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I’ve only heard Stornoway play live once: it was midnight in a rain-soaked field last year just off the M40 near Aylesbury or Thame or somewhere. In any case, it was dark and wet. There were 15 people in the crowd and the band was almost drowned out by the rave tent next door. It was hardly an auspicious evening.

But something about their music must have stuck: possibly the strong melodies and their ability to look and sound like a folk-rock band without being a folk-rock band. I came home, bought all their mp3s (all eight of them), wrote a blog post, and now their song Here Comes the Blackout is one of my top-played tunes on last.fm.

So having followed the band for over a year now, it’s gratifying to see they’re building some solid buzz: they played Glastonbury this year, became the first rock band ever to play a concert in the Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre (oh to have seen that gig!), and most recently appeared on Later with Jools Holland:

Although they’re not signed and have no album out yet, their song Zorbing is already an anthem on the Oxford scene. It’s a piece of music which typifies Stornoway’s approach: apparently ramshackle, amiably round-vowelled, but cleverly structured and very catchy. It’ll be interesting to see what 2010 brings for these chaps.

Here’s the next chapter in the story of the hip-hop boys from Oxford, GTA, who we’ve mentioned a few times on the blog. MC Chima Anya has now moved to London, where he’s working in a children’s hospital (remember Dr Anya is a trained medical professional by day, and rapper by night), and breaking into the London scene as a solo artist.

His new single is New Day, featuring Soweto Kinch, and produced by some bloke called Astronare, about whom I can find nothing on the web. The video looks a lot more slick and professional than the previous “home-grown” clips filmed around Oxford… you could say it’s a big step up.

Soweto Kinch (born in London but growing up near Birmingham) has a bit of an Oxford connection too. A pretty handy jazz saxophonist and rapper, he also has a degree in Modern History from Hertford College, Oxford. Now, whatever you think of jazz, hip hop or Oxbridge education, you’ve got to admit that that’s a pretty cool CV.

Anyway, if you’re in London in August, you can catch Chima Anya’s album preview gig at The Gramaphone, 60-62 Commercial Street E1, on Thursday 27th August.

In Oxford last week, I spent time browsing second-hand books on the third floor of Blackwells. The rest of the store is slick and modern, but the top level of Blackwells, with views onto the quads of Trinity College, has a creaky wooden floor and that hint of dust and mildew that makes it somehow an isolated eyrie of an older Oxonian age.

Lapwings Over Merton Field – Chiang Yee

One book immediately caught my eye – a 1946 edition of The Silent Traveller in Oxford. It was written by the Chinese artist and author Chiang Yee in 1942 while he was living in Oxford, after his flat in the East End of London was destroyed in the Blitz. As a registered “alien”, Chiang Yee couldn’t leave Britain in wartime, and so took rooms in Southmoor Road in Jericho.

First published in 1944, Chiang Yee’s account of 1940s Oxford is particularly interesting for me. My father was born in Oxford during the war: my grandparents worked for the Food Ministry, and had their London offices relocated to Oxford, out of harms way. So thanks to Goering’s bombers, Dad was born an Oxonian.

(Oxford was not targeted by the Luftwaffe during WW2 for a number of possibly apocryphal reasons. The one I like best recounts that many high-ranking Luftwaffe officers were German aristocrats who had studied at Oxford and could not bear the idea of bombs raining down on the Turf Tavern.)

From a Railway Bridge Near Lake Street – Chiang Yee

Chiang Yee was (a little like me) an accidental expatriate in Oxford. The “foreign-ness” of his eye is reflected in his colour plates and ink sketches that accompany the text. The landmarks and characters are all in place, but somehow Chiang’s Chinese art transforms familiar views of the city into something more ancient and timeless.

The blackout curtains and ration-books are gone, but today’s Oxford seems little different to the city described by Chiang Yee 65 years ago . In the 21st Century, peacocks still strut on the roof of the Trout Inn, crowds still line Magdalen Bridge on May Morning, and the 8.05 “down train” to Paddington is still full of be-suited commuters and the occasional tweedy academic departing for an errand in London.

Despite the hardship and tension of the period, Chiang’s Oxford is a harbour of peace and reflection. The war is barely mentioned – the undergraduate population is depleted by conscription, a bomber wheels lazily over Port Meadow, and the Cockney accents of Blitz evacuees mix with shopkeepers’ Oxfordshire burr on Cornmarket. But Chiang’s attention is drawn more to the landscape, nature and cityscape.

Chiang’s eye for detail and contemplation is quite disarming. His writing captures perfectly the shift of seasons against the colleges’ grey stone. Several paragraphs are spent describing the facial expressions of a duck and the delicate dance of crocuses in the wind. Verses from Li P’o, Longfellow and Shelley enter his consciousness while wandering up the banks of the Isis towards The Perch.

Peacocks at Trout Inn – Chiang Yee

I have read many excellent books about Oxford (Jan Morris’ Oxford is still the essential primer). But Chiang Yee’s is definitely the most charming: it’s available in a 2003 reprint, but I think the 1940s Methuen  editions (“printed in complete confirmity with the authorized economy standards” as stated the frontispiece) are quite hard to come by now. This was a lucky find!

For many parts of the UK, it’s been the coldest week for 30 years. In Birmingham temperatures got down to minus 9. The canals are still frozen and the geese and ducks in Cannon Hill Park are struggling to find a patch of water to swim in.

I wish I could have been in Oxford this week – Port Meadow froze and people were skating on it! Percy at Oxford Daily Photo has posted some photos and some nice images have been uploaded to Flickr by Isisbridge and robbie_shade.

In the news this week: The Morris Ring (England’s national association of morris dancers) is worried that Morris Dancing will die out. Apparently there aren’t enough young people wanting to join Morris sides around England, and in 20 years time “there will be no Morrismen left.”  The dancers think that youngsters are embarrassed to be seen walking around with bells on their ankles, leaping about with handkerchiefs and hanging out with 50 year-olds.  Well… yeah, OK.

I have one suggestion for saving morris dancing: make morris dancing a competitive inter-school event.  You can laugh if you want, but it might just work. I think of an example from New Zealand. Every year, the Auckland Secondary Schools Polyfest brings together students from across Auckland to perform Maori and Pacific Island dance and music.  It’s held in a stadium over three days, and thousands of people turn out. There’s food and market stalls.  Schools enter performance groups in competition, the contest is fierce, and resultant quality of performance is often amazing.

I’m sure that people will complain about full curriculums, a lack of teacher time, and the plethora of other school activities that fill up pupils’ days.  But there are numerous benefits:

• daily exercise for Albion’s famously rubenesque youths
• building teamwork and school pride
• creating awareness of local history
• providing links between younger and older people (a relationship that in the UK seems particularly dysfunctional)
• claiming back pride in English traditions from the BNP and the Daily Fail

The Morris Ring needs to stop moaning and get a little creative.  It’s just a matter of packaging the concept in the right way. Some gutsy morris side should get a sound system and dance at the Notting Hill Carnival.

The competition element is key, it seems to me. If getting kids interested in Morris traditions seems a challenge, why not look at combining traditional elements of Morris with breakdancing, or rap? Or martial arts?  If people are worried that about diluting or destroying traditional practice, then create ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ disciplines.

But if a school competition doesn’t work, it’s worth trying the other ultimate motivator: beer. Morris dancing is often preceded or followed by a trip to the pub (or the dancing happens at the pub). This makes it a pastime that is eminently suited to the English temperament – and pubs aren’t going out of fashion with the young, at least last time I looked.

The fact that morris dancing has even survived in such health into the 21st Century is a small miracle.  It’s one of the few traditions in the UK that is identifiably English (ie. it’s not Scottish, Welsh or Irish).  Living in Oxford for several years, one got use to seeing morris sides from all over the country dancing in the streets for the Folk Festival or on May Morning.  It’s worth finding a way of keeping  morris alive and relevant.

And if anyone thinks morris dancing ain’t funky, check this out:

Earlier last year we talked about Oxford hip hop crew GTA. We quite liked their unashamed Thames Valley accents and Stax-sampling beats. The good news is that their début album The Way is now available everywhere.

Here’s the video for their new single Breakthrough:

As you might expect from an album recorded in Oxford, there aren’t too many stories of ghetto life to be heard here. MCs Chima Anya and Ineff are mostly interested in addressing their experience as young men growing up, finding their way in life (Chima is a junior doctor, Ineff is an accountant), running round town and chasing women.

And GTA are keen to point out, The Way is about life, it’s not about the town they’re from. Even if Ineff claims that “We’re the biggest thing outta Kidlington man” there’s little name-checking of suburbs or housing estates. As Ineff continues, there’s no point in giving shout-outs to a town that’s already world famous:

There’s a list of places that are simply blazin’
But I’m not gonna list the places
If you wanna know ask Tourist Information

The attitude is 100% positive, they both seem to know they’re lucky to be making beats and rhymes. And best of all it sounds like the guys had a lot of fun recording the album.

The Way can be picked up as an mp3 download Amazon or iTunes, or you can buy a CD for 10 squids via their Myspace page.

“England to me is my mother tongue / And what I did when I was young.“
W.H. Auden

“…J’ai souvent eu l’occasion de répondre, à ceux qui me posaient des questions sur mon origine, que mon pays c’est d’abord et avant tout l’enfance, puis, en second lieu, ma langue.“
Daniel Ducharme

Birmingham, 3rd January 2009

Dear Everyone I’ve Ever Met,

On New Year’s Eve, I was back in Oxford.  Stepping off the train into the cold grey afternoon was like breathing a sigh of relief.  Everything was once again familiar.  The Business School’s copper ziggurat , the low forest of bicycles arrayed outside the station (none of which seem to have moved since I left), the signs on the front of the buses lead towards familiar places… Abingdon, Wheatley, Temple Cowley.

Avoiding the streaming traffic and noise of Frideswide Square, I slipped through the churchyard of St Thomas the Martyr, with its gravestones and 12th century priest’s door, and turned into my old street.  Nothing’s changed much in three months, of course.

That night we played old-time jazz in the village pub in Cassington, and saw in 2009 with a New Orleans-style rendition of Auld Lang Syne.   The pub had good ales on tap, the village was built of Cotswold stone.  The local accents burred westwards as the night went on. Strangely, it felt like I was home.

Although, at the same time, I am not “home” at all.  I’m a New Zealander.  The place where I put my feet is an obscure south-east corner of the Hauraki Gulf, with its particular configuration of water, tides, rocks and islands.  NZ writer Emma Hart, blogging this weekend at Public Address, talked about her own turanga waewae – the highway south of Christchurch that is the “back-bone of my childhood” :

…it’s how a landscape should be. That’s where I feel I stand strong, with the sun on my face, the sea on my right hand, and the mountains on my left.

Our emotions and memories are so often bound up in landscape: places where significant things happened, places linked to people we love, or places where we return to gain strength. But our memories of those places are twisted.

As we remould our memories, adding new layers of meaning, it seems we quickly reach a point at which our image of a place no longer resembles its reality. What we are left with is language: words that attempt to evoke the importance of certain times and places.

Last year in May, I returned to wander around my old school, a place where so much growing up took place.  Suddenly, it seemed the school was strangely small, that it couldn’t live up to the significance I’d given it through repeated exercise of memory.

There’s a sense now of being burdened by the clutter of places that make up a personal history. Like a refrigerator covered with so many postcards that you can’t tell its a fridge any more.  There’s pictures of dining tables in Basel, a view of Lake Taupo from my grandfather’s house, a snapshot of desert in Arizona, a place near Queenstown called Paradise, snow-covered ridges in the Vosges, cloisters in Oxford.

Is there a point at which our spiritual scrapbook gets too full? Is it possible to cherish all these places and yet still keep adding more pivot points to your life?  Can we stretch our roots too far?

In just over two weeks, I leave the UK to live in France.  Once again uprooted, pushing onwards into a new place.  It’s exciting. But at the same time, there is a little voice asking if it is time to settle down.  I’ve still got a whole bunch of old postcards to sort out.  At the same time, I’m still writing new ones.

Hope everything is going well in your parts of the world!

Lots of love from,
Richard xoxo

(Sorry, if this post comes across as self-regarding waffle, that’s because it probably is.)

Four views of Merton College Chapel…

April 9th, 2006 (the morning after my arrival in Oxford)

December 22nd, 2006 – in winter fog

April 8th, 2007 – another spring

April 6th, 2008 – after snowfall

September 21st, 2008 (the afternoon I left Oxford)

Alongside Radio 4 and Simon Amstell, a weekend afternoon ale (or cider) with mates at a pub is one of the great delights of living in this country. Pubs form such an important part of British life and you can’t (and shouldn’t) avoid them.

Somebody told me that Oxford boasts something like 100 pubs inside the ring road.  It’s amazing how many of them you can manage to visit over a couple of years without really trying.  So the pubs listed below are just the ones I like, or they’re at least notorious enough to merit their own wikipedia entries…

The Eagle and Child : (aka “The Bird and Baby” or “The Fowl and Foetus”) on St Giles. This is where C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkein used to hang out. Not my favourite, but the snugs by the front door are the perfect venue for a friendly argument on a winter evening.

The Bear: Serving beer to thirsty students since 1242, the Bear is notable mostly for its age (old even by Oxford standards), a framed collection of 5000 ties and its inconceivably small size.

The Hollybush Inn: situated on Osney Island, this unpretentious local pub is where Radiohead (and the Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band) played their first gig.

The Head of the River: at Folly Bridge, by the Isis in the centre of town. Chow down on a good solid pub lunch while watching tourists fall out of their punts.

The Hobgoblin: one of the only pubs I can remember on Cowley Road (after an evening on Cowley Road many people don’t remember much). Sponsored by Oxfordshire’s Wychwood Brewery, it’s one of the few places in the city you can rely on getting a pint of Hobgoblin. Yum.

The Jolly Boatman: another waterside pub on the Oxford Canal near Kidlington. Good but not outstanding food and a reasonable beer selection. The real attraction of this pub is that it’s an easy 7 mile cycle trip up the canal path from the city – the perfect activity on a cool summer’s day.

The Trout Inn: a nice 30min walk up the Isis to Godstow brings you to rightly famous Trout Inn (mentioned in Brideshead Revisited). Popular, and hard to get a table. In summer, the Aspalls Organic Suffolk Cyder is highly recommended. In winter, try their venison hotpot.

The White Hart: A good alternative to the Trout, in the nearby village of Wytham. Fantastic menu. In summer, you can play the traditional Oxfordshire pub game “Aunt Sally “

Jude the Obscure: A late contender for best pub in Jericho, without the chi-chi atmosphere of some of the other Jericho bars. Revolving selection of ales.

The Turf Tavern: Nestled down an alley between Hertford College and New College, the Turf is impossible to find for Oxford n00bs, but worth the effort. It’s good fun elbowing your way past the crowds of undergrads to access the bar and its exceptional rotating menu of real ales.

The Lamb and Flag: owned by St John’s College, but don’t let that stop you. It’s cosy and unpretentious, and empty out of term. Try the Lamb and Flag special ale if it’s in season.

The Kings Arms: at the far end of the Broad, this pub is all-student, all the time, and most of the leading politicians, lawyers, writers and scientists of the realm have propped up its bar at some point.  It’s old, uncomplicated and most of the really serious work of the university takes place here.

The Wheatsheaf: Wheatsheaf Passage, just off the High near Carfax. Lots of bands, good jazz nights on Thursdays with rotating UK/international artists. Go for the music, not the beer.

The Jericho Tavern: Walton Street, Jericho. Local bands play here, and it’s where Radiohead and Supergrass first gained a following in the early 90’s. Ridiculously popular on Friday nights. Unless you’re a Jericho resident, you’re likely to only ever come here if you want to hear the music.

Which are the best of these? Well, if you had just one day in Oxford, I’d definitely take you to the Turf. Unless you were a favourite aunt or a parent, in which case I’d reserve a table at The Trout or the White Hart for dinner.  For a quiet everyday pint away from the tourists and students, Jude the Obscure ticks most boxes in terms of atmosphere and drinks selection.

Remind me again, why the heck am I leaving Oxford?

*This blog supports responsible drinking. Respect alcohol, respect yourself. Enjoy local pubs in moderation.

If you avoid the 16 licensed kebab vans that appear nightly in the centre of town, there are some really good places to eat out in Oxford. Before I move to another city and forget them all, here’s a list of favoruite Oxford restaurants, mostly for my future reference, but it may be useful to any readers who visit sometime:

Al- Shami: an unusual location for a Lebanese restaurant – opposite the synagogue, in a residential street in Jericho. Great food, reasonable prices, lots of vegetarian options, always full.

Aziz: Beside Folly Bridge. Upper range dishes from the subcontinent, with a terrace overlooking the Isis

Chiang Mai Kitchen: Kemp Hall Passage, off the High. If you think that eating Thai food in 16th century Elizabethan townhouse is too bizarre, you’ll be won over by the food. Book to ensure a table!

Chutneys: Cnr New Inn Hall Street and St Michael’s Street. Good Indian place with great vegetarian options, although it often seems overrun by students from St Peters and Brasenose Annexe.

Edamame: Of all Oxford’s secret corners, Edamame is one worth discovering! By far the best Japanese restaurant in the city, Edamame also has the strangest opening hours. So count yourself lucky if you manage to arrive when it’s open and when there’s a table free.  Go on Thursdays out of term for sushi night – delicious!

Jamie’s Italian: George Street. Jamie Oliver’s new Italian restaurant. Excellent Italian food at very good prices. No reservations – turn up and queue. The perfect venue for a thirtieth birthday party!

Qumins: St Clements. Hands down the best Indian place in town, a short walk south of Magdalen Bridge. Great place to burn the tongues off American visitors.

The Gardener’s Arms: Plantation Road in Jericho. Down-to-earth pub that also happens to be Oxford’s best vegetarian restaurant, but long waits for service on Sunday afternoons.

GBK: George Street. A little slice of Aotearoa. They serve Mac’s Gold and burgers, kiwis-style. This is all you need to know.

Mortons: Great takeaway sandwiches. They have three outlets in town, in the Covered Markets, on New Inn Hall Street and on the Broad opposite Trinity College

Noodle Bar: Gloucester Green. Cheapest good eating in town. Fast service, and always full of everybody.

Anchor Inn:  unpretentious pub restaurant at the north end of Jericho, at the end of a nice evening walk up the canal – very popular and good food.

Next post: The Pub Guide

Update 13.9.2008: Added Edamame after Mari pointed out that I had missed it out!