Oxford

 St Patrick

     Yesterday news reached 'X', Twitter as was, of a proposed new development for Oxford city centre - a place, I think, in sore need of help.  The proposal, by GP Clarendon Square Ltd, and designed by the traditionalist  Quinlan Terry Architects, is for the wholesale replacement of a shopping centre (in America called a 'mall'), the 'Clarendon Centre' dating from the 1984.  The images so far released into the public domain are very interesting.  This is from the planning application:

     "This proposal is for the refurbishment of the existing buildings through the opening up of the existing thoroughfares by removing the roof coverings and the opening of the very centre to form a large 41x42 metre landscaped square.

     "Quinlan Terry CBE has designed new classical design stone facades to the square and the existing elevations. These key elevations are Cornmarket Street and Queen Street."

     They represent a welcome return to traditional Urbanism, with a street and a large public square.  There are stone facades and neo-classical detailing, and correct scale.  All to the good.  (I suppose the usual suspects will complain.)

     And what I wonder will be the knock-on effect on places such as Newbury, in Berkshire, where there is a shopping centre of a similar age - empty and forlorn - awaiting redevelopment.

     Here are a couple of images of the Clarendon Centre proposal.  They have appeared on 'X' and in the Oxford press so not quite sure who to credit the images with except either 'Goldman Properties'/'GP Clarendon Square Ltd' or 'Quinlan Terry Architects'.

Laurel and Hardy at The Grand

      To the Grand Theater last night and an evening of early Laurel and Hardy films (i.e. before the introduction of sound) with the melodious Neil Brand accompanying at the piano, (with occasional help from the audience).  Mr. Brand's nationwide tour is to celebrate the 100 anniversary of Laurel and Hardy's comedy partnership

'The Glittering Prizes'

      Perhaps one or twice a year I have had enough.  I concede defeat.  A novel is put aside unfinished.  It is a sort of failure, there is a lingering thought that it just might get better, but sometimes one just cannot continue reading it.  It has become unbearable.

     Last month was one of those times.  The book in question: 'The Glittering Prizes', by Frederick Raphael, published in 1976.  On the Penguin paperback edition of the actor Tom Conti as the main character Adam Morris, from the BBC adaptation 0f 1976.  I mean I wanted to like it.  Being set in post-war Cambridge I thought it might offer some incite into University life.  It may well have, but I can't get over the unlikeable, irritating characters. (Perhaps that's the point, perhaps that's the way they're meant to be) Not only that, they are all of an amorphous lump without any discernable character.  The best part was Adam's friendship with his fellow undergrad Donald - a sort of anti-Brideshead Revisited - it really was affecting.  But then we were back to University life....

     I tried the BBC adaptation in the hope it might help, and some extent it did, but it was spoilt by Tom Conti's bizarrely 'mannered' performance.

March

March by John Clare (1793-1864)

March month of 'many weathers' wildly comes
In hail and snow and rain and threatning hums
And floods: while often at his cottage door
The shepherd stands to hear the distant roar
Loosd from the rushing mills and river locks
Wi thundering sound and over powering shocks
And headlong hurry thro the meadow brigs
Brushing the leaning sallows fingering twigs
In feathery foam and eddy hissing chase
Rolling a storm oertaken travellers pace
From bank to bank along the meadow leas
Spreading and shining like to little seas
While in the pale sunlight a watery brood
Of swopping white birds flock about the flood