Saturday 2 February 2008

The Michael visits Oxford

Oxford-2 In keeping with my hectic 2008 travel schedule, Friday saw me visit this quaint city for a postgrad interview. I’ve done more ‘business' travelling in the last month than in all of my adult life.

Having never been to Oxford before, I wasn’t entire surely what to expect. My girlfriend seemed to picture a quaint and leisurely city, awash with culture and fine architecture. That’s at least partly true. What the filming of Inspector Morse didn’t reveal, however, was the sheer volume of traffic, people and exhaust fumes that plague Oxford. As we ‘Parked-n-rode’ across the city centre around noontime, we were both aghast at what a madhouse it seemed. Oxford must surely possess a greater quantity of buses and bus stops per square kilometre than anywhere else on earth. Even London seemed positively tranquil by comparison. Coupled with crazy pedestrians who seemed unable to grasp where roads begin and pavements end, kamikaze cyclists who seemed hell-bent on getting ploughed down by a bus, commuting through the city centre was hell on wheels.

The interview went well though. Small mercies and all that.

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