✉ I hadn't planned to go round the Ashmolean, I thought I'd seen it all before, but when I arrived at the station the rain was relentless and Britain's oldest museum was the nearest significant free hideaway. So in I went, and the more I walked around the more I realised that last time I must have rushed it. The Queen opened a huge extension in 2009 and the end result is like walking round a modern cross between the British Museum and the V&A. This time I had a lot more time to read the labels on the archaeological treasures because it's quieter midweek, and it turned out I knew less about Middle Eastern history than I thought, and I hadn't realised the upper floors went on quite so far beyond certain doors and staircases, and I'd totally missed the sinuous trail of modern art which links the two upper halves together, and the temporary exhibitions are of course by definition temporary. Best of all it filled almost two hours and by the time I emerged the sun had come out.
✉ I went back to my old college because it's always good to look around and pretend you're 19 again. Unfortunately it was closed because of exams, so instead I did something I never did 38 years ago and stepped across the threshold of the college across the road. We all tended to keep ourselves to ourselves in those days. The porter was very friendly because they let paying tourists inside now, and he even waived the admission charge after I dug to the back of my wallet and found a card that proved I used to study here. This other college was architecturally impressive with cobbles and golden stone and several interlinked quadrangles and absolutely pristine lawns. It was older than mine so those living in college got to enjoy accommodation in heritage rooms of the type you might see in a period drama, whereas I'd only hung out in a modern annexe with thick concrete walls. Several students emerged from stairwells with books under their arms, studiously ignoring the old bloke on the cobbles, while members of college staff stood up ladders fixing broken roof tiles. And the chapel fair took my breath away, being far larger and far more ornate than I'd ever expected whereas ours had been pretty standard and not especially churchy despite its age. I'm still glad I went to my college not this one, although it would clearly have been a somewhat different experience - a tad more Brideshead - and I'm pleased I've finally seen what I missed out on.
✉ London might have a ULEZ but Oxford has a ZEZ, a Zero Emission Zone. It's not huge, only ten central streets at present and generally avoidable, and was introduced as recently as four months ago. Only zero emission vehicles pay nothing, hence the name, with daily charges rising to £10 for the most polluting vehicles. But if this pilot is successful a much larger zone will be introduced next year covering most of the city centre (so generally unavoidable), then in 2025 the top fee goes up to £20. It's brutal if you're a car owner, which is of course the idea and very much par for the course in the choked city that introduced the UK's first Park and Ride in 1973.
✉ Something else I never did in the 1980s was cross the Cherwell meadows, because why would I walk beyond lectures when it was a long enough walk back to college anyway? But this time I traversed the University Parks, with which I was equally unfamiliar, and there was the limpid river winding placidly beneath the trees. An arched footbridge led to a lone footpath on the far side between meadows alive with buttercups, so quite delightful, except they were all for private grazing so all I could do was look. Eventually I reached some far-flung sports grounds, which must've added a proper hike either side of rugby practice, and beyond that the inner suburb of New Marston. By now I was wondering why the hell I'd never been out here before. I put it down to a) never buying a proper map of Oxford when I was a student, b) the 1980s being pre-internet so lots went undiscovered, c) having sufficient things to do elsewhere. Perhaps it was the better outcome to have left it until later. On the walk back I nodded at a few horses, passed a large number of bikes and I think I trespassed through St Catz.
✉ Yes I dropped into the Pitt Rivers, because you should always reacquaint yourself with the shrunken heads, tribal tattoos and totem pole whenever you're in town. Since I was last here they've come to terms with owning numerous culturally suspect items displayed unsympathetically so have added prominent display boards dissecting radicalised hierarchies, derogatory interpretation and colonial toponyms, and it turns out the shrunken heads have been hived off into storage. There's also a temporary exhibition on the ground floor celebrating queer identity with a strong trans slant, which kids on a school trip were exploring with as much interest as the weaponry upstairs, so if your opinions are still mired in the 20th century perhaps give the place a miss.
✉ It's exam season in Oxford so not only did I pass several candidates in subfusc returning to their colleges for lunch, I also spotted multiple damp floury patches marking the aftermath of celebrations. The authorities have always frowned on squirty revelry and their latest puritan wheeze is a campaign urging students to 'celebrate sustainably'. This reminds students that "even biodegradable materials have a negative impact on the environment" and "money wasted on food and other materials could be donated to food banks", and I trust these killjoys are being summarily ignored.
✉ Beside the Sheldonian is a building I'd never explored before, the History of Science Museum. It's free, so it gets a lot of visitors, but it's also a bit odd. Essentially it's a repository of old scientific instruments like astrolabes, sundials and armillary spheres, dozens of them, plus motley displays on DNA, penicillin and sanitation. Technically it's spread over three floors but one of those is mostly shop and a lot of it is stairs. It's interesting, a bit unfocused, somewhat dated and felt like it was attempting to bat above its weight. And if you were the jolly volunteer who approached me on the top floor and attempted to gain my interest with a flawed question about Enid Blyton, perhaps drop that one.
✉ The Tutankhamun centenary exhibition at the Bodleian, by contrast, is very good.
