across his ample stomach. more...

Country Matters

Reserve's inspiring decade

STEVE HAY was there to watch the RSPB mark Otmoor's tenth anniversary as the most important wetland for breeding waders in central England When I first came to Oxford, it always surprised me to come across the bleak landscape of Otmoor nestling in the otherwise cultured, gently rolling hills of the rest of Oxfordshire. To me, Otmoor represented the only true wilderness in the county. more...

Cricket

CRICKET: Oxon off to perfect start

Oxfordshire Development XI got their season off to the perfect start with a first innings victory against Bedfordshire at Dunstable yesterday. more...

Didcot

Parents air fears on security

PARENTS are campaigning for better security to protect children after a man with a knife was spotted outside a school. more...

Didcot News

Police target school run cars

Police made sure children in Didcot were well strapped in as part of a patrol to make sure pupils were driven to school safely. more...

Eating Out

The Hare, West Hendred

I HAD the most scrumptious steak for lunch the other day, and all because Louise, a reader from Wallingford, took the trouble to let me know that The Hare, West Hendred, had changed hands. more...

Education

UK 'gains from foreign students'

A report argues that taxpayers should subsidise foreign students, writes TIM ROSS Taxpayers should subsidise foreign students to come to the UK to study, a new report suggests. At present, undergraduates from outside the EU pay far higher tuition fees than UK students. This has led some universities to increase the number of foreign students to generate more income. more...

Entertainment

The Noble Spaniard: Unicorn Theatre, Abingdon, July 25-8

MEMBERS of The Old Gaol Theatre Company have chosen a play by one of the most successful authors of the 20th century for their next production. more...

Art in Action: Waterperry House, near Wheatley, July 19-22

ART in Action, which is considered one of the country's largest art shows, today celebrates its 30th anniversary. more...

Features

Students and Big Brother

Meet the 21st-century business student - an iPod in each ear, mobile phone in hand, fingers on the keyboard, plasma screen in front. And a cappuccino in the other hand, as well. How do you design a building to produce Britain's future managers and entrepreneurs? more...

Signs of success

Some people are born to be entrepreneurs, others have a eureka moment and build a business on the back of it and then there are those who decide to have a go and see what happens. more...

Floating back home

Rosamund the Fair, once upon a time famed as the most beautiful woman in Christendom - before she became a nun in Godstow - must have been a familiar figure on the banks of the Thames in medieval times. more...

Pick and prosper

Visiting Rectory Farm in Stanton St John is an enjoyable experience, particularly for families. Not only do you get to feel as though you have got back to the land, while you pick strawberries or asparagus, but there is a bouncy castle and slide for the children, a decent, competitively-priced café, a butcher and a greengrocer's. more...

Sweet smell of success

Next time you are indulging in a bit of retail therapy, close your eyes, inhale, listen and touch. If your senses are suitably impressed, chances are the product has been branded by a marketing strategy that appeals to all the senses - and not just sight alone, as traditional advertising does. more...

Perseverance pays

To say it has been a tumultuous decade for Witney business owner Christine Harris is something of an understatement. Mrs Harris, 58, took over a failing business, had to sell half a successful one, recently discovered a bad case of rising damp at the premises of her latest venture, and is the primary carer for her husband Derek, 45, who has multiple sclerosis. more...

Fair's fair

It is grim when it rains, but running a market stall is an invaluable experience for a budding entrepreneur. That is the firm belief of Stephen Bardle, founder of WearFair, who began selling fair trade jewellery in Oxford's Cornmarket Street two years ago. more...

A drink on the house

Bars at home - the idea is likely to lead to a lively debate over whether they are a good idea or not. Some, particularly men, would be all for the idea of having drinks on tap and creating their very own pub at home. more...

Building a business

Mark Neilson had a good job in the recruitment industry where he had spent 17 years working his way to a senior position. more...

Food

Children's food festival proves a massive hit

Children with sparkling eyes and happy faces left Abingdon Airfield at the close of Oxfordshire's Children's Food Festival on Sunday evening. Some were wearing festival aprons; others were proudly sporting chefs' hats, most were clutching a bag of samples to take home. more...

Egg sales help hard-pressed African farmers

I feel sure you have heard of Live Aid, which celebrated its 22nd anniversary earlier in the month - but Hen-Aid may be new to you. This is because the Cotswold poultry farmer Philip Lee-Woolf (above), from Broadway, has only just founded it. more...

Gardening

Fruity gifts from Lulu!

VAL BOURNE offers tips on growing a 'superfood' - the delicious blueberry The best beloved has had an idea. He wants to grow blueberries in pots in the fruit cage. I blame myself. I left a press release on the kitchen table about the 50th anniversary of commercial blueberry growing in the UK and somehow the idea must have wormed its way into his subconscious over tea. more...

Golf

GOLF: Upton hails victory

North Oxford captain Paul Upton led his team to victory at their centenary pro-am tournament. more...

GOLF: Results round-up

FRILFORD HEATH Captain's Day - men's: 1 D Pimm 39pts, 2 P Bickerton 38, 3 P Dolton 37 (cb). Ladies: 1 L McPhail 39. Juniors: 1 C Stockford 41. more...

Gray Matter

Three cheers for local democracy

Oxford City Council's planning officers seem to possess an unerring instinct for identifying an area's most interesting buildings - and then recommending their destruction. I noticed this tendency first a couple of years ago when they urged the demolition of the River Hotel, next to the Thames at Osney. This handsome late Victorian building was judged by the officers to have little or no architectural merit. One even told a planning meeting at which I was present that the blue plastic window canopies were one of its unattractive features. This rather overlooked the fact that these could very easily be removed or replaced. The officers were entirely behind Christ Church's plan for a new building that almost everyone else judged entirely out of keeping with its neighbours - except for the absurd eyesore of a house that stands immediately to its south. Fortunately, the elected councillors had more sense, and put the kybosh on this philistine plan. more...

Headlines

Medics’ bikes back on road

AMBULANCE patrol motorcycles mothballed due to safety fears have been declared safe and are back on the road. more...