Oxford and Oxfordshire news, sport and information updated throughout the day

Stories for 24 October 2003

Oxfordshire Business

Facing the future

Optimism is spreading throughout the Oxfordshire economy according to delegates at a top business event.   more...

Oxfordshire News

Council houses go green

Two eco-homes are being built in a joint project between Oxford City Council and Oxford Citizens Housing Association.   more...

Rent surgeries ease tenants' £1.5m debt

Rent "surgeries" are helping Oxford City Council persuade tenants to pay outstanding debts.   more...

Muslims call for religious school

Muslim leaders have lobbied for a dedicated religious school in Oxford to improve their children's academic performance.   more...

Amazing Graceland

A clergyman has swapped his dog collar for an Elvis costume -- and he ain't nothing but a hound dog.   more...

Louts use play hut as toilet

Vandals trashed a children's playhouse just hours after it was unveiled on an Oxford housing estate and then returned days later to use it as a toilet.   more...

Open-air pool rescue plan turned down

A plan to save the loss-making outdoor swimming pool in Carterton has been rejected.   more...

Oxfordshire Sport

Football: Thame chief West fires up Cup troops

Thame United player-boss Mark West says his players must be at the top of their game if they are to stand any chance of an upset in tomorrow's fourth round qualifying tie with Conference outfit Farnborough Town, writes Nick Farrant.   more...

Fixtures: All the week's sporting fixtures

FOOTBALL   more...

Football: North Leigh hit by injuries for big test

Cherry Red Records Hellenic League North Leigh have major injury problems going into their big Premier Division clash with Didcot Town at Eynsham Park tomorrow.   more...

Rugby: Veteran Matthews back to lift Chinnor

Simon Matthews takes another step out of 'retirement' when he plays for Chinnor in their South West 1 game at Clifton tomorrow.   more...

Football: City hit by Abbasi injury

Oxford City have suffered a big blow with Kamran Abbasi ruled out for a month with a knee injury.   more...

Oxfordshire Whats On

Review: Discovering Literary Oxfordshire

Marilyn Yurdan (Book Castle, £9.99) David Horan has already produced an interesting volume on Oxford's literary history in the Cities of the Imagination series. This is rather different - less idiosyncratic, and hence less readable. Yurdan, a local historian, gives brief biographies of each author, rather than weaving them into a verbal picture of the city, and does not distinguish between those who have left a major mark on the city and others, such as Jane Austen, who stayed here briefly at the age of seven. Arranged in historial order, literary stars such as Ian McEwan and Seamus Heaney rub shoulders with Pam Ayres and Mollie Harris. The list is pretty comprehensive, and four short literary walks are included.  more...

Review: Edinburgh: A Cultural and Literary History by Donald Campbell (Signal, £12)

It's a tall order to meld the Edinburgh of Trainspotting with the town of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, but Campbell manages it in this fascinating, discursive book -- part of Signal's Cities of the Imagination series. It is not really a guide, although it does take you on a geographical tour of the city. However, it reveals more truths about the Scottish capital than more bulky volumes. Campbell, a poet and playwright, sometimes lets his enthusiasm get the better of him, especially when ruminating on the rivalry with Glasgow. But overall, one could not wish for a better introduction to Edinburgh.   more...

Marriage of Figaro

Tuesday marked a welcome return to the New Theatre of Welsh National Opera's production of Figaro. This time, however, we had a new element - the musical interpretation, some times infuriating, sometimes inspired, of the Italian baroque specialist Rinaldo Alessandrini.   more...

Intolerable Cruelty(12A)

Those irascible Coen brothers, the twisted geniuses responsible for Fargo and The Big Lebowski, put their own distinctive spin on this Double Indemnity-esque thriller about an erotically charged battle of the sexes.   more...

Author who tackles tricky subjects

Jacqueline Wilson is a phenomenally successful children's writer. Her books have sold more than ten million copies in the UK alone - without any of the hype that accompanies the publication of certain other children's books.   more...

Maximum rhythm and blues band: new theatre by Nicola Lisle

Anyone wanting to indulge in a feast of golden musical memories should have been at the New Theatre last week, when original members of Manfred Mann reunited for a rhythm and blues extravaganza. I seemed to be one of the youngest in an audience whose average age must have been 50-plus -- hardly surprising, perhaps, as I was still in nappies when the Manfreds started zapping out their hits, way back in the sixties.   more...