I can't find it now, but there was a cartoon from the Iraq War showing USAF aircrews scrambling for their planes. By the door of their hut was a dartboard with darts and holes all around the dartboard, but none on the board itself. Not much changes, it seems.
Looks good. Enjoy it.
A fence with notices - the old station at Ashcott. There is a wheelbarrow in front of the fence and cars behind.
Lovely pictures to have. I remember you saying you had been on that day out - I published a photograph, I think of Ashcott in 2021, and you replied.
A black dog with a red lead sits behind the words "No dogs beyond this point".
OTD in 2025. Norman complies with an instruction at Tebay.
It was, I think, quite close and ascending (as they famously do)
As with (occasional) kingfishers, I tend to gape in wonder at seeing them at all and only afterwards remember that I have a camera
A brown skylark with wings down and beak open.
OTD in 2024 - a skylark within camera range over the meadow (not a perfect shot, but I was pleased to see it at all)
Back and shoulders of a heron with its head turned to the right, displaying its pointed orange and grey beak.
OTD in 2025. Heron watches the river (I've not seen many herons this year)
Black and white photograph of a stone archway with a Latin inscription above commemorating the Duke of Marlborough and his wife Sarah.
The inscription above Blenheim's Woodstock Gate commemorates John, Duke of Marlborough, and his wife Sarah (who was still alive when this was designed by Hawksmoor and built in 1723).
Circular arch in a formal stone gateway. The stone is yellow and the gate is green. Through the arch we can see the top of part of Blenheim Palace.
The Woodstock Gate to Vanbrugh's Blenheim Palace, part which is just visible above the gate.
Vanbrugh + Soane Museum looks irresistible
I'd feel slightly better if I thought that such an assessment had been done, been weighed against other factors, and rejected. It is clear that no-one cared enough even to think about what these buildings would look like from the meadow.
It's that no-one cares that makes me cross. The southern application included a clear lie about visibility which could easily have been checked. Of the northern one it seems no-one - officers or councillors - bothered to consider what it looked like from the meadow side. And yes, both are very ugly.
Both developments could have been designed in a way which met the developers' needs while not spoiling the views. Nobody with the power to affect this cared enough - it was too much work for them, and they were indifferent, in both senses of that word. I see one or both of these buildings every day.
An office block and crane looming over a pretty meadow.
The Oxford North office block (or "labs" in the modern parlance) looms over the meadow. A councillor quibbled with "looms". I showed them a photograph. Silence for a moment, then "The planning officers should have warned us about that".
Blocks of flats looming over a pretty meadow.
The flats were runners-up for the 2013 Carbuncle Cup. The city begged the university to mitigate the effect of the permission they had granted (they put darker paint over the buildings). The chief planning officer "agreed to take early retirement" soon afterwards.
Map extract of Oxford and Port Meadow.
From that particular spot (red dot) you have school playing fields. A little further south is well screened housing.
You can't from there see the accomodation blocks (yellow dot) or the new office block (blue dot) because of the trees. They are very visible from almost everywhere else.
Bare tees with water behind them and the sun setting over the hills beyond.
Sunset across the flooded meadow
View across a lake to a wooded hillside. Two boats are moored against the trees, one black and one blue.
The waters recede and grass reappears. The boats mark the far (western) bank of the River Thames. The signboard at the left is for The Perch pub.
Sacred harmony: Pieter Jansz Saenredam, Dutch Golden Age architectural painter & draughtsman (1597-1665); pioneer of ‘church portraits’, whose subtle, tonal compositions foreshadow abstract modernism.
St Bavo Haarlem, 1635, Gemäldegalerie Berlin
A black dog has just retrieved his tennis ball from a river and stands ready for the next throw. A black and white photograph.
OTD in 2013. Norman awaits his tennis ball's next flight into the river.
I was beginning to doubt my camera's date stamp, so I am glad to have this back-up.
Talking to a room full of lawyers. The room equipment had its own computer, which suddenly said loudly "Sorry. I don't understand" as I was speaking. And then said it again.
It was quickly gone that year.
Canal boat on a snow-covered canal. Snow is falling.
This week in 2018. Snow and ice on the canal.
There are estates of offices and "labs" beyond the ring road, not all of which are unattractive. And there are big plans for housing beyond the southern ring road.
The real need is for housing within the ring road. The offices could be anywhere - yet they dump them on the Botley Road bus routes.
Quite
All office blocks near Oxford are called "labs" now - short word, easy to read and to spell. Put "labs" in the opening paragraph of your planning application, and you guarantee a planning permission. Where will workers live and commute from? That's someone else's problem apparently.
Two white cranes and a green office block seen across a flooded meadow and moorings.
This large plot on Oxford's Botley Road could have provided much-needed housing, within the ring road and on bus routes. Instead, it will have "three new office and research buildings to meet local demand [sic]".
In addition, the congestion charge, and the fines for not paying it, are bringing in large sums, much of which is being put into making public transport better (and in the case of park-and-ride buses, free)
