Chef braves weather for BBQ demonstration
10:27am Monday 14th May 2012
Chef Dan Cooper will be at Millets Farm Centre, at Frilford, near Abingdon, on Wednesday demonstrating a more unusual range of barbecued dishes.
Wed, 16th May 2012
Tricky vegetable demands precise match
9:12am Friday 11th May 2012
Organisers cancelled the Asparagus Festival in Evesham because of rain and flooding. Now we are told British asparagus is in crisis. Luckily, Medley Farm in Binsey continues to supply local shops, restaurants and the public. Millets farm shop in Abingdon sells their asparagus daily. They are growing a portion of their crop under poly tunnels meaning even the cold May start can’t stop the crop. As the rest of the country suffers with imports from Peru, Oxonians will be eating the fresh British veg.
Avian A-listers due for return
2:51pm Thursday 10th May 2012
Four special birds are set to return to the UK this summer. The information these cuckoos bring could revolutionise the way we think about bird migration. LIAM CREEDON reports
Oxfordshire Artweeks: Celebrating 30 years of a remarkable annual festival
10:00am Thursday 10th May 2012
Oxfordshire Artweeks celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. It had a comparatively modest start: a single week with a small number of mainly city-based artists taking part. It now runs for three weeks, with well over 1,000 artists taking part across the 1,005 square miles of Oxfordshire, with each week focusing on a different part of the county Those taking part in Artweeks range from highly experienced and well-known artists to beginners, both adults and children, making it a celebration of the huge range, wealth and variety of creativity that exists in the county. And similarly, we, the visiting public will range from seasoned enthusiasts to interested newcomers, all keen to experience the arts in their widest sense.
Oxfordshire Artweeks show by Belinda Ellis, St Mary's Lodge, Bloxham
10:00am Thursday 10th May 2012
Belinda Ellis is exhibiting her paintings in her house and studio, which she describes as “the perfect studio”. It is here that she creates her abstract pieces. Often they are very large ones.
Artweeks show: The Big Book, Magdalen Road Studios, Oxford
10:00am Thursday 10th May 2012
The photograph on the right of The Big Book beside its sculptor, Diana Bell, demonstrates well the magnitude of the work itself and makes reference to the scale of the interactive project that Bell has created via the book. The book is beautifully executed and its old-fashioned binding is adorned by just one word: Imagine. The book’s binding opens to reveal canvas pages on which the public have been invited to write what they do or want to imagine. The universal appeal of the project is testified to by Bell’s estimate that the book contains entries in 64 languages.
Oxfordshire Artweeks show Love is... at Worton Park, Cassington
9:50am Thursday 10th May 2012
This exhibition brings together 12 artists each exploring what love means to them. Kay Jamieson takes as her theme the Oxford Canal, where indeed she met love. Working in acrylics she captures the gentle pace of both the canal itself and the boats and barges that use it.
Henry V: Oxford Playhouse
8:50am Thursday 10th May 2012
This is a very appropriate time to bring a production of Shakespeare’s Henry V to Oxfordshire. With the repatriation of fallen troops returning to RAF Brize Norton, the whole question of whether we should be fighting a war in Afghanistan at all seems closer to home. Shakespeare’s Henry, too, worries about mounting casualties as he fights his campaign in France — a campaign that has begun in flag-waving fashion with a blaze of cannon balls, drawn swords, and the famous speech: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”.
The story of the four-minute mile: Iffley Road running track, Oxford
8:40am Thursday 10th May 2012
In May 1954, Roger Bannister became the first person on record to run a mile in under four minutes, right here in Oxford on the Iffley Road Running Track. As part of their PlaysOut series, Oxford Playhouse have produced this retrospective and reflection on the event and its effect on those involved, and those who have been inspired by it.
Oxford May Music Festival: Holywell Music Room
8:30am Thursday 10th May 2012
Much has been written about the healing and transformative power of music, but there can be few greater examples than Dame Myra Hess’s legendary lunchtime concerts, held daily at the National Gallery to boost public morale during wartime Britain. As London’s theatres and music halls fell silent, following Stanley Baldwin’s ‘cultural blackout’, the National Gallery became a musical oasis, a brief respite from the dangers and anxieties of war. There were 1,700 concerts between 1939 and 1946, each attracting hundreds of people. Many had never heard classical music before but, as Dame Myra noted: “There was nobody to tell people this music was over their heads, so they came and liked it.”