Graz, Austria’s second largest city, is guarded by a clock tower on the  hill known as Schlossburg and reached by 264 steps built by Russian prisoners during WWI. Zooming up in a trice in a glass lift was a relief but I felt guilty about the easy ride and  and walked down when I might […] Read more

Having made Oxford my home for forty plus  years, I imagined there was  little I didn’t know about the housing market. Like many, I study the property pages of the Oxford Times, fancy living in mansions or country cottages and for different reasons have moved through the points of the compass,  North, South and West […] Read more

                    Upper Fisher Row got a bite of the cake yesterday when scenes from the 8th series of the popular cop drama Lewis was  filmed, taking up all of our parking but providing entertainment for the many “home-bound” inhabitants who live here courtesy of the Council […] Read more

                    It’s the time of year when crowds throng the the quads of Oxford colleges, programmes in hand, thermos flasks and sandwiches  in carrier bags, to seek wit, wisdom entertainment and literary glamour among writers who have come to talk about their books (and promote sales) […] Read more

              Sridevi is a gardener at the Lodi Gardens, formerly Lady Willingdon Gardens, where she has tenured employment at Rs 1,400 a month She is a widow and comes from the  Mali caste. She has two children and lives in Badarpur, a suburb of Delhi. I complimented her on […] Read more

                      At the Convent of Jesus and Mary, on the Feast Days of Saints David, Andrew, George and Patrick, Reverend Mother announced a picnic for the girls belonging to the House named for one of the four saints. I seem to remember I was a […] Read more

  The old bullock cart of democratic process has changed: it’s now a battered three wheeler which phuts along, breaking down every so often in clouds of  black fumes. Sometimes it almost sputters to a halt and lengthy debates erupt about its efficacy. Maybe the older image was better: the cart lumbered on, regardless. It […] Read more

I don’t think I have ever cried during a film as openly as I did while watching “Twelve Years a Slave”. On other occasions a slightly shaming  tear or two stands in my eyes before I dab it away. But Steve McQueen’s rendition of the 1853 diary of Samuel Northrup, a free black householder, musician, […] Read more

That the English are becoming (let’s say have become, not to put too fine an point on it) “almost a de-cultured people. From the shops in our high streets to the vocabulary we use, we are becoming a cheap and nasty imitation of the worst of consumer America. We can’t sing our own folk songs, […] Read more