Oxford Notes

The economic news is horrible here – unemployment well over 10 percent, and the news yesterday was dominated by the Dubai default, which sent the London stock market down more in one day than had been seen in over a hundred years – even worse than the crash in the 1930’s. That led us to wonder if that kind of economic news would affect immigration policy, and I suppose that thought was fueled by the fact that most of the service workers in the UK seem to be either from Africa, or more commonly, eastern Eurpoe.

A tee shirt, seen on the street in London, that I probably should own: “The body of a God.” Below this, a picture of Buddha.

In Oxford we stumbled into Ste. Mary the Virgin church, which is one of the oldest and most visited parish churches in the country. It is also the “official” church of Oxford University, and is where their graduation ceremonies are held. It is an unusual church, with a painted ceiling and what seemed to me to be dual naves. I’ll have to look it up and read a bit about how it is constructed.

It’s a grim place, like most medieval Christian churches, with skulls here and there to remind one of the temporary nature of life, and the platform where the Oxford martyrs were tried and convicted of heresy. The site where they were burned at the stake is just down the road. A typical example of medieval Christian charity.

We went briefly through one of the old Bodleian buildings, but decided not to stay around for the long tour. Instead we went through the old Bodleian main building, which is now the Science Museum (with Einstein’s blackboard). The writing on the blackboard contains notes from a lecture in 1931 that establishes the nature of the expanding universe. One can tell that at a glance. For me, it's like trying to read Thai.

Before lunch we decided to go up to the new Ashmolean Museum. I think it has taken over as our new favorite museum space – and the collection ain’t bad, either. We both were very taken with the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, where they have done a really great job of creating a museum out of an old train station. At the Ashmolean, they have married the façade of the old museum with a new structure in a most seamless way, and they have created a center atrium that floods the museum with natural light and opens up the galleries to a central space that is really inviting. We loved it.

Perhaps the highlight of the day, which will tell you something about me, was lunch in the White Horse pub, where we had a couple of cask ales and a roast dinner where J. R. R. Tolkien used to gather with his friends while he taught at Oxford and was writing the Ring trilogy.

We've noted two fashions here that we hope do not make it to the U.S. First, very short skirts, with leggings underneath, and high boots. It is the very rare body on which this combo looks good. Second, what we have come to call "the poofy coat." It has normal lines until one gets to the lower part of the coat, which balloons out before gathering again at the hem. Let's just say it's not flattering to anyone. I suppose we should not be too critical of women who try things like this. London men seem to be largely clueless, or show aggressively bad taste, when it comes to fashion.