please empty your brain below
I visited the History of Science Museum a few weeks ago and I was approached by an over friendly volunteer wanting to talk about Chelsea Clinton. I suspect it was the same one.

Scott | Homepage | 07.06.22 - 7:24 a.m. | #

I studied at Oxford (up the hill at Oxford Brookes) and other than the Ashmolean and Pitt rivers, missed out on huge swathes of Oxford I never visited in the three years I was there. I definitely need to return, not been since I graduated in 2006

Tom | 07.06.22 - 7:32 a.m. | #

Very enjoyable tour, thanks. What a relief to see something positive about trans people; these days I have my weird shields set permanently to max!

Toni | 07.06.22 - 7:43 a.m. | #

Thanks for another great post! It looks like we were both 'up' at Oxford at about the same time. I was trying to work out which college you went to and initially I was convinced the picture you posted was my college, but I'd misremembered the precise design of the corner of the quad I was thinking of. There was another college across the road from mine which definitely had a Brideshead feel, but also very much a Chariots of Fire feel too!

JP | 07.06.22 - 7:55 a.m. | #

The History of Science museum building was the original Ashmolean museum.
It has old carved student graffiti at the entrance door and Albert Einstein’s blackboard.

Nick | 07.06.22 - 8:29 a.m. | #

I had an interview at Brasnose many years ago but declined their offer so only had a fleeting view of the colleges then but seen a lot more on recent visits. At the History of Science museum I joined a tour on all the clocks and astrolabes which was fascinating, best of all are all the bits of Marconi's very early radio experiments in the basements. I found it fascinating and could have spent far longer there.

Pity about that photo of the bike with whatever it is around it, best not viewed at breakfast time.

davews | 07.06.22 - 8:43 a.m. | #

I love museums you can get lost in, so the modernization of the Ashmolean scores very well on that point.

jack hopkins | 07.06.22 - 8:53 a.m. | #

When the porter waived the admission charge, did you wave back?

Neil | 07.06.22 - 9:11 a.m. | #

Looking at your photo of the nearby college it looks as if we might have gone to the same college, although I am rather older than you. I too inhabited a modern annexe. On returning for an overnight stay a couple of years ago, I was back in it! I did an exam in History & Philosophy of Science, and my tutor for that subject camped out at the History of Science Museum.

Tim W. | 07.06.22 - 9:22 a.m. | #

On a technicality all other colleges are younger than the one pictured, but I am struggling to think of a road across which there is a college so recent -- founded after, say, 1650 -- that it lacks a nice old stone quadrangle.
#OhReallyYouTooWhichCollege

HTFB | 07.06.22 - 9:48 a.m. | #

My (not in Oxford) college is now a housing estate - at both campus locations!

Cornish Cockney | 07.06.22 - 10:28 a.m. | #

Go on then, what was the flawed Enid Blyton question?

Stuart R | 07.06.22 - 10:37 a.m. | #

Not an Oxford man myself, although I went to school there, but I remember being told that Corpus Christi was the only college where the main quad was paved rather than grassed. So I guess that must be the college in your photograph. But there's no sign of the pelican, so I think you must have been standing by that when you took the photo.

Charles | Homepage | 07.06.22 - 10:48 a.m. | #

Some similarities in our Rail Sale travels, seeing that I did Seaford/Eastbourne, Maidstone, Oxford and Chichester!

I've no idea whether it will generate longer term business for the railways, but I was happy to take advantage of the promotion.

Mikey C | 07.06.22 - 10:51 a.m. | #

I'm with the authorities in frowning on squirty revelry, which is only a few steps away from Bullingdon Club type privileged behaviour, and must be quite unpleasant for Oxford's permanent residents. The comment about donating to food banks is a red herring though; you could say that about spending money on any form of entertainment.

Andrew S | 07.06.22 - 10:58 a.m. | #

It was a pleasant surprise to see a photo including the window of the room I had in my first year at the 'nearby' college. But the walls weren't ivy-clad in those days: it was a long time ago.

An old member of the nearby college | 07.06.22 - 11:33 a.m. | #

I'm a fairly frequent visitor to Oxford and got thoroughly pleasantly lost in the Ashmolean in late May.

My other half works for the Uni and has commented that although flour and water seem benign, this year the projectiles have included pee loaded into water pistols, offal and bleach squirted from bottles, while shaving foam on cobbles is a serious cause of injury for the general public. Clean up cost, charged by the council to the Uni, was around £20K.

RogerTCB | 07.06.22 - 1:25 p.m. | #

If the colleges choose to raise funds by fleecing - sorry, charging - willing visitors then it makes little financial sense to me that they waive these same charges for those that studied in the city years ago, and are likely to revisit. Smacks of there being one rule for the plebs .. etc.

Frank F | 07.06.22 - 4:49 p.m. | #

I'm surprised 'subfusc' hasn't become a more popular word (I had to look it up, having only been to North London Poly)

Martin'O'Holcombe | 08.06.22 - 9:33 a.m. | #

Frank F: As the (then) Dean of my (Cambridge) College used to say: "Once a Johnian, always a Johnian". And most Colleges seek to foster a sense of ongoing community/belonging with their alumni, both because they see their role as more than transactional degree-factories and, doubtless, also with an eye on donations to funds. Free admission is a small feelgood factor as part of that which costs little or nothing.

David | 08.06.22 - 10:29 a.m. | #

With regard to squirty celebrations (full disclosure: I was at the pictured college for 8 years) ... my father was once in a shop facing the Examination Schools, and tut-tutting about such. The shopkeeper responded: "Sir, if you saw them as they go in for the first exam, you would not begrudge them the way they come out after the last exam."

MartinG | 08.06.22 - 4:15 p.m. | #











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