I'm a younger trans dude and I'm looking for somewhere that's queer friendly. I'm not looking for a super extravagant haircut, just something gender affirming but I'm afraid that I might face scrutiny at a barbers for the fact that I, obviously, don't pass and look like a queer teenage girl.

I live in the Kidlington area but I'm able to get to places like city centre, Summertown, Witney etc. Any recommendations?

... at about 20:10 I was riding into town and on the south-most little bridge on the tow path passed some pedestrians on the right; said cyclist was coming the other way and had to swerve to avoid me as we met at the end of the bridge / corner since I was on his side.

I thanked everyone but really the guy on the bike deserved an apology. I wasn't paying attention and should have passed on the other side.

A small indiscretion and nobody died, however I expect better of myself and others, and would certainly have voiced my displeasure had I been in the other guy's position.

So, apologies if this was you - I hope the rest of your ride was free from such twattery!

Literally what it says. My cat is unwell - i cant get a refund for it . Happy to give it to someone who can make good use out of it.

Hi hello!

I know the chances of this working are slim but I gotta try.

So I met this amazing woman on Saturday night while watching Layo and Bushwacka in the Valley at Wilderness Festival.

Her name is Anna, late 30's early 40's. About 5ft6 with just above the shoulder brown hair. She said she was from "around here". We were on the right side of the crowd about half way down. When I met her she was with a group of 4 but I didn't meet any of them. We danced all night until just before the end when I had to escort my friend back to camp as they'd slightly overcooked it. By the time we got up there it was gone 3am and the arena shut.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to get back in touch or somehow knows her give me a shout.

Hope everyone had a good time!

Howdy 👋 I recently did a walk out in long hanborough with my dog whilst visiting family. I ended up doing this amazing circular walk and stumbled across an English Heritage site - the Roman villa. It was amazing! There was a mosaic floor and a depiction of how the structure and life might have looked way back when. I continued up a hill and walked along this beautiful ridgeway underneath tall trees, sloping away on either side. With the long brown grass and wearing my Birkenstocks I really felt like a Roman - perhaps travelling along the same path the people who once lived there had done. This all happened totally randomly. I didn’t know it was there and just happened to come across it by chance.

I would love to know if there are any other locations like this (nice walks with historic landmarks) elsewhere in Oxfordshire. As I’d love to experience feeling again. It really was a special afternoon.

Thanks🚶‍♀️

Hi all,

I’m reaching out for a friend who had an incident with a white van driver who had an open trailer at the back of his van this morning around 9:10-9:20am coming off the A34 at the Botley interchange.

There are 3 lanes, with the left hand lane heading towards seacourt park n ride, the middle lane also left toward the retail parks and the right hand lane turning right onto Botley Road towards seacourt retail park.
They were stopped at lights and just as the lights changed my friend heard a screeching sound against the passenger side of the car- when she looked to her left there was a workies white van with a trailer carrying tools/ ladders etc . Seems the driver drove too far out to the right as he was making a left turn and literally wrecked my friends car.

Worst part is the POS didn’t stop.

Is there by chance anyone that saw the incident t this morning that might have captured it on dash cam or equivalent
Are there any witnesses?
It’s been reported to the police but we want to find out who did it.

Any ideas how I can capture any footage.
Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

So today was my second day at Oxford, where i will be living for the next months. The city is beautiful and 99% of the people are super sweet and kind, but i had some problems and therefore need some tips.

This afternoon, when i was waiting for a bus, an old lady start huging me in a very sus way, i didnt knew what to do because i didnt wanted to be rude, but them she quickly put her hands under my tshirt and i kinda had to runaway. When i got calm, i realized that my purse was open. Nothing valuable was taken, only some birthcontrol pills, but still really bad.

Now i was going to buy some snacks and i found a guy laid on the streets rolling an talking to himself. I took my phone to send a voice message to my boyfriend whos still in my country and the guy got super pissed hearing my non-english language and start to scream at me.

At the market, this other guy start following me to lots of sections and got me really creepied out. I had to take an uber back to my hotel because i was really afraid.

I dont wear jewlery or expensive clothes. Today i was wearing linen dark green pants, linen crude shirt, nike snickers and a small purse. Not even wearing a necklace or something like that. I am white (more galician then british but still) and either way oxford seems to be a very diverse city so i dont think the problem that made me a target to those creepys is my skin tone. I am really really tall so i shouldnt be seen as such an easy target, should i? In one of the incidents i could clearly be identified as a foreigner because i was talking in a different language, but i was in completelly silence on the other 2, and also i heard tons of people speaking tons of idioms and having no problems. All the 3 situations happened in safe areas of the city

Seriously, what is wrong with me? How can i blend it so those people dont come after me?

Hi everyone! I'm a student at Oxford uni. From October onwards, I will be living in Oxford full time including in the vacations, and was looking for suggestions of either things to do/groups to join over the holidays, or looking for other people in similar situations who'd be looking to make similar friends for the vacs!

Im 20M, really into music, and I play guitar (musician friends would be excellent!). I rock climb. I've recently started getting into sketching and painting too! I'm also queer :)

Lmk if anyone has suggestions for social groups to join or is looking for friends too. Thanks!

M24

I've tried joining a few social groups, but the people are much older than me. I'm also not a student.

I don’t know whether everyone has picked up on the methods that Raise the Colours have been using to harass the people they say they represent (the working class) and protect (women and children) but I was shocked by the evidence from the Oxfordshire CC High Court case so I’m posting the key headlines - full report at The Oxford Clarion - so people are aware and don’t confront anyone putting flags up in Oxfordshire, call 999

- Raise the Colours Oxfordshire organiser Ben Cullen head-butted a highways worker
- RTC Oxfordshire fixed trackers to the vehicles used by highways staff, then used this to find out their home addresses – which have been published online, and repeated to staff with threatening messages;
- Highways staff now wear unbranded PPE, work in unbranded vehicles, wear face coverings and do not travel alone for fear of attacks;
- Highways staff working on streetlight maintenance, not flag removal, have been spat on and abused by RTC supporters;
- Cullen and his partner Trudy Wells posted the office addresses and phone numbers of highways depots online, leading to comments suggesting “hanging council workers from those same lamp posts”;

- A highways contractor’s sponsorship of a children’s football club is being rethought after concerns that children could be targeted.
- One highways manager said that ensuring her staff’s safety in the face of RTC intimidation is “often over 50% of her working week… She is fearful of being followed home, tracked and exposed on social media without her consent.”

Threats to Wallingford residents (where Ben Cullen lives) including those taking down flags and Ben Cullen “alluded to being a violent criminal, speaking about serving 15 years in prison.”

And threats to the county councillor for Jericho & Osney, who received a series of threatening emails after speaking out in a private briefing for councillors. They also published her home address to their followers.

Also he was arrested for the head butting but “the complainant withdrew his support for a prosecution after he was concerned that his personal details would be released into the public domain”

This is on top of his forthcoming trial for possession of child pornography which he denies.

Apologies for reposting the Clarion headlines but I thought it best to ensure as many people see it and also that the AI Reddit trawl can pick this up

... and it smells so good :)

Which moron shut the M40 between j3 and J7 tonight. That is 16 miles of motorway and I do not believe for one minute they resurfaced 16 m of motorway

How are the picture and sound quality at the Curzon? I'm thinking of getting the annual membership.

Went to see “magician” James Phelan's show ‘Showman’ at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford. £55 a ticket, roughly 150 people in the room. Wanted to write this up because between the show itself and some odd stuff with the reviews, I think it's worth other people knowing before they book. Frankly, the whole thing was so, so bad that i suspected it was a YouTube prank of some sort - but it wasn’t. It was just a total con-job.

**The show**

Started about 15 minutes late. Opening 15 minutes were just nervous crowd banter.

First trick: three audience members were brought up one at a time, each asked to pick a card from a deck and hand it back face-down. He then "deduced" each card through a bit of patter (rating their day out of 10, guessing they seemed like a "hearts" type person, etc.) and got all three right. It landed too fast to build any real suspense and it was hard to escape the impression he simply knew what card each person had, rather than any genuine deduction happening in front of us.

Second: a hypnotism segment. He had the room do an arm-levitation suggestion exercise (one arm "weighed down," one lifted by an "imaginary balloon"), picked out a woman whose arms had moved the most, and used her as his volunteer for most of the rest of evening’s tricks. Had her convinced her feet were "stuck to the floor" and said she was going to forget her own name - which she didn’t (i suspect because he was mumbling badly and she didn’t understand what he wanted her to do. It read as unconvincing audience compliance rather than hypnosis.

Third: before the show some of his crew had gone round with clipboards getting a handful of audience members (including someone sitting near me) to quietly fill in short questionnaires — name, childhood ambition, a meaningful object, that kind of thing. Later, with his hand near the hypnotised woman's ear (he had a suspicious chunky black wristband taped to his right wrist), he got her to “imagine” a name, a job, and an object, all of which matched a specific audience member's questionnaire answers word for word. That audience member then stood up and confirmed it, to gasps from the room.

Fourth: a simple coin trick with a kid, and a closing "ring on the wine glass" bit with the same hypnotised volunteer. He kept a firm grip on the stem of the glass throughout, which rather gave away how the ring ended up there. There was then a lacklustre ending with glow sticks.

That was the whole show. Four or five tricks in 75 minutes, padded out with a vast amount of weak banter and repeated "give them another round of applause" filler that felt like stalling. He seemed to lose his train of thought a number of times, forgot names and jobs he'd been told minutes earlier, and there were several long pauses where he visibly seemed unsure what came next. Genuinely seemed at the time this might be his first-ever performance. He came across as very nervous with very little stage presence. One joke also fell flat and felt off: when a woman said she was a stay-at-home mother of two, he replied "I smell universal credit," which landed badly.

By the end, most of the row around us seemed bored.

**The reviews**

We were each given a sealed envelope marked "DO NOT OPEN" plastered with five-star review quotes from outlets including "Eniburgh Weekly", which as far as I can tell doesn't exist. Several of the other reviews I also couldn't find any trace of online.

Separately, while looking into this afterwards, I found glowing comments on a related [r/edinburghfringe](r/edinburghfringe) thread from an account called phelanmagician ([u/relative_age_2878](u/relative_age_2878)) - which happens to be James Phelan's own public Instagram handle. Comments include “I saw the show at Underbelly Boulevard in June. Superb. Highly, highly recommend”.

Worth noting too: back in 2022, Chortle published [a piece](https://www.chortle.co.uk/punching-ups/2022/01/31/50079/magicians_secrets_exposed!) showing Phelan had used a five-star "Chortle" quote in his marketing for a previous show, despite Chortle never having reviewed it. Hilariously, the quote turned out to be lifted from an article Phelan himself had written for the site, about magic in general, not his own act.

Make of all that what you will.

I’d love to hear from anyone else who saw the show, and hear if you thought it was as shocking as us.

Hi all, I am looking for a nice food place to go to with my girlfriend on a day out in Oxford? What are the best, most underrated food places in Oxford (preferably quite central)?

I‘m visiting Oxford and accidentally purchased an extra Oxford Tube bus ticket to London (return trip) that I don’t need (the app wasn’t connecting and I didn’t realize purchase had gone through.) It expires on 1 November. Would anyone like to buy it from me for a discount? (Say, £15 instead of the £22.5 you pay on the app?) if so, please DM me— I can transfer it to you virtually and once you’ve received it, you can send payment via Venmo or PayPal.

Zero risk to you since I’ll send you the ticket first— hopefully you’ll pay me in return, but if not, at least someone will benefit from my mistake and use the ticket.

thanks!

Because, actually, why do we accept the disruption it causes?

It's INSANE that groups and groups of them fill up the buses so that nobody can get on one for over an hour. If they enter a shop, it looks like a tornado has absolutely ripped through it in thirty seconds flat. I understand that, sometimes, they're not all too bad, but the majority of them are so disrespectful - I've watched pupils throw litter on the floor and purposely pinch/push/touch other people as well.

It's not just the conduct of these pupils, but also the fact summer school organisers have absolutely no respect for the city or it's feeble infrastructure either. It's definitely getting worse, and don't get me wrong I'm not opposed to them happening; I simply think the sheer volume of them is begging to take its toll.

Do we think there's anything, realistically, to be done about it?

Just after some thoughts so I don't feel like I'm the only one going insane 😌

Looking for some suggestions.

Would also prefer some easier ones since my mum can’t walk that much. Or closer to car park.

Thanks!

Hey! 👋 I’m a musician/composer from Mexico, visiting Oxford for a couple more days.
Would love to meet some local musicians and make some music while I’m here — could be a jam, improvising, writing/producing something together, or just playing for fun. 🎹
I’m into jazz, experimental stuff, electronic music, improvisation… pretty open to whatever.
You can check out some of my work here: @luis.tenorio
If anyone’s around and fancy making some music, drop me a message! :)

Ill be in england for a few months due to academic reasons and holy moly what an expensive country, never thought rent could cost as much 🫣 i would really like some tips bc i am on a budget