A Day Trip to Oxford

I've never spent that much time in Oxford before, and was very pleased to be meeting some friends there. I was there about an hour early so went for a bit of a walk around the centre. There are some great old buildings with a rich history going back perhaps 1200 years. Besides the amazing University buildings, the museums and town houses, Oxford has a rich political and econmic history. Charles the first was based in Oxford for some time during the English Civil War of the 1640's, and of course, the Oxford Movement has recently been high in the British news as the Pope beatified John Henry Newman in his visit here last week. I met with some friends in a pub called The Jude the Obscure, named after the character from the Thomas Hardy book who perhaps may be described as the most tragic in the history of the novel.

 Old meets new in Oxford

 Bodleian Library

 Behind the Bodleian Library

 St Giles

 Ashmolean Museum

 Jude The Obscure

Oxford Castle

Trip to England Part 7: Stratford upon Avon

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, from across the River Avon

The Birthplace of the great William Shakespeare.
An early start, partly to have a full day and partly so no one would see me driving, was needed for the 2 hours drive to Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford upon Avon. It was a very pleasane drive (actually, the whole manual driving thingy is coming back to me) through Newbury, across the Chiltern Hills, skirting Oxford and then on to Stratford. Not a lot had changed along the way and the journey was uneventful, though the speed of driving was a bit worying in places, especially the M40, where I was cut up by a transit van (nothing new happening there then).

The top of historic Sheep Street with the Town Hall at the far end.

Straford upon Avon is a beautiful old town brought to fame as the birthplace of the great bard William Shakespeare. As a result, theatre is the main trade of Stratford. There are a number of theatres around the town as well as references to famous actots. There are also links to historical figures around the town and surrounding countryside. Today I took a drive to nearby Edgehill, the scene of the first battle in the English Civil War of the 1640's.

The Garrick Inn. Shakespeare is not the only famous name remembered in Stratford.

The town itself is packed with historical buildings as well as modern architecture. Today I was lucky enough to be around at the same time as the food festival which closed many of the streets around Stratford. I was also lucky to see a group of people I hadn't seen in over 5 years. And yet again, like with my family, we just took things up as if it had been a few days. Friendship is something that doesn't need constant work, it transverses time and distance, and I am very lucky to have known so many great people over the years.

 Is your town library as beautiful as this?

 The Dirty Duck/Black Swan. Possibly the most famous pub in Stratford and within sight of the RST.

 The natural wonders are also a hit with tourists and locals, like this mute swan.

Basingstoke Chess Club

If you search a little there are some surprising things you can find out about Basingstoke. For instance, most people think of Basingstoke as a New Town mainly due to expansion in the 1950's and 1960's where a mass of London overspill moved to the town. But you can go back further than that. Thomas Hardy included Basingstoke in his Wessex in the 1870's-1890's. Nearby Basing House saw a battle in the English Civil War in the 1640's. And Basingstoke is even mentioned in Domesday Book of the 11th Century. In fact settlement perdates even that, with Roman roads running close to the ancient market town, and the remains of an even earlier iron age fort which gives testament to pre-Roman settlements in the region around the 6th Century BC.

Likewise, I was surprised to find that Basingstoke Chess Club is over 100 years old, established in 1898. It has had both up's and down's as a club (I suppose like most clubs) with varying membership numbers, though a constant group exist at the club and that ensures it's survival. Core members like Roy Ashmore (a pretty good bridge player as well), John Shaddick, and Joe French (his junior initiatives over the past 25 years have ensured that new blood keeps coming throught he doors at Basingstoke Chess Club) give the club a sense of continuity, while newer members such as Peter Beldaus (sorry Peter if you don't feel that new, I've not been at the club regularly for about 25 years!) continue the tradition of friendliness and openness that has been a part of the club since as long as I can remember.

Last night was a skittles night with the season in England only just starting here, after the summer holidays. Teams have to be arranged, memberships collected etc and players need to start finding a bit of form after the summer lay-off.

From the front, Basingstoke Chess and Bridge Club looks like an ordinary Edwardian house.

The extension on the back gives great playing facilities.

Holy Ghost Church on Sherbourne Road, the same street as Basingstoke Chess Club. The Chapel of Holy Ghost has been traced back to the 1200's, though I couldn't tell you when this present church was built.

Finally a couple of games, as best I can remember them :)

Trip to England Part 6: Basingstoke

Ok, not many people will know of Basingstoke, especially in Australia. Some claims to fame are that it was mentioned in Thomas Hardy's novels in the 1870's-1890's, Monty Python took the piss out of it as the most boring place in the World with lots of roundabouts (this is before Milton Keynes was developed), Ruth Ellis (the last woman hanged in England) and Tanita Tikaram both hale from Basingstoke.

The Lamb is the nearest pub to Queen Mary's College

After a fairly quiet morning where I drove my Mum for her health check up and then acted as chauffeur/packhorse on her weekly big shop I decided to take a slow walk to Basingstoke Town Centre. I walked past my old 6th form college, Queen Mary's (back in the days of class streaming, in elitist England, the most qualified bright sparks from all the local schools were herded together in a 6th form college and allowed a further 2 years of skiving, before they would hopefully move on to their 3 years of university indolence!). There had been quite some building and huge growth of flora around the college obscuring it from the main street, though I doubt it would have changed much.


Basingstoke is a town of old and new. Approaching the town from the south you can walk through the Memorial Park which was originally designed in the 1700's for Goldings House which no longer stands. The Southern end of the town retains a lot of its 'older' nature. Then you work your way down to the Malls which are totally modern. Completely covered, it's soul less American shopping. However, you don't have to travel far from the Malls in any direction to find the historical, or more traditional, aspects of the town.

Focal Point in the Memorial Park

The bird cage is another focal point of the Memorial Park

I then took a wander towards the cinema which now has a number of bars, restaurants and fast food places close by called Festival Place. I went into a place called Giraffe and the service was excellent, very friendly and laid back. Unfortunately, the coffee wasn't too good (it had an American filter coffee vibe), but it was a lot better than the stuff that Costa (supposedly a continental style coffee chain) served which I shall just term "indescribable". Actually I quite liked it in Giraffe, the staff's friendliness more than making up for the slightly inferior cup of coffee.

The White Hart Pub at the Northern end of the Memorial Park

St Michael's Church, a stone's throw from the Malls, and probably about 500 years old.

Trip to England Part 5: Driving and the Olympiad.

Today and to some extent tomorrow, will be fairly quiet days in Basingstoke, where I’ll be helping out my parents a bit. For instance, my Dad had a hospital check up today, and I drove him there. Now this might not sound like much to most of you, but the fact that my parents have a small manual geared car, whereas I’m used to a medium to large automatic made the episode quite a challenge. It really is unbelievable how much I’ve forgotten about driving manual cars, something that I learned when I was in England and used to be able to do without much thought. I now had to focus on using 2 feet to drive, using a clutch, finding the biting point and remembering the gear ratios. I am not a great lover of cars, like some people, so making driving easier would be high on my list of priorities in a car. Therefore, I would almost always choose an automatic to a geared car.

Tomorrow it is my Mum’s turn for a check up, so I’ll be a reluctant chauffeur again. I’ll also be heading to Basingstoke Chess Club tomorrow night which will be another blast from the past. I will also be spending some time following the fortunes of various teams at the Chess Olympiad, which started for real today. I will, of course, be checking out the English and Australian teams, the fortunes of the top teams, and my friend Jamie Kenmure who is captain of the Palau team. (Saying that, I don't see them on the start list so I'm not sure what has happened there.)

Today, most of my time watching the event was on board 1 game 1, first to see the top seeds in action, but then watching a fascinating battle between a much lower rated opponent trying to hang on to his super-GM opponent. Sam Collins used the Chebanenko Slav against Grischuk and got a solid but passive position. In the end, Grischuk could find no way through, and Sam Collins drew the game of his life. This was great for the underestimated Irish team, and as Sam Collins is a contributor to the excellent daily newspaper edited by GM's Baburin and Golubev, Chess Today, which I subscribe to, I hope to have some great material in the coming editions.

I’m going to spend some time looking through some games tonight and tomorrow. I downloaded a file of games from TWIC but it seems a bit corrupted. For example, one game is Kett (Georgia) beating Harikrishna (Thailand). In fact, Harikrishna of India beat Kett of Wales. There are also a number of part games where presumably the transmission has not been completed. But young Australian Grandmaster David Smerdon started in great style. And this helped the Australian’s to a maximum 4-0 win in the first round putting them half a point ahead of England, and Russia 1!

Trip to England Part 4

On the spur of the moment this morning I decided to go to London as a tourist, and I wrote some notes at certain times around the capital:

"If you’re thinking of travelling to London on a daytrip while staying outside the capital, make sure you have some spare cash. A ticket from Basingstoke cost 23.80 (about $50AUD). The train was punctual and comfortable which is more than I remember so that sort of appeased my shock at the price. The train went into Waterloo and if you walk out of almost any entrance of that massive terminus, it won’t be long before you see the London Eye. The Eye wasn’t there when I was last in London and I have to admit that it is pretty impressive. The Eye dominates the Southbank skyline.

However, the differences in the city seem fairly minor except for one. To me, it stinks. I’m not sure whether it was the traffic fumes or the filth from the Thames. But as I was walking along the Embankment (doesn’t that sound romantic?) from Westminster to Charing Cross, I almost felt sick from the smell. I cut North then to Trafalgar Square up Northumberland Avenue (past Scotland Yard which was looking even more sinister than ever with tarpaulin around the building shrouding it’s mysteries) and then carried on to Covent Garden where I had a coffee in a traffic free zone.

The bill at my café included a service charge which I thought was a bit cheeky for what was essentially a very average double espresso. So next I jumped the tube to Baker Street. Covent Garden is on the Picadilly Line (I never used that line much before) and I changed at King’s Cross. Baker Street is a tourist haven with Madame Tussaud’s and Sherlock Holmes. I, of course, was more interested in the chess shop on Baker Street!

From here it is a short walk south to Oxford Street (you are never far away from a Monopoly Square in central London) and where you meet the King (or should that be Queen) of shopping strips is the iconic department store, Selfridges. I had to go in….I don’t know why, I am no shopper but something seemed to drag on me…I didn’t even want to buy anything but ended up with a Selfridges bag from the foodstore/deli. One of my best memories of trips to London as a kid was the trip to Selfridge’s toy department which dominated most of a floor (4^th if I remember rightly). The downside to my route was walking along Oxford Street which is a constant fight against foot traffic. Eventually I turned toward Soho down Poland Street and stopped in the Burlington Café for a snack and coffee. The coffee smelled rich and was delicious somehow merging a sort of spicy and sweet taste in a full bodied double espresso.

From Poland Street it’s a short walk to Shaftsbury Avenue where a couple of old friends brought smiles to my face. I used to drink quite often in the James Tavern on the corner of Shaftsbury Avenue and Great Windmill Street, and around the corner in Picadilly Square is my favourite statue in London, Eros. The God of love once ironically was pointing his bow directly at the Virgin Megastore which seems to have disappeared, suggesting that Eros still has some potency to despoil Virgins!

Coventry Street links Picadilly Circus to Leicester Square (did I do the whole Monopoly board today?), the whole area seems to me to be cleaner than I remember it being. However, it was no less busy than I remember and about this point I started to get fed up of the hustle and bustle of England’s capital. I caught the tube back to Waterloo and the train back to Basingstoke. All in all, I was only in London about 6 hours, and while I admit the sights and history are quite amazing, I’ve seen much of it before and the starkest change I noticed was the worsening of the residual pollution and smells.

There were a couple of things that I was intending to do that I never got around to. I was intending to carry on around to the National Portrait Gallery and take a short wander around, and then head down to that great chess venue, Simpson’s in the Strand. But I’d had enough. And if you’re wondering why I didn’t do Buckingham Palace and the Royal Gardens, then think that I’m a citizen of what should be the Republic of Australia!"

 Never mind Madame Tussaud's or Sherlock Holmes, here is the real attraction of Baker Street!

Trip to England Part 3

Since the last blog post, my time has been spent almost 100% on family meetings. I've met brothers, nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews and extended family. Coming so soon off the flight it has been a bit exhausting, but seeing I've only got 2 weeks in England there is plaenty to pack in.

It all started on Friday evening, when I had a phone call from my brother to see if I wanted to go to the pub. To an Englishman this is an irrefusible offer, so I went off to The Portsmouth Arms doing my best zombie impersonation. It's an ok pub that does decent food and pretty good beer. I was drinking Fursty Ferret for most of the night.

Besides my brother, Jon, his wife, Angie and her son Ryan, there was Craig, my nephew and his partner, Lisa and probably others I'm missing as well. A lot of the talk was about Australia, especially seeing some people had travelled there, and those that hadn't seemed to want to.

The following day was a big family gathering. So a bad time for me to wake up at about 4am thinking it was the middle of the afternoon. I had time displacement a couple of times when I travelled to Australia originally, and my jetlag was awful then. Well, althugh the jetlag isn't bad, I couldn't get back to sleep for a long while and hit the family gathering on little sleep. It was amazing to see the differences in the younger members of the family, 5 years is along time in the life of the kids. And I was even treated to seeing a new member of the family, my 4 year old grand-niece Ruby. Again, things went as if I'd hardly left and it was all very comfortable.

A very shy 4 year old Ruby, with her mum, my niece, Vanya.